Zeki Czen's Reviews > Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will

Sounds interesting. I've always found the unavoidability of determinism to be one of the biggest flaws in the idea that we are living in a purely materialistic world. It seems so obvious that we have not only free will, but rational thought that is not predetermined purely by chemistry acting on the physical brain causing unavoidable mental states. What were his main arguments for determinism? I might have to read this. Also, do you believe in determinism?

I'm a compatibalist myself, but he makes a compelling case for determinism. He makes a multi part argument, getting reasonably technical with a dive into the neuroscience of decision making, including genetic and epigenetic factors that influence our cognition. There's discussion on psychological studies. There's also a lot of discussion about emergent phenomena in complex adaptive systems. He also discusses at some length the basis for how a society that largely accepted his base premise, that free will is an emergent phenomena and is illusory, what that would mean for current notions of moral responsibility. One of his refrains was essentially, "show me the neuron that fires an action potential and starts a decision making chain that isn't acted upon by any other". There's talk about our social shift in terms of diminished responsibility and how we already accept things like epilepsy and schizophrenia as conditions where a person may act aberrantly but we don't assign moral guilt because of it. It brushed on the social justice aspects of the topic as well.

Overall, I thought it was cogent and well done. It's going to take me some time and a possible re-read before I come to a firm conclusion. I had just read several articles that boiled down to "neuroscientist disproves the existence of free will", which imo, overstates the case. I found some conclusions to be glib. I wouldn't say Sapolsky resorted to any strawman when discussing critique from compatibalists and incompatiblists, but I didn't think their critiques were as conclusively disproven as he seems to.

I would agree with compatibilism to some extent. Just because you may be predetermined to perform an action doesn't mean that you didn't freely choose to perform that action. I would say I'm a Molinist when it comes to soteriology (which has overlap with our topic of discussion). For example, (in my understanding, obviously, since you don't believe in God), God knows all propositional truth including counterfactuals. Therefore, when God created the universe, He knew what each person would freely choose given a certain set of circumstances. When He decided to create the universe all the circumstances were locked in and all the counterfactuals were foreknown to God, aka it was predestined from that point. However, God didn't directly cause us to make those choices, we made them of our own free will. I'm curious what you make of free will. How is free will explained without appealing to something metanatural? I have always wondered what an intellectual atheist like yourself would understand consciousness to be and how you could conceive of a will that is not determined purely naturally when nature is all that many atheists are willing to allow for. Perhaps you allow for certain supernatural allowances?

I'm surprised, I would have thought you more of a thomist. Molina had a decent enough thesis I suppose for reconciling divine providence and free will, but I never found it terribly persuasive. Perhaps my understanding is limited as I think the simple presence or awareness of a counterfactual from a being who created the rules, has perfect knoeledge of them as well as perfect control over the starting conditions simply sets the question one at one further remove. As a great man once said, "if I had 2 wheels, I'd be a bike." But, obviously as you know, the finer points of specific soteriological theories are moot to me so it's just as possible the fault is in my understanding.

As to my notions of free will and consciousness, it's been the topic of some real internal discord, and hence picking up this book. I've never really doubted that our free will is constrained, be that situationally, culturally, by our own biases, or by biology.

To some degree, the discussion is informed by how we want to define free will. Is it the ability to freely choose without impediment? Or is it the capacity to make choices undetermined by past events? moreover at what point do we say prior events force our choices, merely constrain them, or simply inform?

I've tended toward a simple recognition of constraints on my free will. I'm thirsty and so I choose to drink something and theory can drink what I choose. But culturally I'm constrained from drinking straight vodka, biologically.from drinking gasoline, and from personal preference, from black coffee cause it gives me heart burn. But less dramatically, as I choose to participate in society so as to earn money to live, I need to wear pants. How truly unconstrained then is the choice between khakis and jeans? It's not cause khakis are for dorks. So I recognize constraints on my will and recognize that my own upbringing informs what I even recognize as possible options or limitations. But what, for me, has been the challenge is how much of my sense of free will and consciousness are illusory, emergent phenomenon, or arising a posterie. The fallibility of the senses has been a going concern since Descartes and ultimately our awareness of our own consciousness and free will are just qualia like any other. I also believe that our free will can exist in an aspirational manner. I can choose to try to change the way I think and feel and aspire to make myself into the sort of person who makes a certain type of choice. I.e., I'm going to try to make myself a lessed stressed person who makes more informed decisions vs rash judgements via meditation, more sleep, prescription meds etc etc. Essentially a compatibalist frame work. Sapolsky's contention is that even this is illusory and that's where I struggle to find the line.

I'm not sure why concepts of free will or consciousness would require invoking the preter/meta/super/megatron-natural.