Has anybody else picked this up yet? It’s really done a number on me. Prior to reading it I would consider myself a Stoic. One of my central philosophies being that “The choices I make define who I am”.
So obviously being told that my choices were never even mine to begin with was kind of a slap in the face.
It rings true though. The choices we make at any given time are a result of our genetics, or environment, the media we’ve consumed, how tired we are…
I’m not a stranger to the concept of Ego death but it had been a hot minute since I thought about it.
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It’s weird how vociferous the arguments about the topic are from people who haven’t read the book yet are.
What’s the point of commenting about a book you aren’t even willing to read?
When people say they don’t believe in free will I’d like to punch them in the face until they admit I could decide to stop punching them in the face. Rinse and repeat if they continue to deny the most basic aspect of their own existence because some idiot told them they are an automaton.
Free will and personal agency are not mutually exclusive; they should not be understood synonymously. If you identified as a Stoic, then you should recall how a deterministic metaphysics was made compatible with the freedom to choose as a personal agent. It’s actually one the cleverest and most elegant developments offered by Stoic philosophy.
Honestly, I get why this stuff triggers people so hard. From a biblical sense, choice is almost the sole defining characteristic of what makes us human.
Who would we blame for our troubles and burn at the stake if we couldn’t point fingers at each other?
One of the big reasons I don’t believe anymore.
But, idk. It’s true in the factual sense, but not “true” at the level of our experience. Knowing this literally can’t change the course of your life, because you don’t have free will and the universe is a giant multi-dimensional block. We still gotta hope we’re good and go through all the motions.
Haven’t read the book, so there’s that.
But I do know that “no free will” is the cry of those who no longer take responsibility for their choices. Nothing is their fault. They can freely point the finger at anything but themselves and blame that.
“I couldn’t help it. It was genetics. It was my environment. I’m not responsible.”
That’s what it all amounts to.
And I’ll say this: Bullshit.
Ego death is necessary, but losing free will is a lie. You can learn that you are not the most important thing in this life (ego death) and still have free will.
You were right the first time: The choices you make do define who you are, no matter what any book tells you.
Including the choice to abandon all responsibility for the self in the name of the lie of “no free will.”
You’re very obtuse, but I forgive you because it’s not your fault.
Upvoted.
I also can’t stand the moronic idea of “no free will”. What a whole load of bullshit that victims love to embrace.
I mean, how stupid is it to argue for your own lack of freewill?
I also can’t stand the moronic idea of "no free will
That’s ok. There’s a lot of reasons why you feel this way.
Think of it this way; it is YOU who are making those choices, they are YOUR choices, it’s just that it was predetermined that you would make that one specific choice. Our environment, the way we were raised influences our choices and so the past in a way determines the future. If you want to get into the physics of it all, randomness does exist but as far as we know only at a quantum level; the bigger events are deterministic in nature. And about the whole crime/punishment thing just as someone “had no choice” but to commit a crime, the judge also “has no choice” but to punish that person. You are responsible for your own choices, it’s just that they are predetermined.
Also, it still makes sense to punish for wrongdoing because that act will lead to less negative outcomes in the future, both on an individual and larger scale.
What else could free will mean but the capacity to, when faced with multiple percieved options, select from among them?
What statistically predicts this selection obviously includes factors such as genetics and environment, but much less than 100% of the variability in behaviour has been demonstrated to be explained by any combination of factors. In other words, there is still lots of room for some other factor that determines behaviour other than immutable characteristics/experiences (e.g. potentially ‘free will’).
Some might argue, well yes that’s just because we haven’t measured them yet. Maybe…but that’s still an idea…and one the belief in which has been shown to predict worse outcomes.
In my limited, layman’s thinking of this concept, it’s that you’re “free” to do anything you want. You just never will do anything you want, because of various ways you observe and apply decision-making to a given scenario.
Can I go outside and set my car on fire? Sure. Will I? No, of course not. I’m prohibited from such a decision based on a variety of punitive factors against making such a decision, not to mention I’m not insane. I will never decide on a whim to set my car on fire.
So… am I truly free to decide on such a course of action? Viewed in the context I just described… no, I don’t think I have free will.
Go left or go right? Put yourself in the same situation a million times, under the same exact circumstances, you’ll make the same decision over and over again. You’ll never make the other decision.
I’ve always viewed it as:
We have no free will, but we must behave as if we do.
Do you feel like the book substantially argues against that point? Or adds to it in a compelling way?
Can anyone explain to me how the concept of having no free will applies to people who are chronically homeless? I do not mean people in a temporary crunch, but long termers who are addicts or just can’t get it together. I struggle with extreme guilt over beggars, if it is in a way predestined I would like to know.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think this is quite what people are saying. I think the idea is we are all “choosing” the course of our lives, though at times not consciously. The choices we make are based on a million little experiences coupled with inherent personality traits, etc. so in a truer sense our choices are inevitable. This is deep shit so again I may be misinterpreting. TLDR: no, homeless people are not predestined to be homeless.
Thank you for answering me. I am trying to learn something new and I really appreciate you taking your time.
No problem!
Not sure why the question is downvoted. I’d honestly just recommend the book being discussed here, as well as the Sapolsky Stanford lecture series on youtube. “Predestined” isn’t exactly analagous to determinism, more so “Laplace’s Demon”. Chaos and randomness aren’t in contradiction with determinism.
In terms of relating this to homelessness, I’ll paraphrase an analogy from Deternined, where Sapolsky details what he means by determinism.
“Imagine a university graduation ceremony. Among the graduates celebrating with their families, you notice a person way in the back cleaning up the garbage. Randomly pick any of those graduates, do some magic so that this garbage collector started life with the graduate’s genes. Likewise, getting the same womb in which 9 months were spent and the lifelong epigenetic consequences of that. Get the graduates’ childhood as well - one filled with piano lessons and family game nights instead of threats of, say, going to bed hungry, or becoming homeless. And vice versa, so the graduate got all of the garbage collectors past. Trade every factor over which they had no control, and you will switch who would be in the graduation robe and who would be cleaning the garbage”
Determinism is not a barrier to meaningful free will.
You should read some philosophers who are proponents of compatabilism (philosophy that determinism and Free Will are compatible).
I would recommend “Freedom Evolves” by Dennet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Evolves
Determinism does not have to mean doom and gloom and lack of personal responsibility.
This version of compatibilism has produced numerous papers by philosophers and legal scholars concerning the relevance of neuroscience to free will. After reading lots of them, I’ve concluded that they usually boil down to three sentences:
a. Wow, there’ve been all these cool advances in neuroscience, all reinforcing the conclusion that ours is a deterministic world.
b. Some of those neuroscience findings challenge our notions of agency, moral responsibility, and deservedness so deeply that one must conclude that there is no free will.
c. Nah, it still exists.
I mean, that’s the first chapter. Seriously, are any of the folks with such strong opinions actually going to read the book?
I’ve only taken one philosophy course on theory of mind BUT I never really understood the compatibilist position. They say that yes everything is deterministic but mental states determine action.
But mental states are determined too. Unless you are some dualist, you’d have to believe that mental states are determined.
Determinism is not a barrier to meaningful free will.
So do you believe that the mind that makes our decisions is not subject to the physical laws defining determinism?
He reinvented behaviorism for the generation that doesn’t think.
I’ve been thinking about that kind of thing for a few years now, ever since I’ve read Blindsight from Peter Watts. It is weird indeed to kind of know that your whole conciusness is just a narrator, a story teller… retconning the narrative all the time to explain your own choices to you. Conciusness might indeed be maladaptive.
But then again, sometimes the story is just so beautiful it makes it all worth while.
I think people get hung up on Compatabilism because they they think of Free Will as “another outcome was possible”. If this is your definition of Free Will then Determinism and free will are truly incompatible.
In my opinion the very idea of Free Will is nonsensical and the common conception actually requires determinism. You require reasons to will.
Furthermore, I usually head off the quantum woo nonsense with the fact that randomness is certainly no better than determinism in allowing freedom.
Debates about “free” will increasingly sound like semantic quibbling to me. Of course if you bring your own upbringing and genetic background into the equation, you can’t be free from yourself, because what would that even mean? But at the same time, that doesn’t mean you’re not making decisions. They were just the only ones you were ever going to make.
Yes, but it has far reaching moral implications that are too often ignored. If all the decisions (and outcomes you experience in life) you make are essentially just a product of genetics and environmental influences how much inequality can you justify.
Free will should be foundational to a lot of beliefs in life because everyone should be pretty humble about whatever privileges they have in life, because they’ve acquired them mostly by luck and circumstance (more luck).
Check out the short stories ‘Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom’ and ‘What’s Expected of Us’ by Ted Chiang
Take it to the logical conclusion that you make no decision, and are a biological logic machine. The consciousness is an artifact of the process to keep the machine running efficiently. Your sense of self is an illusion.
You are not luckier to live a rich life than the Macbook is lucky to be sitting on your desk.