From: tree of knowledge system discussion <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Michael Mascolo
Sent: Monday, February 1, 2021 10:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: TOK 12 minute video on Why No Free Will

Goodness. Such certainty!  Perhaps a bit more humility is needed here.

In this video, Hossifelder is correct, I think, when she says that there is no free will.  The idea — the theory — that “we” are “autonomous agents” that can choose to do “what we please” is, I agree, nonsensical.  Here is but one of many simple reasons why: I have the goal to lift my arm.  That goal “comes to me” – “I” didn’t choose it. (What do we mean by “I” anyway?).  If that is so, then “I” can’t be said to have “free will” because what I am calling my will isn’t free.  So the theory of free will makes no sense.

But this does not mean that the following is true:

These laws have the common property that if you have an initial condition at one moment in time, for example the exact details of the particles in your brain and all your brain’s inputs, then you can calculate what happens at any other moment in time from those initial conditions. This means in a nutshell that the whole story of the universe in every single detail was determined already at the big bang. We are just watching it play out. These deterministic laws of nature apply to you and your brain because you are made of particles, and what happens with you is a consequence of what happens with those particles.

That is a bold assertion that cannot be found in the “scientific evidence”.  It is an extraction from what we know about simple mechanistic systems.  But it is not a truism that can be stated with the certainty with which Hossifelder states it. .

Unpredictable behavior exists – for example, the weather.  Why is the weather unpredictable not because we don’t have the tools to analyze it, but because it is a complex dynamic system.  The behavior of a complex system self-organizes as an emergent product of the relations among its elements within the context in which it operates.  There is nothing that is not “deterministic” about this.  However, I suggest that at higher levels of complexity, there are emergent deterministic processes – processes that are so complex that emergent and novel – yet still determined – action is possible. 

In my view, the problem of the determinism-free will dichotomy is that determinism is being juxtaposed to free will – a nonsensical concept.  We simply don’t have good ways of talking about the processes that we point to when people say that they have free will.  We need to reformulate the determinism-free will debate.  How is a system simultaneously deterministic yet capable of novel and emergent action? 

People experience themselves as having the capacity to exert control over their actions. The theory of free will does a very poor job of explaining this.  Nonetheless, this experience – and many like it – are things to be explained – and not merely explained away.  We need new ways of doing so that don’t get us into the linguistic traps of yore.

My Best,