Living without free will

A thought experiment was put to me recently:

Assume you have been charged with a crime. In court you are able to conclusively prove that free will does not exist and therefore you can not be held responsible for this act.

I was asked to reflect on this philosophically. Although this seems more to be a legal than a philosophical problem, some core issues of philosophy are embedded in this scenario.

From a pragmatic point of view, if I was the judge in this case I would simply argue that I am forced to sentence you for the crime, as also I have no free will in this matter.

The idea that it would be scientifically provable (the only type of evidence that would be acceptable in court) comes from the reasoning that since we are made of material components and that since those components follow the 'laws of physics', our behaviour is a result of predictable interactions between atoms.

This idea is contrasted with the view that, although we have physical bodies, we also have something non physical, which does not follow the laws of physics, allowing for free will.

I don't want to delve into the discussion between the materialist and idealist points of view in this blog, as this is a philosophical minefield. For the purpose of this thought experiment, we need to assume that it has been proven that our minds and therefore our behaviour follows causal relationships and is therefore, assuming we can know the starting conditions and have full access to the laws of physics, fully predictable. Free will does in this context not exist and what we perceive as free will is to be considered an illusion.

The philosophical question that this thought experiment poses is what would the world be like if there was overall agreement that we are biological without free will. The consequences for our culture, our societies and our psychologies could be devastating. The philosophical problem is thus an existential one.

Some would argue that being deprived of a free will removes all morality and meaning from life because without will there can be no humanity - all our triumphs and digressions can be simply be blamed on causality. The person in our imaginary court case would argue that it wasn't him or her that perpetrated the crime, but the laws of physics.

My position in the materialist/idealist discussion is towards the materialist. Although, this does not mean that I think we would ever be able to conclusively prove that either is the case. Also, I think our so called 'laws of physics' are based on a logical error, as shown by David Hume, but that is food for thought for another time.

In the hypothetical situation of this thought experiment I think that society would not come to an end. In some ways it would be great for society because it would bring philosophical thinking to the foreground. Everybody would have to take position in this situation.

If humanity would be without free will, meaning and morality would most certainly not collapse. In some ways it would be very good for those who try to provide morality with a rational foundation - because if our minds are based on pure causality, than it would be possible to construct moral algorithms.

As for the question whether lie has meaning or not, I don't think that having no free will makes any difference. But for that question I refer back to the tireless Sisyphus, rolling the boulder up the hill till eternity.

Heraclitus and Freud

It dawned me a little while ago that the human condition is one of ongoing tension between the way the world is (ontology) and the way our mind works (psychology).

The world is inherently unpredictable - even our best attempts to make it predictable ultimately fail. We have trouble predicting the weather more then a few days ahead and predicting earthquakes and volcano eruptions are even more unpredictable.

Heraclitus had a great insight when he proclaimed that: "You cannot step twice into the same rivers ; for fresh waters are flowing in upon you" (Fragment No. 12). Heraclitus understood that the world is ever changing and nothing is ever the same.

Our human psychology, however, has difficulties accepting this eternal change. Sigmund Freud thought that we are not as free as we think we are, but are ultimately creatures of habit. More about the problem of free will in a future blog.

Our minds are designed to find regularity, even where there is none. Hume's sceptical argument regarding inductive inferences is a great illustration of how this works.

Also in this respect we need to jump into the abyss, as argued in my previous blog entry. This does not imply that we should just accept the chaos and not use our mind to attempt to understand the world. We should, however, accept that all our attempts to grasp the world around us in neatly packaged theories will never succeed. All knowledge is practical knowledge and can only be judged in its ability to produce the desired effects.

Don't Stare into the Abyss

About fifteen years ago my friends and I discussed one of Nietzsche's famous aphorisms in from Beyond Good and Evil:

"146. He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." (Source: Project Gutenberg)

This almost mystical utterance has kept me thinking - until recent. The solution came to me from reading a book about the boundaries of thinking by Dutch philosopher Jan Bor. He quoted Chinese Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi: "Leap into the boundless and make it your home!" He also mentioned Dutch poet Lucebert who wrote: "... who falls into the abyss becomes an airman - free and floating".

It dawned to me that the only way to stop staring into the abyss is to jump into it. The staring seems to refer to trying to locate firm ground down in the dark depths of the chasm. This is what philosophy has been doing for most of the 2500 years it has been around as we know it. Many philosophers have attempted to find some solid foundation for knowledge. Descartes' thought experiment in his Meditations is a great example of somebody jumping into the abyss, or as he put it, into deep water. This leap takes great philosophical courage and Descartes tries hard to: "either to plant [his] feet firmly on the bottom or sustain [himself] by swimming on the surface". As I argued previously, I don't think that Descartes has succeeded in plating hsi feet firmly on the bottom and should be content with simply floating in the water.

The solution to Nietzsche's aphorism is to take the same leap of faith as Descartes did, but not to hitherto find firm ground, but to make the void your home, or in the words of Lucebert, become an airman - free and floating.

This comes close to the concept of the metaphysical hot air balloon I theorised about some time ago. Jumping into the abyss and accepting there will be no firm ground removes the fear of falling to your death. The eternal free fall, a state of blissful weightlessness, will be the result of taking this leap into the abyss. The warning signs should be removed - be brave and practice some philosophical base-jumping!