A case for free choice

[insurgent]

Everywhere we look, we seem to encounter choices and decisions waiting to be made. Corporations and individuals incessantly try to influence our decisions. They want something from us. We want something from our choices. But we never know what we will get. That is the fundamental problem.

Even though we may feel overwhelmed by the apparent abundance of choices in this modern consumer society, we should not delude ourselves into thinking that we are facing an insuperable challenge. We can go to the supermarket and choose between ten different kinds of yoghurt, five types of carrots, seventeen brands of coffee etc. The consumer decisions we face are many. The greater and perhaps more important decisions of life, love, and survival are still here for us to make. But our ancestors also had to choose. Perhaps they chose at a different level. Perhaps more of their decisions were a simple matter of life or death. But the essence of choosing has always been the same thing.

When we face a choice, tough or easy, simple or complicated, important or insignificant, we have to make a decision. This decision is based on considerations concerning the nature and consequences of what we do. We might choose between taking hiring a cab or waiting for a bus on a late evening. This relatively inconsequential decision will have to be based on considerations of price, time, and perhaps the expediency of the moment. In a different situation, we may choose whether or not to avenge the death of a close relative. We might feel like killing the person responsible, but the very nature of this act might keep us from doing it even though this is not the result of seriously contemplated consequences. The first decision was based on expectations of the result. After making clear to ourselves, which consequences we expect our actions or lack thereof to bring, we will choose based on what we want. This is based on our preferences, desires, dreams, attitude to life etc. In the second example, the decision is more of a matter of principle. Most of us would not even consider the consequences of murdering somebody, simply because we find it ethically objectionable.
The point of the above explanation is to say that each decision is based on the intentions of the individual. Each person has his own principles and desires. These constitute his free will based on his own individual and subjective ethics. This is crucial as it means that the right choice in any particular decision is different from one individual to the next. Nobody can attain complete understanding and knowledge of the wishes of everybody, and so each individual must per definition be the best arbiter of his own life. This, one might say, is the X-factor—or the unknown variable—which means that the criteria of decision-making are fundamentally different from person to person and situation to situation. We cannot possibly fully understand the decisions of other individuals. This is the most fundamental argument for leaving free choice to the individual.

This is the primary reason that no central authority should be entrusted with powers to restrict the free choice of the individual. Since everybody chooses based on his own preferences, the individual will choose what is best for him. So, consequently, restricting free choice by limiting the individual’s options and possibilities of action cannot possibly improve the situation of the individual. If the best option is taken away, the individual will have to resort to a less desirable choice. If the option is not the best one for the individual, the situation will not be improved, as the individual would not have chosen it anyway. Instead there is just a loss of freedom. This line of argument is often heard in the context of prostitution. Advocates of a ban against prostitution often make the point that it would improve the conditions of women if prostitution were to be made illegal. But if some women choose to prostitute themselves, they must evidently find this better than the alternatives.
The process of removing responsibility from the individual and entrusting it to authorities might also mean that individuals stop paying as much attention to the consequences of their decisions: “I won’t bother to look into this situation. That’s what the government’s for.” If you take away freedom from the individual, he will have less reason to take any responsibility, and he will tend to blindly trust whoever handles his affairs.

Therefore, the most common argument against free choice also contains a logical fallacy. The point of view is basically that the individual has neither the capacity nor the resources to gain enough information to make a qualified decision. Therefore, leaving choices to “experts” may be reasonable. Doing this, however, would mean a transfer of responsibility from the individual to the expert authority. The individual would pay less intention and expect somebody else to handle his problems and thus make him even less capable of making his own decisions. Thus more responsibility would have to be transferred to the authorities, simply because the individual would expect someone else to handle his problems for him. In the end, central planning of many more aspects of human life would be the result. Combined with the primary argument against such central authorities—that they cannot possibly know the preferences of each individual and thus what is right for him—it is clear that such an outcome would be undesirable.

Having established this, it needs to be said that the most serious problem of making decisions is the fact that you do not know the consequences of your actions or your inaction at the point when you make the decision. Just like a central authority, the individual can only try to foretell the consequences and anticipate a certain outcome. Information is needed to make the situation clearer, and so the individual will need to look into his choice. Doing this can seem tough and even impossible, when we are confronted with so many and so different choices. But since it is our decision to make, we seek this information, and suppliers of this information arise. The press constantly bombards us with consumer information and other types of information spread easily in our modern society. Though these sources of information may at first seem to only complicate the situation even further, they are extremely useful. They do not suddenly make it possible for the individual to know all about the future or even the present. They present us with another choice: what we want to know more about and therefore what we find it important to make more qualified decisions about.

The point of all this is that life is made up of choices. As time passes, we make conscious and unconscious decisions, and the decisions that we make constitute our lives. Though we may not always like the possibilities or outcomes, we should treasure our capacity to make choices. In order to make the right decisions and shape our lives, as we want to, we will need to be aware of the choices we have to make. We need to be conscious about our decisions for us to direct their outcome at some desirable objective. That is the only way for us to truly control our own lives.

 

[classical_hero]

Unfortunately many people just think that free will does not exist. I am not one of those.

 

[Gothmog]

Yeah, as I see it there are really two situations to examine about where our preferences come from:

First, we make choices based on stimuli we have recieved during our lives. Since we cannot have had any significant control over the nature and extent of those stimuli until well after we have been saturated by them, reacting to them does not constitute free will any more than feeling pain constitutes free will.

You feel like you made a choice, but could you really have decided any other way having lived the life you have?

Second, we have some intrinsic knowledge or character upon which we base our choices. But that implies that the choice is predetermined by an intrinsic property and has nothing to do with free will.

You feel like you made a choice, but could you really have decided any other way being the person you are?

So first I'll need a little help on what exactly is meant by 'free will'.

The hardest problems for me in free will have to do with the most unimortant choices. For example, choosing between two coffee mugs when I like them both and use them both frequently. In unimportant situations like that we may indeed have some limited free will, but not really in an important, self determining, way (unless other forces beyond our control come into play, such as one cup being poisoned).

I agree that the choices we make are the life we lead, I just question the 'free' nature of the specific decisions we make.

However, I do enjoy the illusion that I control my own destiny. It helps me feel engaged.

 

[WillJ]

Insurgent, let me ask you, does this apply to children? Do children know what's best for them better than adult authorities?

And the idea that if some of the decision-making is taken away from someone, that person will expect even more to be taken away is quite unfounded. Care to ellaborate on it?

 

[CivCynic]

I agree with you, Insurgent. I remembered that saying, "Life is all about choices" while reading your post. Indeed, one is making a choice constantly during their life.

Even at times when we may think that we have no real power to choose in a situation, we do have the power. As Gothmog said, the stimuli affect our decisions. In the case of when you think you have no choice, the stimulus of our reasoning is our conscience. If one does this, he'll have to live with that for the rest of his life, but if he does that, his conscience will be "clear." Stimuli greatly influence our conscience choices, and that is because of the schema we gain from those stimuli.

Drugs is a major issue that includes choice. Obvioulsy, one has the decision of whether or not to take them. The consequences of doing so might be: a) You destroy the rest of your life, b) You lose all mental reason and go insane (this would take time, of course), c) You accidently kill yourself because of the affect drugs had on you, or d) All of your family and friends are ashamed of your foolish choice and they abandon in you in a sense. So in the end, that very simple choice of whether or not to "try" drugs eventually screwed up the entire remainder of your life. A prime example of the power of this type of choice would be how Ray Charles said he just wanted a taste of heroin, but from that point forth, his life would always have the scar of that choice.

You are indeed right, Insurgent. The content of our choices constitutes the quality of our lives, no matter how significant the choice is. In the end, all of the consequences we received from our choices will either laud us or smite us in the end.

 

[punkbass2000]

Yeah, as I see it there are really two situations to examine about where our preferences come from:

First, we make choices based on stimuli we have recieved during our lives. Since we cannot have had any significant control over the nature and extent of those stimuli until well after we have been saturated by them, reacting to them does not constitute free will any more than feeling pain constitutes free will.

You feel like you made a choice, but could you really have decided any other way having lived the life you have?

Second, we have some intrinsic knowledge or character upon which we base our choices. But that implies that the choice is predetermined by an intrinsic property and has nothing to do with free will.

You feel like you made a choice, but could you really have decided any other way being the person you are?

So first I'll need a little help on what exactly is meant by 'free will'.

The hardest problems for me in free will have to do with the most unimortant choices. For example, choosing between two coffee mugs when I like them both and use them both frequently. In unimportant situations like that we may indeed have some limited free will, but not really in an important, self determining, way (unless other forces beyond our control come into play, such as one cup being poisoned).

I agree that the choices we make are the life we lead, I just question the 'free' nature of the specific decisions we make.

However, I do enjoy the illusion that I control my own destiny. It helps me feel engaged.

Quite well said. Throw in my belief that linear time is a myth, and free will becomes either unknowable, unprovable or nonexistent.

 

[jonatas]

Quite well said. Throw in my belief that linear time is a myth, and free will becomes either unknowable, unprovable or nonexistent.

and i quote

"If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present."

 

[punkbass2000]

Here, I'm alive
Everything all of the time

 

[jonatas]

Here, I'm alive
Everything all of the time

i agree... all time is always present

 

[insurgent]

You feel like you made a choice, but could you really have decided any other way being the person you are?

I know this argument, and I've been through that line of thought before. This conclusion has some frightening consequences. It means that no person can actually be held responsible for anything they do. After all, he didn't have a choice. But that is besides the point, really. If that is reality, then we must deal with it.
But I don't think that is reality. I've been thinking about how one can determine whether or not someone is a determinist. One way is asking him this question:
"Imagine yourself in any given situation, thinking about what you are going to do next. Then take this situation and imagine that the situation exists in an infinite number of different parallel and completely identical dimensions. Do you believe that you would make the same decision in every single dimension?"
I would say no, determinists would say yes, am I right? I say this because people often misunderstand the difference between determinism and indeterminism. They tend to think that their individuality means that they have free will as it would lead them to make a different choice than someone else.

The hardest problems for me in free will have to do with the most unimortant choices. For example, choosing between two coffee mugs when I like them both and use them both frequently. In unimportant situations like that we may indeed have some limited free will, but not really in an important, self determining, way (unless other forces beyond our control come into play, such as one cup being poisoned).

What makes you think that we have free will in some situations and not in others? And if we have, why should we not be able to apply this free will to more significant situations?

I tend to think that this works the other way around. We are more conscious about great and important decisions, and the more we think independently about an issue, the more likely we are to assume an independent decision. Choosing between two coffee mugs in the supermarket does not become an expression of free will to me if it does not involve a conscious and active decision. You might just choose the one which resembles the cup you had as a child without thinking about it.
In a way that is also the result of free will as you will then have chosen not to apply much thought to the problem at hand.

However, I do enjoy the illusion that I control my own destiny. It helps me feel engaged.

Stop trying to feel engaged. It is nothing but a false way to escape reality. But tell me, don't you honestly think you have chosen to enjoy this illusion, or do you destroy yourself to the point where you say that even this inner decision was predetermined?

Insurgent, let me ask you, does this apply to children? Do children know what's best for them better than adult authorities?

I know you like to play this little Socratic game with the likes of me, but I will not engage in such a discussion.

It will suffice to say that this applies to adult individuals. Whether and to what extent it applies to children (or how you define this group), I cannot say.

Just make your point instead of trying to play this condescending little game because you think you can teach me to deduct your truth.

Perhaps I should add a smiley here, just to make me seem less grumpy.

And the idea that if some of the decision-making is taken away from someone, that person will expect even more to be taken away is quite unfounded. Care to ellaborate on it?

Yes. I find this conclusion rather logical, and this is partly the reason that I haven't gone to great lengths to explain it. Also, it is not necessarily important to the point.

But I think that you will agree with me that when somebody removes freedom in a specific context from an individual, this individual stops feeling responsible for the outcome of the choices made for him. He will tend to think that a bad outcome is the usurper's fault, and he will be grateful to the usurper if the outcome of the decision is favourable. In other words, he is dependent on the usurper and expects him to handle the problem. He stops feeling responsible for the problem.
Now we come to the part of the argument which I think you will disagree with. When one problem has been transferred from an individual to someone else, this means that the individual stops feeling that all the problems of his life are indeed his problems. The solution of letting someone else worry about it has appeared. The principle of taking responsibility for one's own life has been compromised. This was the principle that led the individual to protect his freedom in the first place.
Now, if the individual no longer has to take responsibility for his life, he starts feeling redundant. He no longer has to care, and so he doesn't. He settles for less and becomes less conscious of his life as he is being relieved from it, and instead he becomes a numb and indifferent individual. Being less interested and involved in his own life, he will tend to settle for less and being numb and indifferent, he will hesitate to protest unless he is given responsibility. He will then immediately try to relieve himself from it, as he does not feel as involved and important to his own life as he used to. In other words, he starts to think like a slave, doing his daily routine, what it is required of him to do, and caring about nothing more than this.

All this means that he will tend to expect others to choose for him.

Politically, this explanation is related to a problem, which I have presented before:

The problem is that once you start intervening in the market, further intervention follows suit. If one problem with the market is solved by the government and not by free will and enterprise, people will turn to the government to solve the next problem as well. This is bad, as a government solution per se implies coercion, while the free market solution would be voluntary and beneficial to all parties (in that logically all voluntary transactions are beneficial to both trading parties).
This may seem a little complicated, but it can be explained rather easily. If the government intervenes to improve the economic position of a certain group in society - the poor for instance, it will do so, if it can find a majority to support it and a minority to pay for it. Consequently taxes will increase and a welfare programme will be started. The people who pay for this welfare programme now pay more in taxes. Where will they turn if they themselves need to solve some economic problem? The government of course. They will find some initiative for which they can get a majority to suppport, and get another minority to pay for. Consequently another government intervention follows and taxes rise. Of course, as this happens more, more people will be affected and the effect of this vicious circle intensify. Now, the same function applies to other kinds of intervention - the splitting up of monopolies for instance. If consumers expect the government to get rid of a monopoly for them, what are the chances of them trying to solve the problem themselves.
So, government solutions bring further government solutions. When there's a problem, ask the government, and it'll solve the problem for you. As this continues, people will find it harder to find any other solutions than those potentially provided by the government. People's attitudes change and they become inactive as they lose incentive to improve their own situation. The government becomes increasingly active.

 

[Gothmog]

insurgent wrote:

I know this argument, and I've been through that line of thought before. This conclusion has some frightening consequences. It means that no person can actually be held responsible for anything they do. After all, he didn't have a choice. But that is besides the point, really. If that is reality, then we must deal with it.

Eh? Why would this imply that you can’t hold someone responsible for their actions? Judging a person by his actions has nothing to do with free will. Nor does it imply that an accident is equivalent to a premeditated crime.

I am guessing that you feel that the justice system is supposed to punish people, rather than trying to create a safer more stable society while attempting to rehabilitate criminals? But as you say this is beside the point.

Roughly speaking I agree with your example wrt determinism. I would add though that the uncertainty principle does give us a bit of flexibility in applying this example to ‘free will’. For example, the timing of a specific radioactive decay in our brain that may or may not cause an additional neuron to fire and somehow affected the decision made. As far as we can tell the timing of a specific radioactive decay is indeterminate. It may also be that the collective behavior of our mental system has a measure of indeterminism due to its chaotic nature and the fact that its initial conditions may have an indeterminate component due to the uncertainty principle (given a certain interpretation of the uncertainty principle). I don’t know how you would connect that to ‘free will’ though, unless you are saying that we have a ‘soul’ that is able to affect that collective behavior at a quantum level (and perhaps affect the timing of radioactive decay as well?). Or a ‘soul’ that need not obey such physical laws?

IMO, if everything were exactly the same down to the quantum level back to the origin of the universe then I would have to say that I would make the exact same decision. With the possible exception of a decision so insignificant that it needed no input from past events, though I can’t think of any good examples of this. Of course I have no proof of, I can’t even say for sure that God did not imbue me with free will.

I tend to think that this works the other way around. We are more conscious about great and important decisions, and the more we think independently about an issue, the more likely we are to assume an independent decision. Choosing between two coffee mugs in the supermarket does not become an expression of free will to me if it does not involve a conscious and active decision. You might just choose the one which resembles the cup you had as a child without thinking about it.
In a way that is also the result of free will as you will then have chosen not to apply much thought to the problem at hand.

So it seems you associate thinking about something with the application of free will? I am not seeing that connection. Are you saying that you do not base your thoughts on what you have learned in the past? That your decisions do not originate from your experiences? If not experience then perhaps some intrinsic character that you possess? These are the possibilities I already mentioned and you have not offered another. Maybe your decisions are totally random? It’s the old saying attributed to Schopenhauer ‘man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.

Stop trying to feel engaged. It is nothing but a false way to escape reality. But tell me, don't you honestly think you have chosen to enjoy this illusion, or do you destroy yourself to the point where you say that even this inner decision was predetermined?

As I said I enjoy feeling engaged. Why should I stop? I also enjoy the illusion that I have some ability to affect my future. I don’t care if it is false or not, it certainly feels real. If there were a choice of ‘the red pill or the blue pill’ I would take the red pill, but there is no such choice to be made here.

IMO the pleasing illusion of free will comes from the interaction between nature and nurture. I take full responsibility for my actions and try to make the best decisions I can based on the information I have available to me. This is not free will, this is me (nature) responding to the environment in which I have lived (nurture). If I had free will I could just as easily decide to not take responsibility for my actions.

 

[punkbass2000]

Didn't I already tell you you're too smart for this forum? Go do something Scientifically useful!!!one1!!!11

 

[Double Barrel]

I choose not to decide...which is, of course, still a choice!

 

[Gothmog]

OMG
WTH
OMFG

j00 is teh suck!!1!11!

u fuxx0rz 00ff d00d!!

lolololololol

 

[punkbass2000]

i h4\/3 b33n pwnd

EDIT: Oh, and if you're going to waste your time here anyway, Visit this thread.

 

[Mark1031]

I agree with Gothmog that free will is just an illusion.

An experiment in free will:

Raise your right arm. You can do it, great you must have free will. Or are you simply responding to my stimulus. Many of these simple motor actions seem to be under our direct control and I think create the feeling of free will.

Now, if you're an atheist-- believe in God. Just do it for the experiment, you can will yourself back to being an atheist after that. If you're religious deny God.
Can you do it? I mean really do it so that you believe it not just that you activate the motor program to cause the appropriate statement to come out of your mouth.

You're in a bad mood. will yourself to be happy in the next five minutes.

You're a straight man, will yourself to find George Bush indescribably sexually attractive.

I think you'll find that there are really a lot of things that we quite clearly have no free will over. I picked a few things like religion, mood and sex orient that many people feel are important components of your being that can be controlled by will.

 

[Mise]

I don't get where the problem is. Whether or not free will exists doesn't affect our actions, surely.

 

[WillJ]

I know you like to play this little Socratic game with the likes of me, but I will not engage in such a discussion.

It will suffice to say that this applies to adult individuals. Whether and to what extent it applies to children (or how you define this group), I cannot say.

Just make your point instead of trying to play this condescending little game because you think you can teach me to deduct your truth.

Perhaps I should add a smiley here, just to make me seem less grumpy.

Woah, hold on there, my good sir!

I meant no harm or insult. I sometimes discuss things like this because I think it's more interesting, not because I think it's a better way of "teaching" you. And since it doesn't matter to me, I'll ellaborate on my point right here and right now.

Again, the question is, does this apply to children? I sure as hell hope you don't think it does, because if you think it does, then you must be against a mother forbidding her child from crossing the street before looking both ways. It should be the child's choice whether or not he or she crosses the street. Children should also be free to choose on their own whether or not they go to school, and whether or not they bathe. Child molestation as it's usually practiced (deceptively rather than forcefully) would even have to be legal!

I imagine you think that at a certain point, a person is too young to make his or her own decisions. And the reason is of course that these youngsters have not developed the cognitive abilities to be able to think as intelligently as you (or me in some cases, even though I'm still considered a minor), plus they have not yet acquired the education necessary to make certain decisions responsibly.

But does this apply to all kids, and zero adults? Quite obviously not. If it did, I'd have to ask you what the magic age is, at which point a kid is instantly endowed with all the wisdom in the world. Nah, there certainly isn't a clear, black and white division between kids and adults.

Now another question: How do we know that kids are generally more stupid than adults? No, it's not by scanning their brains with complex neurological equipment; that's meaningless in and of itself. What really gives us an idea of the intellectual capabilities of people are just plain old observations that have been noted since the dawn of time (and these are the background against which more complex observations by neurologists are made). Oh, so little Johnny can't complete the analogy cat:kitten::dog:_____? Well, no surprise there! Would you expect any different from a kid who still puts his toes in his mouth?

Now what if Johnny's father also can't complete that analogy? Would it make a whole lot of sense to trust him with making good decisions much more than Johnny? No, they're both stupid. If we're so willing to guide stupid children, is it so crazy to look at adults in the same way in some cases (the last three words being key here)?

So am I suggesting that we all take IQ tests, so that the government can let this determine our life? No, of course not. All I'm saying is that maybe, just maybe, you're wrong on the idea of a person's own decisions always being what's best for them. There's something to be said for the ethical notion that one should not judge and interefere with the decisions of others, and by no means do I support some sort of nanny-state, but I think you take your view a little too far. Sometimes someone else does know what's best for someone. Mentally diseased homeless people wandering the streets come to mind, as do dumbass rednecks who carry their children around in the back of their pickup trucks.

Where I especially think you take things too far is in the realm of economics:

This is bad, as a government solution per se implies coercion, while the free market solution would be voluntary and beneficial to all parties (in that logically all voluntary transactions are beneficial to both trading parties).

You're ignoring that there are sometimes third parties. In such cases the free market usually leaves something to be desired, sometimes failing completely.

Yes. I find this conclusion rather logical, and this is partly the reason that I haven't gone to great lengths to explain it. Also, it is not necessarily important to the point.

But I think that you will agree with me that when somebody removes freedom in a specific context from an individual, this individual stops feeling responsible for the outcome of the choices made for him. He will tend to think that a bad outcome is the usurper's fault, and he will be grateful to the usurper if the outcome of the decision is favourable. In other words, he is dependent on the usurper and expects him to handle the problem. He stops feeling responsible for the problem.
Now we come to the part of the argument which I think you will disagree with. When one problem has been transferred from an individual to someone else, this means that the individual stops feeling that all the problems of his life are indeed his problems. The solution of letting someone else worry about it has appeared. The principle of taking responsibility for one's own life has been compromised. This was the principle that led the individual to protect his freedom in the first place.
Now, if the individual no longer has to take responsibility for his life, he starts feeling redundant. He no longer has to care, and so he doesn't. He settles for less and becomes less conscious of his life as he is being relieved from it, and instead he becomes a numb and indifferent individual. Being less interested and involved in his own life, he will tend to settle for less and being numb and indifferent, he will hesitate to protest unless he is given responsibility. He will then immediately try to relieve himself from it, as he does not feel as involved and important to his own life as he used to. In other words, he starts to think like a slave, doing his daily routine, what it is required of him to do, and caring about nothing more than this.

All this means that he will tend to expect others to choose for him.

I agree that this isn't central to the point. Just felt like bringing it up anyway.

If what you're saying is true (which isn't that hard to imagine), wouldn't you say it's possible that a person may want the government to direct them more than they already do because they appreciate the direction? If governmental intervention is necessarily such an evil thing, why do the victims keep begging for more?

Now, perhaps even though they want it, it's still bad for them. But wait, I thought we all know what's best for us?

 

[Ayatollah So]

Central authority? What central authority? All I see is a bunch of individuals making decisions by the lights of their own values. Sure, some of them, like George Bush for example, seem to have a lot of influence on many others, but isn't that their choice to listen to him?

 

[luiz]

As expected, I agree with insurgent. Free will certainly exists. Maybe I'll expand later; now I need to sleep.