Question

26.2.2022
Rabbi Michael Abraham, hello,
I recently read your book The Science of Freedom. The question of free will has occupied me since my youth, and your book presents an interesting, elegant, comprehensive, and learned survey of the subject in its various aspects.
However, in my opinion the book is very heavily tilted in one direction (which, after all, you do not hide). In addition, I find it hard to accept some of the arguments, proofs, and examples. I do not know whether it makes sense to send comments so many years after the book came out (perhaps you no longer hold the same positions?), but I decided to send them anyway.
I debated how to organize my comments, and found that the simplest way was to follow the order of the book’s writing (although at times I grouped together several comments on the same topic). I am aware of the repetitions in my comments; they usually stem from the order of things in the book.
And here they are:
11-15 – “The cogito.”
The first part of the sentence is “I think” (with emphasis on “I”), and Descartes treats it as an axiom. But who says that I am the one thinking (or doubting)? Where does the certainty come from? Maybe it is an illusion? After all, if it is an illusion, then the sentence “I think that I do not think” is also an illusion, and from that it follows that the second part of the sentence, “I exist,” also suffers from lack of certainty. There is no proof here, only a strong intuition. And if I were to say, “The tree in the garden thinks, therefore it exists,” and I used the argument “even if it thinks that it does not think,” would that prove that it exists? But the tree probably does not think at all, neither that it thinks nor that it does not think, and therefore this is no proof of its existence.
63 – The elections in Switzerland.
In my opinion, a poor example. True, this is only metaphorical Switzerland (is there any country without problems?), but it causes the point to be missed. If there is free will, then in every decision that involves judgment there is free will, and it makes no difference whether the decision is trivial or weighty. The voter in Switzerland can decide to vote for the prettiest candidate, or the nicest candidate, or even hold a lottery on the eve of the election. He can even decide not to decide and let his hand choose arbitrarily at the moment of voting. But all of these are decisions made of his own free will, before the vote. From the standpoint of free will, there is no difference at all between this and elections in (metaphorical) Israel, where the election is fateful—war or peace, life or death. In both cases there is judgment and a free decision, and assuming there is free will, I cannot imagine that there are two different mechanisms: one for heavy decisions and one for light ones. (And perhaps there is a separate mechanism for medium decisions, and for semi-heavy ones?) The mechanism proposed for free will is problematic enough already, and there is no reason to add this unnecessary burden to it.
On this matter, your intermediate remark that in real Israel there is no real free will because the candidates are too similar only illustrates my point. Is it not enough that one exercises judgment regarding similar candidates for there to be free will? How different do they have to be for it to count as free will? What connection is there between the similarity of the candidates and free will? Is it something that awakens when there is an 80% difference between the candidates and not a 20% difference? In my opinion, either there is judgment and free choice, or there is not. The weight does not matter.
64 (on the same issue):
“There is no connection between a person’s choice (in Switzerland) and what will happen to him in the future,” and therefore the choice is akin to a lottery. Why is “what will happen in the future” a criterion for free will more than any other criterion involving judgment? And if it is simply malicious pleasure that so-and-so will not be prime minister because he is my annoying neighbor, is there no free will involved? Is the mechanism that imposes free will on physics different in that case?
 
69-71 – The traveler parable.
Even if I accept the principle of free will, I cannot accept the principle as it is presented according to the libertarian approach. According to the traveler parable, free will and the topography (environmental conditions and genetic makeup) are presented as two elements different in essence that sometimes clash (free will calls for climbing the mountain, the topography pulls downward). The decision is ultimately the compromise, that is, free will but taking into account the prices and benefits of the topography. I see things differently. There is no principled difference between the desire to climb the mountain and all the topographical considerations. A person puts everything into his judgment, whether it is an internal scale of values or environmental considerations or those stemming from genetic makeup, and the result is a choice expressing free will. I will give two examples that will help me later.

• Traveler parable 2: I was at an event near Baga in the Golan, and afterward I had to choose the route home to the western Galilee. There were three options: the fast and familiar route on roads 91 and 90, and two additional options via side roads in the Golan. What were the considerations?

Time (I wanted to get there within a reasonable time), the beauty of the landscape (fairly similar on the two side routes), variety (taking the least familiar route). One could add more considerations—economic ones, safety-related ones, and others—but in this case they are negligible. In the end what decided it was variety—taking the least familiar route. There was no weighty aspect, nothing that affected my future, no moral aspect, no internal scale of values. Still, it was a decision of free will, after deliberation, no less than any fateful decision. And one more important thing—the deliberation and the decision took place long before the execution. The motor action of turning the wheel right or left would occur at least a quarter of an hour after the decision.
 

• A young man decides to study medicine (let us assume the track is open to him). There are many possible considerations: moral value—helping others, degree of interest, degree of personal fit and chances of success, degree of effort required, chances of making a living, receiving appreciation from society, what his parents say, fear of blood, etc. In the end he weighed everything, gave the appropriate weight to each factor, and made the decision of his own free will. There is no difference between the factors; they are not divided into “true independent will” and topography. All are equal in principle and differ only in the weight given them.

Unlike the previous decision, this one is complex. It does not boil down to a single turn of the steering wheel right or left, but sets in motion a series of other actions and decisions, each based on free will. In order to implement the main decision to study medicine, the young man has to decide on and carry out all of them, such as: enrolling in studies, paying, choosing a schedule, looking for and choosing a place to live, moving there, getting up every morning and going to class, organizing tasks beyond lecture hours, and so on. But all these decisions are embodied in the first, major decision. Without it, none of them would take place.
So decision A is light, affects nothing, and has no moral aspects. Its execution is summed up in one motor action at one moment: the wheel right or left. And decision B is weighty, fateful, and determines a life path, and perhaps even has a moral aspect. It is complex and sets in motion a series of sub-decisions, some weighty in themselves. But in terms of the mechanism of free will (assuming it exists)—they are exactly the same. Both are the fruit of deliberation that ends in a conscious decision. If there are two different mechanisms of self-will here (or a claim that case A is not the fruit of self-will), that would be strange, and the burden of proof is on the one making that claim.
 
 
 
 
94-96. Freedom and liberty.
Again the Switzerland parable. Here too it does not serve the argument. Even in Switzerland, where a person is free to do anything, choosing to go help countries in Africa is a decision of a free person, even according to your view. I will not elaborate further on this.
You claimed that only an objective and binding value standard outside a person’s choice is open to value judgment. But since when is there an objective value standard, and who determines who is righteous and who is wicked? Even a value that seems supreme and objective, like the value of life, is perceived very differently in different cultures, and it depends on period, environment, culture, and individual. It is forbidden to kill, but is it permitted to kill a murderer? And is it permitted to kill in war? Only soldiers, or also innocent civilians? And are the soldiers themselves not innocent? What about self-defense? And Amalek—is it permitted to annihilate them? And is it permitted for me to cause another person’s death in order to save my own life (two people in the desert with a canteen sufficient for only one)? And is suicide permitted? Or helping someone else die in order to redeem him from suffering? What about abortions? And animals—is it permitted to kill them? And if so, only for food and not for amusement? And is God permitted to kill? And is the king (considered God’s representative in many periods) permitted to kill, as God’s representative? It seems that the principle of Lex specialis loses all shape, amid so many specific principles that bury the general idea. How can one speak at all about a general moral command?
If I had to reformulate the Ten Commandments today, my first rule would be “Honor the environment.” Is that a moral command that was inscribed in the world even 3,000 years ago?
And what shall we say about “lower” values on the scale? Where is there here a “value standard outside the person’s choice” by which one can measure commitment as a criterion of a free person? The liberty given to a person, and even more so to a modern person exposed to a variety of opinions and cultures, is first of all to determine the value, and only afterward to be committed to it.

1. Liberty of the will (and later, 208-209, conscience and morality)

Bringing values into freedom of will is unnecessary. The mechanism of free will is complex enough; there is no need to think it works differently when we are talking about a “value” or about choosing a new car (so long as both involve judgment). Later you survey the gaps in the world of physics and discoveries in neuroscience, and argue that it is plausible that there are situations in which free will awakens and causes physical changes by non-physical means. That is a sufficiently weighty and problematic argument already (which I do not reject a priori), but to claim that this mechanism applies in the case of a “value” decision and not in the case of choosing a route home at least doubles the difficulty, because it obligates us to find two different solutions for freedom of will. To sum up: the topic of the value scale is not at all related to the present discussion. It is important in itself, but it does not affect the question of the validity of free will one way or the other.
98 on the same issue.
“A decision about what is proper and desirable to do.” Again—free will can include the proper as part of the total set of considerations at the end of which the decision is made. The consideration to climb the mountain despite the odds is not different in principle from the decision to descend into the valley; all considerations are equal except for the weight the chooser gives them. In many cases there is no mountain and valley at all; there are A and B, both on level ground, and still the chooser decides between them by free will.
98 (and throughout the whole second chapter) – Phenomenology of libertarianism. And also 474 – Man, and only man.
Even for someone who believes in free will, it is hard to accept the libertarian conception as presented. You emphasize that free choice does not depend on factors such as genetics, psychology, and environment, but comes from another essence, namely the person himself. It is hard to see how free will is independent of the environment in terms of the range of possibilities available to it. For example, let us consider the choice of accepting the yoke of the commandments of Judaism. Could a Chinese person who has never heard of Judaism choose this path? Apparently yes according to the libertarian outlook, since the possibility is in principle open before him and he could also carry it out if only he decided to. Except that, since he has never heard of Judaism, the decision is not in the range of possibilities at all—that is, because of an environmental factor. And even if he happened to hear about it, it is very unlikely that he would choose the yoke of the commandments. Because of the absence of environmental factors such as education, tradition, and so on, which would even make such a decision possible, it is not in his range of possibilities. That does not mean he has no free will; he can decide to be a communist or a Buddhist. But the range of his possibilities is limited by environmental factors. Let us go one step further. Even for me, who supposedly knows enough Judaism and enough believers for such a decision to be possible, it is not really within the range of decisions I can make out of free will, whether because of education or because of my personality structure. Just as I would not choose to study law because of my personality structure. That does not mean I have no possibility of free will, and I may choose entirely freely between history or literature or mathematics, but my free will is limited by the possibilities that stem from environment or genetic makeup.
And what about a baby? Does a baby have free will? Can a child make a moral decision? Let us assume yes, but from what age? Does he have judgment? And is this categorical or something that develops in stages, according to accumulated experience and environmental conditions? After all, if it is completely independent of genetic traits and environmental conditions, then a newborn baby should have had free will exactly like an adult.
And if we are going to be libertarian—why only with regard to man? What do we know about other galaxies? If there is life elsewhere, the probability that it resembles our world is very small. Maybe there the division is different, and there are other creatures with free will?
And even in our own world—when exactly did this free will begin? With Homo sapiens? With an earlier human of another species? Did Neanderthal have free will? Is it not more correct to assume there were intermediate stages, and that with cognitive development more possibilities opened up in terms of free will? Can one not understand from this that there is a close connection between free will and genetic makeup, or environment? And even if we are dealing with historical periods—can one assume that an Egyptian from 4,000 years ago had freedom of choice identical to that of a modern person, independent of environmental and cultural factors?
And why not other animals? You tie free will to judgment (especially in light of a value scale). Who determined that this is so? Why could there not be free will in choosing whether to chase the antelope on the right or the zebra on the left? And if so, even as a thought experiment, does that not lead to the conclusion that free will is limited by genetic makeup? That is, a lion could perhaps “decide” whether to hunt the antelope or the zebra, but because of its genetic makeup it will not decide to become vegetarian.
One of the problems is that in the libertarian picture presented, almost nothing is said about the essence of that elusive thing in whose hands free will lies. It remains vague and abstract. We do not know whether it is subject to age, sex (biological), prehistoric or historic period, or a particular galaxy. We do not even know whether it depends on the body: does it disappear with the death of the body? Can it exist with another body or with no body at all?
108 and onward – moral responsibility.
The issue of moral responsibility, important as it may be, does not belong in the discussion of freedom of will. After we have decided on freedom of will, a discussion can be held about moral responsibility. (In fact there is not really much discussion—if we conclude that free will exists, we can impose moral responsibility, and if the conclusion is determinism, then in any case we have no say because everything is imposed on us.) It is fine to bring it in to illuminate the problematic side, but the repetition of the issue creates the feeling that moral responsibility is the cause and not the effect (another tool for bashing determinism).
132-139 – the foolish circle of determinism.
There is no reason to think that if the system is deterministic, then it is also arbitrary or blind. Not that it has a purpose, but it is very possible that it has a mode of operation that is not arbitrary. More plausible is that there is judgment here (for example, thanks to evolutionary development that gives an advantage to judgment), but this judgment is imposed on us. It may be that a person’s experience up to now shows him that his judgment (not only his computational ability) works excellently, and this is reflected in his achievements, society’s assessment of him, his self-assessment, etc. In light of his experience, which tells him he can rely on his judgment, he will reach the conclusion that determinism is true, even if that is imposed on him.
I would like to propose here the smart circle. The young man from decision B is now a successful surgeon, finds his work interesting, is appreciated by society, contributes to others, and earns well. Other decisions he made were also successful (family, fateful decisions during surgeries). He has no reason to suspect his judgment; until now most of his decisions, both fateful and everyday decisions, have led to good results. Experience and intuition tell him he can rely on his judgment. And now he encounters arguments that strongly support the deterministic argument. It could be the results of a scientific experiment, but not only that—it could even be a divine voice speaking to him and proving that everything is written in advance. His judgment now leads him to the deterministic conclusion, and he has no reason to suspect this judgment that until now has led him to correct conclusions. The burden of proof that his judgment is flawed merely because it is compelled lies on the holder of the opposite opinion. Why is the libertarian permitted to use his logic and the determinist not? The fact that the claim was compelled does not make it any less valid.
And what does this have to do with Russell’s teapot? The opposite. If the libertarian comes and says that one cannot trust the degree of fit between the laws of physics and reality itself, the determinist is the one who has justification to say that such a statement has no basis. How is that different from the libertarian’s intuition that says he has free will? How does he know that in his case the system is reliable?
The comparison of human judgment to black boxes with random output is odd, even in a deterministic world. If that were so, you would now be supposed to read something like: “hgladp kgEdld 7qo'sh8 Hld dhYd56i.” Let us look at two raindrops, or two diamond crystals, which as far as is known have no free will and there is no reason not to think their formation was deterministic, and yet their form and properties are not random, and their output has order and consistency. Why should our brain—as a product of the system (again, if we accept the deterministic outlook)—be any different?
Likewise with the example of television parts. Obviously the chance that any random arrangement of parts from a dismantled television will produce reliable results approaches zero. But if the system were random, the similarity between one person and another would be like the similarity between the television screen and the volume button.
Example: two computers are playing chess. Let us say there are two types of operations: calculating the moves and evaluating the position (which is something like judgment). One computer will be entirely deterministic (even if it taught itself, in the end it did so according to deterministic rules), and into the second we introduce a certain degree of freedom of action (for example based on arbitrary radioactive decays). It is very likely that the deterministic computer would be more successful, despite being deterministic. And if we had a way to insert free will and not just randomness into the second computer, would it operate better? Almost certainly not. The assumption that freer judgment is more reliable and more congenial is an unexplained assumption, and the burden of proof is on the one making it. My intuition says exactly the opposite.
A central problem with the foolish-circle argument is that it reverses things. Let us say one starts from the premise that, based on everything known to us, the probability of a world of free will versus the probability of determinism is more or less equal. A person who comes to formulate a position will examine the question on its own merits, to the best of his judgment, before deciding whether his judgment is deterministic or not. The second decision, for better or worse, is the result of the first, not the other way around.
Let us describe a situation in which someone comes to you with a “proof” of determinism: he gives you a notebook to keep closed in a safe. After a year you take it out and find an exact account of your decisions over the past year, day by day. Whether the man is a brain researcher or the messenger of an all-powerful God, you have to agree that the proof is not bad, and you formulate a position in favor of determinism. Only now do you approach the secondary question of whether formulating that position was by free will or not, and you will probably conclude that if the world is deterministic then formulating that position too was imposed on you. That is a consequence of the first conclusion, not the reverse.
And therefore the argument voiced against the defense argument (138) also misses the mark. It confronts the claim that supposedly only the decision that the world is deterministic was imposed on me, but there is no such argument. One who examined the question in the right order and reached the conclusion that the world is deterministic will conclude (consistently) that the conclusion was imposed on him, like any other conclusion he reaches. He has no reason to doubt the reliability of the conclusion as a result.
And from this it also follows that the “tattooing” of the evolutionary assumption (136-7) is no tattooing at all. Examination of the theory of evolution, like that of determinism, should be done on its own merits, according to the best findings and the best judgment we have. The question whether our judgment is imposed on us or not is a secondary one and does not detract from the quality of the conclusion.
Suppose you are more or less willing to accept evolutionary theory and you are willing, as a thought experiment, to think about the world tens of millions of years ago, before the emergence of man. Could you describe the world as deterministic—meaning, were the animals of that era subject to laws imposed in advance? You might agree to that description, and you might not, but clearly you would not bring the foolish-circle argument into the discussion, for man had not yet been created and it was not yet certain that he would be.
In short—the system may be deterministic or not. Its reliability lies in its being one way or the other. The argument about whether it is congenial or not is irrelevant.
139 – 142 (and again 479) Plantinga’s argument.
Very strange, as though taken from another galaxy. If our very ancient ancestors around 6 million years ago were an animal species like any other, how is it that within a few million years man became the almost sole ruler over the entire world? Did the cognitive abilities that gradually developed, including the ability to create tools, communicate, plan, organize, and use language, not ultimately prove to have enormous evolutionary significance in terms of survival? Many animals flee from a tiger, and much faster than man, so why was it specifically man who survived and took over, on almost monstrous scales?
How is it that today there are billions of human beings, but only hundreds or thousands of rhinoceroses or tigers, while other species disappeared entirely?
Cognitive skills, whether they contributed directly to survival or were a byproduct, did not develop randomly but hand in hand with the skills that were required for survival, and therefore there is no reason to suspect them of unreliability. That same development in the brain that enabled a group of people to communicate with one another, plan and build a trap for animals and drive animals into it, and to succeed evolutionarily by doing so, is the development of cognitive ability in terms of reliability of reality-perception.
Everything I wrote here is based, of course, on what seems most plausible; there is no proof here. But the burden of proof lies on one who seeks to undermine what is plausible.
143 – the deceiving demon.
I can testify here only about myself. I have no intuition whatsoever regarding the existence of absolute moral norms and so on. The only intuition I have from the list you mentioned is regarding free will, and against it I have an intuition no less strong of cause and effect. There is no issue here at all of a deceiving demon and probabilities, but a consideration of each topic on its own merits.
144 – the anthropological proof.
One can attack the little argument from two directions.
A. Perhaps the illusion of free will has survival value—that is, between two ancients, one born without the illusion and one with it, the one born with the illusion had a higher survival coefficient, because he initiated and went out to hunt, while the other fell asleep in the shade.
B. One should not trust intuitions, not even the strongest ones. My intuition, for example, is defective—it cannot accept the relativity of time, nor the probabilistic approach to the wave function, and yet I accept relativity theory and quantum theory. No one today deludes himself that the Earth is the center of the universe, because knowledge of the solar system and so on is ingrained in us from an early age. A very large part of humanity has a strong intuition that there is no higher power (and another part has an intuition that there is a higher power). A main part of these supposed intuitions is no doubt education and environment. With high probability, what is common to most people with an intuition of a higher power is that their parents had a similar intuition. Descartes’ anthropological proof is mistaken, and the fact that the concept of God exists within us cannot prove His existence.
150-154 Newcomb’s paradox.
The main problem is the double nature of the game system: the prophet operates in a deterministic world, and the chooser is expected to decide in a world with free will. Decide in which world the experiment is being conducted, and you will get the answer accordingly. The problem for believers in free will here is no less than for determinists—how can you make a free decision about the matter if the game conditions already state that the prophet knows what you decided? Newcomb’s paradox is no different from the problem of an all-powerful God who knows the future and still allows free choice.
154 – the lazy man’s argument.
The final grade written on the note is only part of reality and distorts the picture. For the sake of example, let us say there are four kinds of students: talented-diligent, talented-lazy, average-diligent, and average-lazy. Even an average-lazy student can get a 50 without studying for the exam, and a talented-lazy one a 70. Studying adds another 30 points. The average-diligent student will have 80 written on the note, but all the information will be written there, meaning grade 80 + the fact that he will study for the exam. His decision to study will be both rational (it improves the grade) and deterministic. The lazy one will get grade 50 + the fact that he will not study. In a deterministic world his laziness is stronger than the rational consideration to study and add 30 points. The lazy man has a rational reason to change his behavior (and improve the grade), but he cannot because his decision is compelled. This is essentially different from the argument in the book, which says that if the lazy man changes his behavior and studies, he will be making an irrational decision. In terms of rationality of the considerations, there is no difference between determinists and believers in free will. Both want the highest possible grade, and both know that studying will improve the grade. The only difference is that in a deterministic world the lazy student will not change his behavior, whereas in a world with free will the student can decide whether to study or not (to overcome his lazy inclination).
209 – The principle of Lex specialis.
The principle has an obvious advantage as guidance for behavior with utilitarian value. More than that—the assumption is that the specific norm was determined after the general norm had been before one’s eyes, and was consciously chosen even at the price of contradicting the general norm. But since when is a utilitarian consideration supposed to be a consideration in choosing the true way the world works? See your own note 184 on p. 318.
211 – Man’s superiority.
Looking at today’s world, one could say that man’s superiority is expressed first and foremost in the disproportionate consumption of the world’s resources. A bird that needs to migrate from the north to Africa flaps its wings and flies. A tiger will walk 100 kilometers to find prey. Man, by contrast, needs airplanes, and airports, and roads leading to the airports, and houses and furniture and clothes. He needs hospitals and theaters and soccer fields and synagogues, factories and offices, and police and army and courts and parliaments, and herds of animals and fields. There are hardly any tigers; there are billions of people and millions of sheep and cows to feed them.
Today there is already almost wall-to-wall agreement that the greatest enemy of the environment (and hence of man) is man himself, and it is not clear that we have not already missed the moment on the climate crisis. From today’s point of view, the value of man’s superiority is certainly not a value that should be our guiding light. I have no intuition whatsoever of man’s superiority.
212 – direct empirical awareness of the mechanism of free will.
You write that it seems our most intimate experience is the freedom to choose our paths. I am sure there are at least millions of people for whom this is not their experience at all, whose experience is the opposite—that they have no ability to choose their path, that the world closes in on them and “decides” for them. When I kick a ball and it flies, I have an equally strong experience of empirical awareness of the principle of causality, and from that my intuition naturally projects onto free will. And believers testify to their direct experience of a higher power, even a personal higher power, something I have never experienced. One should not rely on intuitions, and certainly not project from your own personal intuitions onto everyone and think that this is how the world works.
Chapters 9-10, gaps in physics.
The chapters are excellent, including the jump from the micro level to the macro level. Your arguments that the gaps of chaos theory and quantum theory do not provide a solution to the issue of free will are persuasive.
317-319 (and throughout the whole book) – commitment to the moral command.
It is hard to accept the existence of an anchor outside us, of commitment to an external general command, when history shows how relative moral values are and how dependent on period, place, environment, culture, and individual. Therefore, in the deterministic picture there is no surrender of a basic intuition that all of us have. Maybe only some of us. And again—the argument that prefers libertarianism because it offers a basis for moral responsibility mixes in utilitarian considerations and turns an implication into an argument. One’s outlook on the mechanism of free will should shape one’s outlook on moral responsibility, not the reverse.
394-398 – the timing of value decisions.
Again, in my opinion the discussion gives unjustified preference to “value decisions.” And on that I already wrote earlier: all considerations, including the topographical considerations, are equal with respect to the question of free will, apart from the weight given them.
Chapter 14 – Libet’s experiments.
The arguments that Libet’s experiments do not undermine the conception of free will are indeed persuasive. Precisely here I would go even further and say that Libet’s experiments are not valid at all for the more interesting case, when there is a significant gap in time between the decision and its execution. It makes no difference whether the decision is weighty or not. The main thing is that the decision sets in motion an action or a series of actions later on, with a time gap. Libet’s experiments offer no mechanism at all for that. After all, following the decision there is no motor action, and therefore no readiness potential will be produced. But it is still clear that without the first decision no sub-decisions would be made, and following them the motor actions of implementation. The mechanism must be different.
398 – on the illusion of choice.
In this chapter you explain that even if there is an illusion of choice, that should not harm the libertarian intuition, because it is accepted and known that there are many kinds of illusions. But throughout the book you give very high weight to intuitions, and explain how heavy the price would be if we chose determinism (and I already mentioned the discussion on p. 212). But if everyone agrees that one cannot always rely on our intuitions, and illusion is a real and common phenomenon, then the price is not really so high. Clearly this weakens the libertarian argument, at least regarding intuition.
440 – Yuval Shtrit.
You describe a case of dissociative disorder in which some of the personalities have abilities that the real Yuval never acquired, such as playing the piano and using sign language. But how do you know that this is in fact so—from watching a television program? On the basis of what Yuval tells? Recall a similar case in which a person began speaking a language he had supposedly never learned (perhaps Romanian). In the end it turned out that in his early childhood he had a caregiver who spoke to him in that language, and he simply did not know it. Maybe Yuval did not remember that she had acquired those skills in her past? And maybe she acquired them while she was one of the other personalities, in which case of course she would not remember them?
A viewer at a magic show does not rush to draw supernatural conclusions from every trick he cannot explain. He knows he is being fooled. As someone once said, to decode a magician you need another magician who knows the professional secrets, not a scientist. I am not saying that is Yuval’s case; I have no idea. But at the very least I would maintain a level of skepticism. And it is unnecessary to bring into the discussion again the near-zero chance that a hurricane would assemble an airplane out of junk.
449 – Elitzur’s experiments.
A. There is no need to go far enough to kill a person and rebuild him. It is enough to think about identical twins (let us say they are identical down to the atomic level). Even so, they are two different people, with a different set of experiences, memories, etc. But that probably already contradicts the underlying assumption. If memories are preserved by a system of connections between neurons in the brain, then they can no longer be identical in the atomic sense. But even the duplicate you already created is in the other room, and he has the experiences of the other room, and perhaps also the experience of being recreated, not to mention the experience of the million dollars you already gave him. From those he already has memories, and therefore also a different system of connections in the brain, so in any case he is not the same “I,” even according to the materialist view.
B. No one said that the materialist has no intuitions inconsistent with his worldview. That does not mean they are correct, but he still acts according to them. Therefore even if you succeed in convincing him that it is the same person, it is not surprising that most materialists would not agree to the deal.
456 – Buridan’s donkey.
A. In order to create the experimental environment we need absolute symmetry on both sides of the donkey, which cannot be obtained either on Earth or anywhere else in the universe, because the universe is not symmetrical.
B. More than that, the symmetry has to be absolute on the time axis as well. It is enough that the donkey remember that the last time he ate he tilted his head to the right in order to violate the conditions of the experiment, assuming that this memory can be preserved somewhere (a bit of a problem in a point-like donkey).
C. Even if we imagine a completely symmetrical universe, including on the time axis, in that case a combination of quantum theory and chaos theory is enough to provide a solution. It is enough that one atom decay randomly on one side in order to break the absolute symmetry. Chaos theory is not necessary, but it can strengthen the point, because it turns a tiny change in the initial conditions into a significant later change, enough for the donkey to turn to one side or the other. The claim that the quantum character gets washed out on other scales (461) does not hold under conditions of absolute symmetry.
D. And if despite all this the argument is still valid and this is the price a materialist must pay—namely that an impossible donkey under impossible conditions will die of possible starvation—then yes, this is a price the materialist can pay and remain consistent.
E. At least in my opinion, if there is a non-deterministic solution for man, there is no reason not to apply it to the donkey. I find no reason whatsoever to restrict free will to man alone.
485-486 – the libertarian cogito, and the negative formulation.
A reversal of things (more precisely—a reversal of the implications based on the things), which we already discussed. First one must decide whether the world is deterministic, and from that infer the implications, not the other way around.
 
I deliberately left the following sections for the end, out of order, so as not to create the mistaken impression that all the previous arguments are driven by the atheist’s opposition to religion.
20 – the secular humanist.
How is it possible that a secular, humanist, liberal person does not revolt against a conception that claims he is a biological robot or a kind of animal? I see myself as secular. As for humanist—only partially, that is, in the sense of supporting behaviors derived from the idea, but not the principle that man is at the center. And liberal—again, in certain senses. I have no problem seeing myself as a kind of animal. Why should that make me revolt? On the contrary, the conception that man is different and superior (apart from developed cognitive ability) is what is outrageous here. It seems to me that the problem of free will should trouble believers much more; see below.
114 – “People to whom it is obvious that determinism is nonsense.” 118 – “The claim here is not that an atheist society is more wicked … (thank you very much indeed…) … but that it is less rational and less consistent.” Unnecessary and distancing statements. Regarding the second sentence, up to this point you had managed to leave religion out of the game, and suddenly, supposedly, the hidden goal of the book is revealed: “the atheists.” One can argue many things for and against religion, but rationality is not among them. Since that is not the subject, I will not elaborate here, but one could bring an ocean of valid arguments against the rationality of religion, in all its forms.
127what – the theological argument.
I innocently think that the religious view, at least the one that believes in an all-powerful God, if it is consistent, dictates determinism. Otherwise—if He is not all-powerful, and cannot know or determine the future—then why believe in Him? In other words, the great difficulty of the question of free will is first and foremost in the religious view. A god who is not all-powerful (whether in a monotheistic or a polytheistic conception) is at most just one more entity in a sea of spiritual entities. Why pray to him? Why hang your scale of values specifically on him?
Summary:
From all that lies before me, I cannot choose a side. There are two conflicting intuitions here, almost equally strong. And there are no proofs to decide one way or the other. If I were forced to choose—I would choose determinism on the points, something like 40:60.
All this is unrelated to behavior. I behave as I assume almost all people behave (including those who believe in determinism), namely as if there is free will.