Legality doesn’t imply truth.

Let’s compare two scenarios: in one you program a robot to kill someone, in the other you program a robot to cut people’s hair but it has a horrible malfunction and kills someone. In which of those is scenarios is the robot exercising free will?

If you agree that humans are essentially no different from robots, then it follows that we can’t have free will regardless of what any court or law says.

>a random „if statement“

Then our world might be run by an AI

>But what’s free about that?

I'm sure there are other definitions, but I use something like free will is about "the ability to make voluntary actions in line with your desires free from external coercion/influence".

Free will is key in morality and justice, so I like to understand how the courts define and use it. Lets use a real life example of how the Supreme Court considers free will.

>It is a principle of fundamental justice that only voluntary conduct – behaviour that is the product of a free will and controlled body, unhindered by external constraints – should attract the penalty and stigma of criminal liability.
>
>https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1861/index.do

In the case of R. v. Ruzic

>The accused had been coerced by an individual in Colombia to smuggle cocaine into the United States. He was told that if he did not comply, his wife and child in Colombia would be harmed.

The Supreme Court found that he didn't smuggle the cocaine of his own free will. He didn't do it in line with his desires free from external coercion. Hence they were found innocent.

Compare that to the average case of smuggling where someone wants to make some money and isn't coerced into doing it. If they smuggle drugs then they did it of their own "free will" and would likely be found guilty.

So in one example the person had what the courts say is free will and not in the other.

​

>What’s the difference between you acting on your desires and a robot acting on its programming?

Well I would say a person is just a really complicated robot, so there isn't anything fundamentally different apart from complexity.

But what’s free about that? What’s the difference between you acting on your desires and a robot acting on its programming?

>Yeah dawg, western philosophers been agreeing this is all an illusion for almost two centuries now

You've got it backwards most philosophers most are outright compatibilists. Only a very tiny percent think it's an illusion.

>[https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/all)

>If all our decisions can be traced back to genetics, situational and nurture; aren’t those variables beyond our own control anyway?

You are your genetics and upbringing. There is no need for you to have control over what you are.

So free will is about being able to act in line with your desires. It isn't about having complete control of your desires.

I like that quote a lot. Ima use that

Each time you have to decide, you can leave it to A random (toss a coin) and you decided so. Or you can pick an option B or C, and you decided so. In both cases, the reasons you decided for A, B or C are dependant on the informations that you have about the choice you have to make. Those informations come from outside. Thus, there is no free will at all. If a computer knew exactly what value you give to each information you use to decide, it will be able to choose the exact same option you do.

Agreed that it’s kind of a mind fuck, and yes I’m using life and consciousness interchangeably here. reminds me of a song “death is only the end if you assume the story is about you”

What's the point in distinguishing what you call "unintelligent" robot and us? Difference is in its complexity and how exactly each of them work, and that's minutia. Neither of them can defy what it is or the laws of the universe, and exist only as the process of the larger mechanism. What you are gonna choose is already decided by things before and outside of you. And I think I've gave my answer to that question, even if it wasn't perfect. The line I draw is between the conscious thinking part/its experience, preferences, etc. and the rest, because that's the part that thinks, feels and talks in response to the universe/its subjective experiences. It doesn't have to be immaterial for it to know whether it experiences ridiculous drives as a result of the body it's a part of.

And you haven't given an answer to the simple question of "how would it feel to be the person in that state" and if you'd call that experience "freedom worth wanting" or whatever. Is it that hard to imagine?

What are you but a machine made to do pointless tasks until you are no more? Eat, sleep, think, talk, entertain, all so we can continue to maintain the existence of this silly process. And we can't even get out of bed unless we delude ourselves into thinking there's some value or point to this farce. We have the capability to examine our own nature of existence, and know if it's stupid or not.

If you decide to respond one last time, just answer the question. How would it feel to be in that state, and would you call that "exercise of freedom" or "freedom worth wanting."

For people who might (somehow) read this back and fourth, or in case you revisit this thread, I have a thought experiment for you. Suppose I knew how you would react to certain inputs, and said just the right things, so you would respond the way I want you to. You are still deciding what you write using your own knowledge, criteria, etc. And you aren't making the choice based on some imminent possibility of harm. I only chose words so you'd pick certain choices. Would you call this a free choice?

"Illusion" is such an annoying word. It carries so many connotations, many of them wrong in most contexts it's used in. Its meaning is anywhere between "false" and "real, but looks slightly different than it is".

To this day I still don't understand how proving "your thoughts have lag" is supposed to show anything about (not compatibilist, nor libertarian, but layman) free will, for or against.

> Experiencing free will is all free will is. It would be nothing if not experienced. A god-like figure dictating reality without perceiving itself as doing so wouldn’t have free will because it wouldn’t experience itself as such.

The experience is necessary, but not sufficient. A god-like figure who doesn’t think they have free will wouldn’t meaningfully have free will, but neither would a non-god who thinks they have free will, because they’d still have to actually have free will in order to have free will.

I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of demonstrations that thinking oneself admirable is not sufficient to actually be admirable. Free will isn’t qualitatively different from that.

> I’m not saying that because I feel like a can genuinely alter the state of affairs of the world that I must therefore have it. I’m saying that I can’t do that, and I know I can’t do that, but I experiemce free will, so I can conclude that free will isn’t altering the state of affairs of the world.

It seems like you’re still not really addressing my central point. You don’t experience free will, so you cannot conclude that.

A stereotypical schizophrenia patient doesn’t actually experience voices. They experience the illusion of voices.

“I have a certain perception, and I have named that concept, and therefore the thing I just named is actually equivalent to a different thing with that name” is not logically valid.

> You’re morally responsible because you have agency, not because you can genuinely choose what happens.

We are caused to act for all intents and purposes like people are morally responsible for things, because we have to, practically. But that doesn’t imply actual responsibility.

True. But my idea on freedom not simply banned by this - stays valid.

I see where you are coming from and find your premise to be mostly agreeable. I just don't see how calling it free will is helpful, when there is nothing free about it.

To follow up on your example, if I'm truly convinced that the decision to use the drug was the less desirable option, and I still used it anyway, that would imply that I felt forced by an outside source. I would not even view that as a choice that I made. What is more likely, though, is that using the drug was always my real desire, regardless of the stories that I tell myself to feel better about my own depravity. In this latter case, it's just a slightly trickier version of the free will illusion. This storyline, more often than not, comes off as textbook self-deception.

But let's say it's not self-deception, instead sticking with your original proposition. From my viewpoint - as the drug abuser - the illusion of free will was never present to begin with. I never felt like I had a choice to make, I just acted on pure impulse as a result of my addiction. I may still experience regret and feel responsibile for my inability to resist the urges, but it's not unheard of for people to take responsibility of an act that they never had any agency over to begin with. One morbid example of this is how rape victims often blame themselves for not acting otherwise, even though they fully know that their agency was severely diminished by uncontrollable circumstances.

In either case, there is no genuine free will to experience, but the latter case features the illusion of it, when as with the former, one just immediately admits that it was never there to begin with. So, why call it free will at all? If we must make a distinction between the two scenarios, we could use words like "will" or "desire" without pretending that freedom plays any part in it. My main problem with compatibilism has always been its potentiality to reinforce the layman concept of free will. I think it's more conducive to abolish the term entirely, and instead use new terminology when nuance is required. "Free will" carries far too much baggage.

Edit: I said I wouldn't get into this rabbit hole in the other comment chain, and yet here I am irresistibly at it again. That's fairly amusing, considering the subject at hand haha. Certainly hope my comment makes at least a bit of sense to you, after all that.

I know ;)

Because that's all that free will IS. I don't think we're going to get anywhere further here, it's too large of a conversion.

I'm not saying that because I feel like a can genuinely alter the state of affairs of the world that I must therefore have it. I'm saying that I can't do that, and I know I can't do that, but I experiemce free will, so I can conclude that free will isn't altering the state of affairs of the world. It's not that kind of phenomenon.

You're morally responsible because you have agency, not because you can genuinely choose what happens.

Please keep in mind our first commenting rule:

> Read the Post Before You Reply

> Read/listen/watch the posted content, understand and identify the philosophical arguments given, and respond to these substantively. If you have unrelated thoughts or don't wish to read the content, please post your own thread or simply refrain from commenting. Comments which are clearly not in direct response to the posted content may be removed.

This subreddit is not in the business of one-liners, tangential anecdotes, or dank memes. Expect comment threads that break our rules to be removed. Repeated or serious violations of the subreddit rules will result in a ban.

This is a shared account that is only used for notifications. Please do not reply, as your message will go unread.

We do know, because we know the difference between experiences of agency and lack of agency. This wouldn't be a topic of conversation otherwise. Why would we even be discussing this? Again, this is the point here. Experiencing free will is all free will is. It would be nothing if not experienced. A god-like figure dictating reality without perceiving itself as doing so wouldn't have free will because it wouldn't experience itself as such. It wouldn't care.

Experiencing free will is tantamount to having it. Anything else is some other unrelated concept.

If there was no point to anything then you wouldn't bother doing anything.

If ethical concepts were meaningless than we wouldn't care about them.

A determined reality would dictate that we wouldn't bother pretending to have free will if we didn't have it.

> Why wouldn’t you just kill someone for $5? You aren’t responsible anyway.

Lacking moral responsibility is not the same thing as believing or acting like you lack moral responsibility, nor is it the same thing as lack of practical consequences for things that happen.

> But you know that you are. How do you reconcile this?

I know that I feel like I am responsible for my actions and that we have to act for all intents and purposes like we are. That doesn’t mean that we are.

> You realize that free will is not constituted by going against laws of nature.

Why does feeling like you have free will require you to conclude that there is free will?

Your argument is built on several unstated assumptions that are not obviously correct.

> That’s the point, we know we do have free will.

No, we don’t know this.

> If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be able to function,

Why would not actually having free will mean we couldn’t function?

> there would be no point to anything,

Yes. And?

> and ethical concepts would be meaningless.

Yes. And?

If they can't be reconciled then there is no point to anything and no such thing as responsibility. Why wouldn't you just kill someone for $5? You aren't responsible anyway.

But you know that you are. How do you reconcile this? You realize that free will is not constituted by going against laws of nature.

Nah just because everything is an illusion doesn't mean my choices are predetermined. Reality doesn't have to be solid for me to choose chocolate instead of vanilla.

That's the same thing. And I don't think anybody is saying either of those things. That's the point, we know we do have free will. If we didn't, we wouldn't be able to function, there would be no point to anything, and ethical concepts would be meaningless. That's why it's a genuine philosophical problem. We know we have free will, but we also know the science appears to dictate causal determinism. How do we reconcile the 2? Harris wants to give a non-answer and just conclude that we don't have free will. He gives no explanation for how this makes sense or why this is a useful conception of free will. He's ignoring the heart of the problem.

If you keep your Willy free in the public, your will will not be free in the near future.