[3/3] S15, E12/1c: 'No-Free-Will' Whack-A-Mole/Sabine Hossenfelder
[3/3] S15, E12/1c: 'No-Free-Will' Whack-A-Mole/Sabine Hossenfelder
Series 15: How to Remain Blameless/ 'No Free-Will' Whack-A-Mole
In this run of sub-episodes (E12) I am countering the claims of several public intellectuals who say we have no free-will. This is a position I strongly oppose and have already written a good deal about. However, in this sub-episode (E12/1), I discuss one of the videos on the topic that Hossenfelder (a self-proclaimed ‘free-will denier’) has created for her YouTube channel (Science Without the Gobbledygook).
A link to the original video and the timestamps in the transcript excerpts have been provided for convenience. E12/1 is in three parts (a, b, c), this one being ‘c’. Here are the links to ‘a’ and ‘b’ in the comments.
So what is the explanation for our brain’s contribution to determinism?
6:32 What is really going on if you are making a decision is that your brain is running a 6:37 calculation,
“You don’t have free will, but don’t worry”, Sabine Hossenfelder, SWTG, YouTube
OK, so we ‘are making a decision’ and ‘running a calculation’, and another way to think of this is to say we are using the available information (and energy) to create new information.
and while it is doing that, you do not know what the outcome of the calculation 6:42 will be. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have to do the calculation.
ibid.
Precisely!
So, the impression 6:47 of free will comes from our self-awareness, that we think about what to do, combined with 6:53 our inability to predict the result of that thinking before we’re done.
ibid.
Oh that was so close.
Why would our inability to predict the result of a calculation be a feature of a free-will illusion? This misunderstanding comes from supposing that to exist, or even to appear to exist, free-will would have to be dependent on uncertainty, rather than (as I claim) being a way to navigate it. Try the following instead.
We -
1) - can distinguish between a good and a bad experience
2) - are aware of preferable experiences which inform our objectives
3) - calculate what actions maximise our chance of reaching objectives
4) - act in a way that our internal simulation predicts will achieve objectives
5) - observe the result of an action and witness how it makes us feel
6) - close the control-loop and iterate to converge upon the target
This is a real-time action/outcome cycle which is both iterative and self-calibrating.
Unpredictability
6:59 I feel like I must add here a word about the claim that human behavior is unpredictable 7:04 because if someone told you that they predicted you’d do one thing, you could decide to 7:09 do something else. This is a rubbish argument because it has nothing to do with human behavior, 7:14 it comes from interfering with the system you are making predictions for.
ibid.
I agree, but ‘interfering with the system’, would also be an act of free-will. She then goes on to say that you could programme a computer to perform a calculation and then output a contrarian answer. It’s not a very useful point except to note that somebody (with free-will) would have decided to create the algorithm for that perverse purpose.
8:02 Another objection that I’ve heard is that I should not say free will does not exist 8:07 because that would erode people’s moral behavior. The concern is, you see, that if 8:12 people knew free will does not exist, then they would think it doesn’t matter what 8:17 they do. This is of course nonsense. If you act in ways that harm other people, then these 8:22 other people will take steps to prevent that from happening again. This has nothing to 8:27 do with free will. We are all just running software that is trying to optimize our well-being. 8:32
ibid.
This is a poor dismissal of a serious point and everything in the above counter seems to depend on free-will. I mean phrases like, ‘if you act’ and ‘people will take steps’, make it easy to forget that this is meant to be about external determination. Whereas Hossenfelder dismisses the idea that telling people they are not responsible would have any impact on their behaviour, it’s something she later shows herself open to considering, so keep that in mind while you read on because we are coming to that.
Meanwhile think about what is being suggested here. The solution to a person’s predetermined inability to self regulate is to have other people who happen to be determined to regulate them. The good news is we can regulate our own lives. The small price of that ability, is accepting that self-control and self discipline, are both predicated on self-determination.
If you caused harm, you are responsible, not because you had “free will” but because 8:37 you embody the problem and locking you up will solve it.
ibid.
If you cause harm inadvertently due to having no free-will, the word you need to describe this is, ‘attribution’ and not ‘responsibility’. You can attribute something to someone but because they are not responsible they can’t be blamed. This distinction is important because further along the trajectory of this dubious logic, Robert Sapolsky denies attribution altogether, but in fairness to him that is where this all leads. He also says we can 'quarantine’ harmful people while recognising that they are blameless.
8:41 There have been a few research studies that supposedly showed a relation between priming 8:46 participants to not believe in free will and them behaving immorally. The problem with 8:52 these studies, if you look at how they were set up, is that people were not primed to 8:56 not believe in free will. They were primed to think fatalistically.
ibid.
I don’t think the distinction she is trying to make between not believing in free-will and fatalism matters. As promised earlier, now I want to show you that Hossenfelder is open to the idea that what we think affects our behaviour, what we do and even determines outcomes. If ‘priming determined the behaviour’, then you have to remember that to be primed for this experiment there had to be a primer, i.e. one who (active verb alert) primes.
Quite apart from the role of experimentalists, how could ‘priming’ make any difference if we are to believe that our personal opinion doesn’t affect anything we do? What does a person’s belief in fatalism matter if they have no free-will to alter anything? Determinism is incoherent because it is fatalistic, and ironically, determinists seem to be mostly self-priming.
And some 9:12 more nuanced recent studies have actually shown the opposite. A 2017 study on free will 9:18 and moral behavior concluded “we observed that disbelief in free will had a positive 9:24 impact on the morality of decisions toward others”. Please check the information below 9:29 the video for a reference.
ibid.
It seems this was meant to be a challenge to the study that Dennett cited1 and although the quoted sentence does appear in the text, it’s the equivalent of click bait. I didn’t find the additional nuance and lack of interest inhibits me from elaborating. Instead, let me share one of the concluding purplish nuggets, with my emphasis.
The road toward progress in our understanding of how such beliefs influence human behavior remains long and arduous, but it clearly appears that both beliefs in free will and determinism can have positive impacts on moral-decision makings – a finding that challenges current thinking.
The Influence of (Dis)belief in Free Will on Immoral Behavior, Emilie A. Caspar,* Laurène Vuillaume, Pedro A. Magalhães De Saldanha da Gama, and Axel Cleeremans
What ‘current thinking’ are they claiming to challenge? If, ‘both beliefs in free will and determinism can have positive impacts on moral-decision makings’, it seems they have been unable to find a meaningful discrimination between the two. On my reading the study demonstrates nothing.
I am surprised that Hossenfelder did not use the paper to support the notion that beliefs have zero impact. Of course, the assumption that they do is baked into the citation above, which might have caused her to miss it. Incidentally, if any determinists want to pick up that little piñata, I am standing by with my bat.
It seems that ‘long and arduous’ is code for needing more financial backing to say anything useful at all. Money is unlikely to be the answer, but I do feel that ‘students electrocuting each other’, would be a popular cause on the crowdfunding circuit.
9:31 So I hope I have convinced you that free will is nonsense, and that the idea deserves going 9:36 into the rubbish bin.
“You don’t have free will, but don’t worry”, Sabine Hossenfelder, SWTG, YouTube
The comment section suggests she convinced her cheerleading squad.
The reason this has not happened yet, I think, is that people 9:40 find it difficult to think of themselves in any other way than making decisions drawing 9:46 on this non-existent “free will.”
ibid.
The more likely reason is that people instinctively know it serves a purpose, in fact, you have to actively ‘prime yourself’ not to believe it. Were I to conclude that our consciousness evolved just to provide us with in-flight entertainment, it would not make much difference to my self image or perspective, because I would realise that to function it is still necessary for me to go along with the illusion.
Remember this?
But of course your decision was still determined or random, regardless of 5:58 whether it was dominated by internal or external influences.
ibid.
At least she acknowledges that what we think has an impact on our decisions and what we do - irrespective of why we have those thoughts. Put another way, regardless of what determines them, neurological processes and outputs, are in the causal chain.
From there it’s a small step to being able to direct our thoughts and have an active influence on what we do. You might prefer to agree with Hossenfelder and say that those thoughts are determined too. Of course, the major upside of finding a universal answer satisfactory, is you can be saved the bother of thinking about anything.
You might conclude (like me) that a decision that is dominated by internal influences is self-determined, or a product of free-will, but Hossenfelder disagrees.
This has nothing to 8:27 do with free will. We are all just running software that is trying to optimize our well-being.
ibid.
If a decision is dominated by internal factors it has everything to do with free-will. The sensation of directing all our actions from the inside is innate, and (for reasons provided earlier in this series) I am convinced it evolved alongside consciousness to be an essential part of our existence. If that’s true, free-will cannot be against the laws of nature, as claimed by Hossenfelder at the top of her video.
You might also recall that Hossenfelder effectively said that you could not possibly disagree with her ‘‘if you know anything about physics”. It’s the same argument those crafty tailors used to convince the emperor he was not nude. Be wary of being tricked into baring your own stupid arse.
So what can you do? You don’t need to do anything. 9:52 Just because free will is an illusion does not mean you are not allowed to use it as 9:56 a thinking aid.
ibid.
Hossenfelder’s permission ‘to use it as a thinking aid’ presupposes thought has a utility that we can control, which would put choice in our power, implying free-will. Now some determinists may refuse to notice this but to those cheerleaders I say, ‘put your clothes back on, the pom-poms aren’t doing it’.
Cognitive Dissonance Ahead
If you lived a happy life so far using your imagined free will, by all 10:01 means, please keep on doing so. 10:04 If it causes you cognitive dissonance to acknowledge you believe in something that doesn’t exist, 10:09 I suggest that you think of your life as a story which has not yet been told. You are 10:14 equipped with a thinking apparatus that you use to collect information and act on what 10:20 you have learned from this.
ibid.
To follow this advice requires free-will, in fact the concept pervades every sentence, including the admonition to ‘act on what you have learned’.
The result of that thinking is determined, but you still 10:25 have to do the thinking. That’s your task.
ibid.
So thinking is assumed to be in the causal chain - it’s just that you have no choice over what you think, despite the advice you have just been given to optimise it.
That’s why you are here.
ibid.
Our thoughts are futile and without impact, yet courtesy of this video, we are able to find our purpose?
Let me make sure I have got this right. We are conscious for no discernable reason whatsoever and there is no scientific explanation for our thinking, other than what we think, is determined. Regardless, determinism somehow (unspecified) give us purpose, in a universe, where intentionality cannot exist.
I am curious to 10:30 see what will come out of your thinking, and you should be curious about it too. 10:35 Why am I telling you this? Because I think that people who do not understand that free 10:39 will is an illusion underestimate how much their decisions are influenced by the information 10:46 they are exposed to.
ibid.
Well this is what came out of mine but it may not be my fault (yawn).
At this point you could be losing track of whether or not we are able to make decisions. If as per the last sentence quoted above, decisions are influenced by information, then any belief in determinism must have an impact on the person’s actions. Perhaps thoughts have consequences no matter what you believe.
After watching this video, I hope, some of you will realize that to make 10:51 the best of your thinking apparatus, you need to understand how it works, and pay more attention 10:57 to cognitive biases and logical fallacies. 11:01
ibid.
Is it a requirement that determinists have no self-awareness when they speak? What would be the reason for making the best of our thinking if it makes no difference? It’s all very tricky but guess what, all that messy difficulty goes away, if you follow my logic.
I had already written counter-arguments to many pro-free-will interview transcripts as an exercise in understanding the determinist viewpoint. This episode is just one of those that I tidied up for publication. In the next episode (E12/2) I examine a compilation of determinist views put together by Big Think.
It was this video that inspired me to write this ‘Whack-a-Mole’ sidetrack, because it provided an opportunity to take on various perspectives that had been curated by somebody else. Therefore, provided none of the contributions are ducked, I can’t be accused of cherry picking the worst arguments. This video also includes pro-free-will arguments that I review in S15, E13/0: Friendly Fire.
In the interim please do consider viewing the video below.
The Value of Believing in Free Will Encouraging a Belief in Determinism Increases Cheating Kathleen Vohs, Jonathan Schooler, February 2008