u/FindingOurFreeWill

So, I’m always getting comments that I’m attacking the free will side or I just don’t get libertarianism or compatibilism. The reality is I’m not really impressed with any argument for Free Will. They all seem heavily biased, based on emotions rather than honesty. But that doesn’t mean I’m deterministic. I like to play both sides because in my world view, neither side as a clear understanding. So just because I’m curious, this post is solely for the various types of Determinism out there. So I would really be interested in their response to this gedanken experiment.

Now we all know the LaPlace’s Demon from the clockwork Universe. A demon that knows the position of every atom and speed can predict with 100% past present and future. Basically, rewind the Universe to the beginning and know the laws governing cause and effect and you’ll get the same outcome every time.

But in real life there’s no Demons or gods so it’s not a great gedanken experiment. But what we do have, in this reality, is AI. And in a couple of short years we’ll have AGI. And after that let’s just call it Artificial God like Intelligence. AI has been around your whole life, it has your DNA and the memory to record every event that’s ever happened to you. With its intelligence, it knows all and see alls. So imagine you get selected to test And when that happens, imagine your selected to be the first to ask God AI any question you want. So you start off asking this, “What Star Wars movie—“

And before you can finish, God AI says, “from best to worst your order is Empire Strikes Back with Last Jedi at the bottom.” (God I hate Last Jedi, I do, I just really really do…)
Then you ask, “Where did I….”
“You lost your flash drive for work between your couch cushion. You’ve also forgotten The password which is PA$$WORD!234.”
At every question God AI has a definitive answer, it can read your brain waves, has access to every part of your life, has your DNA, understands you better than you can ever understand yourself. it knows all and sees all.

So now you ask it a very simple question, “When I drive home from here, I can go left or right out of the parking lot. It’s the same distance, takes the same amount of time, basically identical. Which one will I take?”

God AI can only answer 1 of two ways. The first is if God AI gives you a 100% deterministic outcome and says, “You’ll go Left”, and you then go right, you’ve then violated an immutable law governing cause and effect and put into motion an event that could cause the collapse of reality.

Or, God AI instead gives you an answer of probability, “Based on your past, as well as your psychological disposition, 67% you’ll go left, 33% you’ll go right.”
So from a Determinist perspective, both outcomes are problematic. Either God AI can’t give an exact answer like LaPlace’s Demon because it’s incomplete, it doesn’t have ALL the information it needs so it can’t give a determined absolute answer, or the 2nd which is reality, the universe itself allows for multiple outcomes, none of which violate any chain of cause and effect. Numerous outcomes are allowed for one single event because the Universe, near as I can tell, has no say about the human condition and could care less. Achieve the singularity or blow ourselves up in a Nuclear Armageddon, and everything in between is allowed.

This isn’t an argument for Free Will, although, it’s not quite indeterminism either because the test subject is experiencing volition. Either way, hard determinism, or any other form has a tough time justifying an unbreakable singular chain of cause and effect, or even absolute certainty. There’s nothing Determining which way you’ll go.

So I’m curious about the determinist view. Is it a valid gedanken experiment, is it wrong and why, where are the problems and what are my unchallenged assumptions I’ve made.

Let me know

Thank you for taking the time to read and respond.

Okay, so most of my headings are pure sensationalist click bait. Designed solely to hook Reddit users in. My last few posts I mentioned how philosophy is an inferior method for establishing truth next to the scientific method. I also mentioned that the only philosophy out there that’s actually making progress in the free will debate is Neurological Determinism, which states that the brain’s neurophysiology “determines” how the mind works. Then I made the point again and again that these weren’t my views but rather an objective statement about where we are and who’s pushing the boundaries. rom an impartial viewer.

However, in my last post I also said we shouldn’t “debate” free will because the nature of debates means both sides don’t change their views, they become more entrenched and more defensive so instead, we should discuss free will and that criticisms should be viewed as “problems” that need to be addressed and solved, not criticisms like, your wrong therefore I’m right.

So, with that in mind, what I’m about to say is simply my view of Compatibilism. It’s a “there are problems” kind of criticism and before I “jump ship” and join the Compatibilist Boat, I want to know how they would respond. They say no one ever changes sides in the debate on free will, but I just can’t believe that. I would totally change sides but I need to know how compatibilists’ would respond. So I’m going to define compatibilism with a quote which was a rebuttal to Sam Harris made by Tom Clark.

“Harris is of course right that we don’t have conscious access to the neurophysiological processes that underlie our choices…..” he goes on to explain why this is free will, then he emphasizes the same point again, “But it’s doubtful that consciousness per se adds anything to those neural processes in controlling action.”

That’s astonishing to me. So if I understand compatibilists correctly, what they’re saying is the exact same thing that Neurological Determinists are saying. There’s no volition, there’s no self, no control, only the illusion of control, your mind your consciousness serves NO purpose and even though you “feel” like your thoughts affect your brain, they don’t, and even though it “feels” like you could’ve done otherwise, you couldn’t. Why? Because when it comes to controlling my actions, or volition, “consciousness” per se doesn’t affect neural processes. Have awareness or don’t, be a zombie, or don’t, it’s all the same thing call free will.

So for starters, well, where to begin with this, on this level, it just seems like semantics. There’s no difference between the two except compatibilist’s like to call this free will. All the literature, their proofs, all of it just seems like a game of word play. Or worse, it’s subjective, the whole glass half full half empty picture. Your belief is just as valid as my belief.

That’s grossly unappealing to the “john doe” public. No one wants “this” version of “free will”. FW exists because there’s no volition, that choices are pointless, that our subjective experience, our minds, our consciousness serve no real function. Everything happens on a neural level and you are only ever caught in a permanent state of becoming aware some 300 milliseconds later thinking that “I did that”. No one wants that, No conscious control, no volition but that’s “free will”?

It’s not just the John Doe Public either. I’m always saying that in the debate over free will, it’s the application of your ideas, not the truth that will settle the debate. So how do compatibilists like Dennett or Tom Clark apply these brilliant ideas to Criminal Justice? Criminal Justice is founded on the concept of accountability. But compatibilists literally start off by claiming what determinists do, “Our Conscious choices don’t affect the brain’s physiology”. How is criminal law suppose to function? How do you explain that to defendants, that they couldn’t have choose otherwise because it’s all neurons but that’s free will. IT’s a hollow victory at best and a pyrrhic one at worst.

And ignore clinical psychologists, therapists, counselors, completely. They tell their patients choices do matter, that your life, your subjective experience, your pain and suffering do serve a purpose, that the mind, consciousness does make a difference in how your brain operates. How do they simply explain compatibility to their patients? Choices aren’t real, just illusion but that’s still free will, that’s still “you” doing it.

For me, and this is the last point I’ll make, compatibilism is a philosophy of appeasement. It’s suppose to show that free will is compatible with Neurological Determinism, or the whole Nature Nuture matrix. Yet even at that they fail. No academic psychologist teaching the whole nature nurture uses compatibilism as a “3rd” author and no Neurological Determinist has been convinced either. THey’ve failed to convince anyone other than themselves. And you can tell who wears the pants in that relationship simply because no Determinists switch sides, let alone spend any time with a rebuttal. IT really is, for me at least, a philosophy of appeasement, and it reeks of desperation. If this were a real court room setting, after opening statement were made, I’d immediately bet real money against the free will side.

So let me summarize why I’m unimpressed. They’ll never convince the public, it has ZERO application to the very problem it claims to solve, zero application to the Justice System, zero application to clinical psychology and most importantly, compatibilists have failed to convince a single Determinists why free will is compatible.

Once again, this is just my view. Take it with a grain of salt because I also know that in my view, the application Neurological Determinism fails just as miserably for the Criminal Justice System as well as Clinincal Psychology. And I completely acknowledge that it’s a big problem for both sides. Nevertheless it’s time for me to close so….

At the end of each post I always say the same thing, I appreciate all comments, but I’m super busy at work and don’t have a break until mid December so as much as I value everyone comments, I can’t read them. It’s purely a time thing and I don’t want anyone who posts with a valid criticism or problem to think I’m dismissing them. If you like what I write, just hit subscribe for me because I’m going somewhere with this.

Good Luck to you all, where ever you are on life’s journey.

So, I received a bunch of comments on my last post saying that I was wrong and philosophies like compatibilism can answer the Free Will question. It can’t. But it’s not just them, most of the most popular YouTube channels, which are overwhelmingly justifying different types of Determinism, are done by graduate students of philosophy arguing that philosophy answers the question. I understand Reddit users not knowing this but that’s amazing that these University graduates don’t know this fundamental and incredibly important fact

When it comes to truth, philosophy has lost that debate. That’s 20th century philosophers talking, not me. So I realized that the vast majority of philosophers out there don’t understand their own history or what is arguably thee SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT debate ever to occur. So I’m going to summarize this very quickly although I wish I could spend more time because it’s an incredible story.

It all starts after the death of Socrates, in my opinion the greatest philosopher of them all. Now the field of Epistemology (understanding knowledge) starts off with the following statement: THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION A PHILOSOPHER CAN ASK ISN’T, “WHAT’S THE TRUTH?”
IT’S “WHAT’S THE METHOD THAT YOUR USING TO ESTABLISH THE TRUTH?”

There are dozens of different types, I don’t have the time to list them, but 3 and only 3 have been recognized to have validity and an impact they are: 1. The Religious Method
2. The Rationalist Method
3. The Empiricist Method

Now what started off as a debate quickly spiraled into the real world of Western Civilization and LITERALLY started to dictate the development of countries and the course of History. It is a fascinating story filled with twists and turns that you just can make up. It is a must read for anyone who wants to understand history or philosophy. This debate, (I’m not fact checking this because I’m in a hurry) but went on for, call it 2000 thousand years with Humanity itself closely watching who was winning and losing. Finally, it appeared around the 1800’s that Rationalizism had won and declared themselves the victory. Western civilization took note and restructured itself under the period called The Enlightenment, what’s considered the high point of philosophy. All the wealthy, all kings and queens, sent their best and brightest to the rationalist. If you wanted truth, you studied philosophy.

The problem was the last place losers, the philosopher’s backing empiricism, had also been watching and shortly after the enlightenment, they did a stunning cheap shot that came out of nowhere and stunned the Rationalist. They said the following, you can use any rational statement or logical proof or, (settting the bar high) mathematical theorem you want, BUT, you must be creative enough to phrase it in a way that can be EMPIRICALLY validated. That way, it ties your statement to reality so that WE empiricist’s decide whose proof is right and wrong. We have the final say.

And with that, the Empiricist’s rebranded themselves as “Scientists”.

There was a crisis of conscious amongst philosophers of the 20th century for about a couple of seconds. But they were true lovers of wisdom and immediately went to Scientists and said the following, “ Your right. We admit we’ve lost, your method is a superior method for establishing truth. Congratulations, here are the reigns to Humanity, its fate is now in your hands. BUT….. You’re going to need our help because we are the only ones capable of answering questions that you cannot. Questions like, what is science, what’s its method, what’s a theory, and countless other fields whose answers can’t be empirically verified.”

And with that a 2100, (IDK) year old battle for the fate of humanity has been officially settled. In my opinion, the philosopher’s of the 20th century have produced the most amazing insights ever because they properly identified what their role actually is in the debate over truth so if you want to know the “Truth of free will” all philosophies are a dead end. Now I know I’m going to get a bunch of comments about that statement because we all have are ego invested in our own “truths” so I’ll make a couple of comments that I’m sure won’t satisfy anyone whom I’ve offended by calling their philosophies a dead end but I also know they’ll be a couple of you out there that will get this.

So it’s perfectly exceptibly for philosophers to write about truths that science can’t validate, that’s what theoretical physicists do. Say what is consciousness, where does it come from, what is qualia and all that. Science is still in its infancy and trying to decide if it can even answer that. But the Free Will debate isn’t that. Scientific fields like Genetics, Academic Psychology, and Neurology has proven themselves MORE than capable of answering that question. You want to understand all human behavior, well 100% can be accounted for with the Nature Nuture Matrix, think the soul stuff of thoughts, or the immaterial mind can’t be understood because there’s thoughts aren’t made of anything on the periodic table? Not if you link the mind to the brain’s neurophysiology.

But I’m sure I’ll get a bunch of, “well that’s just your view, you don’t understand my philosophy of (compatibilism or whatever). Well, you’re not debating me, you’re debating philosophers like Carl Popper now. And the first thing he’ll tell you is Science is still going to win because it’s the only method developed capable of admitting it’s wrong and changing. As we ALL have heard a dozen times, there is no truth in science, only ideas that have yet to be falsified. So how do I prove to you that compatiblism is wrong? I can’t, you won’t let me, EVER. So it remains static, incapable of growth. Its insights can never be applied to the very question it says it has the answer to, the Human Condition. Abstract logical statements that are all internally coherent, but empirically worthless. I won’t know myself or my behaviors any better at all, unlike reading a book about childhood development, or one about the human genome.

What I’ve noticed is the Free Will side is massively insecure about their positions and this blog threatens them. But I’ve also said Hard Determinism and a bunch of others are also dead ends. What’s interesting to me is the determinist side doesn’t seem to be threatened, they’ll post criticisms but their criticism are really questions. So, while I might not be a determinist, and I completely disagree with all their philosophies unless they’re based on Science, I can at least say I respect all of them. So go on your quest if your philosophy is hard determinism or whatever. What the hell do I know anyway, maybe you’ll strike gold.

I have to run, and I won’t be able to comment on anyone’s post. I work in the Criminal Justice System and I’m swamped, I only have an hour to do this to so I’ll write another one tomorrow and read comments then.

Good luck