There isn't really a 'freewill problem'.

[ryan]

But now you are talking about 100% control over the universe. I am talking about choosing between A, B and C.

No, I am talking about the universe having 100% control over you.

But you gave one example where clearly we wouldn't have free will over. We are constrained to choosing A, B, C ... and not much more than that.

To really break it down, if we only have control over one bit of information, say every minute, that is leaving an unimaginable amount of processing to the rest of the universe.

 

[bilby]

But now you are talking about 100% control over the universe. I am talking about choosing between A, B and C.

No, I am talking about the universe having 100% control over you.

But you gave one example where clearly we wouldn't have free will over. We are constrained to choosing A, B, C ... and not much more than that.

To really break it down, if we only have control over one bit of information, say every minute, that is leaving an unimaginable amount of processing to the rest of the universe.

I am saying that you have no control at all. There's no physical mechanism whereby you can control anything.

Things are unpredictable, and people mistake their inability to predict their future as some kind of control, but it's an illusion.

People are very good at fooling themselves into thinking that they are in control of events that they have no influence over - the existence of prayer proves that.

There is no evidence whatsoever for free will - unless you count a vague feeling that 'things ought to be the way you expect them to be' as 'evidence'.

Some people think that they can harness the power of positive thinking to influence traffic lights. Some think that they have the ability to influence another part of physical reality - the choices their brains make - by 'will power'. But there's no reason to agree with either group.

 

[ryan]

But you gave one example where clearly we wouldn't have free will over. We are constrained to choosing A, B, C ... and not much more than that.

To really break it down, if we only have control over one bit of information, say every minute, that is leaving an unimaginable amount of processing to the rest of the universe.

I am saying that you have no control at all. There's no physical mechanism whereby you can control anything.

Things are unpredictable, and people mistake their inability to predict their future as some kind of control, but it's an illusion.

People are very good at fooling themselves into thinking that they are in control of events that they have no influence over - the existence of prayer proves that.

There is no evidence whatsoever for free will - unless you count a vague feeling that 'things ought to be the way you expect them to be' as 'evidence'.

Some people think that they can harness the power of positive thinking to influence traffic lights. Some think that they have the ability to influence another part of physical reality - the choices their brains make - by 'will power'. But there's no reason to agree with either group.

This is not at all convincing because you aren't giving me any arguments that have not already been dealt with and solved.

 

[Juma]

But you gave one example where clearly we wouldn't have free will over. We are constrained to choosing A, B, C ... and not much more than that.

To really break it down, if we only have control over one bit of information, say every minute, that is leaving an unimaginable amount of processing to the rest of the universe.

I am saying that you have no control at all. There's no physical mechanism whereby you can control anything.

Things are unpredictable, and people mistake their inability to predict their future as some kind of control, but it's an illusion.

People are very good at fooling themselves into thinking that they are in control of events that they have no influence over - the existence of prayer proves that.

There is no evidence whatsoever for free will - unless you count a vague feeling that 'things ought to be the way you expect them to be' as 'evidence'.

Some people think that they can harness the power of positive thinking to influence traffic lights. Some think that they have the ability to influence another part of physical reality - the choices their brains make - by 'will power'. But there's no reason to agree with either group.

This is not at all convincing because you aren't giving me any arguments that have not already been dealt with and solved.

? The argument Bilby gave about parallell worlds seems pretty good to me. You have yet failed to shoot it down.

 

[Juma]

Why are people discussing ”freewill” anyway?
I can see theese:
1) sense of autonomy: That we feel like we make decisions.
2) sense of responsibility: we feel that people are responsible for what they do in a way that , say, hammers isnt.
3) sense of justice: What is the meaning of punishment if it wont change his behavior?

What i cannot see is that anyone has actually observed anything in human behavior that needs to be called ”free will” and explained.

 

[DBT]

Responsibility is related to a functional brain with the ability to make rational decisions. The ability to make rational decisions, therefore the assumption of responsibility, being commonly associated with the idea of 'free will' - which, considering the nature and mechanisms of decision making, it is not.

 

[Subsymbolic]

Why are people discussing ”freewill” anyway?
I can see theese:
1) sense of autonomy: That we feel like we make decisions.
2) sense of responsibility: we feel that people are responsible for what they do in a way that , say, hammers isnt.
3) sense of justice: What is the meaning of punishment if it wont change his behavior?

What i cannot see is that anyone has actually observed anything in human behavior that needs to be called ”free will” and explained.

This is jumping ahead a bit, but how about defending the idea that our beliefs and desires have causal properties? (Even if most of the heavy lifting is done by our evolved, tuned and even trained neural mechanism in interaction with our rather deliberately structured environment. (I’m also an externalist]

- - - Updated - - -

DBT, do you fancy unpacking what ‘rationality’ means to you?

 

[ryan]

This is not at all convincing because you aren't giving me any arguments that have not already been dealt with and solved.

? The argument Bilby gave about parallell worlds seems pretty good to me. You have yet failed to shoot it down.

No Juma, the discussion with parallel worlds between me and bilby ended with me on post #31. He did not follow up or continue it.

Bilby is just starting from the beginning again and brining up reasons that are easily explainable. I have been down this road, and I know where it goes.

 

[Juma]

This is not at all convincing because you aren't giving me any arguments that have not already been dealt with and solved.

? The argument Bilby gave about parallell worlds seems pretty good to me. You have yet failed to shoot it down.

No Juma, the discussion with parallel worlds between me and bilby ended with me on post #31. He did not follow up or continue it.

Bilby is just starting from the beginning again and brining up reasons that are easily explainable. I have been down this road, and I know where it goes.

#31? No. Nothing there that helps you. Bilby is right and you are wrong. There is no decision before the split. The splut IS the decision.

 

[bilby]

They are very much distinguishable and no longer one person. They are the you that willed after the split but now 2 physically different people.

So what happens if there is only one universe? Nothing changes, except that the choices not made do not exist. But they don't exist for any of the different mes in the earlier argument either, so that's not a point of difference from my perspective. In this situation, there is one world, in which quantum choices are truly random - and therefore not able to be subject to will (free or otherwise). All we have is probabilities - you no more choose what course of action to take than you choose the hand you are dealt when playing cards with a randomly shuffled deck.

We only know so far that it is objectively random; we don't know that there is not a "subjective force" piloting QM.

We don't KNOW that there's not a teapot orbiting the sun between Jupiter and Mars either. But we are best served by assuming that there is not.

Nobody is claiming this is scientific (although Hameroff and Penrose do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztGNznlowic ). If you are going to stay in the scientific realism domain, then you can't even say it is false. I am responding to the seemingly negatively certain OP and saying that there may be ways we can still have free will at least in general philosophically/logically.

This is not at all convincing because you aren't giving me any arguments that have not already been dealt with and solved.

? The argument Bilby gave about parallell worlds seems pretty good to me. You have yet failed to shoot it down.

No Juma, the discussion with parallel worlds between me and bilby ended with me on post #31. He did not follow up or continue it.

Bilby is just starting from the beginning again and brining up reasons that are easily explainable. I have been down this road, and I know where it goes.

As I said in post #34: "If the restaurant always serves your cake with both cream and ice-cream, then the customer never gets to choose which is served. You always get both. No choice, no freedom, no 'will'."

I apologize for not responding explicitly to your post #31, but it didn't seem to me to be needful to make two, essentially identical, responses.

In the MWI, there cannot be any choice made, because all choices are made. Everything that can happen, happens; Where's the choice? It's basically a static block multiverse, with branches at every possible decision point - our 'self' follows both branches, and is completely unaware of the part of itself that took a different course, giving the illusion that a choice was made. As the choice was an illusion, so must be any idea that the choices are made freely or by the influence of a 'will' - there's simply not a choice at all. Ever.

Of course we can't say that it is definitely, provably, false that there is a "subjective force" piloting QM; But to assume that there is such a force, is to generate a hypothetical that is not needed to explain observed reality - which is unparsimonious, and therefore to be considered wrong until shown to be right - just like Russell's teapot. 'Subjective force', 'Will', or 'Free will' don't explain any observation that isn't more parsimoniously explained without recourse to these concepts.

Of course, that's just my hypothesis; You can easily show it to be false by producing any observation that is inconsistent with it, and that can only be explained by recourse to the more complex idea of 'Subjective force', 'will' or even 'free will' - Just as Newtonian Gravity is shown to be an incomplete model by the various observations of reality that require Relativity to explain them.

You cannot explode the hypothesis by appealing to 'You can't prove it doesn't exist', as that is true of any hypothetical entity (free will, Russell's teapot, the IPU, God, etc). You also can't explode it by appealing to 'It feels like I have free will', any more than you can explode Newton's Gravitational hypothesis by appeal to 'It feels like heavy objects should fall faster than light ones'. Common sense and personal preferences are no acceptable lines of argument, if we care about finding out what is real.

It is absolutely scientific to presume, in the absence of contrary evidence, that hypothetical forces or objects do not exist. 'Subjective force' is simply not needed in order to explain the universe as we observe it to be.

 

[ryan]

No Juma, the discussion with parallel worlds between me and bilby ended with me on post #31. He did not follow up or continue it.

Bilby is just starting from the beginning again and brining up reasons that are easily explainable. I have been down this road, and I know where it goes.

#31? No. Nothing there that helps you. Bilby is right and you are wrong. There is no decision before the split. The splut IS the decision.

Before I start, I think of choices as things that don't necessarily have to come true. I may choose to jump to the moon but that is not going to happen. But i still chose it.

Now, "You" before the split, are choosing A or B. The you that chooses A before is the you that relates to the you before the split. There is coherence and at least a sense of agency.

Maybe the you that chooses A but actually ends up in a universe having chosen B has a very strange and incoherent existence. You may remember choosing A and B simultaneously.

So maybe the you that chooses one option and ends up in the universe with that choice is the being with the free will. The you that always chooses both doesn't have free will.

All I am trying to do is raise the possibilities of free will. I have the easy job here; the people with the negative certainty have an almost impossible job.

 

[bilby]

No Juma, the discussion with parallel worlds between me and bilby ended with me on post #31. He did not follow up or continue it.

Bilby is just starting from the beginning again and brining up reasons that are easily explainable. I have been down this road, and I know where it goes.

#31? No. Nothing there that helps you. Bilby is right and you are wrong. There is no decision before the split. The splut IS the decision.

Before I start, I think of choices as things that don't necessarily have to come true. I may choose to jump to the moon but that is not going to happen. But i still chose it.

Now, "You" before the split, are choosing A or B. The you that chooses A before is the you that relates to the you before the split. There is coherence and at least a sense of agency.

Maybe the you that chooses A but actually ends up in a universe having chosen B has a very strange and incoherent existence. You may remember choosing A and B simultaneously.

So maybe the you that chooses one option and ends up in the universe with that choice is the being with the free will. The you that always chooses both doesn't have free will.

All I am trying to do is raise the possibilities of free will. I have the easy job here; the people with the negative certainty have an almost impossible job.

The bolded is almost exactly what I am proposing.

However, in my hypothetical, there is no 'Choose'. The person in universe A knows, with absolute certainty, that he chose A; The person in universe B knows, with absolute certainty, that he chose B. Both are wrong - there wasn't a choice, just a fork in the universe. There is no 'You before the choice' who has prior knowledge of which choice he will make.

 

[ryan]

Before I start, I think of choices as things that don't necessarily have to come true. I may choose to jump to the moon but that is not going to happen. But i still chose it.

Now, "You" before the split, are choosing A or B. The you that chooses A before is the you that relates to the you before the split. There is coherence and at least a sense of agency.

Maybe the you that chooses A but actually ends up in a universe having chosen B has a very strange and incoherent existence. You may remember choosing A and B simultaneously.

So maybe the you that chooses one option and ends up in the universe with that choice is the being with the free will. The you that always chooses both doesn't have free will.

All I am trying to do is raise the possibilities of free will. I have the easy job here; the people with the negative certainty have an almost impossible job.

The bolded is almost exactly what I am proposing.

However, in my hypothetical, there is no 'Choose'. The person in universe A knows, with absolute certainty, that he chose A; The person in universe B knows, with absolute certainty, that he chose B. Both are wrong - there wasn't a choice, just a fork in the universe. There is no 'You before the choice' who has prior knowledge of which choice he will make.

But they each chose what they wanted to choose (regardless of whether or not they get what they chose). They each got what they willed by the mere act of the will existing for them.

 

[bilby]

Before I start, I think of choices as things that don't necessarily have to come true. I may choose to jump to the moon but that is not going to happen. But i still chose it.

Now, "You" before the split, are choosing A or B. The you that chooses A before is the you that relates to the you before the split. There is coherence and at least a sense of agency.

Maybe the you that chooses A but actually ends up in a universe having chosen B has a very strange and incoherent existence. You may remember choosing A and B simultaneously.

So maybe the you that chooses one option and ends up in the universe with that choice is the being with the free will. The you that always chooses both doesn't have free will.

All I am trying to do is raise the possibilities of free will. I have the easy job here; the people with the negative certainty have an almost impossible job.

The bolded is almost exactly what I am proposing.

However, in my hypothetical, there is no 'Choose'. The person in universe A knows, with absolute certainty, that he chose A; The person in universe B knows, with absolute certainty, that he chose B. Both are wrong - there wasn't a choice, just a fork in the universe. There is no 'You before the choice' who has prior knowledge of which choice he will make.

But they each chose what they wanted to choose (regardless of whether or not they get what they chose). They each got what they willed by the mere act of the will existing for them.

You are putting the cart before the horse. They got what they got; And they believe, after the fact, that they have chosen. But there was no choice. Choice is impossible - all possible outcomes occurred, and no reference frame is preferred above any other. Their votes cancel each other out; They can't both be right, they can both be wrong, and there is no rationale that allows us to assign 'right' to one of them and 'wrong' to the other. So they are both wrong in their belief that they made a choice, or that that choice was mediated by 'will', much less 'free will'.

 

[ryan]

But they each chose what they wanted to choose (regardless of whether or not they get what they chose). They each got what they willed by the mere act of the will existing for them.

You are putting the cart before the horse. They got what they got; And they believe, after the fact, that they have chosen. But there was no choice. Choice is impossible - all possible outcomes occurred, and no reference frame is preferred above any other. Their votes cancel each other out; They can't both be right, they can both be wrong, and there is no rationale that allows us to assign 'right' to one of them and 'wrong' to the other. So they are both wrong in their belief that they made a choice, or that that choice was mediated by 'will', much less 'free will'.

Imagine choosing to raise your arm, but it doesn't happen; and it is important to note here that it was physically able to raise. So imagine that none of your choices happen even though they were physically suppose to. That is what it would be like with no free will.

More specifically, you had the freedom to choose, but you didn't have the will to initiate the physical. Many times we have the freedom and the will (hence free will). What are the chances that those things happen to align probabilistically? Maybe it is an illusion, but I would argue by Occam's Razor that it is more likely we are the freedom and the will in a universe sometimes trying to constrain it.

 

[bilby]

But they each chose what they wanted to choose (regardless of whether or not they get what they chose). They each got what they willed by the mere act of the will existing for them.

You are putting the cart before the horse. They got what they got; And they believe, after the fact, that they have chosen. But there was no choice. Choice is impossible - all possible outcomes occurred, and no reference frame is preferred above any other. Their votes cancel each other out; They can't both be right, they can both be wrong, and there is no rationale that allows us to assign 'right' to one of them and 'wrong' to the other. So they are both wrong in their belief that they made a choice, or that that choice was mediated by 'will', much less 'free will'.

Imagine choosing to raise your arm, but it doesn't happen; and it is important to note here that it was physically able to raise. So imagine that none of your choices happen even though they were physically suppose to. That is what it would be like with no free will.

More specifically, you had the freedom to choose, but you didn't have the will to initiate the physical. Many times we have the freedom and the will (hence free will). What are the chances that those things happen to align probabilistically? Maybe it is an illusion, but I would argue by Occam's Razor that it is more likely we are the freedom and the will in a universe sometimes trying to constrain it.

You are still pulling the horse along with a cart.

If I didn't raise my arm, when nothing was stopping me from doing so, then I do not ever believe that I wished to do so but it failed to occur. I believe that I wished not to, and was successful. The alternative is insanity.

There is absolutely zero evidence that the belief (after the fact) that what occurred was what was willed, is anything other than a post-hoc rationalization; The world looks exactly as we would predict it to look if the whole process was the reverse of what your intuition is suggesting it to be. There is no evidence for will; and I hypothesize that this is because it does not exist - which is the parsimonious and correct approach when considering an entity that is not required to explain our observations of reality.

The evidence for will is the same as the evidence for Phlogiston - it kinda looks like it might be a bit possible, as long as you don't mind positing entities that are not required in order to explain the real world.

People like the idea of will (and even more, the idea of 'free will'); They also like the idea of Gods, Demons, Dragons and Unicorns. But if they want anyone else to agree with their claim that Dragons are real, they need to provide some evidence.

Occam's razor says that you should not multiply entities without cause. The universe with will is more entities than the universe without will. Occam says that will does not exist unless you can show a need for it - an observation with no more parsimonious explanation. Occam did not say that things are real if you feel like they should be.

 

[ryan]

Imagine choosing to raise your arm, but it doesn't happen; and it is important to note here that it was physically able to raise. So imagine that none of your choices happen even though they were physically suppose to. That is what it would be like with no free will.

More specifically, you had the freedom to choose, but you didn't have the will to initiate the physical. Many times we have the freedom and the will (hence free will). What are the chances that those things happen to align probabilistically? Maybe it is an illusion, but I would argue by Occam's Razor that it is more likely we are the freedom and the will in a universe sometimes trying to constrain it.

You are still pulling the horse along with a cart.

If I didn't raise my arm, when nothing was stopping me from doing so, then I do not ever believe that I wished to do so but it failed to occur. I believe that I wished not to, and was successful. The alternative is insanity.

There is absolutely zero evidence that the belief (after the fact) that what occurred was what was willed, is anything other than a post-hoc rationalization; The world looks exactly as we would predict it to look if the whole process was the reverse of what your intuition is suggesting it to be. There is no evidence for will; and I hypothesize that this is because it does not exist - which is the parsimonious and correct approach when considering an entity that is not required to explain our observations of reality.

The evidence for will is the same as the evidence for Phlogiston - it kinda looks like it might be a bit possible, as long as you don't mind positing entities that are not required in order to explain the real world.

People like the idea of will (and even more, the idea of 'free will'); They also like the idea of Gods, Demons, Dragons and Unicorns. But if they want anyone else to agree with their claim that Dragons are real, they need to provide some evidence.

Occam's razor says that you should not multiply entities without cause. The universe with will is more entities than the universe without will. Occam says that will does not exist unless you can show a need for it - an observation with no more parsimonious explanation. Occam did not say that things are real if you feel like they should be.

My point was to give an example of a universe without free will. This will help me explain what it is and why we might have it.

In a universe with no will only the freedom to will (therefor no free will) if you have the ability to raise your arm and you want to raise your arm, your arm may not raise. All you had was the freedom of what you want to will but didn't actually will. Now, if you have will but no freedom, you will always be doing things that you didn't want to do. Finally, no freedom or will would be like being a vegetable who doesn't even want and has no will.

You can see how free will by these composite definitions are meaningful because of the idea that they may or may not exist. As for the larger more common definition of the ability to have done otherwise, with infinite splits, it may be possible that 2 splits chose A in separate universes, and there will always be room for one more.

And as you say about the connotations of free will, I will warn you not to relate free will too closely with magic, god, etc. That may blind you to the concept and you just won't see it for what it is or what it might be.

 

[Copernicus]

Why is there any debate over free will in the first place? It has its roots in religion, and, as Juma pointed out earlier, responsibility is a key component. The reason why is obvious. Religion has always been about reward and punishment. In the context of Abrahamic religions, it is about disobeying God and the righteousness of a deity that blames people for choosing to disobey. God is obviously relying on the same mechanism that parents rely on to train children to obey--the threat of punishment and the promise of reward. It's just that it is really hard for the theistically-inclined person to explain freedom to disobey in the context of an omniscient, omnipotent judge.

There is a sense in which a robot has free will. It has a list of priorities and makes an assessment of its environment. Priorities resolve goal conflicts. That is, robots have to make value judgments according to the outcomes that they project. And those value judgments aren't necessarily put there by a programmer. They could be put in the robot's "head" by a generalized machine-learning program, just as human beings come equipped with a "learning program" that is hardwired into their brains. We just don't like to think of robotic choices as "free", because they do not prioritize on the same basis that we do--i.e. emotions and moods caused by electrochemical brain activity. Reward and punishment for humans are techniques for adjusting the list of mental priorities.

What parents do is they use reward and punishment to guide children into setting up a mental "autopilot" that keeps them safe and happy in the long run. Programmers do something that is analogous, but machines aren't really programmed by a systematic manipulation of behavior through reward and punishment. Endorphins don't flood robotic brains when they succeed, but we have other ways of rewarding success in their behavioral patterns.

 

[ryan]

Why is there any debate over free will in the first place? It has its roots in religion, and, as Juma pointed out earlier, responsibility is a key component. The reason why is obvious. Religion has always been about reward and punishment. In the context of Abrahamic religions, it is about disobeying God and the righteousness of a deity that blames people for choosing to disobey. God is obviously relying on the same mechanism that parents rely on to train children to obey--the threat of punishment and the promise of reward. It's just that it is really hard for the theistically-inclined person to explain freedom to disobey in the context of an omniscient, omnipotent judge.

There is a sense in which a robot has free will. It has a list of priorities and makes an assessment of its environment. Priorities resolve goal conflicts. That is, robots have to make value judgments according to the outcomes that they project. And those value judgments aren't necessarily put there by a programmer. They could be put in the robot's "head" by a generalized machine-learning program, just as human beings come equipped with a "learning program" that is hardwired into their brains. We just don't like to think of robotic choices as "free", because they do not prioritize on the same basis that we do--i.e. emotions and moods caused by electrochemical brain activity. Reward and punishment for humans are techniques for adjusting the list of mental priorities.

What parents do is they use reward and punishment to guide children into setting up a mental "autopilot" that keeps them safe and happy in the long run. Programmers do something that is analogous, but machines aren't really programmed by a systematic manipulation of behavior through reward and punishment. Endorphins don't flood robotic brains when they succeed, but we have other ways of rewarding success in their behavioral patterns.

How do you know that the idea of free will did not come before religion?

Maybe the ancients used the idea of free will as a way reason to punish crime since a predetermined person wouldn't have a choice (which is still an ethical argument today). Then, for the few that got away with using their free will against society/tribe, it would only make sense to try to convince them that someone or something else would always be watching.

It seems reasonable that religion come from free will this way.

 

[Copernicus]

Why is there any debate over free will in the first place? It has its roots in religion, and, as Juma pointed out earlier, responsibility is a key component. The reason why is obvious. Religion has always been about reward and punishment. In the context of Abrahamic religions, it is about disobeying God and the righteousness of a deity that blames people for choosing to disobey. God is obviously relying on the same mechanism that parents rely on to train children to obey--the threat of punishment and the promise of reward. It's just that it is really hard for the theistically-inclined person to explain freedom to disobey in the context of an omniscient, omnipotent judge.

There is a sense in which a robot has free will. It has a list of priorities and makes an assessment of its environment. Priorities resolve goal conflicts. That is, robots have to make value judgments according to the outcomes that they project. And those value judgments aren't necessarily put there by a programmer. They could be put in the robot's "head" by a generalized machine-learning program, just as human beings come equipped with a "learning program" that is hardwired into their brains. We just don't like to think of robotic choices as "free", because they do not prioritize on the same basis that we do--i.e. emotions and moods caused by electrochemical brain activity. Reward and punishment for humans are techniques for adjusting the list of mental priorities.

What parents do is they use reward and punishment to guide children into setting up a mental "autopilot" that keeps them safe and happy in the long run. Programmers do something that is analogous, but machines aren't really programmed by a systematic manipulation of behavior through reward and punishment. Endorphins don't flood robotic brains when they succeed, but we have other ways of rewarding success in their behavioral patterns.

How do you know that the idea of free will did not come before religion?

I am not claiming to "know" it any more than you are claiming to "know" everything that you believe. Why do I believe it? Glad you asked.

What could be "before religion"? Animism? It seems to me that religion exists because humans tend to anthropomorphize natural forces. We cause our body parts to move by conscious will, so maybe conscious will is behind natural events. It's not a huge leap to base a causal model on animism. And, if people see natural phenomena as caused by conscious beings, then it stands to reason that the causers can be reasoned with and cajoled. That would be a way to gain favorable treatment from the environment. It would also suggest that bad treatment was caused by disapproval of our own behavior. Gods have always judged human behavior. Abraham's god was no different from any of the others.

Maybe the ancients used the idea of free will as a way reason to punish crime since a predetermined person wouldn't have a choice (which is still an ethical argument today). Then, for the few that got away with using their free will against society/tribe, it would only make sense to try to convince them that someone or something else would always be watching.

It seems reasonable that religion come from free will this way.

Right, but we don't need to talk about the "ancients". As you point out, it is the same point of view today. People blame each other for their behavior. That is part of the natural mechanism that drives social organization--rewards and punishments for desirable and undesirable behaviors. If people cannot help themselves, then we can't very well blame them. However, there is another factor that we need to consider--deterrence in the general population. If there is no punishment for undesirable behavior, then people are less motivated to avoid it. One might punish a child in order to get that individual child to avoid such behavior in the future, but sometimes individuals disobey anyway. In a general population, punishment serves as an example to others. Giving a student a detention for throwing spitballs during class may fail to deter that individual, but the punishment does affect how others in the classroom choose to obey. Atheists go to hell so that other sinners repent. Again, reward and punishment is all about setting up a "mental program" that determines future behavior. Social determinism isn't physical determinism, but it is still causal.