whether you’re a compatibilist or an in compatibilist has nothing at all to do with whether the laws of physics are deterministic. I cannot possibly emphasize this enough. What matters is that there are laws. Whether those laws are deterministic or not makes zero difference to whether you’re a compatibilist or an in compatibilist. You both believe that there are laws, okay.
Whether you believe the fundamental laws are a pilot wave theory of quantum mechanics or a spontaneous collapse theory of quantum mechanics, one of which is deterministic and one of which is not, who cares? That doesn’t affect whether you’re a compatibilist or not, so don’t label yourself a hard determinist, that is not the point. You would still be anti-free will if you’re an incompatibilist, even if the GRW theory of quantum mechanics or Penrose’s theory turns out to be correct, even if determinism is not there. It’s the fact that there are laws that matters.
The compatibilist, what are you compatible about? You’re saying that the belief in free will, that describing human beings as agents that make decisions, that make choices, is compatible with human beings being made of either neurons or elementary particles or whatever you want that obey the laws of physics. A compatibilist says you can describe the world in different ways that are compatible with each other, even though they use very different vocabularies.
One way of describing the world is sort of at the microscopic level where you’re made of a bunch of particles. They’re obeying the laws of physics, whatever those laws, are deterministic or indeterministic, and there’s no free will there. Free will does not enter the Lagrangian for the standard model of particle physics, okay. No one thinks it does. And then there’s another level, there’s a biological level, and then there’s finally a human level where you have people, okay, and the compatibilist says, people make choices, this doesn’t seem like a very controversial thing to say, but apparently it is.
So here’s one way of thinking about it. Alice and Bob are in a car. Alice is driving, Bob is navigating with his Google Maps and they’re looking for a restaurant, and Bob says, oh, turn left up here at this intersection, the restaurant will be right there once we turn left. Alice turns left and there’s no restaurant there. And Alice says, what’s going on? You told me to turn left. I turned left because you told me to turn left. And Bob says, yeah, no, I knew the restaurant wasn’t there, but the laws of physics said that that would be what I would say, and that’s what you would do, so I’m not really to blame for anything that happened.
Nobody in their right mind talks that way. Everyone in the world who is not crazy says Alice made a choice to turn left, why? Because Bob told her to turn left and she trusted that Bob was going to give her the correct information, right? Bob made a choice to tell Alice something, why? Well, I don’t know, there’s something perverse in Bob’s mind that made him play a little game or something like that. Literally nobody refuses to talk that way in the real world. Now, there are people who pretend to not talk that way, they will say, oh no, Alice and Bob didn’t make any choices, but when it comes right down to it, these people are constantly trying to convince you to choose to not believe in free will.
So you can’t act that way, you can’t live in the world, because it’s not a good description of the world at the human level to act as if human beings don’t make choices. The reason why compatibilists think that it’s sensible to talk about human beings as agents that make choices is because that’s the best theory we have of people, and it literally is everyone’s theory. There’s no one who doesn’t have that theory, because it works, it’s true. And I did the podcast with Sam Harris a long time ago, so to be, that’s a little frustration that comes out from me, and I will vent my frustration here, and it’s not just Sam Harris, it’s many other people.
I don’t think I have ever met an incompatibilist who could correctly describe to me what compatibilists think. There’s… Only straw compatibilists live in the mind of incompatibilists, and the incompatibilists seem to think that if they really… If you really believe in the laws of physics, they can construct a logical cage to get you to admit that we are made of particles that obey the laws of physics. But I admit that, and the discussion with Sam was incredibly frustrating, ’cause that’s what he was trying to do, he was trying to say like, okay, if I knew all of the laws in all of the particles and I was Laplace’s demon, and he’s pushing against an open door. I admit all that.
If you describe the universe as microscopically in the laws of physics, then it obeys the laws of physics, and there’s no free will there, that’s just not the point from the point of view of a compatibilist. And this is why it’s very important to realize that Laplace’s demon doesn’t exist, and none of us is anywhere close to Laplace’s demon. Now, there are interesting questions to talk about that are not that question. The interesting questions are, and this gets into some of the questions here, what about the edge cases where it becomes less and less useful to describe people as agents making choices based on good reasons? Like what if you are a drug addict or you have some brain damage or something like that, and you’re just… You’re under a compulsion that forces you to do something.
And then I would say, indeed, it becomes less and less useful to describe that person as an agent making rational choices. And we do… We don’t describe those people as robustly as agents making rational choices, so that discussion, the practical level discussion about how to treat people who suffer in different ways from an inability to be a completely rational agent, which we all do, none of us are completely rational, there are degrees of it, so how do you deal with that in the real world? That’s an interesting discussion to have.
But this whether or not to label it free will discussion is to me the most boring thing in the world, because there aren’t people who don’t talk about other people as choice makers in my mind. And if you are someone who believes in the laws of physics deep down, but you say, but I will, of course, in my everyday life, I will talk about people making choices, then there’s a word for what you are, it’s called compatibilism. That’s what you are.
whether you’re a compatibilist or an in compatibilist has nothing at all to do with whether the laws of physics are deterministic.
Yes. It’s a conceptual issue to do with what “free will” means … and a physicist would have no special insight into that.
You’re saying that the belief in free will, that describing human beings as agents that make decisions, that make choices,
“Making choices” is setting the bar very low indeed. I don’t think Carrol undestands libertarians too well.
There are a number of main concerns about free will:
Concerns about conscious volition, whether your actions are decided consciously or unconsciously.
Concerns about moral responsibility, punishment and reward.
Concerns about “elbow room”, the ability to “have done other wise”, regret about the past, whether and in what sense it is possible to change the future.
And this is why it’s very important to realize that Laplace’s demon doesn’t exist, and none of us is anywhere close to Laplace’s demon.
Which has no bearing at all on the existence of determinism, or free will.
Determinism also needs to be distinguished from predictability. A universe that unfolds deterministically is a universe that can be predicted by an omniscient being which can both capture a snapshot of all the causally relevant events, and have a perfect knowledge of the laws of physics.
The existence of such a predictor, known as a Laplace’s demon is not a prerequisite for the actual existence of determinism, it is just a way of explaining the concept. It is not contradictory to assert that the universe is deterministic but unpredeictable.
If you are unable to make predictions in a deterministic universe, it is still deterministic, and you still lack the ability to have done otherwise in the libertarian sense, so the existence of free will still depends on whether that is conceptually important, which can’t be determined by predictability. Predictability does not matter in itself, it matters insofar it relates to determinis
m.
I am not a compatibilist, so not my answer, but Sean Carroll says, in his usual fashion, that free will is an emergent phenomenon, akin to Dennett’s intentional stance. This AMA has an in-depth discussion https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2021/05/13/ama-may-2021/. I bolded his definition at the very end.
Yes. It’s a conceptual issue to do with what “free will” means … and a physicist would have no special insight into that.
“Making choices” is setting the bar very low indeed. I don’t think Carrol undestands libertarians too well.
There are a number of main concerns about free will:
Concerns about conscious volition, whether your actions are decided consciously or unconsciously.
Concerns about moral responsibility, punishment and reward.
Concerns about “elbow room”, the ability to “have done other wise”, regret about the past, whether and in what sense it is possible to change the future.
Which has no bearing at all on the existence of determinism, or free will.
Determinism also needs to be distinguished from predictability. A universe that unfolds deterministically is a universe that can be predicted by an omniscient being which can both capture a snapshot of all the causally relevant events, and have a perfect knowledge of the laws of physics.
The existence of such a predictor, known as a Laplace’s demon is not a prerequisite for the actual existence of determinism, it is just a way of explaining the concept. It is not contradictory to assert that the universe is deterministic but unpredeictable.
If you are unable to make predictions in a deterministic universe, it is still deterministic, and you still lack the ability to have done otherwise in the libertarian sense, so the existence of free will still depends on whether that is conceptually important, which can’t be determined by predictability. Predictability does not matter in itself, it matters insofar it relates to determinis m.