Consciousness: Egnor on determinism and free will (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 23, 2019, 20:25 (2098 days ago) @ David Turell

Two entries:

https://mindmatters.ai/2019/02/how-can-mere-products-of-nature-have-free-will/

"Most of us assume we have free will. But if we live in a universe where everything is totally governed by laws of nature (a deterministic universe), we must ask ourselves an important question: Is our own free will compatible with total control by the laws of nature? There are only two fundamental positions on the issue: Either our free will is compatible with such laws (compatibilism) or it isn’t (incompatibilism).

***

"The modern debate centers on a scientific understanding of determinism. If determinism is true—that is, if every state of the universe is determined from moment to moment entirely by the laws of nature (physics, chemistry, etc)—how is it possible that we could have free will? It is certainly true that we don’t have control of natural laws—I cannot change gravitation or electromagnetism simply by willing it. Thus, it seems obvious that I cannot have free will in a deterministic universe. It seems obvious then that compatibilism is false and incompatibilism is true.

"Here is my view: I believe that genuine (“libertarian”) free will is real and that free will is logically incompatible with determinism in nature.

***

"I think that compatibilists’ efforts to avoid the obvious — that free will and determinism can’t both be true — fail in every instance. If determinism is true, then our actions are determined by natural forces over which we have no genuine control and free will is an illusion.

"Compatibilists hold their view, I believe, because they believe that determinism is true and also that we unquestionably have some kind of freedom to act or not act according to our choices. Although most compatibilists have a more or less materialist view of nature, they find it impossible to shake the conviction that free will is real. Stuck between an affirmation of determinism and an affirmation of some kind of genuine freedom of choice, they prefer to twist logic and reason to accommodate their cognitive dissonance, rather than jettison one of their beliefs.

'Nonetheless, compatibilism is incoherent. Sophistry notwithstanding, if determinism is real, we are not free.

https://mindmatters.ai/2019/02/but-is-determinism-true/

'It’s an interesting philosophical question, and most scientists (and ordinary folks) who have considered it seem to have decided that determinism is likely true. But they’re wrong.

"In 1964, Irish physicist John Bell (1928–1990) published a paper titled “On the Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox”. In it, he observed that there is a way to test determinism at the quantum level by measuring the ratio of quantum states of particles emitted by radioactive decay.1 Bell’s experiment has now been done many times, and the answer is unequivocal: determinism at the quantum level is not true. Nature is not deterministic.

"The experiments showed that every quantum process entails some degree of “indeterminism”; that is, there are predictable probabilities but there is never certainty. If we knew the exact state of the universe at any given moment, we could still never know with certainty what would happen next. Technically, this means that there are no local “hidden variables” which really govern how things happen, as many determinists (including Albert Einstein) had hoped.

"Determinism in nature has been shown, scientifically, to be false. There is no real debate about this among physicists. So the question as to whether determinism, if it really existed, would be compatible with free will is merely an academic question, an interesting bit of metaphysical speculation.

"Remarkably, modern theoretical and experimental physics, by decisively debunking determinism, is quite consistent with the view that libertarian free will is possible. It is not in any way ruled out by science.

"The question that looms before us is no longer whether free will is compatible with determinism (compatibilism vs. incompatibilism) Rather, given the fact that nature is indeterminate, is it possible that human will is not free? If human actions are not determined by physics or chemistry, what besides free will could determine them? "

Comment: This is why I have pushed our discussion of quantum theory. Quantum mechanics are the basis of the universe.