"Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

This article is interesting for a number of reasons.

I still think the best answer to the question of free will is this one:

We have to believe in free will; we have no choice.

To illustrate this principle, I'll ask another question that occurs to me when reading this article. When scientists ask if they should refrain from publishing the results of research that support the idea of determinism, doesn't that question in itself show that they still believe in free will, that they have a choice to refrain or not to refrain and that their choice will have consequences one way or the other?

Incidentally, I'm currently reading Henri Bergson's Time and Free Will.

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

This also seems relevant:


In relation to that (for me, at least) there is this quote from Francis Crick (also quoted in the article):

I often wonder about the emotional agenda behind this kind of statement. I'm sure some people would claim it's objective, but I think it's fairly easy to demonstrate that it's not. For instance, consider these phrases:

"no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules"

"nothing but a pack of neurons"

These statements are explicitly reductive: "no more". "nothing but". Is there not a value judgement in this? First of all, these statements seem to be saying that you are your nervous system (they make this claim as a form of reduction - nothing else about you counts), then they say you are not your nervous system, since any decision your nervous system makes is somehow not your decision (another form of reductionism, trying to cut 'you' out of the picture by sleight of hand).

If you say that you are your nervous system (at least that much) and your nervous system makes decisions, then it is you who is making decisions after all.

It's interesting that the world 'false' is inserted here. Compare it with this, where the phrase "in point of fact" is inserted:

Some time back I made disparaging comments about the same Francis Crick quoted above on my blog. I received private messages from someone telling me that I should not disparage Crick as he is a great and true scientist daring to say what other scientists don't (if you remember, he resigned, or was asked to resign, over his comments about the genetically determined inferiority of the intelligence of people of African descent). Interestingly, after some discussion of the subject, the same person began to send me links about 'the Jewish conspiracy' etc.

So deterministic messages are false when they are politically incorrect or inexpedient but become "in point of fact" when they are towing the current scientific party line. People like Crick show up where it all gets messy.

I sometimes wonder if the message "you have no free will" is not a roundabout way of getting people to submit to someone else's will.

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

I couldn't agree with you more.

My objections include some personal beliefs, but it appears that your arguments are valid and expose an agenda-like mindset.

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

For the sake of pedantry, and in heroic defense of the honor of Crick (d. 2004), I'd like to point out that it was actually his collaborator Watson who made the comment about race and intelligence.

I don't know if we have free will or not. I tend to assume that we do, because I can't really assume the opposite except as a mind-boggling intellectual exercise. Concerning the amusing spectacle of scientists pondering whether they should publish results that support determinism, I'm reminded of something the philosopher David Stove said. I can't find it now, but if memory serves I believe that Stove compared Marxists and Freudians to the biblical Ishmael: "And I alone am escaped to tell thee." Everyone's ideas are based on class consciousness -- except those of the Marxists who tell us so, etc. Of course, scientists who deny free will would not claim an exemption in their own case, but nearly everything they say shows that they share the free will assumption, too. We may indeed just be puppets, but if so, a part of our puppethood seems to involve the inability to fully and consistently conceive of ourselves in that way. We can entertain the idea only fleetingly -- as a philosophical conundrum, or in a moment of horrific suspicion, or as an experience of schizophrenic psychosis.

I sat down at the computer to do my taxes, but instead I wrote this post. What the hell! Taxes remain undone. But I think this has more to do with procrastination than determinism.

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

I had a nagging feeling that my memory might be mistaken. It was James Watson, not Francis Crick, who resigned over the remarks mentioned:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/sc...rs-394898.html

James Watson, was, with Francis Crick, one of the three discoverers of DNA. It was Watson I mentioned on my blog, and Watson who was defended by the correspondent mentioned.

Therefore, please insert 'James Watson' for 'Francis Crick' in my above comment.

There's one place where this doesn't work, where I make a link by saying "the same Francis Crick". Either discount this link from the points made, if so inclined, or consider that Crick apparently agreed with Watson on race issues:

http://www.parapundit.com/archives/004922.html

I make this point simply for the validity of the associative link that I made.

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

You posted as I was writing.

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

In full agreement.

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

My heroism was all for naught. That's always the case.

Re: "Scientists say free will probably doesn't exist"
 

Some would say that's the best kind of heroism.

Just as an addendum to my ammendments, the first mention of Francis Crick, as the scientist quoted, is, of course, correct, and not to be replaced by 'James Watson'.