Honest discussions of free will are bound to become unsettling, if one is brave enough to go the distance. After reading Free Will by Sam Harris, one is definitely left unsettled. We all have the feeling of free will - that we choose what we do or don't do. The beating of our hearts may be involuntary, but we definitely decide whether or not to drink that glass of water. The idea that this could be an illusion flies in the face of our intuition and subjective experience. Yet, Harris makes a very compelling case that our sense of free will is exactly that - an illusion. This is not to say that a choice wasn't made to pick up that glass of water…it's to say that it wasn't you who made it. The experience of that action tricks you into believing you were the cause, when in fact you weren’t. As to who or what is doing the choosing, the decision to drink that water presumably resulted from brain states, neuronal patterns, and/or prior chains of events, all of which you have absolutely no control over.
Most people (including me) find such a prospect depressing. We'd like to think that we can take pride in our accomplishments and bear the responsibility for our actions - that our decision to run into that burning building to save those puppies was not the result of neurons that just happened to fire, but rather that those neurons fired because of a meaningful choice that we made. We'd also like to think that the serial killers and rapists of the world are responsible for their actions too, and not victims of their brain states and neurophysiology. Of course, the way that each person is neurologically and biochemically wired is certainly relevant to our actions and behavior, but we’d like to think such wiring does not encompass the entirety of why we do what we do.
Now it should be pointed out that whether or not you have free will is inconsequential from the standpoint of your personal experience - you feel like you have control over your thoughts and actions, regardless of whether you actually do or don't. So in one sense, free will's truth or falsity is completely irrelevant, practically speaking. However, for the inquisitive among us, we'd still like to know what's really going on under the hood.
It should also be pointed out that a lack of free will would not mean your experiences aren't genuine - they absolutely are - it would just mean that you are a helpless puppet along for a ride in a car that you are not driving. Similarly, it would not mean that you don't possess genuine knowledge, weigh career options, waver between dinner choices, plan out vacations, ponder your existence, react to the behavior of others, learn, problem solve, etc - you would still be doing all of these things, just not in the sense that matters - it would mean your biological system is doing them, while the consciously self-aware you (the real you) is merely experiencing the process.
So I've been attempting to make sense of this issue for quite a while now, because I abhor the idea that we are merely selves helplessly trapped in bodies, with no autonomy, and that life is nothing but a bunch of billiard balls set into motion on a cosmic pool table in which all of our future paths and interactions are entirely pre-determined or otherwise predictable from principles of physics and mathematics. But as much as I don’t want this to be the case, one can't (or shouldn't) ignore evidence just because it's inconvenient or displeasing, and the fact of the matter is that Harris makes a very compelling case that free will does not exist. The stakes are high, my friends.
Fortunately, after long and careful consideration, I suspect there may still be hope after all. What follows is my defense of free will, for the good of the land - because who better to reconcile Harris's anti-free will arguments than someone with no significant philosophical accomplishments or PhDs to his name? Yes, it must be me. Besides, as an undergraduate I got a minor in philosophy, so step off, bitches. Now if my efforts should miserably fail, then I suppose it won't really be me failing, since as it would turn out I would not have actually chosen (in the meaningful sense) to write this in the first place…a realization that should hopefully remove any potential embarrassment in the event someone comes along and utterly destroys this defense.
Additionally, just to be clear, although I'm arguing that free will does exist, I'm not suggesting that we are in control of 100% of ourselves - just that we exert meaningful agency to some degree. Free will doesn't require that we control every influence, impulse, and desire, but rather, that we have the ability to resist, adhere, and add to that tapestry with consciously intended behavior. Obviously things like our nervous system are on autopilot, and I fully concede that other aspects seem to be as well, such as various emotional triggers and behavioral / facial knee-jerk reactions (see Paul Ekman's Emotions Revealed for an interesting discussion to that end). I acknowledge the autonomy of such mechanisms, concede the relevance of our genetic and chemical predispositions, etc, but I maintain that there is still more to the story … more pieces to the puzzle … more cushion for the pushin' (well, maybe not that last one).
Harris essentially makes two main arguments against free will, which taken together are quite formidable. I will summarize each and then bring the hellfire, but I encourage you to read Harris's full manuscript, as the author naturally goes into greater depth and explores other areas in addition to these.
Argument 1
Experiments in neuroscience have shown that people do not become aware of the decisions they make until after those decisions are already made. If one is not aware of their decision until after the decision is made, one cannot be said to have made the decision in the first place.
Argument 2
Our thoughts and feelings drive our behavior. Introspection makes it clear that we do not choose our thoughts and feelings, but instead, simply experience them as they pop into our awareness. If we have no control over what we think and feel, then we have no control over our actions and behavior, and thus, no causal agency with respect to our lives at all. Since this is precisely the situation we find ourselves in, it follows that we do not possess free will.
Scary shit, folks.
Response to Argument 1
One would expect that our awareness of a decision would occur in conjunction with its formation. However, a variety of experiments involving EEG and fMRI monitoring of a subject’s brain have demonstrated that a subject's decision to move can apparently be anticipated prior to the subject consciously choosing to move (from 300 ms to as much as 10 seconds beforehand). The predicted movements in question are general in nature, such as the case of pressing a button. Note the predictive accuracy is not 100%, and scientists are not able to predict how a subject will press that button (e.g. with her index finger or her elbow), but this is arguably due to the infancy of the field.
These findings are very intriguing and quite startling. However, it is important to realize that the duration of the time-lapse between subjects’ awareness of their choice, and the neuronal data that lead to successful predictions of that choice, is inconsequential. This is to say, whether those neuronal precursors occur 5 nanoseconds or 5 minutes before you feel like you’ve made the choice, both constitute a time-lapse. A greater time lag may very well be more shocking from a psychological standpoint, but philosophically speaking there is no reason why one duration should be more alarming than another. So it’s the time-lapse in and of itself that constitutes the real peculiarity - not the specific duration therein.
Also, keep in mind that there is no brain scan technology that can tell us what you are thinking or aware of, so any assessment as to when a person consciously chooses to move can only be inferred, either from the subject’s behavior or from the subject’s first-person report. For example, your reaction to the smell of something rancid is what informs us that you've had such an experience - e.g. making a disgusting face, or stating "it smells like shit”. Of course, analyzing brain function can clue us in to the fact that you are thinking / experiencing in general, and seeing activity in the regions associated with our olfactory system can perhaps be indicative of the nature of that experience, but such activity will not tell us what specifically you are experiencing or thinking…we cannot conclude from a brain scan, "she's smelling petunias and thinking about streaking”. Maybe the future of neuroscience will one day be able to decode and translate the entirety of your brain, inclusive of the specific contents of your thoughts, but until that day comes we should tread carefully in reaching firm conclusions.
The problem with indirectly deducing one’s awareness is that it leads to a great deal of uncertainty, and a person’s subjective self-assessment as to when they were conscious of a given thing is not precise enough for scientific standards. So attempts to study volition in the laboratory entail an unavoidably flawed protocol, wherein we cannot isolate a subject’s thoughts / intentions / awareness - only the totality of a person’s brain activity is accessible. The fact that a subject may feel as if he chooses to press a button at 1:15 PM, while a scientist is able to accurately predict that choice at 1:14 PM, is ambiguous in its implications: it could mean the subject did not cause the action (i.e. he has no free will), or it could mean there is some kind of disconnect between the subject’s awareness and his ability to integrate and report that awareness, or it could mean there is a confounding factor involved (e.g. the subject thought about the prospect of pressing the button without actually pressing it, which tipped off the neuroscientist). Furthermore, we can't determine if a movement, such as pressing a button, is encapsulated within one single choice, or is the product of multiple choices chained together (e.g. a decision to move, followed by a decision to move a finger, followed by a decision to commence the movement now); and if the latter, which decision in the chain is the true correlate of the EEG / fMRI readout and which decision correlates to the awareness being reported by the subject?
So we find ourselves in muddy waters. Of course, we expect that we should be able to precisely pinpoint the inception of a choice in time. However, it’s interesting to speculate whether this expectation might actually be misguided - what if we are not sufficiently equipped, on a neurobiological level, to determine the precise moment of a choice? It seems to me that to accurately report when I make a choice, two things are required: 1) that I am capable of actually perceiving when the choice is made, and 2) that I am capable of remembering that information.
Regarding the first requirement, there are countless stimuli that occur too fast for our senses to perceive (e.g. movement of light photons), and perhaps thoughts are simply too fast for our awareness to pin down in time. But even if I can perceive this, I still have to store the temporal information associated with my choice into some kind of memory, in order to be able to reference and communicate that information to you. So is it possible that the time-lapse demonstrated within these experiments is suggestive of a deficiency in our capacity to remember when we make the decisions we make?
Our memories are certainly limited in a variety of other ways - you can’t remember what you were doing at 7:39 PM last July 2nd, and I can’t remember your name even though you told me five times. From an evolutionary standpoint, there certainly doesn’t seem to be any advantage to knowing the specific point in time that you decided to eat a berry, for example…only the choice itself and the consequences that follow would be important (e.g. I ate those berries and got sick). Perhaps our internal assessments as to when we make choices really are just retroactive educated guesses, not because we don’t actually make choices in the first place, but because we simply can’t remember when we made them. Maybe our brains do not possess the necessary circuitry to be able to process or retain this type of information, and human beings have some kind of permanent choice-amnesia. Maybe our heads would explode otherwise. And just ask yourself, how many people look at their watches and then have to look back a second time because they don’t remember what they just saw a moment ago? Think about it (but not too hard).
Regarding the first requirement, there are countless stimuli that occur too fast for our senses to perceive (e.g. movement of light photons), and perhaps thoughts are simply too fast for our awareness to pin down in time. But even if I can perceive this, I still have to store the temporal information associated with my choice into some kind of memory, in order to be able to reference and communicate that information to you. So is it possible that the time-lapse demonstrated within these experiments is suggestive of a deficiency in our capacity to remember when we make the decisions we make?
Our memories are certainly limited in a variety of other ways - you can’t remember what you were doing at 7:39 PM last July 2nd, and I can’t remember your name even though you told me five times. From an evolutionary standpoint, there certainly doesn’t seem to be any advantage to knowing the specific point in time that you decided to eat a berry, for example…only the choice itself and the consequences that follow would be important (e.g. I ate those berries and got sick). Perhaps our internal assessments as to when we make choices really are just retroactive educated guesses, not because we don’t actually make choices in the first place, but because we simply can’t remember when we made them. Maybe our brains do not possess the necessary circuitry to be able to process or retain this type of information, and human beings have some kind of permanent choice-amnesia. Maybe our heads would explode otherwise. And just ask yourself, how many people look at their watches and then have to look back a second time because they don’t remember what they just saw a moment ago? Think about it (but not too hard).
Response to Argument 2 _ (you forgot what Argument 2 was, didn’t you? See what I’m saying? Well go back and reread it, you forgetful bastard)
I agree with Harris that simple introspection makes it obvious that we cannot account for the source of our thoughts and choices. Indeed, it appears as if thoughts come to us, as opposed to from us. Perhaps this explains the origin of phrases such as, “It just occurred to me that your stepson is an asshole”, or “the solution to the equation came to me last night in a dream”, or “It dawned on me this afternoon that I never looked underneath the mattress for her diary”. Regardless, the following line of inquiry is puzzling:
Why did I do what I did? Because I chose to do it. Why did I choose it? I don’t know - I guess because I chose to choose it..(?) Why did I choose to choose it? Etc, etc. Final answer: I have no idea.
We are woefully inadequate in answering this inquiry, because we have absolutely no idea why we think what we think. But on closer inspection, the fact that we don’t choose our thoughts may not be cause for alarm. After all, what would it mean to choose a thought? It would seem to involve having another thought! Argument 2 is framed in a way that assumes our thoughts need explaining, but in my opinion this is a mental / linguistic parlor trick. Moreover, our perplexity doesn’t go away in abandoning free will, and we could alter the inquiry accordingly:
Why did I do what I did? Because of neurons firing in the brain. Why did those neurons fire? Because of other chemical / biological processes. Why did those processes occur? Because of yet other physical states and processes. And what caused those physical states and processes? Etc, etc. Final answer: The Big Bang. And what caused the Big Bang? … I have no idea.
To the extent one investigates cause and effect, one will always encounter an infinite regress, or some amount of magic will enter the equation - either something must mysteriously arise from nothing without a cause, or there is a mysterious First Cause (wherein that First Cause has no cause or somehow causes itself), or something mysteriously just always is or was. At a fundamental level, cause and effect is baffling, and there are roadblocks at every turn.
Although scientists don’t know how or why Existence came to be, we all agree that Existence exists nevertheless…in the same way, although we can't account for how or why we make the choices we make, we're making them nonetheless. We don't need to understand how or why something is, in order for that something to be the case. Of course, this is not a license to resort to wishful thinking, and it’s important to concede that Harris is not attempting to explain the metaphysics of choice - he's simply saying that whatever its nature, it's not us doing the choosing. However, this does not resolve the enigma at hand, but simply moves it to a different arena wherein the enigma persists, and without providing an intelligible explanation as to the fundamental source of our thoughts, Argument 2 essentially just amounts to an acknowledgement that we are completely in the dark about the matter. We didn’t know what was going on before Argument 2, and we still don’t know what’s going on after Argument 2. It may be tempting for some to suggest that the Big Bang being responsible for our thoughts and choices is somehow less mysterious compared to that of free will, but pushing a mystery back billions of years doesn’t make it any less of a mystery - it just keeps it out of sight. It’s smoke and mirrors.
Perhaps this bafflement is the result of asking what in truth are meaningless questions. Philosopher Alan Watts (along with various Eastern worldviews) would suggest that this discussion of cause and effect and free will assumes that we are independent minds acting on the world, when in fact we are not (see The Book). Watts would argue that the real illusion is that there are separate things at all; that through your narrowed consciousness you appear to be a separate thing, but in truth, you and every thing that you think is not you are all part of one process of being, as the wave is one with the ocean. From this perspective, no one is choosing and no one is not choosing - We / I / You / It are just being.
Interestingly enough, consider this: I identify myself as the summation of my mental happenings…I am what I think and feel. If all of my thoughts and feelings stem from a nebulous source outside of me, then wouldn’t this just mean that my sense of “me” is illusory, and not my sense of autonomy? In other words, if I am that which thinks and feels, but something else is doing the thinking and feeling, then aren’t I whatever that something else is? And if that something else is bound within an infinitely regressing causal chain of events, then aren’t I the entirety of that chain? And if you and everyone else are similarly such things, and we all originate from a single point at the beginning of Time amidst a mystical explosion of something from nothing, then … that would mean We / I / You / It are simply Being.
With or without free will, we can’t account for why we think what we think. So it comes down to the following: either we are arbiters of our own destiny, making legitimate decisions about what we do and don't do, along with real choices as to how we act and behave…or we are captives, trapped within bodies, aware of ourselves but without causal agency, at the complete mercy of thoughts and feelings that are not our own. Like the Highlanders that came before us, there can only be one. So which one is it? You decide (to the degree that you can).
With or without free will, we can’t account for why we think what we think. So it comes down to the following: either we are arbiters of our own destiny, making legitimate decisions about what we do and don't do, along with real choices as to how we act and behave…or we are captives, trapped within bodies, aware of ourselves but without causal agency, at the complete mercy of thoughts and feelings that are not our own. Like the Highlanders that came before us, there can only be one. So which one is it? You decide (to the degree that you can).
You've forgotten a significant "out" in all of this.
ReplyDeleteThe notion of "If we knew the location of every particle in the universe (with a few other constraints)... we could predict the future with 100% accuracy" is tempting; and you've suggested essentially the reverse by trying to work your way back to the Big Bang. But as we are beginning to fully appreciate, the Uncertainty Principle and other indications like what exactly "nothing" means (in the scientific sense not the literal) as well as implications of quantum physics and string theory all point to an 'uncertainty' that can drive the free-will concept just after (before?) the "I have no idea" singularity.
I think it could be that it is the uncertainty aspect that drives the whole system and so each of us has our neurons pushed around in unpredictable ways, forcing each of us to "arrive at" completely unpredictable thoughts (that may) simply "pop" into our heads. In that sense, there is nothing *but* Free-Will.
Well there is a difference between claiming the universe is not 100% predictable and claiming that we have free will. Your reference to the Uncertainty Principle is relevant to the former, but not the latter. If aspects of existence are random and/or unknowable, then it will certainly be impossible to predict the future deterministically. However, free will requires that you (the conscious self-aware you) are a deliberate / intentional source of thoughts / actions - so if the significant “out” you’re implying is that features of quantum physics account for free will, I would say you have conflated unpredictability with conscious agency - a random driver pushing around our neurons in unpredictable ways still means that you are not the one driving!
DeleteThe fact that I made no mention of quantum indeterminacy within the article should not imply that I don’t concede it’s validity - just that it wasn't relevant to the discussion. As a result, my “reversal” going back to the Big Bang may be oversimplified, but it illustrates the point nonetheless, a point which remains the same with all the strangeness of quantum physics - namely, we cannot account for why we think what we think regardless of the source of our thoughts, but this in and of itself does not lead to a necessary conclusion one way or another on the matter of free will. And moreover, if the Big Bang or quantum indeterminacy is ultimately responsible for our thoughts, then perhaps this shows that the illusion at hand is not free will, but actually our sense of self as discrete egos separate from everything else.
Free Will as defined by Mr. Webster:
Delete"the ability to choose how to act."
But now we must decide what "choosing" means.
The principles I introduced (and what I am suggesting) is that if you agree that your thought process can not be 'predicted' then there must be some influence the brings about one outcome over another. The question remains just what that influence was -- was it your conscious effort of "thought" -- or was it because a butterfly flapped its wings in Argentina (yesterday, no less!)
Here's a thought experiment: Lets say I am going to ask you to choose which of 2 hallways to walk down. I can tell you that this will occur next Tuesday or I can not and just confront you with the choice when we meet (which we were going to do regardless next Tuesday.)
Do you perceive any difference in the manner in which you will choose?
Not quite following your thought experiment. However, I agree that if aspects of existence are scientifically unpredictable then there is room for the possibility of free will, but in no way does such unpredictability make free will a certainty, and importantly, in and of itself such unpredictability does not refute either of the arguments that Sam Harris is making.
Deletequote from arg #2: "... If we have no control over what we think and feel, then we have no control over our actions and behavior..."
DeleteMy thought experiment tried to introduce the idea that the "then" in his argument may not be true in all cases. At some level, consciousness, I think grants us 'options.' If you have some time to ponder about a situation, is that not fundamentally different than cases where 'snap' decisions are made?
I would agree that granting free will a certainty would be difficult to prove for all thought processes *but* perhaps suggesting that there is not ANY free will is easier to disprove by finding ANY case where you can disconnect the 2 halves of his Arg#2.
Ah, thank you for that clarification. There may be differences between snap decisions and prolonged ones, but not in a way that matters to Argument 2, which holds equally in both cases…even if you spend 2 years pondering a decision, you still cannot account for why you have any of the thoughts that you do during your deliberation. The same goes for the entirety of one's thought process in general - you just think what you think, for reasons unknown.
DeleteSupposing that consciousness has a role to play in our choices is fine - and I sympathize with this proposition - however, Harris asserts that our subjective experience corresponds only with thoughts popping into our awareness…we don’t experience ourselves generating thoughts, so much as “receiving” thoughts. So if we have no subjective experience of ourselves creating thoughts, and we merely experience them already formed, then how can we as conscious selves purport to be the cause of them? Of course, we can claim some other aspect of ourselves is responsible (e.g. the unconscious), but any such attempt does not correspond to the sense of self and conscious agency that we all feel like we have.
As far as I can see, the only way out of this dilemma is to submit one or more of the following: 1) Claim that our subjective experience does in fact correspond with the creation of our thoughts (i.e. the sensation of thoughts popping into our awareness is actually the sensation of those thoughts being created) 2) Dispute the assertion that not being able to account for why we think what we think is relevant or indicative of anything 3) Dispute the assumption that thoughts require causes (i.e. thoughts are an ontologically distinct phenomena that don’t have causes in the traditional mechanistic sense) 4) Declare the arguments / evidence against free will to be valid, but draw a different conclusion from the same data (e.g. that our perceived identity as discrete selves is illusory, not free will).
One reason this is so interesting (to me anyway) is that it begins to encroach upon areas so basic and yet can (likely) never be fully accepted as fact -- e.g. Do we even "exist" or are we a computer simulation? (the "Matrix" concept)
DeleteIn this vein, the very idea of what a thought is, where it 'comes from', and 'when do we experience it' may never be fully understood and worse, may not be able to be understood as the argument can always 'degrade' back to a "Yeah, but what caused THAT?" ad infinitum.
I find it also interesting that (in other works) Mr. Harris also proposes that science can make assertions about Right and Wrong... And not that I disagree, but, how can that be true if what we think can not be asserted as something we actually control?
This has been great Mr. Hemsey, and I look forward to other discussions.
Likewise Anonymous!
DeleteIt's very interesting that some of us humans actually dispute whether or not we exist as our own free-thinkers, not because they want it to be that way but because they feel that 'that is the way it is.' The human mind is the most immensely complex object we have ever tried to understand, and we all get one for ourselves - and we are the only organisms we know of that have tried to understand our own minds.
ReplyDeleteI believe that our subconscious is largely responsible for what we can and cannot do, but what we decide to do is up to our conscious selves. The subconscious (without you knowing) analyzes a situation based on your past experiences and memories and comes up with a solution to your problem, which is why you suddenly 'realize' things, sometimes without even thinking about them. While our subconscious helps decide what the best course of action is, our conscious mind has the 'free will' to discard, disregard, or act on these ideas.
I cite your body's reaction to touching a hot surface, such as a stovetop. Pull your freaking finger away, right? Well, you don't actually have time to think that, because by the time the signals of your burning hands reach your brain, your spine (I repeat, your spine) has already subconsciously decided that the situation is too urgent to wait for a 'free will' decision to pull your hands back. This is an example of a situation when we do not have free will, but most decisions you can control the outcome yourself. In principle, I believe that your options for action are decided by previous experience and knowledge, but we are able to control the decision itself.
I would also like to point out the 'Fuck you, Holmes' factor - coined by a professor who was performing a simple input-output psychological experiment. One of his subjects was deliberately refusing to do what he wanted (possibly just to screw his results.) When inquired about why, he responded simply "Because fuck you, Holmes." Why? We'll never know, but the fact is that humans are unpredictable, especially in a social context. Free will antagonists might say that this is because as humans we want to be classified in society, but I think it is because our free will has given us the opportunity to be creative and different.
Perhaps the greatest problem we face in this field (and in psychology in general) is that we have no empirical data or evidence. Scientists may have been able to predict somebody's actions before they could, but there are arguments that account for that (including mine,) and there are certainly arguments out there that disprove those arguments.
But the bottom line is, what would we do without are own minds?
-Will
It is very interesting. In response to your comments about the subconscious, there is no doubt that we have multiple systems that are on autopilot, and this in and of itself does not negate free will. Without discrediting the merits of your belief that we are “free” to discard, disregard, or acquiesce to the effects of these systems (after all, I am obviously a “defender” of free will), I would just point out that neither appeal to the subconscious, nor expressing the belief / hope that we can control our decisions, by themselves refute the arguments made by Sam Harris against free will.
DeleteIn terms of the “Fuck you, Holmes” factor, while certainly amusing, it does not shed any light on the philosophical discussion of free will - yes, human behavior can be very unpredictable, but this observation by itself is not revelatory with respect to ascertaining whether any of our behavior is consciously intended. We have free will only to the extent that we consciously generate and drive our behavior…this is more than being aware of what we’re doing as we do it, and requires that we as conscious selves are the root cause for why we do at least some of what we do.
To your last point regarding the lack of empirical data, many would reply that neuroscience is in fact gathering empirical data, and that as this area of research continues to mature and evolve, it will only get closer and closer to answering all the questions of mind. Of course, it will unquestionably continue to gather data, but how we interpret that data is another matter.
An interesting read of a similar nature that gives a completely fictional view (albeit spiritual by the very nature of the fiction) is "God's Debris" by Dilbert creator Scott Adams. It's pretty good, especially the bit about freewill, gravity, and probability.
ReplyDeleteMight be a good "thought experiment" for a fellow philosopher-composer.
Enjoy.
Adams, Scott. 2004. "God's Debris: A Thought Experiment." Andrews McMeel. Kansas City, MO.
It sounds we are talking about quantum mechanism, and i believe it. About the "free will", I do believe it as well, it is because of thought of human rise, the "unpredictable" things becomes predictable, so i think we are controlling our willing.
ReplyDeleteSo.... I just read this while Mind Heist Evolution was on loop and then got to the mind blown picture. Pretty much summed up what i was feeling. I laughed out loud, then went back to my iPod and picked Greeting the Menace as my next song.
ReplyDeleteNice reading in the middle of the night, was a bit caught by surprise.
ReplyDeleteThis notion of free will is particularly relevant in our socities.
There are other authors that discussed this topic through another point of view : the marxists, but more widely the authors that abided by the dialectical materialism phylosophical doctrine.
Even though this doctrine primarly focuses on the history of social developments (and especially on the class warfare), I believe it can be extended to the general idea of free will.
Dialectical materialism states that the material conditions of humans determine their consciousness. And not the other way around.
It strongly implies that the concept of "free will" (at least in the way we see our social relations) is a false one ; it's not the natural way of evolution.
Thus appears with it the notion of "social constructs". Indeed if you are litteraly dying of hunger, you might become a criminal by robbing to eat. And I guess this somehow can be linked to genetics questions too ; if I have this disease it's because it is transmitted through my genes.
However, the line is drawn by marxists to not fall in negative nihilism as I call it (or basic determinism). The fact that free will is an illusion does not mean we are doomed to be slave of the past and of our present conditions.
I quote you : "We don't need to understand how or why something is, in order for that something to be the case." That is precisely what marxists would reject. They believe that by analyzing, critizing and understanding history (how and why something is, or happened to be) in order to shape it, to change it the way we want. In order to exerce control over it.
The key idea is to be able to realize the existence of the thing that is, then analyze it, then take a step back, and finally act over it. And how can we obtain this "realization"? Well, by transmiting knowledge and by teaching our fellow humans.
As for the end of your text, I always found it appealing to think we are part of some giant core entity, a sort of hive-mind like object. But I would like to ask that if that was the case, maybe we would have found it a bit earlier, wouldn't we?
PS : after reading my little comments, I came to realize it can sound somehow harsh and condecendent, please believe me this is not the case! I sincerly thank you for writting this as it helps me to cope with unwanted insomnia.
“Material conditions of humans determine their consciousness” - I don’t find this notion compelling. Also not sure if you (or the holders of this perspective) mean consciousness in the philosophical sense (i.e. subjective experience, a.k.a. the hard problem of consciousness), or if you mean it in a loose sense to refer to awareness and/or behavioral disposition….although, in either case, I still don’t find it compelling.
DeleteOf course, the state of our environment and surroundings do impact our internal state of being, but to suggest that one’s surroundings singlehandedly determine one’s internal state of being seems self-evidently false. Perhaps the easiest way to demonstrate this is to note that one’s internal state can fluctuate amidst consistent “material conditions”.
Note the qualifier “might” in the statement: “if you are dying of hunger, you might become a criminal”. Yes, I might...or I might not. Similarly, some abused children go on to become abusers themselves, and some don’t. Some who are raised in drug-addicted households grow up to become drug addicts, and some grow up with no desire or impulse to engage such substances. In other words, equal conditions can lead to unequal outcomes. It doesn’t mean the conditions are irrelevant - it just means the conditions are not sufficient in and of themselves to understand behavior.
Regarding genetics, our genes do contain various predispositions. However, genes do not have fixed states of expression - they contain a range of possible expressions - the specific state that gets expressed is determined by factors outside of the gene. So genes matter, but by no means are they the whole story.
Understanding and learning from history so as to make better choices / conditions moving forward is totally fine, but nothing about this guarantees the understanding you reach will be accurate or objective, nor does it guarantee that the conclusions you reach (and implement) will be helpful or ultimately beneficial. I was not previously familiar with dialectical materialism, but based on how you have defined / explained it, I find it unpersuasive.