...I don’t think you’ve fully accepted this, actually, because you also said:
Surely particles were going to do what they were going to do anyway regardless of whether I can determine the reason or not?
Yes, physics is everything. However, you are part of physics. You are those particles. So you should consider yourself as involved in the “decision” about what the future will be.
Take your naive intuitions about “souls” and about how they make decisions. Souls don’t just do things randomly right? There is a method and reason to what they choose. They don’t just think and feel things randomly—there is a rhyme and reason to it all. That’s always been easy to naively accept, right?
The only thing to realize is that those methods and reasons of making decisions, and the feelings and thoughts, are constructed out of the same particles that construct the objects around you.
If it satisfies your dualist intuitions any, rest assured that there is one and a quarter inch of very sturdy bone separating your soul from the rest of physics. For the most part, decisions aren’t particularly influenced by anything outside your head, other than useful information about the world around you. So the naive view of free will (regular decision making, only somehow separate from normal physics) is fine for all practical purposes, anyway
Yes it makes perfectly good sense. I find the idea that I’m physics doing something is solid. I can’t and wouldn’t argue with it. The whole concept of free will in it’s incoherency still seems to set me up for uncomfortable feelings that I seem to be able to do nothing about. I want to feel fine but panic wins instead.
When I talk about incoherence I mean things like what it means for my desires/actions/values to be free of causality or reason. If it were free of those things that means it would be random, and how can that be any more free(?!).
It’s times like this I wish I was a topclass mathematician/theoretical physicist/philosopher combined.
It doesn’t mean anything for your desires/actions/values to be free of causality and reason, because your desires/actions/values are a subset of causality and reason. A variable can’t be “free” of itself. Lack of freedom implies something else is in control.
It’s a question of where you perceive the “I” to be. Because of the complexity of the machinery locked under the aforementioned 1.25 inch skull, humans have Ruleset 1 for “souls” (though we are unaccustomed to thinking of them as rules) and Ruleset 2 for “objects”. If you identify yourself with Ruleset 1, and Physics says that Rule-set 1 is actually derived from Ruleset 2, your human intuitions will scream that Ruleset 2 is controlling Ruleset 1 and free will is dead. .
All the naive intuitions of free will still apply. Currently your emotions say “I am being controlled by causality”, and what they aught to say is “I am controlling things via causality”. The emotional outcome you’re aiming for is a sense of unity and continuity between yourself and the rest of the universe as well as a sense of partial control over it.
Try working backwards: Instead of first understanding the situation and then forcing yourself comfortable with it, try first figuring out what sort of situation you would be comfortable with and then checking if it matches reality. (I’ll bet it will)
Suppose my naive intuition felt uncomfortable that my brain is clockwork. Makes me feel like a machine..
However, my naive intuition felt comfortable with my “soul” having intangible thoughts which exist on some separate soul-plane and interact with only with one another (and not with objects) except insofar that they produce actions on the external, object filled world and receive sensory input from it.
Once the “comfortable” view has been explicitly stated, it becomes clear that the “uncomfortable” view actually is the comfortable view, just phrased in different words and with minor alterations.
So what is your version of the “comfortable” view?
...I don’t think you’ve fully accepted this, actually, because you also said:
Yes, physics is everything. However, you are part of physics. You are those particles. So you should consider yourself as involved in the “decision” about what the future will be.
Take your naive intuitions about “souls” and about how they make decisions. Souls don’t just do things randomly right? There is a method and reason to what they choose. They don’t just think and feel things randomly—there is a rhyme and reason to it all. That’s always been easy to naively accept, right?
The only thing to realize is that those methods and reasons of making decisions, and the feelings and thoughts, are constructed out of the same particles that construct the objects around you.
If it satisfies your dualist intuitions any, rest assured that there is one and a quarter inch of very sturdy bone separating your soul from the rest of physics. For the most part, decisions aren’t particularly influenced by anything outside your head, other than useful information about the world around you. So the naive view of free will (regular decision making, only somehow separate from normal physics) is fine for all practical purposes, anyway
Does that make sense / help?
Yes it makes perfectly good sense. I find the idea that I’m physics doing something is solid. I can’t and wouldn’t argue with it. The whole concept of free will in it’s incoherency still seems to set me up for uncomfortable feelings that I seem to be able to do nothing about. I want to feel fine but panic wins instead.
When I talk about incoherence I mean things like what it means for my desires/actions/values to be free of causality or reason. If it were free of those things that means it would be random, and how can that be any more free(?!).
It’s times like this I wish I was a topclass mathematician/theoretical physicist/philosopher combined.
It doesn’t mean anything for your desires/actions/values to be free of causality and reason, because your desires/actions/values are a subset of causality and reason. A variable can’t be “free” of itself. Lack of freedom implies something else is in control.
It’s a question of where you perceive the “I” to be. Because of the complexity of the machinery locked under the aforementioned 1.25 inch skull, humans have Ruleset 1 for “souls” (though we are unaccustomed to thinking of them as rules) and Ruleset 2 for “objects”. If you identify yourself with Ruleset 1, and Physics says that Rule-set 1 is actually derived from Ruleset 2, your human intuitions will scream that Ruleset 2 is controlling Ruleset 1 and free will is dead. .
All the naive intuitions of free will still apply. Currently your emotions say “I am being controlled by causality”, and what they aught to say is “I am controlling things via causality”. The emotional outcome you’re aiming for is a sense of unity and continuity between yourself and the rest of the universe as well as a sense of partial control over it. Try working backwards: Instead of first understanding the situation and then forcing yourself comfortable with it, try first figuring out what sort of situation you would be comfortable with and then checking if it matches reality. (I’ll bet it will)
Could you give me an example of working backwards? I’m in too much of a panicky haze to think clearly about it.
Well, for example:
Suppose my naive intuition felt uncomfortable that my brain is clockwork. Makes me feel like a machine..
However, my naive intuition felt comfortable with my “soul” having intangible thoughts which exist on some separate soul-plane and interact with only with one another (and not with objects) except insofar that they produce actions on the external, object filled world and receive sensory input from it.
Once the “comfortable” view has been explicitly stated, it becomes clear that the “uncomfortable” view actually is the comfortable view, just phrased in different words and with minor alterations.
So what is your version of the “comfortable” view?
I’m not actually sure if I’m allowed to say that?
Edit: oops
The comfortable view is indistinguishable from the uncomfortable view I agree.
er...what? I do not understand.
Aw shit seg fault :D