I can't imagine consciousness without free will, though my brother who knows more with a PhD in philosophy says it works out OK. I am with my gut on this one though. Free will is the only way I can get my head around it.
TL;DR, have a talk with your brother, a PhD in philosophy is something I wish I had access to! (sorry for the long post btw)
There are a few attempts at harmonizing the two extremes of the aisle on free will. But Free Will itself has a pretty big issue.
If the concept of free will is even coherent (one of the primary issues of Free Will, is the attempted definitions themselves, and how they coincide with an evidently causal universe). It's hard to get a consensus on if beliefs and/or actions themselves are within Free Will's actionable categories. Examples of this problem for example could be:
Could you free-will yourself into being attracted to the opposite sex for a time period of your choosing, and then free will yourself out of such a preference? Or consciously chose never to have reflexive urges (like if someone were to murder someone you hold dear). Or free-will yourself into controlling your hormonal production rate of certain hormones. Or inhibit absorption of nutrients by gut producing bacteria. Or free-will yourself into not smiling while you're happy, or not laugh, but instead be not-hungry if someone tickles you, instead of eating. Or free-will yourself into ACTUALLY believing putting healing crystals on top of your DAC literally improve sound fidelity by harmonizing resonances from the crystal clocks within the DAC by being close to the DAC.
The knee jerk reaction to these hypotheticals is naturally for many people: "Bro that's not what we mean, free will is more like X". Without ever actually demonstrating the aspects of the definition of Free Will that exclude such examples.
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Now I understand you are in agreement with mansr about "well, might as well act as though it does exist, and if it does, that's great. But if it doesn't, then we didn't have a choice anyway." As famously borrowed by one of theology's stupidest examples of attempting to explain to people why they should at least behave as if God exists (Pascal and his idiotic Wager that is an ignorant mockery of God, and if he existed, would take great insult to).
The argument goes as follows:
- Free Will doesn't exist + Assuming it doesn't exist = Ah well, you had no choice.
- Free Will doesn't exist + Assuming it does = Also, ah well, you had no choice.
- Free Will exists + Assuming it doesn't = Big loss to the way you live life, because you assumed wrong about something so big.
- Free Will exists + Assuming it does = Big win, and you now have more actual control over you life.
Conclusion: It makes more sense to assume Free Will does exist.
Now the problem with this argument (as it seems very easily agreeable), is it presupposes that
even if Free will exists, and
there are people who don't believe it does. This doesn't actually mean those people who believe wrongly (the disbelievers of Free Will in a reality where
it does exist) are people who somehow are now unable to actually determine their own actions. No matter who you are, (like me, who doesn't believe Free Will exists), we all
experience life as if Free will does exist. It's not like because I now don't believe Free Will exists, that I'm somehow now free from the illusion. This phenomena is true of things like the
McGurk Effect, where even though you know it's an illusion, you're still not able to "Free Will" yourself from being effected by it, and experiencing it. Likewise for folks like me, who don't believe Free Will exists - I can't somehow live the experience of a reality to where it would feel like Free Will doesn't exist. No matter the philosophical position - everyone lives with the feeling it does exist. The McGurk Effect would be a good example of demonstrating if Free Will exists or not
, if you could somehow "Free Will" yourself into not falling prey to the illusion, that would be pretty awesome.
Other problems with Free Will, are the moral implications. Like to what degree can someone be "Free" from making a choice, if we grant that no person has full access to all knowledge (tbh even with full knowledge it would hard to be argue for free will, because it would call into question of whether you could "change your mind" and decide something else). Like if a person is born with a mental handicap, does he have free will? Do animals like ants have free will? Do higher order primates have free will? Can a person who has a gun to their heads be considered someone making a "Free Will" "choice". Do people with physical impairments have more will than another? What are the constituting requisites to determine if something has "Free Will". How would we know/falsify it? Should we send a murderer to rot in jail, but after they die, an autopsy revealed he was living with brain tumors his whole life that went undiagnosed? Do children have Free Will, and if not, when do they attain it?
There's lots of evidence that shows Free Will (in it's various definitions) is most likely not a thing that exists (in my view, with how it's currently defined by many, it can't exist by such definition, at all). While the only thing that leads us to assume free will does exist - is largely the probable illusion itself, or ignorance (our collective limitations as living beings currently) in finding out if it does or does not.
And if we have reason to believe it doesn't exist, and only ignorance (along with centuries of religious/societal moral dogma) + illusion that it does exist. I don't think folks have much good reason to assume it does.
Now mansr (like you I assume) don't make the claim that we
should believe it exists,
but instead it would be as far as we know - in our best interest to proceed as if it does (because presumably the illusion that we can't rid ourselves of, and because a shift to the opposite may be impossible from a pragmatic standpoint, like reconstructing laws, morality, and society would be too difficult). To that effect - I agree. But that's only under a cautious agreement, because I like to believe that many of us, would really have a sinking feeling in our stomachs, if our justice system has perpetuated a great injustice, if indeed Free Will concepts are in fact wrong, and the basis of our laws were based on such assumption.
But I just wanted to dispel the notion of Pascal's Wager being somehow apt as a comparison tool for such a topic. Especially when used in classical theological circles, to which I believe it fails completely. There's people who have lived tough lives trying to fit in with religious folk, while they themselves have guilt themselves into at least acting like God exists in an effort to save themselves from a potential Hell in the afterlife, and even in this life on the off-chance their guess about God is wrong.
