There Is No Such Thing As Free Will

in #philosophy7 years ago

For the greater part of human history, humans have come to believe that their actions meant something. It was vital to aspire to something greater than ourselves. Having a sense of control in a world that seemed chaotic was rather a necessity for social cohesion and meaningful existence. Nonetheless, If we examine free will from a rational point of view we would soon be realizing that it is nothing but an unsupported assumption — mostly based on emotion rather than critical thinking.

Part of the reason the belief for free evolved was our teleological perception about the world. We believed that we were are the center of it all and that some higher power breathed life to everything around us, for us. We assumed through early religion and philosophy that we had all the power in our hands. Moreover, this belief in free-will ensured responsibility and helped in the development of communal ethos. If people were indeed responsible for their actions, society would benefit by having a solid moral strata. It made sense from a functional point of view and this is the main reason it became fused in such an extent in both politics and religion.

Little did our ancestors know about what makes a human, human. We know today that about bodies are largely influenced by the actions of bacteria, neurotransmitters and hormonal imbalances. Those can be random at times due to the complexity of human physiology. 1 in 10 human cells in our bodies are bacterial. Food affects largely our state of mind.

Perhaps the best argument against the assumption of free will is our culture itself. We are all by-products of both our random ancestral DNA as well as the constant behavior of our family and friends. Just to demonstrate how sensitive the balances are, a recent study demonstrated that a hot cup of beverage can influence massively our perception. Now imagine how all these trillions of daily "hot cup events" add up in the largest scheme of thing. One soon realizes that we are nothing but post-hoc reactive beings.


Recent advances in neurobiology have demonstrated that the microbes in our stomach can affect our mood. Many other studies have also demonstrated similar effects — such as how people with depression have different microbial flora that healthy individuals.

Defenders of free will, would still support then even after all these evidence, humans can have control over their direct actions. This is nothing but an illusion though. Let's take for example a heist. If we are running away from a group of people with guns. (with each carefully placed in different places across the city) our free-will will be influenced. Our running path would be different than the one we would have originally planned. Even if after we would have escaped, we would end end up in a specific place that was not our intention. Asserting that our thereafter decisions are a product of free will is rather pointless. All the events that happened before demonstrate that any current perception of free-will is a self inflicted delusion. Much like the armed individuals, nature guides us in many ways into specific behavioral patterns.


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Although early thinkers had their doubts about free will, cause and effect as a by-product of evolution eroded the belief. If we are indeed by-products of a line of inheritance then how much freedom do we really have in our choices? Even if the assumption in favor of (some) free will can be made, how one can objectively measure in it?

There is absolutely no doubt that the firing of neurons determines not just some or most but all of our thoughts, memories, and dreams. More so, everything takes place in our synapses 7 seconds before we even come to realize that these thoughts exist. During the 1980's the physiologist Benjamin Libet demonstrated that the conscious experience of deciding to act (the epitome of free will) is rather a post hoc reconstruction of a series of events that occurs after the brain has already set the act in motion.

If one favors of free will, then one should also reject the effects of medicine. If we indeed are in control of our bodies and mood then neither drugs or medication should be able to alter our state of mind. Additionally, changes in our brain structure such as tumors or other trauma can cause dramatic personality changes (e.g someone can become a pedophile).


At the end of the day the belief in free will only exists because people wish to believe that we ought to be accountable for our actions. It is a moral imperative not a by-product of critical thinking. Rationally and scientifically, the truth is rather uncomfortable. If people stop believing that they are free agents, they detach themselves from their actions. Free will does not and cannot exist. Belief in free will on other hand is very much real and a necessity for most people in order to be able to go on.





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This article is a bit out of my comfort swine as I do not often contemplate if I have any degree of control over my life. For that, I want to thank you for writing this post. I find it interesting that we have some many cases where our bodies or the environment we are in choose out actions for us, each acting on an individual part of the body at a single moment in time. Thanks again for sharing.

it is physically impossible to have free will in a universe that everything is bound to everything else.

As far as I know, the question if we live in a deterministic universe is still wide open. Still, even if things are not deterministic, randomness doesn't necessarily mean free will.

Thank you, I appreciate it especially coming from you.

And I enjoy though out posts, that's why I'm reading ;)

comment so well spoken I had to follow

Thank you! That's very nice of you to say.

Did you freely come to that conclusion? Or is it just what your brain tells you and you can't help it? Either way, you end up refuting yourself. Checkmate...

I think we all wished it was as simple as that, but unfortunately that's no checkmate at all...

Good thought provoking post. Up voted
I will not go to deep into my opinions on this but I do think Free Will is a social construct. As soon as man started to speak we started to create a lot of them! Free Will could be choice(everyday common sense of our actions) or to others it can be an illusion (It's non existing)
Great topic :0)

Thanks for your explanation. I was lost a bit about the post. Tickling time bomb, i must die now. Free will is a choice from whatever dna you have come from,you have the ability to reject that you may think can harm you. Addiction is another broader topic minus free will,enlightenment it is.

indeed. we made free will up so we could hold together our civilization.

Yeh great post! I've often wondered how can courts decide if someone is guilty of a crime when they are not really in control of what they do ultimately. But like you say the whole system would break down if we didn't believe we had free will. It would get mega complicated!

It certainly does have big implications on society.

I am not saying that people shouldn't be punished even if we don't believe in free will, but it can frame the way the courts look at 'punishment.' For instance, if we don't have free will, then we should make sentencing actually about reforming someone rather than putting them somewhere that makes them worse. Also, I don't want to make the mistake of ignoring the environmental part of what drove somebody into crime. If you live in the hood and are put in an environment that doesn't have a lot of options, you may be more likely to act in an undesirable way. The implication here is that if we want society to improve, it is not only about reforming the way we sentence people but also we have to create equal opportunity.

FREE WILL by Sam Harris was a really good read. Id recommend it to everyone. I actually went to one of his debates at CalTech and got a signed copy.

^^JUST UPVOTED^^... KEEP IT UP

You've touched on a subject I've wondered about for a while (but lack anyone to have a logical discussion about it with).

A few years ago I read about a bacteria/bacterium? that mice pick up from cat feces that caused the mice to be attracted to the smell of cat urine.

No joke.

That made me wonder, after hearing that 93% of the DNA in our bodies is bacterial (a different statistic, but similar enough to your " 1 in 10 human cells in our bodies are bacterial" statistic to jibe) how much of human activity is being driven by the bacteria in our bodies?

Are today's adrenaline junkies really just expressing what their bacteria are instructing them to do?

:) most people are afraid to be confronted with the possibilities. tough questions.

Then I'll just give you a ;-) and we'll keep it to ourselves.

It's impossible for a human cell to be bacterial. You have your statistic wrong. The statistic is there are 10 bacterial cells for every 1 human cell-- 10:1 ratio.

If that interests you, I recommend looking into gut health in general.

There is a lot of new evidence coming out that suggests that the bacterial makeup in our gut has a huge influence on the production of serotonin and some other hormone that influences our levels of happiness. I think the gut produces 90% of your bodies serotonin levels. I would recheck that stat but it definitely has a huge influence on your body and mood.

I used to ferment vegetables in order to introduce a diverse group of healthy bacteria to my gut. From my understanding, when you ferment them on your own, the bacteria created are as good as the highest quality probiotics on the market.

Thanks for the reply.

Actually, there are more healthy bacteria in home fermented foods than in commercially made.

http://articles.mercola.com/fermented-foods.aspx

it is physically impossible to have free will in a universe that everything is bound to everything else.

That sums it up. Great article and argument. I couldn't agree more.

In the grand scheme of things there is no free will. You cannot do something that defies the "laws" of nature e.g I cannot decide to jump off a building and expect to float in mid air just because I want to.

great example :)

This is not an example of lack of free will. You can decide to jump off a building and expect to float in mid air. Whether it actually happens according to your expectations is a different matter.

Actually what this example shows is that there are limitations to what anyone can do. It's probably more accurate to talk about degrees of freedom instead of free will or lack there of in absolute terms.

Freewill doesn't mean unlimited power. There's a word for unlimited power which is called "omnipotence." Freewill simply refers to a person's ability to choose between the available options. Crying over the options that are not available to you is not gonna remove your ability and power or free will to choose between the options that are available to you! :]

Any freedom in the physical world is always regarded in the sense of degrees of freedom. If by free will you mean an absolutely disconnected omnipotence, then stating the non-existence of such a concept of free will becomes a trivial and almost meaningless exercise. In any interacting system, the constituent degrees of freedom are constrained by each other through interactions. But to be constrained is not equivalent to be determined. I believe this to be the key issue to any meaningful discussion around the concept of free will.

Stimulus > Response beings. That's it in a nutshell. Humans have mastered the art of developing more and more elaborate mating rituals.
To quote Dr. Robert Ford the character in the HBO series Westworld:

I read a theory once that the human intellect was like peacock feathers. Just an extravagant display intended to attract a mate. All of art, literature, a bit of Mozart, William Shakespeare, Michelangelo, and the Empire State Building... Just an elaborate mating ritual. Maybe it doesn't matter that we have accomplished so much for the basest of reasons. But, of course, the peacock can barely fly. It lives in the dirt, pecking insects out of the muck, consoling itself with its great beauty. I have come to think of so much of consciousness as a burden, a weight, and we have spared them that. Anxiety, self-loathing, guilt. The hosts are the ones who are free. Free here under my control.

perfect :) you are getting me.

This is definitely thought provoking. It doesn't matter whether or not I agree with you for me to say that I respect that you can post your opinion, even if it's contradictory, and then allow others to express theirs.

yeah, i wanted to see counter arguments but I haven't seen a single one so far.

Arguments make sense if agents have freedom of thought. When you deny freewill, you end up destroying the concept of rationality and you reduce everything to subjectivity and therefore absurdity. It's absolutely ludicrous to deny what's necessary to make sense of rationality, and then expect a rational discussion. I find it quite laughable to be honest while at the same time sad. Whether this denial comes from theists such as Calvinists whom I have dealt with a lot or atheists who have to ultimately deny freewill as there is no place for it in a world where time, chance and matter is all there is! :]