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Scientist concludes: "We don't have free will" (www.latimes.com)

submitted 10 months ago by Waldowal@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.ml

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[–] snooggums@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

While we can identify influences that have common outcomes, the fact that there are different outcomes at an individual level supports free will. Free will does not mean you are free from influence, just that there is an opportunity to make a choice.

Poverty leading to increased crime does not result in everyone in poverty committing crimes.

[–] maegul@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 months ago

that there are different outcomes at an individual level supports free will.

Well I think their argument is that this doesn’t follow. To have variation between individuals all you need are different influences over the time leading up to the measured outcome. That basically everyone is assured essentially unique genetics and a unique existence from conception (no two people occupy the same body, apart from twins briefly) guarantees that everyone has unique influences.

So the question then is what is the relationship between influences and behaviours and can we measure whether variations in the former are sufficient to explain variations in the latter.

All of which excludes the argument that many people basically lead to similar outcomes under similar influences.

This is where I suspect the scientist’s thoughts/theories will fall down. In the end, it seems to me we need a complete or at least pretty good theory of consciousness to truly get to bottom of this. We don’t. Arguably we’re pretty clueless on how any sophisticated cognition works all the way up from biochemistry to behaviour. So I’m not sure how certain anyone can be either way.

[–] sethboy66@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

Different outcomes at an individual level supports the idea that individual humans are not exact copies existing in the exact same environment. If on the other hand different outcomes does support free will then the fact that electrons put through the same process (influences) can end up with different spin-states means that electrons have free will.