Our choices are never free from determinants, constraints and consequences
Genes, early environments, early nutrients, and early experiences play a foundational role in the lives of all living things. When my Dad's sperm fused with my Mum's egg, a zygote was formed. If I were to go back in time and replace the genes in that zygote with the genes of a planarian, you would be able to behead me, and I would just be able to grow a new head and brain. Genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences don't merely influence our choices. They determine our choices, and they constrain our choices. A planarian can't post my posts to you because he or she does not have my genes, my environments, my nutrients and my experiences. This is 100% certain. It is also 100% certain that no living thing chooses to come into existence, chooses their genes, early environments, early nutrients, and early experiences. We can't be blamed or credited for the foundational variables of our lives that we did not choose at all. We all make choices, but our choices are never free from determinants (genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences), constraints and consequences.
Comments (64)
Sure. Just choose the other determinant, constraint, or consequence.
We don't get to create the whole world out of nothing, but we can choose amongst the options available which are constrained by various determinants, constraints, and consequences, but choice still remains.
Nice.
If you are satisfied that all is determined, why ask about it?
Would it change something?
We are our genes. We are our experiences. So if genes and experiences determine our choices, then we determine our choices.
Nutrients and environments may have certain effects on our biology, but they cannot determine our choices because at no point do they control the sensory-motor architecture of our bodies.
We are not our genes. We are not our experiences. Our genes precede us. They contain the blueprint for our construction. Our environments allow us to live. If I were abducted by aliens and left stranded in the vacuum of space, I would die. My homeostasis depends on the environment I am in. Our nutrients are the building blocks e.g. protein that make us. Our experiences shape our neural pathways.
To see if others agree or disagree with me. I would be happy to be proven wrong. If anyone can prove me wrong, please do so.
Try to point to your genes and experiences. What else in the universe besides yourself are you pointing at?
My sense of self is generated by my neural activities. This sense of self vanishes when I am in a dreamless sleep or in a coma or under general anaesthesia or dead.
My genes reside in my cells. They are not "me" or my sense of self.
My experiences are subjective, and only I have first-person access to them. Just as your experiences are subjective, and only you have first-person access to them.
1. Quantum Indeterminacy
What it means: Certain properties (like position, momentum, or time of decay) cannot be precisely predicted — only probabilities can be assigned.
Applies to: Fundamental particles like electrons, photons, etc.
Implication: There's no hidden variable or deterministic mechanism beneath (according to standard interpretations like Copenhagen).
2. Quantum Superposition
What it means: A particle can exist in multiple states (e.g., both spin-up and spin-down) simultaneously until it is measured.
Famous example: Schrödinger’s cat — alive and dead until observed.
3. Quantum Decoherence
What it means: Interaction with the environment (like air molecules or photons) destroys superpositions by entangling the quantum system with its surroundings.
Effect: The quantum system appears to "collapse" into a definite state without needing an observer.
Why it matters: This explains why macroscopic objects don't show superpositions — the quantum effects average out or become smeared by environmental interactions.
So What Happens at the Macroscopic Level?
Neurons, brains, cats, and humans are made up of trillions of particles.
The quantum randomness of individual particles is overwhelmed by the stability and interactions of billions of them — thanks to decoherence.
Hence, we don’t see quantum strangeness at our scale — only deterministic-like classical behavior.
Philosophical Implication:
Because of decoherence, quantum mechanics doesn't give us libertarian free will, nor does it falsify hard determinism at the level of human decisions. It just replaces classical predictability with probabilistic causality, which behaves deterministically on large scales.
No. One's "choices" can be – often are – "free from" one's awareness or volition (or awareness / volition of others). The more one is unaware of the causal / consequential path(s) of one's own "choice" the more one is unware that that "choice" is not, in fact, "free from determinants, constraints and consequences" (like e.g. flying in dreams).
IMO, I've never seen the remotest evidence the QM/QT has anytying whatsoever do to with classical-scale (local) agency. Bad physics / science –> pseudo philosophy –> dumbs down too many TPF thread topics like this lately.
If you think it is reasonable to think that, then I will ask whether you were aware of that neural activity, and whether you somehow engineered it.
Also, it depends on what you mean by "free choice". Are your choices free if you are under no external constraints that prevent you from acting according to your nature? We don't create our own natures. As Schopenhauer observed: "A man can do what he wills, but not will what he wills,"
I should've said 'no'. I don't htink they can ever be free from those influences.
Are none of these of your own unique biology, as it exists through space and time?
I didn't claim an "absolute ... "unfree choices". In effect, IME, our "notions" are enabled – instantiated – by our practices (e.g. "choices', habits, etc), and not the other way around as you suggest.
:up: :up:
I agree.
The reason I agree with the spirit of it, though, is because that higher level drive over your wants isn't infinite, in the way recursive self authorship might require it to be. Eventually, you go back far enough, you're dealing with wants that you didn't choose to want.
Yes, but that's just another will you can't will. The stronger will will win.
If you are the only one who could do that for yourself, what does it mean to appeal to others?
Quoting Truth Seeker
How would I prove myself wrong about the above statement of mine? The statement is based on a lifetime of introspection, observations, studying and research. Why would I be the only one who could prove myself wrong?
If you are satisfied by your own efforts, what is the purpose of seeking validation from others?
I think you have this backwards, it should be “Determinants, constraints, consequences are never free from our choices.” Why? Because we are free to think otherwise. And in fact, we do.
Our choices are not free from the determinants i.e. genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. These variables not only determine our choices, they even constrain them. You can prove me wrong by instantly becoming fluent in a language you have never learned - it's an impossible task, or by going back in time and changing the past at will, or by becoming all-knowing and all-powerful at will. We can have delusional beliefs, but even they are not free from the determinants.
All these question marks are making me sound very sassy. Let me say it without all the sass.
Many people who overcome addiction literally want not to want some of their wants, and destroy those wants through deliberate action.
Pretty much what I'm saying. One want overpowering another want. I wasn't sure how you meant it.
I wouldn't phrase it as "willing not to want the addiction", the addiction is the want, so if someone's addicted to cigarettes it would be "willing not to want cigarettes".
You said "you can want something, but also will not to want it". It's competing wants, and one overrides the other.
I wonder in what cases any want is actually destroyed. I often hear ex-smokers say they miss it every day. It's the want to be healthier overriding the want of the cigarette, every single day. And multiple times every day. The want for the cigarette is never gone.
Doesn't mean you can't want not to want something, can't will not to want something, even if it might be true that that's not always achievable.
And yes it does come down to competing wants.
I guess I'm just not sure of how you're using the word "will". If you don't use the word, does it change the meaning?
"You want to not want something."
"You will to not want something."
Maybe this discussion doesn't come up about things we only want, and don't also not want? Like health. We only want health. We don't want to not want health. The wanting to not want is only for the thing we're addicted to that prevents health, which we never don't want.
Is "will" better than "want" anywhere in that paragraph?
Without looking into the deep deep library of philosophical writings, I would say "want" is something kinda passive, and "will" is when you have a want and you actually do something about it.
Passively wanting to stop smoking is one thing, but actively taking steps to counter your addiction is another. That's the difference between want and will, to me, speaking semi-casually.
I can
Quoting flannel jesusWell what else am I here for?!? :grin:
I don't believe you see the absurdity of your belief in determinism but let us try.
Assertion #1, I assert that I am free from such determinants.
Assertion #2, You assert that you are not free from such determinants.
However as a consequence of determinism, the explanation for both assertions is dependent on prior determinants, genes, environment, law of nature, etc.
No problem so far. But which is true, which is proven? Neither, fundamentally they are not a consequence of rationale justification, but consequences of laws of nature, etc. Truth is a casualty of causation.
My belief that I am a free agent and your belief that you are not is not a consequence of rationale demonstration but a consequence of causation. This conflict cannot be resolved by appealing to determinism and causation.
But a more appealing position is we are free agents that develop rationale arguments based on logic and evidence, and then decide which is more convincing.
In this argument, I assume I am a free agent that can construct such arguments, and as a free agent I decide to conclude "I am a free agent"
1. By instantly becoming fluent at will in all the languages you have never learned.
2. By going back in time at will and preventing all suffering, injustice, and death.
3. By becoming all-knowing and all-powerful at will.
4. By beheading yourself and growing your head and brain back at will, the way planarians grow their head and brain back.
5. By making all living things forever happy.
We can have delusional beliefs, but even they are not free from the determinants: genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. Believing that one has free will is a delusion. If I had free will, I would have already done all five tasks I assigned you.
Genes + Environments + Nutrients + Experiences ? Desire (what we want to do) + Capacity (what we can do) ? Behaviour (what we actually do).
I have the desire, but I don't have the capacity to do the five tasks. Both my desire and my lack of capacity are determined and constrained by my genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences.
I have the capacity to drink tea, but I don't have the desire to drink tea. So, I don't drink tea. My lack of desire to drink tea and my capacity to drink tea are both determined and constrained by my genes, environments, nutrients, and experiences. No living thing is free from determinants and constraints.
Here is a thread I recommend that you read: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15933/what-is-real-how-do-we-know-what-is-real
Yeah, that's true. But they don't not want better health. They just don't want to be tortured by wanting this important, objectively good thing that they can't have. If they managed to never think about their health again, then were offered the new medical cure...?
Yeah
Quoting Patterner
Well of course they'd take it, but they can't spend their lives just daydreaming about a miracle
Still, I think we think if "will" for positive things, too. My thinking when I first responded to you was that we only thought about will for things we wanted to resist. But it takes a lot of will to be an Olympic athlete, among any number of other things.
But I'm still not clear on whether or not we need to use that word instead of "want".
I think willing comes from a worldview where there's God's will. It's just an animating force that causes everything. If you have your own will, that's kind of precarious because your will might be in conflict with God's will. This would show up in battles such as the ones involving Joan of Arc. It happened that the opposition started wondering if they were fighting against God's will, so they quit. The devil is an image of primal defiance to God's will, so Christianity can have this very passive, accepting, loving vibe. In Fear and Trembling, Abraham is held up as an image of a person whose will is entirely fused with God's will. It's kind of terrifying.
Anyway, this sort of thinking was challenged by Aquinas. He suggested that the universe is like a clock set in motion by God, but that God doesn't tend to every little thing that happens. This helped start Europe on the trail of deleting divine will from their thinking. The idea of God's will survived, but in a more dubious form, for instance if someone says the death of a neighbor was God's will, some might be comforted, some might think God is an asshole.
With the deletion of God's will from physics, the idea of a deterministic world emerged, but people kept all the wondrous supernatural things formerly attributed to God for themselves. We're willful and creative. In fact, these are things that some people greatly admire. This is a central theme in Nietzsche's stuff.
I guess the outcome is that human will is supernatural at the edges, it is specifically about making things happen, and it's potentially cause for alarm (although as I mentioned, being fused with God is not all rainbows either.)
That's the kind of thing I was wondering about when asking three difference between will and want. Is willing to do, or not do, something different than wanting?
Will: Quoting google dictionary
Could we say "will" describes a situation where there are conflicting/competing wants, and only one can be satisfied?
Of course, the want for what you're addicted to often wins out over the want for life/health/family. So your will was weak. But if you resist it, your will was strong.
Exercising for desired greater health and strength is loathsome to some. When they battle their laziness and do some exercise, their will was strong.
But if that is "will", then, insignificant as it may seem, choosing chocolate cake over pecan pie, or a Beethoven string quartet over a Bach cantata, is an act of will.
I was thinking the same thing: will and counter will.