Free Will?

Zeno,

An enormous amount of bullshit on the topic resolves into two simple polar opposites.

Scientists believe that there is no room for true free will: there is no ghost in the machine, no non physical presence (call it a soul, or whatever you wish) which can alter or affect physical reality.

A shrinking minority still believes in a soul or that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe. The latter being a law on par with gravity or one of the other fundamental forces of nature.

It is true that certain philosophers have tried to create an ugly botch job they call “compatibilism”: a nonsensical approach which tries to pretend free will can exist alongside pure physical determinism. But if you examine it dispassionately, you will find it depressingly feeble.  It admits no possibility of any true ability to interfere in the causal chain.

“Causal Chain” – think about it in these terms.  Physics (matter and energy) is all that exists in reality: every single event (including every single thought) that has ever been or will ever be, is determined by what came before it. What “caused” it. Think of it like this: reality is a giant billiard table: everything which occurs happens as one billiard ball collides with another. Absolutely no choices are made or can ever be made. It all follows an everlasting and unbroken chain – everything depends entirely on the physical event which preceded it.

So pure determinism (the idea at one polar extreme) holds that everything since the big bang and forward in time is entirely predictable and determined.  Or would be if we had enough computing power and information. 

If you start investigating the subject you will find a horrible mess and a whole bunch of opinionated talking heads making absurd distinctions and talking of angels dancing on pinheads.

So many hairs. So much splitting.

Ignore it. Dip in if you must, but if you are purely rational and dispassionate in your investigation you will find the situation is as I describe above. The bullshit is in the detail – the endless petty arguments and stupid words, the thousands of ways in which the two polar opposites I describe are tarted up and carved up to try and find a way out of the apparent dilemma.

It all boils down to belief: do you believe there is a ghost in the machine or don’t you.

Science is not absolute, not all powerful. Not omniscient.  There are vast and glaring gaps in our knowledge of reality.

That is why the existence (or otherwise) of free will is currently a matter of belief only. There are no facts, although the scientist will try and convince you otherwise. And indeed such evidence as has been discovered by no means favours free will. We are robots, or the audience in a cinema – merely watching what passes, unable to affect anything.  Unable to cause anything to happen.  Indeed, our very awareness is in many senses simply an illusion. Or thus claim the physicists.

If you find yourself unable to believe in the scientific view then you might comfort yourself that what remains to be discovered about reality is likely to dwarf what we currently know. 

And that a ghost of some sort may eventually poke its head out of the ether.

Illustration: The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo

12 Comments

    2. “As for ‘sentience’, physicists, philosophers, cosmologists and others are perceiving, as the mystics have long been, that “The Great Everything” is itself sentient and that we each are the means through which it perceives itself.”

      Ah yes, indeed. A very satisfactory conclusion.

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  2. I’m one of those compatibilists. To me freewill is the capability of forethought. With it, social responsibility is a useful concept. But maybe I should ask, what would we gain if the stronger libertarian version of free will were true?

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  3. I have “hope” rather than belief in the existence of free will and meaningful consciousness. Belief is too strong a word and should probably be left to the poor souls who follow some crackpot religion. I think the reason for my post was simply to get it off my chest – the stark polarisation I see between the realistic choices. And my realisation that those are the only two choices – in my own view of course. It probably closes a chapter for me, rather usefully. A determination not to listen to the interminable to and fro on the subject. Perhaps one day, one or other polar extreme will prove to be the undoubted truth. Until such time I shall probably leave the subject well alone.

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  4. Interesting insight… I admire the idealism, but I struggle to see this ‘Free Will’ in practice.

    It feels less like a fundamental law of the universe and more like a subscription service most people forgot to renew. We might have the capacity for it, but 99% of modern life is just people running on autopilot, reacting to algorithms and social conditioning.

    We confuse ‘having options’ with ‘making choices.’ Most of us are just picking from a pre-approved menu and calling it freedom.

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    1. I agree that most people act in this way. But what has really convinced me (not that it would sway any materialist worth his salt) is my own experience and the apparent plasticity of my brain. Bluntly I have defeated lifelong depression through meditation, exercise and “choice”. The choice to abandon the life I was leading in favour of one that would (and did) lead to peace. Of course the materialist would still insist my actions were preordained by physics but frankly, their arguments wear thin when presented with alternatives such as the Lucas Penrose theory and others. Who am I to say, but I do not believe I am a mere spectator of the pantomime of my own life .

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      1. First off, massive respect for beating the depression. That is the one area where ‘choice’ feels the most real and the most impossible at the same time.

        You hit on exactly why I named my site Cognitive Shifter. Neuroplasticity is real. But it takes a monumental amount of energy to override the default programming like you did.

        I relate heavily to the exercise part. To deal with the increasing amount of absolute bullshit in the world, I had to turn to writing and lifting heavy iron. That was the only way I could at least have the illusion of hacking my own autopilot and feeling being in charge.

        I actually wrote about this exact combo a while back: https://cognitiveshifter.com/2025/06/09/rage-writing-is-therapy-lifting-is-revenge/

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      2. I believe you are in charge of your life by taking such actions. Nothing we can do about the scumbags but there is a great deal we can do to improve our own lives. And maybe even some of those around us.

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  5. We have the capacity for free will, but I think think that potential is overridden by what I call the information dependency problem. We simply do not think for ourselves; we go shopping instead.

    Now, having crawled out from the abyss of chronic depression, something that you and I share in common; we recognize that the ability to think for oneself is absolutely essential.

    I do not have a blog of my own, but I do comment from time to time on Selfawarepatterns.com; and if you have read any of my comments you will note that I am not a radicalized materialist. I see myself as a pragmatic physicalist simply because our world, for what its worth, is physical.

    If you want to know where I stand on the consciousness debate, I posted a brief synopsis this A.M. in response to a gentleman named James Cross.

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    1. Thank you. I will read your comments with interest. Few people “think” in any important sense. Even thinking about free will seems pretty fruitless when we cannot think our way out of endless greed and conflict. On free will, perhaps it’s better to simply get on with life and let Mike and James Cross argue about it until the cows come home.

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