"I don’t think "free will" is a very sensible concept, and you don’t need neuroscience to reject it — any mechanistic view of the world is good enough, and indeed you could even argue on purely conceptual grounds that the opposite of determinism is randomness, not free will!"
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That's a rather large philosophical debate to be skimming over so glibly... and the world is not completely mechanistic (quantum mechanics).
That's a rather large philosophical debate to be skimming over so glibly... and the world is not completely mechanistic (quantum mechanics).
Quantum mechanics accounts for unpredictability. It doesn't account for free will. Just because you can't predict something accurately doesn't mean it has a choice; think, for instance, of the weather.
Or, if sub-atomic particles can behave truly randomly, then perhaps they might have free will, deciding what to do for themselves, which we can only see as randomness (I do not think this is true, it’s just an interesting thought). Sadly, that does not grant us free will, only randomness.
Basically, we are completely mechanistic above the quantum level. At that level may exist some randomness, but if so, it’s just acting like a random number generator, where the generated numbers are then fed into the deterministic process that is ourselves.
Good points. I would take it a bit further by noting that a defense of non-trivial free will cannot rely upon quantum mechanics (or any other engine of unpredictability). By non-trivial free will, I mean a kind of free will that allows for some control over what is being willed.
The thesis describing a wholly causal universe is known as "determinism." The thesis of a less-than-wholly causal universe, no matter the degree to which strong causality governs, is known as "indeterminism." Together, they describe the entire set of possible worlds. Because free will is impossible in either case, free will is thus absolutely impossible, no matter what.
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That's a rather large philosophical debate to be skimming over so glibly... and the world is not completely mechanistic (quantum mechanics).