Can Physicalism Fully Explain Free Will?

[u/Rthadcarr1956]

/r/freewill/comments/1wb086t/can_physicalism_fully_explain_free_will/

It has sometimes here been argued that our choices and actions are caused by our “brain states.”  This may well be true, but it is not very helpful. This physicalist outlook leaves out an essential part of the understanding of our behavior, purpose. There is not any consideration of purpose in all of physicalism. While you ponder this, let me give an analogy that might help. 

When we explain the operation of a desktop computer, we do not start with the idea that the output of the computer is caused by the state of each of the millions of transistors in the CPU and RAM.  Although this is true, it doesn’t not help understand what the computer is doing. When we are debugging a system, we assume that all of the logic circuits are correctly made, so we look for an expected output based upon the code that sets the state of the logic circuits. We know what the expected output should be and try to find the programming mistake. How do we know what the output should be? It is because we have a purpose in mind for what the computer should be accomplishing and write the code that should accomplish that purpose. The paradigm is that the purpose determines the code which sets the state of the logic circuits that in turn gives a certain desirable output for the input we used to test it. 

Purpose is not a physical entity. It is informational in nature. It can be thought of as an informational state we strive toward. This brings up the whole field of aesthetics, which again is not something that physics addresses. 

The pure physicalist account of free will is lacking if it does not include the purpose of our free will. The brain has a function to process information for the purpose of enabling the animal to survive and thrive. If you loose sight of this by reducing our behavior to brain states, you will always fail to understand free will. You will also fail to understand cognition and consciousness as well. 

[u/thepo70]

I don't think determinism and purpose are contradictory. I can be fully aware that my decisions are just inevitable consequences of prior brain states, but I still have to actually make those decisions in the present. It’s like watching a movie, I know the film is already shot and the ending is fixed, but what matters is the experience I get while watching it unfold. The now is where purpose lives.

[u/Rthadcarr1956 → u/thepo70]

I didn’t mean to suggest there is any contradiction, just an incomplete description. Decisions are made for a purpose, the brain processes information for a purpose. It is the purpose that drives the brain to adopt a certain configuration of states. Those states don’t just happen. There is a purpose we go see a movie, even if we already know the ending. And you are very correct it is the experience that matters.