Consider this thought experiment: One day, the Universe decides to create a machine. It's not important why. The machine, like everything else in the Universe obeys the underlying rules that the Universe has devised for governing all of the things in the Universe. This machine is quite a fabulous machine. It has a special control box built into it that controls the behaviour of the machine: It can refuel itself, make interesting noises, move around in the Universe, interact with other objects in the Universe, shut itself down to recharge, start itself back up again, and much more. It does this all automatically because it is in the Universe and obeys the rules of the universe just like any other object in the Universe does. It just so happens that the control box is built in such a way that those rules cause it to do all this wonderful stuff. Now the Universe decides to try a little experiment. It's not important why. The Universe decides to make the control box believe that it can pick and choose whatever it wants to do. But really, secretly, the Universe has just added a small circuit that inserts a belief that whatever the machine is actually doing is something that the control box wanted to do. The machine still does what it does because of the underlying rules of the Universe. Even the new circuit obeys these same rules. The beliefs don't really change anything.
Now, just imagine this happened. Just imagine it for now. What might the machine think? It might think, "Wow, this is fun! I can watch some TV, or eat some cake, or go for a swim." But even this thought is just the by-product of the control box following the rules of the Universe. If the rules of the Universe dictated that the machine would go for a swim, that's what the machine would do, and the new circuit would then cause the machine to think, "Hmm, I think I'll go for a swim." Or, the machine might think, "Should I wear a red or blue shirt today? Yes, I choose to wear red." But even this thought is determined by the rules of the Universe. Maybe the rules of the Universe dictate that the machine will actually wear a green shirt. In this case, the circuit might cause the machine to think, "No, I think I'll wear green instead," and the machine would end up wearing green, in accordance with the rules of the Universe. And so on.
That machine might also think, "I am capable of making these choices on my own. These are my choices. I have free will." Unfortunately, this thought, like all the others, is simply the consequence of the control box following the rules of the Universe. And regardless of what the rules cause the machine to actually do, the little circuit will cause the control box to think that that is exactly what the control box wanted to do anyway. The machine would never know the difference.
The moral of the story: You are the machine.
The free will thing is simply a matter of language. Obviously "The Universe" doesn't exist in contradistinction to "you". Consequently, anything "the universe" decides, including configuring your thoughts blah blah blah, is your decision. ThouArtGod, what you see is who you are, and so on.
I'll take OccamsRazor and cut that circuit out, just like I sliced and diced DescartesDemon? with it.
Considering choices gave our ancestors an advantage over their relatives. The competition exists between individual genes within a clad or species. I think consciousness evolved as an internalized form of verbal self stimulation (talking to one's self). I think the sense of free will is a side effect of considering alternative actions. Those humans and pre-humans who considered a certain number and kind of alternative actions survived better than those who considered more or less or different kinds. The sort of free will we imagine we have is a result of that.
Considering that consciousness isn't even well defined or understood, arguing about it's evolutionary advantage from an objective point of view is a waste of time. The only arguments that are interesting to me are the ones that either a) don't refer to unverifiable things like consciousness, or b) take a purely subjective point of view and don't pretend to be objective. The first I like because they help my understanding, the second I like purely for aesthetic reasons like comfort. E.g. "We cannot predict our behaviour completely in advance (except maybe generally)" is an objective fact which is supported by evidence and theory, and makes no reference to unobservables. "The illusion of free will is comforting" is purely subjective and doesn't pretend to be objective. On the other hand, "The illusion of free will provides an evolutionary advantage" is not objective (because it implies consciousness, and is therefore unverifiable), but pretends to be objective. Not interested in debating that kind of thing.
If one is the "Universe" and one programs the machines to execute according to the rules of the Universe, then one has the celestial equivalent of model trains. If one wishes to accomplish anything more interesting, then the Universe would have to a) make the machines capable of awareness, b) make the machines capable of deciding, and c) deliberately enter into a state of not-knowing about the decisions of the machines. If the Universe makes the machines such that all "deciding" will follow known pathways, then there is no game -- just model trains. Allowing the machines to decide based on their own awareness, while not knowing in advance how that will go, makes for a very rich game. -- GarryHamilton
What does "deciding" actually mean? What is a decision? If we assume that all living activity is the outcome of decisions, then it strikes me that it every decision, no matter how significant or inconsequential, must be the result of source data applied to rules, or random selection, or a combination of both. In other words, when I "decide" to pick up (or not) the steaming mug of coffee beside my keyboard and take a sip, I am actually using all the data available to me at that point in time -- such as my degree of thirst, my logical assessment of the how likely I am to burn my tongue, my memory of past cups of coffee, and so on -- and applying the rules described by the interconnectiona of neurons in my brain, and the rules described by the neural "software" running on my brain which we might call "thinking and reasoning." That, or a neuron fires randomly (perhaps because it was beaned by a cosmic ray, or brownian motion in the surrounding neurotransmitters set it off) and therefore I "decide" to pick up the cup.
Furthermore, my decision to pick up the cup is obviously based on hundreds of smaller decisions. Each of these can be deconstructed and shown to either be based on a logical process (the position of muscle 'x' in my arm is 'y', therefore I must open my fingers 'z' units) or random neural firing. Awareness is immaterial here, because it does not imbue any decision process with special properties; at best it merely makes a sentient being somewhat aware of the decision process. This, of course, may seem to affect the decision process, but only in terms of other logical or random decisions. Therefore, whether we are aware of it or not, every decision is based on a logical, arguably deterministic process, or a random event, because there simply are no other known processes for making a decision.
In short, it's model trains all the way down, but it's one helluva complex train set. Therefore, it might seem like parts of the model have a meaningless, undefinable property called "free will," which we believe exists only because the limits of awareness do not reveal every aspect of every decision, but there is no such thing. Free will, as such, is illusory. -- DaveVoorhis
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