urza on Nostr: Everyone is wrong about free will. The people defending "humans have free will" ...
Everyone is wrong about free will.
The people defending "humans have free will" position are usually wrong because they try to find a place in physics or biology for free will. There is none.
Atoms clearly have no free will, and neurons are made of atoms. Your neurons can't choose what they will put on output, and therefore what you will think and do. Your neurons create the output based on their inner state and inputs. No way around it.
But that is not where free will exists. You are not your neurons. You are the subjective experience that can arise from having a body with a brain, but you are not the body and brain. And in your subjective experience you have the experience of free will. The soldier that was sent to war and is aiming at an enemy has to make a choice - to fire or not to fire. It might not be an easy choice, maybe almost impossible choice, but it is a choice none the less. And it doesn't matter that on the level of atoms and neurons the outcome is already decided. At the subjective experience level, there is a choice to be made and we call that choice free will. The bullet once fired, can't choose to hit the target or not, but the soldier can choose to fire or not.
If you just say that free will doesn't exist, then you are losing useful words to describe certain situations regarding human behavior and reality. Just because something doesn't exist in the world of atoms, doesn't mean it isn't real. Show me one atom of justice, mercy or beauty… and yet, these all describe something real and meaningful for us humans. And so does free will.
The people defending "humans have free will" position are usually wrong because they try to find a place in physics or biology for free will. There is none.
Atoms clearly have no free will, and neurons are made of atoms. Your neurons can't choose what they will put on output, and therefore what you will think and do. Your neurons create the output based on their inner state and inputs. No way around it.
But that is not where free will exists. You are not your neurons. You are the subjective experience that can arise from having a body with a brain, but you are not the body and brain. And in your subjective experience you have the experience of free will. The soldier that was sent to war and is aiming at an enemy has to make a choice - to fire or not to fire. It might not be an easy choice, maybe almost impossible choice, but it is a choice none the less. And it doesn't matter that on the level of atoms and neurons the outcome is already decided. At the subjective experience level, there is a choice to be made and we call that choice free will. The bullet once fired, can't choose to hit the target or not, but the soldier can choose to fire or not.
If you just say that free will doesn't exist, then you are losing useful words to describe certain situations regarding human behavior and reality. Just because something doesn't exist in the world of atoms, doesn't mean it isn't real. Show me one atom of justice, mercy or beauty… and yet, these all describe something real and meaningful for us humans. And so does free will.