Dangerous Philosophy: The Illusion of Free Will

reply to post by Wang Tang


The subject of free will comes up frequently in the religious debates I have online and is one of the many many subjects over the years on which my viewpoint has completely shifted.

I now think that determinism is almost certainly right though free will has a little wiggle room left. Discoveries in neuroscience seem to suggest that the subconscious brain makes decisions before the brain even becomes consciously aware of the decision.

For many this issue raises the uncomfortable question of "How can we hold people accountable for their actions if they aren't actually in conscious control of them?" In my opinion however we just don't know enough about the brain and the conscious - subconscious relationship. Even if your subconscious is making a choice before you are consciously aware of it that is still your brain making the choice, so it is still, in essence, your choice.

So free will can still exist on the subconscious level, though ordinarily it is associated with the consciousness. There is also the question of whether or not the conscious mind can pick up the subconscious' minds decisions and talk the subconscious out of it. This would be useful to explain decisions that take longer to make and involve a lot more thought. If it's a big decision where you have to actually think of all the pros and cons is possible that your conscious and subconscious mind could war it out.

Here's an interesting lecture on the subject, a bit lengthy but worth it.

There is no freewill for the individual because 'individual' is merely a concept.

The will is free but it is not anyone's.

All is 'done' on earth as it is in heaven.

Krishnamurti on Free Will.

You can choose between blue cloth and red cloth, and that is about all. Your life is shaped, controlled by the society which you have created. You have created the wars, the leaders; you have created the organized religions of which you are now slaves. So your life is predetermined. And to be free, you must first be aware that your life is predetermined, that it is conditioned, that all your responses are more or less the same as those of everybody else throughout the world. Superficially your responses may be different; you may respond one way here, another way in India or in China, and so on, but fundamentally you are held in the framework of your particular conditioning, and you are never an individual. Therefore it is absurd to talk about freedom and self-determination. You can choose between blue cloth and red cloth, and that is about all; your freedom is on that level. If you go into it very deeply, you will find that you are not an individual at all. But in going into it very deeply, you will also find that you can be free from all this conditioning -as a German, as a Catholic, as a Hindu, as a believer or a nonbeliever. You can be free from it all. Then you will know what it is to have an innocent mind, and it is only such a mind that can find out what is truth.

Hamburg 1956,Talk 4

www.jkrishnamurti.org...

The red pill or the blue pill.

Wang Tang


Premise 2) In Many Worlds Theory there are multiple (possibly infinite) futures.

Conclusion 1) Since Many-Worlds Theory has multiple futures, based on Many Worlds Theory there can be no free will.

Premise 3) Many Worlds Theory is currently the most plausible explanation of quantum mechanics because it does not stray from the fundamental mathematical equations.

Premise 4) The mathematics of quantum mechanics has never failed experimentally.

Premise 5) Since the mathematics of quantum mechanics has never failed experimentally, this is the most appropriate theory to use in describing the true nature of reality.

Conclusion 2) The most plausible answer to the problem of free will is that there is no free will.

I will suggest another equally plausible answer.

Quantum Mechanics, as it has been framed over the last 80 years or so, has been logically proven to not be an accurate interpretation of the experimental data that survived what has become an extremely disciplined and deliberate selection process that eliminates nearly 80% of overall data indications that do not support very specific and narrowly defined experiment expectations.

There is a revolution that has erupted within the physics community concerning this very issue, and several recent books (and many articles and papers) have been published that have blown the lid off this controversy in spectacular fashion. This is just the latest in what's becoming a steady stream of increasingly aggressive attacks on modern physics by world class scientists and science writers. Lee Smolin probably the most eminent physicist to call "bullsh*t" on the basis of your hypothesis "Quantum Mechanics", and accuse the physics community of authoritarianism and ideologically-driven hypocrisy.

Things are getting ready to completely blow up within that branch of science, so you might want to keep your powder dry from a while. Especially concerning any attempts to build upon what is increasingly looking like swampland.

reply to post by Wang Tang


This also touches on the concept of Quantum Immortality. The concept that one always survives and lives on in another universe as there are an infinite number of universes there would be an infinite number of you that did not die at the point of your death in one of those universes.

I myself have experienced this...

I had a car crash where the car rolled three times... the car landed on it's wheels all sides of the car were crushed except where I was sat as the driver. I was unhurt apart from a very small cut on my hand.

I walked out of the crash completely fine.. when by all rights I should have been either seriously injured or have died as a result.

I might add that the accident did not involve anyone else and was my own stupid fault for not realizing the road conditions.

My survival got me thinking about how lucky I was and being a scientist in the field of quantum theory made the obvious jump that perhaps I didn't survive an infinite number of times but then there are an infinite number of me in an infinite number of universes. Therefore there was also an infinite number of me that did survive.

The only quantum mechanic that could bridge the universes is quantum entanglement and this then got me thinking about how do the universes know that they are different from the other universes?

It implies some interaction between the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

I also concur that free will is an illusion, but there is a mechanic that we do not understand controlling the direction of the decisions we appear to make. Somehow we make the decisions that our counter parts do not make and vis-versa...

So the question is what is the process by which our decisions are made and by what process do the other universes know to be different?

Peace,

Korg.

reply to post by DrunkYogi


Beautifully said. I think he would have agreed: the liminal mind is a free mind (a child's mind). We all begin our life as free then become for the most part enslaved.

KellyPrettyBear
reply to post by DrunkYogi

 

Beautifully said. I think he would have agreed: the liminal mind is a free mind (a child's mind). We all begin our life as free then become for the most part enslaved.

What is it that is enslaved though? As Krishnamurti says - there is no individual.

If you go into it very deeply, you will find that you are not an individual at all.

Wang Tang
reply to post by thruthseek3r

 

Ah yes this is valuable insight that you just presented because you know firsthand how dangerous this philosophy can truly be. What worries me is that it is the danger of believing in the illusion of free will, and not the truth of it, that seems to convince people to take the side of free will. This brings up the question: How valuable is the truth if it is more destructive than a lie? While this question applies to the problem of free will, it is a question that also applies in many other aspects of our lives that I think most people never come close to resolving.

Well, it does lead me to question the illusion of free will somewhat if the truth of not having free will would be destructive.

If we none of us actually have free will, if everything is all determined, then why should knowing this destroy anything or in any way alter behavior? And why would you worry about it becoming widely known?

If it's is meant to be, it will happen.

This again brings me back to our place in the universe. It very well may be a universe in which everything is already determined, but because of our natures and our places in it. We are anchored and do not perceive ourselves to be in that kind of reality. We only see and perceive what's around us.

Until we can break out of this anchored existence, we might as well not be living in a predetermined world because everything we sense tells us otherwise. And if you could somehow convince people of the truth you mention, it would be destructive because many would stop trying believing that nothing would matter and that there would be no point, not realizing that for all that it may be truth, it really means very little overall.

Itisnowagain

KellyPrettyBear
reply to post by DrunkYogi

 

Beautifully said. I think he would have agreed: the liminal mind is a free mind (a child's mind). We all begin our life as free then become for the most part enslaved.

What is it that is enslaved though? As Krishnamurti says - there is no individual.

If you go into it very deeply, you will find that you are not an individual at all.

edit on 5-12-2013 by Itisnowagain because: (no reason given)

Because people believe they are the Ego they become enslaved. The Ego being based on past memories and future projections is conditioned. We are more than Ego and at some level all are one, therefore if you go into it deeply you are not an individual at all.

reply to post by DrunkYogi


We are all part if a dynamic process. We think we are particles but in fact we are part of a wave. To use a metaphor.

KellyPrettyBear
reply to post by DrunkYogi

 

We are all part if a dynamic process. We think we are particles but in fact we are part of a wave. To use a metaphor.

Quite right KPB. The particle can become many thing's in a material Universe. I think you mentioned in an earlier thread you could become a Demonic like Soul or a Holy Soul. As long as you feel separate as the particle, no matter how high and mighty you may feel, you are still the particle. Until we become the wave we are in Illusion. Maya.

reply to post by DrunkYogi


Very true.

Now the unsettling thing at first is to be so formless..because the wave will assume any form you think it to already be.

It takes time to realize and become comfortable with the fact that to choose ANY FORM as the 'ultimately real one' is an error.

KellyPrettyBear
reply to post by DrunkYogi

 

Very true.

Now the unsettling thing at first is to be so formless..because the wave will assume any form you think it to already be.

It takes time to realize and become comfortable with the fact that to choose ANY FORM as the 'ultimately real one' is an error.

Yes KPB. When i hear this sort of thing it causes a little shiver in me because my Ego still wants to BE THE MAN...lol. But there is somewhere deep down inside that realizes that this is the truth. There is no other truth. I could say i try hard to to make it be rather than just understand it intellectually, but i don't, simply because trying to be something implies time. It implies time and "someone" trying to travel through time to get to a destination that you have already arrived at. So i just let it be with love in my heart.

reply to post by DrunkYogi


Just stop describing your inner self.

That's it.

The secret of the ages.

This is why people abused deeply can sometimes appear 'enlightened'. Once you become a human punching bag the last possible defense is to stop describing yourself (then you stop existing).

Its that simple.

Why the holy men throughout the ages have turned something so basic into gibberish I can't fathom.

KellyPrettyBear
reply to post by DrunkYogi

 

Just stop describing your inner self.

That's it.

The secret of the ages.

This is why people abused deeply can sometimes appear 'enlightened'. Once you become a human punching bag the last possible defense is to stop describing yourself (then you stop existing).

Its that simple.

Why the holy men throughout the ages have turned something so basic into gibberish I can't fathom.

Cheers KPB.

reply to post by Wang Tang


Nice post. It's good to see philosophical arguments in the philosophy section of the website.


There is no free or unfree will. There are only strong and weak wills.

NiNjABackflip
There is no free or unfree will. There are only strong and weak wills.

You reminded me of a quote from the Harry Potter franchise:

"There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it…" (Link)

Interesting philosophical implications when you deeply consider that quote.

Wang Tang
reply to post by thruthseek3r

 

Ah yes this is valuable insight that you just presented because you know firsthand how dangerous this philosophy can truly be. What worries me is that it is the danger of believing in the illusion of free will, and not the truth of it, that seems to convince people to take the side of free will. This brings up the question: How valuable is the truth if it is more destructive than a lie? While this question applies to the problem of free will, it is a question that also applies in many other aspects of our lives that I think most people never come close to resolving.

Well, I understand you mean that someone can wreak havoc using free will as well as doing miracles. In this case, I consider it only a matter of perception because you seem to be focusing on the negative possibility/consequences of free will.

Concerning the truth, yes truth can be destructive, but it could be something constructive as well and sometimes, destruction is necessary to start building upon a new footing isn't it ? It is all a matter of perception in my opinion.

If you think more people never come close o resolving their issue it is a negative thought pattern. I understand the fact that some things happening around you might seem bad, but positive thinking combined with a strong will and persistence can do wonders if you do not already know.



Thruthseek3r

Dark Ghost

NiNjABackflip
There is no free or unfree will. There are only strong and weak wills.

You reminded me of a quote from the Harry Potter franchise:

"There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it…" (Link)

Interesting philosophical implications when you deeply consider that quote.

edit on 6/12/2013 by Dark Ghost because: (no reason given)

These are quotes from the book of the law by Aleister Crowley:

Chapter 1

40. Who calls us Thelemites will do no wrong, if he look but close into the word. For there are therein Three Grades, the Hermit, and the Lover, and the man of Earth. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.


Chapter 2

21. We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world. Think not, o king, upon that lie: That Thou Must Die: verily thou shalt not die, but live. Now let it be understood: If the body of the King dissolve, he shall remain in pure ecstasy for ever. Nuit! Hadit! Ra-Hoor-Khuit! The Sun, Strength & Sight, Light; these are for the servants of the Star & the Snake.

Source

It is right from his book, the book of the law which he did and is link to his ceremonial magick system called Thelema.


In resume, Harry Potter talking about magick has some kind of link, indirectly of course with Aleister Crowley motto: "Do as though wilt, that should be the whole of the law."




Thruthseek3r

I don't understand the premise that a single future is the only possible conclusion of having free will. Nothing about the two ideas seems mutually exclusive, nor does one universe being more 'important' than any other seem to have any bearing on the concept either. Would care to elaborate on your actual reasoning, I just see a lot of claims and allusions to quantum mechanics, but no actual support for your argument.

For example, regardless of the context of the decision that other universes "you" what bearing does their own decisions have on your own
perhaps there is a sense of harmony between the you in this universe and the you in other universes, however i still dont see any connection to the basal framework of youyous decision making process.