Michael Shermer‘s new book is out, and in the video below, 55 minutes long, he gives an oral summary of its contents (a link to the book is at the bottom). The video was sent to me by reader Barry, who called my attention to the section on free will, and I’ve started the video at the 45-minutes mark—right when Shermer discusses the intractability of the “hard problem” of consciousness and then segues to free will. Here are the YouTube notes.
In this episode, Michael Shermer walks through the core ideas behind his new book Truth: What It Is, How to Find It, and Why It Still Matters, breaking down how humans confuse meaning with reality, stories with facts, and confidence with correctness.
I’ve put a few remarks about Shermer’s view of free will, which seems to me confused, below the video.
Shermer avers that he’s a compatibilist: someone who accepts both determinism and free will. As Wikipedia puts it under “compatibilism“:
Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent.
And yet Shermer says he’s not a determinist, although he does define free will as “libertarian, could-have-done-otherwise” free will. Shermer rejects libertarian free will because he says it’s dualistic, drawing a distinction between mind and matter, and here he’s absolutely right.
But then he argues that “determinists are wrong”! Why? He doesn’t say, but makes a confusing argument that the “could-have-done-otherwise” notion of free will is bogus because it involves replaying a tape of what happens when an instant of “choice” occurs. Shermer says that if this is the contention, then of course you will do the same thing when you replay that instant, but argues that this is simply because you’re replaying a tape that already has a known consequence, like replaying a record. But if he thinks that, then what does he mean by saying that libertarian free will, which is the contention that replaying the tape could yield a different consequence, is wrong? He says that replaying the tape will always give the same result because it’s a tape. But that is not the argument that physical determinists make. The argument is that you are starting a fresh tape at the moment of choice, but it will always give the same result—absent any quantum effects (see below).
Shermer contends that “the past is determined, but the future isn’t”. He doesn’t explain why, but here again I agree with his claim that the future is not absolutely determined. But Shermer doesn’t explain why it isn’t. I will: the future is not completely determined only insofar as fundamentally unpredictable physical effects occur—that is, quantum effects, which as far as we know defy absolute predictability. We know quantum effects applied at the Big Bang, so at that moment the future of the universe was not predetermined.
But do quantum effects apply to human behavior and “choice”? Perhaps; we just don’t know. Maybe an electron in a neuron in your brain will jump at the moment you’re ordering dinner, so you order fish instead of a hamburger. If that could happen—and again we don’t know if it does—then yes, you could have done something other than what you did. However, because there’s no mind/body dualism, there is no way that you had any agency in moving that electron; it just happened. Is that what Shermer means by “free will”? If so, it’s a lame kind of free will, because the average person who believes in free will thinks in a dualistic way. Although they don’t say this expicitly, they contend that they have agency that can affect our neurons, brains and behavior.
I’ve written before about how predictability doesn’t equate to determinism, and by determinism I mean physical determinism, defined by Anthony Cashmore this way (this paper is what made me a determinist):
I believe that free will is better defined as a belief that there is a component to biological behavior that is something more than the unavoidable consequences of the genetic and environmental history of the individual and the possible stochastic laws of nature.
Cashmore adds that the environment is still “chemistry”, which of course is also “physics”:
Here, in some ways, it might be more appropriate to replace “genetic and environmental history” with “chemistry”—however, in this instance these terms are likely to be similar and the former is the one commonly used in such discussions.
In other words, to Cashmore (and to me) this form of free will involves dualism. It’s woo. Cashmore, who admits that unpredictable quantum effects can lead to a universe where pure predictability is impossible, adds that that still does not give us free will as defined above—free will not governed by the laws of physics.
We know now that on a macro level, predictability is quite good: we can predict, using classical mechanics, when solar eclipses will occur, where the planets will be in ten years, and we can also use classical mechanics to put people on the Moon. But since classical mechanics is simply a reification on a large scale of quantum mechanics, the future is not completely predictable as quantum effects accumulate. I’ve used as an example the possibility that genetic mutations could be quantum phenomena in some way. If that’s the case, then we can’t predict at a given moment what mutations will occur, and if that is the case, then the raw material for evolution is unpredictable, which further means that evolution is unpredictable.
Nevertheless, because our behaviors are still controlled by the laws of physics, if there is no mind/body dualism then there is no “agency” as most people believe it, and thus there’s no libertarian free will.
But Shermer, as an avowed compatibilist (he appears to be strongly influenced by Dan Dennett), thinks that we do have a form of “free will”, and supports it by using as an example his ability to affect his own future by making preparations for tomorrow’s morning bicycle ride, even if he doesn’t want to ride. He puts his bike in the trunk, he lays out his bicycle clothes for the morrow, and so on. As he says:
“I can choose to do certain things now to make my future different than what it was in the past. That’s freedom; that’s volition; that’s choice. That’s free will. That’s as good as it gets. So all the determinists, they’re wrong; they’re just simply wrong; they’re assuming we live in a universe that we don’t live in: a predetermined universe.”
It’s sure not choice the way most people mean it, and believe me, I’ve had this argument any number of times. People are not physical determinists, but dualists, just like the saxophone player who nearly attacked me when I told him that at the moment he decided to play an improvised jazz solo, that solo was not something he could alter by thinking. People are not sophisticated enough to draw a distinction between free will and physical determinsim; they are not sophisticated enough to see that the only physical force that can ultimately change a behavior is quantum mechanics.
Shermer contends that “In the real universe, determinists don’t exist.” He says he’s never met one. Well, Mr. Shermer, meet Mr. Coyne and Mr. Sapolsky, both physical determinists. We don’t distort the notion of “free will” just so we can say people have it. (Dennett thought that belief in determinism would erode society, and that’s why he wrote two books redefining free will for the masses.)
Finally, Shermer tells us why he doesn’t think there are true determinists: it’s because we act as if we have free will. He says that some people who pretend to be determinists take pride in the books they write. As he says, “Why would you take pride in your books? You didn’t do anything; it was all determined at the Big Bang.” Well, I don’t have to respond to that, Shermer knows better. We may well be evolved to think we have agency. We certainly do think that, and have evolved to think that, but I don’t know if natural selection produced that frame of mind. Regardless, we can’t help taking pride in our accomplishments, or looking down on people who do bad things, because that’s the way our brains are configured. That does not mean that physical determinism should not affect our views of punishment and reward: it should, especially with regard to the justice system. But I’ve discussed this many times before.
The last thing I want to say is that some atheist writers whom I admire greatly—people like Shermer, Pinker, and Dawkins—seem to shy away from the free-will problem. I am not sure why; perhaps they realize that if you deny libertarian free will, people will think you’re crazy. You tell me!
Here’s Michael’s book, which came out yesterday from the Johns Hopkins Press. I haven’t yet read it, but surely will. If you click on the cover you’ll go to the Amazon site:
OK, but …
What’s a “tape”?
I KID KID!
😆
Ironically, I find it difficult to decide what my view is on free will. But I’m sure that humans intuitively feel they have it and also intuitively feel they are conscious. The reality of consciousness seems widely accepted, even though it can’t be explained. (I expect some people argue it’s an illusion, but not many.) So why don’t more people accept free will as something that plainly exists but is currently inexplicable? Arguing that the feeling of free will is illusory doesn’t feel completely persuasive. Why and how would an illusion of that kind have developed?
I like Sam Harris on this point. He argues that free will is not an illusion but a misinterpretation of experience. If, Harris says, one simply pays close attention to the experience of choosing, one will observe the fact that choices simply emerge in consciousness from the darkness of brain activity one has no access to. For it to be otherwise one would need to consciously know in advance what their choice was (i.e., you’d have to know before you knew). I’m persuaded not by this argument but, ultimately, by my own experience of having followed his prescription to pay attention to my experience of choosing. People do not have contra-causal free will, or even an illusion of it.
In one of Harris’ public talks he has a great example of “looking for free will”. He asks the audience to think of a city, any city. He then asks a series of questions along the lines of “there are cities you know of but couldn’t bring to mind. So how is that free will?”.
It’s been several years since I heard it, so may be misremembering, but I do remember that I found it compelling.
But isn’t that like saying, if you can’t lift a five hundred pound weight, how is that free will? We all have limitations, including cognitive and memory limitations.
No. It’s not like that at all. Harris’s point is that when asked to think of a city, the name of some city will arise in consciousness. Why that city instead of the name of some other city? You don’t know. It’s just the name that occured to you. One thing is for sure, you could not name a city whose name did not occur to you. “Where,” he asks, is the free choice in that?
Maybe I’m an aberration, but I don’t “feel” like I have FREE will. This is not to say that I don’t perceive myself as consciously choosing or deciding between alternatives. But, let me put it this way: After I make a choice or decision, I don’t FEEL like I could have chosen or decided otherwise given the constellation of synergistically interacting biopsychosocial factors, most of which were unconscious, out of which my choice or decision necessarily arose at that moment. So, I think we have “will,” but I call it UNFREE or necessitated will. And Shermer’s compatibilism, like all conpatibilisms of which I’m aware, seems like a patently nonsensical dodge.
What JBaldwin said. I never follow descriptions of this stuff that rely heavily on the opaque terminology (compatibalists, determininists… Um, remind me for the umpteenth time what those are again?). What really does it for me is that brain scans taken of volunteers while they are making decisions shows what decision they are about to make well before they actually make it, and these activities come out from areas that are not where consciousness comes from. To me, that really puts the finger on descriptions about how your brain cannot violate laws of physics when it’s deciding to do a thing. What it means, as I think of it anyway, is that you cannot re-direct mental ruminations going on in parts of your brain that you do not consciously control. I also suspect you cannot consciously control areas of your brain where consciousness is seated. Here: Whatever you do, don’t think about ducks. See? Now you are thinking about ducks, even though I told you not to.
The other bit about maybe or maybe not controlling neural communication at the quantum level does not seem necessary to me. There might be spooky quantum randomness going on (I don’t know), but I suspect the whole thing is cruder than that, as it should lie at the level of neurotransmitter molecules. But heck if I actually know.
Most people underestimate the macroscopic effects of tiny quantum uncertainties. The very structure of the universe, the position of the solar system, the existence of earth, are all quantum-mechanically uncertain, the result of quantum effects at the beginning of the universe. From a more immediate perspective, looking at predictability on a shorter time scale, much of nature is “chaotic”, in the sense that arbitrarily small variations in the initial conditions can dramatically change the final macroscopic results. It is almost certain that our brains can also magnify quantum effects. But as Jerry says, these uncertainties are not under our control (according to current science) and have no relevance to free will.
I don’t know of any such brain-scan studies. The Libet type experiments showed a motor readiness potential developing before people felt they decided to make a movement. However, subjects could cancel the decision even after the readiness potential had been generated, so it was not the source of their decisions. Of course that does not mean our decisions are not generated before we become aware of them, just that this line of research is subject to different interpretations. And we don’t know what part of the brain consciousness comes from; functional connectivity studies suggest it comes from multiple interactions across many brain regions, not just the activity of one.
An illusion by definition requires a conscious observer to experience it, so consciousness itself cannot be an illusion. But what about free will? To me that term simply refers to conditions where my decisions – or those of another sentient being – are not impeded in some way. It does not imply that the decisions we make are not the product of electrochemical brain activity. Brains are, among other things, decision-making machines.
Mind-matter dualism is not inherently “woo”. Most of us (schizophrenics excepted) can easily distinguish between our mentation (thoughts, mental images, dreams etc.) and the external world; we do so all the time. The “woo” is the Cartesian form of dualism that says mind and matter are functionally independent. Clearly they are not, as drugs, injury and other brain factors can alter mentation in profound ways.
Shermer does not seem to be a compatibilist. By definition a compatibilist is someone who thoroughly accepts a deterministic account of human decision making (such that our decisions are products of the prior state), and then only accepts concepts that are compatible with that stance (that rules out libertarian free will, but it does allow for concepts of “freedom” that are about social coercion).
Thus, Shermer is perhaps confused. I’ve not read his book, but so far his position does not seem to make sense to me.
Secondly: I bet that quantum indeterminacy (though real in nature) plays very little role in human decision making. My argument is this:
1) Human brains are hugely expensive in evolutionary terms. For example, the brain takes 50% of the nutrition of a developing baby; it forces huge compromises in female anatomy, such that (before modern medicine) 1% died in childbirth; and it forces a hugely extended and costly childhood.
2) That huge cost can only be sustained if it’s doing an important job, processing sensory input, marrying it with genetic interests, and computing decisions. You don’t need a huge brain with 10^14 neural connections to do quantum dice throwing. You could do quantum dice throwing in a brain the size of a pea or smaller.
3) Quantum dice throwing would give severely sub-optimal decisions. The whole point of the brain is to do better than making random decisions. Thus evolution will have tried hard to eradicate quantum randomness from the operation of brains.
4) Given all of the above, hugely costly brains can only have evolved under strong genetic control. That means the brains’ end product (decisions) must have a strong genetic influence. Since those decisions can take place decades after a baby’s brain develops, that means that there must be deterministic chains between gene expression and later decisions, deterministic chains that hold over decades.
In summary: human decisions are made by deterministic neutral-network computational devices, where the whole point of that is that the decision/choice is a product of the prior state. From an evolutionary perspective, there’s no way it could be otherwise! Embrace that and then make your concepts compatible with it!
I’m with philosopher Thomas Nagel on the free will/determinism question: I change my mind every time I think about it.
I was converted to determinism by a brief remark on the estimable Reasonable Doubts podcast, to the effect of “thoughts arise in brains and brains are made of atoms and atoms are controlled by the laws of physics, hence our thoughts are controlled by the laws of physics”.
How about an analogy: the weather. I think we all agree that there’s nothing spooky about the weather — it’s just physics all the way down. It can’t choose anything, right? Purely deterministic. So why can’t we predict the weather accurately more than a few days in advance? It’s because there are too many factors (including, no doubt, lots of them we don’t yet understand) and also it’s impossible to measure them in sufficient detail. I’d say it’s the same with brains, and thoughts.
Great summary Jerry. I’m firmly in the “free will doesn’t exist camp”…I think that you and Sapolsky are correct. Shermer is fantastic but like the late, great Dan Dennett he is wrong on this particular issue.
His “replaying a tape” argument does not compute for me. It’s similar to the rationalizations religious people use to defend libertarian free will, which is actually necessary to their concept of sin and punishment.
The only time I recall ever making my very religious friend pause and reconsider their position in real time was over this issue:
Me: The Universe must be 100% deterministic in order for God to be all-knowing. And if it is 100% deterministic, we can’t have free will.
They: What!?
Me: Let’s say God was sitting right here next to us. I am deciding what to eat for dinner. God says “I will predict what you order” and writes it down on a piece of paper. I decide what I want, but I don’t tell anyone. I order something that I would never usually order, thinking I can “trick” God.
Now, if we compare what God predicted to what I actually ordered, he will be 100% correct. This will actually be the case for every “decision” I ever make. There is no possibility that he is wrong because he is omniscient. But this capacity rests on a Universe that is never at any point truly random. And of course, at the point where I was “deciding”, there was only one possible choice based on everything that had preceded that point. If there were more than one possible choice, that would mean that God would be unable to predict with 100% accuracy what I will choose.
One could always say that God is therefore not omniscient, but that doesn’t preserve free will either. Again, at any “decision point”, how am I able to choose other than what I did?
Seems confused, but I’ll need to read the book. In an interview (which I haven’t yet listened to), in the moment, people can make mistakes or say things that are confusing. I expect better clarity when the argument is in writing.
What I’d be looking for is some argument that provides a mechanism for (1) suspending the motions of molecules already careening toward an outcome, (2) taking a moment (with all motions stopped) to evaluate other possible motions and decide on an alternative*, (3) alter the configuration of those stopped molecules and (4) restart the motions again in their altered state such as to compel the “chosen” outcome rather than the outcome that was about to take place at the start. Without such a mechanism, there would seem to be no freedom for the will to be free.
Oy. Free will. I’m compelled to comment.
*I’m leaving to one side how—with molecular motions stopped—one would be able to evaluate possibilities and choose an alternative.
Or breathe.
From the extracts given here, it seems that Shermer (as Coel said) is not a determinist.
I became a determinist – or at least a disbeliever in libertarian free will – at the age of 15. I realised that either my actions were caused, in which case they couldn’t have been different: so no (libertarian) free will. Or they were uncaused, in which case they were random: so no (libertarian) free will. Or there might be a hybrid of causation and randomness: so still no (libertarian) free will.
Some time after this I started to ask myself why I still blamed or praised people, and thought they deserved punishment or reward, for things they couldn’t help doing. At first I glibly told myself ‘Well, I can’t help doing that, because I’m caused (or randomly impelled) to do so.’ But this didn’t feel satisfying. It didn’t actually explain how I felt. And then one day I realised: if someone treads on my toe by accident, that’s caused. And if someone treads on my toe deliberately, that’s caused too. (I’m leaving randomness out of it from now on, as I don’t think it has much of a part to play; but of course that possibility is there.) Both the accidental toe-treading and the deliberate toe-treading are caused, but in the latter case, the toe-treader’s volition is itself one of the causes; I know that that person is hostile to me. And then it made sense. I could praise or blame people for acts where their volition was one of the causes; I couldn’t when it wasn’t. This is compatibilism (though I didn’t know the word then). Later, I discovered this idea in the work of David Hume, and felt both pleased that I agreed with a great philosopher, and disappointed that my view was not as original as I’d thought.
I am happy to call actions where the cause involves the agent’s volition (which is itself determined, I know) instances of ‘free will’. (Jerry prefers the term ‘responsibility’, but I believe that comes to the same thing.)
So yes, I’m an out-and-out compatibilist, and I don’t believe Shermer is.
And may I just add: I agree with Jerry that we should remove the punishment element from our penal systems. Compatibilism provides a rationale for our reactive attitudes, but not for systems of justice. I also don’t subscribe to the ‘little people’ argument. We should all be compatibilists, not because it has social benefits, but because it’s true.
‘So yes, I’m an out-and-out compatibilist”
Can you explain how free will is something other than libertarian free will?
In your toe stepping example I can’t not step on your toe whether its “volitional” or not….
I’ll try to explain. An action is ‘free’ in the compatibilist sense if you wanted to do it. You obviously couldn’t help it, of course, but you wanted to, so that’s OK. To me it makes sense to call such actions free. There’s a meaningful contrast with acts which were coerced or unintentional – acts you didn’t want to perform.
If we are going to use the word ‘free’ at all, that is the only way we can use it. Because no other sort of free will is available. It’s not just that libertarian free will doesn’t exist. It couldn’t exist. The concept is incoherent.
Free will in the compatibilist sense (ie one of the determining factors was my own volition (which was itself determined)) fits with the way we actually use the term. When we say that we chose to do something, or that a choice was free, we just mean that it accorded with our volition. Of course, if you don’t want to use the term ‘free will’ for that, fine. Use the term ‘responsibility’ instead, like Jerry. Just as long as we preserve the difference between actions that we wanted to do and those which were coerced or unintended.
I’ll give an example from a subject I’ve studied: the wearing of the burqa. Burqa -wearing is free (in my sense) if the woman herself wants to wear it, without any outside pressure; and it’s not free if she is coerced into wearing it. Either way, of course, the wearing of it is determined.
Umm. . . . you can say that free will in the libertarian sense is incoherent, well, try telling that to the average person. They are dualist, and if dualism be true, then it’s not incoherent. Of course dualism is not the case. Believe me, I KNOW how lots of people use “free will”, and it’s not in the sense that you say everyone uses it. There are various ways that people construe “free”, but many construe it as “I could have done otherwise at any moment.”
My guess is that the many people who think free will means ‘you could have done otherwise’ really mean ‘you could have done otherwise if you’d wanted to’. Which is of course a compatibilist view! But I won’t comment further.
Well said! I think because we are conscious, we are inextricably integrated in the deterministic process of the running algorithm of the brain responding to environmental inputs and past/real time environmental programming of our neuronal structure (learning). It’s that integration that makes us feel like we are somehow involved in the process when all consciousness really is, IS the process…
I am more or less a pure determinist (de facto) even in the face of quantum uncertainty, because either there is one universal wave function with no splitting, only collapse, in which case, whatever it does is what it does; one cannot predict it and one cannot change it, so it is what it is, and it only ever comes out one way after collapse. If there are ‘many worlds’ a la Everett, the universe’s wave function is still deterministic (and it’s even LINEAR), and outcomes merely split along the various quantum events (which have nothing to do with human choice, no matter what movies like “Sliding Doors” might make you want to think). As for determinists behaving “as if” we have free will, I think PCC(E)’s response to that is clear and good. We behave that way because we evolved (and developed) to think and behave in certain ways, and to have subjective experiences that may or may not truly coincide with the nature of the real world. And that includes people really FEELING that they have free will, even if they don’t, just as some people really FEEL that they can experience communication with a god or gods, and some people really FEEL that aliens are both reading their thoughts and implanting thoughts in them that don’t originate in their own heads.
Ultimately, though, I fall back on my standard rejoinder to this whole issue: I either have free will or I don’t, but I don’t have any choice in the matter.
PCCE: So glad you mentioned Sapolsky again (there was a time when you weren’t so keen on him). Here’s a good introductory video, for those unfamiliar:
https://youtu.be/hrCVu25wQ5s?si=HhtXGSPtk8ZOuFe3
2009 Stanford Class Day Lecture
I have read Robert Sapolsky’s two latest books (Behave & Determined). His argument leaves no room for free will. Brilliant writer. I also watched on YouTube his 28 lectures on Behavioral Biology during COVID. He warned his students right from the get-go that he was a determinist. Entertaining lectures.
To be fair, Dan Dennett approaches free will similar to his insightful views on consciousness as an ”as if” proposition. Sentience certainly seems, like free will, almost magical from our privileged first person point of view, but, thank goodness, it is reducible to ”mere” biology, physics and chemistry. In his sometimes hard to watch interview with Robert Sapolsky, Dennett, while embracing determinism, struggles to defend the moral usefulness of being a card carrying free will combatibilist as a kind of useful fiction, while acknowledging the evolutionary demands on neural circuity in social mammals. Sapolsky is mesmerizing in his earthy, lucid and brilliant explanations and rebuttles. Patricia Churchland and her erudite husband Paul are also worth reading up on with this subject.
Shermer was on WNYC’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” 1/27/26 discussing “Truth.” (www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/segmentsandarticles) I think it worth one’s time and trouble to listen to Shermer run the gauntlet of invective.
At 5:30 Shermer mentions in passing “trans” and “what a woman is” as examples of contentious debate about “truth.”
At 17:00 a bit of a kerfuffle starts when caller “Mable” brings up the topic of gender and gender identity. Lehrer’s reply starts with, “But Mable, if you’re gonna go there . . . .” and conjectures that she is “biased against a segment of society you don’t like.”
Then Lehrer questions Shermer about that issue, referencing “people I know who would say, “why do you have to go to that binary . . . that peoples’ experience proves that transgenderism is real.” Shermer responds, referencing internal subjective states of perception; the binary reality of biological sex; the gynecologist who couldn’t answer Josh Hawley’s question whether men could get pregnant; and suggests an answer the gynecologist could have given. Lehrer then responds to the effect that Shermer is “dismissing” of opposing views.
At 22:50 Lehrer laments, “This is not at all where I thought this segment was going to go.” (He repeats this sentiment at least one more time.) He again states to Shermer that ” . . . it sounds like you’re very dismissive . . . that I wouldn’t have expected of you.”
[At this point, would that Shermer had replied as Hitch replied to Laura Ingraham after she critiqued him to his face: “You should have me on more often so that you can give your opinion.”]
At 28:00 Lehrer: “And you’re here, supposedly representing science . . . .”
After the interview, he opens up the lines for those who want to call in “because you were offended . . . equal time.” One wishes that people who don’t have trans kids would stop talking about trans kids and their needs; that no one can understand the situation except the child and the parent; that “pseudo-scientists” shouldn’t be provided a platform.
Lehrer responds that the book was “supposed to be in support of science . . . the [trans] topic wasn’t even in the book. But that’s where he [Shermer] went.”
Of course, there’s the obligatory name-calling: “idiotic pseudo-scientists like this guy . . . this guy is just nuts . . . so offensive and so condescending . . . ” [I contemplate whether these sweet burblings were uttered of their own free will.]
As Richard Dawkins has remarked, “Every dog has its fleas.”
The bike-ride preparing present Shermer shaping a possible future Shermer is pure Blaise Pascal—perhaps unconsciously so—and it gave me a chuckle nonetheless.
Just as an aside … It was the topic of free will, that dragged me to this site and keeps me here.
You know, that’s true for me, too. I rarely comment about this because I don’t know enough but I will say that any doubts I had about determinism have been washed away by the logic of it all.
I don’t always behave as a determinist (although of course I really do!), but that’s a strike on me, not on the logic of determinism.
I had read Dennett’s Freedom Evolves. I agreed with almost everything in the book except for the title and the conclusion. Could I be so wrong? I was looking for a review of the book and came across Jerry’s.
Been around ever since.
I think the claim that free will gains its indeterminate character from quantum effects is misleading. The argument usually goes: we can’t predict the outcome of a quantum measurement, therefore indeterminacy exists, therefore free will is possible. But human behavior is also not predictable with perfect accuracy—and likely never will be. In principle, one might imagine predicting behavior if we knew the exact positions and states of all atoms involved, but in practice that information is inaccessible. For all practical purposes, then, human behavior is unpredictable in much the same way quantum outcomes are.
Compatibilists may fear that belief in lack of freewill would lead to inaction, but come on. No one is likely to procrastinate through this mechanism. This kind of behaviour was bred out of us by evolution. We may stop and think “why am I even trying, it’s all pre-determined” when we have nothing better to do, but when under pressure, this thought just does not occur to a reasonably well balanced individual with a healthy dopamine level.
A simple, but important point to remember, in addition to quantum mechanics, classical mechanics can also be indeterministic.
I haven’t read much by Shermer, or watched the video, but I do want to point out that there’s nothing inconsistent about accepting compatibilism and rejecting determinism. There seems to be some question about what “determinism” actually means though – and that’s a good thing! The word actually gets used for different things.
Let intuitive determinism mean that everything is pushed around by past events in its vicinity, where pushing is a one-way action with no thought of an equal-and-opposite action. Intuitively, the time-directedness of this causality is inherent to time itself and goes all the way down to the most microscopic details.
Let scientific determinism mean that every event is connected by scientific laws to future and past events, such that any one spacelike surface* determines another. (“Determines” here meaning that a description of one set of events plus the laws, implies the other set of events. Note that the present could determine, in this sense, both past and future – and as far as physics has found, it does. This is often called “conservation of information” or “unitary evolution”. *An example spacelike surface would be events at “one time” on one of many equally legitimate ways of specifying “same time”.)
I suggest that intuitive determinism is incompatible with the most basic idea of free will, that what you do is “up to you”. It gives all the power to the earliest events in the universe. But scientific determinism is compatible. It makes all times equally important: from any one time-slice, such as yours now, plus the laws, all the the rest of history can be implied (even though no one could possibly calculate it, but never mind that). Laws alone don’t determine the future (or past), but only in conjunction with the contents of the universe – such as, importantly, you.
Shermer doesn’t believe that the laws of physics alone govern what he will do tomorrow. He believes that he himself does it—his entire body is the homunculus—and calls it “self-determinism”, but this “self-determinism” is what everyone else calls “libertarian free will”.
A true compatibilist must agree that whatever happens tomorrow will be entirely determined by the laws of physics. I doubt Shermer is a compatibilist.
Shermer tackling the hard problem of consciousness before moving to free will is a fascinating approach. I’m curious how he bridges the gap between neurological determinism and the feeling of agency we all experience. Does his argument lean more toward illusion or compatibilism?
Here is a pretty good summary of the book on “Truth”. https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/23073/truth
Expensive $32, but I am going to order it