As @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org said, free will and determinism aren’t necessarily tied together. You can have one without the other. It’s been a while since my studies so I’m rusty on the academic side of philosophy so I won’t start naming names, but I’ll start off with the fact that a coin is a much more simple thing than a human. So while a coin might land on just one of its two sides or, in a freak accident on its edge. For humans, there are way more outcomes as to what could happen when someone’s thrown into a complex situation.
Personally, I am what one would call a soft determinist (I probably don’t fit the label completely, so feel free to correct me) which is considered to be a cope-out-of-the-discussion type of position, which I believe is a bit unjustified. I don’t think we have enough knowledge about the world to definitely answer the question of whether our actions are deterministic or not or whether our will is free or not. But it sure as hell feels like we have free will, that’s acting at least if not always then frequently. And as Argv already said, physics involves a heavy dose of randomness. So going by that I tend to sway towards the non-deterministic side. You can will yourself out of situations that other people would consider beyond their control, but if there’s a boulder rolling towards you through a narrow tunnel it’s very likely that you are going to run away from it, not towards it. In that sense, some action is determined by the instinct of self-preservation. But again, theoretically, who’s to stop someone from accepting the situation and letting the boulder roll over them?
So yeah, for me, as with most things, free will and determinism are on a spectrum, not binary. It depends on the context and level (quantum to Newtonian physics) that we’re speaking about.
P.S. How do I mention someone in the thread? I just linked Argv’s comment in a very brute way.
The whole conversation heavily relies on the definition of free will, which tends to vary greatly from person to person. As far as the forces of reality go, while the world is not deterministic (based on the physics definitions and consequences of randomness of quantum events), we don’t have any good evidence to suggest that our brains have a conscious ability to decide anything irrespective of their surroundings or your history. That is to say that any “choice” we make is entirely a result of the inputs to our brains and potentially a bit of quantum randomness, not some independent decision making system. There is what is called a ”compatiblists” definition of free will, which essentially states that a specific person will always make the same decision because that’s who they are. I don’t generally regard that as free will, but some people do. I do agree with them that the classical idea of free will is nonsensical when you think about it; the idea that you could make any imaginable choice given a situation. You could imagine any number of insane ideas that you wouldn’t do, because they’re, well, insane. And some people might try something extreme to prove their free will because they feel challenged by the idea, but that’s not proof of free will, that’s proof of contrarianism. Wanting to do something because someone tells you that you can’t is a well documented human phenomenon. It’s a little like reverse psychology.
If you take the compatibilst’s definition, I’d agree that it exists, but it seems disingenuous to the phrase “free will”. As far as I can see, there isn’t a good argument that the free will to make choices exists. Your choices are always dependent on your inputs. And sure you can argue that maybe you will make the crazy decision because of quantum randomness, but that’s not arguing for free will, that’s arguing for randomness.
As @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org said, free will and determinism aren’t necessarily tied together. You can have one without the other. It’s been a while since my studies so I’m rusty on the academic side of philosophy so I won’t start naming names, but I’ll start off with the fact that a coin is a much more simple thing than a human. So while a coin might land on just one of its two sides or, in a freak accident on its edge. For humans, there are way more outcomes as to what could happen when someone’s thrown into a complex situation.
Personally, I am what one would call a soft determinist (I probably don’t fit the label completely, so feel free to correct me) which is considered to be a cope-out-of-the-discussion type of position, which I believe is a bit unjustified. I don’t think we have enough knowledge about the world to definitely answer the question of whether our actions are deterministic or not or whether our will is free or not. But it sure as hell feels like we have free will, that’s acting at least if not always then frequently. And as Argv already said, physics involves a heavy dose of randomness. So going by that I tend to sway towards the non-deterministic side. You can will yourself out of situations that other people would consider beyond their control, but if there’s a boulder rolling towards you through a narrow tunnel it’s very likely that you are going to run away from it, not towards it. In that sense, some action is determined by the instinct of self-preservation. But again, theoretically, who’s to stop someone from accepting the situation and letting the boulder roll over them?
So yeah, for me, as with most things, free will and determinism are on a spectrum, not binary. It depends on the context and level (quantum to Newtonian physics) that we’re speaking about.
P.S. How do I mention someone in the thread? I just linked Argv’s comment in a very brute way.
The whole conversation heavily relies on the definition of free will, which tends to vary greatly from person to person. As far as the forces of reality go, while the world is not deterministic (based on the physics definitions and consequences of randomness of quantum events), we don’t have any good evidence to suggest that our brains have a conscious ability to decide anything irrespective of their surroundings or your history. That is to say that any “choice” we make is entirely a result of the inputs to our brains and potentially a bit of quantum randomness, not some independent decision making system. There is what is called a ”compatiblists” definition of free will, which essentially states that a specific person will always make the same decision because that’s who they are. I don’t generally regard that as free will, but some people do. I do agree with them that the classical idea of free will is nonsensical when you think about it; the idea that you could make any imaginable choice given a situation. You could imagine any number of insane ideas that you wouldn’t do, because they’re, well, insane. And some people might try something extreme to prove their free will because they feel challenged by the idea, but that’s not proof of free will, that’s proof of contrarianism. Wanting to do something because someone tells you that you can’t is a well documented human phenomenon. It’s a little like reverse psychology.
If you take the compatibilst’s definition, I’d agree that it exists, but it seems disingenuous to the phrase “free will”. As far as I can see, there isn’t a good argument that the free will to make choices exists. Your choices are always dependent on your inputs. And sure you can argue that maybe you will make the crazy decision because of quantum randomness, but that’s not arguing for free will, that’s arguing for randomness.