Reframing the Free Will Debate: The Universe is Not Deterministic http://arxiv.org/abs/2503.19672 - very excited to have this article out! 😊 With Henry Potter and George Ellis.
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Sounds interesting. Have you come across Galen Strawson’s work on the impossibility of moral responsibility even under indeterminism?
Strawson, G. (1994) The impossibility of moral responsibility. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 75, 5-24
Much of the literature on free will takes determinism as its starting premise, and then presents arguments for why, if determinism is true, free will would be either impossible (incompatibilism/skepticism) or possible (compatibilism).
In this paper, we argue that there is no reason to accept such a framing. We show that, on the basis of modern physics, there is no good evidence that physical determinism of any variety provides an accurate description of our universe and lots of evidence against such a view.
This is true at both quantum and classical levels. Claims of completely deterministic evolution are based on mathematical idealisations that cannot hold in physical reality. There is no reason to accept determinism at any level as our starting premise – it is not a result of physics.
Free will skepticism is thus not warranted on the basis of claims of physical determinism, because it doesn’t hold. And compatibilism is moot as it mounts a (usually baroque) defense of free will (or moral responsibility) against a non-existent threat.
But how does indeterminacy help? It seems that either my actions are entailed by the deterministic goings-on of the atoms and molecules I’m made of (in which case I’m not in charge), or by occasionally indeterministic happenings at these low levels (which doesn’t seem any better).
We argue that the sort of indeterministic worldview endorsed by many libertarian philosophers – which we refer to as “determinism-plus-randomness” – is also not an accurate depiction of the picture we get from physics.
Agree universal determinism is likely false, but not clear how indeterminism is needed for agential control and moral responsibility given that these require we determine our actions. I don't rationally want the capacity to act otherwise than what my character, values, and intentions determine.
If my act was caused by a magical intervention of quantum woo through the microtubules in my brain cells (but not my liver cells, for some reason), that'd be an excuse - the woo caused me to do it... the opposite of being a free agent.
My philosophical concern is that you essentially need free will to declare another human being to be “evil”, you need people to be evil to fast-track their dehumanization, and you need this dehumanization to act with impunity against their body and spirit. See history for details.
> This assumption is straightforwardly ruled out by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP).
I find it a little insulting to imply that the consensus of physicists just never thought to consider basic quantum mechanics… it’s a principle of scientific measurement, not a irreducible physical law
you argue that no variety of *causal* determinism is empirically supported. that's weird, as fundamental physics is acausal. it's just about empirically adequate rigid patterns, and 'cause' is a metaphysical (vibes-based) idea that doesn't make an empirical difference.
We argue against physical pre-determinism, not against causalism more generally. Things can have causes that were not predetermined. (Indeed, causal talk only makes sense in a not fully deterministic universe)
causal talk makes sense in (in)deterministic past-eternal & past-finite universes. this may not fit your philosophical vibes, but they make perfect sense. maybe consult some LLMs with these philosophical takes before publishing to catch these false inferences.
I can't tell if your serious or not. But I love the idea of running my philosophical "takes" past chatGPT, as opposed to just, like, reading the literature and carefully amassing relevant evidence and developing arguments 👍
cool! i love it too! especially when a result of your AI-unassisted research is making statements like "causal talk only makes sense in a not fully deterministic universe".
In a completely deterministic universe, every cause is known.
Our logical thought processes are so dependent upon concepts like duality that if we have no negative (anti-) example, we cannot conceive of its opposite.
So the term "without cause" would be meaningless in said deterministic universe.
that only ever one thing can happen is the most robust inference from staying empirically grounded, as in actual fact, only ever one thing happens; the state of reality is exactly in some one way. it's not such that it's not in any way, nor such that it's more ways than it actually is.
that's fine - there's just no justification for applying that to the future, which we can't empirically observe until it becomes the present (when potentialities become actualities)
no, that right there, that there exist 'potentialities' which 'become' actualities is the conjecture that's entirely baseless. it's adding dead theoretical weight to what's simply actual. if you don't suppose necessitarianism or contingentarianism, what remains just is what's actual.
btw physics still can be weak support for causal determinisms, so it just isn't true that such views can't be motivated/supported. this isn't how evidence works.
+ there's necessitarianism, which, independently from physics, is a strictly empirically grounded view eliminating 'free will'.
a big problem here is that the authors are heavily biased by faith in ancient religions and having offspring in *this* world, so elaborate copes are devised at the cost of intellectual honesty, based on incredulous truth tingles & abstruse esoteric philosophy-physics.
Comments
Strawson, G. (1994) The impossibility of moral responsibility. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 75, 5-24
Surely, being unable to give any account of your behaviour is about as unfree as your will can get?
Deterministic != predictable. You can have unpredictable determined behaviour.
If my act was caused by a magical intervention of quantum woo through the microtubules in my brain cells (but not my liver cells, for some reason), that'd be an excuse - the woo caused me to do it... the opposite of being a free agent.
Bohmian mechanics, pilot wave theory, does not involve indeterminacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_wave_theory
substitute 'free will' for determinism & the point is infinitely stronger.
I find it a little insulting to imply that the consensus of physicists just never thought to consider basic quantum mechanics… it’s a principle of scientific measurement, not a irreducible physical law
Our logical thought processes are so dependent upon concepts like duality that if we have no negative (anti-) example, we cannot conceive of its opposite.
So the term "without cause" would be meaningless in said deterministic universe.
+ there's necessitarianism, which, independently from physics, is a strictly empirically grounded view eliminating 'free will'.