You are taught classical physics first. You figure out that we can predict the future state of the particles based on the current state. However, one eventually learns that Newtonian physics is just a macroscopic approximation of Quantum Mechanics. A layperson, like myself, who has not studied much physics, especially the quantum parts, can still ask, “Does the probabilistic nature of the world affect our will, or are the approximations good enough to determine it?” And notice that this is not something up for debate. Rather, it is just a question that arose from curiosity, and that requires scientific knowledge to answer. It is not something that can be solved through a debate. Yet, there are some people, whom we call philosophers, who are doing exactly that; they are debating, and they are not even asking the right question. They are asking whether will is deterministic or free. At first you might think that “free” might be just a synonym that they are using for “randomness.” But you could not be more wrong, because it is an entirely new concept that they have created.
So, what really is Free Will? Well, Free Will is the idea that we decide our will. What? So, our thoughts decide our thoughts, and our will decides our will. It answers nothing, and it is an infinite regress. Yes, upon hearing this idea, that should be the reasonable reaction, but apparently, it is not. Instead, this “debate” has not only attracted the attention of the public but also of well-known science communicators, which led me to write this post.
So, what is happening here? I will explain this using an analogy. Analogy from religion. When a religious person asks how this world came into existence, they answer, “God created it.” Let us not ask the logical journey they took to arrive at this conclusion and move on to the next logical question, “How did God come into existence?” If you have the curiosity to ask about the world’s creation, shouldn’t you have the curiosity to ask about God’s creation? But the religious person ignores this logical step. Logic was never employed during the whole thought process.
Analogous to this, a philosopher asks, “What decides our will?” They answer, “We decide it.” Again, there was no logical derivation, but ignoring that, the next question must be: “What decides the will that decides our will?” This question generally never pops up in the mind of a philosopher. In both cases, the reasoning was never used in the first place.
The analogy proves that the reasoning ability of a philosopher is almost equal to that of a religious person. But differences between the two do exist. For a religious person, Determinism vs Free Will might mean “God vs Us,” and for the philosopher, it might mean “Physics vs Us.” Nonetheless, both are wrong, because both are open to the idea that “Us” or “God” are special objects that do not have a cause.
I also want to mention here that if we look at the systemic level and not at the fundamental level, the output of “Brain System A” can feed in as the input for “Brain System B,” or one system can even create a feedback loop (feedback loops are also essential for consciousness). However, combining fundamental mechanics and systemic networks to fabricate a debate still raises doubt on the reasoning ability or intentions of a philosopher.
So, all this still does not answer the title of the article, “Why did philosophers invent free will?” Well, honestly, I do not know. Maybe some of them cannot reason, and maybe some of them understand, but they have something to gain from such debates, probably their jobs as philosophers.
Why did philosophers invent free will?
You are taught classical physics first. You figure out that we can predict the future state of the particles based on the current state. However, one eventually learns that Newtonian physics is just a macroscopic approximation of Quantum Mechanics. A layperson, like myself, who has not studied much physics, especially the quantum parts, can still ask, “Does the probabilistic nature of the world affect our will, or are the approximations good enough to determine it?” And notice that this is not something up for debate. Rather, it is just a question that arose from curiosity, and that requires scientific knowledge to answer. It is not something that can be solved through a debate. Yet, there are some people, whom we call philosophers, who are doing exactly that; they are debating, and they are not even asking the right question. They are asking whether will is deterministic or free. At first you might think that “free” might be just a synonym that they are using for “randomness.” But you could not be more wrong, because it is an entirely new concept that they have created.
So, what really is Free Will? Well, Free Will is the idea that we decide our will. What? So, our thoughts decide our thoughts, and our will decides our will. It answers nothing, and it is an infinite regress. Yes, upon hearing this idea, that should be the reasonable reaction, but apparently, it is not. Instead, this “debate” has not only attracted the attention of the public but also of well-known science communicators, which led me to write this post.
So, what is happening here? I will explain this using an analogy. Analogy from religion. When a religious person asks how this world came into existence, they answer, “God created it.” Let us not ask the logical journey they took to arrive at this conclusion and move on to the next logical question, “How did God come into existence?” If you have the curiosity to ask about the world’s creation, shouldn’t you have the curiosity to ask about God’s creation? But the religious person ignores this logical step. Logic was never employed during the whole thought process.
Analogous to this, a philosopher asks, “What decides our will?” They answer, “We decide it.” Again, there was no logical derivation, but ignoring that, the next question must be: “What decides the will that decides our will?” This question generally never pops up in the mind of a philosopher. In both cases, the reasoning was never used in the first place.
The analogy proves that the reasoning ability of a philosopher is almost equal to that of a religious person. But differences between the two do exist. For a religious person, Determinism vs Free Will might mean “God vs Us,” and for the philosopher, it might mean “Physics vs Us.” Nonetheless, both are wrong, because both are open to the idea that “Us” or “God” are special objects that do not have a cause.
I also want to mention here that if we look at the systemic level and not at the fundamental level, the output of “Brain System A” can feed in as the input for “Brain System B,” or one system can even create a feedback loop (feedback loops are also essential for consciousness). However, combining fundamental mechanics and systemic networks to fabricate a debate still raises doubt on the reasoning ability or intentions of a philosopher.
So, all this still does not answer the title of the article, “Why did philosophers invent free will?” Well, honestly, I do not know. Maybe some of them cannot reason, and maybe some of them understand, but they have something to gain from such debates, probably their jobs as philosophers.