Does Neuroscience Refute Free Will?

[Anonymouse]

This is a really nice read and an interesting article that I will link here partially and you can read the rest with the link provided.
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Does Neuroscience Refute Free Will?
by Lucretius

This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, — often the surfeit of our own behavior, — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc'd obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. --William Shakespeare

In the above quote from King Lear we find a description of those who, throughout human history, deny free will and personal responsibility, instead blaming their wrongdoings on interventions divine and planetary. In a recent article, Joshua Greene and Jonathan Cohen join the believers in the "divine thrusting on."[1] This being the scientific age, and our authors being card-carrying neuroscientists, the divine thrusting on becomes a neuroscientific thrusting on, the brain playing the role of the stars above.

The divine thrust of their argument is that we have no free will because there is neuroscience, though our laws have yet to take this into account:

… the law's intuitive support is ultimately grounded in a metaphysically overambitious, libertarian notion of free will that is threatened by determinism and, more pointedly, by forthcoming cognitive neuroscience…. The net effect of this influx of scientific information will be a rejection of free will as it is ordinarily conceived, with important ramifications for the law.[2]

What are these ramifications? To begin with, the concept of personal responsibility is obsolete. Since all actions are determined by the "preexisting state of the universe," we have no choice in the matter. As they put it: "Given a set of prior conditions in the universe and a set of physical laws that completely govern the way the universe evolves, there is only one way that things can actually proceed." Thus we can logically trace everything back to the Big Bang that blasted the universe into existence. Should you ask why I had bagels rather than bananas for breakfast this morning, for example, I can refer you to the Big Bang theory of human action.

But if there is already the Big Bang, why do we need neuroscience to reveal our lack of free will? According to Greene and Cohen, for ages "scientific" philosophers, i.e. philosophers of their determinist camp, had argued against free will, but because the mind was then a black box, it was easy for the deluded religious people, the soft humanists, and other dim-witted souls to cling to the illusion of free will.

Now that we have neuroscience, however, the mind is a black box no more — it is high time for the rest of us to wake up from our dogmatic slumber and smell the deterministic universe. In short, while the Big Bang provides the big picture, neuroscience supplies the details, which will make it abundantly clear, even to the lay public, that we are literally puppets in a deterministic universe after all.

continue reading at

http://www.mises.org/story/1943

[jgk3]

it's an insightful article, but I already feel like a comfortable passenger in life, so these words weren't a big shock to me. I'm still going to continue my life the way it was, even if I know it all depends on things beyond my control. I'll still promote self-responsibility.

[jgk3]

I think he posted this one in particular because his reaction to the message is still fairly new and energetic. But that's just me. Maybe he tries to find relief by starting a discussion here, which I have no problem against.

[Anonymouse]

I think he posted this one in particular because his reaction to the message is still fairly new and energetic. But that's just me.

I'm glad some of us here are open to a discussion.

[Anonymouse]

it's an insightful article, but I already feel like a comfortable passenger in life, so these words weren't a big shock to me. I'm still going to continue my life the way it was, even if I know it all depends on things beyond my control. I'll still promote self-responsibility.

So do you believe there is a mixed aspect here, part determinism and part free will? Can you clarify that?

[jgk3]

See, every action we take, every thought we've ever processed, carries that ugly anchor behind it. The anchor of cause, and it contradicts what our brains are supposed to make us believe, that we have free will, right?

So what happens when we let the anchor crush our spirit, and stop moving? We are no longer responsible. But just who decides whether we break down and cry, or face the truth and endure it? Is it our conditioning? I don't deny it.

"So what I'm saying is, so what if you have no free will, keep going! Accept your human nature!"

What I'm doing at the same time is, I'm motivating your brain, by throwing a positive idea to it! Maybe you wouldn't've motivated yourself, and that's why we're social animals, right? That's what we're here for, to help us keep going, to help us survive. We're made that way, and I embrace it.

[Anonymouse]

See, every action we take, every thought we've ever processed, carries that ugly anchor behind it. The anchor of cause, and it contradicts what our brains are supposed to make us believe, that we have free will, right?

So what happens when we let the anchor crush our spirit, and stop moving? We are no longer responsible. But just who decides whether we break down and cry, or face the truth and endure it? Is it our conditioning? I don't deny it.

"So what I'm saying is, so what if you have no free will, keep going! Accept your human nature!"

What I'm doing at the same time is, I'm motivating your brain, by throwing a positive idea to it! Maybe you wouldn't've motivated yourself, and that's why we're social animals, right? That's what we're here for, to help us keep going, to help us survive. We're made that way, and I embrace it.

But causation does not necessarily mean determinism does it? Everything technically speaking can be reduced to causal relationships, however, the outcomes are complex. In a world of complexity it is far from complete to claim absolute certainty for our behavior.

Do you believe that our brains are making us believe we have free will? Do you believe that as the scientists in question in the article assert, that this is an illusion of our brains? If they claim all behavior is determined, then so is theirs, and the claim they are asserting. And if that were the case, then there would be no point for them to proclaim their proclamations, since whatever is happening or has happened would be no different than how it was intended (or determined) to be.

[jgk3]

In a world of complexity it is far from complete to claim absolute certainty for our behavior.

give an example.

Do you believe that our brains are making us believe we have free will? Do you believe that as the scientists in question in the article assert, that this is an illusion of our brains?

I believe we have a mechanism in there that promotes the notion that we have free will. Perhaps this results in a more innovative attitude through increased self-confidence in one's unique standpoint in the world? Maybe this fosters a yearning for us to prove our valour to the rest of society through our achievements?

I don't see this as an illusion, I see it as a mechanism, make to optimize our performance on Earth, and I embrace it.

If they claim all behavior is determined, then so is theirs, and the claim they are asserting. And if that were the case, then there would be no point for them to proclaim their proclamations, since whatever is happening or has happened would be no different than how it was intended (or determined) to be

I agree, yet they proclaimed it anyway. Afterall, they're described to be passionate about disproving free will, I guess this was their driving force. Their passion must've been beyond their control, no?

[loseyourname]

Please discuss only the article and the issues raised by it.

[Stark Evade]

That article says nothing interesting whatsoever. I have no interest in someone telling me what I have come to know and understand all on my own, especially when under the guise of novelty.