Friday, September 13, 2019

Has A Famous Argument Against Free Will Been Debunked?

The Atlantic magazine recently published an article entitled, "A Famous Article Against Free Will Has Been Debunked." Needless to say, this has set off much discussion within the science community, to include the r/science subreddit. Following are some comments from such:

"Free will's nonexistence never hinged on the Libet experiment. It's such a weak argument that I don't even see it often mentioned in free will debates. There are much stronger arguments such as how free will is incompatible with physics, either quantum or classical."

"This article completely misunderstands what "free will" means. This study does not address that question. Free will is logically impossible. The neurology of decision making has nothing to do with it. There is no argument against free will that says people can't physically control their actions. "Will" is not what you do, it's what you want. The ability to do what you want is not free will. Free will is having control of what to want. The problem is that you logically can't decide what to want without already wanting something. You will always do what you want to do most. You cannot logically choose what that is because that would require already wanting something. That's the paradox. This thing basically just says people think a little bit before they make a choice. So what? Thinking is mechanical and deterministic and involuntary. You cannot decide what your next thought is going to be. It's a paradox."

"Everything that happens is the result of how particles with different properties interact. Once the universe was set in motion, everything happens how it had to happen based on physical law. This includes our brains."

"- - -  I got a glimpse of understanding of quantum mechanics and realized it's even worse: There is not just no free will, there is also a sprinkle of randomness involved..."

"- - -  you basically don't control what you want because everything that your brain does was determined by the different physical processes that were already in motion. If you understood all of the underlying physics and properties of everything in the universe, you could compute what everyone would do. Although this is not possible, it does imply that true free will is an illusion."

One contributor mentioned Compatibilism as a way to look at the concept of Free Will.

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Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.

Choose how you look at reality wisely. Yes, it is a binary choice.
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