Henry Stapp - Can Brains Have Free Will?

Free will seems the simplest of notions. Why then is free will so vexing to philosophers? Here's why: no one knows how free will works! Science, seemingly, permits no 'gaps'—'joints' in the structure of the world—in which free will can operate. The brain seems like an all-physical system working according to physical laws. How then a will that's fully free?



Henry Stapp is an American physicist, known for his work in quantum mechanics. He earned a BS in Physics from the University of Michigan, and an MA in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley.


Closer to Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

[existncdotcom]

.“I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.”

[Wide_Angle-rt]

He is right. Compatibilism is logically inconsistent. If you believe in determinism you must believe in no free will. You can't have it both.

[nietztsuki]

A better answer for Henry Sapp providing evidence of free will as being a psychological process (as opposed to mechanistic determinism) would be to point to the simple fact that we all experience ourselves as having free will. There actually couldn't be any stronger evidence. To say otherwise would be analogous to, in a murder trial, having a prosecutor put an eye-witness on the stand to prove the defendant committed the murder. The defense attorney can always cross-examine the eye-witness on the details of his observation (the lighting was bad, etc.), but for the defense attorney to ask the eye-witness to "prove" that he had the observation at all would be non-sensical.

[randywayne]

Ayn Rand explained it better, free will is - the brain’s ability to focus.
Free will is an ability of the human brain, almost like another sense if you like.
The brain has the ability to intercept/categorise and conceptualise sensory input, alongside that it has the ability to focus on or not focus on any particular input, and the name we call that process is free will.

[hckytwn]

7:18 This is the entire point. Classical determinism isn't correct, so you can't argue against Free Will with that starting assumption. You'd need to prove Free Will/Consciousness is an entirely mechanistic process (which I doubt will ever happen).

[williamburts]

To me, free will just means that you are free to use your will.

[thomasridley]

Only in a world where the future is not already determined can free will exist.
And how would we know if we were exercising our free will or are just following a pre-
selected script ? 🤔
The value of such speculation seems to be very questionable. Since no solid answer will ever be found.
Maybe all this speculation is making it a more complex question than it needs to be.

[con.troller]

Why do you keep engaging guests on the question of """"free will"""" when you refuse to even attempt a rudimentary definition?

"Here's why: no one knows how free will works! "

NO - the why is because nobody who opines about free will agrees on what it is to begin with. You can't answer the question if there are ten different and significant variation of it!

"Philosophy is merely the byproduct of misunderstanding language." - _Wittgenstein_

[mutwa_]

The ability to ignore internal or external stimuli is the best example of free will.

[jamesruscheinski]

The issue that determinism does not quite add up is obviously very difficult to describe, and is a reason why there is a sense of free will that people try to describe; hopefully conversation continues just to adequately define the issue, let alone the answer. Might help to set aside the solutions for awhile to sufficiently lay out the actual question

[kc]

Can a completely deterministic system create the illusion of free will in some of its parts? How does a completely deterministic universe create the illusion of free will in the minds of human beings--minds which are literally pieces of that completely deterministic universe? Does the illusion of free will need to be "true" in order to be useful? Can the illusion of free will be the consequence of something evolutionarily useful? Suppose, for example, that the illusion of free will is a side effect of evolving brains that possess the ability to mentally simulate the world and make complex plans. Suppose the illusion of free will, mental simulations of the world, and complex planning all come as part of the same package. Then wouldn't saying that "we need to give up the illusion of free will" be tantamount to saying "we need to give up mental simulations of the world and complex plans?" As long as we have mental simulations and complex plans, is it even possible to give up the illusion of free will, much less assume that giving up the illusion of free will is somehow "good" for us?

[immovableobjectify]

Quantum effects introduce randomness into the physical system which I'll admit disrupts determinism, however it is quite a significant leap to assume that this randomness enables free will. Flipping a coin to make a decision is quite the opposite of deliberation. I find it hard to swallow that psychological processes occur in a metaphysical realm where free will abounds, and that the transmission of the results of decisions made there are magically conveyed to the physical universe by subtle tweaking of quantum events that ultimately nudge our brain's neurons to carry out our wishes.

[georgegrubbs]

The world is materialistic and we have free will constrained by nature, nurture, life experiences, and local pressures that bias a decision. Nature has provided the human brain with the capability to override determinism in the brain by using mental energy/force (will) that is not deterministic.

[jamesruscheinski]

When a person causes something to happen, there is a sense that more is happening than the physical components that determine the action; in particular that there is a will involved without an outside force controlling that action, or free. The conscious awareness just before an action could be measuring such a sense of free will, whether or not the physical components that determine the action happen before, or perhaps as a completion of the action, or that the action is using free will, or something else

[jeff-]

Free will makes no sense!! You are free to do what you want, but you are not free to want what you want.

[cykkm]

My issue with the absolute majority of discussions about free will (FW) is that they start from wrong grounds. The first step in reasoning necessitates the definition of a test T, feasible at least in principle and unambiguous, that tells _bona fide_ FW apart from _an illusion_ of FW. A definition of FW is not only epistemically inadequate most of the time; it's in fact ontologically superfluous: First thing first, I don't yet care what "real" FW is before I know how to tell it from "illusory" FW. Talking without the T defined involves certain amount of jaw flapping, usually resulting in declaring FW either "real" or "illusory." The exact difference of either of these terms from its opposite is invariably and suddenly left as an exercise to the unfortunate unsuspecting reader. :)

[Bunjee]

To me it's obvious that we have free will. Yes we are still restricted by countless factors but there is a space in which we regularly choose between A, B and C. It's amazing that you have to get to quantum mechanics to reach this conclusion!

[aspektx]

I am curious why they assigned the problem of free will post-Newton. It's been a while, but if I'm remembering correctly, determinism and free will date back to at least the Greek classical philosophers.

[anthonycraig]

I don’t think we have free will. A choice is determined from events that happen before and your physical makeup, including microbes. If we do have any choice, it’s extremely limited.

[aqua_addicts]

I got stuck on the idea of free will when I realized that its impossible to do anything you truly don't want to, you my be choosing the lesser of 2 evils but there's always a reason for everything we do we just usually focus on why we dont want to doing something instead of why we are doing it