WMN: t3_3f1846_t1_ctkgh8i

[TITLE]

CMV:It's impossible to believe in free will without also believing in the supernatural.

[SaxManSteve]

After a couple philosophy classes and some long winded discussions it seems as though many people find it hard to believe that free will doesn't exist in any real scientific way. Let's start off with premise #1 Everything that is observable in the universe follows laws of nature. All laws of nature follow the universal law of causation, which states that everything in the universe has a cause and is thus an effect of that cause. If premise #1 is true then everything in the physical world must be determined. If everything is determined than there is no such thing as free will. If every behaviour is determined by laws of causation it is physically impossible for someone to be free, as that freedom would require the nullification of the laws of causation. In other words to believe in free will is also to believe in spontaneous magic, it's to believe that humans possess powers that could only be explained by the supernatural. For example: In most legal traditions it is customary to judge whether someone is guilty of x crime by accumulating evidence in order to prove that x person intentionally did this crime. Let's assume that there was enough evidence to prove without doubt that Greg Smith robbed a convenience store. Now that we have proof that it was Greg, we should ask ourselves if Greg really chose to rob the store. As soon as you ask yourself that kind of question the only scientific recourse you have is to understand Greg as a causal agent. What caused Greg to rob the store? Was it the fact that Greg is from a low socio-economic class? Was it the fact that Greg lost his job 2 weeks ago and Greg wont be able to feed his kids if he doesn't find a way to get more money? Is it the fact that Greg was abused as child? Did Greg rob the store due to complex laws of causality that are reducible to both biological and environmental reasons? Or did Greg simply rob the store because he felt like it? Even more simple decisions like choosing between a chocolate bar and an apple can be reducible to complex causal interplay between biological and environmental laws. Did you choose the chocolate bar because you like it better? Or is it because we have an evolutionary pull towards sugar and fat dense food? Is it because you read an article on naturalnews.com talking about how dark chocolate can cure your pancreas cancer? Or did you chose the apple because you grew up on an orchard farm and apples remind you of your innocent childhood? or did you choose the apple because you already had psychologically determined bias for foods that will fit in your limited calorie budget for the week? What I am trying to say is that as soon as you try to define freedom of choice scientifically it inevitably reduce down to causal mechanisms. Whether those casual mechanisms are internal/biological or external/environmental or a mix of both they are the only things that influence us and completely shape our behaviour. Anything else that can be said to have a role in our behaviours (like our "independent volition", our "moral compass" and all other notions pertaining to freedom of will) is inherently unscientific and can only be explained through a belief in the supernatural. CMV _____ > *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!*

[Moronica]

[STA-CITE]>Let's start off with premise #1 [END-CITE]Everything that is observable in the universe follows laws of nature. All laws of nature follow the universal law of causation, which states that everything in the universe has a cause and is thus an effect of that cause. This is backwards. The laws of nature are formulated to explain what we observe. If we observe something that doesn't fit said laws, we find out why or amend the laws to suit our observations. I leave the rest for you to philosophize over.

[kingpatzer]

[STA-CITE]> If premise #1 is true then everything in the physical world must be determined. [END-CITE]Nope. That doesn't follow. That everything has a cause does not mean that everything is determined. There are random processes within the laws of nature. Interactions of processes which are random can be highly chaotic. For "free will" to be a thing all that is required is that the natural processes which underlie the functioning of those neural circuits that make up the executive functioning portions of our brains can be employed intentionally to influence the probability of a particular choice based on our choice of balancing competing signals from the want/need circuits in our brain, against situations in the environment in which we multiple possible choices on the bits of randomness in front of us. In other words, if from our experience we are choosing, then we have free will for all intents and purposes because the cause of the outcome is precisely a choice we make when we have multiple possible outcomes in front of us. Free will can be seen as the emergence of state in a situation where multiple outcomes are possible because the laws of nature are not fully deterministic.

[SaxManSteve]

Please provide examples for random process in nature that are not determined, I have yet to hear about them.

[hey_aaapple]

I believe in free will, and with my free will I choose not to believe in the supernatural. Gg no re ;)

[pantaloonsofJUSTICE]

This thread needs more conceptual analysis, which makes me a sad sad man.

[SaxManSteve]

Conceptual analysis is more fitting for /r/philosophy , I was trying to break it down in layman terms to make it more accessible.

[geak78]

Veritasium says the second law of thermodynamics [can explain free will.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMb00lz-IfE)

[ChipotleMayoFusion]

[STA-CITE]>Let's start off with premise #1 Everything that is observable in the universe follows laws of nature. All laws of nature follow the universal law of causation, which states that everything in the universe has a cause and is thus an effect of that cause. If premise #1 is true then everything in the physical world must be determined. [END-CITE]Here is the first issue. The laws of nature we we can best observe them now include the fact that there are stochastic processes, random events. This strongly implies that reality is not deterministic. It is not that things are determined and we just cant measure them, things like the Double Slit Experiment reveal to us that we cannot have both local realism and hidden variables (controlling the result of the seemingly random event).

[SaxManSteve]

Please provide examples of these random events.

[GnosticGnome]

When I heat a piece of metal, some of the atoms will randomly emit a photon. Stochastically, we can say the metal glows. But for any given atom of metal to emit a photon or not at any given moment is purely random.

[SaxManSteve]

From my understanding of chaos theory, the inability to form predictions does not equate to a rejection of determinism. If we can't predict the exact shape of a snow flake it doesn't mean that its shape wasn't determined it just means that predicting its shape would require enormous amounts of computation and measuring tools that are beyond our expertise.

[GnosticGnome]

But it's not a chaos theory thing. Modern physics does reject determinism because there are literally no hidden variables - there really is a random event. As Feynman puts it: Another most interesting change in the ideas and philosophy of science brought about by quantum mechanics is this: it is not possible to predict exactly what will happen in any circumstance. For example, it is possible to arrange an atom which is ready to emit light, and we can measure when it has emitted light by picking up a photon particle, which we shall describe shortly. We cannot, however, predict when it is going to emit the light or, with several atoms, which one is going to. You may say that this is because there are some internal “wheels” which we have not looked at closely enough. No, there are no internal wheels; nature, as we understand it today, behaves in such a way that it is fundamentally impossible to make a precise prediction of exactly what will happen in a given experiment. This is a horrible thing; in fact, philosophers have said before that one of the fundamental requisites of science is that whenever you set up the same conditions, the same thing must happen. This is simply not true, it is not a fundamental condition of science. The fact is that the same thing does not happen, that we can find only an average, statistically, as to what happens. Nevertheless, science has not completely collapsed. Philosophers, incidentally, say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong. For example, some philosopher or other said it is fundamental to the scientific effort that if an experiment is performed in, say, Stockholm, and then the same experiment is done in, say, Quito, the same results must occur. That is quite false. It is not necessary that science do that; it may be a fact of experience, but it is not necessary.

[ChipotleMayoFusion]

The simplest demonstration is the [double slit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment) experiment. In one version, a single photon passes through both slits and interferes with itself, and yet excites a single phosphor atom in the screen at a time. Regardless of the interpretation the choice of which phosphor atom is struck is random, either because the wave function collapses to a interaction event (Copenhagen) or each phosphor atom is struck in a different universe and we inhabit a random universe where we only observe one interaction (many worlds). Radioactive decay is another simple example. We have a pretty decent model of how the nuclear forces behave, and can predict from theory the probability decay rate of various nucleii. All observations of radioactive decay imply randomness, so the math in our best model reflects that randomness. The most relevant yet tricky example is the location of an electron in a nucleii. All our best measurements indicate that at the nuclear scale the probability density of the electron is spread out through an orbital, its energy is spread out over some volume and will not collapse unless forced to. Electron bonding angles and probabilities govern chemistry, indicating that there is a random element to chemical reaction rates and results at the fundamental level. This means that given the best possible information, it is still impossible to predict the exact result of any chemical reaction. This then extends to biology, which is essentially emergent behavior built on chemical reactions.

[SaxManSteve]

Do you think that an inability to form predictions nullifies the possibility of a deterministic system?

[ChipotleMayoFusion]

No. Quantum Uncertainty is not about predictions, it is about the nature of the physical system. Every measurement and test we use to explore electron location in a nuclei or radioactive decay or photons hitting a screen indicate that these are random processes. We have a single underlying equation that we build models from to predict each of these different types of events, and that equation is a probability wave equation. We also have [Bell's Theorum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem), which indicates that based on our observations we cannot keep local realism and have hidden variables. This does not destroy all possibilities of determinism, but it does destroy the ones that would look like anything like the classical form of determinism.

[SaxManSteve]

∆ Thanks for clarifying, with further reasearch it seems as though you are correct. I wasn't aware of the specifics of quantum uncertainty, I thought it was mainly due to instrument error not about the nature of physical systems. Though you might not have completely changed my mind you certainly open the way for a bit more skepticism in my view of hard determinism. Thank you

[DeltaBot]

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[UnadornedBeef]

I still don't see how free will is possible, whether it's random or cause and effect.

[ChipotleMayoFusion]

Sure our decisions are influenced by outside forces, but there is no hard cause-effect chain going from the beginning of time to the present.

[UnadornedBeef]

Why isn't there such a chain? Because of quantum uncertainty? I still don't see how randomness allows for free will.

[ChipotleMayoFusion]

[STA-CITE]>quantum uncertainty [END-CITE]Yes. Quantum uncertainty is not that we don't know the result, it is that the result is does not exist until the interaction takes place. All our data to date indicates that there is no way to predict the position of an electron better than the Heisenberg uncertainty. This has nothing to do with measurement technology and everything to do with the fundamental behavior of electrons, they have random characteristics. This breaks the possibility of having a long deterministic causal chain. Of course this could all be wrong and we could discover that QM is all wrong, but we have measured it very carefully (many orders of magnitude smaller than chemical reaction length scales) and are very confident that QM is right at the chemistry and nuclear scale.

[UnadornedBeef]

I don't see how quantum uncertainty has anything to do with free will? And has there been any evidence that quantum uncertainty affects macroscopic effects, a la schrodingers cat? (And thanks for the condiment suggestion btw, from your username)

[ChipotleMayoFusion]

[STA-CITE]>macroscopic effects, a la schrodingers cat [END-CITE]Quantum effects dominate at the level of chemical and nuclear reactions. You would need a very cold and already dead cat to get to the level where quantum effects take over. The point I am trying to make is that quantum effects introduce randomness at the lowest levels, which trickle up. Because of electron location uncertainty in the nucleus, chemical reactions have some randomness. Because chemical reactions have some randomness, the synapse interactions in your brain have some randomness. There is no direct or controlling cause/effect relationship between some dinosaur fart and your decision today. It may be influenced, but not directly controlled in a 100% predictable way.

[UnadornedBeef]

I agree with this point and that OPs first premise is wrong. But how is "your actions are a result of randomness and cause and effect" any different from "your actions are caused by cause and effect" in regards to the current debate (whether or not free will exists).

[ChipotleMayoFusion]

Ok, so first I will define free will: "We as humans have some aspect of choice in directing our lives. We are influenced by outside factors, but some element of our actions is controlled by our conscious decisions". If there was an unbroken link of cause/effect that propagated from the first instant of the universe to this instant, one could argue that the underlying cause of one's decision is the exact distribution of entropy or whatever from the first time, and that all actions in the future could be predicted with enough information. If your future actions could be perfectly predicted with natural information, the concept of free will as I described it is weakened. I agree with your concern though, introducing randomness does not imply we have more control over our actions, only that past events have less control over our actions.

[UnadornedBeef]

Ok, I see. I feel like the problem with this thread is that everyone is pointing out that quantum mechanics shows that cause and effect isn't 100% true in order to show that one of OPs premises are false, but no one is actually explaining how free will could exist. Everyone is arguing about his specific argument, not actually trying to change his view that free will could exist.

[ThinkExist]

I have no choice but to believe I have freewill.

[Lews-Therin-Telamon]

If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

[HackPhilosopher]

I will choose a path that's clear.

[ThinkExist]

I agree with that.

[Lews-Therin-Telamon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnxkfLe4G74#t=1m10.25s

[corneliuswjohnson]

Hello! So I might go at your argument from a different perspective than many here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your basic argument seems to be that (libertarian) free will cannot exist with determinism, and that because determinism exists, we must invoke the supernatural to arrive at free will. As others have said, there is the possibility of indeterminism from the quantum level, which btw STILL doesn't leave any room for free will, but doesn't rely on determinism to justify that there is no libertarian free will. This is counter to the idea that 1. determinism is true and 2. determinism is needed to be true to counteract libertarian free will Also as an aside - people can irrationally believe in things - I would change the semantics of your CMV but I know that's not the true content of what you're getting at. Another aside - I wouldn't be too bothered about the argument "changing the meaning of free will" - this is mostly a bait and switch, what you're talking about is libertarian free will, which is not compatabilistic. My new objection is this - I'm not sure how you would invoke the supernatural to arrive at libertarian free will in the first place. In other words, I agree with you that libertarian free will doesn't exist (it's a rather crazy idea), but to me it is impossible to imagine a world in which libertarian free will *does* exist. You might imagine, for example, that the soul is what gives us free will. And yet, why is one soul more compassionate than another soul? There is no question that our souls (assuming they exist, which there is no evidence for) seem different from each other. How do we account for the fact that my soul is different than yours, and if my soul is different because I was born that way, how is it then libertarian free will? Edit: I will also add that quantum randomness is an interesting theory, but really not easily testable. While it doesn't really have much influence on the libertarian free will debate, I would be wary of the argument that "science has proven the world is not deterministic". It is possible that quantum mechanics is determined by factors we don't know about that seem random - there is no way to test that.

[SaxManSteve]

Thx for the reply, I am bit confused though. If you say that it's impossible to imagine a world without free will does it not imply that to even remotely consider the possibility of libertarian free will you must also believe in the supernatural? I'm not too sure what your objection here was going towards. (the soul example directly reaffirms my initial premise, as a soul is rooted in mystical beliefs and other supernatural phenomenon)

[corneliuswjohnson]

Sure, I'm saying even with imagining the supernatural, such as the soul, it still is hard to imagine a world where libertarian free will exists. I'm objecting to the claim that believing in something supernatural is sufficient to get you free will. I, for example, can't imagine a world where libertarian free will exists - are souls born with particular qualities? why is one soul more compassionate than another? ect. - the thread of causation is not solved in my opinion by invoking the supernatural

[CalmQuit]

Since your premise #1 was discussed enough already, I'd like to hear from you what would qualify as an act of "free will". I'd say if I can clap my hands for no other reason (in the sense of it serving any purpose) than because I want to see if I could clap my hands right now, I think that would be sufficient for me.

[n00dles__]

My understanding of Quantum Mechanics is that does not rule out determinism per say, but it does imply that the future is always in motion and that dice is being played so-to-speak. There might be a 97% chance that my train to work tomorrow will not encounter any problems, but it does not absolutely mean that it won't. There's still that 3% chance that it will face problems, whether it would be delays, breakdowns, and the like. And that 3% number can fluctuate until I actually board and ride that train tomorrow. So while the past may be a good indicator of what will happen in the future, it does not determine it by definition. And because of that, the further into the future we try to predict, the less accurate those predictions become. My view is actually quite the opposite: quantum mechanics does not prove the existence of the supernatural, even though it may prove that the universe is inherently spiritual and immaterial. If evidence was found of objectively no free will, that everything in the universe is predetermined and predestined, it would fly in the face of everything we know about QM and might imply some external supernatural forces going on.

[SaxManSteve]

I don't understand why so many seem to think that the ability to form predictions is a factor in determining whether determinism holds true or not. Even if you couldn't predict that the train would breakdown, the breakdown still had a cause and according to the physical laws of nature the cause was determined whether we could predict it or not.

[arsenalwilson]

"Free will" is all just a matter of perspective. When Greg robbed the convenience store, he acted upon free will to do so *from his perspective*. We have many random possibilities for how our lives can play out, for example influence from the quantum world. BUT, if OP could zoom out to have complete knowledge of the fundamental workings of everything in the cosmos, (s)he would certainly be able to predict and explain Greg's actions based on the circumstances he was in. From that perspective, Greg's actions would be indistinguishable from a bicycle gear, or a computer processor.

[whattodo-whattodo]

[STA-CITE]> In other words to believe in free will is also to believe in spontaneous magic, it's to believe that humans possess powers that could only be explained by the supernatural. [END-CITE]It really depends on how you define *supernatural*. If supernatural just means that things exist that cannot (yet or ever) be explained by science, then I doubt that you'd find anyone to seriously disagree with you. Science is a systematic discipline of problem solving. That doesn't mean that every problem is perfectly solved or even *can be* perfectly solved. If that is your definition, I wouldn't try to change your view. However if your definition for supernatural is a little more along with mainstream, I have to disagree. The mainstream idea is basically that at any point rules can be defied or broken without reason and there can be no attempt to understand them. This (in my view) is gibberish.

[Hq3473]

I disagree with the statement "if everything is determined there is no free will." I define free will as "ability to act according to your desires." This is possible in deterministic universe, thus no magic is needed for free will to exist.

[SaxManSteve]

What are your desires if not a neurological phenomenon mixed in with environmental influences?

[Hq3473]

Sure they are. What's the problem?

[SaxManSteve]

If the above is true then your definition of free will falls under the free will of folk psychology. We go around day by day making decisions but those decisions are nevertheless a byproduct of complex casual mechanisms? are they not?

[Hq3473]

No. It's a perfectly good definition. (Btw, where is yours?) And yes, people going around acting according to their complex desires(which are a result of a complex chain of events) are exercising free will. Again, what's the problem? Why does the chain of events matter? What matters if you acted in accordance to your desires, not where those desires came from.

[ZergAreGMO]

Then you define free will as acting according to the desires which cannot be chosen ahead of time by the subject. In what sense is their will (i.e. desires) free if they don't write them? Your definition of free will likely exists but I think it's a misleading misnomer at best.

[Hq3473]

It's not a misnomer at all. Let's go on the streets and ask people: "do you think being able to do what you want is free will?" Many will say "yes." I think you are the one convoluting the definition by trying to require some kind of total control of your desires that are independent from your nature or from outside circumstances. I simply don't understand why is the ultimate source of your desires relevant here?

[ZergAreGMO]

[STA-CITE]>I simply don't understand why is the ultimate source of your desires relevant here? [END-CITE]Because if satisfying your desires qualifies as free will and yet we have no control over our desires or how strong they are or if they conflict with one another then in what sense is that will "free"? It seems to be, by the definition you proposed an oxymoron.

[Hq3473]

So what, if I got thirsty because it was hot outside - means I have no free will? Weird. I would say if can drink when thirsty - I have free will. What caused the thirst is a irrelevant red herring.

[ZergAreGMO]

It would mean my decision to drink water was under duress and would not constitute "will carried out freely". It's about as weird and bizarre as, well, duress with another human being the origin. A similarly strong desire to drink water could be achieved by me pointing a gun at you. Is that free will?

[MITT_ROMNEEY]

The problem with your argument is that you assume that determinism is true. The reality is that modern science has evidence to the contrary https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jint5kjoy6I In addition, you are saying that we don't have free will because of cause and effect. But it's important to realize that we have a role in choosing the effect. For instance, if I see a dollar on the floor, I can choose whether or not I want to pick it up. It's not like the outcome where I pick it up is the only possible outcome.

[UnadornedBeef]

I still don't see how free will is possible, whether it is random or cause and effect. You don't understand. The argument is that your neurons firing is a result of cause and effect. There is no way for you to "will" your neurons to fire differently.

[MITT_ROMNEEY]

Saying that we don't don't control our neurons isn't exactly true http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/mind-over-matter-study-shows-how-177580

[UnadornedBeef]

I think you're miss understanding the research because it doesn't have anything to do with free will. There is a stimulus which causes neurons to fire, that's all that's happening in terms of the free will/cause and effect debate. (What's noteworthy about this research is simply that the stimulus activates neurons which govern consciousness, which then activate the neuron that they are examining. But that doesn't mean anything outside of cause and effect is happening).

[ghotier]

Neurons firing is your "will." We need to stop talking about our brains as though they aren't "us". The idea of me telling my brain to be different doesn't make sense because my brain is what's doing the telling.

[UnadornedBeef]

That's my point; that there is no "super-natural" entity such as the soul which causes neurons to fire in a different manner than they already are going to based on cause and effect (and quantum uncertainty at the quantum level).

[SaxManSteve]

If you are arguing that people are the ultimate arbiters of their choices and that they have complete control over picking up that dollar or not, doesn't that assume that they are free from influence? If you were to create an experiment where culturally different people were set in a controlled environment, would it not make sense that people with different notions of money have different outcomes when it comes to picking up the coins? If so wouldn't that prove that external and internal causal mechanisms are responsible for the variability in the data? Edit: As for the Michio Kaku video, what he says about Heisenberg and his random electrons doesn't actually defy determinisms. What Heisenberg discovered was actually a mathematical pattern that fits within chaos theory which was latter explained by the meteorologist Edward lorenz. More specifically he called these patterns "systems that are sensitive to initial conditions" which means that a complex interplay of multiple variables quickly distorts the predictability of a system even though it is **determined**. For example weather systems or individual snow flakes are impossible to predict because of these chaotic variables but they are nevertheless determined.

[MITT_ROMNEEY]

As far as picking up the dollar goes, you are correct that people will pick up money based on influences, however you might be looking at it the wrong way when you say that x occurred which caused me to do y. A different way to think of it is that event x occurs so I can choose to or not to act and if I act I can decide the exact manner of how I choose to act. As for what you said about Quantum science and chaos theory, can you provide a link, I find it very interesting. Even if what you are saying, that determinism applies to the uncertainty principle is true, there are still many aspects of quantum theory which are totally random and unpredictable. For instance, it is impossible to predict the exact moment an atom will decay. And from my general understanding of what quantum scientists say, the universe is not deterministic.

[UnadornedBeef]

Either it's deterministic or its random and neither allows for the existence of free will. He's not looking at it the wrong way, your neurons operate under cause and effect (and randomness at the quantum level) just like everything else. Event x causes your neurons to fire in a particular way which will inevitably lead to event y (your actions in response to event x).

[phcullen]

I would say that there are outside influences that determine whether or not you pick it up. I mean just the fact that it is a dollar and it is something we value determines that you would even consider picking it up. Or would you say that you actively choose to not pick up everything you see on the ground?

[MITT_ROMNEEY]

Your absolutely right that outside forces influence your decision, but you still have the ability to override those outside influences. Also, there are instances where outside influences are less relevant. For example, choosing between Coke and Pepsi has less influences because there is no significant difference between the two of them. Picking up a dollar is a bit different because a dollar has value so picking it up is logical.

[PrivateChicken]

The Uncertainty Principal doesn't imply free will. Random outcomes of particles don't give your brain any special agency. It's like rolling a die. It will produce different results, but you would never say the die chose any of those results.

[MITT_ROMNEEY]

What it does do is that it shows that the universe is not deterministic. Which means that our decisions are not predetermined. Also, there is a difference between a person and a die, which is that a person is sentient.;

[ZergAreGMO]

[STA-CITE]>Also, there is a difference between a person and a die, which is that a person is sentient. [END-CITE]And what does this have to do in the way of explaining behavior? How does sentience allow for a human to make decisions that aren't causally rooted to biochemical reactions playing out in a way utterly uncontrolled by that same human?

[phcullen]

Enjoying your plane ride... Tim?

[PrivateChicken]

heh

[GnosticGnome]

It doesn't imply free will, but it does dismantle OP's particular argument against free will.

[PrivateChicken]

I find ignorance of quantum mechanics is rarely the central issue. It doesn't make the interactions OP talks about any less causal, it just adds a factor of true RNG that will be generally imperceptible on the macro scale.

[GnosticGnome]

To empirical scientists, the world has always appeared stochastic rather than deterministic on the macro scale. There had been a hope on the part of those who believe in elegance that the apparently stochastic nature of the world at the macro scale would turn out to be deterministic at the micro scale. Quantum mechanics has disproven that theory. There are two major arguments against free will. One goes like "the world would have to be stochastic rather than deterministic if there were free will. The world is deterministic. Therefore there is no free will". This one is disproven by quantum mechanics. The second goes "we cannot think of a plausible explanation for free will". This argument from ignorance is fairly compelling, and quantum mechanics does not provide a plausible explanation for free will.

[hacksoncode]

Sure it is. All it requires is defining "free will" in a way that's compatible with determinism. Compatiblists do this all the time. Additionally, premise #1 is simply wrong. It's about as wrong as anything can possibly be. 100% of absolutely *everything* is completely uncaused at the quantum level. It's only because of the Law of Large Numbers and the Central Limit Theorem that things *appear* to our brains (which likely evolved to have this perception because it was useful) to be deterministic.

[helpman178]

That's not correct. There are different interpretations of quantum mechanics with regards to its influence on the real world. Some interpretations assume a deterministic nature and some allow nature to be probabilistic. Since all the interpretations give correct empirical results, any philosophical conclusion drawn from only one interpretation is simply wrong by definition.

[hacksoncode]

Bell's Theorem proves that you can't see the observable effects of QM without either non-realism or non-locality. We have *vast* evidence of locality being true, so realism is the one that loses, based on evidence. I.e. (basically) the assumption that things "would have happened" without being measured. This means that a later measurement affects whether or not an earlier event "happens" (whatever "happens" means). While it's technically possible to have causality work both forwards and backwards in time, this is repugnant to what most people mean by the word "deterministic", which is generally taken to mean that future events are determined solely and exclusively by past causes. Which interpretation one uses of QM doesn't really effect this. Copenhagen pretty much explicitly denies causality, and Many Worlds still needs an explanation for why our worldlines appear to track in this non-deterministic manner. There are other interpretations, but they have very little scientific following and very little in the way of evidence or theory to support them. They might be true, of course. But that's why I qualified my statement with "all our evidence". It all, indeed, points to quantum non-causality coupled with apparent statistical causality. QED is really out best theory at present, and it really can't be comprehended in any way other than probabilistically. Feynman didn't like that either, but is famous for saying that if you want things to be neat and tidy and straightforward you're going to need to find a different reality to live in.

[SaxManSteve]

This sounds interesting could you please expand on your reasoning? How is premise #1 wrong? What does the Central Limit theorem have to do with free will? And a dominant view in cognitive phychology is that, due to the nature of our every day life (that includes making decisions all the time) it is very difficult to do away with the notion that we dont have free will --- not the other way around.

[runyoucleverboyrun]

Premise #1 is wrong because at the quantum level there's no causality at all, if you've done done reading into guantum mechanics (at a layman's level, feynman knows I wouldn't try or recommending trying to understand the math) you may have heard of a thing called superposition, when a quantum object (particle?) has yet to be observed and thus has no single state. Well when you observe this particle the superposition collapses and the particle has a well-defined state, but as far as we know there is no casual mechanism that predicts which state the particle will take, we can determine probabilities, but ultimately it is utterly unpredictable and philosophically uncaused

[SaxManSteve]

Correct me if i'm wrong but you don't need to have predictability capacities in order to affirm that a system is determined. Just because we can't predict the weather in a month doesn't mean it's not determined. I'm not very well versed in quantum mechanics but doesn't that apply to your example about quantum particles?

[runyoucleverboyrun]

Well obvious the weather is a different case because we know how to predict it, it's just too diffficult to get all the correct measurements and run an accurate sinulation, but no, as far as I understand it we not only can't predict which state a particle will collapse into, but also know it to be inherently unpredictable. I really don't understand it in depth enough to tell you exactly why but my guess is that reading into the Heisenberg uncertainty principle/wave particle duality would yield done insight, I would link to anything I find but I'm on mobile. Also there's a great veritasium/vsauce video on youtube that explains the idea better than I can if you're interested. It's what convinced me away from pure scientific dererminism.

[SaxManSteve]

Please link articles if you can find them. I guess my concern is that it seems that the uncertainty principle really only undermines our ability to calculate these past or future states of the universe, not that it actually undermines the fact that the universe still is deterministic. So given the uncertainty principle and the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics, couldn't it still be the case that the universe is perfectly deterministic, even if we can't accurately make the measurements to determine these past or future states ourselves? Doesn't a particle still have a certain position and velocity at any given time, even if measuring one of these will then change the other?

[red_nick]

[STA-CITE]> Doesn't a particle still have a certain position and velocity at any given time [END-CITE]No: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

[SaxManSteve]

Please be more specific.

[red_nick]

A particle **does not** have a certain position and velocity at any given time, they exist more as a probability distribution of possible positions and velocities

[SonOfOnett]

People are correct in telling you that science has shown that determinism is false. Previously we believed that if you knew the exact location, speed, acceleration, etc of each object in the universe you could predict everything that will happen. Quantum Mechanics has shown us that this isn't the case, that deterministic classical mechanical models are just approximations that get pretty close on the marcoscale. Once you get down to atomic and nano sized things, everything becomes probabilistic. We can say the odds the certain events will happen, but not what will actually happen. This causes a butterfly effect into the marcoscale. For example let's say you paused and copied our current universe at this exact instant in time perfectly. You have perfect information about everything. If you "started" each copy again and then came back later the universes would be completely different from each other. Check out some Wikipedia articles or the introduction to a basic quantum mechanics textbooks.

[beerybeardybear]

Not being deterministic is not the same thing is being acausal. Further, QFT is still a massively powerful predictive theory; it just predicts exact probabilities. This is the best that nature can do.

[hacksoncode]

Basically, every quantum interaction at the microscopic level is non-deterministic (according to our best evidence). The Central Limit Theorem states that if you average a lot of random independent occurrences, you will end up with a "normal" distribution whose peak is sharper the more random and numerous the events are. I.e. that the sum of these events will looked extremely reliably determined. It's an explanation for why everything *looks* deterministic... on a macroscopic scale. This doesn't directly have anything to do with "free will", per se, because it's not clear that acting randomly is any more "free will" that acting deterministically... it's just a big gaping hole the logic of your view. The biggest gap in any discussion about free will is an adequate definition of what you mean. Compatiblists define "free will" in a way such that it doesn't matter whether things are determined 100% or not. I have some problems with their definition, but it's as valid a definition as any other I've heard (which is to say... pretty piss poor, in my opinion). By their definition, it makes complete sense to believe in free will without any supernatural element and 100% determinism... that's pretty much the definition of what it means to be a [Compatiblist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism).

[PrivateChicken]

I think the issue compatiblists run in to is that it extends free will farther than most people are willing to agree it runs. Does a dog have free will? A Plant? A bacteria? A virus? My Mac Book? A lot of times I hear people claim it hinges on consciousness, but of course, no body agrees on what has or constitutes consciousness either. It all adds up to cop out for me. At best compatiblsim is vaguely defined, and at worst it's just plain arbitrary.

[Aninhumer]

[STA-CITE]>but of course, no body agrees on what has or constitutes consciousness either. [END-CITE]Sure we do. I know what conciousness is, and that I have it, because I experience it. The problem is not so much that we can't define it, the problem is that we can't observe it other than in ourselves.

[freddy_bonnie_chica]

If you believe in free will, you have to assume it requires some modicum of intelligence. A flower simply isn't intelligent enough to alter it's behavior or actions. A dog can to a limited extent. Humans behave is millions, probably billions of different ways every minute on this earth. A human has the option to drink or not drink from a cup. A plant simply isn't capable of making that choice as it hasn't "climbed the brick wall" of being able to do something beside base programming and instinct.

[PrivateChicken]

Compatiblism makes no distinction between instinctual programming and decision making. Hence the extension to dogs, then plants. The plant's actions are reactions to certain conditions. So too are your actions; they're just based on very complex sets of conditions, akin to chaotic systems. Some compatibilists argue that it doesn't matter if you were programmed or not, so long as you *think* you are taking actions to accomplish your objectives, it constitutes free will. In other words, it's a matter of perspective. So it becomes a question of what things have this perspective, and here compatiblism becomes vaguely defined or arbitrary. It's easy to say that plant's don't and animals do, but exactly which animals have minds that posses this perspective? For example, I wouldn't agree that a sponge has a mind. Yet, it is an animal. There's no rigorous criteria for it (nor enough information about animal minds), so we end up drawing arbitrary lines in the sand. Further more, compatiblism is even less equipped to deal with machines. Computers sense and perceive things, and form (limited) models of reality, yet we're pretty certain they're not conscious. As some point, we'll be able to simulate animal brains, or something very close to one, will we then say a computer has a conscious mind? Would it then qualify as having free will under compatibilsm? Again, where's the cutoff point for this free will?

[hacksoncode]

The biggest problem in *any* discussion of "free will" is defining what you mean by the term. And almost no one actually does that. I'm pretty ignostic about this topic as a result. Our brains are very well adapted to believing that, regardless of how brains actually work, they are "free" to "make decisions" on "their own". And really, they are, most times. The fact that it's a causal mechanism doesn't change anything about that. If a machine is broken, it doesn't mean that it operates (any more than usually) non-causally, it just means that it's broken. "Holding it accountable" by fixing it (or throwing it away) makes perfect sense in any case. "Holding people accountable for their decisions" is likely a largely causal process too. It provides an evolutionary advantage (most likely). That's why we do it. "Free will" is just a mental framework that makes it easier to understand why we do it. It's like that old joke: "Criminal: your honor, because everything is deterministic you shouldn't hold me accountable for my actions because I couldn't choose them. Judge: Because everything is deterministic, I sentence you to 25 years."

[PrivateChicken]

[STA-CITE]>Our brains are very well adapted to believing that, regardless of how brains actually work, they are "free" to "make decisions" on "their own". [END-CITE]True, [our conception of free will doesn't manifest until we're about 4-6](http://www.alisongopnik.com/papers_alison/Cognition2939v1.pdf) (PDF). Until that point, the idea that you are free to do other than what you do isn't a natural intuition.