Free will

THE MYTH OF FREE WILL can be used to justify  radical economic inequality by promoting the foolish idea of the ultimately self-made self which deeply deserves riches or poverty.  Everyone should know in their heart that success is never earned or deserved. 

Nothing is free except the grace of God. You don't "deserve"  it or earn it. 

---- John Calvin

Read on if that doesn't ring true. Otherwise, the lecture is over.  



We have goals, instilled in us by natural selection as well as by experience and introspection. And we use our cognitive powers to choose behaviors that advance those goals. That’s what it means to “do what you want”.

COIN TOSS. ALWAYS NICE TO SEE GREAT MINDS FAIL. HERES COYNE GETTING IT WRONG.

“A practical test of free will would be this: If you were put in the same position twice — if the tape of your life could be rewound to the exact moment when you made a decision, with every circumstance leading up to that moment the same and all the molecules in the universe aligned in the same way — you could have chosen differently.” — Jerry Coyne.

NOPE.  COIN TOSS DIFFERENT EACH TIME BUT NEVER A CHOICE. WE MAKE CHOICES, BUT NOT FREE CHOICES. THEY ARE GUESSES.  CHECK AND MATE. ARGUMENT OVER. NO CONTEST. FOLLOW THE LAW. 

EASY CHOICES STAND TO REASON, DILEMMAS (GUESSES) ARE SETTLED BY CHANCE. 

I can’t find a seconder usually when I propose this but I don’t care. I don’t need a seconder. My own opinion is enough for me. And I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, anytime.”

I was just wondering, as often as this quote turns up, might we just call it Hitchens’ Law? I could say, for example, “You don’t like it? Follow the law! 


Yes we do make choices.  But they are not free choices...They are guesses.  The closest we come to quote free will is coin tossing. And yes my dears, the outcome of a coin toss is random.  Don't confuse randomness with  freedom. 

Sociological studies show that if people’s belief in free will is undermined, they perform fewer prosocial behaviors and more antisocial behaviors.”

WELL, THE SAME IS PROBABLY TRUE OF PEOPLES BELIEF IN HEAVEN AND HELL.  THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT TRUE OR ACCEPTABLE. BELIEF IN FREE WILL IS BELIEF IN A FALSEHOOD. THE ANSWER... DON'T TELL PEOPLE THERE IS NO GOD OR FREE WILL OR THERE MIGHT BE MORE CRIMINALS. PEOPLE LIKE THAT DON'T NEED TO KNOW THEY ARE FREE TO RUN RIOT. 

seeing we don’t have free will – what the Buddha taught, essentially – is a good route to self-compassion and self-control, http://www.naturalism.org/therapy.htm




… inasmuch as anticompatibilists resemble hard-core Calvinists (i.e., belief in predestination).

EXACTLY.  SUCCESS. YOU DON'T EARN IT AND YOU DON'T DESERVE IT.  

Congrats Jerry, and thanks for drawing out the policy implications for criminal justice of seeing that we don’t have contra-causal free will: it’s very difficult to justify retribution. 



The same considerations apply when it comes to radical economic inequality: it’s much harder to justify without the myth of the ultimately self-made self which deeply deserves riches or poverty,http://www.naturalism.org/progressivepolitics.htm








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sleeprunning
Posted January 2, 2012 at 12:18 pm |Permalink
try acting on your POV next time your child goes to the doctor or you fly on an airplane.



sleeprunning
Posted January 2, 2012 at 10:47 am | Permalink
actually behavior is pretty predictable in animals and humans, however it doesn’t track self-reports or verbal self-talk.

animal, yes humans are animals, behavior is fairly limited.

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Dr. Coyne also writes of the seemingly nihilistic view that one might take when examining the criminal justice system devised by humans. If a criminal does commit a person to person crime, and that criminal is acting out the physics of his existence, then why do we incarcerate and/or execute these people for these acts? The answer is simply that this is how it plays out.  How it has to play out, for safety's sake. 

AS EINSTEIN SAID, NOT TO PUNISH BUT TO PROTECT OURSELVES.

THE TRUTH AGAIN, 

I can’t find a seconder usually when I propose this but I don’t care. I don’t need a seconder. My own opinion is enough for me. And I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, anytime.”