Scientific Justification for Free Will?

[Divine Insight]

Is there any scientific justification for the notion of Free Will?

Question #1. If you believe their is, can you please state your scientific evidence for the existence of Free Will.

Question #2. If you believe there is no scientific justification for the notion of Free Will, then please explain how we can have any scientific justification for holding anyone responsible for their actions. In fact, wouldn't the very notion of personal responsibility be scientifically unsupportable?

[Goat]

Well, is there a 'random choice'? Or, are things predetermined by the state of the brain chemistry, the connections and the environment. If we 'rewound' a moment in time, and presented the same scenario (down to the quantum scale), would the choice always be the same?

How would we know? What test can we do to determine that?

If we can't. does the question have any meaning at all, from a scientific point of view?

Thank you Goat,

You have hit my point dead center square on!

That is precisely what I'm asking.

If the concept of Free Will Choice is a meaningless question in science, then surely the concept of Personal Responsibility is equally meaningless?

That is precisely the point I'm getting at here.

No, not at all. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY is not a scientific concept. While it is impossible to tell if we have free will or not... we have at least the ILLUSION of free will. As such, we have the illusion of needing to take personal responsibility (at least), even if our 'choice' is predetermined or not.

I have the illusion of being able to make choices (or maybe I do make choices, I don't know how to test that), so I either have the illusion of taking personal responsibility, or I DO take personal responsibility.

It doesn't matter if it is real or an illusion, the end result is the same.

[Divine Insight]

No, not at all. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY is not a scientific concept. While it is impossible to tell if we have free will or not... we have at least the ILLUSION of free will. As such, we have the illusion of needing to take personal responsibility (at least), even if our 'choice' is predetermined or not.

I have the illusion of being able to make choices (or maybe I do make choices, I don't know how to test that), so I either have the illusion of taking personal responsibility, or I DO take personal responsibility.

It doesn't matter if it is real or an illusion, the end result is the same.

It may not make any difference to you on a personal level. But that's irrelevant.

I'm looking at the bigger picture.

If we, as humans, decide to govern our lives based on pure secular notions that can be supported by scientific evidence, then what justification could we offer for holding anyone else personally responsible for their actions?

Are we going to hold out as a justification for this the idea that we have an illusion that we might have Free Will even though we can't show any secular evidence for this ideal?

And how would this differ from those who claim to have the illusion that they have an eternal soul, or life after death, or that some Santa Claus God lives in the an mystical place called "Heaven"?

In other words, how would this notion of "personal responsibility" differ from being a mere religious notion based entirely upon faith-based illusions?

I'm asking these questions with respect to those who would like to base human culture on pure science, and only things that can be justified via science.

But Free Will Choice, and Personal Responsibility, would be two elusive concepts that wouldn't have anymore scientific meaning or merit than the illusion of an eternal soul.

How can we use a secular justification to dismiss some notions, but not others?

What I'm saying is that if the secular atheists are right, then we have no justification at all for holding anyone responsible for anything they might do.

Because the whole notion that we have free will choice is based on nothing more than an intuitive illusion that has no scientific meaning or merit.

I'm not necessarily saying that there is a problem with this.

I simply saying that in a purely secular philosophy we'd have to give up the claim that anyone is responsible for anything because we can't even put that into a meaningful secular context.

We'd have to assume that there is no such thing as personal responsibility. Like you say, it's just an illusion that cannot be supported by secular science. If someone does something we consider to be wrong all we can say from a secular point of view is that they must have a defective brain. Period.

[Goat]

No, not at all. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY is not a scientific concept. While it is impossible to tell if we have free will or not... we have at least the ILLUSION of free will. As such, we have the illusion of needing to take personal responsibility (at least), even if our 'choice' is predetermined or not.

I have the illusion of being able to make choices (or maybe I do make choices, I don't know how to test that), so I either have the illusion of taking personal responsibility, or I DO take personal responsibility.

It doesn't matter if it is real or an illusion, the end result is the same.

It may not make any difference to you on a personal level. But that's irrelevant.

I'm looking at the bigger picture.

If we, as humans, decide to govern our lives based on pure secular notions that can be supported by scientific evidence, then what justification could we offer for holding anyone else personally responsible for their actions?

Are we going to hold out as a justification for this the idea that we have an illusion that we might have Free Will even though we can't show any secular evidence for this ideal?

And how would this differ from those who claim to have the illusion that they have an eternal soul, or life after death, or that some Santa Claus God lives in the an mystical place called "Heaven"?

In other words, how would this notion of "personal responsibility" differ from being a mere religious notion based entirely upon faith-based illusions?

I'm asking these questions with respect to those who would like to base human culture on pure science, and only things that can be justified via science.

But Free Will Choice, and Personal Responsibility, would be two elusive concepts that wouldn't have anymore scientific meaning or merit than the illusion of an eternal soul.

How can we use a secular justification to dismiss some notions, but not others?

What I'm saying is that if the secular atheists are right, then we have no justification at all for holding anyone responsible for anything they might do.

Because the whole notion that we have free will choice is based on nothing more than an intuitive illusion that has no scientific meaning or merit.

I'm not necessarily saying that there is a problem with this.

I simply saying that in a purely secular philosophy we'd have to give up the claim that anyone is responsible for anything because we can't even put that into a meaningful secular context.

We'd have to assume that there is no such thing as personal responsibility. Like you say, it's just an illusion that cannot be supported by secular science. If someone does something we consider to be wrong all we can say from a secular point of view is that they must have a defective brain. Period.

Shrug. .. you don't have a choice. We , as a species and as a society, are programmed to hold the individuals in society responsible for their actions, which translates into individuals needing to take 'personal responsibility' or to suffer the consequences.

You see, while we can't show there is 'free will'.. we can't show there ISN'T either... so from a SOCIAL point of view, we can assume we have it.

It just doesn't make sense from a SCIENTIFIC point of view.

[Divine Insight]

You see, while we can't show there is 'free will'.. we can't show there ISN'T either... so from a SOCIAL point of view, we can assume we have it.

It just doesn't make sense from a SCIENTIFIC point of view.

But I'm not concerned with a mere SOCIAL point of view.

I'm addressing the justification for this in a SECULAR philosophy.

If we can't show whether there is or isn't Free Will, then what SECULAR justification would we have for assuming there is such a thing?

All we can say is that when people do weird things they must have defective brains that caused them to make those choices that we consider to be weird choices.

Actually, that might be what's truly going on. And if it is, then every person who has ever committed a criminal or heinous act was necessarily a victim themselves of a defective brain.

And this would even include people who methodically planned things out under the belief and illusion that they were doing it solely for personal gain, personal pleasure, even even an outright intentional intent just to harm other people, possibly for their own enjoyment.

All of that would be nothing more than simply defective brains.

Because there could be no Free Agent that is actually employing Free Will to make these choices.

~~~~

How can we be justified in assuming that a Free Agent exists if we can't know one way or the other?

[Divine Insight]

You see, while we can't show there is 'free will'.. we can't show there ISN'T either... so from a SOCIAL point of view, we can assume we have it.

By the way. From a SOCIAL point of view we can assume anything the majority will go along with.

But that's not the question.

The question is, "Can we justify it in the context of a sound philosophy?".

[Goat]

You see, while we can't show there is 'free will'.. we can't show there ISN'T either... so from a SOCIAL point of view, we can assume we have it.

It just doesn't make sense from a SCIENTIFIC point of view.

But I'm not concerned with a mere SOCIAL point of view.

I'm addressing the justification for this in a SECULAR philosophy.

If we can't show whether there is or isn't Free Will, then what SECULAR justification would we have for assuming there is such a thing?

All we can say is that when people do weird things they must have defective brains that caused them to make those choices that we consider to be weird choices.

Actually, that might be what's truly going on. And if it is, then every person who has ever committed a criminal or heinous act was necessarily a victim themselves of a defective brain.

And this would even include people who methodically planned things out under the belief and illusion that they were doing it solely for personal gain, personal pleasure, even even an outright intentional intent just to harm other people, possibly for their own enjoyment.

All of that would be nothing more than simply defective brains.

Because there could be no Free Agent that is actually employing Free Will to make these choices.

~~~~

How can we be justified in assuming that a Free Agent exists if we can't know one way or the other?

From a secualr point of view, ignore the question, and do what you have to do.

Stop over thinking nonsense.

[Divine Insight]

From a secualr point of view, ignore the question, and do what you have to do.

Stop over thinking nonsense.

You are apparently looking at this from a totally personal point of view.

I'm addressing it from the context of a justifiable philosophy.

If I'm a secular philosopher constructing a model of ethics for a human society, how do I justify the concept of "personal responsibility"?

I can't just say, "Do what you have to do and stop thinking over nonsense".

That doesn't justify anything.

[Goat]

From a secualr point of view, ignore the question, and do what you have to do.

Stop over thinking nonsense.

You are apparently looking at this from a totally personal point of view.

I'm addressing it from the context of a justifiable philosophy.

If I'm a secular philosopher constructing a model of ethics for a human society, how do I justify the concept of "personal responsibility"?

I can't just say, "Do what you have to do and stop thinking over nonsense".

That doesn't justify anything.

Like I said.. nonsense... 90% of philosophy is over thinking nonsense.

[Divine Insight]

Like I said.. nonsense... 90% of philosophy is over thinking nonsense.

I'm using the term "philosophy" here in a very practical way.

For example, Science is a "philosophy" that is built upon the ideal that observations and experiments made on the world we live in should be the foundation for meaningful conclusion.

In a similar manner, I'm speaking of a secular model of a culture that is based upon a "philosophy" that is built upon a similar philosophical paradigm as science.

After all, I feel that there is some justification in addressing this model since many "secular atheists" proclaim that we shouldn't be basing our social standards on illusions that cannot be rigorously defined and in ways that are meaningful to the world in which we live. And those secular atheists point to the "Philosophy of Science" as an example of the guidelines required to justify a meaningful concept.

In other words, they dismiss the idea of a "soul" because there is no scientific evidence for the existence of a "soul". Therefore they claim that this is a concept of illusion (or delusion) that has no secular basis.

So I'm just taking this a step further and asking, "What is the secular basis for holding anyone responsible for their actions if there is no scientific basis for the concept of Free Will?"

I think this is a legitimate question.

After all, you have already conceded to the following:

1. You have conceded that the very concept of Free Will may not be a meaningful question in science.

2. You have conceded that the concept of Free Will is based entirely upon our own intuitive illusions (or possibly delusions).

I'm not suggesting that no one should be held accountable for their actions.

I'm simply asking, how a purely secular philosophy (or cultural paradigm) of humanity could justify holding anyone accountable for their actions when there is no secular evidence that any such thing as Free Will even exists?

This wouldn't mean that we couldn't incarcerate people who we deem to be criminal or a danger to society. But it does bring into question whether we could actually hold them responsible in any sense of "blame".

If there is no such thing as Free Will and we are all basically just dust in the wind, then people who go off the deep end and do things that we consider to be criminal would simply be victims of their own malfunctioning brains.

How could we blame them for having a malfunctioning brain if they have no Free Will Choice in the matter?

Free Will is paramount to the very idea of "blame" or holding people "personally responsible" for anything.

Now I'm not saying that Free Will doesn't exist. On the contrary, I believe it does, at least in the case of healthy humans. I think there may very well be mentally ill people where Free Will has indeed flown the coop. But I don't believe that this is necessarily true of everyone who does bad things.

I believe in Free Will (just as you apparently do, at lease in the sense that we have a very profound intuitive illusion of it as you say).

But I still have problems with Free Will even being a meaningful secular concept.

The very notion of Free Will suggests to me (via this same intuitive illusion) that there must be something mystical going on beneath the facade of physical existence.

So now does this "Intuitive Illusion" take on as much merit as the "Intuitive Illusion" that we have Free Will at all?

In other words, if I can justify the idea that we have Free Will via nothing more than intuition, then why should the buck stop there? Why can't I then also believe in a mystical soul via the same intuition?

Secular atheists start screaming, "No, no, no! A belief in a mystical soul is totally unscientific and not supportable by science!"

Well Duh?

Neither is FREE WILL!

And therefore neither is the notion of Personal Responsibility.

So how could a secular atheist justify holding anyone responsible for anything, especially in terms of blaming them like as if it was their fault for having made a Free Will Choice to do the bad thing?

The intuitive concept of Free Will Choice is just as unscientific and illusive as the intuitive concept of a soul.

[olavisjo]

.

Like I said.. nonsense... 90% of philosophy is over thinking nonsense.

Philosophy is just "thinking real hard about something".
When a persons assumptions about life are based on faulty premises then thinking real hard about them results in nonsense.
A rational person would reconsider his basic assumptions rather than toss out the thinking that revealed the flaws in the first place.
But, since we have no free will choice about being rational, we can't choose to do that, we are stuck with our assumptions even though they are faulty.

Choosing to deny free will is self contradictory, you have to have free will to choose to deny it. So, perhaps we can choose to be rational after all.