How Free Will Works

[Music] [Music] one objection to the existence of free will is that if quantum mechanics is truly random then our actions are just being caused by random events we are still not free but determined by random events this of course is a misunderstanding Libertarians have never said this and neither does their argument from quantum mechanics the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics speaks of our ability to not know the outcome until an observer makes a measurement not that random events are causing everything things are still determined this may come to a big surprise for some determinists but Libertarians

do not say things are not determined we just say they are determined by the choices of Agents which causally affect other things and this is what quantum mechanics tells us in our last video we talked about the Free Will theorem a bit and the fact that a particle's position cannot be predicted before an outside Observer decides how to measure it if this is the case as experimental results show then an outside Observer must introduce new information into the system for a result to actually happen which is what Libertarians say outcomes are determined just not by

prior or random events but by agents who lie outside what we see as physical reality as the physicist Steven Bar says the mathematical descriptions of the physical world given to us by quantum theory presuppose the existence of observers who lie outside those mathematical descriptions the basic error in this objection is assuming only event caus causation can explain causally connected outcomes in reality that we observe but Libertarians argue agent causation is what is causing choices to be made not random Quantum events an agent causation is simply the idea that a self-aware entity can start a new

causual chain that is not predetermined by events in the past and the physical laws of nature so an observer has to make a measurement for an event to happen and as quantum mechanics tells us what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision was to measure so we can't say that independent particles behind the scenes are causing our action instead we are affecting the outcome of our reality so free will is not an illusion since there are no physical particles causing our actions so this makes us acting first causes which can create a

chain of causally connected events this is what quantum mechanics tells us about reality and why the Free Will of the outside Observer is necessary to obtain results the equations of quantum mechanics give us an idealistic picture of reality meaning reality depends upon the Observer not a realistic picture where independent particles cause everything without our input Simon coachin one of the physicists who developed the Free Will theorem also developed something known as the coach inspector theorem which says that our notion of reality now depends on our earlier decision of what to measure in other words the

future outcome of reality can't be determined until an observer decides what results he or she wants the theorem was experimentally confirmed in 2011 so the future of our reality does in fact depend upon our choices not on prior determined events and not on random events but on the choices of Agents the conclusion follows that science has opened the door for free will but does this guarantee Us free will of course not because one can always posit super determinism which as John Bell put it is to say that the world is super deterministic that not only

is inanimate nature deterministic but we The experimenters Who imagine we can choose to do one experiment rather than another are also determined so basically super determinism means that every decision you've ever made even though they happen outside of the physical descriptions of reality are still somehow determined but the problem with this is there is no evidence for it as we cannot get outside of our experience to look and see if mental events were actually predetermined and there is no reason to assume they would be anyway however some still try to claim that the very fact

that we have reasons for our actions means those reasons must have caused our actions in other words it wasn't our decision that created the outcome but the reasons we drew from that timately cause our actions however this cannot be the case because it leads to paradoxical conclusions for instance what if I have different reasons to produce different outcomes for example what if I have a good reason to enjoy a piece of pizza and good reasons to reject Pizza in favor of a healthier choice which reasons cause the outcome one could say the stronger desire wins

but what or who decides which is the stronger desire these are nonphysical desires one doesn't have more weight or more chemical power there is no physical event which causes this and they are purely mental in nature so we can't say we can study the physical structure of them and know which one is stronger so if they are mental and non-physical it follows that the mind would be that which decides what the outcome will be but if the Mind decides then that is exactly what free will is the ability for the mind to choose between possible

outcomes see Free Will and agent causation work in a two-step process the first is the uncontrolled generation of alternative possible outcomes followed by a stage of determining where the Mind Wills or causes one of the outcomes to be actual as Alfred melee says the modest indeterminism at issue allows agents ample control over their deliberation suppose a belief hypothesis or desire that is indirectly relevant to a deliberator present practical question comes to mind during deliberation but was not deterministically caused to do so presumably a normal agent would be able to assess this consideration and upon reflection

might rationally reject the belief as unwarranted rationally judge that the hypothesis does not Merit investigation or rationally decide that the desire should be given little or no weight in his deliberation considerations that are indeterministic caused to come to mind like considerations that are deterministically caused to come to mind are nothing more than input to deliberation their coming to mind has at most an indirect effect on what the agent decides an effect that is mediated by the agent's assessment of them to paraphrase Alexander press in saying that a person freely chose option A for a set

of reasons is self-explanatory from existence freedom and the appreciation of those reasons one is saying that the consideration of those reasons does play an explanatory role though not a sufficient role on its own to explain the action a person's Choice also plays a role albeit a condition role thus the act of choosing would not be reducible to determined events of some sort but depend on various reasons one can draw from and the conscious effort in that instance of decide in even the naturalist John Bishop admits in natural agency that our concept of libertarian agency is

not reducible to event causality thus we conclude that the choices of an agent are not determined by prior physical processes and must come from the mind which has the ability to determine its own outcomes from a selection of possible outcomes just as we intuitively suspect which makes me want to remind determinists the burden is not on Libertarians to prove that Free Will exists the burden is on determinists to show that what we all think we have have is actually an illusion you cannot assume the burden is on Libertarians in this because as the determinist Greg

D Caruso admits we all subjectively feel that it is ultimately up to us what we choose and how we act and that we could have chosen or acted otherwise than we in fact did when we look within ourselves at our ability to act on those choices we feel ourselves to be directly aware of our freedom this strong sense of Freedom leads us to believe we have free will so basically no one begins with the assumption that determinism is true the burden is on determinist to show that this sense we all have intuitively is false and

since modern physics shows that an outside observer's input is necessary to obtain results one needs to show that the mind is somehow determined even though it's outside of physical reality which doesn't seem to be the case and lacks serious evidence