Simon Blackburn - How Can Free Will Work?

Assume that free will is real, not an illusion, and that the only reality is physical. How then could the will possibly be free? By what mechanism could human choice transcend the strong determinism of a closed physical world?

[imalwaysright]

I swear this channel blows my mind everytime and I love seeing Robert question everyone's beliefs. He makes them spin in circles over and over. I also love the wide range of stuff they talk about whether that's consciousness, aliens, cosmos, computer science (etc) I just love it. Anybody else agree!??

[TheGarrymoore]

On the contrary, it is the 'free' that makes the problem. There cannot be 'free' will since our thoughts and behavior are constrained by many factors, genetic, social...So our thoughts and behavior are, mathematically speaking, functions of constraints. This means that the will is dependent on the constraints, hence it is not free. So there can be only personal will, but not free will...

[arturoluna]

compatibilism seems completely inconsistent with rationality, it's self defeating

[theophilus]

The only difference Compatibilism makes over Hard Determinism is that control is inner rather than outer. We are no longer string puppets but hand puppets, as someone once put it. But there is no gain. In the first place the current inner control is determined by past inner happenings and past outer goings on. Both positions are versions of determinism and both are inconsistent with making rational choices. One option is to give up on any notion of free will (calling it an illusion) as many do, but this is inconsistent with the lived phenomenon of being a decision making being, one guided by reason rather than being controlled at all - either from within or without. It's what may be called the 'nuclear option', a sure sign of ditching the obvious in the name of a philosophical ideology, namely materialism.

[tonydg]

How can you have decided to have the discussion you are having here and have that discussion with consciousness and free will?

[Dyslexic-Artist-Theory-on-Time]

We could have an emergent future unfolding relative to the atoms of the periodic table therefore unfolding relative to our own actions. This is the idea that this theory is promoting that the wave particle duality of light and matter in the form of electrons is forming a blank canvas that we can choose how we interact with forming a future of our own choice relative to the energy and momentum of our actions.

[plinden]

But, if you are a determinist it is literally false that -in this universe- it could have been a better summer. You are imagining a different universe. However, you exist in this universe, and here, whatever you decide, you had to decide. Given the moment you came in to existence, your life had to be the way it is. If you are putting on you brown shoes today, then you could not have put on any other pair. Even if you are, like Professor Blackburn, determined to say and think that he is free, he really is not.

[stephenlawrence]

Yes the correct interpretation of could have done otherwise is hypothetical. But we need to get clear about how we could have done otherwise. It's that we would have if the past prior to the choice had been appropriately different to bring about a different choice. We can imagine the differences in the past stretching right back to the initial conditions of the universe. So we would have done otherwise if we'd been on a different determined path from since before we were born.
Now to make moral responsibility compatible with that we have to accept two things:

1) A wrongdoer is merely unfortunate he was not on a different determined path from before he was born.

And

2) Those who didn't do the wrong thing are merely fortunate that they weren't on a different determined path from since before they were born.

This changes moral responsibility a great deal.

[Siberius-]

Not "blame".... that inherently implies "worthiness" (blameworthy).
That just goes out the window entirely. But we can still use negative-reinforcement (like, "not cool, Bob"). Because that's just a way to modify future behaviour, without involving moral responsibility.
We can also hold people "physically responsible", without holding them "morally responsible". Important distinction.
You couldn't have done otherwise, where the "otherwise" is "up to you"... BUT, I am still going to have to fire you".

I don't like Compatibilism. Needlessly muddies the water, and they often almost hide behind it.
So many Compatibilists. If the general public knew that a Compatibilist does not subscribe to Libertarian Free Will, and how many philosophers and the such hold the position that LFW does not exist... that would be pretty strong messaging.

[FriedZime]

If feels like compatibilists really don't want to let go of the possibility that we can't reasonably blame each other for bad actions. Many times I feel like compatibilists base their theory on a psychological "want" (of being able to blame) rather that rigorous philosophical argument. They are in other words begging the question. But they didn't choose to believe this of course! But this seems really dangerous because it has implications for how we should treat wrongdoers. Should we punish them or should we help them?

He says that responsiveness to reasons give us freedom. But if we don't choose to be responsive to reasons, but rather just are responsive to reason, how can there be freedom in the relevant sense?

[dlbattle]

This video ends abruptly, is the rest of it available somewhere?

[vonkruel]

How do we properly internalize this understanding of ourselves as part of a gigantic unfolding quantum computation? Even when we accept the material reality of our existence (that we're "bags of particles governed by the laws of physics"), we still want to hold ourselves and others to account. It doesn't seem sensible to accept the scientific account as an excuse for all our bad behavior, even if _in fact_ our decision-making and behavior are outside our control in the strictest/truest sense. Blame is still necessary and useful in helping shape future behavior, although this process of "corrective blaming" is still part of a deterministic (and possibly random) process. We still must make decisions, make plans, and expect certain things from ourselves and others, even when we accept the scientific account of reality (which leaves no room for any "ghost in the machine").

[jamesruscheinski]

When brain activity is measured with various instruments, is it consciousness or sub-consciousness that is being measured? For instance in Libet (spelling?) experiment of raising arm / hand, is it the sub-conscious or conscious being measured?

[jamesruscheinski]

If free will determine physical reality and free will with God, then God is determining physical reality and can influence God through free will.

[uremove]

Simon Blackburn is a great thinker, but he gets himself in a bit of a mess here... I’m a libertarian, but as a compatibilist, he is forgetting to make the emergence of ‘top down causation’ in complex systems argument. So, certain ‘altruistic behaviours’ (top down) in organisms emerge which maximise ‘selfish genes’ (bottom up). Attractors in complex systems (eg. complex oscillators) emerge causing unexpected repeating patterns where you would otherwise predict randomness. So, a compatibilist might argue that our awareness is an example of emergent, top down causation - that means awareness, as a ‘whole system’ phenomenon, has causal power ie. agency. Incompatibilists tend to think in terms of bottom up causation alone.

Just to add, the reason I’m a libertarian, is that the twin assumptions of determinism (whether compatibilist or not) are unsafe.
1. Reality is not determined (quantum indeterminacy), which combined with the butterfly effect, could have far reaching consequences for free will.
2. I am a product of my brain, there are not two separate things here. So, while I may have very little awareness or control of the low level processes of integrating information, it is still “me” doing it, and at higher levels of information integration, and conscious execution, my awareness may be fully involved. Free Will determinism assumes we are clockwork dualities - libertarianism assumes an integrated mind/body dual aspect monism.

[ABitOfTheUniverse]

Don't bother fixing the end. Compatibilists are such a waste of time, I'm glad it ended like that.
You could say, I wouldn't have had it any other way.
=)

[jameshudson]

robert is some much better than his guests

[donaldmcronald]

That squirming at the end though... Yikes!

[BradHolkesvig]

No one has the free will to be who they want to be. They are who they are according to God's plan, also known as his will.