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Feb. 4, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
22:14
1273 A Theory of Free Will Part 1 (audio to a video series)

A definition of the problem.

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Good morning, everybody. It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Aid Radio.
I hope that you're doing well.
We're going to dive into the stimulating and, for me, often annoying topic of free will, and hopefully we can put forward a framework that will allow us to rescue some of the more beneficial aspects of free will without necessarily violating the scientific principles of atomic determinism.
Ooh! Ooh! That's some gripping stuff.
Before we start, Yes, indeed.
There is the book.
It's almost like a guy in monochrome telling you what to do.
So there's a book which I've written called On Truth.
Can you see that? On Truth, The Tyranny of Illusion.
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You may want to do this with the free will series here.
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So I would really appreciate that if you could.
Alright, so let's, without further ado, let us dive into the topic.
So, free will, of course, is a very challenging concept in philosophy and has been for many, many thousands of years, and science has not provided a definitive answer either way.
There are indicators both ways, but I'd like to put out a framework To help look at the concept of free will and hopefully to rescue things that we like about having choices, like ethics and respect and love and desire and so on, and of course the ability to debate topics like free will, which does of course require some capacity for choice outside of mere atomic causality.
So, I'd like to just go over a sort of brief history, a very brief history of free will, so that we can sort of put the free will debate in a context that will make some sense of how did we get where we are.
Well, originally, of course, there was a belief in just about everybody who was a That human identity was contained in an immaterial entity called a soul, which we could also call the ghost in the machine.
And what that means is, well, we are obviously flesh and blood and bones and you and so on, cellular, and I guess they didn't know about cells in the ancient world, but we are clearly made of material substances.
And the question is then, how do those material substances have choice and can be two ethics or be blamed for decisions and so on?
Well, what was invented was the concept of a soul.
And a soul is the ghost in the machine that allows us to escape the mere materiality of our physical being.
So it allows us to escape the causality of physical determinism, right?
Like if you're at the top of a hill and you've got this big boulder and you push that boulder down the hill, it's going to bounce down the hill.
I'm going to use this metaphor a few times, so let's get comfortable with it early on.
The rock is going to sort of bounce down the hill and whatever rocks or whatever it hits, it's going to move or bounce one way or the other.
Now, we don't know exactly where this rock, this boulder, is going to land.
We don't, because there's just too many variables and we can't calculate them on the fly.
Now, clearly, if we knew every conceivable variable, we would know exactly where This rock is going to land.
But the lack of variables does not mean, and our lack of knowledge of where the rock is actually going to land, does not mean that the rock has free will.
It just means that we don't know all of the variables.
And people were sort of concerned that human beings are like that rock, and we'll get into this theory a little bit more in a few minutes.
But what happened historically was, because of theology and the absence of the scientific method and biology and so on, the essence of a human being was considered to be immaterial and therefore Not subject to the laws of causality in the way that a rock bouncing down a hill is.
So what happened was, in the sort of 17th century, 18th century, with the real rise of biology and the scientific method, and this, of course, came to a peak in the 19th century with what some have called the best single idea in the history of mankind, which is the theory of evolution from 1 C. Darwin, really took the idea of the soul out of the biological aspect of a human being.
And so, once you get rid of this immaterial thing called the soul, then all you have left Inhumanity is mere matter and energy.
Now, as we all know, matter and energy are subject to very specific, precise, and inviolable physical laws.
So then, what happens is there's this huge stampede away from the concept of free will, because it relied on the existence of a soul, and towards this idea of determinism, or what is sometimes called compatibilism, which is sort of the best of both worlds.
There's determinism, but there's also choice and morality.
So everybody stampeded over and said, well, if all we are is matter and there's no such thing as a soul, then clearly we can't choose any more than a rock bouncing down a hill can choose where it lands, any more than the weather can choose whether it rains or not.
We may not know for sure whether it's going to rain or not, but that doesn't mean that the weather is choosing of its own free volition to have that.
So, of course, the existence of the soul didn't get rid of the problem of free will.
It just kind of pushed it back to the point where people said, well, there's an answer called the soul.
But it doesn't, of course. And if God knows everything that you're going to do, then clearly you don't have a choice, right?
So, I mean, if God knows that you're going to kill a guy in ten days, then clearly that's predetermined you don't have a choice.
So, people came up with a whole bunch of nonsense to try and explain all of that away.
But the fact of the matter is when you just create the idea of a soul and say we now have a choice because our essence is immaterial and that's not subject to the laws of physics and biology, you don't actually solve the problem of free will.
You just kind of move it back one step to the point where most people go, okay, well, there's this thing over there called the soul which deals with the problem of free will.
But, of course, it doesn't. Sorry, I forgot my coffee.
There we go. This space, not for rent.
Alright, so let's have a look at the determinist position in sort of very broad strokes and so on.
So the determinist position sort of works like this, and it's like a game of reverse hangman, right?
So, let me just see if this is all visible.
Yes, so here we have a pretty anatomically correct view of either the letter L or a human foot.
And on the human foot are four little piggies and a big piggy.
So let's look at the little toe.
Let's have a look at the little toenail.
Does your little toenail have free will?
Of course not. You can't prosecute your little toe for deciding to get a hangnail or for falling off or whatever.
So clearly your little toe doesn't have free will.
So, your little toe doesn't have free will.
No free will there. Does your toe itself, sorry, little toenail, the toe doesn't have free will.
Does the foot have free will?
Does the calf have free will, right?
So, let's put another foot there.
Does these little toes have free will?
No, of course not, right? So, then they meet in the bare forked animal of Lear.
They go up. You have this.
You have your torso. Does your torso have free will?
Does your kidney have free will? Of course not.
Do your hands have free will?
No. Does your neck have free will?
So, I think you see where I'm going here, right?
So, when you look at the individual components of a human being, there's no such thing as free will in any of them, particularly if you go down to the atomic level.
So, for instance, you have a carbon atom that exists both in my brain and also in a diamond.
And clearly, the carbon atom in the diamond does not have free will.
And equally clearly, it would seem, the carbon atom in my brain doesn't have magically different properties.
It's not like a different carbon atom that is in my brain than it is in a diamond.
The carbon atom in a diamond doesn't have free will, so how can the carbon atom in my brain have free will?
Now, since none of the individual sort of component bits of a human being have free will, Since none of my atoms and none of my cells and none of my organs, we'll forget about the brain and the mind for the moment, none of my atoms, for sure, have any free will.
None of my cells have any, like the synaptic nerve impulses in my brain, they don't have free will.
So since none of the individual components that go to make up me have free will, or you, how is it that we can suddenly put all of these things together?
All of these atoms and these cells and these organs, how is it that we put them all together and suddenly, what?
You know, there's this magical penumbra of free will that is sort of magically created.
It doesn't really make any sense, right?
So, that's sort of one problem, is that none of the component parts of your body have any free will.
None of your atoms, none of your cells have free will.
So, how is it conceivable?
That you, as a human entity, as an actor, have free will.
None of your component parts have free will.
I mean, it's like saying that if you put ten guys together, you have a dragon, right?
Or if you put ten guys together, none of whom can levitate on their own.
If you put ten of them together, suddenly they have this power called levitation.
That doesn't make any sense. The aspect of the individual, the properties of the individual, you can't just sort of put them together, say the determinists, and come up with something extra.
So given that it's not possible at the atomic or cellular level, it can't be possible at any sort of aggregate of a cellular level.
So that's sort of one argument. Now the other argument that comes out of determinism is one of two things.
And determinists, of course, and quite rightly so, ask for definitions of free will when they go, because free will is just like, you know, it's the ability to choose, and like, well, what does that mean, right?
So, the question of determinism says, well, there's one, I don't think I need the board, but there's one or two possibilities for human choice.
Either human choice is caused by something that came before, or Either it's like a series of dominoes, right?
So, the decision that I made to do a...
Let's get really meta-narrative on our asses.
The decision that I made today to do a couple of videos on free will, what was that conditioned by?
Why did I make that decision?
Well, there's one of two possibilities according to determinists.
Either A, I made that decision because of decisions that I had made in the past.
Why did I decide to eat a bowl of cereal this morning?
I decided to eat a bowl of cereal this morning because I was hungry.
So, there's a cause for the decisions that we make.
They don't arrive randomly or anything like that.
There's a series of dominoes.
Now, if every choice is caused by a choice that came before, we have a turtles all the way down problem, if you've read that article of mine at freedomain.blogspot.com, which is that an infinite regression of causality is not freedom.
If I decided to do this video on free will because I received an email with lots of criticisms of free will, then there's a cause as to why I made this choice.
Let's say, emotionally, I really dislike the determinist position.
Of course, that's entirely true.
That doesn't mean anything. It's just entirely true.
Because I emotionally dislike the determinist position, I feel compelled to create a video attacking the determinist position.
Why do I dislike the determinist position?
Well, why do I dislike it?
Because I believe that the determinist position eradicates all the joy from human life, if you logically apply it consistently.
There's no ethics, there's no right, there's no wrong, there's no love, there's no preference, there's no values, there's nothing.
We are rocks. Bouncing down a hill and everything else is just fantasy.
So the essence of what brings joy to life, to me, is completely eradicated by the determinist position.
I know all the determinists in the world will jump up and say, but that's not true at all, Steph.
And that's fine. I mean, we're just looking at the emotional.
I'm actually arguing the determinist position here.
We're looking at the emotional causality.
So, why is it that I ended up doing this video today?
Well, because of a series of choices that I had made in the past, or a series of actions, both external and internal, that I had made in the past.
So, just think of it as a series of dominoes, right?
If it's a series of dominoes, even if we say the very first one is chosen, everything else after that is determined, right?
So, either choices are influenced by external circumstances or internal, quote, decisions that are made.
Which does not create free will, right?
If every choice that I've made is simply determined by what I experienced, or both in an internal and an external sense, before, I don't have free will.
Any more than the domino has free will if it's knocked over by the previous domino and knocks out the next domino.
Now, of course, when I'm sitting at the end of this domino line and I see all of these dominoes with these intricate patterns, I go, wow, you know, that was really cool, I made lots of choices, but of course it wasn't the case at all.
That's sort of one argument. But, If free will is to act or to sort of, quote, make choices without any prior precedent, then it's true that a certain kind of freedom is generated,
right? So, if I just woke up and decided to do a video on free will this morning with no prior stimuli whatsoever, With no precedent, no prior decisions, nothing like that.
Then the problem is, I still don't have free will, because I'm acting randomly.
So, this is sort of the two...
If I'm acting completely randomly, then I just don't have free will.
Any more than Brownian motion or the subatomic randomness that shows up in certain branches of quantum physics.
That's not free will.
So, either something is predictable, choices are predictable based on prior choices, in which case it's not freedom, or choices are not at all predictable based on prior choices, in which case it's random action, and that's not exactly freedom either.
Acting randomly is not, and also that would not be, like, neither one of those encapsulates or rescues morality, right?
Because if everything we do is based on what we did before or the stimuli we received, if we're just like, you know, computers or robots or highly complex systems, Then we're not really responsible for our choices.
If our choices are random, if stuff just pops up out of some quantum nightmare kaleidoscopic randomness, we're also not responsible for our choices because we're just sort of acting randomly.
So, in both of these two positions, morality and so on, is not present, right?
So, that's sort of the general sort of history and where we've ended up in terms of free will versus determinism.
There is a A sort of branch of free will versus determinism called compatibilism, which is also known by its Latin term, bullshit.
And what that says is, yes, everything's predetermined, but we have moral responsibility for our choices, right?
So, it's just taking the best of both worlds, right?
It's like saying, I can be perfectly rational and believe in God, too, even though God is irrational.
Like, it just takes, I mean, to me, this is just a nonsense position, right?
I mean, so...
I'm going to sort of lay out a few of the challenges that don't prove the free will position, but have a challenge, a strong challenge towards the question of determinism.
So, let's look at this sort of guy.
Should have kept him up here.
Let's look at Determinobot.
And yes, it is certainly true that none of his cells have free will.
The carbon atoms don't have free will.
I don't see why that's at all relevant to that.
Because the whole purpose of the definition of life is that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
That's what life means.
So, when I was talking earlier, my carbon atoms don't have free will, maybe it sounded vaguely credible to you, but, I mean, it's pure nonsense.
And a moment's thought, and this is what is so annoying about the determinist position, a moment's thought, Can undermine the whole, destroy the whole idea.
So, the carbon atom that is in the diamond is not alive.
Clearly, atoms can't be alive or dead, right?
They're just whirly gigs of electrons, protons, and neutrons.
So, the carbon atom in a diamond absolutely and totally cannot be alive.
The carbon atom in my brain or my body also We cannot be alive.
Does that mean that either the properties of each atom are the same, does that mean that either I am not alive or that the diamond is alive?
Of course not! The diamond is not alive.
It is an inert substance.
I am alive. Forget free will.
We're just talking about life and non-life.
So, although the atom in the diamond is not alive or dead, and the atom in me is not alive or dead, there's still a difference between being alive and not alive.
I shouldn't say dead, because diamonds aren't dead, because they never were alive.
So, the whole point of biology and the whole fact of the existence of life is predicated on the basic reality that aggregations can be far greater than the sum of their parts, that aggregations can, in fact, Produce effects or properties greater than the sum of their parts.
If you put together a bunch of atoms to make a Lego house, it's just a Lego house, right?
It doesn't have any properties that are greater than the sum of its parts.
However, when you have something called life, Then that is clearly an attribute that is not contained in any of the particular atoms, but which is still an objective and valid attribute.
And yes, people are going to say, well, the definition of life is complex, and we don't know about bacteria, and stars fit certain definitions of life, and so on.
And that's fine. There are gray areas at the edge of every science.
But there's no sane human being who can look me in the eye and say that there's no difference between being alive and being dead.
So clearly, life is one aspect of the behavior of matter and energy in relation with physical properties and laws that produces an effect that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Objectively and radically different.
No atom has the power of self-propulsion.
Right? No carbon atom can say, hey, I think I'm going over here.
No, wait. No, wait.
I'm going over here. Right?
No atom has the power of self-propulsion.
But I do. Even if we say that it's perfectly determined, it's still self-propulsion.
It's the initiation of movement, which is not causally affected by other things.
No carbon atom can do a podcast or a video on carbon atoms.
You're never going to see a whirly carbon atom up here talking about carbon atoms.
No carbon atom can write a symphony.
Does that mean that symphonies do not exist?
I mean, this, to me, is all just such complete nonsense.
So, once we accept, and we could go on and on, and one other example is, no single human being has the capacity to build a computer.
No one person, and that's even true of a pencil, no one person has enough knowledge to build a computer, from, like, taking a bunch of sand and putting it together and making a chip and all that sort of stuff.
No single human being has the capacity to make even a pencil, let alone a space shuttle.
Because no individual human being, let alone each individual atom, has the capacity to create a computer, does that mean that computers do not exist?
No, of course not. The economy as a whole has the capacity to produce items that no individual can produce.
So, the fact is that aggregations of things can have properties completely opposite.
To each one of their individual components.
Atoms are not alive or dead.
The opposite of life is not death, because death is an effect of life.
The opposite of life is non-animate, non-living.
So, none of the atoms in me are alive.
Life exists in me, or life is a property of these aggregations, which is the complete opposite.
of everything which goes to build it up.
So, what that does, it doesn't prove free will, but it proves that you cannot take an atomically or physically deterministic viewpoint of life, because, clearly, life exists and is an opposite property to every individual component of that life.
So, that's one aspect of a problem with the deterministic position.
Now, let's see if we can get it.
20 minutes? You know what? I'm going to continue this on the next video just so you can break this up into logical parts, but what we'll do with the next video is we'll have a look at the question of ethics and choice in relation to determinism and compatibilism.
Thank you so much for watching.
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