Alfred Mele - Philosophy of Free Will

Free will is a classic and perennial problem in philosophy. It is a probe of profound issues of how the world works as well as how the mind works. What are the primary issues of free will? What are the opposing views? Can philosophical analysis help? What are the philosophical challenges? What is the current state of play?



Alfred Remen Mele is an American philosopher and the William H. and Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. He is also the Director of the Philosophy and Science of Self-Control Project and past director of the Big Questions in Free Will Project (2010-2013). Mele is the author of ten books and over 200 articles.


Closer to Truth 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.

[uremove]

👍 Great summary of the problem by Alfred Mele, and best of all, his refusal to state categorically that any one solution MUST be the true one. “It’s complicated” is true understanding! Too often, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

[morphixnm]

None of these discussed solutions really makes a case for us making decisions that are somehow not mechanistically driven by the brain. We know from our own experience that we make decisions in the moment based on judgements and feelings, and depending on the type of choice it can be mostly judgement or mostly feeling. Most of the time it is a mix of the two.

Now judgement, or judging, involves things like logic, experience, prediction of outcomes, relative priorities, and other kinds of thoughtful evaluations. Feelings one way or another about a choice are more immediate and direct, and may involve no real thinking per se at all. There is also the fact that we are alive and changing from moment to moment, so there is a constant flux in our sense of things, most causes of which we are not conscious of whatsoever.

All the above speaks to the complexity of what is involved, but complexity does not get us past the idea that we are just complex, deterministic machines. What I think may get us past the above factors, and others like them, is that consciousness leads us to see meaning in what we do, and meaning in our decisions. Some choices have rather little meaning, like whether to have a vanilla or chocolate shake, which has to to do with something very much in the moment, transitory.

For some decisions, like where to work or who to marry, the deliberation goes much deeper and longer, and will involve all kinds of judgement and feelings, but also what the choice means to the chooser's life. Notice that when a choice really means something that the sense of freely choosing becomes more intense than with chocolate vs vanilla. The sense of meaning and whole-person involvement ramps up again in moral decisions. We know they are meaningful and that something important is at stake, like our character and the lives of others.

The meaning of what we do is no mechanistic click- clack of brain activity, as there is no mechanistic explanation of meaning. For something to have meaning requires a living, conscious being, an agent with self awareness who realizes there is something to gain or lose, with awareness of the past and imagining of future possibilities while thinking and acting in the now. There are no materialist reductionist corollaries or theories for these actions or processes, and so these physicalist philosophers and scientists get nowhere in there free will speculations. Free will is not in or of the physical universe, it is from the mental universe, where there are no machines.

[cosmikrelic]

Man, I love the comment section of these videos. How many lunatics can you fit on the head of a pin? There are the incoherent ramblers, the DOCTOR for instance, the people that know everything and don't have to even watch the video to comment, the people to whom god is the reason itself, the people whose personal theory solves all the world's problems, but they can't provide a theory or experiment to validate their theory even if they had one. Great fun!

[jamesruscheinski]

Maybe free will determines what happens such that determinism is compatible with free will.

[owencampbell]

Very interesting thought experiments, but what if one knows that influences from within play a role in mind body and free will? the substances of our ancient past, or call it the agents of our ancient past make us decide the way we do. How free is our will than?

[toddhoustein]

The thought experiment commits an equivocation fallacy. Specifically, the word "decision" takes a different meaning in each case... When someone "makes you decide" you've not really decided at all.

[BryceLyndonStone]

Larry David's younger brother is a smart guy 😃

[HereticHulk]

I don't see why determinism and free will are even up for debate? Sit in a dark room with your eyes closed and with no distractions. You will quickly discover that you have no more control over your next thought than you have control over what someone else is about to say.

[jamesruscheinski]

Choice / decision is characteristic of the physical components / events computed by the agent, how the physical components do what free will / agent has determined. An agent walks (free will) by alternately lifting legs and putting one foot in front of the other (choices). Try it sometime.

[partydean]

I see where the interviewer was going with his final statement. These were the philosophical ideas but when it comes to physics seems like the one eastern ideas get it right. The self would seem to be an illusion. There is no "I" making these decisions only physics, causation. Nature and nurture and possibly some random quantum happenings. Split brain phenomenon can show this disheartening reality that consciousness seems to be a necessary side effect of these high level brain computations. So when the collection of atoms that we are looked around in horror that a bunch of space dust now has to be conscious to the meaningless absurd uncaring self destructing reality.



The counter argument would be the agent is greater than the sum of its parts. There is a mental universe that exists a true fairly unique consciousness that is bound to a brain to be limited by the nature and nurture but the will does what it can within this. This is basically supernatural but any good skeptic is actually skeptical on if empiricism and materialism is truly the only modes that matters to the human condition.

[neffetSnnamremmiZ]

Everything can be determined and same time my own freedom..it depends all on the central philosophical question: who you are?

[thomasridley]

Then how are you going too decide what was a free will or a pre ordained action. You really couldn't. Its an unprovable position.
And too say that you can be pushed by an outside force (god, satan, ect) into making bad decisions doesn't help in clarifying the free will debate.

[Monotheist]

I would like him getting together with Sam Harris or Robert Sapolsky

[rotorblade]

The thought experiment doesn’t prove free will exists. On the contrary. It’s and example where you feel having free will but you can’t do what you want because someone else intervenes whereas in reality we can do what we want but we don’t have free will

[aresmars]

Free will is like getting unexpectedly punched in the face and not listening to every atom of your body that tells you to react.

[micronda]

When we make a decision, our 'thought' passes through a logic gate at the speed of light, nothing can catch it. Nothing can know what we choose, the spacetime continuum is dynamically hard wired. Our choices rewire the continuum. If I could see the whole continuum of past, present and future, laid out before me, I would see it change, every time someone makes a decision.

[danielpaulson]

I can't articulate what I think about free will. Perhaps I don't understand it enough? I definitely take the libertarian view that we have a significant measure of free will. I make choices about most everything I do. Whether to go to the store today or tomorrow. What time. When do I want to get up. If I should post here or not. What to fix for dinner out of the options available. Or create more options. If I should steal his car or not. Those are my choices all day long and many, many more. And I smelled a whole lot of 'If', 'perhaps' and 'maybe' coming out of Alfred. Just because one can theorize something possible, does not make it certain and perhaps not even probable. I would imagine there is a measure of both happening. Sometimes you're doing what you have to, sometimes what you want. I don't see difficulty in that. I fail to see how this is a viable topic unless you're trying to convince the jurors that you're not responsible for the murder you just committed.

[odiupickusclone-]

Free will doesn't exist, agreed 100 %! Very, very good explanation, that's the philosophy at it's best! Congratulations!!!

[rotorblade]

Large scale processes like moving an arm or choosing between two options are the result of smaller scale processes, there’s no way around

[coudry]

Conclusion about our true identity from various internet sources, that "We are all One Consciousness" for the following reasons:

1. In this world everything must have a cause, so that something exists because of something else, so do we.

2. It would be very boring / boring if our physical form is only one in this world.

3. It would be very tedious / boring if all humans have the exact same physical form / behavior.

4. Try to imagine emptying all the physical things around us, leaving only the humans, then eliminating all the humans, leaving only the memories, then erasing all the memories, leaving only the consciousness, then connecting the consciousness, feel who we are ??.

5. Body, mind, feelings, emotions and everything else in this world is always changing, then what never changes ??, that is who we really are, namely true consciousness. If everything changes / moves who is watching, there must be someone who remains to be able to observe.

6. All humans communicate with each other is the beginning / the forerunner of humans to unite, today's electronic devices alone can unite all humans, one day the device is implanted in the human mind and in the end humans will open all access to their thoughts.

7. Our bodies are a collection / heap of accumulated memories that were carried from the beginning of the birth of the world's first human through DNA bonds continuously.

8. Twins born at close range, what if all humans were born at the same time? What would happen if the birth of all humans were not influenced by the dimensions of space and time ??

9. Identical twins of A and B, if all of A's memories are copied to B, what is the difference ??

10. Law of attraction (law of attraction) that our minds will attract whatever we think, because we are all like one part of the body.

11. Like several video recordings of ourselves, there are videos as vocalists, videos as violinists, as pianists, as drummers, etc. These videos are put together in one video, it will produce a more interesting orchestra, something new and more productive. our world.

12. The greatest enemy of man is himself, currently man is at war against himself. By believing we are all one, the sense of ego will fade because nothing is different between us.

13. That is why religious teachings command us to be grateful and benefit many,
If you hurt others, you are actually hurting yourself, so if you are doing good to others, you are actually doing good to yourself.

14. Could it be that we are all dreaming and our dreams are meeting each other on the same frequency in parallel. Have you ever dreamed that when you sleep you switch roles as other people, it's because we are all one.

15. We are not immortal as humans so that we have time to roll through all of life.

16. "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience" ~ Stephen Covey, Have you ever felt that our lifespan is very short, is it possible that our consciousness is immortal?.

17. We are one, only the roles are different, the memory divider between lives is what makes humans feel different / separate. It is enough by brainwashing / erasing one's memory that someone will become a different person but their awareness is still the same.

18. What is fortunate for us is ... consciousness is always looking for / looking for / having the intention / desire towards good / positive / happiness even though we have experienced various wrong ways.

19. When we die, our body and memory are destroyed, how can we remember having died.

20. Why do we have to die? ", When we say dead, one day this eternal question will be asked again and we are always there." The world is a sustainable life "~ Bruce Lipton.

21. In the beginning we were one, but split through a big bang or bigbang until we became different and separated like now, but we are equipped with a sense of love for us to reunite.

22. There is only us and a mirror of ourselves in this world, but there is still another world out there.

23. We will always smile happily seeing each person as himself "How beautiful I am" see the different self.

24. If all consciousness is told now that they are all one, whether the experience gained is enough, the consciousness is designed from the beginning to be different so that there is a lot of intrigue, consciousness is created differently so that when it comes together to have an extraordinary experience of consciousness.

25. We are alone in this universe, but there are many other universes with their own natural laws.

26. Have you ever felt that you have come to a place that has never been visited but feel familiar with that place, as if we have lived in that place sometime?.

27. The world is like a story script that is being written by the author, sometimes it is changed at the beginning, sometimes it is changed in the middle, sometimes it is changed at the end, it all depends on us as writers, and every story has a lesson that can be taken as a lesson.

28. Hair grows by itself, heart beats on its own, blood flows by itself, ideas arise by itself, etc., are we involved ??.

29. Imagine that today there has been an event that causes only you to live in this world, then who were all those yesterday ??.

30. "If Quantum Mechanism cannot surprise you, then you don't understand Quantum Physics yet. Everything that we have thought to be real, is not real." ~ Niels Bohr.

31. On the scale of quantum physics we are all connected to each other, even in double-slit experiments proving that particles change when observed or in other words consciousness can change reality, this has been proven time and time again by the Nobel Prize winners in Physics.

32. Everything we experience by our senses in the end will only be electrical impulses in the brain, is everything real ??. We are beings who are aware that we are conscious.

33. We are closer than the jugular vein.
He blew some of His spirit on you.
Knowing oneself means knowing its God.
Surely we will return to HIM. You are far away, I am far away, you are near me.
I am everywhere.
Before the existence of this world there was no matter other than Him.
There is only One True Spirit, namely the Creator.
I live up to your preconceptions.

34. Is the creator only in charge of creating, is it possible that the creator does not want to try his creation through another perspective.

35. There is no reincarnation, it is possible that our consciousness is synchronized, our consciousness is divided by the speed of light so that consciousness can move and divide rapidly through energy, and that's why we need sleep, that's why we are often not aware of something, that's why the size of the earth is reached by the speed of light so that consciousness is divided quickly and evenly, we are like some chess pieces played by a player, that's why if we move at the speed of light, then we can penetrate the dimensions of space and time, when we die we wake up and regain consciousness as long as there are humans who live in this world.

36. Have you ever had a problem and suddenly someone came to provide a solution to the problem we were experiencing, as if someone was sent by the universe to help us in overcoming the problem, which is actually our own consciousness that sends that person to us.

37. A thousand years ago, have people seen, heard and wondered about the advancement of technology today? If we all tend to sin (corruption) then there will be a world of hell, if we all tend to do good things then it will become a heavenly world.

38. Knowledge learns the object, God who created our consciousness, cannot God be the object of knowledge.

39. It is impossible for a human creation that is only in the form of words / symbols to represent true truth.

40. What is the meaning of existence without consciousness? then we are the adventurers of this existence.

41. The life of the world is just a game and a joke, what wins the world game is the one who finds his true self.

42. When the world's existence ends we will know everything.

43. My consciousness is living a very extraordinary life experience, experiencing life with different forms and different places even though my consciousness is always the same, wow .. I'm surprised !! how broad am I.

44. We are a consciousness, a concept that can answer various things.

45. Remember when you were leaving, you were worried you would lose me ??, calm down .. I was everywhere and we will always meet again, believe me.

46. ​​Without searching, what is the difference between us in this world and us in a dream during sleep which just passes by without meaning.

47. In conclusion, whatever role we play, everything is our own design, so just enjoy it.

48. God created us to be happy, so don't disappoint God.

49. Congratulations, because all of you need proof, this is the SECRET that we are one, by we can see the other person's awareness of what he is seeing, close your eyes in a quiet place, focus your awareness on that person, so that awareness is not affected by our imagination, erases all our imaginations, practice continuously until the time comes when our awareness can see the consciousness of others, preferably people we already know.

50. ==Understand and Be Shining==


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