The usual discussion we have about free-will concludes like this:
- Man is a machine whose output is a result of prior input
- Therefore we do not have free-will
However, I like going further and including that we have a
feeling of freedom:
- Man is a free actor in the world, giving him a sense that he is free
- Therefore he is free
But I've been thinking a lot lately about how our brain and nervous system has evolved in a way to dictate most of our behavior. For example, if we're a heterosexual male we are basically unfree from our sexual attraction to women, and are unfree from the desire to have relationship with them. Taking this line of thinking, being a social being, we are also unfree from our desire to have friends and companions.
Another example of a reality we are not free from is the need to survive and avoid pain. This forces us to
put our best foot forward throughout our lives, we are in a constant tension of needing to maintain social relationships around us for the benefit of our own survival. Basically meaning that we are a kind of actor, that needs to constantly choose behavior that works in our own benefit.
And so on. The number of evolved traits we carry that we are not free from could take a while to list.
So put in this light you get this logic re: free will:
- I am a deterministic animal moving through time / space
- However I am free in the world and have a sense of freedom
- But lastly, I am still not free from my own instincts and cognitive reality
It's interesting when you put free will in this light, because it raises the question of
what is true freedom. In what way could we behave that is not somehow linked to our evolved cognition?
When you take a birds eye view of humanity it's striking how consistent our behavior is in certain fundamental things, like sexual attraction, marriage, and so on. For most, marriage and relationships are completely normalized, but it does a great job of highlighting that our cognitive make-up dictates largely who we are, and how we spend most of our lives.
I read in someone else's post ages ago that we don't actually feel freedom, but rather we feel a constraint, and we feel when that constraint is lifted.
To be meaningful, any use of the terms "free" or "freedom" must reference, either explicitly or implicitly, some meaningful constraint. To be relevant, that constraint must be something that can be present or absent, that is, it must be a constraint that we could actually be free of. Here are a few examples of freedoms and their meaningful and relevant constraints:
1. We set the bird free (free from its cage).
2. We enjoy freedom of speech (free from political censorship).
3. Lincoln freed the slaves (free from the ownership of their masters).
4. I participated in Libet's experiment of my own free will (free from coercion and undue influence).
There are some "freedoms" that are impossible, for example: "freedom from oneself", "freedom from causation", and "freedom from reality". We cannot be free from ourselves without being someone else. We cannot be free from causation without losing the freedom to do anything else. We cannot be free from reality without losing our ability to deal with reality. Because these "freedoms" are impossible, no use of the terms "free" or "freedom" can be taken to imply any one of them.
This is especially true of the "free" in free will. If we were free from ourselves, then it would be someone else's will. If we were free from causation then we could never carry out our intent. And if we were free from reality, then it would not be a will, but only a wish, within a dream.
Universal causal necessity/inevitability is neither a meaningful nor a relevant constraint. It is not meaningful because what we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing what we choose, and doing what we do. And it is not a relevant constraint because there is nothing anyone can, or needs to, do about it.
Technically, we are not machines. Machines are tools we create to help us do our will. Machines we build have no will of their own.
However, we are a collaborative collection of reliable causal mechanisms that keep our hearts beating and our thoughts flowing. Thinking, like walking, is something we do. And anything we do requires reliable causation. It is the source of our freedom and our control.