Nexilist Notebook

Title is from old joke where a guy asks a woman in a bar if she is free tonight and she says “No, but I am reasonable.” I have been coming across a lot of articles lately that discuss issues involving free will. Since that topic is one of my long time interests, I thought that I would toss out a few of my ideas on the subject.

I see an enormous amount of confusion on the subject. The term is one of those “umbrella” or “suitcase” terms that cover a lot of different meanings for a lot of different folks. People generally mean that they are not being forced to choose a particular alternative but are “free” to make their own choice. No one should want “free will” in an absolute sense. That would mean that you would be free to choose to do something that had NO connection to your circumstances, interests, needs, desires, abilities, resources, etc. In other words, of NO value to you. Obviously, no one has this type of “free will”. Let’s see if we can’t get more detail here. We are constrained in our choices in:

Space – we cannot pop from one point to another without crossing the space between the two point.

Time – we cannot jump from one time to another without living the time between the two moments.

Energy – we cannot exist in the corona of the sun or in the cold of outer space without special protection.

Matter – we cannot survive long without oxygen, water and food. Carbon monoxide will kill us if we inhale enough, we cannot drink liquid nitrogen without damage, etc.

Life – exposure to a host of pathogens – viral and bacterial can seriously harm if not kill us.

Animals and humans – we can be eaten or killed by a number of other creatures if we are careless.

Humans – other human beings can injure or kill us if we are not careful

Culture – If we trespass on customs or laws of society we can be suffer consequences

Personality – a great deal of our reaction to events around us is shaped by our genetics

Habits – we all have many habits that can be extremely difficult to escape

Situation – there are many other constraints on our choices that have to do with such things as needs of family, physical limitations, financial limitations, lack of education, etc.

We each have a small range of choices that we can make without someone or something preventing us or forcing us. If we make choices that are not congruent with our deep sense of who we are, then we can exhaust a certain type of mental energy. So even if nothing else is affecting us, our own  identity can exact a cost for certain choices.

And, in the end, we pay for what ever we choose in one way or another.

Given all this, we definitely do not have “free will” in any significant sense.

One of the fuels for the debates on free will consists of the question of assigning responsibility. If you cannot be held responsible for your choices, should you be punished for breaking the law or social custom. A lot of jurisprudence revolves around trying to figure out just exactly how responsible someone is when a law is broken. Not always an easy :question to answer. So, if I have correctly stated the situation, should people be held accountable for their actions. I would say “yes’. Here is my reasoning:

The human brain is essentially a control system. A society composed of many human beings cannot function unless those control system function correctly in concert. If one of those control systems is involved in a problematic occurrence, then society must investigate to determine whether the control system in question has malfunctioned. If so, can the control system be repaired or reset. If the odd are poor, then the control system should be removed from society.

The bottom line is that if the odds are poor that someone can function according to society’s rules, then that person should be removed from society. This does not depend on the existence of free will.