Why Do Materialist Compatibilists Believe in Free Will?

[OpticsUR81]

Albert Einstein:

I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.​

http://www.einstein-website.de/z_biography/credo.html

There is also a short discussion on "free will" at reductionism.org.

They say free will doesn't (can not) really exist. That we are robots of the first kind and our belief that we are free is a trick of the brain. Which reminded me of another quotation:

"Any man who thinks he is free is merely ignorant of the causes of his own behavior"​

BF Skinner Beyond Freedom and Dignity​

This is an interesting discussion and i will continue to follow it.

 

[brainstorm]

Albert Einstein:

I do not believe in free will. Schopenhauer's words: 'Man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wills,' accompany me in all situations throughout my life and reconcile me with the actions of others, even if they are rather painful to me. This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper.​

http://www.einstein-website.de/z_biography/credo.html

There is also a short discussion on "free will" at reductionism.org.

They say free will doesn't (can not) really exist. That we are robots of the first kind and our belief that we are free is a trick of the brain. Which reminded me of another quotation:

"Any man who thinks he is free is merely ignorant of the causes of his own behavior"​

BF Skinner Beyond Freedom and Dignity​

This is an interesting discussion and i will continue to follow it.

If this is true, then it also seems that full belief in the power of one's free will is determined and therefore ultimately unchallengable. If humans are robots with a sense of freewill, it is useless to resist believing and even seeking scientific and philosophical grounds for free will. We simply don't have any choice but to pursue proof of free will at the cost of determinism's truth, if necessary. Certainly you wouldn't suggest that truth trumps the determinism of human belief as a causal force in science, philosophy, or any other human discourse, would you?

 

[OpticsUR81]

I believe the laws of Physics ... I am pretty sure I don't know them all though!

I once imagined Quantum theory would allow us to have both Free Will and Causation ... just as light is both wave and particle. I have been persuaded by the Reductionists ... There is no free will.

 

[GeorgCantor]

I have been persuaded by the Reductionists ... There is no free will.

In truth, you must have been 'persuaded' by a prime cause. In which case, there could be no persuasion to speak of, so you were not persuaded and what you said was a case of the liar's paradox.

"I am a liar!"

"This sentence is false"

"I don't have free will"

 

[brainstorm]

In truth, you must have been 'persuaded' by a prime cause. In which case, there could be no persuasion to speak of, so you were not persuaded and what you said was a case of the liar's paradox.

"I am a liar!"

"This sentence is false"

"I don't have free will"

The truth is that there is actually a genealogical progression from the truth of determinism to belief in free will. It goes a little like this: First you discover that determinism drives all human thought and behavior without exception. Then, the more you study the details, the more you become mindful of the inevitability of your thoughts and actions. At some point, this begins to create cognitive dissonance for you, because you've received so much culture that assumes free-will in human actions. As you increasingly recognize that you are not in control of your ability to resist external determination, you become afraid of what this could cause you to do, and the consequences for that. At that point, you realize that your ONLY choice to save yourself from fear and madness is to choose to believe in free will. Thus, it turns out that belief in free will is not really a free choice but is determined by the necessity of not believing too faithfully in determination, because if you do you would lose the semblance of free will, which is central to sanity (imo).