free will

Day 2882, free will 2.

Daily picture, My thoughts

Yesterday I wrote about free will and that we don’t have it. Now, I have very few visitors who read my blog, but there are always a handful of people who do and even like it. Yesterday was the first time in 2881 days that no one liked what I had written. It is understandable, even amongst people who study us people professionally or in their free time, and even philosophers are, on the whole, defenders of some sort of free will.  Almost everybody among these thinkers knows that we are determined by where we grow up and that minor damages in the brain we have, but most of them don’t want to go all the way and call in the help of some kind of mysterious force that is not connected to our material body but can act separate from that. It is like what believers in God do when they say that God is responsible when the scientists say that they don’t know what caused, for instance, the Big Bang. It is called the God of the gaps, and that is what most people do when there is uncertainty about what the last cause is of our behavior. 

Some quotes from people who have written about our lack of free will. 

Those with free will, a wonderful illusion whereby the human being has made himself into a higher being; the highest nobility, noticeable in good as in bad. Yet already bestial. Anyone who raises himself above it, raises himself above the animal and becomes a conscious plant. The act of free will would be the miracle, the break in the chain of nature. Humans would be miracle-doers. The consciousness of a motive brings deception along with it-the intellect {is} the primeval and sole liar. Friedrich Nietzsche in The Will To Power

Take a moment to think about the context in which your next decision will occur: You did not pick your parents or the time and place of your birth. You didn’t choose your gender or most of your life experiences. You had no control whatsoever over your genome or the development of your brain. And now your brain is making choices on the basis of preferences and beliefs that have been hammered into it over a lifetime – by your genes, your physical development since the moment you were conceived, and the interactions you have had with other people, events, and ideas. Where is the freedom in this? Yes, you are free to do what you want even now. But where did your desires come from? Sam Harris in Free Will

In order to prove there’s free will, you have to show that some behavior just happened out of thin air in the sense of considering all these biological precursors. It may be possible to sidestep that with some subtle philosophical arguments, but you can’t with anything known to science. Robert M. Sapolsky in Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. In Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

Man’s life is a line that nature commands him to describe upon the surface of the earth, without his ever being able to swerve from it, even for an instant. He is born without his own consent; his organization does in nowise depend upon himself; his ideas come to him involuntarily; his habits are in the power of those who cause him to contract them; he is unceasingly modified by causes, whether visible or concealed, over which he has no control, which necessarily regulate his mode of existence, give the hue to his way of thinking, and determine his manner of acting. He is good or bad, happy or miserable, wise or foolish, reasonable or irrational, without his will being for any thing in these various states. Baron d’Holbach

Not only are there meaningless questions, but many of the problems with which the human intellect has tortured itself turn out to be only ‘pseudo problems,’ because they can be formulated only in terms of questions which are meaningless. Many of the traditional problems of philosophy, of religion, or of ethics, are of this character. Consider, for example, the problem of the freedom of the will. You maintain that you are free to take either the right- or the left-hand fork in the road. I defy you to set up a single objective criterion by which you can prove after you have made the turn that you might have made the other. The problem has no meaning in the sphere of objective activity; it only relates to my personal subjective feelings while making the decision. Percy Williams Bridgman, The Nature of Physical Theory

Which do you think is more valuable to humanity?
a. Finding ways to tell humans that they have free will despite the incontrovertible fact that their actions are completely dictated by the laws of physics as instantiated in our bodies, brains and environments? That is, engaging in the honored philosophical practice of showing that our notion of “free will” can be compatible with determinism?
or
b. Telling people, based on our scientific knowledge of physics, neurology, and behavior, that our actions are predetermined rather than dictated by some ghost in our brains, and then sussing out the consequences of that conclusion and applying them to society?
Of course my answer is b). Jerry A. Coyne

People erroneously jump to the conclusions that if I want to press it, I choose to want to. This is of course false. I don’t choose my desires. I only feel them, and act accordingly. Yuval Noah Harari in Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow

Our flesh shrinks from what it dreads and responds to the stimulus of what it desires by a purely reflex action of the nervous system. Our eyelid closes before we are aware that the fly is about to enter our eye.  James Joyce in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

The conviction that a law of necessity governs human activities introduces into our conception of man and life a mildness, a reverence and an excellence, such as would be unattainable without this conviction. Albert Einstein

Day 2881, will.

Daily picture, My thoughts

Free will.

The evidence that we don’t have free will is overwhelming but also hard to believe. But maybe you can imagine a world where we don’t blame each other for our behavior but at most contain people that are dangerous to others like someone with a contagious disease. 

Just look into yourself. Have you ever chosen in the past to be the person you are now? Did you choose to eat too much chocolate or have a short temper? Did you decide not to understand math or be good at playing the piano? There is nothing in our life we actively choose to be (good or bad at), and even if you learned a new trade, you didn’t choose to have the perseverance and drive to learn it. 

We are born in a body with its own limits and possibilities in a family and country that further restricts us or gives us chances to grow.  The circumstances of your life form you as well as restrict you, and most of us know that but where is the fun of receiving praise for your achievements if you know that it comes naturally. We all feel something when we get compliments for our beautiful eyes because we did so much to get them that way.  

Day 2615, Voltaire on free will.

Daily picture, Quotes

Free Will

Voltaire

Ever since men have reasoned, the philosophers have obscured this matter: but
the theologians have rendered it unintelligible by absurd subtleties about grace.
Locke is perhaps the first man to find a thread in this labyrinth; for he is the first
who, without having the arrogance of trusting in setting out from a general
principle, examined human nature by analysis. For three thousand years people
have disputed whether or no the will is free. In the “Essay on the Human
Understanding,” chapter on “Power,” Locke shows first of all that the question is
absurd, and that liberty can no more belong to the will than can colour and
movement.
What is the meaning of this phrase “to be free”? it means “to be able,” or assuredly
it has no sense. For the will ”to be able ” is as ridiculous at bottom as to say that
the will is yellow or blue, round or square. To will is to wish, and to be free is to
be able. Let us note step by step the chain of what passes in us, without
obfuscating our minds by any terms of the schools or any antecedent principle.
It is proposed to you that you mount a horse, you must absolutely make a choice,
for it is quite clear that you either will go or that you will not go. There is no
middle way. It is therefore of absolute necessity that you wish yes or no. Up to
there it is demonstrated that the will is not free. You wish to mount the horse;
why? The reason, an ignoramus will say, is because I wish it. This answer is
idiotic, nothing happens or can happen without a reason, a cause; there is one
therefore for your wish. What is it? the agreeable idea of going on horseback
which presents itself in your brain, the dominant idea, the determinant idea. But,
you will say, can I not resist an idea which dominates me? No, for what would be
the cause of your resistance? None. By your will you can obey only an idea which
will dominate you more.
Now you receive all your ideas; therefore you receive your wish, you wish
therefore necessarily. The word “liberty” does not therefore belong in any way to
your will…

Read the rest here: https://vdocuments.mx/voltaire-free-will.html

 

 

Day 686, The death penalty and Nietzsche.

Day's pictures, Society

Day 686-1

70 Execution. – How is it that every execution offends us more than a murder? It is the coldness of the judges, the scrupulous preparation, the insight that here a human being is being used as a means of deterring others. For it is not the guilt that is being punished, even when it exists: this lies in educators, parents, environment, in Is, not in the murderer – I mean the circumstances that caused him to become one.

This is an aphorism from Friedrich Nietzsche from his book Human all too human. I agree with him, executing someone is wrong, I see it like playing god, or pretending to know what we are and judge others according to your believe. As far as I know we are all clueless on why we are here. If you accept that than it should be obvious that you cannot decide to remove someone from this life. I know that the people that are condemned to be executed have often taken lives and should be restrained from doing that again, but it speaks for a society that condemns executions, that they admit that we are all in it together and that life is secret. Most countries that still have a death penalty are religious or have a strong ideological government like in China. These countries follow strict written rules that define the world like the rules you find in the bible or Koran or within a rigid ideology like communism. For people that follow these rules (maybe because their society tells them to) it’s much easier to ignore their guilty conscious and point at the specific chapter in their rule-books for confirmation, they can hide behind there believe without taking personal responsibility for their moral choices. Having a believe on a personal level might not be a choice, but a society can steer away from archaic believe systems.

But more important than Nietzsche opposition to the death penalty is his questioning of a personal responsibility for our actions. That is of course a topic he writes about in many places and this aphorism is just a little prick, to let the reader no what is important to him. Simply set: do we have an independent soul that is responsible for our actions or are we just a complicated machine that gives different outcomes depending on what you put in to it. Is the character you have at birth, your upbringing, environment, schooling, and other experiences define you in such a way that you don’t have much of a choice in what you become?

You can come up with all kinds of scenarios where people get chances or not, are born at the wrong time, at the wrong place, you can make it as complicated as you want but my best guess is that there is only a small part of you that is so unique (because of all the specific circumstances in your life) that you can call it you. But this you is like a person on a rudderless oil tanker drifting at sea and the only thing you can steer this 300ft ship with is an paddle.

18.Fundamental questions of metaphysics

Human all too human

Reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s Human all too human

Read the introduction here

You can read the aphorism I discuss here in English an German below the main article.

Synopsis, quote from the translation by Helen Zimmern and my take on it.

The history of thoughts will contain a statement by a famous logician1 and it will be seen in new light: “The primordial general law of the cognizant knowing subject consists in the inner necessity of recognizing every object in itself in its own nature, as a thing identical with itself, consequently self-existing and at bottom remaining ever the same and unchangeable: in short, in recognizing everything as a substance.” Everything that thinks needs to see the others whole, not changing, its identity from itself.  Even this law came from somewhere and one day it will be shown how in lower organisms this came to be. These organisms see first one thing and then they see more but only with one quality at a time or one relation to it. Our ancestors see only one, stand alone, quality at a time The first step in logic is the judgment, the nature of which, according to the decision of the best logicians, consists in belief. At the bottom of all belief lies the sensation of the pleasant or the painful in relation to the sentient subject. In logic you first have judgment which comes from belief which comes from pleasant or painful sensations. We organic beings have originally no interest in anything but its relation to us in connection with pleasure and pain. We are interested in the feelings our interactions with others bring, we are not interested in the other.  Between moments we have a feeling and notice this, lie moments of rest, of non-feeling; the world and everything is then without interest for us, we notice no change in it (as even now a deeply interested person does not notice when any one passes him). When we have a feeling, and are aware of it, all other inputs are blocked. From the period of the lower organism’s man has inherited the belief that similar things exist (this theory is only contradicted by the matured experience of the most advanced science). Humans inherited from lower beings the belief that similar things exist2. The primordial belief of everything organic from the beginning is perhaps even this, that all the rest of the world is one and immovable. From the believe in similar thing stems the believe that the world is one and never changing. The point furthest removed from those early beginnings of logic is the idea of Causality, In those early days of logical thinking there was no notion of causality3. indeed we still really think that all sensations and activities are acts of the free will4 Our idea of a free will comes from those early “logical” days. when the sentient individual contemplates himself, he regards every sensation, every alteration as something isolated, that is to say, unconditioned and disconnected,—it rises up in us without connection with anything foregoing or following. If we think about ourselves, we look at everything that happens to us as something that stands on its own. Therefore, belief in the freedom of the will is an original error of everything organic, as old as the existence of the awakenings of logic in it Without a notion of causality, the sensations we have stands on their own, and feel to originate from themselves. Our thoughts and actions can be seen as originating from ourselves instead of being caused by something else. But inasmuch as all metaphysics has concerned itself chiefly with substance and the freedom of will, it may be designated as the science which treats of the fundamental errors of mankind, but treats of them as if they were fundamental truths.

In one sentence:

From the beginning we thought “in boxes” and our free will saw no causes.

1Note from the Dutch translation point’s to the Russian philosopher Afrikan Spir, Denken und wirklichkeit, p177 “So sehr hat sich dem menschlichen Bewusstsein der Gedanke unbedingter, von dem Subjecte unabhängig existirender Gegenstände eingeprägt, dass der Begriff des Objects überhaupt mit dem des Unbedingten geradezu als identificirt oder verschmolzen erscheint. Nicht allein gewöhnlichen Leuten, sondern selbst philosophischen Männern ist dieser Begriff des Objects .am geläufigsten. Das lehrt uns die Geschichte der Philosophie. Das Bewusstsein, dass die Objecte des Erkennens von diesem letzteren selbst abhängig sind“ (Read more)

2 “gleiche Dinge“ or same things. The belief that there are same things, my take on that is that for example a spider with a red cross wil bring a similar reaction as the next spider with a red cross even if there are small differences. Our ancestors believed in similar thing, otherwise it would be to dangerous if they examine every spider with a red cross they encounter.

3“Causality (also referred to as causation,[1] or cause and effect) is the natural or worldly agency or efficacy that connects one process (the cause) with another process or state (the effect), where the first is partly responsible for the second, and the second is partly dependent on the first. In general, a process has many causes, which are said to be causal factors for it, and all lie in its past. An effect can in turn be a cause of, or causal factor for, many other effects, which all lie in its future. Causality is metaphysically prior to notions of time and space.” (Read more)

4 Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. (Read more)

Human, all too human a book for free spirits Part I translated by Helen Zimmern 1909

  1. FUNDAMENTAL QUESTIONS OF METAPHYSICS.—When the history of the rise of thought comes to be written, a new light will be thrown on the following statement of a distinguished logician :— “The primordial general law of the cognisant subject consists in the inner necessity of recognising every object in itself in its own nature, as a thing identical with itself, consequently self-existing and at bottom remaining ever the same and unchangeable : in short, in recognising everything as a substance.” Even this law, which is here called ” primordial,” has evolved: it will some day be shown how gradually this tendency arises in the lower organisms, how the feeble mole-eyes of their organisations at first see only the same thing,—how then, when the various awakenings of pleasure and displeasure become noticeable, various substances are gradually distinguished, but each with one attribute, i.e. one single relation to such an organism. The first step in logic is the judgment,—the nature of which, according to the decision of the best logicians, consists in belief. At the bottom of all belief lies the sensation of the pleasant or the painful in relation to the sentient subject. A new third sensation as the result of two previous single sensations is the judgment in its simplest form. We organic beings have originally no interest in anything but its relation to us in connection with pleasure and pain. Between the moments (the states of feeling) when we become conscious of this connection, lie moments of rest, of non-feeling ; the world and everything is then without interest for us, we notice no change in it (as even now a deeply interested person does not notice when any one passes him). To the plant, things are as a rule tranquil and eternal, everything like itself. From the period of the lower organisms man has inherited the belief that similar things exist (this theory is only contradicted by the matured experience of the most advanced science). The primordial belief of everything organic from the beginning is perhaps even this, that all the rest of the world is one and immovable. The point furthest removed from those early beginnings of logic is the idea of Causality,—indeed we still really think that all sensations and activities are acts of the free will ; when the sentient individual contemplates himself, he regards every sensation, every alteration as something isolated, that is to say, unconditioned and disconnected,—it rises up in us without connection with anything foregoing or following. We are hungry, but do not originally think that the organism must be nourished ; the feeling seems to make itself felt without cause and purpose, it isolates itself and regards itself as arbitrary. Therefore, belief in the freedom of the will is an original error of everything organic, as old as the existence of the awakenings of logic in it ; the belief in unconditioned substances and similar things is equally a primordial as well as an old error of everything organic. But inasmuch as all metaphysics has concerned itself chiefly with substance and the freedom of will, it may be designated as the science which treats of the fundamental errors of mankind, but treats of them as if they were fundamental truths.

Menschliches allzu menschlich 1878/80

  1. Grundfragen der Metaphysik. – Wenn einmal die Entstehungsgeschichte des denkens geschrieben ist, so wird auch der folgende Satz eines ausgezeichneten Logikers von einem neuen Lichte erhellt dastehen: “Das ursprüngliche allgemeine Gesetz des erkennenden Subjects besteht in der inneren Nothwendigkeit, jeden Gegenstand an sich, in seinem eigenen Wesen als einen mit sich selbst identischen, also selbstexistirenden und im Grunde stets gleichbleibenden und unwandelbaren, kurz als eine Substanz zu erkennen.” Auch dieses Gesetz, welches hier “ursprünglich” genannt wird, ist geworden: es wird einmal gezeigt werden, wie allmählich, in den niederen Organismen, dieser Hang entsteht, wie die blöden Maulwurfsaugen dieser Organisationen zuerst Nichts als immer das Gleiche sehen, wie dann, wenn die verschiedenen Erregungen von Lust und Unlust bemerkbarer werden, allmählich verschiedene Substanzen unterschieden werden, aber jede mit Einem Attribut, das heisst einer einzigen Beziehung zu einem solchen Organismus. – Die erste Stufe des Logischen ist das Urtheil; dessen Wesen besteht, nach der Feststellung der besten Logiker, im Glauben. Allem Glauben zu Grunde liegt die Empfindung des Angenehmen oder Schmerzhaften in Bezug auf das empfindende Subject. Eine neue dritte Empfindung als Resultat zweier vorangegangenen einzelnen Empfindungen ist das Urtheil in seiner niedrigsten Form. – Uns organische Wesen interessirt ursprünglich Nichts an jedem Dinge, als sein Verhältniss zu uns in Bezug auf Lust und Schmerz. Zwischen den Momenten, in welchen wir uns dieser Beziehung bewusst werden, den Zuständen des Empfindens, liegen solche der Ruhe, des Nichtempfindens: da ist die Welt und jedes Ding für uns interesselos, wir bemerken keine Veränderung an ihm (wie jetzt noch ein heftig Interessirter nicht merkt, dass jemand an ihm vorbeigeht). Für die Pflanze sind gewöhnlich alle Dinge ruhig, ewig, jedes Ding sich selbst gleich. Aus der Periode der niederen Organismen her ist dem Menschen der Glaube vererbt, dass es gleiche Dinge giebt (erst die durch höchste Wissenschaft ausgebildete Erfahrung widerspricht diesem Satze). Der Urglaube alles Organischen von Anfang an ist vielleicht sogar, dass die ganze übrige Welt Eins und unbewegt ist. – Am fernsten liegt für jene Urstufe des Logischen der Gedanke an Causalität: ja jetzt noch meinen wir im Grunde, alle Empfindungen und Handlungen seien Acte des freien Willens; wenn das fühlende Individuum sich selbst betrachtet, so hält es jede Empfindung, jede Veränderung für etwas Isolirtes, das heisst Unbedingtes, Zusammenhangloses: es taucht aus uns auf, ohne Verbindung mit Früherem oder Späterem. Wir haben Hunger, aber meinen ursprünglich nicht, dass der Organismus erhalten werden will, sondern jenes Gefühl scheint sich ohne Grund und Zweck geltend zu machen, es isolirt sich und hält sich für willkürlich. Also: der Glaube an die Freiheit des Willens ist ein ursprünglicher Irrthum alles Organischen, so alt, als die Regungen des Logischen in ihm existiren; der Glaube an unbedingte Substanzen und an gleiche Dinge ist ebenfalls ein ursprünglicher, ebenso alter Irrthum alles Organischen. Insofern aber alle Metaphysik sich vornehmlich mit Substanz und Freiheit des Willens abgegeben hat, so darf man sie als die Wissenschaft bezeichnen, welche von den Grundirrthümern des Menschen handelt, doch so, als wären es Grundwahrheiten.

Sources:

I will read a Dutch translation that is based on the work of researchers Colli and Montinari. I also use a translation from R.J.Hollingdale and the Gary Handwerk translation from the Colli-Montinari edition. Both are more modern than the copyright free translation I use here. This is a translation from 1909 by Helen Zimmern, who knew Nietzsche personally, but there was no critical study of Nietzsche’s work done back then and this translation suffers from that. The same goes for the translation from Alexander Harvey. My German is not good enough to pretend that I can translate it better than the professionals do but I will use the original as a referee.

  1. Menselijk al te menselijk een boek voor vrije geesten, translated by Thomas Graftdijk, 2000. Buy it here
  2. Human, all too human a book for free spirits, translated by R.J.Hollingdale, 1986
  3. Human, all too human a book for free spirits I V3, translated by Gary handwerk 1997
  4. Human, all too human a book for free spirits Part I, translated by Helen Zimmern 1909. Read it  here
  5. Human, all too human a book for free spirits, translated by Alexander Harvey, 1908. Read it here
  6. Menschliches allzu menschlich 1878/80. Read it here