Science, Religion, Politics and in the pursuit of truth – HappyPsychotic

Free Will Presentation

// December 7th, 2008 // GlenncloseAuthor: Glenn Name: Glenn C
Email: happypsychotic@gmail.com
Site: http://www.happypsychotic.com
About: Glenn is 36 years old and now lives in a small town in Northern Ontario with his wife of 13 years and 2 kids. He has been a foster parent for 10 years in 3 different cities. He graduated from Radio College of Canada (Toronto) in 1993 as an Electronic Engineering Technologist and has been working in the electronics industry ever since with companies like Nortel. Glenn does a good amount of reading, studying and thinking about such topics as philosophy, psychology, physics (Quantum Mechanics), religion and science. Glenn does have an I.Q. of > 140 (as does Chris) which is categorized as genius but hasn't bothered joining any I.Q. type clubs. He is very logical and analytical and always looking for a way to make a better world - primarily through self-improvement and in helping others to improve themselves. Most importantly, he constantly re-evaluates his priorities and ensures his time is spent wisely - like working on this site.See Authors Posts (92)

I had an “in-house” course at work this week entitled “Instructional Techniques and Presentations” or something like that…Anyways, we learned how our company structures their courses and at the end, we all had to give a 15 minute presentation on any topic we liked, following the given guidelines.  Some people chose to do their presentations on “real estate investment”, “rope knot tying”, “HDTV”, etc. and I chose to do mine on “Free Will”.  So, I figured I would copy my powerpoint presentation here to this blog, trying to write down the main comments that I said aloud during the presentation in brackets().

Free Will
Motivating Statement
Learning different viewpoints on the philosophy of Free Will allow students to deal with life and morality in a clearer manner.

(To begin, I read a small excerpt from the free eBook by Scott Adams entitled “God’s Debris” (available here)…

“Do you believe God is omnipotent and that people
have free will?” he asked.
“That’s standard stuff for God. So, yeah.”
“If God is omnipotent, wouldn’t he know the future?”
“Sure.”
“If God knows what the future holds, then all our choices
are already made, aren’t they? Free will must be an illusion.”
He was clever, but I wasn’t going to fall for that trap.
“God lets us determine the future ourselves, using our free
will,” I explained.
“Then you believe God doesn’t know the future?”
“I guess not,” I admitted. “But he must prefer not
knowing.”
“So you agree that it would be impossible for God to
know the future and grant humans free will?”
“I hadn’t thought about it before, but I guess that’s
right. He must want us to find our own way, so he intentionally
tries not to see the future.”
“For whose benefit does God withhold his power to
determine the future?” he asked.
“Well, it must be for his own benefit, and ours, too,” I
reasoned. “He wouldn’t have to settle for less.”
The old man pressed on. “Couldn’t God give humans the
illusion of free will? We’d be just as happy as if we had actual
free will, and God would retain his ability to see the future. Isn’t
that a better solution for God than the one you suggested?”
“Why would God want to mislead us?”
“If God exists, his motives are certainly unfathomable.
No one knows why he grants free will, or why he cares
about human souls, or why pain and suffering are necessary
parts of life.”)

Free Will Options

• determinism versus indeterminism
• compatibilism versus incompatibilism
• The effects of one’s philosophy of free will on morality.

Determinism

• Determinism is roughly defined as the view that all current and future events are causally necessitated by past events combined with the laws of nature.
• E.g. Laplace’s demon, theological determinism, Newtonian physics, genetic inheritance

(In the history of science, Laplace’s demon is a hypothetical “demon” envisioned in 1814 by Pierre-Simon Laplace such that if it knew the precise location and momentum of every atom in the universe then it could use Newton’s laws to reveal the entire course of cosmic events, past and future. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon)

(Theological determinism is the viewpoint that all events are pre-ordained by God.)

(Newtonian physics goes along with the Laplace’s demon example in suggesting that using Newton’s laws, one can predict the future i.e. if you know the mass, velocity and acceleration of an object you can predict where it will be in the future)

(Genetic inheritance is the view that much (or all) of who we are as a person is determined by the genes we have inherited from our ancestors)

Indeterminism

(Of course, this is the opposite of determinism)

• Every event is random
• Quantum Mechanics deals only in probabilities

(I should probably upload my other presentation I did a few months back at work talking about Quantum Mechanics…amazing stuff…but in the context here, just know that QM is a science that is almost the opposite of Newtonian physics in how it deals with matter in probabilities and cannot pinpoint particles or define them)
Compatibilism

• Compatibilists maintain that determinism is compatible with free will.
• E.g. A person is able to “will” themselves to make a decision with conscious effort.

(I think this one is the most difficult to understand…people here believe that events are pre-ordained or are influenced by previous events, but not completely…so they believe in determinism but also believe in “free will”)

Incompatibilism

• Incompatibilists accept determinism and reject free will.
• If a person is determined in his or her choices of actions, then he or she must be like other mechanical things that are determined in their behavior such as a wind-up toy, a billiard ball, a puppet, or a robot.

(You can see here, that if you believe all future events can be predicted if you had enough information about the past and present (a good example being a computer program), then you would deny anyone has free will because we are simply following along what was created at the initial moment the universe was born)

Free Will and Morality

• Many believe that moral responsibility requires free will. Thus, another important issue in the debate on free will is whether individuals are ever morally responsible for their actions.
• It seems impossible that one can hold someone responsible for an action that could be predicted from (potentially) the beginning of time.
• Medical professionals attribute many personality traits to genetics, upbringing, and physical brain condition.  These factors minimize the blame for a person’s immoral behaviour.

(I also cited the example from the news this year (couldn’t find the reference) of a man who was imprisoned because he had committed some sexual assaults.  While in prison, a doctor discovered he had a brain tumor.  Once the brain tumor was treated, he lost his sexually deviant motivation.  After some time, the tumor grew back and his sexual deviancy returned.  So there is a question as to whether this man should be held responsible for something that can be considered a medical condition.)

Final Exam
What is determinism?
What is indeterminism?
How does determinism relate to morality?

(What I really wanted the final exam question to be was “Do you believe you have free will?  Why or why not?”.  But of course, this is an opinion question that there isn’t a right or wrong answer for, and somebody could answer this question without having listened to my presentation.)