What’s your stance on free will ?
- We have souls, but they’re a bunch of robots (strong AI).
- We have souls, but they’re a bunch of quantum robots.
- We don’t have souls, all is illusion.
- We have souls, but they do not respect the laws physics.
I’m currently divided between 1 and 2, but leaning towards nº1.
To the question “How can something with free will (us) be made out of lots of things without free will (atoms, cells) ?” one can retort with “How can something alive (a cell) be made of lots of things which are not alive (atoms) ?”. Well the answer to the second case will hardly cause much problems for most people. Atoms through a process of evolution have entered into complex structures, the organization of which is what we call life. Well, Daniel Dennett argues that the same is true of free will: cells have entered into very complex structures the net result of which is the emergence of consciousness and free will.
The main question of determinism vs free will is: If the the future is totally determined by the past (determinism), then how can we decide to do anything, how can we be moral agents ?
Now, the exact meaning of the future being determined by the past is a tricky concept. What it actually means is that should we think of time like the timeline of Cubase, if we bring the cursor to a previous point and press play the same events would happen again. In that sense our actions are determined, that is, if I would bring the cursor of time one year back in time I would do the exact same things I did. Since I accept determinism, I believe this conclusion is correct. But the point is that we can never bring the cursor back, and “conditions can never be the same”, therefore it is for all practical purposes irrelevant the fact that if the cursor went back we would do the same, because those decisions we’re in fact our decisions, and what we are is caused by millions of causes such as the physics that governs the universe, the evolution on our planet, the social and cultural place we we’re born, our particular experiences. So it’s true that we are the net result of those causes, but one of the net results of those causes is the fact that we have consciousness, and in the parlance of Dennett, the ability to avoid things. Therefore things are not inevitable, since we can avoid them, although they are determined nonetheless. This argument is somewhat mind boggling, and I’m still trying to grasp it entirely.
Tags: philosophy