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Assuming we don't have free will, why do we have the illusion that we do? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by frankPodmore@slrpnk.net to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Three possibilities come to mind:

Is there an evolutionary purpose?

Does it arise as a consequence of our mental activities, a sort of side effect of our thinking?

Is it given a priori (something we have to think in order to think at all)?

EDIT: Thanks for all the responses! Just one thing I saw come up a few times I'd like to address: a lot of people are asking 'Why assume this?' The answer is: it's purely rhetorical! That said, I'm happy with a well thought-out 'I dispute the premiss' answer.

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[-] xylogx@lemmy.world 18 points 4 months ago

A better question is, is there any difference between the illusion of free will and actual free will. Is there some experiment you could conduct to tell the difference?

[-] Contravariant@lemmy.world 5 points 4 months ago

Depends, who's choosing the experiment?

[-] Tier1BuildABear@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

If it's the illusion of free will then whoever constructed it most likely made sure we wouldn't have access to those kinds of experiments, or we wouldn't think of or choose to do them.

[-] Soggy@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Why assume that an illusion must have a constructor?

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024

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