The movement of particles is certain, so the future world is certain?

© Malte Mueller/Getty Images

Leviathan Press:

Those who advocate the non-existence of free will mostly believe in determinism starting from the microscopic particle size, involving neurons and rising to the brain - because the movement of particles is determined, the future of the entire world, including individuals, is determined. As for how to calculate and predict, that is another matter.

For now, due to the uncertainty principle, calculation is precisely the most difficult part. I am afraid that before we have a thorough understanding of the reasons behind the uncertainty principle, the debate on whether free will exists or not will not stop.

Human history can be thought of in many ways. One is that as we have learned more and more about the natural world, we have gradually emerged from ignorance.

Fortunately, no one burns witches anymore, and no one actually believes that demons are the cause of disease; if there are exceptions, they are extremely rare. We can consider this progress.

But reflecting on all of this also raises a troubling question: Could it be that what we believe now may seem absurd to future generations in retrospect?

Robert Sapolsky, professor of biology and neurology, and his new book, Determinism: The Science of Life Without Free Will. © Yahoo News

Belief in free will is a good option, says Robert Sapolsky, a professor of neurobiology at Stanford University and the author of a landmark new book, Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will, which brings together all the latest scientific knowledge to refute the existence of free will.

This is, of course, a tall order. We all have the subjective experience of feeling that we are the authors of our thoughts and actions, but Sapulsky argues that we know enough about the brain to prove that this is not true, and we need to accept that as a fact.

If he is right, the moral and legal implications will be enormous. The way we think about success and failure, and how we condemn and punish, will have to change.

Sean Illing: How do you define "free will"?

Robert Sapulsky: Maybe the best place to start is to point out most people's definition of free will, because that's going to get you into trouble right away, and the best place to show that is probably in a courtroom. There's a defendant sitting at a table, and everyone agrees that this guy did it.

There are now three questions which are thought to cover the whole area of ​​free will.

Did this guy do this intentionally? Did he understand what the consequences might be? Did he realize that he didn't have to do this, that there were other options?

If the answer to all of these questions is yes, then the person is responsible. He knew what he was doing. He exercised his free will.

That's what gets a little irritating to me in my book, because to me it's like being a film critic who has to write a review of a film when they only get to see the last three minutes of the film.

Why do I say that? Because in those questions—did he have intent, did he know there were alternatives, all of that— the important question that must be asked now is, “How did he become the kind of person who would intentionally do this? Where did that intent come from?”

And this is where free will breaks down.

© Big Think

SHAW: So, is it fair to say this: If I could rewind and replay the movie of my life, keeping every single thing constant, from the breakfast I had every morning to the amount of sleep I got every night, do you think everything would unfold the same way it did the first time?

ROBINSON In theory, yes. It's an idea that was proposed centuries ago. The idea is that you can replay a videotape with all the conditions constant, and you'll always get exactly the same result.

But in reality, that's not the case because there's randomness involved in Brownian motion, so you end up releasing more neurotransmitters rather than less, and across the collective action of 150 billion synapses, that ultimately makes a difference.

The fundamental chaos of the system means that small differences due to randomness will be amplified, which is the famous "butterfly effect". Therefore, in practice, this thought experiment is impossible to carry out.

But if you could control for all the random molecular glitches, and if everything else in the universe also remained constant, then yes, you would get the same results.

© The Ethics Centre

Xiao: Philosophers often support some kind of compatibilism by arguing that the same input in different individuals does not always produce the same results.

It's more like the world and all these factors set certain norms for us, which does leave some room for individual initiative. For you, is this just an attempt to redefine free will to save the concept?

ROBINSON Yes, it is. It's like saying, "Okay, well, there are some things about us that are certain, but there are other areas that are uncertain." The most appealing version of this is that they acknowledge that there are things about us that we can't control - like how tall we are, how good our memory is, if you're a runner, the structure of your thigh muscle fibers makes you a sprinter or a marathon runner - these are things about biology that people are willing to acknowledge.

Here, the concept of free will is what people often refer to as, “Yeah, you can’t control your attributes, but how you use them is where you demonstrate free will.”

Do you show resilience? Do you have a backbone? Conversely, do you indulge yourself and waste your talent? These are the divisions in people's hearts, and you can judge a person's character by how he or she responds to fate.

But the point is, how tall you are and how your neurons are wired are determined by biology, and what you do with that, whether it's showing toughness or indulgence, is also determined by the same biology.

There is no escape from determinism in this regard. Whether or not we are able to use our talents, or whether or not we are able to overcome adversity, we are all products of determinism.

Shaw: It's revealing that you use the word "grit" here because it's an argument that's often heard in these kinds of conversations. It's argued as a defense of willpower and perseverance that some people thrive in the face of equal or nearly equal challenges and life circumstances, and some don't.

Luo: I can never resist that argument because it's so inspiring. A 7-foot-4 guy plays in the NBA and nobody is surprised. Then you have a little guy named Muggsy Bogues, 5-foot-3, who also plays in the NBA, and he does it all through sheer tenacity, grit, and Calvinist focus.

It's hard not to be deeply moved by this display of willpower, but in my opinion, there is no free will there.

SHAW: So what do you think is going on?

ROBINSON: You have an area of ​​the brain called the frontal cortex. We have more of it than any other species. It's a relatively recent part of us that controls how you behave in terms of using your talents for good or wasting them. The frontal cortex is there to get you to take difficult actions when you should—self-control, discipline, impulse control, emotion regulation, and so on. And what your frontal cortex is like is a result of everything that's happened in your life up to that point.

Here’s an example that might make people angry: socioeconomic status. When a child is 5 years old, the socioeconomic status of the family into which he is born is a significant predictor of the thickness of his frontal cortex, his metabolic rate, and how well he functions [1].

By age 5, this person is neurobiologically—not because they don’t have a great soul, but because neurobiologically—already behind in things like impulse control and long-term planning. It’s even known how the stress of poverty translates into chemical signals that cause the frontal cortex to lag behind in development.[2] You see, there’s no crystal ball magic involved in all of this; it’s just part of the makeup of your biology.

SHAW: So, intellectually, is there a legitimate reason to hate another person?

Luo: No.

SHAW: Not under any circumstances?

ROBINSON No, absolutely not, because if you really follow this logic to its core, hating someone is as meaningless as hating an earthquake, or hating a coronavirus, or hating a predator on the prairie. There is absolutely no point in hating.

Having said that, I also know that I am expressing these views in absolutes, after all, I have been thinking about this issue for more than 50 years. I was convinced as a teenager that people do not have free will. I absolutely believe this. I am completely intellectually resigned to the idea that free will does not exist.

But I probably only act on those conclusions 1 percent of the time because it’s hard. I’ll get mad at someone, or if someone says, “Wow, that’s a nice shirt you’re wearing,” or something like that, I’ll be happy and feel like I deserve it.

I am a man of my place and time, and I recognize how difficult it is because I have failed time and again. So, yes, none of this is easy.

© Jonathan Rosen

I've heard these arguments against free will before, and no matter how plausible they are, I can't seem to demonstrate that I actually believe them. I still can't help but feel moral outrage at child rapists, just as I still yell at my dog ​​when it barks at the mail truck, even though it makes no sense. It's just doing its job. But these things are so deeply ingrained in us that it's hard to change our reactions and our perspectives on them.

ROBINSON Yes, it seems incredibly difficult, but the good thing is that we start to reflect on this, and we have done this time and again. Even if you and I were to remain exactly as we are now, and we were in the past 500 years, and there was a terrible thunderstorm last night that destroyed all kinds of crops, then it would make perfect sense for us to want the authorities to track down the witch who caused the thunderstorm.

When this man is burned at the stake, we think that justice has been done because it is inconceivable to us that there is no such thing as a witch, and this is what causes the thunderstorm.

But we change, and society changes. Now, what was intuitively obvious then is now intuitively absurd to us. We’ve done it. Our society does it over and over again in every field, and all we have to do is object to what is now intuitively obvious about who should get what.

© The Information Philosopher

Shaw: As you know, there are a lot of people who really believe that abandoning our belief in free will and moral responsibility would be very dangerous. What do you have to say to these objections?

ROBINSON: It would actually make the status quo better. I mean, when you try to define them as “no free will,” people say, “Oh, does that mean nothing can be changed?”

And then when you follow through on that, they say, “Oh, you’re saying that when someone works really hard to overcome their adversity, there’s no self-assertion there, too?”

You say, " Yes, you can't claim to have more will than you actually have, that's the science. "

And then they turn around and say, "Oh my God, people are just running wild because everybody knows they can't be held responsible for anything."

Some studies[3] show that when you unconsciously reduce people’s trust in free will, they start to cheat — and that’s the worrying thing.

Then you look more closely at literature like this, and instead of trying to psychologically manipulate someone to have less belief in free will, you find people in your research who have never believed in free will, who haven't believed in it for years.

You look at people like this, they are just as ethical in their behavior as people who say things like, “We need to be responsible for every action we take.”

This is like when people look at atheists and say they are completely immoral because there is no God. Numerous studies have shown[4] that committed atheists are just as moral as those who believe in religion.

What's going on? These are completely opposite conclusions about the world.

They are the same in one crucial respect: whatever conclusion you come to, you have thought it through. You have had to think about the roots of good and evil. You have had to think about where the meaning of life comes from. You have had to think about who you want to be and how to deal with your mistakes.

You think deeply and carefully about these questions. If you think about them deeply enough, it actually doesn't matter whether the goodness of human beings comes from ourselves or from God, you will become a better person. This is exactly what the research shows.

Shaw: The idea that if we didn't believe in God we'd all be cannibals is always very stupid and offensive. But even if you're an atheist you can still believe in things like free will and moral responsibility.

I guess, at a deep level, I still think that our beliefs can serve as some kind of motivator. Believing that we have control over our actions, believing that we are morally responsible may lead us to actually behave more responsibly.

By the same token, believing that we have no control over ourselves might lead us to act more nihilistically. But I could also be completely wrong.

ROBINSON: Yeah, people can be brought up to believe that they are responsible for their actions, that if they do bad things, they have a bad soul, and we haven't done very well as a society that is primarily based on belief in God. I don't think there's any real reason to think that people are going to get out of control.

Yet, despite this, the fact remains that some people will become out of control, and this is where people get really panicked about the concept of having no free will.

"Wait, are you telling me you just let murderers run wild in the streets because they have no responsibility for their actions? What kind of crazy place would that be?" The answer, of course, is no.

If you come across someone dangerous, you'll want to protect others from them, but you'll want to do it in a completely different way than you do now, because the current way is based on concepts of revenge, responsibility, and free will.

References:

[1]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8081006/

[2]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2907136/

[3]journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02045.x?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.8

[4]www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4824409/

By Sean Illing

Translation/Yuba and Thin Bamboo

Proofreading/tim

Original article/www.vox.com/the-gray-area/23965798/free-will-robert-sapolsky-determined-the-gray-area

This article is based on the Creative Commons License (BY-NC) and is published by Yuzhu and Shouzhu on Leviathan

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