Is free will a myth?

[Teeqoz]

RolStoppable said:
I've thought about this some more today, so here's what crossed my mind. The proponents of "free will is a myth" use science as their proof. Science is taken as the truth because it provides an explanation for why things are as they are.

When I was in school, I was taught that the human tongue can discern four different tastes: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. This was the scientific truth. Nowadays science says that there are five tastes, so what does it mean? Back then when it was only four tastes, there was no better explanation, so it was accepted as the truth of how it works because scientists had agreed upon that. This example can be taken further by looking at the areas of the tongue that recognize the different tastes which nowadays is a very different picture from it was back then.

Saying that free will is a myth... well, the scientific proof for that assertion is merely the best explanation science has come up so far for how our brains work, how humans work. It doesn't mean that the explanation is correct, just like the scientific work on the human tongue that I've been taught in school wasn't correct.

Just because we don't know the full complexity and all the inner workings of the brain, we do know how it works on a base level. It is just electrons and chemical reactions. This is a fact. As in, proven. If you deny this, then you might as well just throw all of science out the window.

 

Back to free will, when a man betrays his wife by having sex with another woman, the proponents of "free will is a myth" would say that the man ultimately had no choice despite weighing option A (don't do it) and option B (do it) before committing the act. They would say option B won out despite option A being considered the better course of action by the man,

The man also has no control over what he considers to be the better action. That is a part of this. I ask you this, why did he cheat? And you'd say "because he's a bad person and has bad morals". Now consider what those things are: the effect of his environment and his genetics. You don't choose your personality. It is "given" to you. And your personality is the basis of how you act (your personality is, harshly put, the cumulative effect of all the chemical reactions that have gone on in your brain.)

therefore free will does not exist. I stand by it that that is nonsense. My explanation is that option B won out because the man allowed his instinct to take control. Another man might go with option A when facing the exact same choice and my explanation for that is willpower. Not everyone has it to the same degree, but it most certainly exists. Willpower goes hand in hand with free will. Yes, people can choose their behavior.

And how did he "allow" his instinct to take control? Did he go like "ahhh... I really shouldn't do this, but I want to get laid by someone other than my wife..... Fuck it Imma go for it" In that case, then he was really gonna end up sleeping with the woman from the start. He didn't choose. In the end he wanted more to sleep with that woman (read: that chemical reaction was more powerful) than he wanted to remain faithful to his wife (than this one was). He never chose. Same goes if he ended up not sleeping with the woman. That just means the chemical reaction for remaining faithful to his wife is stronger than the chemical reaction for cheating.

The explanation that people cannot choose their behavior is idiotic at a fundamental level already (fundamental = considering only two options, not a more complex scenario). When a man betrayed his wife with another woman and his excuse to the wife is that he had no choice and may even point to "free will is a myth", the answer he's going to get is: "Of course you had the choice!" And the woman is right. The man had the choice and no amount of talk of neurons and the like is going to change that. The reason why I think that this is a good example is because it deals with one of the most basic instincts of humans, so people have to make such a choice on a frequent basis, and they most certainly can make that choice.

Your example is actually a very very good example indeed. Not of why we have free will, because it still does nothing to show that we do, but rather of why it is so difficult for a lot of people, including you, to accept that we don't have free will.