ThatFanficGuy, I know this question is many months old, but maybe as the author of the post I can at least provide one version of an answer. As far as I'm aware, challenges to free will from established science come in two forms. The first is the obvious one: if the state of the physical world is dependent only upon 1) the previous state of the physical world and 2) probabilistic effects of quantum mechanics, then all our actions and the brain states that lead to them are the result of these two factors, which we (in the usual, subjective sense) are powerless to change or influence in any way. The second challenge is more empirical. Beginning with Libet in the 80s, many studies have shown that what we perceive as "our" conscious decisions are in fact made by our brains well before we are aware of them. See for a recent and competent example this paper from Chun et. al. in Nature Neuroscience and the references in it. I wouldn't say by any means that science offers proof of the non-existence of free will. Proof of the non-existence of anything is a dicey business, and might not be possible even in principle in this case. What I would say is that established science -- taken as both the results of experiments and a more general perspective regarding the nature of reality that is influenced by but not strictly derivable from those results (ie, materialism) -- leaves very little room for free will under any particularly meaningful definition of the term (of course, if established science were to change, this could change as well). More details in my reply to Odder. Adam
Hey there! Welcome to Hubski and, late or not, welcome to this conversation. I've just re-read your post after a long time, and what you say makes sense to me now, unlike it did back then. What I'd like to ask you is this: Do you believe that one possesses any amount of agency - that is, that one possesses a number of internal factors that one's capable of acting upon consciously?
Thanks for the reply, and the welcome! This is an interesting but difficult question (which is why I like to stick with the somewhat simpler question of practical implications). First, it's very hard to even ask the question in a rigorous way. If you get technical about it, defining what's meant by "one" (as in "does one have free will"), or "consciously", or "agency" is quite a non-trivial problem. Under the eliminative materialist view, such a phrase can be argued to be simply incoherent, resting on "folk psychology" that leads us to believe in various illusions about ourselves (such as that we are conscious in the first place!). This is the angle that Daniel Dennet generally takes, and is probably (though I'm not certain about this) a factor in the reframing of "free will" under compatibilist accounts, and in claims that the question of free will has been "dissolved". My personal opinion is that it is very likely we do posses a form of conscious agency (in the intuitive sense of what this means), but that established science would have to be modified in alarming ways before we'd be able to understand how it could work. The background for this opinion involves a chain of reasoning that is very long, circuitous, and speculative, so probably beyond the scope of this discussion :)
As a matter of fact, I'm curious to learn about the whole chain for as long as you're comfortable sharing it. You see, this is why I don't argue about basic things with people: they turn the argument into "what is <subject>, even?" instead of relying on the informal understanding of it that most human beings seem to possess. I don't think it's ever a viable conversation to have because it refuses the conversees the actual opportunity to explore the subject, as opposed to a pedantic (and likely unsuccessful one). I'm not saying there's no value in defining terms of argument: I'm saying sometimes it is unnecessary and, perhaps, impossible beyond the intuitive scope that many possess.The background for this opinion involves a chain of reasoning that is very long, circuitous, and speculative, so probably beyond the scope of this discussion :)
First, it's very hard to even ask the question in a rigorous way.