Kapow.



Tried but can't disagree with his argument.

Written by IronAngel on 30.01.2013 at 22:59

The above is so jumbled and incoherent that it makes my head hurt. In what sense are you trying to do something, or convince yourself you have free will, or plan, if it's all mechanically predetermined? That whole claim makes no sense, because you can't really evaluate whether something is "hard" or "useful" in a well-oiled machine that simply produces effects without meaning or intention. The whole question of whether it's beneficial or necessary to assume we have some free will is absurd, if we didn't have a choice in the matter in the first place.

It may be that there is no free will. I don't think there's a very good case to be made, though. In solving a dilemma, you'll have to find the solution that most corresponds with our experiences, intuitions and rational principles. Whether a purely mechanical causality is such a solution, one thing is clear: we cannot even think or talk without assuming intentionality and agency, so you can't really posit an intelligible theory that denies all intention and choice. It simply doesn't fit within our cognitive faculties. Trying to make sense of it in such everyday terms as the quote above stumbles in its own impossibility.

Now maybe reality really is such that it cannot be comprehended and our lives are an illusion. But is it the best, most plausible explanation that deals with the majority of our experience and beliefs satisfactorily? If a reductivist view of causal physicalism logically leads to conclusions that are almost impossible to accept or even understand, isn't that good reason to suspect the explanation has gone astray? It seems arbitrary to choose certain observations and principles as primary, and dismiss others. Why should we consider highly technical and theoretical data on brain chemistry as more compelling than our immediate experience of free will? You would be just as consistent in assuming that because you do in fact experience free will and know it exists, the reductive physicalist conclusion from some other data must be false.

A. Why do you think machines (a closed system of causation) cannot have intentions? There is no reason that a mental state could not cause (big concept, I know. Bare with me) a physical state ans vise versa as a part of a working theory which (i.e. gives us good predictions). That is what we do in cognitive science. Alvin Goldman and others have argued in favor of this position.
B. As an epistemic position (i.e. useful explanation) we are giving thing mental states. That may not be a metaphysical description. Hence, No contradiction is made.
C. You maybe believe in believing in free will, but we certainly do not experience free will or agency. I did my thought experiments (in a form of meditation and contemplation) as a part of eastern philosophy, which argues without dogma, the exact opposite. What we di experience is a bundle of experiences, some which seem utterly random (close your eyes for 3 minutes, observe the thought sand emotions that "pop-up"). Kant address this issue (surprise, surprise) as a reply to Hume (which support the position I lined above) positing a (transcendent) ego, but not as a part of experience (rather as a way to try and make sense of them [as a "logically necessity"]).
D. "Why should we consider highly technical and theoretical data on brain chemistry as more compelling than our immediate experience of free will?"
In addition to (C), which renders this notion false, scientific explanations give us better predictions, hence better ways to navigate and mapping our world.

As a side comment: Your metaphilosophy has been critiqued. For example, "Philosophy without Intuitions" (2012) by Herman Cappelen or an older critique "Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and its Role in Philosophical Inquiry" (1998) by Michael DePaul and William Ramsey.

Written by IronAngel on 31.01.2013 at 10:24

Except that's not how evolution works (it's a crass carichature, even if the general idea seems right) and you still seem to posit intentionality. You just described a machine with a purpose. It's very problematic to describe evolution, because we tend to resort to teleological explanations. In fact, there can be no goal of survival or reproduction, organs have no purpose, and planning is impossible in mechanical causation. Causation only looks backwards. You can't coherently claim animals run away to avoid danger and death, you should be saying they run away because of immediately preceding physical causes. To explain the illusion of free will as a prerequisite to good society is a teleological explanation, and it certainly doesn't explain the emergence or nature of the phenomenon.

"You can't coherently claim animals run away to avoid danger".
Correct in principle. An antelope runs because it was selected to react that way when the suited mentally stimulated is in place.
Darwin gave a mechanistic explanation to the variation of life. It holds no teleology in principle. There is no goal to survival or reproduction. Organs have no purpose, you assign them purpose because you find in them purpose. You are blindly selected to find in things purpose.

Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, "This is an interesting world I find myself in ? an interesting hole I find myself in ? fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.
-Douglas Adams

As a physics student I tended to say "the body wanted to move that way, so the static friction must point the other way". In no way this implies that Newtonian mechanics is teleological. it is a matter of language and explanation, not metaphysics.
In short Appealing to natural selection proper is not teleological in principle.

Written by Candlemass on 31.01.2013 at 17:58

A. Why do you think machines (a closed system of causation) cannot have intentions? There is no reason that a mental state could not cause (big concept, I know. Bare with me) a physical state ans vise versa as a part of a working theory which (i.e. gives us good predictions). That is what we do in cognitive science. Alvin Goldman and others have argued in favor of this position.
B. As an epistemic position (i.e. useful explanation) we are giving thing mental states. That may not be a metaphysical description. Hence, No contradiction is made.
C. You maybe believe in believing in free will, but we certainly do not experience free will or agency. I did my thought experiments (in a form of meditation and contemplation) as a part of eastern philosophy, which argues without dogma, the exact opposite. What we di experience is a bundle of experiences, some which seem utterly random (close your eyes for 3 minutes, observe the thought sand emotions that "pop-up"). Kant address this issue (surprise, surprise) as a reply to Hume (which support the position I lined above) positing a (transcendent) ego, but not as a part of experience (rather as a way to try and make sense of them [as a "logically necessity"]).
D. "Why should we consider highly technical and theoretical data on brain chemistry as more compelling than our immediate experience of free will?"
In addition to (C), which renders this notion false, scientific explanations give us better predictions, hence better ways to navigate and mapping our world.

As a side comment: Your metaphilosophy has been critiqued. For example, "Philosophy without Intuitions" (2012) by Herman Cappelen or an older critique "Rethinking Intuition: The Psychology of Intuition and its Role in Philosophical Inquiry" (1998) by Michael DePaul and William Ramsey.

A: Perhaps so. I suspect there's a confusion of terminology on someone's part here. I don't suppose there is an autonomous, isolated spirit with freedom to think what it pleases. Isn't freedom, in the common and apparently proper use, the capacity of that unit to have agency? If the self or the will is specifically the bunch of our mental states happening in the appropriate physical context, then the ability of those mental states to cause changes (as I've argued before) is essentially what free will means. It doesn't have to mean independence from physical stimuli, but it does mean that it's an active, functioning agent that can genuinely cause effects rather than just passively reflect them. I'm perfectly satisfied with a mental agent conditioned by external circumstances, but there's no reason to assume that mental agent can't be an active entity not reductible to its parts. (A purely mechanical, Newtonian causation probably won't hold even in physics, so I wouldn't make too much of an issue of it.)

B: No argument there. There are good reasons to believe mental states can't be reduced to physical states, even if they may be caused by them. But the issues are separate. (Not sure what B responds to, though.)

C: I am not sure what to say about that. I would say that most people believe and experience they have free will. We are constantly making choices, or so it seems. Epistemologically, we have the classical problem: do we start from an epistemic theory and see what it allows us to know, or do we start from things we seem to know and try to find a theory to explain them? I don't recall the technical term right now, but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. But if we have no propositions we know, we have nothing to formulate a theory on. If we don't have a theory, we have no way to differentiate between knowing and just believing (falsely or correctly by chance). Either way, if we have a basic belief about free will that people seem convinced they know, then it seems arbitrary to accept it can be dismissed. If our epistemic theory results in dismissing a large part of what we believe to know, it seems like a bad theory. At least you would need extremely convincing reasons that force such a paradigm shift.

D: That is something I don't subscribe to. It's not true that we can explain human behavior better by dismissing intentionality and choice. (Though you have a stricter view of freedom and might grant this; see A.) It may be that the best possible system of beliefs requires us to dismiss such notions to remain coherent, but that's not obvious. I would much rather tweak our concepts of causation or the formal principles that make up our epistemic systems. And in general, I'm not very sympathetic of the common values of predictability and "mapping" that have become popular in epistemology. I would rather have explanations, but these are all pragmatic and not strictly epistemic principles. It is not clear that such explanations do predict better, but even if they did, there's no reason to apply them uniformly to every area of knowledge and language.

As for natural selection, I agree. It's a perfectly useful model of explanation and I'm not criticizing teleological language per se. But I fail to see how it helps us in this situation. It doesn't explain the emergence of (the illusion of) free will or more importantly, the things the original quote used to explain it. Evolutionary biology doesn't work as a model on the level of social organization and social ethics. The attempt to explain the perception of free will as a result of evolution because it's beneficial to society to be able to punish and reward is certainly outside the scope of what Darwin and modern biologists try to explain. It's not like a few apes were born with the notion that naughty apes should be punished, and as a result shagged more girls. Social Darwinism was a failed trend, too. In general, very little good has come from trying to enforce methodological uniformity and reducing individual disciplines to one model. Purely from the perspective of philosophy of science (which is my main focus in philosophy), taking no metaphysical stance, there's very little grounds for such.

Written by wormdrink414 on 31.01.2013 at 10:56

Kapow.

[video]

Tried but can't disagree with his argument.

Thank you.

Written by IronAngel on 31.01.2013 at 19:56

It's not like a few apes were born with the notion that naughty apes should be punished, and as a result shagged more girls. Social Darwinism was a failed trend, too. In general, very little good has come from trying to enforce methodological uniformity and reducing individual disciplines to one model. Purely from the perspective of philosophy of science (which is my main focus in philosophy), taking no metaphysical stance, there's very little grounds for such.

A. "I'm perfectly satisfied with a mental agent conditioned by external circumstances" - I'm too.
That's enough for me to reject libertarian free will. The rest is a different subject.
I didn't go into reductionism enough, I could suggest you to read some Alexander Rosenberg for a 'greedy' account of reductionism.

C. paradigm shift? I think if people take a moment to contemplate - they will indeed see they do not experience any feel will. Rather, I would point out to the genealogy of the idea - seems like it started as an unwise idea as a response to another unwise idea (fatalism) in ancient Mesopotamia. People maybe forgot where it came from into their heads and take it as granted as many other bad ideas they did not contemplate about.
Choices, as you pointed out in (a), isn't a matter of "free will". I tend to favor a sort of Scientific-Pragmatism on this issue. You start with a while defined system and revise it as you go along, while testing it against experience. This is what after all allows us to progress.
D. The 'mapping' is a popular part of explanations and explanatory virtues.
"there's no reason to apply them uniformly to every area of knowledge and language." - I agree.
The thing is, you are using folk psychology which gives you so-so predictions with measurable biases in judgment. Scientific psychology does a better work on all accounts.

Yes it does. Sociobiology. That's beside the point of course. Pointing out it is an imperfect explanation does not add anything virtue to intuitive explanations Those explanations are on all accounts - better (this is in the context of theistic explanations, the principles are still relevant).
"enforce methodological uniformity" there is no need. The question is what you want and what you expect out of your theories.

We're programmed by genes just like other animals...

Recently wrote a blog entry on this subject if anyone is interested: http://thecephalogue.blogspot.com/2013/03/you-were-destined-to-read-this.html

Took a class in Game Theory last semester and we did an analyses of a problem that could very well apply to this (Newcomb's Paradox)

Here is the scenario:

Two boxes are put in front of you, one is transparent and you can clearly see that it contains $1,000, the second box contains either $0 or $1,000,000, however you don't know what is inside.

The contents of the second box depend on the prediction of a fortune teller who is ALWAYS right. If he predicted that you will take both boxes he will put $0 in the second box, but if he predicts that you will only take the second box he will put $1,000,000 inside of it.

He makes the prediction and puts the money (or no money) inside of the second box before you make your choice. The money from the second box WILL NOT magically appear or disappear.

Lastly, you cannot randomly generate your decision. That will result in an empty second box.

Are you better off by taking both boxes or just the second box?

Well at a first glance it seems as if taking both boxes is the dominant strategy because:
If there is nothing inside the second box....
A)...and you take both boxes you will have $1,000
B)...and you take the second box you will have $0

If there is $1,000,000 in the second box...
C)...and you take both boxes you will have $1,000,000 + $1,000
D)...and you take the second box you will have $1,000,000

HOWEVER

Given that our fortune teller always predicts correctly outcomes B and C are impossible to occur. Therefore the rational thing to do is to ALWAYS choose only the second box.

The interesting part about this scenario is that your decision is irrelevant. The fortune teller, through his perfect forecasting, has already put the money inside the box and he knows exactly what you are going to do. You have no choice but to fulfill his prediction.

So under the assumption of perfect forecasting (aka as Omniscience) Free Will cannot exist, well at least in the traditional sense. You may still believe that what you do matters, but ultimately the outcome is already pre-determined and you have no way to change its course. This makes many religious beliefs incompatible with notion of Free Will.

There are some problems with the above. Namely, it's begging the question. Your premise is that there is a fortune teller who already knows the future, and that's supposed to show the irrelevance of choice. But such a premise may be entirely imaginary and mistaken in some fundamental way. It already assumes a singular history, rather than branching possible worlds. It assumes cause comes before effect. It assumes a metaphysical connection between knowing something, and the state of affairs itself. It seems our commonsensical understanding of time and causation are insufficient to explain artificial paradoxes with imaginary premises, because they were never that clear and precise in the first place - or at least not formulated for that kind of use.

Written by IronAngel on 31.03.2013 at 11:58

There are some problems with the above. Namely, it's begging the question. Your premise is that there is a fortune teller who already knows the future, and that's supposed to show the irrelevance of choice. But such a premise may be entirely imaginary and mistaken in some fundamental way. It already assumes a singular history, rather than branching possible worlds. It assumes cause comes before effect. It assumes a metaphysical connection between knowing something, and the state of affairs itself. It seems our commonsensical understanding of time and causation are insufficient to explain artificial paradoxes with imaginary premises, because they were never that clear and precise in the first place - or at least not formulated for that kind of use.

See, right there is the best argument that I've seen from you--or it's at least the most clear and concise. Assuming cause/effect is a real thing beyond a simple illusory human construct, and that cause always comes before effect, then it does not make sense that there would be such a thing as free will. But that is an assumption, with which yet another assumption is made after working through the idea with human logic. And again, there's even the assumption being made that human logic is a reliable, infallible tool to help us understand the world.

But, as you said, we may be completely deluded. Our linear, logical, cause/effect mentality may actually distort the true nature of reality. Cause/effect may not exist at all how we think it does. We can already see that logic is not without flaws; otherwise there would be no such thing as a paradox. Paradoxes do not appear to exist in nature; they only exist when our logic conflicts with itself.

The thing is, based on the evidence we have, it's certainly reasonable to believe that there is no such thing as free will until proven otherwise. Of course, it would be foolish to remain trapped in that conclusion to the refusal of all new evidence supporting a contrary perspective, but I doubt that any of us plan on doing that.

Still, all interesting ideas to consider.

Short version: We have free will within limited scope and range of the physical universe that we can perceive and make meaningful changes to. Outside of that scope or range the universe appears totally deterministic as we are powerless to stand it its way. Some Mars-sized behemoth hurling through space towards Earth would be an example. We're simply cooked, period.

At the other end of the spectrum our quantum universe appears to break all the rules (though in reality those quantum mechanics are the rules). Things happen seemingly at random that appear to violate every concept upon which we build our reality - the universe appears to be a fuzzy, swirling soup of random activity. We can't control this, either.

We are free, then, to roam about and exist within the confines of our "sphere of influence," so perhaps that is the meaning of life? Take your little bubble in which you have some sliver of a purpose and learn not to worry about the chaos or possible doomsday that may befall us one day. Have fun!

- - -

Long version (feel free to skip if you like): I think the fundamental paradoxes of quantum physics play well into the free will (or not) debate. Take for example Uncertainty where we can't accurately measure both momentum and position simultaneously. Skipping the complex maths and getting right to the heart of it...

Does the act of measurement cause the physical reality, or are we simply learning through this observation which little pathway we have taken in the "tree" of causality? As Jaeryd said, "Paradoxes do not appear to exist in nature; they only exist when our logic conflicts with itself." It will appear to some that the observer has some magic powers over the particles when in reality this is just a physical reality we struggle with philosophically - it runs counter to our everyday reality.

Classical Free Will is an example of a binary concept, an "either-or" which must either exist or not exist, period. Absolute non-existence of free will would require a deterministic process to absolutely every physical quanta for all time and space, a "billiards ball" universe which was soundly laid to rest in the 1920's and 30's. Now some processes are indeed fixed enough, or carry enough "momentum" that resisting them is futile. These will appear fixed, or inevitable. The destruction of the Milky Way Galaxy by Andromeda in a billion years is pretty much a done deal. Any effort on our part to prevent it would be pointless.

I can, however, wander the streets on a meditative stroll and decide to turn left or right, or not turn at all, and this can and will have cascading effects on all of reality for all time in small ways. I may crush a bug that otherwise would have bitten a child and caused an allergic reaction that killed her, whatever. Chaos theory, I suppose?

But how important are my decisions? How much of an effect am I allowed to have on the universe?

Free will like all things is not the binary 1 or 0 we argue it to be, but a continuum. I can choose to do or not do all sorts of things, I could even drive my car into a ravine. We have free will in things that matter to us on our level, but there are random chaotic processes as well as cosmic scale processes working in which our decisions are basically irrelevant (not absolutely irrelevant, just mathematically negligible, or indetectable). This is true for most of the known universe.

Whole civilizations can go KABOOM! amongst the stars, yet we will never know one way or the other.

There is, however, free will that at least we perceive as meaningful. Whether I buy you a birthday cake or punch you in the face is quite important to you and I. It is especially important for you as I'm sure you'd much prefer I buy you a birthday cake.

We have freewill in mind. Maybe not physically entirely (in our constant jobs/work), but mentally we do. The thing that people never grasp about freewill is that it's really hard to actually acquire and utilize the freewill we have. I'm not exactly well educated to understand freewill thoroughly enough to make any theoretical assessment of whether or not we have freewill, but I know that the one way we can acquire freewill is through our mind. Granted, our bodies and everyday lives run like robotic machines. There are 24 hours in a day, we need on average four to eight hours of sleep, and there are certain things we're wired to do for basic survival like eat and shit.

But freewill, in terms of becoming what you want is there. It's completely open to you to determine your life's path. The real question comes to mind when we see how other people perceive this version of ourselves and what we are becoming. To quote Rush lyrics (because... yeah), "You may choose a ready guide in some celestial voice... if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice... you can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill... I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Freewill!"

^ That song sounds close to the levels of insanity that Zarathustra went through as he discusses the philosophy of life and becoming your own hero... I've read *some* philosophy.

We have freewill in mind. Maybe not physically entirely (in our constant jobs/work), but mentally we do. The thing that people never grasp about freewill is that it's really hard to actually acquire and utilize the freewill we have. I'm not exactly well educated to understand freewill thoroughly enough to make any theoretical assessment of whether or not we have freewill, but I know that the one way we can acquire freewill is through our mind. Granted, our bodies and everyday lives run like robotic machines. There are 24 hours in a day, we need on average four to eight hours of sleep, and there are certain things we're wired to do for basic survival like eat and shit.

But freewill, in terms of becoming what you want is there. It's completely open to you to determine your life's path. The real question comes to mind when we see how other people perceive this version of ourselves and what we are becoming. To quote Rush lyrics (because... yeah), "You may choose a ready guide in some celestial voice... if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice... you can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill... I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Freewill!"

^ That song sounds close to the levels of insanity that Zarathustra went through as he discusses the philosophy of life and becoming your own hero... I've read *some* philosophy.

We have freewill in mind. Maybe not physically entirely (in our constant jobs/work), but mentally we do. The thing that people never grasp about freewill is that it's really hard to actually acquire and utilize the freewill we have. I'm not exactly well educated to understand freewill thoroughly enough to make any theoretical assessment of whether or not we have freewill, but I know that the one way we can acquire freewill is through our mind. Granted, our bodies and everyday lives run like robotic machines. There are 24 hours in a day, we need on average four to eight hours of sleep, and there are certain things we're wired to do for basic survival like eat and shit.

But freewill, in terms of becoming what you want is there. It's completely open to you to determine your life's path. The real question comes to mind when we see how other people perceive this version of ourselves and what we are becoming. To quote Rush lyrics (because... yeah), "You may choose a ready guide in some celestial voice... if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice... you can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill... I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Freewill!"

^ That song sounds close to the levels of insanity that Zarathustra went through as he discusses the philosophy of life and becoming your own hero... I've read *some* philosophy.

We have freewill in mind. Maybe not physically entirely (in our constant jobs/work), but mentally we do. The thing that people never grasp about freewill is that it's really hard to actually acquire and utilize the freewill we have. I'm not exactly well educated to understand freewill thoroughly enough to make any theoretical assessment of whether or not we have freewill, but I know that the one way we can acquire freewill is through our mind. Granted, our bodies and everyday lives run like robotic machines. There are 24 hours in a day, we need on average four to eight hours of sleep, and there are certain things we're wired to do for basic survival like eat and shit.

But freewill, in terms of becoming what you want is there. It's completely open to you to determine your life's path. The real question comes to mind when we see how other people perceive this version of ourselves and what we are becoming. To quote Rush lyrics (because... yeah), "You may choose a ready guide in some celestial voice... if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice... you can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill... I will choose a path that's clear, I will choose Freewill!"

^ That song sounds close to the levels of insanity that Zarathustra went through as he discusses the philosophy of life and becoming your own hero... I've read *some* philosophy.

Yes, it does.

^ Holy quadruple post!

I have chosen (or have I?) to believe that we have free will, because it makes life easier and also, because both sides have good arguments, so at the moment, it seems that deciding one way or another is somewhat justified. The fact that we all make choices all the time seems to strongly indicate that we do have free will as well as the fact that our free will can be obstructed (gun to the head scenario for example). On the other hand, there is nothing to indicate that we humans are anything but matter or plainly, physical stuff and this gives power to the idea that we are governed entirely by the same laws that govern all of physical reality, this of course leaves no room for free will. Overall, I choose to believe that I have free will and I think it benefits mankind if we at least act like we can and should take responsibility for our own actions. If we collectively fuck up and allow the world to descend into chaos, we might not recover and be able to run the experiment again.

The Overmind compels me to say yes.

No, free wills never exists, based on Stephen Hawking. and its true cuz we are little creature compared to whole galaxy, planet, universe.. though we can find happiness cuz happiness is in small thing controlled by universe.

I recently stumbled upon this video:



For those too busy to spend 13 minutes watching, here's what I think is an accurate summary of Cosmic Skeptic's argument:

1) All human actions are based on either us wanting to do something or being forced to do something (excluding accidental or instinctive actions, which most people agree aren't free)

2) If one is forced to do something, they have no free will

3) We can do what we want, but we can't want what we want, so we have no free will

Conclusion: therefor we can't have free will


I am no philosopher and I haven't got a degree in anything, so take what follows with a grain of salt. I may be full crap here, feel free to challenge or debunk everything that I say.

At first I found his argument rather strong, but then I started thinking about it like this: If we have no free will, then isn't the distinction between "being forced to do something" and between "wanting to do something" an entirely arbitrary one?

If I WANT to eat a specific sort of ice cream because I liked it as a child and I WANT to relive those childhood memories, that's a want.

But what's the difference in kind between that want and between me eating that ice cream because someone puts a gun to my head and threatens to kill me if I don't eat it? In that case I still WANT to eat the ice cream because I WANT not to die.

The gun-wielding psycho is an influence, but so is nostalgia. If we can't ignore the gun and can't ignore nostalgia, then the difference between the two appears to be a difference in degree and not a difference in kind, which leads me to conclude that any the statement "we either want to do something or are forced to do something" is a tautology.

And now the main point; If we feel the need to distinguish between a nostalgia want/force or a life-or-death gun force/want and can only distinguish between the two in degree, then it logically follows (I fear I may be so effing wrong on all this LOL) that one of those two makes us less free than the other, from which we can only conclude that we must at least have some free will when it comes to the nostalgia option.

As I said, I am sure there's probably several mistakes in my reasoning, but this is the best I got right now.


A related point I'd like to make is that it appears to me as if it is the apparent restrictions on our free will that make the exercising of free will possible in the first place. Our decisions are always influenced by our genetics, our environment, our experiences etc, but what if we had none of those influences? Then what would be the point of making a choice? If we have no experiences to guide our choice and we cannot thus predict ANY of the consequences of our choice, then where's the agency in making that choice? Is it even a choice or just something that superficially resembles one?

To give an example: we have some freedom of movement on Earth thanks to gravity and the objects surrounding us, both of which also ironically hinder our freedom of movement. We can walk along a floor by pushing our feet away from the floor, we can jump around; But if we find ourselves in empty space with no gravity and no objects to use to give ourselves a push, we'll just float with no freedom to move where we wish to move to.


Tell me where I am wrong (or right)

EDIT: The gravity thing is an analogy and not an example. I've slept so little I confuse words atm LUL.