Please proof with caution
Free will or not, this is not how you talk about it
If someone says “free will does not exist,” they should be punched in the face.
If someone says “free will does exist,” they should also be punched in the face.
If someone is just rambling about free will without saying anything at all, it helps to know whether or not they’ve ever been punched in the face.
Being punched in the face is a profound human experience. Everyone — especially philosophers — ought to feel it at least once. And I don’t mean some accidental bump. I’m talking about real, sweaty fisticuffs; the kind of mortal combat that guarantees a fist meeting your face.
Dude, what’s wrong with you? Why are you so violent all of a sudden?
If being punched in the face teaches you anything, it’s this: free will or not, if you don’t keep your hands up, you get hit in the face.
A lesson on free will
Bell rings. Hands go up. Okay. Let’s feel the opponent out. Pa-pa-PA. Oh man, they’re riled up. Time to land some stri... Pa-da-pa-DA. Gah! That hurts… Respond! Up. Cross. Back away.
One minute. Landed a few jabs. Two minutes. C’mon. Keep breathing. Three minutes. Looking at the clock is making it worse.
Arms tired. Can’t think. I just want it to end. Hands drop. Pa-pop! Head ringing. Hands up. Eyes closed. Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa. They keep coming. Pa-PA-pa-pa. Keep hands up… Why did I ever let them drop!
A lesson on logic
I recently came across a YouTube clip titled “Why Free Will Doesn’t Exist”, which greatly irritated me; not because of the claim itself, but because it reeked of these philosophical anti-patterns:
Confirmation-bias for a specific conclusion.
Believing that the natural world maps cleanly to strict logical structures.
In the video, the fast-talking presenter briefly lays out a witty logic “proof” that free will does not exist. The argument goes something like:
An activity is either determined by something else or it is not. It cannot be both, and it has to be one (see Law of Excluded Middle).
Let X be a mental activity.
Part A: If X is not determined by something else,
Then it must be random.
If it is random,
Then you are not in control of it, by definition of random.
Part B: If X is determined by something else,
Then redefine X as the thing that determined it.
If X is determined, loop through “Part B” again.
If X is not determined, visit “Part A”.Given any mental activity X, you will either:
1. End up in “Part A” which is random and therefore not controlled.
2. End up outside the “self” which is also outside your control.Therefore, all mental activity cannot be controlled within the self.
Therefore, free will does not exist.
There’s a lot that could be unpacked, but the fatal flaw appears here:
Part A: If X is not determined,
Then it must be random,
The argument uses terms “determined”, “not determined”, “randomness” and “control” to make a conclusion about “free will”. But once we express “free will” using the argument’s own terms, the logic leaps become obvious.
When most people say “free will,” they’re pointing to a real (not illusory) level of control over thoughts and actions — typically from the mind outward. Translating this meaning into the argument’s terms, “free will” proposes that there is some “undetermined, controllable mental activity, originating from the self.” It also follows then that “free will” proposes:
If a mental activity is not determined by something else,
Then it could be an act of free will.
This is where the presenter’s argument falls apart.
You cannot disprove the “free will” proposition with an unexplained statement like:
If a mental activity is not determined by something else,
Then it must be random.
That’s the whole point of the debate!
To prove that a proposition is false, you must show that if you accepted the proposition as true it would produce a contradiction. So, if we accepted the “free will” proposition as true (in a legitimate effort to disprove it), we cannot simply declare “an undetermined activity implies randomness.”
Ignoring the “free will” proposition inside the “proof” does not prove anything… It just becomes a reason for someone (me) to rant on substack…
I’d love to know
What is meant by “free will”?
Are all activities determined by other activities? If so, would randomness be an illusion then?
If we can disprove human “free will”, could “free will” exist somewhere else in the universe? Could “free will” exist outside the universe? Could we disprove such a thing?
If “randomness” exists, could we view it as the “free will” of some external agent?
If “free will” existed, where would it begin and end? If we’re not even sure what the “self” is, can we be sure what “free will” means?
Maybe I’m missing something obvious or my own understanding of logic is way off. Either way, I’m legitimately curious and would love to hear anyone’s thoughts on any of this.
In the meantime, the predictive power of “free will exists” seems to beat the alternative - so I’ll hang onto that perspective until proven otherwise…
Keep your hands up
Whenever we use pure logic to prove intangible metaphysical things, the devil’s in the details. What do the words really mean? Am I using the meanings consistently? Am I even accounting for the fact that all of this is based upon my own relative, human observations?
Finally, wherever you fall on the free will debate, if you find yourself in a fight, keep your hands up and you’ll nurse fewer face bruises. If your hands fall and you do nothing about it… well…
