Why Free Will Sucks
First off, what do I mean by "free will"? I DO NOT mean "having options to pick between". I DO mean "having the ability to influence your own selection of one of those options". For example, Joe can choose to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or go out for dinner. Simply having these options does not mean he can influence his own selection of an option. Joe might be a robot that is programmed to always select going out, for instance.
Often, religious people will tell me that free will is a gift from God. Aside from denial or confusing true free will with the idea of having options as explained above, I can't come up with a reason why they would say so. Let's look at what goes into a choice.
I will divide this into the following categories:
1. Desires
2. Prediction of outcome
2a. Knowledge of situation
2b. Logic
3. Free will?
1. So, generally speaking, whenever we are given options to select between, we first have the question of "What do we want?". The answer to this is beyond our control. This can be shown by realizing that if I could control what I wanted, I would pick "I want whatever I have right now", and then I would have everything I wanted all the time.
2. The next question becomes "What will likely happen if I choose X?" Accurate prediction requires a) knowledge, and b) predictive abilities (logic).
2a. We can't control how much we know about a situation directly. I mean, sure, maybe we can read some books or ask some people or do some experiments, but the point is that we don't get to choose what books are out there, how much other people know, or how good we are at doing experiments.
2b. We can't control where logic leads. Nor can we control how good we are at applying it, so we might make mistakes.
3. Up to this point, I have tacitly assumed that we're trying to accomplish whatever it is that we want. I can't really prove that, so here I am allowing for free will to exist. The point is that everything up to this point, i.e. everything about what we want and what we think will happen, is not up to us. So then, free will is the ability to ignore all of this and influence your own choice for no reason. As soon as you have a reason for your action, it's not really free anymore.
As a specific example, say I am offered a grilled cheese sandwich or a tuna sandwich.
1. I hate the taste and smell of tuna. Not sure why, and I'd prefer it if I didn't, but it's not up to me.
2. If I eat the grilled cheese, I'll probably enjoy it. It might be a little unhealthy, but I don't really care too much about that. If I eat the tuna sandwich, I'll suffer greatly, and probably vomit, and then have to clean up the vomit. I don't know any of the health implications.
3. I have every reason to eat the grilled cheese. If I am not exercising free will, I will definitely eat the grilled cheese. If I am exercising free will, who knows? I might get lucky and choose the grilled cheese, but if it's really free will I couldn't have been doing that because I wanted it or thought it was a good idea. Or I might get unlucky and choose the tuna.
The end result is that free will can only help in the following situation: If we think a choice is good, and are wrong. In all other situations, free will either ties or does worse than slavishly following our desires and predictions.
In other words, if I'm not a robot, I wish I was.
Often, religious people will tell me that free will is a gift from God. Aside from denial or confusing true free will with the idea of having options as explained above, I can't come up with a reason why they would say so. Let's look at what goes into a choice.
I will divide this into the following categories:
1. Desires
2. Prediction of outcome
2a. Knowledge of situation
2b. Logic
3. Free will?
1. So, generally speaking, whenever we are given options to select between, we first have the question of "What do we want?". The answer to this is beyond our control. This can be shown by realizing that if I could control what I wanted, I would pick "I want whatever I have right now", and then I would have everything I wanted all the time.
2. The next question becomes "What will likely happen if I choose X?" Accurate prediction requires a) knowledge, and b) predictive abilities (logic).
2a. We can't control how much we know about a situation directly. I mean, sure, maybe we can read some books or ask some people or do some experiments, but the point is that we don't get to choose what books are out there, how much other people know, or how good we are at doing experiments.
2b. We can't control where logic leads. Nor can we control how good we are at applying it, so we might make mistakes.
3. Up to this point, I have tacitly assumed that we're trying to accomplish whatever it is that we want. I can't really prove that, so here I am allowing for free will to exist. The point is that everything up to this point, i.e. everything about what we want and what we think will happen, is not up to us. So then, free will is the ability to ignore all of this and influence your own choice for no reason. As soon as you have a reason for your action, it's not really free anymore.
As a specific example, say I am offered a grilled cheese sandwich or a tuna sandwich.
1. I hate the taste and smell of tuna. Not sure why, and I'd prefer it if I didn't, but it's not up to me.
2. If I eat the grilled cheese, I'll probably enjoy it. It might be a little unhealthy, but I don't really care too much about that. If I eat the tuna sandwich, I'll suffer greatly, and probably vomit, and then have to clean up the vomit. I don't know any of the health implications.
3. I have every reason to eat the grilled cheese. If I am not exercising free will, I will definitely eat the grilled cheese. If I am exercising free will, who knows? I might get lucky and choose the grilled cheese, but if it's really free will I couldn't have been doing that because I wanted it or thought it was a good idea. Or I might get unlucky and choose the tuna.
The end result is that free will can only help in the following situation: If we think a choice is good, and are wrong. In all other situations, free will either ties or does worse than slavishly following our desires and predictions.
In other words, if I'm not a robot, I wish I was.
posted by Gideon Humphrey at 10:24 AM
6 Comments:
Only your third post and you're into free will? Wow. ;)
Heh, I think my 4th post will be about pornography. Not positive yet though.
Free will and predestination can co-exist.
With that said, I really don't understand why picking the tuna would have anything to do with free will - that argument really falls apart for me. Free will means you pick what you want! How it turns out is the mystery.
I think if you picked the tuna (for "no apparent reason")that would seem to point to an act of predestination rather than free will - ie. there was some reason at that moment in time that you HAD to pick the tuna, despite not wanting it.
Picking what you want because you want it is not free will, because what you want is not under your control.
True free will can go any which way, because it has neither desire nor predestination to constrain it.
Well, if that's the case, I can totally do without free will as long as I get what I want.
Yeah, me too. My point is, even if I don't end up getting what I want, I'm likely to do better without free will then I would with.
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