This Dinosaur Comic is for Alex

[tracilicious]

It just doesn't get better than dinosaurs discussing free will.

[RStar]

Wow, that's cool.

To bad it didn't get them anywhere, though. They're all dead.

[Alex]

Just for the record, I do not agree with the second panel. There are random events (in the sense that while still subject to purely physical precedents, the outcome can not be known by even perfect knowledge of all precedents). This, however, does not create free will.

[Alex]

And with Dilbert and dinosaurs on my side, I think I've attained a quorum and can now impose my unwill on the population of the world.

[€uroMeinke]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

And with Dilbert and dinosaurs on my side, I think I've attained a quorum and can now impose my unwill on the population of the world.

Or at least entertain that dellusion

[Alex]

Exactly! (Though I'm not entirely sure if dellusion is a typo or a joke I'm not getting.)

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

And with Dilbert and dinosaurs on my side, I think I've attained a quorum and can now impose my unwill on the population of the world.

That's nothing to brag about. It's not like they chose to be on your side or anything.

Seriously though, is there any proof or hints of proof at no free will, or did some guy just jump out of bed one day and decide to thumb his nose at free will? Did I just choose to type that?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by tracilicious

Seriously though, is there any proof or hints of proof at no free will, or did some guy just jump out of bed one day and decide to thumb his nose at free will? Did I just choose to type that?

Read Douglas Hofstadter's essay `Who shoves whom around in the careenium?' (available in the compliation "Metamagical Themas"), it does a good job of painting the picture. Essentially, it boils down to the fact that we exist in a physical universe and that, in the end, our thoughts are the result of our brain, and our brain is a physical thing guided by physical laws. Electrons, protons, neutrons whizzing around. Entirely too complex to predict, but entirely bound to their natural course.

One of the things Hofstadter points out is that the usual definition of free will, namely, "I can choose to do anything I want" has a rather fatal limit built in. Not "anything", "anything I want". When you start to explore where that subset of anything comes from, the concept of choice begins to slip away.

[Alex]

There are lots of hints of no free will, in that free will requires a violation of everything we know about the physical laws of the universe. Free will requires that at some level there is a particle that can choose its own course independent of all external interactions, the causality can be severed. There is simply no evidence that this happens, there is no theoretical framework for how this would happen, and three are no gaps in the existing theoretical framework that would be better explained with the assumption that this does happen.

So, similar to my stance on god, until there is either actual positive evidence for ones existence or a compelling theoretical framework (that is, one with more predictive/descriptive power than current theoretical frameworks) that requires ones existence, there is simply no reason to assume it exists.

Other than your self perception, what evidence is there of free will? Because I can make you perceive all kinds of things that you will reject out of hand simply because it contradicts what you understand to be the nature of the world. In taking the position that free will does not exist, I am not the one making extraordinary claims.

That said, I do agree with the cartoon in that whether free will exists or not is purely academic, because in not existing, we are so hard wired to perceive it that we have no option but to feel like it does exist and to believe we're behaving accordingly. On the basis of our ability to perceive it, there is no practical difference between a universe where free will is possible (other than that this means science is, fundamentally, rendered valueless) and one where it is not.

This doesn't bother me. But to assert that free will does not exist (or, more accurately, to assert that there is no reason to assume it does) does bother a lot of other people for some reason.

And there is, of course, the petty nature of what most people view as free will. Apparently it is only available only for trivial ends. Am I going to drive to work at 45 miles per hour or 48 miles per hour? I'm completely free to decide.

But could I decide today to be gay instead of straight? No, that's genetic and imposed on my physical processes. Could I invoked my free will and become an ardent Communist? Probably not. Can I, through, free will suddenly begin enjoying raw tomatoes? Those who believe free will exists not only have no fundamental evidence for the position but also are forced to create a subjective, arbitrary line in the sand for how free will can manifest istelf and when it will be overhwhelmed by purely physical processes. I simply say that free will is always overwhelmed by purely physical processes.

For most people self-awareness and self-motivation are interminably intertwined. I don't see why that must be the case.

As for whether some guy woke up one day and decided to take this stance, the existence or non-existence of free will is a very old question. Major strands of Hinduism and Buddhism to not accept the idea of free will. With the birth of the idea of a god that exists outside of time, came the idea that all events must therefore be foreordained (Calvinists, in Christianity being the best known example). Many scientific philosophers (such as William James) have long said essentially what I do that ethically we act as if free will exists but that there is no objective evidence for it. It is an old, old question.

[Kevy Baby]

I like that the strip uses the same artwork, just changes the text each time.