*This is basically a mechanistic universe argument*
Firstly, as a matter of day to day living, I am compelled to act as though I have some sort of free will but that would be true even if, as I believe, that free will is an illusory construct. That being said:
<Snipped quote by Penny>
Insofar as destiny can be said to exist, it has -- well not NOTHING to do, but very LITTLE to do with your 'biochemistry.' And if it did, that would be pretty incredibly racist, when you think about it. Is urban crime because of biochemistry or economics? Because we can totally change economics. Is middle eastern terror springing from the Arab biochemistry, or from geopolitics? Because we can do something about the latter.
If it's all written in the DNA and it's destiny and nothing will ever change any of it, well, shit, why not just kill them all, it would be objectively better. Or maybe that's a silly notion.
If free will does not exist, you are forced at accept that all the terrible bullshit in the world is inevitable. Just because its unpleasant doesn't make it any more or less true. Is urban crime a result of biochemistry, or economics. Economics is a result of biochemistry so yeah and so on down the list of horrible atrocities throughout human and indeed prehuman history.
No neuroscientific property yet discovered, for which we have a well developed understanding, requires the existence of free will to be explicable. Nor is it, in my mind, likely that some emergent property will cut the Gordian knot. If we further accept that the mind is what the brain does, which seems difficult to refute, then it is incredibly difficult to rationalize the existence of free will. If I apply Occam's razor it seems reasonable to assume that free will is illusory as a working hypothesis.
It follows therefore that if I were able to know absolutely everything about a situation I would be able to predict how a given individual will respond to any given stimulus. I'm talking every neuron, every molecule in the endocrine system ect ect. To be clear, the level of knowledge I am talking about is immensely beyond anything of which we are currently capable, or might ever be capable of assembling, but in theory it is possible. If you accept that then you have to accept that all events from the beginning of the universe until now, and off into the future are equally completely (theoretically) predictable.
It doesn't feel like this to us on an everyday basis. I feel like I can choose to make this post or not, but that could easily be true even if I DONT have any real choice. The illusion of free will could be created as a byproduct of the decision making software our brains use. Equally likely it could be an evolved homeostatic system, due to the benefits the illusion of free will grants us. Even more likely, it is a synthesis of both.
If we lacked free will it would not necessarily be obvious to us. It is a comforting idea, one that all people including me enjoy, but there isn't really a requirement to posit its existence.
Consider the inverse. Some part of you which somehow exists beyond your biochemistry, is capable of making a genuine choice in a universe that we otherwise broadly acknowledge as mechanical. This is the argument for the soul, or that the mind exists (at least a little) independently of your biochemistry. This raises a HOST of questions without providing any real answers. Basically it posits a plurality without necessity. Nothing in understood neuroscience requires it, so it really begins to look like a case of special pleading for a comforting answer.
@mdkIs this argument racist? It is hard to imagine a less racist argument than this once as it essentially states that all matter in the universe is acted on by the same forces to behave in theoretically predictable ways. It is unifying, if a little depressing.
Problems With This Argument:There are problems in quantum mechanics which admit of some fundamental uncertainty. You often see people throw the word quantum around as a result to explain all sorts of bs. I will freely admit that I'm not a particle physicist by training or inclination but it dosent seem to me that these properties scale particularly well. The idea that they might provide some sort of basis for contra-causal free will seems like a wildly optimistic interpretation. Perhaps its just the nature of the universe rolling the dice instead of us.
Why Dont We Just Kill Them All?Firstly its weird how many people go here right away. Secondly you don't actually have that choice, even though it might seem like you have. Ultimately, and hopefully, you will conclude not to kill them all for all sorts of predictable reasons. Some people went the other way, Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Mao et al. By the logic of this argument their actions were inevitable. That doesn't make them any less disgusting and horrifying.
Why Try to Live a Moral Life?Well I could be wrong. Nature is incredible, it is possible that there is some sort of weird property we have never encountered before which would provide a mechanism for free will. It is not impossible, it just seems unlikely given our current understanding. If everything is arbitrary anyway why not try and bias it towards the good, even if you are ultimately deceiving yourself?
No one can live in a constant state of existential crisis, if you did its likely that the experience would ultimately result in your (tragically predictable) suicide. Even though this is a deeply held belief of mine, as soon as I finish discussing it, I will unconsciously start rationalizing it away, thinking about more pleasant things and ultimately continuing in the happy if not unquestioned delusion of my own free will. Which is exactly how a homeostatic system would be designed.
