I Can’t Stop Myself. Seriously.

I promised myself I wouldn’t write about free will again. But so many people sent me this link to a story in the New York Times that I feel compelled to share it, ironically:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/02/science/02free.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=955a97875084f083&ex=1167886800&pagewanted=all.

I won’t add anything to the NY Times article. I just wanted to show you that science is mostly on my side. And for those who still believe in free will, it’s time to accept that it’s a fuzzy idea with zero evidence. I don’t think free will even qualifies as a hypothesis because it can’t be described in any logically coherent way. You end up with phrases like “emergent properties,” which is another way of saying you hope someday you can describe what free will is, but right now you can’t even define it, much less test for it.

The discussion of free will reminds me, in an indirect way, of the question about whether people are “designed” to be carnivores. I hear this argument a lot because I’m a vegetarian.

By “designed,” I don’t mean to imply a designer. That’s an entirely different discussion. In this case I’m only referring to the question of whether the human body, in its current form, is well suited to eating meat.

Meat-eaters point out that we have sharp teeth and we can digest meat just like typical carnivores. Therefore we are natural meat-eaters. The counter argument is that true carnivores – a lion for example – can eat huge quantities of meat without any bad health implications. When humans eat a lot of meat, our arteries clog, we have heart attacks, and we die. Every person is different, but on average, too much meat in a human diet is unhealthy. And “too much meat” happens pretty quickly. That’s not much of a design.

I could be wrong about free will not existing. And I could be wrong about our bodies being more suited for the vegetarian diet than for meat. But in either case, science would have to discover something new in order to make the argument. The known facts all point in the same direction. The “feelings” all point in the other.

Comments

[Akala]

I was always of the opinion that humans are supposed to be omnivores. Just...a lot of us are bad at it.

[Briana Franco]

I'm not against meat eaters, but I have come to the conclusion that my teeth are for biting into apples. Duh!

[gr8hands]

Keith -- while your argument sounds good on the surface, it leaves out the whole idea of choice -- even in contrast to inputs.

The survival drive is the strongest in the body -- yet people kill themselves every day. The sex drive is 99.9% as strong, but people choose to remain celibate (as opposed to just not having opportunities for sex). Hunger is also incredibly strong -- yet people diet all the time, even to the point of starving themselves to death.

People in prison can be happy. People with incredible success/fame/fortune can be miserable. People can choose to see the glass as half full or half empty. Martyrs have even been known to sing praises while they're being tortured for their religion.

Clearly these are all in conflict with the inputs they are receiving. They are making choices. Our consciousness is not merely a group of IF->THEN->ELSE statements, only reacting. To suggest it is, demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the human brain (regardless of whether you have MD or PhD after your name or not).

[Martin]

Scott, can you please define the free will you are refuting? You may find more people agree with you - or at least we will have a basis on which to produce arguments.

[kelley]

Actually, The Economist (from December 24) had a quite interesting 10 page series about the brain (and the idea of free will and character).

I'd recommend it, if you can still get the issue somehow.

[gr8hands]

Sorry John -- the study you cite says nothing about free will. Perhaps you misunderstood it.

[Keith]

Beaker, the whole basis of Scott's argument against free will is the argument of cause and effect. When things happen, we respond based on the combination of inputs with a given output. When faced with a decision, we consider our choices and make the one that will result in the best conceivable outcome given our input data (what we know about the plausible results of our choices, from life experience or communication) and scope of thought. In that sense, we are nothing more than a computer than can take in, organize and store vast amounts of information, then call upon it to make a decision. You can take it down further to say that our responses are predetermined by our neural programming. It is therefore possible, if enough about a person's neural programming is known, to predict their actions, because a certain action is guaranteed to result in a given reaction. Strategy games, sports, card games; if you know the input and the program, you can deduce the output. You can also reverse-engineer the output to determine the input. People who are good at this are exceedingly good at games like poker. You know what they've bet and the other elements of the situation (people still in the game, chip count, etc); given knowledge of the person's neural program through past actions, you can deduce at least approximately what is in his hand.

Every decision we make, from where to put our next footstep to whether to sign that mortgage, is based on our neural programming, existing knowledge, and the present situation. One can then argue that we have no control over our actions; when we believe we are, it is simply present knowledge affecting the inputs of the program. If I tell you that there is no way that you can resist going and taking a skinny-dip in the neighbor's pool right now, and you do go for a dip, it is because my statement triggered a neuron that input into your program how nice it would be. If you do not, it is because my statement triggered your ego to inject its own input into the program to contradict what I am saying. Therefore, as Scott contends, on a neural computational level your thought processes can be explained more fully given the absence of free will than give its presence. What we might call free will, the ego, is just a subroutine, which has its own neural code just like any other area of your brain.

As for humans, yes, we are meat-eaters. That does not mean we are carnivores. The true term to describe us is omnivorous. We can eat and process in our systems just about anything with food value, as long as it doesn't harbor a toxin or microbe. In terms of how much of what kind of food the modern human eats, it's actually more herbivorous, just like throughout most of our history. Just like you wouldn't eat roadkill, our distant distant ancestors didn't bother with kills that had laid out too long, and before we invented weapons we couldn't kill our own food. So, we didn't get all that much meat for a LOOOOOOOOONG time, until we developed weapons and hunting methods.

[Chris Hulley]

It seems like a purposeless argument to me. "Free will" is just a shorthand for the human experience we all share.

By a similar argument, there is no such thing as love. It's all just a matter of internalised cost/benefit analysis. So, Scott, the next time your new wife says "I love you", try replying "there's no such thing as love, but you do meet my internal cost/benefit criteria. Make sure you don't slack off too much, though or you're outta here". See what happens.

We live in a sea of rarely examined assumptions that don't stand up to close examination. Take negative numbers. They have no correspondance to physical reality; you cannot show me minus five of anything, eg "hey look, in my hand I have -5 grapes". But they are a convenient fiction it would be hard to imagine life without.

[John]

Uh oh, it looks like we don't have free will to purchase products either. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/01/070103201418.htm

[Dave D]

Last time I checked, lions don't live anywhere NEAR as long as humans do, Scott. Find me an 80-year-old lion without any arterial buildup and I'll admit you might be on to something!

[Beaker]

So we're moist robots that can change our programming?

[gr8hands]

Larry Bradley -- here is a nice rebuttal of Sproul's writing: www.canapologetics.net/html/sproul1.html

[gr8hands]

PeatMoss -- Old lions dying of heart attacks is merely called "natural causes." In fact, old humans dying of heart attacks are also labeled "natural causes" because medical science has observed that most old creatures die from heart failure.

[Andrey Fedorov]

Well, we agree that we have a *feeling* of free will. For the sake of agreement, why not just call that feeling "free will". The definitions are surprisingly interchangeable, no?

[PeatMoss]

"you can't possibly be telling me that we know for certain that a lion has never died of heart disease."

Soooooooooooo, you can tell us with certainty that a lion has died of heart disease?

I'd like to know if lions have had more than their lion's share of heart attacks.

[Larry Bradley]

For those who want to engage in a serious discussion of "free will" (most of the responders have not), it is impossible to understand "free will" from a purely secular or scientific viewpoint. Theologians have a tough enough time with the concept (most don't "get it"), and the American "pop Christian" culture (including many professing Christians) is, by and large, way off base on this topic. The best definition and explanation I have ever heard comes from Dr. R. C. Sproul (ligonier.org). It is possible to get the concept of "free will" straight (what it is and what it isn't) by diligently searching the Bible, but there is one caveat, and it, too, can be found in the Bible at 1 Corinthians 2:14. Look it up.

[anthony]

you can't possibly be telling me that we know for certain that a lion has never died of heart disease.

[Roit]

Science can't study everything, because it is undertaken from a specific viewpoint. You can't see everything from that viewpoint. Science could know everything there is to know about cockroaches, and about scrambled eggs, but that will never allow a scientist to experience what scrambled eggs taste like to a cockroach. That knowledge is out of the grasp of the scientific endeavor.

Scientists assume several things that there is no evidence for, simply because they must assume them in order to do science. They assume scientific naturalism, they assume reductionism, and they assume that they are capable of valid deduction over time. Philosophers only assume the last one, because they aren't lost without the other two. By assuming the first two, scientists have *assumed* that there is no free will. There's nothing left for the method to check. The suspense is over. We know what the scientific answer will be... *must* be. That doesn't mean it's right, as several distinct philosophical arguments would reveal to you if you would study philosophy.

[PeatMoss]

Great blog:

"De Servo Arbitrio" vs "De Libero Arbitrio"

Since ancient times the best of scholars have debated over this topic. IMHO, the most famous of these debates were between Desiderius Erasmus and Martin Luther. And if a person truly wants to debate or enter into effective dialog on the subject of "THE WILL", one must open their mind and further search for knowledge. Anything less is mere chatter.

[ASM826]

Well, ok. If there's no free will, then all the coworkers are not responsible. The bosses are not responsible. Goerge Bush, Adolph Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam, all free and clear of responsibility.
We are not responsible for the comments we post, you are not responsible for the words you write. All of us are free to do anything, or nothing, because it was going to happen anyway.

No free will is biggest pile of horses*** to come down the philosophy pipe, and that's saying something. All of us are responsible for our actions, behaviors matter.

[Dramenbnejs]

"All facts point the same direction"

should be changed to

"all facts *I recognize valid* point the same direction"

to be correct. The sole fact that most people eat meat *is sufficient* to say people are omnivorous.

[Aditya]

2 Princeton mathematician's have posited what they call a "Free Will Theorem" which states that :

- if experimenters in an elementary particle experiment have free will, then it can be proved (which they proceed to do, in spades) that the elementary particles have free will as well.

http://www.arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604079

Warning : graphic mathematics

To be more precise, what they have proved is this : if what the experimenter will choose to measure is not dependent on or determined by history of the experimenter leading upto that moment (i.e. it is a free-will decision) , THEN the action of elementary particles is also not deterministic (i.e. not uniquely determined by their history leading upto that moment).

[Wendy]

People living in different places have adapted to different diets. Humans mainly get their energy from carbohydrates and fat. In meat, depending on what type, there is a lot of fat. There are a good number of Native Americans tribes in which diabetes is becoming significantly widespread when they began eating an increasingly mainstream "American" diet of more carbs and less fat. Today, many Inuits/Eskimos(/politically correct term) still survive on a high-fat diet from hunting whales and fish. By high-fat I mean around 90%. Nomadic peoples across the world predominantly drink the milk and eat the meat of the animals they herd. Then there are the Polynesians, who are renowned for their enormous size and their bodies' ability to avoid the build-up of low-density cholesterol and plaque. The theory goes that Polynesians figured out a way to watch how the waves crash and predict where an island may be very far away. Their bodies adapted to the way of life in which they could build up a lot of fat that could be depleted on those long canoe rides from island to unknown island while the livestock was off-limits for colonizing later. They needed to be able to build up all this fat without developing any debilitating diseases. So I guess in the end, different people have a different amount for their "too much." Just like people whose families have a history of alcoholism should stay away from alcohol, people who are genetically predisposed to develop problems from eating too much meat should eat it with caution. Historically speaking, the working-class citizens of Europe and the United States have considered meat maybe even once a week a luxury until at least the beginning of this century while wheat and maybe potatoes somewhere later on have been staples.

Another interesting thing to note, apes who have diets similar to modern food-foraging humans don't need to eat meat, but they still do. Males readily kill smaller animals, such as monkeys, and mostly use it for personal (or ape-al?) gain. Eating it in from of another male may incite jealousy or respect. They also may share it with a group of younger males to make alliances. Of course, they offer it to females to gain their favor as well. They less frequently eat meat for simple private enjoyment because hunting costs a lot more calories than gathering for the same gain of calories.

Humans also like to eat meat. We also like refined sugar and we love to salt our food. Consuming fat, sugars, and sodium is very rewarding in our brains because those things are good for the body and hard to come by in a hunter-gatherer diet. In my life, it doesn't take much energy to go to the grocery store and buy things that will taste good. It takes more energy to read the nutrition facts, pick out the low-fat/carb foods that do not taste as good and may cost more. It definitely takes more energy to go to the gym. But for modern hunter-gatherers, they have been found to have quite a bit of leisure time each day because it only costs them .1 calories for each calorie gained compared to 1.3 for us (sustained by oil). As added bonuses they can't exactly hoard material goods too much, have nice little lean bodies, almost never die of cancers or coronary diseases, and don't have as many unwanted pregnancies (puberty for women come around the age of 20 because of their diet and pregancies naturally occur every 4-6 years instead of 2 from good breast-feeding). I'm not saying that I want to live like them, but they lack some major problems that we have.

Of course, eating too much carbs can be bad for humans too. Studies (George Armelagos, Emory University) of the bones of people who switched from the hunter-gatherer diet to almost entirely cultivation of a carbohydrate source showed very severe degeneration of health after the switch. Of course, this also had to do with living in crowded cities (not just infectious diseases, but, would you believe it, fighting from probably more bickering), having too many babies, and facing famine for the first time, but some of the deteoriation of health can be directly attributed to the change in diet. They weren't eating according to what their bodies were "designed" to eat. This all depends on the theory of some designing mechanism, of course.

[Ned]

The article begins with discussion of chocolate cake - the author? Dennis Overbite

C'mon, Dude - you faked the article. Admit it. Faux York Times, Indeed!

[Jack]

Actually, humans evolved eating a diet of 60% meat, and the rest fruit and vegetables. It's wheat thats bad for you.

[Andreas]

I want to hurt all of you for having this discussion...

I dont know why, and I dont care...

And I wont explain myself...

But I have free will and I eat meat and will continue to do so (happily) until I die!

[jai]

Scott, you should continue to write about free will freely (heh), because it's an unsettled issue that needs to remain out front and discussed--and what better place to discuss it than in your blog.

I TEND to agree with you about the non-existence of free will and I accept your word for it that there is no science supporting its existence; but science has let us down so often in the past.

It's told us many things that have turned out, not only to be not true, but also to be even sometimes fabrications in the service of someone's agenda. I'm a scientist who doesn't trust his own profession.

It's difficult to say whether or not studies of the "emergent properties" (of, for example, an ant or termite colony or the human brain) are science or something else. So, I'm hanging on the fence on this one.

Therefore, please keep writing about it. I need to be continually prodded with your ideas on this issue.

[Marc]

I definitely think there's something to free will being a "myth" but I don't think that's 100% the case. I think that people are without a doubt hard wired to behave a certain way but we have the ability to change the way we're wired. How we have that ability I don't know, it can't be explained but there are so many things in the universe that also cannot be explained.

Here's my case in point: I'm "hard wired" to not be a morning person and am by nature not particularly active. I have a desk job and not a lot of time in the day to exercise.

However, I have forced myself in recent weeks to wake up early in the morning and get an hour of exercise in before I go to work. Trust me, it was NOT easy to force myself to make this change. In fact, it was near impossible and probably took about 2-3 months to get myself to do it.

But then a funny thing happened. After several weeks, it just kind of became part of my routine or part of the way I was wired if you will. People are naturally predisposed to act a certain way but the ability is there to make the change.

[Erin]

i'm a pretend vegetarian, myself. i only don't eat meat anymore because i never liked the texture of it, but i did learn to eat fish so i could order entrees at restaurants.

my thinking about free will was changed after reading the very first post to this effect, and i have a very different opinion of it now. what i've been pondering lately, though, is how the meat-machine thing applies to indecisive people. if someone consistently makes his/her date decide between two menu items for them and happily eats either one, what does that say about them? Is their software just buggy?

[Dossy Shiobara]

Um, Scott: Lions don't have deep friers.

I have no proof, but I bet humans could live a long time and be very healthy eating lots of meat. Especially, say, fish. Of course, you'd best eat it raw--I'm sure cooking of food has a lot to do with all that artery-clogging nonsense that tends to shorten lifespans.

Oh, wait, there may be proof: the Japanese. Eat lots of raw fish.

[Ralph]

If you eat too much cheese your arteries would clog and you would die. If you eat too much bread you will get fat and die. Anything in excess usually has bad implications for you.

[Terry]

Pandu, good one. You've just relegated us meat-eaters to the ranks of sub-humans worthy of extermination.

Now go play in traffic you self-righteous little twit.

[Pandu]

Meat eaters sure get upset at the idea of being hunted.

Are you not made of meat too?

Have you heard of the Golden Rule? How about the Law of Karma?

When so many people live on the blood and flesh of gentle beasts, it is no wonder there is always war in the world.

...
Personally I quit eating meat as an environmental studies student in college shortly after I began to understand the relationships between ecology, agriculture, and politics. I realized that I could actually negate my personal net ecological footprint by giving up meat and pursuading a few other people to reduce their meat consumption. Soon after, powerful feelings of empathy developed in me, which were previously suppressed by the hidden guilt that comes with exploiting animals. My own personal health has never been a significant consideration in my choice to live and let live as a vegetarian.

It seems that meat-eaters think about little more than their tastes, convenience, and their misconceptions about personal health. It's 100% selfish.

The philosophy of meat-eaters is simply "might makes right," and as a result, if they like the taste and can convince themselves that it's good nutrition, that's plenty justification to kill.

It was no surprise to see the recent article in BBC about how vegetarians average significantly higher IQs compared to meat-eaters, considering their sublime philosophies of "might makes right" and "it tastes good."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6180753.stm?ls

[Chris]

Any chance, Scott, that you might learn what emergence actually is before you discuss it? Because the way you construe scientific evidence as "supporting determinism" betrays a complete lack of understanding of nonlinearity, indeterminacy, and the way emergent properties are generated.

Just sayin'.

[Don]

There is voluminous scientific literature studying the effects of various types of vegetarian diets versus meat-containing diets. Here are a few scientific papers and reviews to get you started:

Nutritional consequences of vegetarianism. Dwyer, Johanna T. Med. Sch., Tufts Univ., Boston, MA, USA. Annual Review of Nutrition (1991), 11 61-91.
Abstract: A review, with 135 refs. discussing history of vegetarianism, health aspects of vegetarianism, dietary inadequacies that may arise on vegetarian diets (e.g., iron, vitamin B12, Ca, vitamin D, vitamin B6, Zn, and other nutrient deficiencies), risk factors for diseases, vegetarian diets and the life cycle, and dietary advice and practical principles for counseling.

Risks and advantages of the vegetarian diet. Krajcovicova-Kudlackova M; Simoncic R; Bederova A Casopis lekar u c eskych (1997), 136(23), 715-9. Ref: 55.
Abstract: The authors summarize the health risks and advantages of alternative nutrition-lactovegetarian, lactoovovegetarian and vegan. These dietary patterns involve risk in particular during pregnancy, lactation and for the growing organism. Veganism excluding all foods of animal origin involves the greatest risk. General nutritional principles for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, oncological diseases and diabetes are fully met by the vegetarian diet. Vegetarians and vegans have low risk factors of atherosclerosis and conversely higher levels of antisclerotic substances. Overthreshold values of essential antioxidants in vegetarians imply a protective action against reactive metabolic oxygen products and toxic products of lipid peroxidation and may reduce the incidence of free radical diseases. The authors also draw attention to some still open problems of vegetarianism (higher n-3 fatty acids, taurine, carnitine). In the conclusion semivegetarianism is evaluated.

Risk factors for all-cause and coronary heart disease mortality in the oldest-old. The Adventist Health Study. Fraser G E; Shavlik D J School of Public Health, Center for Health Research, Loma Linda University, Calif., USA
Abstract: BACKGROUND: The oldest-old population (> or = 84 years of age) is growing rapidly and consumes a disproportionate amount of health care dollars. Risk factors for disease have not been extensively studied in this group. METHODS: A cohort study of non-Hispanic white Seventh-Day Adventists from California allowed follow-up for mortality from 1976 through 1988. Associations between traditional risk factors, consumption of selected foods, and both coronary heart disease (CHD) and all-cause mortality were evaluated in the oldest-old portion of this population, using proportional hazards regression analyses. RESULTS: We observed 364 cases of CHD and 1387 total deaths during 11,828 person-years of follow-up. Men had higher risk of both all-cause mortality and mortality from CHD. The relative risks (RRs) associated with diabetes mellitus were 1.51 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.24-1.84; P < .001) for all deaths and 1.95 (95% CI, 1.38-2.76; P < .001) for mortality from CHD. The apparent effects of hypertension were small unless subjects were currently taking antihypertensive medications. Compared with those with no regular vigorous activity, subjects who exercised at least 3 times each week had RRs of death of 0.80 (95% CI, 0.70-0.91; P < .001) and 0.74 (95% CI, 0.56-0.97; P < .05) for mortality from CHD. Subjects who consumed nuts 5 times per week had RRs of death of 0.82 (95% CI, 0.70-0.96; P < .01) and 0.61 (95% CI, 0.45-0.83; P < .001) for death from CHD compared with those consuming nuts less than weekly. In men, regular consumption of donuts appeared hazardous for both all-cause mortality (RR, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.05-1.88) and mortality from CHD (RR, 2.10; 95% CI, 1.15-3.81), and consumption of beef 4 times weekly was associated with a 2-fold RR for CHD compared with vegetarians, but there was no increase in risk for women. CONCLUSIONS: Even in the oldest-old, certain traditional risk factors and dietary habits are associated with mortality.

Health risks and advantages of plant proteins. Krajcovicova-Kudlackova, Marica; Ginter, E.; Babinska, K.; Blazicek, P.; Nagyova, A. Ustav prevent. klinickej mediciny, Bratislava, Slovakia. Hygiena (2001), 46(2), 72-78.
Abstract: The compn. of plant and animal proteins differs. Plant proteins have decreased contents of the essential amino acids methionine and lysine, while some non-essential amino acids are present in larger amts. Food frequency questionnaires were used to evaluate the amino acid nutritional status of 33 adults on alternative vegan diets compared with 37 humans on traditional omnivore diets. To facilitate the comparison, persons with equal % intake of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for protein were compared, with protein intake from plants only in vegans and 1:1 plant/animal protein intake in omnivores. The intake of all essential amino acids was lower in vegans. The intake of 1.21 g methionine + cystine was at 67% RDA at the lower borderline of the interval of optimal requirement vs. 110% in omnivores (1.98 g). The lysine and tryptophan intakes were within the intervals of optimal requirements; the other essential amino acids were consumed at slightly higher levels. In omnivores the intake of all essential amino acids was 1.1-1.9-times higher than the upper limit of optimal requirements. Hypoproteinemia was found in 18% vegans and in no omnivores. The biosynthesis of carnitine and glutathione from methionine substrate was also adversely affected. Hypocarnitinemia was found in 33% vegans vs. 3% omnivores and glutathione levels below the limit were found in 30% vegans compared with 5% omnivores. The arginine and glycine intakes in vegans were increased and the serine and alanine intakes were slightly higher. Arginine and pyruvate precursors had a protective effect. They decrease the risk of cardiovascular diseases and cancer by stimulating glucagon secretion. The problem of vegan diets is the risk of inadequate methionine intake and lower levels of its metabolites. Their benefit is higher intakes of non-essential amino acids.

[gr8hands]

Scyrius -- You need to re-read the article. There were clearly scientists and philosphers (Daniel Dennett, for instance) who believe we have free will. So, the "whole article" was NOT "on the non-existence of free will."

[Adrian D.]

Pandu:

I don't have a problem with people deciding not to eat meat. I do have a problem with people trying to coerce me into not eating meat. Your suggestion of hunting down meat-eaters is the violence here. I can assure you, you are not educated.

Scyrius:

You are right. The article was about non-existence of free will. It took non-existence of free will as a premise. Are *you* able to bring anything new to the table?

[Dan]

I know I've made this comment to others, and I might've made it here before (it's so hard to keep track of what I've said on what blog/forum), but I think the concerns about free will vs pure determinism are really kind of moot. Numerous articles on the topic have seemed to suggest that the effect on morality will be the one most noticeable in society and the one with perhaps the most catastrophic consequences. I maintain that if you're predetermined to commit a crime, society is predetermined to judge and punish you. The fact that such laws exist should factor into your neural network that eventually produces your actions.

The only real concern I have about that is, assuming somebody proves non-existence of free will, the sort of interim period wherein people will believe they had free will up until a point and no longer can be held responsible for their actions due to injuries, tumor, whatever (cf "Best Lawyer Ever). Those people will be just as "guilty" as everybody else but will exploit a temporary gap in knowledge to get off.

Moral of the story: go smack your head against the wall and take up aberrant behavior, before it's too late!*

(*not to be taken seriously)

[Militon]

I'm not going to go into the vegetarians vs. meat eaters subject. I like meat, I eat meat, I'm gonna die happy (maybe sooner, maybe later, maybe because I eat meat, or maybe because my motorcycle will run into a speeding car that decided to take the inside of the curve I'm in).
I just want to point out that you are very good at commenting about other people, but sometimes end up pointing a finger at yourself. For instance, you're saying that free will does not exist (if I'm wrong and you don't, then stop reading here, and accept my apologies for wasting your time). Then you point at people saying that free will exists (btw, I'm not one of them, I just like talking about it, without having an opinion of my own :D). You say they're wrong. And what's your argument this time? That they don't have a definition, therefore on which bases could they possibly affirm that free will exists? Well, my question is, Scott, do you have a definition of free will? If so, I'd be very happy to here it, and then I'd be very happy to have a discussion on it.

Other than that, thanks for posting (almost) every day (the non-post on newyear was great, I loved it :D). Keep it up.

[SupremeCom]

Scott -

You lost credibility and contradicted your own stated beliefs regarding free will with your statement in the Deja Food blog post:

“Assume also that your clone won’t be forced to do anything against her will.”

If we have no free will, then how could anyone (clone or otherwise) be “forced to do something against their will”?

How?

[Scott]

"The counter argument is that true carnivores – a lion for example – can eat huge quantities of meat without any bad health implications. "

I think there have been a lot more studies on the cardivascular health of humans vs. lions. Plus, since lions are very remiss about having their cholesterol checked every year it's hard to really know what the effects are. Know any 80 year old lions? Maybe all of the lions that DO die of "natural causes" have heart attacks?

[chester young]

I would suggest that we agree to a definition of will, and then perhaps we can determine if humans have free will.

I posit that we do, as many have displayed the ability to reason internally and act in a manner that would deviate from our instinctual response.

That would seem like a demonstration of free will. Lack of free will would mean that consistently humans would respond in a manner strictly in line with our instincts. Therefore all males should be pounding our chests to ward off other males so that we could mate with all available females. Since humanity is hell and gone past that state I say we have the capacity to demonstrate free will

[Toby]

Surely we were designed to be omnivores, not carnivores.

[Snapperhead]

Actually, it is a scientific fact that our bodies are not "designed" for a strict vegetarian diet, since we require vitamin B12 to be healthy and B12 is only found in foods of animal origin and pill bottles.

Also a number of other vitamins, minerals and essential fats and amino acids are very difficult obtain in healthy quantities on a strictly vegetarian diet.

I think Omnivore wins the "people are designed to be ..." argument pretty comprehensively really.

Vegetarianism is much more of a faith or moral position than a truly science backed health choice.

[Denisa]

Cactus Jack's logic is airtight. Scott has free will because he can still think he doesn't.

For those who wish to know these things mathematics, the basis of all true science, cannot prove the existence of the square root of -1 (i) yet from the observed laws of physics we know it must exist.

Sound familiar?

[treanton]

RE: "When humans eat a lot of meat, our arteries clog, we have heart attacks, and we die."

Ha! That's ridiculous! Drinking too much water is harmful either. Try to eat 20 oranges (or lemons) in a row and you'll get a serious damage to your stomach because of acid. "Eat a lot of.." is not an argument.

[Roberto (mexico)]

I think free will is a Synergetic property. For example we are conscious of our existence, but no atom or neuron is. Only when the system inside us works does consciousness emerges. So about Color or sound, no neuron alone can see YELLOW or pitch. Color is not electromagnetic radiation, that only stimulates the retina, color happens inside us. So, I believe, does free will happens inside us.
Maybe free will is not very conscious most of the time though.

[European American]

I can't believe some of you wacko vegans would want to kill me for eating meat. Do you realize how crazy that is. Who gives a shit if there is free will or not?

[Rich]

"I could be wrong about free will not existing...science would have to discover something new in order to make the argument."

So relax. How do you come to a conclusion without all of the facts?

[Noel]

People seem to confuse the program of the human mind with that of programming achieved through brain washing. The program of the human mind is what makes you, well you. It is your personality, your mood, your knowledge, your experience, YOU. Your program is you, and you are meat and bone. It is said our brains are the hardware and our personalities the software, but this is not quite right, as the human brain is a mix of hardware and software, the hardware MAKES the software (neurons in your brain connected in a certain way [pathways], when given certain input result in certain output, so a bit like software distubuted over hardware)

I posted before about a 'state' of mind, and if your placed in a certain environment with a decision to make, if your state of mind is identical each time, then so will your decision be, or at least, that is my oppinion, but unfortunatly it would be a little difficult to experiment with.

If a 'state of mind' is to be understood, one needs a little knowlegde about computer programming, namely, when you create a program you almost always need variables to store information in, and if you were to run your program and fill the stores of information with the same information each time, you will always get the same result, for instance, a simple program to add two numbers, x + y = [output], if x and y always have the same value, your output is always the same.

BUT the human mind is not so simple, we have these variables but we are also affected by our environment (e.g. having to make the same decision with or without an audience may affect our decision each time [stage fright, nerves, etc.] so an example of that, too extend the one above, is a simple application to add two numbers, and then includes a third value in the calculation that is entered by the person running the application, that input could symbolise our environment. And given the values for x and y are identical each time we run the program, and given that the user is told to always enter the same value for the third variable, will the program ever give a different output ?

So if we could take a snapshot of our environment and our mental 'state', and replay the senario over and over again, I believe the same decision will be made by our 'free will' each time, and that is why free will is an illusion, just because the algorithm and all it's inputs are WAY to complex and complicated to EVER be fully understood, does that mean that the predicatable output of our brains is free will ?

BTW, I like the free will argument, because without free will it is easy to prove that an all loving, all knowing god simply cannot be the creator of such evil beings as us humans, if you consider that the (christian) god cannot abide any form of evil, but that he is the one responsible for every evil act committed. So either there is no god because free will disproves his existance, or he has an evil twin that made us humans and thats why he loves us, but he also sends half of us to hell.

P.S. Me talking about software and hardware etc, is a fairly easy point to prove.. Lop off the front lobe of your brain (hardware) and once you have picked your personality off the floor, tell me in a toneless voice that i'm wrong ! Oh sorry, it is cause your soul-container is now leeky that the magical thing that makes you, you, cant control your mouth no more ? Are 'special' people brain-damaged or soul-damaged ? I know what science believes ! And strange missing part of your brain may make your decisions change ever so slightly, if your able to make decisions at all !

[Seth]

Once again, I must dissent.

I am assuming that you actually read the article and are familiar with the metaphor.

Sure, the tiger makes decisions. Mostly routine ones, like where to put a foot, how hard to turn the knob to start the car, and to jerk your hand back from the stove when it's hot. But you don't have to be a slave to those impulses; you can CHOOSE to put your foot on the ice instead of the pavement, to break the key off in the ignition, or to hold your hand against the stove despite the pain. The point is that steeling yourself against the urges you're making is a result of all the decisions you've made so far, but you can't know which you'll choose till you do.

I've tried to stay away from hypotheticals as much as I could because I don't want my point getting lost; the basic point being, if we have two deterministic courses set in front of us, each with an equal probability of being the course we end up on, something set us on one course instead of another. That something is what I believe to be free will.

The thing that chooses is different from what it chooses between.

[bossbert]

You can't make up your mind about who to vote for, because you have "too little information", but you know the answer to the free will debate. That is some logic.

[Yuriy]

Completely unrealated to free will, from the article:

"Fiction writers report writing in a kind of trance in which they simply take dictation from the voices and characters in their head, a grace that is, alas, rarely if ever granted nonfiction writers."

Felt strange to read this today, having just finished Stephen King's The Dark Half last night....

[IraqiGeek]

Why does everything have to be black or white? Most things in life, in the universe are somewhere in between, shades of gray. I guess people are over analyzing things trying to get those things either black or white, while they are neither.

"You are either with us, or against us." Rining any bells?

[Dana]

Actually, the human body is quite good at utilizing large quantities of meat (genetic variation does create exceptions...). The clogging and negative effects are mostly due to inactivity. Having to chase your food down goes a long way to fully and healthfully utilizing it (unless it puts up a better fight, then you're being fully utilized).

We weren't designed to sit on our ass. In a hundred or so years, natural selection will have weeded out a lot of those who can't handle inactivity - those that survive will be much better adapted to clicking on the computer all day long. Our species is just in transition from the more physically demanding Agrarian & Industrial ages to the Information age. WARNING! Emergent sub-species crossing.

[HALiverpool]

Mostly :)

[Philosophyiscontradiction]

This science experiment can disprove freewill, but I have an issue with the experiment which is: The test subjects were told beforehand what action to take, in the experiment I read, to raise a thumb. By giving them this instruction however, you have tainted the experiment because the test subject is now "prepairing" for that action, if you will.
It would be better served to let them make any action, say anything, etc, and measure that.
" I think therefore I am." You are twisting this statement to mean something it cannot prove, by me thinking I prove to myself I exist, it proves nothing else, and it certianly does not prove freewill.

[Pandu]

I was raised on meat, but when I got educated I quit it. Now it doesn't register to me as food at all. Smelling meat gives rise to images in my mind of gross injustice and environmental devestation, and feelings of rage flood my body.

The smell of meat and the violent feelings are both thoroughly disgusting to me.

I would advise other commentators against arguing that meat tastes good and that vegetarians are wimps. Because really, the best thing anyone can do for world peace would be to hunt meat eaters.

[Scyrius]

It amazes me, though it shouldn't, that no matter how much evidence is presented people can continue to ignore it. Just because free will is non existent doesn't mean your life will be a miserable chain of random events. Your brain is designed to revel in the illusion of free will. Go ahead and keep on living just like you have.

In response to those who continue to rehash the same garbage over and over again, could you please bring something new to the table? The argument "free will exists because we can think" is painful. And lashing out at the thought of not having free will is basically just another bit of evidence against you.

As for being able to "take away whatever suits you from this article" (and you know who you are that said this), did you read the article? The whole article was on the non-existence of free will. How could you take away anything else?

[Simon Jester]

To summarise most of the carnivore vs. herbivore posts: which part of the word "omnivore" did you fail to understand, Scott?

[Manfred Baedke]

Scott,

so you are believing that the term 'free will' is not properly defined? Certainly true, but then, what the heck are you talking about? If you don't tell us what you mean by this term, it does not make a lot of sense to say that it does not exist.

Regards,
Manfred

[Pete]

One other point. Can you chemically explain thoughts and memories? Cause I don't understand how they exist chemically or anywhere besides in my consciousness but I know they do.

[Pete]

Here's my question. If we as humans understand so little about the human brain and consciousness and self awareness and the like, how can you rule out free will as simply as you do? When you discuss whether an animal has free will or self awareness, it seems that an animal would have neither. Now, are we no different that the other animals that inhabit the planet? Most animals act in a way that is completely based on self serving interests. I'm sure there are plenty of examples otherwise but my main point is that that kind of behavior is much more commonplace in humans. With the knowledge that we have of how the brain works, how can you be so sure that there isn't something in the human conscious or subconscious that we don't understand ye (because there is so much that we don't) that allows for free will? I'd say at best you could say that we have no idea whether it exists or not but that it certainly seems to exist.

[msr]

Re: Too much meat vs lions

The problem humans have with too much meat is too little exercise. If we had to run through the jungle every day in search of our meat, there would be no health complications from "too much meat"!

[Darryl]

Monty, thought is not proof of free will. The 'ghost in the machine' is merely perception of self. You are right about our realities being manifestations of consciousness, but you neglect that thought is merely part of that manifestation.
A more convincing argument would focus on the fact that thought cannot be measured, unlike the electrical impulses of the brain. Even this, however, does not negate that thought correlates with said electrical impulses, suggesting that even thought is defined by how the brain is 'wired'.
Further, just because you don't know what you will be thinking about next does not mean that you are choosing what to think about. If I suggested that you might think about a glass, you would probably think of a tumbler, or similar drinking glass, because this is the most common example of glass. This is not a conscious decision; you could not, for example, choose to think about a crystal-esque ornament instead.

[Karen]

Try looking at it this way Scott. You have free will to choose between the choices your pre-programming makes available to you - and you have the ability to program yourself for different choices - if you recognise a problem and know how to do it.

Here's an example: let's say you have programmed yourself, probably with help from yuor parents and their ancestors, to get angry at your children for making a mess. You don't want to argue with them all the time but it always pushes your buttons when you see it. You recognise the problem cannot be resolved with your current programming. You ask yourself 'how else can I perceive this?' You start imagining what it will be like when they leave home and recognise that the mess can be viewed as part of the joy of having children. Next time you see the mess, you re-inforce the new programming by reminding yourself that childhood is short and the mess is part of the passing pleasure. Soon you find you do not get angry when you see mess and - added bonus - are able to get the children to help you tidy up because you are now fun to be with and not angry.

I agree you can only act according to your programming but as YOU have control over the programming, you have free will.

Please respond to this point Scott - I'd like to see how you try to maintain your position without doing any re-programming.

[Paul]

"According to the most simple idea behind free will not existing is that it would then free everyone who has ever been convicted of any crime."

That sort of thinking is a perfect example of the problems humanity has when dealing with almost any issue, the utter inability to think beyond primary cause and effect and assumption that only the obvious outcomes are important.

The argument of no free will basically asserts that all of your actions are utterly dependant on your inputs with no magical input from outside the laws of physics (ie soul). With certain inputs the brain will control the body with certain outputs as it a deterministic system, just far too complex for any outcome to be predicted.

One of the main points of punishing crime (atleast in theory) is the deterrant to others. Don't do something society (or law makers) deem bad, or be punished mentality. This fear of punishment is an input, so even without free will punishing those who commit crimes can help prevent crime.

(and yes I know if theres no free will we don't have a 'choice' over punishing someone or not, etc etc but thats only hiding the issue rather than addressing it and to write a proper reply without using any "will based" terminology would take more time than much lunch break allows :D)

[Jame]

The free will argument is nothing more than a matter of semantics. Neither side can define what it is, so the entire argument is a waste. Perfect example, does the stament "people always do what they want" me we have free will or not?

Let's just say that we do to make life simple and move on.

[Toby]

Hey Scott,

How are you defining free will? Or, if someone offers me some chocolate cake and I have free will, what happens next?

Also, aren't humans more similar to omnivores than carnivores, isn't that what we should be comparing ourselves too?

Cheers,

Toby

[erewhon]

You don't know what you are.

Check it out here...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnivore

[martin]

Also scientists are on your side, not science. Science isn't about sides it's about fact. And for the moment, in the area of free will, there are very few facts.

I really liked this article about freewill in the economists, you should read it

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8453850

[zorro]

I'm not going to get into the free-will debate, however the teeth thing is a fallacy. We're obviously neither pure carnivores nor pure herbivores. We have teeth for grinding veg and teeth for cutting meat. We've evolved as /omnivores/ ie we can eat pretty much anything. We needed to be able to eat the occasional meaty goodness but have certainly survived in the past with mostly veg!

[martin]

maybe i don't have free will? Maybe i do have freewill.

but i do have a choice - my choice is to eat meat. I don't care about animal especially cows but i do like steak.

I was wondering scott. in your comic strips you always dipict people as morons and idiots? Do you blame them for being moronic or do you accept thats the way they are because they don't have freewill?

[Paul Dove]

I agree mostly with what Aaron posted about us being cook-vores. What I'd like to add to it is the observation that it’s not just cooking, we've become clever enough to process almost anything edible, and sometimes things not particularly edible, in many different ways. So maybe process-vores would be more accurate. For of an extreme example of human food processing ingenuity see http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/PlantNet/cycad/toxic.html

For hundreds of thousands of years we’ve been evolving alongside the development of increasingly complex food processing techniques - washing, cooking, grinding, etc. And now we’re entering a period of our history when almost any niche food requirement can be satisfied. There is considerable variability in the diets that suit various people, but now that available food is so varied many of those who would have been considered sickly in previous generations can find that special diet that gives them the vitality they were lacking.

And in the future I expect that technology, and medical science, will continue to advance to the point where we will be able to determine everyone’s perfect nutritional requirements and then fashion appealing food to match those requirements from virtually any edible raw materials. Then, at last, these arguments about what is the healthiest most natural diet will be over and we’ll be able to seriously address the only argument that really matters about food - are we justified in killing whatever those raw materials used to be.

[Troy]

Wow, people are really hung up on the meat thing...

The problem with taking away free will is that we can make an excuse for every single decision we make, especially the bad ones. "I didn't mean to take a baseball bat to your winshield, but I had no choice, I don't have free will." All this is going to do is have people excuse themselves from any responsibility for their actions.

"Sorry honey, I didn't mean to cheat on you with that woman from work, but see, I was reading this article and we don't have free will, so I couldn't help it." I wonder how that would go over...

[Larry Stickletodd]

Keep in mind, that there is a difference between manipulation and free will. The exercise here was Scott posted something that caused us to show there is no free will. We immediately responded (cause - effect).

However, that is not a test of free will, but a test of manipulation. I argue that they are different.

[Stacy]

I'm too lazy to read the other 246 comments, but incase someone hasn't pointed this out to you... humans are omnivores. We are made to survive mostly on plants, but can process some animal protein as well. Just look at our dietary need for B12, the only sourse of which is animal products (or a mulivitamin). We don't need a lot of it. The body uses it very efficently, but we do need some. And before the days of grocery stores, meat was the main way people survived through the winter - high in fat and protien and more available than a corn stalk in January.In current times however, meat has become too available and over consumed.

I'm totaly in agreement with your vegitarian lifestyle. For one, more resources are used to raise one head of cattle than to grow hundreds of acres of crops. Biological waste from large production farms is also a contributing factor to air pollution. (ewww)
So I say, veggie is the way to go! But in the debate as to what we are designed to eat...the answer is both.

[CC]

Uh we're omnivores... Thus not designed solely for meat consumption, we need veggies as well. We have incisors and molars and your fun little bacteria in your gut that break down plant matter. Really now didn't people learn anything in middle school?

*shakes head in disappointment*

The whole world is going to shit and we're talking about carnivores. I just can't stop reading this blog, you feed my antagonistic urges.. gaaahhhh

[hey]

"I'm happy that you can take away whatever suits you from this article. And then he voted.

Posted by: Michiel | January 04, 2007 at 10:42 PM"

LOL absolutely brilliant. In computer-nerd terms, you got pwned Scott (non computer-nerds see Urban Dictionary).

"The word 'Vegetarian' is an old Indo-European word meaning 'Bad Hunter'

Posted by: Wouter | January 04, 2007 at 10:34 PM"

LOL I think that's really funny. OK non-funny joke my dad loves to ask vegetarians:
"Are you vegetarian because you love animals or hate vegetables?"

[Doug Clinton]

From my reading of the article it sounds to me that the debate over free will is still wide open.

Still, always better in such circumstances to pick one side or the other and stick to it doggedly. Sure beats thinking about it.

Perhaps we should vote on it?

[bpeirson]

I never really gave the concept of free will a thought until it started popping up more and more on this blog. I must say that I am coming to truly believe the moist robot theory. However, I would be willing to concede that the computer (read: brain) of those moist robots is so complex, with so many variables under consideration that it can APPEAR to have free will. There are instances where human behavior would seem to contradict their programming, but if we were able to accurately determine all the variables the brain considers in making decisions then we would find that it's still NOT free will but rather a predictable, logical response to the inputs. So, for the SLEs that believe in free will there's the compromise.

As far as humans being designed to eat meat, that is a difficult thing to prove in either direction. People will argue carnivore, others will argue herbivore. Most people will be obstinate about their position and completely ignore the mid-ground which I believe, and excuse me as basic biology was a long time ago, is an omnivore. For most of our relatively short history human beings were unwashed cave dwellers who wandered around all their lives trying to find food. If you're designed to eat nothing but nuts and berries and have no such nuts and/or berries at your disposal then you're probably going to have a bad time. The same goes for meat. Standing on the middle of a tropical island surrounded by fruit but without a monkey to gnaw on would be extremely bad for a carnivore. So humans, by evolution, intelligent design, a flying spaghetti monster etc. developed the ability to eat and properly digest whatever palatable food they happened to have on hand. Because we originally developed the ability to eat pretty much anything we felt like and were able to thrive. Now that we have a (relative) abundance of food we no longer HAVE to eat everything we can to survive, we can choose to be vegetarian or...erm....meatetarian....however we see fit.

That's my rant, and with the invention of "meatetarian" I'm not going to vote, I'M RUNNING FOR OFFICE! Vote for me.

[Don Wigle]

Re lions vs humans and meat consumption. Animals eat raw meat and their main meat-related problem comes from bioaccumulated contaminants, e.g., egg thinning in raptors from DDT and other organochlorine chemicals. With humans there is not only the problem of environmental contaminants many of which concentrate in animal fat, there is also the issue of potent mutagens/carcinogens formed during cooking, especially broiling, roasting or BBQing.

[Bertram Henze]

Update: someone here said your decisions are based on what you know. If that was the case, man would not decide anything, because he knows almost nothing, at least nothing important.
No, I am talking about decisions that are so quick that the brain starts to work only after the decision has been made (scientifically proven) - so where would these decisions come from?
Man has the unique ability to consciously do the wrong thing, despite existing knowledge for the better. That's what I call free will. Any other creature would just do what it knows to be the best within it's options.

Choice based on known options just means to choose a turn at traffic lights. Free will means to take off and fly. No knowledge required.

Bertram

[The Reckless Consumer]

To the vegitarian issues - suits some not others. Humans are omnivores - and the science shows we are best adapted to eating fish for some reason I cannot fathom.

To the free will. You can prove or disprove with $100.

Take 100 subjects and subject them to the following test.

Place $50 behind 2 slots A and B. The test is over when either A, B or both are empty

Record instructions informing the subject that a coin will be flipped and they will be asked to predict the outcome - use the phrase 'heads or tails' to describe the possible outcomes. The instructions should inform the subject that if correct they will receive $1 from slot A and if incorrect will receive $1 from slot B.

Do not inform the participants that the test will be over when one slot is empty.

Preset the 'outcomes'[heads or tails] so that each occurs 50% of the time.

This test allows for no outside factors to intervene because there is nothing to be gained by being right that cannot be gained by being wrong. If free will does not exist there are two possibilities.

All participants will choose heads - the set up makes it clear that there is nothing for the subject to gain or lose and heads was the first choice offered. No further processing of information is required.

this will mean that half the time they will be right and you will get exactly $50 back

All participants will choose at random [about half and half] and will be right about half of the time. Within statistical limits you will get almost nothing back.

Therefore if you get more than $5 - $10 and less than $50 back free will exist.

Try it - free will does exist

[Bertram Henze]

I contend that not everybody has a free will. But I know people who have. The free will cannot be found in the human brain, they say - I could have told them, because the brain is just a computer, a tool. Free will cannot be tool-dependent by definition.

The wrong thing to say is "we did not find it there, so it does not exist"; the correct thing to say is "we did not find it there, let's look somewhere else" - whatever "somewhere" means, because free will cannot be space-time-continuum-dependent by definition.

And don't get me started about evidence - evidence is a subjective concept and depends on what anybody accepts as proof. Real evidence is only found in mathematics, for the simple reason that maths are a man-made concept world (and even there we find assumptions which evidently cannot be proved), where we make the rules. In the real world - which we don't make but happen to stumble upon - there is no chance of evidence. You can't even prove that there are physical laws; you can assume there's laws and prove by experiment what they say if they exist, but you can't prove the law's existence itself. I'm not a philosopher, by the way. I am just a physicist with a diploma and knowledge about his scientific limits.

On the other hand, it is also wrong to say that what can't be proved does not exist, because then most things we see every day would be just imaginations caused by eating too much vegetables.

That brings me to the vegetarian issue - I think the lion is not a good analogy with man's teeth (although it is still better than the crocodile). From the teeth you can say that man is neither a carnivore nor a herbivore (or else the Irish would have survived by eating grass during the 1845 through 1847 famine - instead they survived by moving to Chicago). Man can eat anything, and is therefore rather near the grizzly bear.

Bertram

[Rob]

Hi Scott

I think its a bit presumptious to say that "most" os science is on your side.Certainly some of it is, but I haven't read anything about the scientific comunity being overwhelmingly against the concept of free will in anything like the same way as they are in favour of concepepts like the big bang, darwinism and the like. I also don;t like the statement that free will if it exists must be some form of uninvented magic, putting people who believe in it in the same bracket as astrologers or other mystics. Quantum theory is currently incomplete, and I believe it may hold the key to whether free will exists or not (currently I am undecided, but hope that free will exists). Untill quantum theory is solved to some satisfaction I think the arguments for and against free will are about even and i don;t think it is very becoming of you to put down those who don't agree with yourself the way you do wihtout a better understanding of the issues at large.

Rob

[JG]

The attribution of free will in others depends on if you like the person's actions or not. That makes sense. If you dislike someone you will call them to account and blame their choices (a nonsense in Scott's world). If you like someone, you won't blame them for stuffing up, just say they were unlucky.

So Scott, therefore you will never cast aspersions on anyone's choices ever again? There is no evil choice because there is no choice. There is no categorical imperative. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

Science, today, now, knows enough to claim papal infallibility that nothing exists other than what we can CURRENTLY detect. (Oh, apart from Dark Matter)

This is called 'reductio ad absurdum' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum

So, it is absurd to deny the existence of free will... but not absurd for a fundamentalist materialist capitalist pigdog to try to make money by promoting the idea that we are all sheep and should spend our lives as if they are worthless.

Remember - you do not know what you do not know. Agnosticism with respect is the appropriate response to this free-will question.

[Gordon_goosemonster]

Why is it all these learned academic types waste their talents (and probably our taxes) debating this total shite?

A definitive explanation for free will doesn’t matter. It can be an illusion, a gift bestowed on man, the soul, or any other random reason. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is that we our responsible for our own actions; so why waste time talking about it?

Next they will be telling you black is actually white, up is down and gravity isn’t real. Just so they can write books about it for other fuck-wanks.

[andries Veldeman]

Hello,

Yes, this brings us to the subject: Australopithecus Africanus. This pre-historic ancestor of modern man had two variety’s, an omnivore and a vegetarian, the vegetarian had a bone extension on the top of his head, this supported the giant mussels he needed to chew and re-chew the plants he ate. The other sort had no such thing and was an omnivore. One of the two didn’t make it, they perished after a couple of hundred years... If you would like to know witch of the two died out you can always feel the top of your head, if you have a bone comb on top were vegetarians, otherwise you’re just as omnivorous as the rest of us. I know this will sound strange to you Americans, but evolution is never wrong! God how I love science.

Andries,
Belgium.

[JG]

If you can convince people that free will exists, they act as if it does.

If you can convince people free will does not exist, they act as if it does not.

If people don't believe in free will, they are far more likely to suffer depression and not get the most out of their lives.

You are therefore evil. Stop it. Grow up.

[Gavin]

As for meat - we're surely omnivores. Back in the good old days, i.e. the stone age or before, it took a hell of a lot of effort to get hold of meat, in most cases. Eating meat required a lot of running about and chucking of spears, which would go some considerable way to avoiding those artery problems. You can damage yourself by doing too much of most things - believe me - so you have to do things in moderation.

That said, I can't be bothered with meat and its large-scale production is very inefficient. With this number of people on the planet, meat is too much of an unnecessary luxury.

[squigs]

Why do so many people try to use inductive reasoning to justify their choices?

There are many vegetarians who are perfectly healthy. There are many non-vegetarians who are perfectly healthy. Diet choice seems to have very little effect on quality or length of life. So it's a personal choice.

As for Free-will - there are a lot of related concepts that can't really be explained scientifically. What exactly is belief? What is this sense of self that make me different from my hypothetical identical twin? These seem to exist despite lack of scientific evidence other than personal experience.

Free will currently can't be proved or disproved. I don't know if I have it, but I'll stick with my superstitious belief because I feel better that way. Whatever "feeling better" is.

[Gavin]

You know, I think perhaps believing in free will is reasonably healthy - the idea that you are responsible for your own morality is probably good. If free will doesn't really exist and in fact we're just machines, so be it - but if believing in it makes people behave in a way that we want them to, then that's fine with me.

What isn't so healthy is believing that you don't personally have free will, but that some kind of superbeing is ultimately controlling your actions and has some kind of plan for you. When you start thinking like that, you start behaving like GW Bush.

[Cactus Jack]

I haven't read all the 'Free Will' post but I recall a previous blog where someone used Scott's belief in affirmations [The Dilbert Future] to prove that Scott does believe in free will.

Free Will Exist.

Scott was faced with a challange that required he choose between Free Will and Affirmations

Scott's prior knowledge and experience dictated that both Free Will and Affirmations were valid.

The arguement presented required that Scott's should accept Free Will.

These arguements were the only new factor so Scott - lacking free will - would accept them and demonstrate belief in free will.

If free will exist Scott would be able to continue to deny its existence.

Scott still denies that free will does not exist thus demonstrating that it does

[Vode]

And I can’t stop myself posting this comment. You link to an article that uses a decision about chocolate cake and what this means for Free Will, but nobody has yet mentioned The Matrix films; makes me wonder if I saw different films from everyone else.

The connection, in case you haven’t got it yet, is that The Matrix is about how we all make choices based upon the illusion that we know what’s going on and that when we make these choices we believe they derive from our own free will. But almost all of the characters in these films never know what’s really going on, and like puppets everything they do is orchestrated by other forces.

But the other theme is that what’s really going on doesn’t matter because life, and the film, is nothing more than a game, an entertainment, for the participants, for those in control and for us the audience. None of us really knows what is going on so all we can do is sit back and enjoy the good bits and cope with the misery caused by the bad bits.

Even if we do take this advice we may still worry about how each experience, including that of seeing these films, have changed us and our subsequent behaviour but even if we decide to rebel against the system and doubt everything this might still just be what we’ve been programmed to do.

And the connection to chocolate cake? There’s a scene where the Merovigion explains that they do what they do because they must, with no understanding of why they are doing it. He then shows how he can take complete control over someone else’s behaviour by serving them a piece of chocolate cake.

[jamie]

I also believe free will is an illusion. But I disagree with your notion that the human body is better suited to a vegeterian diet. Humans as a species are not carnivores but we are also not herbivors. The human animal is an omnivore. We have to eat meat as well as vegetables to get the vitiams and minerals we need to stay healthy! If you stay a strict vegetarian you have to take suppliments of iron and protein to stay healthy, as you can't get enough of those minerals naturally through vegetables.

[Petter]

Thing is, human beings aren't "designed" to be neither herbivores, nor carnivores. We're omnivorous - we eat pretty much anything and everything. We don't have the big sharp teeth to rip flesh from the bones of other animals, we don't have the huge grinding teeth and enormous digestive tracts necessary to process huge amounts of plant food. Instead, we're right in between, equipped to eat just about anything that takes our fancy. Bit like raccoons, really.

Totally with you on the free will bit, though. All those who argue against you seem to have totally missed the point, somehow.

[Omni]

"When humans eat a lot of meat, our arteries clog, we have heart attacks, and we die."

Not necessarily:

"The Inuit Paradox
How can people who gorge on fat and rarely see a vegetable be healthier than we are?
By Patricia Gadsby
DISCOVER Vol. 25 No. 10 | October 2004 | Medicine

"...the traditional Eskimo diet had little in the way of plant food, no agricultural or dairy products, and was unusually low in carbohydrates. Mostly people subsisted on what they hunted and fished"

"These foods hardly make up the “balanced” diet most of us grew up with, and they look nothing like the mix of grains, fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, and dairy we’re accustomed to seeing in conventional food pyramid diagrams. How could such a diet possibly be adequate? How did people get along on little else but fat and animal protein?

What the diet of the Far North illustrates, says Harold Draper, a biochemist and expert in Eskimo nutrition, is that there are no essential foods—only essential nutrients. And humans can get those nutrients from diverse and eye-opening sources."

Beware of studies claiming that meat causes illness; they don't compare groups of people with identical amounts of exercise and nutrition with the only difference being that some of one group's protein, fat and other nutrients comes from meat and the other's doesn't, they compare people who overeat junk food and are couch potatoes to people who are active and don't overeat or eat junk food... it's disingenuous to look at a study like that and point to the eating of meat as the critical factor.

As to the free will issue; you might do a better job of persuading people if you discussed the difference between being able to make choices and having free will... most folks see them as being the same, but they're not, because we make the choices based on thoughts and feelings much in the way a computer plugs variables into equations to make choices but doesn't have free will.

[Lars Kjær]

I don't particularly believe in free will... but as for the whole vegetarian argument humans as such are designed for living on the savana, or in the jungle reaching a maximum age of about 30 years. Within this lifetime you are seriously unlikely to die from exesive meat consumption. Essentially eating the "wrong thing" is really only a problem if you can manage to live past all the infectius diseases, and wild animals. But in lui of the point humans are horrendously bad at digesting raw meat. And though we have to some extent develope to use fire, it's not really enough to develope a whole new metabolism. Not eating (much) meat might be the right way to push your body to do the job you want it to (say reach 80), but thats certainly not what the body is designed for either. Meat is good though mmmmh.

[Neil Wilson]

Is this another experiment Scott. It's amazing how much dogma is in the comments. Loads of opinion stated as fact.

There is no verifiable scientific evidence that saturated fats and animal fats clog arteries. Neither is there any evidence that cholesterol is harmful. But it has become truth by repeated assertion - and a religious position in the health industry. Remember people that's how GW Bush was elected.

Similarly there is no evidence that humans have evolved to eat a vegetarian diet. That again is dogma trotted out by those who want to justify their religious position.

More likely humans evolved to so that they can adapt to what is available. And if we left it long enough without intervening the race would evolve so that it could eat fried food and donuts without too many problems.

A lot of fat people would have to die first of course - but in a great and noble cause.

NeilW

[Bob H]

I am with the poster D Mented on the veggie issue. Scott makes the argument that a totally meat diet is bad for your health, well most of the purist veggies I have met have had some form of dietary complaint and they often resort to eating a limited quantity fish. My own brother a cook who turned veggie after working on board military ships and eating questionable food in questionable countries still replies when asked if he would like some salmon "Yes, I do need some once in a while."

The Omnivore diet is what is best for the majority because that is what humans are used to. Perhaps some people can tolerate a veggie only diet. But I have never met a *healthy* veggie in the flesh. I also made the decision a long time ago that I wouldn't get involved with a veggie girl, because they just aren't healthy.

Face it Scott, we are in the majority omnivores and there are only a minority of people who can 'stomach' your diet. Yes, some cultures are veggie because of religion, but then that involves generations of dietary conditioning. I for one will not give up the British bacon sandwich.

[Jonno Brown]

The idea of absaence of free will brakes down at the fundamental levels.
Earlier I believe you mentioned that our brains obey the laws of physics, and theefore it is solely the laws of physics which controll our thoughts and "choices." What sort of illogical leap in reasoning is this? The physical laws are impersonal, and unemotional. They are just structural laws of the universe which ensures that if we fall off our seat on earth we will accellerate at 9.8 meters a second squared untill we are hindered by another object - often in my case my office floor. As regards our thought processes are concerned the laws of physics simply keep our brains in our heads and our reaction speeds to .1 of a sec or so.
You are married I gather. Surely either you are or at one point must have been in love. How do you explain the impersonal laws of physics creating such an emothional feeling? You cant. Clearly there is more to it than physics.
Ok but so far ive prooved nothing we didnt allready know. Just because we have emotions doesnt mean we can controll them. But i ask you to think of a smoker. One who has been doing it for several years and is now addicted. Surely both physics and his own chemical makeup are working to make him crave the next smoke. Yet if he exerts his WILLpower, he can overcome the pullings of physical cravings. Now if freewill was nonexistant, no smoker would ever quit.
But you dont need to do something so drastic to demonstrate free will, infact by reading this, and subsequently THINKING about it you are exercising it. Your thoughts will be flicking either to flat denial as you round up you supply of counter arguemnts, or if you are more intelligent you may be reading with an open mind, just wondering if there may just be something in what everyone else is saying. It doesnt matter. YOU decided what you would think, what words and sentances would form in your head.
Free will is one of the things that sets us aside from the other creatures that roam this planet. Animals have instinct, what THEY do IS programmed into their making. What we do is governed by free will and allways will be.

[Shaun L]

Good article. I liked the bit about the monkey riding a tiger. In my mind he's wearing a little monkey jockey costume.

[Homer]

I disagree with point 2.
We're clearly 'designed' to eat both. We can survive today without meat by using other sources of minerals and proteins. But this argument doesn't work for our caveman ancestors in the wild, where the extra strength from an omnivorous diet would be a clear advantage.

On point 1. I think it's very possible that free will doesn't exist- but I don't think it matters.
The future might be inevitable but if we don't know what will happen, the illusion of free will is identical to actual free will.
The other important point is quantum theory.
The uncertainty principle destroys the idea of a deterministic universe and this argument against free will.
The statistical view of the micro-universe may even allow the existence of free will.
However, I suspect there may be no free will. But I don't see how it matters.

[Ranger]

Non-existence of free will is based on extrapolation (we see that most things are causal, therefore the brain must be causal too). The idea is just as fussy as existence of free will (granted, extrapolation is a powerful tool to get new theories, but it cannot be used as proof).

I read the article. I accept that the subconscious is usually in the driving seat. The info that was missing is experiments that prove/disprove that the conscious mind can influence the subconscious mind (e.g. the veto right, but also thinking about an action before it comes up, so that when it comes up you react in a certain way).

I'm also missing any information on what the "conscious mind" is. Is it an illusion? If so, what am I thinking? Am I thinking? I think, therefore I am? In my perception, you cannot have a conscious mind and have no free will. Or put in another way: if you have no free will, you're not thinking, you just have the illusion of thinking. And if you're not thinking, what is the point of this discussion?

P.S. You recently said that acknowledging not having free will is a step on the road to abolishing superstition. Well, saying the everything is predetermined is a great argument for saying there is a god, so I think this is not the correct argument here.

[RavenBlack]

I am amused by people saying "there was a time when it wasn't feasible to get all the necessary proteins without eating meat". As if there are special newly invented non-meat foods. It wasn't a time, it was a set of timeplacefinances plus some skew sourced from ignorance.

Also entertaining was the anti-vegetarian article someone linked, which mentions a lot of 'correlations' such as vegetarians in society Y averaging lower IQ, and then asians in society X, with their closer-to-vegetarian diet, having shorter lifespans. The comedy being of course the unmentioned fact that asians in society X also average higher IQ. The obvious conclusion to draw from these extremely significant facts is that diet has nothing to do with IQ or lifespan, and, in fact, there is simply an inverse correlation between IQ and lifespan. Oh well, who wants to live forever?

[Magwai]

Surely all Scott is saying is that we make decisions based partly on the subconscious mind which is not controlled by our will. For example you could use free will to pick up a red hot poker but it would be beyond your will yo keep hold of it for very long. Your subconscious would take over and force you to let go. I have noticed that it is very common for people to post-rationalise actions that were subsconsiously originated by making up will-based reasons why they "decided" to do them. I don't think it means there is no free will, but it does mean that free will plays a weaker part in the mix than most people think.

[Gametheory]

Unlike the fuzziness that surrounds the free will debate, the carnivorous vs vegetarians question can and has been analyzed in a scientific way. The conclusion, as many have pointed out, is that humans are omnivorous. This comes as no surprise : many animals are essentially omnivorous, like bears.
Give a man only meat and his arteries will clog. Give him only salad and he will lack half of the proteins and vitamins he needs.
Smart people on both sides will point out that a carefully designed diet (like the "Indian traditional diet" argument) will provide whatever is lacking and hence their side of the debate is the "true" one.
Still, arguing that humans are "designed" to be vegetarians/carnivorous ignores the mountain of scientific evidence against it, and otherwise smart people who take a strong stand on whichever side sound suspiciously like creationists.

[Ole]

I am not sure if this article proves whether free will exists or not - but at the very least it seems to say that making free will work can be very hard work, indeed:

http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2007/01/change-or-die.html

(BTW, two technical comments to your blog comments:

1) Couldn't you make E-mail addresses mandatory, yet not shown? Unless there is a clever behind-the-scenes system that I didn't spot, it seems that addresses are up there for harvestring...?

2) I thought I wrote in English, but upon posting, I am told that "The language of your comment does not match the preferred language of this user". OK, it's not my native language but I do write it pretty well? ;)

[Mayk]

Who says big quantities of meat are bad for you? Because of the complexity of our diet, determining which element causes artery clogging is very difficult. An evolution-based theory (www.paleodiet.com) suggests our diet got unhealthy because of the enormous amounts of starches we eat nowadays. Meat (or more accurately fat) only becomes unhealthy when paired with a generous amount of starches (as it does when you eat it with bread or fries). On its own, fat can be burned by our body just like carbohydrates. However, carbs are easier to burn, so as long as we keep stocking our bodies with sugar and starch the body will see no need to burn any excess fat and stores it for later use (which is never, because there are no lean years anymore). I can't claim that the paleodiet theory is "true", but I've once been on the diet for a year, and I can tell you I then felt a lot better after eating a 10 pound steak than I now feel after a big mac menu. To be clear: the diet doesn't say you have to eat meat, just that you have to leave bread, pasta, potatoes and rice (as well as milk and (soy-)beans, for different reasons); so if you want to be a vegetarian it's theoretically still possible (just less enjoyable).

[Matthew Goggins]

Joe Carter posted a critique of the New York Times article on his blog, the Evangelical Outpost.

He called his post "The Very Persistent Illusion: Absurd and Amusing Rationalizations About Free Will". You can read it, and the very interesting back and forth in the comment thread, by clicking here:

http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/003362.html#more

I felt compelled to submit several lengthy comments defending the notion of free will, starting with comment number 2 in the comment thread.

[Matt]

I guess I will opt for free will. Two event in recent days convince me that men act with good or evil intentions and try to rationalize their actions. First, Saddam was hanged and almost everyone agrees that it is justified considering the atrocities he committed. On the other hand, an ordinary man in New York risked his own life to save another human being by jumping in front of a subway train and restraining the guy having an epileptic seizure. Sure, he could have walked away, but went against the overwhelming urge of self-preservation to save another person.

This guy is much more of a human being in my book than the turd called The Donald who is nothing but a fluffed-up ego with a bad hairpiece. Same goes with the loudmouth who is having a shit-tossing contest with him. Between these two obnoxious characters, it makes me want to puke and retch and think that free will can be twisted and its absence used as an excuse.

[Richard]

Ive not read most of these posts as, as you frequently point out most of them completely miss the point or just state irrelevant facts to prove free will.

Would you consider this a test of free will?

Conduct a brain scan on a particular person. I dont know what; an ECG or whatever it is. I must admit im not a doctor... Well not a profesional one anyway ;)

Monitor the chemical balance / brainwaves and then offer the patient / testee a choice. e.g. apple or banana.

Repeat the test numerous times. If the chemical balance is the same each time before the choice then if the testee chooses a different fruit, does this "prove" free will?

Personally i dont give a monkeys either way, I'm just getting on with it but the argument does intrigue me.

[Esn]

"So if I believe in free will, then read your posts and the NYT article, think about it for a while and decide to stop believing in free will, have I not just made a choice to believe and then not believe because I am free to do so?

Posted by: Bill Emery"

Nope - your opinions have changed much as a computer's would if the computer was given new information about a problem.

None of the free willys that I see in this thread have understood the article - you're all making the same old arguments that have been debunked. You don't even understand what you're arguing against.

[san antone rose]

Weren't designed to be carnivores? Well, we're designed to be omnivores, actually.

And speaking of design, Scott, we really weren't designed to live until we're 80 years old with strokes, heart attacks, cracked hips, ED, etc. etc. But thanks to modern medicine, we live long enough to witness the excesses of our youth.

Glad to see all our posts to you about the NYT article forced your hand. It's all a plot to render you helpless and steer you down the blog path we have laid out for you.

[T.G.]

I can be wrong that there is oxigen on Earth atmosphere and I can be wrong that we are omnivores.

We can live poorly only and only on vegetables and you need a developed modern civilization to achieve this with a degree of success. We can live poorly only on meat, but is easier without the developed civilization if you have access to fish and many kinds of animals, which is a lot easier on many locations than with vegetarian food.

So, i am sure healthy means eating mainly vegetables and some good meat (dunno if "good meat", meaning for "good" not tasty but natural and healthy -not hormones, not excesive fat, not genetic manipulation, natural animal diet- , is really achievable in USA, or in any place these days).

It is a shame that you made this kind of cheap trick:

if unrelated fact is true then unrelated own and unscientific near religious thinking is true.

[MycRub]

To Monty :
Sorry, I can't stop thinking. This is not a choice. And I am fairly sure that you couldn't resist to think about what I just wrote here.

Here is the test. If you have free will, do not think, imagine, or get a mind representation of the following word as you read it : "SEX".

[Yeah, right]

Lions live 14 (in the wild) to 20 (in captivity) years. Eat all the meat you want and you will not have the problems you mention in this short a time span. It is only people who are inherently flawed with delusions of own imortality that expect to live forever and get obsessed about dieing past their 'sell by' date.
Being 30, I am happy for each new day as I deeply believe our biological constituion can be expected to fail after aproximately 30-40years of (mis)use. As I guess You are older than 40, your comments are just a words of a yoghurt that has gone rotten but is happy it was not eaten in his prime. We all finish in the trash can or the toilet. Eat what you like - at the end, it really doesn't make any difference.

[Panda]

We are Omnivore not Carnivore in the same way that Vegetarians are not Herbivore. It is an important point.

Carnivores can't eat vegetables
Herbivores can't eat meat

Omnivores can eat anything available. Humans are what they are because they ate meat, especially the highly nutritious brain tissue of other animals full of all those lovely bits to help build our own brains.

At the end of the day we can eat nothing but vegetables if it takes our fancy and with the knowledge gained by eating babies brains we can supplement the essential nutrients that are in cows scrotums and tuna fish eyes, but that doesnt mean it is better.

The Brown bear is an omnivore that chooses to eat meat. The Giant Panda is an Omnivore that chooses to eat vegetables. Which one is being shot and which one is being conserved?
Face it Vegetarians would be extinct if it wasn't for all us eye ball munchers...

[lezone]

One possible alternative to the meat or vegi, either/or dilemma is that it's not either/or but somewhere in between. Realistically, primates evolved to be able to digest fruits and vegetables originally but then also evolved the ability to digest protein from insects and small reptiles (tree frogs and lizards) or maybe something as big as a mouse or rat.

This would allow for the possibility that, yes we are designed to eat meat, just not very much of it. We evolved to the ability to supplement our diet with limited protein which contributed to our more advanced hunting ability. Yet didn't evolve the massive protein intake abilities of the true carnivores in that amount of time.

Baring this in mind, isn't it also possible that free will is not an either/or situation either. Perhaps free will is something that is possible but not regularly exercised without considerable effort. Perhaps the range of actions that fall under this hypothetical alternative re-definition of free will is much smaller than we commonly associate with it.

To frame the debate as either/or, discover and point out contradictions and flaws and then conclude that since the flaws rule out either it must be or seems to be throwing out the baby with the bath water. Before leaping to the opposite extreme it seems prudent to at least entertain variations and hybrid theories that might explain the flaws while also explaining the apparent phenomenon.

[Panda]

The free will debate seems to have come down to semantics.

If you remove the God option. One side of the debate says that we have free will because we base decisions on our inner knowledge, and the other side of of the debate says we have no free will because we base our decisions on inner knowledge.

A decision is made based on available information. If you have absolutely no preconceptions or knowledge about anything at all and have never made a decision before then your 1st decision would be provable free will but that is not possible as we start receiving information and forming ideas before we are born.

[DL From Heidelberg]

Scott,
You have earned my respect with those four simple words "I could be wrong..." Willingness to admit the possibility of error in spite of strongly held beliefs is, I believe, the hallmark of an enlightened individual. Kudos.

Ref today's cartoon; only in Phila and southern N.J do we refer to submarine sandwiches as hoagies. The rest of the country calls them subs. Do you have a Phila connection?

Free will: I could be wrong but without free will there's no morality, and without morality, no possibility of living in a society. Read Hobbes (not one half of the cartoon). There have to be norms and people have to choose to follow them. QED...

[König Hasemörder]

I can stop myself. Seriously.
http://vanishingzero.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-cant-stop-myself-seriously.html

[AviD]

Dude, you never seen The Matrix?
Specifically, the second in the series, Matrix Reloaded.

It is quite clear there that the (virtual) world is split in three groups:
- The machines, represented by agents, the architect, the keymaker, and the Oracle. They are driven by, and think all reality is based on, Purpose.

- "Renegade" machines, represented by the Merovingian, who claims that everything is based on Causality.

- And humans, including Neo, Morpheus, etc., who are told quite succintly by the architect (a machine), that they are based on Choice. (Of course, the architect sees this as a shortcoming, but then, he's just a machine.)

(As an aside, there is a fourth: Smith, formerly an agent who was "freed" by Neo. He believes that he denied his Purpose, and thus created in himself free will. Actually, it is made quite clear in this movie and the third sequel that he is in fact still driven by a Purpose, just a different one. Furhtermore, the change in Purpose, and the source of Smith's power, was actually Neo's choice.
So Smith the machine is in the position you described of the illusion of free will.)

While each one's viewpoint is accurate as it relates to them (e.g. Machines were created by man to fulfill a purpose, etc...), it emphasizes that what sets humans apart ("they're only human") is Choice, i.e. free will.
In the climax of the third film, Matrix Revolutions, Smith ask Neo:
"Why? Why won't you stay down? Don't you know you're beaten? Why do you still get up?"
Neo: "Because I choose to."

So science may agree with you, but who cares? Hollywood doesn't. And really, who has a better grip on reality, science or Hollywood? Which is more important to the universe??

[Danial]

We're not carnivores. We are omnivores. Our bodies were not built for an all meat diet like lions - hence your anology is not an accurate one. Our physiological make-up requires us to eat vegetation and meat. We derive nutrients from both.

[HMCIV]

Okay, so we don't have free will. What are we supposed to do now?

[SiggeLund]

You tend do deal in absolutes, to oversimplify. :)

You are quite correct when you point out that too much meat is bad for humans. You take a risk when eating a lot of meat. But you FORGET to mention that vegetarians also take risks. The proteins that meat-eaters normally get in their diet has to be supplemented by carefully selected vegetables or pills. A friend of mine got sick because she ate the wrong vegetables when trying a vegetarian life, and was ORDINATED by her doctor to resume eating meat in order not to frack up her intestines even worse.

I notice with a smile that you shy away from the possibility of us being designed by someone or something. It seems you have an interesting discussion to take with yourself there. :)

Finally regarding free will... First of all it's philosophical which essentially means that the truth is in the eye of the beholder. Everybody defines the concept differently, so it's allmost hopeless to have other people accept your own definition.

Here's what I feel: I can choose to knock the pot of flowers down to the ground and break it. Or choose not to. I will have to face my wife and explain why I broke the pot if I do it, or play some MMORPG if I don't. I can easily afford a new flower and don't have any trouble saying sorry to my wife. Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, tastes like a duck. For all I am concerned, it IS a duck.

[Will]

Geez, Scott - thanks for the article. It's not as if anyone here has posted similar comments on computational theory as it relates to free will vs. determinism. I seem to remember posting several times that the inability to build a computer that can predict the future (because the computer's output affects the future as well and it can't model itself without resorting to an absurd infinite regress) means determinism will never be 100% "proven".

At least, we seemingly cannot create a machine that predicts the future with 100% accuracy, so there'll always be room for doubt. I guess in theory you could build a machine that would predict the future with 100% accuracy, so long as you never looked at the predictions until AFTER the events in question already happened. With that constraint, the computer would not need to predict its own predictions, and there'd be no infinite regress. But then you'd have the problem of measuring the state of the entire earth/solar system/universe and feeding it into the computer. Maybe it would work if you just wanted to predict events in a small hermetically sealed room, containing a few people.

But I guess the article explains it better (and comes to a slightly different conclusion): "Even machines can become too complicated to predict their own behavior and would labor under the delusion of free will." Here's where I disagree with the article: just because a machine can't predict its own behaviour doesn't mean "it thinks it has free will". Maybe *we* might think it has free will, but the machine would need "consciousness" and "self-awareness" (a couple more undefinable terms) before it could start to "labour under the delusion" of anything. I don't see anything in the article that suggests machines will also become sentient once they become complex enough to be totally unpredictable.

Since we can't directly observe "consciousness" and "self-awareness", we could use the "Turing Test" instead. In the Turing Test thought experiment, the experimenter communicates with an unseen human and a computer, through the use of a keyboard and monitor or some other apparatus that doesn't betray the identity of the subjects. If the experimenter is incapable of distinguishing between the two subjects, the computer has "passed" the Turing Test. If you show me a machine that declares "I have free will" *and* passes the Turing Test, then I'll agree that machines can "labour under the delusion of free will."

[Monty]

Sir, free will can be proved very simply. We can think, therefore we have free will. The ghost in the machine is our consciousness. Our realities are but manifestations of our consciousnesses. We can think. We can choose what we think about. We can choose what we believe, and our thoughts will also prove what we believe to be true. There is always choice. Thought is choice.

[Saddam Hussein]

If you don't like to eat meat because it tastes bad what's to defend.

Oh yeah, Death to America the Great Satan. I indirectly gave that big prick Osama the balls to attack the WTC. I paid suicide terrorist families. I allowed terrorists to be trained. I hid terrorists in Iraq. I let terrorists pass through. You should have never hung me. You should have put me back into power. I would have gassed all those shiite bastards and got the country under control.

[Michiel]

"I just wanted to show you that science is mostly on my side."

I'm happy that you can take away whatever suits you from this article. And then he voted.

[Wouter]

The word 'Vegetarian' is an old Indo-European word meaning 'Bad Hunter'

[Dot]

“This knowledge of the non-freedom of the will protects me from losing my good humor and taking much too seriously myself and my fellow humans as acting and judging individuals,”

If all you free willys sit still and start watching you will start to see all the little emotions and voices that are guiding your life, and if you are still you won't have the little voice telling you that you are in control. Kind of like meditation I guess.

It's awfully enlightening to know that we are all basically insane.

Guess all we can do is endevour to enjoy the ride.

[tom]

Free will doesn't exist. Your decisions are based on everything you know. therefore, if you knew everything you know (you don't, because everything that has ever happened to you factors in, and you can't remember it all) you could predict your decisions with 100% accuracy. It even applies to crazy people, who will make the decision based on thier distorted perception of reality (they still know what is happening, even if what they know is wrong. Anyways, who is to define wrong since our senses alter our perception anyways.)
the point is, you have the illusion of free will because everything you do fits into an equation so complex that even 24/7 surveilance for a lifetime would not be enough to solve it.

As for vegetarianism, or carnivorism, both are dangerous. Carnivores have a hard time getting many nutrients, and vegetarians have a hard time getting other things, cheif among them protein. In recent years, we have developed credible substitutes for the protein in meat. that involves a diet that would not be possible for hunter-gatherers or even farmers of only local crops in many areas. the answer is that the natural state for humans is omnivorism. If you have objections to meat or vegatables, you can go without, but it is natural to have both. that is why a steak is appealing, and so is a carrot.

So Scott, you are right about free will, but don't talk down to omnivores, unless they get in your face first.

[Ashok]

Scott,

I'm a vegetarian. My family didn't eat any meat and I grew up eating veggies and such stuff. That was when I was just sticking to what my family was doing ... but when I grew up and was free to do what I chose, I preferred not to eat meat. Guess why .. Free Will ;)

By definition, anyone who eats even a little bit of meat is a carnivore. But we should be talking about OBLIGATE CARNIVORES whose diet consists only of Meat. The reason is, these Obligate Carnivores, lack the PHYSIOLOGY to effectively digest the vegetable matter. Its a documented fact that lot of these animals eat vegetation specifically as Emetics.

Most of the meat eaters have their own nuances .. in a sense, they are not carnivores, they don't specifically eat roadkill. They want a rare steak or grilled burger but not poodle squash. MOST Humans are omnivores. I am not considering cannibals or those carnivores who eat uncooked meat. IMO, once you cook the meat, its no more a carnivorous meal. To all those who say that their meat eating great grandfathers still walk and talk, ask them to eat raw meat and tell me the results.

Most of us have heard the phrase "You may become what you eat" ... I am not saying I will become an apple tomorrow but if you eat the inorganic meat, (growth hormones, antibiotics, chemical pesticides on the feed, animal DNA, extra) what else are you eating with it? The early humans were cannibals, AND not out of necessity.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg15320637.800-science--can-dna-in-food-find-its-way-into-cells.html
http://www.dhushara.com/book/genes/travG.htm

Now this makes me wonder what kind of meat Tyson ate ...

To those who say that vegetarians are sissy, all you need is to google the term "famous vegetarians". I can give you a list of athletes (stamina), models and actresses (beauty), politicians (humor me), musicians (Bob you-know-who Dylan)- successful people in all walks of life. So if you think eating meat is the only way to look like an overweight bison, with all due respect, you can use your FREE WILL to keep eating cattle. And the bison gets eaten by a pack of wolves in the end. I saw it in Animal Planet.

Does lobotomy in any way affect free will .. just confused.

-Ashok

[Ami]

I just have to take a moment to state that you're all kind of being stupid about the whole carnivor vs vegitarian debate. Its option C: BOTH. Our teeth and our digestive tracts are best designed to be OMNIVORES! We are healthiest when we eat a balanced diet with all things in moderation.

If you were meant to eat nothing but meat you'd have a mouth full of fangs like a cat. You instead have molars for grinding. And if you were intended nothing but vegetables you'd have more than one stomach and and entirely different bowel system.

Get over it folks. The answer is BOTH.

[faelon]

OK I can see where you are coming from about the whole "what happens when we eat large quantities of meat" thing... but have you looked at what happens when you eat lettuce lately? (the irony being that the most deadly, least healthy food ina taco bell is the fresh lettuce. Thats just wrong on so many levels) Somehow death by meat seems the slower less painful and more long term project.

[Bill Emery]

So if I believe in free will, then read your posts and the NYT article, think about it for a while and decide to stop believing in free will, have I not just made a choice to believe and then not believe because I am free to do so?

[Graham]

From the article it sounds like free will is the feeling we get when the conscious mind has to deal with what pops up from below. You can't know what is going to pop up so at best free will is like riding the old scarey train at the fun fair - you can react to what is behind the next door but you can't control what is going to pop up.

Aaaaaaaaaand most of these posts sound like people who believe that they live in that little space just behind their eyes. Sort of like that little guy in MIB Will Smith found inside the old guy's head.

Let's face it people, if there is any free will in the world it's the only thing keeping us from acting like Homer Simpson treading on a rake.

Doh!........Doh!..........Doh!..........Doh!.......

[Joe D]

ONe word Scott, say it with me now, OMNIVORE. Humans work best with a mixed diet. Fortunately, we are evovled to the point where we can choose to eat a strictly vegitarian diet with minimal health problems.

Science shows that this can be a good thing, if you have the right metabolic make-up. We now know how to get our proteins without meat. At one time, this wasn't really feasable.

Good for you for finding a dietary lifestyle that works for you, and still lets your family eat as they choose.

[Icarus]

Concerning 'free will'. While there is no substantial proof for either sides of the argument, Chaos Theory has provided an interesting analogy.

In chaos theory, some deterministic systems appear random, in spite of having no random elements in them. Now this could be compared to the decisions we make. These do depend on the past events, thus could be deterministic, and yet have a grain of randomness, which could represent our 'free will'.

This 'free will' is really insignificant when you look at the entire cosmos. In our scale of the world, it all might seem really important. But look at it in the scale of the entire universe. Decisions we take soon fade away. No Butterfly Effects here. 'Free will' could be assumed to simply be randomness. Randomness which has been proved by Chaos Theory to be an integral part of the world around us.

Thus 'free will' could exist. But it really will not influence the course of the universe in anyway. A momentary flutter of neurons in a mind due to non-linear dynamics involved.

Now can randomness be claimed to be free will? Maybe it can. Free will is when you take a decision not dependent completely on all past events (a whole set of variables). A decision which occurs due to some random neural activity (minor variable), along with some other variables representing past events, can lead to an occurrence which can be attributed to 'free will'. Many times in science, a supposedly 'minor' variable has made a lot of difference. This is one example. I can think of a whole lot of other ways how randomness can be 'free will'.

Of course this all a hypothesis. Could be true. May not be true. But its a theory nevertheless.

And concerning non-vegetarianism, its just an evolutionary trait. We humans, having evolved our minds to a level where we can take decisions on our own, now will evolve as we wish to. No genes forcing us to eat meat or have sex. We control our mind. Some part of it anyway.

[rd]

i don't understand why people object to your free will posts
when it's so much fun

what i enjoyed most
the comment on the purpose of delicious meat
and Eric's goat
made me recall what my dad used to say during my 3 yrs of vegetarian life
"are you a goat to eat only vegetables? eat something more nutritious for buddha's sake, don't be this lazy, prepare yourself a decent meal, you'll spoil your health etc etc"
he was right, i ended up with Hb 6.0
sure, your diet is much much more sophisticated and erythrocyte friendly than mine was
hm, but you started

http://greetings.banjig.net/send.php?card_type=f&card;_id=2058
stupid or creative?

[Mike]

“All the varieties of free will worth having, we have,” Dr. Dennett said.

“We have the power to veto our urges and then to veto our vetoes,” he said. “We have the power of imagination, to see and imagine futures.”

I guess he hasn't heard about this:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070101/hl_afp/ushealthmemory_070101220901&printer;=11/2/2007

Even our free will to think of the future isn't so free.

[Abdul]

There is no free will.
We have to submit.

Islam means 'to submit'.

[Zack]

You're going mountain-making with only molehills in your sack, Scott, because even if we don't have free will, we still have to live our lives like we do.

[Sean]

Its worth pointing out that for someone getting as much excersise as nature intended the health problems brought on by a carniverous diet won't come till long after one has exceed the life span nature intended for us.

[arlo]

the experiment mentioned in the article is fascinating,
what i'm interested in was what kind of choices did the subjects have. was it just a chocolate cake, eat it or don't eat it? and how about those decisions which we take days to think about before making up our minds? how would these situations be tested?
and how about those people on hunger strikes, the brain would for sure release chemicals to make them want to eat, but many resist and die in the proccess, i think science would not allow someone to starve to death willingly, so um... explain...please

[whitetigersx]

According to the most simple idea behind free will not existing is that it would then free everyone who has ever been convicted of any crime. They had no choice. Pediophilia, rape, murder, genocide, starting wars, wearing polka dots with purple stripes. Everything would become ok because nobody has a choice.
However, the type of program that is suggested in being a meat machine is that it develops itself as information is presented to it based on experience and best possible outcomes. Yet there is still a bit of leeway in that as every persons experience is slightly different.

So either there is a possiblity for semi-free will or every ones out of jail. I'd like to have a little hope and believe that there is at least a limited amount of free will... even though if you chose not to make a choice you've still chosen...
Argument Circular: See Circular Argument

[Leora]

As one of my favourite veggie friends says,

"I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals; I'm a vegetarian because I hate vegetables."

[Billy B]

"It may, however, support the argument that human beings are unintelligently designed."

Rabbit..... We evolved from monkeys, and before that other critters from the seas, there wasn't anything intelligent about it.

But that really has nothing to do with the cosmic soul.
Billy B.... Head monkey.

[sam]

"When humans eat a lot of meat, our arteries clog, we have heart attacks, and we die."

that is a not good argument because the same is true of cheese and ice cream

[Charlie (Colorado)]

Scott --- the brain is a system composed of nonlinear components, with a total of greater than three degrees of freedom ("trillions" is much greater than 3.)

It is very very probable that the brain is therefore a chaotic system. (I think, in fact, that that's a theorem and could be said "is a chaotic system" without the probabilistic step, but I'm not positive and probability is all I need.)

It follows that while the brain might be deterministic in some sense, it's also very strongly unpredictable, since the only way it could be predicted would be by simulating the whole pbrain, all states of all neurons, and exactly simulating all interactions with the outside world. From this it fololows that while the brain might be deterministic in some sense, the actions of a person based on that brain could well be unpredictable in any feasible way.

Now: if there were free will, how would you distinguish it from "mere" unpredictability? Or, contrariwise, if there is no free will, but people can act in ways that can't be predicted, how can you say they don't have free will?

[LindsayW]

The idea of free will is limited because there are only so many things one can "choose" to do, there is no need to overcomplicate things.

For example, when I am bored I cannot "choose" to sprout the wings of a bat and raid a video game warehouse, because its not possible.

Keyword is "limited" not absent though, because there are often more than one choice of action available. The idea that absolutely everything is predetermined is just as far fetched as the idea that absolutely everything is up to "free will."

[RavenBlack]

From that article: "Dr. Silberstein, who noted that every physical system that has been investigated has turned out to be either deterministic or random."

He is a scientist with magic powers, to be able to discern such things. I can't think of any way you could prove something to be random (or deterministic for that matter, but you could at least have *strong evidence* for deterministic).

[D. Mented]

Oh, give me a break!
One diet suits all...Of course it does! If it works for 1/4 the human population, the other 3/4 must be decieving themselves about the weakness, failing immune system, and runaway depression that can be cured with one roast beef sandwich ...That's my actual personal expirience after 6 months as a vegetarian...And don't presume I just didn't know how to mix my protein sources. I was living in a vegetarian household and they were all doing fine, and I ate the same food that they did.
The second try came years later, and I had more- not less-information on the subject, and I only lasted four months.
(both times when I quit my vegetarian diet I didn't actually go get any meat, or think of it. Somebody fed me lunch, and I was too depressed to care anymore what was in it.)
Years later still, I found that that isn't a rare occurrance. Apparently, about 1/4 of the population absolutely thrives on vegetarian only, 1/2 thrives on very little meat, and none of it red, and 1/4 thrives, and I do mean thrives, on lots of meat, and most of it red.
Vegetarians either presume we carnivores are lying or we didn't get the right protein sources (common mistake would- be veggers often make is relying on tofu...It has all the protiens in it that a human needs to thrive, but you need a stomach like a goat to get the proteins out of it, so mixed sources is better )
The truth is that humanity has been spread all over the globe in many diverse conditions for long enough that people adapted to the conditions they were in, including short growing seasons that didn't allow much nourishing plantlife to grow, and also deserts. In modern times we are mostly descended of such a wide mixture that you can't be sure which ancestors gave you what traits, but one of those traits that is diverse, not universally identical, is what type of diet suits what body.
My own family, both sides, has medium-heavy bone structure, bad nerves and good muscles, and absolutely no cholesterol problems or heart problems. None. We all eat as much red meat as we can get outside of, and the shortest-lived of my grandparents was 86, and died of melanoma. The oldest was 98, and I have had two aunts on one side and one on the other that passed 100 still walking and talking.Don't tell me meat is toxic to my family unless you can show me some kind of proof that isn't based on the "works for some therefore must work the same for all" assumption.
Some veggers really do just eat vegetarian because it works for their health, but most have an annoyingly religious streak about it that refuses to hear any argument that contradicts their faith. Vegetarian preachiness is not quite as stale and obnoxious as Christians who preach at non-Christians under the assumption that they must never have heard of Christian teachings before, but it's not that far behind.
Grumble...peeve..bark...heard enough on the damn subject...growl...
D. Mented

[cman_yall]

The science is not all in favour of us being best suited for a vegetarian diet... meat is a much more convenient source of protein than any vegetable, and we need to eat protein due a lack of ability to make certain amino acids (I forget which ones).

I would argue that we are best suited to a diet which includes a little bit of meat, or possibly protein supplements - however the invention of protein supplements has only really been possible for the last fifty years or so, i.e. insignificant on an evolutionary scale.

[Angry American]

I can take a little heat off of you...

Saddam Hussein's last words:

"What?! They're making ANOTHER Rocky movie??!!"

Good riddance to bad rubbish. They should have sold it on pay-per-view. Hell if Paris Hilton can get paid to keep her legs closed on national TV why can't we see THAT?? Yeah, Bush et. al. lied their asses off to get here. Thousands of decent Americans died to get him, MILLIONS of Americans have had their Constitution corn-holed in the process, so the least we could do is raise a little (or a lot) of money to give to the families of the Marines, Sailors, Soldiers, and Airmen who have died for the favor.

Just a thought.

Oh, and Free Will let me write this free of conscience.

[Charles]

OK, you said the magic words "free will" again (tee hee, such pun :-) ), so let me reiterate a little myself too:

I kinda get that the "will" thing is some kind of psychological force or something that people attribute to driving their choices, but what's the "free" part again? Free... of ... WHAT?

The intuitive idea that the brain is the entirety of the machine here is probably short sighted and too narrow to be accurate. Since every experience you have influences you and therefore alters the pathways, in reality the "machine" can only be seen as the brain plus the entire environment that it is exposed to every nanosecond of its existence, including all the other brains it might encounter inside other people along the way.

So... free of what? Outside influeces? Internal influences? The collective experiences of the past? What is a compulsion, but a pervasive influence or effective system of influences? But how would even go about achieving a state in which you are influenced by nothing? And as long as the subconscious makes decisions based on stuff you aren't aware of, how would you know you achieved it if you did?

As to the argument that we "need" free will in order to have morality and responsibility: Why does it matter if a criminal is "to blame" for his/her actions? Just be pragmatic:

Each of us is conditioned to enjoy living in a certain kind of society. In a majority of cases, that means an environment where we aren't robbed or assaulted or killed and our loved ones aren't either. So we neutralize people who are a threat to this by imprisonment (quarantine viral file), attempts at reform (reprogramming?), or in extreme or hopeless cases death (terminate process, reclaim local resources).

A couple centuries ago I might have recommended banishment, since this only relocates the "incompatible" individual to a place where they don't affect society, but today with so absurdly many people and more every year, where is there left to banish them to? Oh well.

[linzoy]

I think Cecil Adams a good job covering the issue of whether humans are made to be vegetarians. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_087.html

I've been a vegetarian for my entire life. If I could I would probably eat fish because they're healthy and I don't care about the suffering of fish. But I hate the taste of meat. Maybe it's an aquired taste, but it's a taste I don't have any good reason for aquiring. I like uncooked sushi because it doesn't have much of a taste without the sauce, but even eating sushi bothers me because it's the guts of an animal. It's not that the fish had to die, it's just that the remains of the fish where made into food, it's really disgusting. I don't know, maybe there is something wrong with me. I've never met anyone else with this problem.

[Rudy Phelps]

Out of nowhere, I just slapped myself real hard in the face. If that's not free will, I don't know what is. At least, I wouldn't want it anymore. Anyway, feel free to slap yourself in the face.

[Bob Dole]

I agree that the idea of free will is bogus and you express it pretty clearly. But, and this is a big but, determinism does not fit the bill either. Determinism is incoherent via David Humes problem of induction.

[Ulrich von Nostrum]

Will is not free - there is a price to pay - count the cost in Illusion and Delusion - reject Will and remain Free.

Free Meat on the other hand is O.K. even though the taste is an Illusion.

Free Vegetables could liberate mankind from Ego Slavery - especially Bok Choy and Beet.

A diet of Bean Sprouts destroys the Will and opens the mind to clairvoyancy.

I could go on but I think the point is taken.

[hey]

The article is such a cop out. It speaks against free will but then speaks about the capacity to "change" and to do what we "want". What does change mean, if free will does not exist? Change from what we WERE going to do? If so, we've just acted against determinism.

I hate how he mentioned the chocolate cake episode. OK, so I know it was the NY times and not a serious peer-reviewed science journal, but that was really confounding the issue. If you are tempted by something, you are tempted by it, full stop. Only an American would look to physicists and mathematicians to justify he's seeming "inability" to resist chocolate cake.

BTW you look at free will the same way as I look at the idea of evolution. I posted this yesterday but you didn't put it up- I think a lot of your readers would find this REALLY interesting. Answers in Genesis vs. the Skeptics Society of Australia debating in the Sydney Morning Herald. Bring it on!

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/aus_skeptics_vs_aig.pdf

[Bane]

Yes Scott, cows are vegetarians, too. So feel free to...wait, you'd die. And I'd miss Dilbert.

You liber...well, whatever you are, and your Junk Science. If I believed everything I heard from a scientist, I'd be dead as Marie Curie. About the only thing Science seems good for, is disproving Science. The eternal battle of nerds, with inconvenient truths being shuffled out of the way as...what does your religion of atheism call it? Oh yeah, heresy.

While convenient lies get relabeled as 'Inconvenient Truth', and portrayed as such by a sonorous simpleton (that would be Al Gore, for the dim...).

For every scientist you play, I'll see him and call with two of my own, and that will go on and on and on, and get boring. So, using my free will, I won't.

I must confess, your kind of thinker, I think, people who think like you, do not actually have free will. Drones, who do the bidding of the Queen Bee of the day, stuck in whatever cycle of 'life' you are stuck in...

It is not freeing yourself from the cubicle, it is in not entering it in the first place. That is what separates the drones from the free-willed.

[HockeyMonkey]

Terrible post. Why, you might ask?
1)Free will, regardless of what it is or whether or not it is true, doesn't really affect anything, so why bother?
2)Meat is plenty healthy, and more importantly delicious. Who doesnt like bacon?

[Lickspittle]

I just wanted to add another data point to Scott's projection of his own lack of free will: vegetarianism seems to trigger aggression. The idea is that our caveman ancestors needed to have that extra special something when they went all winter without wooly mammoth. Check it out:

The Naive Vegetarian
http://www.mercola.com/2002/feb/13/vegetarian3.htm

[Jim]

Philosophical Brevity: It's obvious your knowledge of semantics is limited. You need language to think clearly. Semantics is the study of the language you use to think. It's obvious your knowledge of semantics is limited.

[Steve]

Oh. The NY times article led me to the previous article, where I posted. Gonna post again, but change it up.

I will agree we do not have free will. There is only God's will. And God is simply reality. Self will is an illusion created by our ego, and is part of what we must overcome to "realize" God.

Science is the objective view of things. There is a viewer and what is viewed. It is a dualistic view and science is merely descriptive.

Spiritualism is the subjective view. We are each the center of our own cosmos and the only ones who can explore this view and know it is us. It is a unitive view. http://deoxy.org/egofalse.htm

The Gita says
"Drawing upon your deepest resources,
You shall overcome all difficulties
Through my grace. But if you will not heed me
In your self–will, nothing will avail you.

If you say, “I will not fight this battle,”
Your own nature will drive you into it.
If you will not fight the battle of life,
Your own karma will drive you into it.

The Lord dwells in the hearts of all creatures,
And he whirls them round on the wheel of time.
Run to him for refuge with all your strength
And peace profound will be yours through his grace."

From the subjective view the only time is now. Past and future are merely stories we tell ourselves. What we all want is to be loved, the most effective way to achieve this is to love. Hence love your enemies.

And FYI the love "urge" has a REALLY bizarre subroutine - it is capable of over riding all other subroutines. And I am not talking about upgrading from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0

[Weilong Wang]

Traditional hunter/gatherer societies, which probably represent the way most humans lived during most of our evolutionary development, eat vegetable matter almost exclusively on a daily basis, and occasionally gorge (feast) on meat.

If you live in a place where food grows on trees (or on bushes or just under the ground), you eat that all the time. When somebody manages to kill an animal, everybody has to hurry up and eat it before it spoils. That is the sort of dietary environment that shaped the human body.

So with a vegetarian diet as the baseline, a big fat steak once in a while is probably good for you. A big fat steak every day, on the other hand, is definitely not.

[Brad K.]

Scott,

I believe there is a difference between humans eating selected portions of muscle tissue with some fat tissue, and the lion that eats everything but the squeal. And who chases the squeal out.

We don't balance what we eat, but consuming the entire animal. And we certainly don't gorge and rest for a day or three before eating well again. Nor do we spend much of the time between means looking for the next hunting opportunity.

In other words, I think our bad eating and exercise habits are confusing your evaluation of humans as meat-eaters. I don't know if you are correct or not, I just think the analogy falls apart.

As for free will. The whole argument seems to be much ado about nothing. Whether we tend to adhere to rules or not, whether we tend to egocentric or corporal motivations, maturation and early learning generally guide us to some form of 'making best choices'. To me that is free will. Hindered will would restrict choices to a different external boundary.

[Aaron]

The teeth of modern human beings isn't fit for either meat or vegetables. We are neither herbivores, carnivores or omnivores.

We are cook-vores. Or to be more latin: concoquovore. We use tools in place of better teeth and heat or other methods to pre-process or pre-digest our food.

This and a certain affluence gives us the ability to 'choose' a diet. A dog can't choose to be a vegetarian and nor can a cow choose to be a carnivore.

This has further convinced me that modern humans have become domesticated in the same sense that dogs are domesticated wolves. As one of the key indicators of a domesticated species is child like characteristics that remain into adult hood. And you can't get more child like then requiring all your food to be pre-digested.

Obviously we genocided our undomesticated feral cousins 1000s of years ago, probably in some sort of sporting event. (Something like the Annual Troll Baby Arching Contest)

But I wonder what they'd be like. I'd like to met them, in a zoo.

[gworg the lesser]

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - if you really like reading and thinking about this sort of argument, you really should read "The Emporer's New Mind" by the physicist Roger Penrose.

Unless you already have, of course...

[VVi!!]

While I have no problem wit hpeople being vegetarian, especially given those arguments, there is the opposite side to include as well. The human body, if only consuming non-meat products, still requires a carefully designed diet to account for the proteins etc that are in meat.

My argument (without proper evidence) is for moderation. Some meat, and a good amount of veges, grains etc. (and lots of chocolate, but that's not a diet thing...)

[Chad Evans]

Come on Scott, you realize that you absolutely HAVE to write a post about vegetarianism now. I suspect that you're the "moist robot that doesn't like the taste of meat type", but I'm secretly hoping that you think you can convince a bunch of "moist robots that love the taste of meat" why eating meat is wrong and we are all morally obligated to do so, in spite of the fact that free will is an illusion.

[Steve]

What? You're a vegetarian? The Sadam Hussein humour was pushing it, but now I've really lost all respect for you and will never read your blog again ;)

[RainbowW]

i saw a news story i now can not cite that suggested that incidence of arterial plaque and related cardiovascular diseases that are directly attributable to a meat diet are really attributable to a diet where the animal is fed with corn. these animals tend to be fatter and have higher cholesterol content than their free-range grass-fed predecessors.

the study suggested that grass-fed meat animals tend to be leaner, have less saturated and unsaturated fat in their muscles, and have less cholesterol, and are thus correspondingly less bad (if not "good") to eat.

even so, if you prefer to be vegetarian, more power to you. whether your decision is driven by dietary or moral concerns, you're a bigger man than i on that score. you've got the free will that permits you to choose a broccoli rice casserole (yum!); i've got the free will that permits me to choose a ribeye (yum!) :-)

[Dave]

Surely one of your astute readers has pointed out previously that the "laws of physics" you keep carting out are merely abstractions we form to model our perceptions. Thus they keep changing the more we think about it and create more tools to improve our ability to perceive. Anything at the subatomic level has never truly been observed--they're all just ideas.

Personally I don't give a damn about god or free will because the existence of one or the other or neither or both have no effect on my experience. Reality is all in my head anyway. Not yours, just mine.

[jonny]

Meat isn't the only thing that can hurt you. My sister, in fact, is not able to eat many fruits because of the juices in them. So if we as humans are meant to only eat vegetables, then what exactly does that make her? Also, it's not the eating of meat that is killing us, it's the over-eating-under-excersizing thats doing the killing. In reality, we are omnivores for a reason: some nutrients are easier to derive from meat, others are easier to derive from veggies. And of course, and I think a lot of people out there agree with me, I would rather have a Brat fresh of the grill than a steamed carrot fresh out of the pot.

[shamidiva]

Quote from the article:

“If people freak at evolution ... how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines...?"

"Sophisticated meat machines" sounds a lot like "moist robots" to me! :-)

[Radwaste]

I'm surprised you haven't noticed that I've answered this already.

Maybe I should try another illustrative phrase or two, to make this stand out from the diverse comments off-topic.

Living creatures direct energy in ways that they do, indeed, choose. The higher the "grade" of lifeform, the more choices exist. This is not changed a whit by the judgment calls made at every moment.

The number of choices is merely very large. Their perception is difficult, because the object of study, a human making choices, continually adjusts output based on the perception of reward.

So much of this argument turns on the limitations of physics, but that's not the point: the control of energy is what distinguishes life, and its degree of choice, from non-life.

When something that has no choice moves through space, we call that, "ballistics".

OF COURSE we are teased, influenced, goaded, stampeded into action in predictable ways. That rules of behavior are observed - that people, being built about the same have the same wants and needs - doesn't prove exceptions do not occur.

The argument that free will does NOT exist depends on the notion that no two courses of action have rewards identical to the participant. That's going to be damned hard to prove.

Look - identical triplets in Playboy! Sorry - you can only pick one, being a moist robot, because the rewards are *obviously* different.

[Nerdcore Steve]

Doesn't the claim that there is no free will presuppose that you have free will? Without the ability to change your mind based on new evidence how could you say you ever had the right to know anything with any degree of certainty? If so, how could you be sure that the conclusion that there is no free will is correct?

[TRavis]

Interesting how most of the comments have been about eating meat and not about free will. If we don't have free will what is it that we have? Does genetics make me eat Honey Nut Cheerios every morning? I like my Honey Nut Cheerios... but I didn't always eat them every day. I think it is my own free will that allows me to choose what I eat, and what I do... Genetics definetely determin that I would like to read Scott's stupid blog everyday!

[Adam B.]

If people weren't made to eat meat, then why was meat made so delicious?

[Camuquengue]

Allright you win, none of us have free will, but that has nothing to do with the fact that vegetarians are really weird people who has serious mental issues, and since I have no free will I will never change my mind on this matter, so Scott ... YOU'RE A SICK BASTARD.

[Nandini]

Oh Scott. You and all the others who "don't believe in free will" forget to consider the consequences of your disbelief. If, as you say, everything is wired and chemically determined in our brains and there's no "free will" independent of our bodies.... so what?

Really. Think about it. So what?

We won't stop holding people responsible for their crimes. After all, we've long since accepted that we don't put people in jail for revenge or retribution, but only for rehabilitation. And since the brain *can* be conditioned to behave in socially acceptable ways with carrot-and-stick policies, acknowleding that "supernatural free will" doesn't exist has NO EFFECT on the way we do things. Whatsoever.

[Tonye]

According to this logic then we ultimately don't need to worry about taking responsibility for our actions because we are programmed that way... If you believe that there is no free will then your destiny is pre-determined and there's nothing you can ultimately do about it.

Sure there are some biological responses and conditioning that will make us act is certain ways sometimes. People will normally flinch at a loud noise, we squint our eyes when looking at a bright light. So what? If there were no automatic reactions then we would need to make a conscious decision every time we took a breath. The occasional reflex action or biologically pre-determined function does not mean that higher cognitive functions or decisions are pre-determined.

As for eating habits! There have been studies that show that control is a reason people often become vegetarians. By declaring that they are vegetarian they are able to often impose their choices on others in that most social of situations - communal eating. A high protein diet makes us grow taller and stronger. Prior to the mid-19th century the Japanese ate virtually no red meat. They had a relatively healthy diet and certainly did not starve. Rice, fish and fowl were the predominate foods. After a diet of red meat started to be come more commonplace the average height of Japanese people increased significantly. Although we are generally omnivores there are the Inuit who have no choice but to eat purely animal protein and the African tribes who primarily consist on the blood and milk of their cattle.

Dietry fads are just that - fads. As a moral person I can't condone battery farms and ill treatment of animals, that won't stop me eating free range chicken though.

[SDAI-Tech1]

Vegetarians are imbalanced. They make the mistake of thinking fruit-eating is more sophisticated or civilized. By eating vegetables and fruits they feel they have removed themselves one step further from the animal kingdom.

"I eat fruits! I am homo-superius!"

Eating meats only clogs your arteries when you eat a lot of sugar with it. The sugar in the bloodstream helps to process fat. Lions don't have shakes and sundaes after every Zebra. Meat-eating carnivores are always on an Atkins-type low-carb diet. Their senses reject starches and sugars as real food.

And what's more our arteries need some of the internal coatings they possess. Hardening of the arteries is a good thing when it keeps those arteries from collapsing. When a diver meets more pressure, the arteries compensate to keep blood flowing to the organs and limbs. Again, equilibrium is the key.

Eating meat supplies protein for building muscles and nerve tissue. When I heard you lost the ability to speak, I was confounded but now that I know you are a vegetarian it explains it all quite clearly. Your body was cannibalizing your own brain for proteins - and the result left you, literally, speechless.

Vegetarians are generally misinformed and ignorant about the way the body functions and believe that they personally are more mentally astute and therefore can command their bodies to make-do without meat. When, really, it is refined sugar that is man's mortal enemy.

Lean meats, very few starches and limited sugar intake via fruits with moderate exercise lead to a healthy body. Being a jock isn't healthy. Being a runner isn't healthy. Being completely sedentary isn't healthy. It's all about balance. Damaging and wearing out the body via extreme physical activity is just as unhealthy as no exercise at all.

Our society caters to whims of every kind. Vegetarianism is just another cult-like belief system held by those who either hold their fellow humans in contempt and seek some disparity in their lifestyle to distance themselves or have succumbed to a societal engendered guilt-complex about killing animals for food. In species of vegetable-liberalus we see both the contempt and guilt working side by side.

Today's physicians are the drug pushers of yesterday. They distribute and dose up their patients with poorly researched pharmaceuticals and don't blink so long as their bank balance is where they want it to be. The pharmaceutical companies are now often just as bad as R.J. Reynolds or Philip Morris. They deliver debilitation and disease just as often as they deliver 'relief'.

Drugs never cure anything. They short-circuit things. They run interference. All these anti-depression drugs don't cure depression - they poison the bloodstream and the various organs. This blood circulates through the brain and the added chemicals interfere with organs normal functioning. The pharmaceutical companies advertise this as "treatment" when it in reality is just poisoning. Te side effects of this poisoning 'treatment' lead to strokes, seizures, suicide, kidney failure, etcetera...the list is as long as this comment.

Sadly, today's masses believe in their physicians and believe in the established hierarchy of materia medica. The doctor is the witch-doctor of last week and the priest of yesterday. They seek relief and do not understand their own bodies. So they consult the physician in his carefully crafted abode with modern cues that help the patient believe he is in a place where people know what they are doing. As a result they support a multi-trillion dollary industry of legal poisoning.

In the future, potions and chemicals will be obsolete and recognized for the poisonous, barbaric treatment that these designer drugs are. In this future day all healing will be electronic and via directed energy. Cancer cells will not be burned out by a barbaric process of radiation therapy - but will be singled out individually by scanners and destroyed by matching resonance with the fundamental frequency of each cancerous cell.

Depression will be treated the way it should be treated - by addressing the individual problems and negative thoughts. Depressed folks need to confront their own self-generated demons. Sticking them in a bottle only makes them bigger and more powerful when they emerge. The pharmaceutical companies can't figure out why the side effect of many of their drugs is an increased risk of suicidal thoughts. Why is this? Because they are interfering with the mind's own balancing process. They try to force elation in a brain that is trying to deal with problems. Naturally, lazy folks don't mind popping pills to cure "depression" not realizing they aren't curing anything and, in fact, are making the problems worse and poisoning their internal organs at the same time.

Each person has a fundamental frequency their brain functions within. This frequency is altered by chemicals. Every meal we eat and the components influence our thoughts to some degree by adjusting the brain chemistry. Man has quickly found these chemicals that spur elation such as sugar, caffeine or alcohol which elates for a short while and then depresses for a much longer while.

Where does one draw the line? At what point does the natural quest for a balanced diet become an unhealthy quest for chemical engineering and interference with our bodies natural functions? I'll leave you and others here to find their own unique line of equilibrium.

Once folks realize doctors don't cure things - and only treat them - then they are one step ahead in realizing that the "cure" is their own responsibility.

Energy treatment of everything from viral infections to the common cold is still over a hundred years away and so folks living in this time will still live without these instruments of healing. But what the future doctor does with directed energy devices tomorrow, you can do with your mind - today. Your mind is the greatest directed energy tool that exists on this planet.

By beginning to undestand what a virus is, and that it has a fundamental frequency, one can understand how your body and it's white blood cells create specific cells that match this frequency, cluster around the virus and disable it. And they add this fundamental frequency to their known database of baddies. Just like our anti-virus software does when it is updated.

ALL of mans' illnesses are only cured from within.

But that's enough data to digest. Too much new data and one gets indigestion and discards processing any of it.

SDAI-Tech1

PS. If you think a post like this didn't require free will in its creation, you must not be eating enough meat.

;-)

[Roger Emery]

I don't really go along with this lack of free will thing but it did have me thinking that it may be the answer to a problem I have been having.

I'm English and live in England but I have spent two years (up to last summer) in the U.S. studying for a degree. I haven't gone back and I'm undecided on what to do next. I love it in England and don't really want to leave but at the same time, I'm in a seemingly deadend job with my prospects looking about as good as Saddam's were a couple of days back (you might want to remove the Saddam bit or people will bitch again). I could go back to America and finish my degree but be pretty miserable for the next two years.

I have been worrying about this for months now but by the looks of it I don't get to make the decision anyway. So my question is - Is there any way of knowing what 'decision' I am going to make sooner rather than later? It would be nice not to think about it all the time.

I wanted this to be funnier but it's 11 o'clock over here so give me a bloody break.

[WCE]

When humans do too much of *anything* it's bad for their health. That includes exercise, taking vitamins, or even drinking water. That's no argument at all, not even "scientific".

Vegetarians have to go to extreme measures to replace the proteins that people who eat a normal amount of meat get in their diets without thinking/worrying about it. The scientific evidence is on the carnivores' side.

As for your "no free will" argument, you haven't learned enough physics to make an intelligent assessment of what physics indicates unless you've studied Quantum Mechanics (in college, preferably), because the brain's functions bridge the gap between macroscopic/Newtonian physics, which is deterministic, and Quantum Mechanics, which has randomness central to it's nature.

You need both deterministic processes at the macroscopic level and nondeterministic processes at the brain level in order to be responsible for your actions. Without determinism, you can't predict the consequences of your actions, and without nondeterminism, you would be constrained to think a specific way by the laws of physics.

BTW, If there is no Free Will, why are you a vegetarian and I'm not?

[rwc]

If you think humans aren't meant to eat meat then where do you obtain your B-12? Or more to the point, where would our ancestors have obtained it, if not from critters?

See:
http://www.vegsoc.org/info/b12.html

[Mike]

Scott, I'm curious, are you self-aware? I don't ask that with intention to insult. We either are self-aware or have the illusion of being so, however self-awareness can not ultimately be an illusion because something must be actually self aware to observe it.

Self awareness (consciousness if you will) can not be explained by science at this time, yet it does exist. It seems to me that whatever mechanism allows sufficiently complex meat machines to be self-aware will also allow them to have free will. It's not certain they are connected but it seems a reasonable assumption. Otherwise I see little reason why we should have the actuality of consciousness and an illusion of free will.

[Mr. Wampus]

To Elton:
Your post is one of the most rational, lucid and articulate responses to the vegetarian argument I have ever read! Bravo! I have absolutely nothing against people who choose to eat a vegetarian diet, but don't try to convince me that EVERYONE should do it.

I have a good friend who is what I refer to as a "militant vegan." He is on a personal mission to eliminate meat and all animal products from EVRYONE'S consumption, not just his own. I have a problem with that. Do whatever suits you personally, but don't try to dictate that everyone else has to do the same as you.

[Eileen]

The article was not logical.
Free will or not, the article was not logical.
How could it be that by knowing of Hitler's evil, based on some idea that he had no free will, anything could have been done about it.
For that, someone else would have had to have the free will to do something.

The next most stupid thing in the article was that reference to the Cretan philosopher.
It has always amazed me how people read some silly thing, and then repeat it, and it gets repeated again, and so many people buy it.
Stating that "all Cretans are liars" is not the same as stating that "All Cretans always lie". Therefore (free will or not) a Cretan can tell the truth sometimes, and still be a liar.

As far as my own free will goes, the illusion is good enough. If it is only an illusion there is nothing I can do about it anyway. If it is not, and I assume it is, I put myself at more risk than if it is, and I assume it is not.

[Jason Allen]

Humans evolved eating animal and insect protein. Many paleontologists agree that protein from meat and insects helped proto-human brains grow and evolve into what it is today. Our ancestors obtained the vitamin B12 the human body requires from animal meat long before we were able to obtain it from dairy sources. Being that as it may, we are omnivores, not carnivores. Paleontologists now believe that Cro-Magnon man (our immediate ancestors) ate more vegetables and far less meat than previously thought and no dairy. Some have developed what they call the "cave man diet" as an example of how we should eat today.

Yes, I believe we humans are designed to eat meat, just not the massive amounts we eat in the US today.

[Raph]

Humans are Omnivores, we can eat and survuve perfectly well off both meat and non meat diets however a balance is obviously healthy.

RE Free Will.

Say overnight Free will was accepted as being an illusion by the judicial system, and murder was not punishable as you had no control over it.
If that were to happen I would kill you (I'll work out a reason later) however as it stands I would go to jail if I killed you now.
Is it already written somewhere that I will knowingly premeditate your murder as soon as the Judicial system acknowledges free will is an illusion? If it is hard wired and I am destined to kill you through no choice of my own as soon as I see you what will happen when I dont kill you?

If theres an apple and an orange in front of you you can choose either, you can choose none.
If there was an experinment where there was a significant number of fruits in front of someone all different and someone picked what fruit you would take without telling you then that would sway me slightly, However there still remians a choice.
Say you had a computer program that if there were 1 different fruits lined up in front of me and the machine told you I would take a guava, I dont know what the machine says, and I do take one.
Interesting perhaps, but theres nothing to stop me taking a pineapple instead, If i were to magically go back in time and took the pineapple when the machine said I was going to take a guava what would happen then?

[Marc]

You're wrong about your counter argument. Humans are 'designed' to eat some meat. That's a biological fact (our teeth are omnivorious in design). All you're argument rules out is eating ridiculous quantities of meat. In addition you have no actual data on experiments on cardiac function in Lions, you can't say what 'true' carnivores do with any accuracy.

But don't let that stop you arguing the vegetarian cause.

Who cares what we were designed to do? That's completely irrelevant to modern day life. Just ask whoever you're arguing with when they last wore clothes or turned on their heating or used the telephone. Humans have moved a long way past the limits that nature set us, even in some matters of diet (vitamin tablets for instance).

If you can stay healthy whilst not causing animals to suffer then there need be no other justification vegetarianism.

Why cause suffering to any sentient lifeform when it is fundamentally unnecessary?

[Robert Gibson]

What you've failed to grasp is that meat is delicious. Whether or not the rest of my body is "designed" to survive on meat my taste buds [i]love[/i] it.

Hardened arteries, colesterol, blood pressure. These are all problems caused by long term exposure to meat (if I can put it that way) We're not "designed" to live that long no matter what you eat.

[Marvin]

Free will is not a scientific but a moral concept.
First let me clarify the difference. Consider this situation. You have a lot of resumes on your table and you physically cannot interview all the candidates. With all other things being equal would be morally justified not to invite black candidate to an interview because it is a scientific fact that blacks on average perform worse than whites for the kind of job you are hiring for. Scientifically you are right but morally you are very, very wrong.

Now to the free will and science. Consider a volume of gas. Each and every molecule in it behaves according to Newton laws (ignoring quantum effects for a moment). However it would be physically impossible to track each one's behavior by solving an immense multi-body equation. Even if you could build a vast Deep Thought computer to do it you will still be far from any solution because of your inability to specify initial conditions. Thus physicists have to (not choose to!) resort to statistical methods where each molecule is assumed to be free and equally likely to move in each direction.

Exactly the same applies to brain. We cannot ever (not now but ever!) hope to solve the equations that govern it and be able to specify initial conditions to a degree that would make it possible to predict any person's behavior. Therefore our best bet is statistical methods. Under these methods a person (molecule) operating in a society (gas) is assumed to behave freely to a certain extent. Note the certain extent. This is not the classical free will where anything is possible but more restricted version of it.

Now when we cross the line from science to morality it becomes impossible to rigorously specify the boundaries to the scientific free will above. Therefore morality postulates an unconstrained free will as a best approximation of it.

Note that all of this applies to a person in a society. Obviously if you put this person in a lab and control him tightly you can hope to predict his behavior exactly and the free will disappears. Exactly as when you manipulate a single molecule in a lab. This explains your puzzlement of where free will goes in any controlled experiment we care to conduct.

[Matt K]

Interesting comparison between beliefs about free will and beliefs about eating meat.

A number of times in the past you've said that convincing people that free will doesn't exist wouldn't change how they behave or think, because the illusion is so persistent, and that concepts of morality and justice would therefore survive. Frankly, that's a total cop-out.

You've clearly come to believe that you're better off not eating meat. And you've done something about it. That's what happens when somebody really, really believes something.

You've also come to believe that free will doesn't exist. Yet you claim that this belief has little effect on day to day actions and what you perceive as your (illusory) choices.

There are only two possibilities. Either you don't *really* believe that free will is false -- not enough to change your behaviour -- or you are programmed to behave in way that is contrary to your rational beliefs, i.e. you are programmed to behave irrationally and you can't do anything to overcome it. If the former, why should we take your argument seriously? And if the latter, well, why should we take anything you say seriously?

[chad]

Discussing free will is a waste of time.

If we do not have free will then we are not able to choose what we believe about free will.

If we can't choose what we believe about free will then discussing it will change no one's mind. (because we don't have the ability to change our minds)

Let's move on.

Chad

[tord]

I was getting worried that I was going to have to solve the problem of whether I had free will or not before I bought or did not buy the chocolate cake I've had my eye on since breakfast... luckily I read the following in the article you sent us to
"Our actions are determined, but so what? We still don’t know what they will be until the waiter brings the tray."
Ahhh... relief... now I can eat without worry... And, as a bonus, whenever Scott bangs on about free will I can stop trying to work it all out, stop the confusion (because I was convinced I had free will for a bit there) and say "my actions are determined"... Also comes in real handy when I'm looking at other women... "sorry honey", I can say to my wife "my actions are pre-determined by my biology and the laws of physics, and who am I to break the laws of physics?" I probably won't say this though because just in the nick of time whatever limited free will I might have will kick in and tell me to say nothing to my pregnant red headed wife. That way I get to live another day to see what I'm already destined to do...

[Karl H.]

This should prove interesting. I wonder just how far Scott Adams will go to defend his choice of diet, as it is obviously something he has thought about for a long time. Will the overwhelming scientific evidence that humans are omnivores, as dozens of readers have pointed out, make him concede that vegetarianism isn't the optimal choice, or will he stubbornly cling to his beliefs and write a blog titled "There are no omnivores"?

That said, if we don't have free will, vegetarianism at least has the benefit that it removes some of the unhealthy temptations of Western civilization, like bacon cheeseburgers. In that sense it could be a modern survival mechanism for the weak of character.

[FreeBert]

Scott,

You believe in gravity, right? You can test that it exists. But your friendly neighborhood physicist can’t tell you what it ‘is’. The particle guys think it’s a particle (graviton), the string theory guys think it’s a massive d-brane – that may not even exist in the same plane or d-brane that our universe resides on. Neither has been able to prove (or disprove) either theory (They each are going on a belief that they are right). This lack of knowing doesn’t stop your pen from falling off your desk and heading to the floor – or the earth from revolving around the sun. And by the way, this lack of ‘knowing’ extends to Strong Nuclear Force (SNF), Weak Nuclear Force (WNF), and Electro-Magnetism (EM) and Light. Wow, that’s a lot of not knowing. We know ‘what’ they do, we just don’t know ‘how’ they do it.

Summation: Just because you don’t know how something does what it does, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Just because you can explain what something does, doesn’t mean you know why or how it does it.

String Theory is taught in almost every major university in the world today. The particle guys point out that not a single theory of String Theory can be tested, making it a philosophy not a science. But String Theory looks so good up there on the white board, so much cool math – with 8, 10, 16, or 26 (or more) dimensions. As of right now not a single test can be done to prove any of it.

Summation: Just because you can’t test something exists right now doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Or that it’s right or wrong.

Stephen Hawking didn’t believe in black holes, he didn’t like the way the math went all nutty when you added black holes into the mix. Now, given overwhelming physical proof of black-holes, Steve has added them in – he’s even named the radiation that he believes that they emit after himself (Hawking Radiation) – that fixes all the math issues around the entropy issue that black holes create(on paper, I can't say that black holes actually do cause entropy issues).

Summation: Science and what scientists believe is constantly being adapted to fit with new data.

None of this proves or disproves Free Will, but I think it does prove you can’t put all your ‘faith’ in what science ‘knows’. Especially, cosmologists, physicists, and philosophers, who are all quoted in your sited article.

[Kaleun]

Actually, about the meat eating... while humans didn't evolve as carnivores, they did develop the ability to eat and digest meat, something that other primates cannot. Therefore, there must be some kind of advantage to it, and I can't think of any reasons why this would no longer be the case. Lions can't eat apples and antelopes can't eat meat. Humans, however, are designed to eat both!

[vampire333]

I hope that you know that soy shrinks your brain and your winkee.

[gr8hands]

Scott,

How can you read that article and think that it supports your opinion? Do you ignore everything else?

Let's recap your areas of expertise: cartooning, humor writing, and economics (although only at a basic level, since you don't have an advanced degree/training/experience as an economist).

I see that leaves out just about anything related to science and everything else. You have limited experience at everything else (and even the things you may have extensive experience doing, you may not do particularly well, just frequently).

So it is really not surprising that you don't understand "emergent phenomena" (simply that the principles which govern a single molecule of H2O are different from a single drop of water, and are different from a cloud, and are different from a whole global water system), evolution or free will.

What IS surprising, is that you've wasted a lot of time looking at articles in The Economist or New York Times rather than good books from world experts in these topics, which would enlighten you, explain the principles, and then you WOULD have more expertise/knowledge. However, it seems you don't want to do that.

Why not? Why fiercely defend a position about which it is clear you know so little? You've never told us why you came to believe in these opinions, even though we've asked again and again. Why not?

[Curious_Chul]

It also takes humans typically a lot longer to digest the meat, especially beef

[Sabrina]

Comparing humans to lions doesn't get your point across. Usually I agree with you, but on this point you're wrong. Humans are "designed" to be omnivores. Some vegatation, some meat. The inclusion of meat protein in our diet (especially fish protein) is probably the root of our well-developed brains. The reason comparing lions to us is useless is that cats are one of the few TRUE carnivores. Dogs, for example, are not true carnivores. Dogs can eat vegatation without becoming sick. Cats, on the other hand, need an extremely high proportion of meat protein to avoid nutritional deficiencies. Dogs are omnivores. People are omnivores.

[Father Freddie]

For me, the best supporting evidence that you have free will is the fact that you don't do what you're not supposed to do. When you see a woman with large breasts, your entire being screams out, "Touch them!" Yet you don't. If you don't have free will, you can't have self discipline.

So, just go do what you want.

[wilhelm2451]

I am glad you at least said you could be wrong about free will, as trying to prove something does not exist is even more difficult than trying to prove something you cannot define does exist.

I would gladly accept that free will is so uncommon as to be unlikely to be experienced by any given individual, but a blanket statement of "no free will ever" just cannot fly with what we know. (Or don't know.)

And we're omnivores. That's why you can get a salad at a steak house. (The too much meat thing is bad because we all sit on our butts too much.)

[d brown]

You could replace the free
will discussion with comments
about intuitive vs. analytic
types. example: intuitives
react poorly to criticism as
without a plan or logic
they always view criticism as
a personal attack. Hitler was
probably intuitive

[Bob]

To parody South Park logic....

Isn't the process described simply a bio-mechanical explanation for something that we call "free will"? Describing why somthing happens doesn't negate the fact of its occurrence. Decision-making is still occurring. There is a bio-chemical process by which this happens. It is "free" in the sense that no outside agent acts upon us to force us into a decision. The decision is purely internal, and thus "free", as in "free of outside influence."

I am reminding myself of the Anselm/Gratiano discussions about God, so I am going to stop now.

[ShirtBloke]

Scott says.....
You end up with phrases like “emergent properties,” which is another way of saying you hope someday you can describe what free will is, but right now you can’t even define it, much less test for it.

Now here I would have to disagree - people have been testing for free will for many years - only it's never been called that, which is why you've missed it.

Imagine this scenario....

You could spend this evening at home with a drink and watch a little of your favorite TV show. And perhaps have an early night with your significant other.

Or you could get into your car, drive to the nearest bar and get completely hammered - and then decide to drive home, with the attendant possibility of crashing your car head on into another, possibly wiping out three generations of a family on the way home from grandma's funeral.

You have the free will to do either of these.

And no outside observer can tell which of these you are going to do on any specific evening - people can be unpredictable even to their nearest and dearest.

But - and here's the interesting part - the insurance industry might not be able to tell what you as an individual are going to do at any given time, but they can sure tell what we as a society are going to do. They'll be able to tell you with extraordinary accuracy what percentage of the population will take the booze route and have the accident.

And they make these predictions about all manner of things and make a very nice living at it (the ultimate test of a scientific theory).

The upshot of this has to be that as individuals we do have free will, but as a society we don't.

This would also explain the result of every election that I've ever participated in.

Chew on that.

[rabbit]

There are many things that we require but will kill us in excess. Salt, most vitamins, certain minerals, and so on. Thus the argument that we react poorly to too much meat doesn't support the argument that we are not designed to eat it.

It may, however, support the argument that human beings are unintelligently designed.

[Bob Minor]

The NY Times also published an article a couple years or so ago by an "ethicist" at Princeton University [sorry, the name escapes me at the moment and I'm not destined to search for it now] who asserted that since newborn babies do not "really" have fully human characteristics for the first few months, then they are really not human: and that the parents should be allowed that little grace period to decide whether their little bundle of joy is allowed to live or be held down in the bathtub for ten minutes. Not relevant to the subjects, except to point out the kind of lunatic crap that can appear in the NY Times.

And of course we are designed to eat meat, that's why it sparks your appetite. I don't have a problem with my cat getting into the carrots. The smell of grass doesn't make me hungry. Steak, yes. Potatoes, yes. It's all good, man.

[Roger]

I'm sorry, I have to share my utterly irrelevent thoughts. I say irrelevent because Scott has come to his conclusions on this already and will just deflect any differing opinions. And you wonder why my generation is cynnical (I'm 31.)

Human beings, at leat the majority of us who are generally rational, have an internal cost/benefit (or pro/con) analysis system that lets us choose a path of behavior that we will hope leads to the most desired outcome. What can be described as free will is the fact that each and every human performs this analysis based on their own environment, experience, and certain immediately influencing factors-- such as mental health impairment for chemical/psychological reasons.

The outcome is what we call free will. I means each person's ultimate outcome is a cumulative effect of their own, and other peoples' decisions.

Scott, if you haven't already, read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig. It (and it's sequel) go into something called "the Metaphysics of Quality" from a philosophical angle. The base argument is: Quality undeniably exists. People can judge what "quality" is based on a general set of criterion, but the word "quality" canno be scientifically defined.

[Peter G.]

I got a link to this same article from a friend a few days and sent this reply:

Asking a philosopher about free will is like asking a climate scientist about global warming. Any answers will be entertaining and possibly motivating, but practically useless.

Of course we make our decisions of our own free will. And of course they're determined by our physical nature. What we decide is a consequence of what we are.

Who are these idiots who say we can only be responsible for our decisions if they were essentially the result of a mental coin flip?

Some of us still value the kind of person whose decisions are highly predictable: people who have strict moral standards. What kind of philosopher or scientist would say that these people don't deserve credit for their decisions? The corollary of this position is that someone who is rigorously immoral is also immune from criticism.

We're all free to develop our own standards; this is the process which is impossible to predict or control because it's recursive down to the level of quantum uncertainty. It's like a computer running an editor, compiler, simulator, and debugger on code that can modify itself AND the entire software tool chain in real time. Nothing with less complexity than a brain can model that brain's behavior even given perfect knowledge of the current state of the brain. Our brains can't predict their own behavior because they're too busy behaving.

As we grow up, our standards evolve; when that process slows down, our standards become stable, our decisions become predictable, and we call it "maturity." This doesn't mean our decisions aren't the result of "free will." Of course they are. If we discover our standards don't fit with each other or with observed reality, we can change them, and our pattern of decision-making will also change.

It doesn't surprise me that a whole NY Times article full of "physicists, neuroscientists and computer scientists" can't figure this out. It seems like all of the people mentioned in this article have been educated to the point that they can no longer think clearly. I will say that Dr. Dennett gets partial credit; he seems to want to come to the right conclusion, but alas, he apparently has no idea how to get there.

I read an interesting and very well-written science-fiction novel over the holidays, "Blindsight" by Peter Watts, in which he explores (among others) the idea that consciousness is an impediment to rational thinking-- that this whole business of self-awareness is an evolutionary dead end. If I spent all my time listening to the NY Times' idea of intellectualism, I'd probably believe that free will is an illusion and we'd be better off if we let go of it. Instead I prefer the other sf tradition in which humans always defeat the Borg because unpredictable self-awareness is more powerful than any deterministic machine intelligence.

And that's probably why I live in Silicon Valley instead of New York City, so that I can be surrounded by flexible, unpredictable, and very creative people.

. png

[Samiam]

Personally, I much prefer "moist robot" to "meat machine."

[Doug]

Stop yourself. Seriously.

I'm wonder if you're trying some sort of Pavlovian test on us.

[bubba]

In evolutionary terms, we benefited from eating meat. More protein and fat mean more energy for bigger brains.

Note that Chimpanzees hunt and eat monkeys.

We have access to far more meat than our ancestors. We have better options for vegetarian sustenance.

So, the correct answer is unlikely to be: eat as much meat as you can. It is also unlikely to be: eat no meat.

[eric]

I came here to make comments about eating meat, but found that many people had already made those comments, including mollishka. mollishka, however, stated that humans need to eat meat because the need the energy to run from wolves. This is patently wrong. Healthy wolves living in healthy environments have never attacked people. Wolves are more likely to run away from a person than even let themselves be seen. While I agree with mollishka about eating meat, I wish people would stop spreading FUD about wolves.

Wolves, however, do highlight what it means to be a carnivore, omnivore, or herbivore. Horses, giraffes, and moose are herbivores, and not only have the teeth but the enzymes and digestive tract of true herbivores. Cats have the teeth, enzymes, and digestive tract of carnivores. Wolves are opportunistic carnivores, so do not have the ability to digest things like grains very well, but do eat and need things like berries and greens. People are more like bears in our physiognomy, and they eat just about anything. The only animal I can think of that will eat more than a bear is a goat. Goats eat aluminum cans! So where do they fit?

[luke]

My little jury is still out on the existence of free will, but the difficulty in defining it doesn't help the argument that much - try to find a definition of 'intelligence' that everyone agrees on.

And eat whatever the hell you like.

[Florin]

Ever since I started reading your blog I began to doubt the whole free will concept. The more I read about it, the fuzzier it gets. So I can't but agree with you on this subject, more and more...

[Zoran Tašin]

I think completely as Scott regarding free will. I am suprised to even learn about a man who thinks like that. I thought it's very rare clear thinking. But something won't let me give in to the negation of the free will. In that sense, I recommend Fyodor Dostoevsky's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dostojevski) book called Notes from Underground or Letters from the Underworld. This short book doesn't deal with the dilemma is there or isn't there a free will. It accepts that there is no free will and then tries to prove it is wrong from the outcome of that belief. Like Nietzsche himself wrote that book.

bye

[Frank]

My brother-in-law claims to be a vegetarian. The last time he came over we had steaks and ribs on the bbq. He stuffed his face all day. I think that proves that a vegetarian is someone who doesn't BUY meat.

[yay!]

Because science has never been wrong... not ever. I think between "science" and the catholic church, there has never been more confusion brough into this world.

[Paul Davis]

Here is something for you regarding free will. I read it and right away thought of you. Hmmm...

http://blog.wired.com/biotech/2007/01/braindamaged_gi.html

[Snips]

All this is about as meaningful as 10,000 bunnies. Interpret that as you will...

[SteveOH]

You say humans are not designed to be carnivourous, however there are a number of indicators that revoke your hypothesis:

1. We have canines, herbavours do not.
2. We have the forward facing eyes of a predator, not prey.
3. Our appendix is much smaller than that of herbivores of a similar size.
4. Our closest animal relative, the chimpanzee also eats meat on occasion. They hunt monkeys and some have been documented to have cannibalistic tendencies.

You see, I have no choice but to eat meat. I've been designed to do so. It seems to me you have developed free will and chosen not to. Well done.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seem to me that it should be fairly easy to prove free will.

Set up a simple on-line voting with 2 options, say 2 green buttons - let users over the course of a day select one or the other without any other explanation than "press one" ...

My unless theory is that is the distribution will be roughly 50%, prooving that there is free will.
- Unless a deity has intervened and messed up the result.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seem to me that it should be fairly easy to prove free will.

Set up a simple on-line voting with 2 options, say 2 green buttons - let users over the course of a day select one or the other without any other explanation than "press one" ...

My unless theory is that is the distribution will be roughly 50%, prooving that there is free will.
- Unless a deity has intervened and messed up the result.

[Andy Badeaux]

Free Will as a concept was invented, I suspect, to justify someone's religious view that God exists. With a theoretically benevolent God, good and evil are meaningful concepts only if we are free to choose whether or not to follow the rules. So, in my opinion, free will, like other unprovable ideas, should be left on the scrap heap of history.

[Gary]

To Ron Hardin: "Rude" is indeed a fuzzy concept! See http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2006/12/frack_1.html

More fuzzy concepts: countries (hence war), human beings (hence pro/anti-abortion), and hockey goals.

[Ax]

Funny thing, when you point out that you "don’t think free will even qualifies as a hypothesis because it can’t be described in any logically coherent way. You end up with phrases like “emergent properties,” which is another way of saying you hope someday you can describe what free will is, but right now you can’t even define it, much less test for it." I immediately thought of the problem of intelligence.

I've had a number of philosophical discussions on the nature of intelligence and human capability to build artificial intelligences. The fundamental problem always seems to boil down to our inability to define intelligence. We seem to have ideas of intelligent behavior (self-preservation, hunting, group organization, etc) and can model and build devices to mimic these behaviors but there seems to be a strange undefined gap that needs leaping to qualify a machine as intelligent.

Working from your previous thought-experiment of the baby-sitting robot with simulated free-will, I wonder if a machine is built that exhibits all behaviors of an intelligent creature, is that machine intelligent? And if such a machine already existed and it is us, are we intelligent creatures? Or simply moist robots?

I put it to you that intelligence is no more a reality than free will and apologize to the rest of your readers if this point has been made in previous posts I never read.

[Chris Greiner]

Scott there are two extremes that you are looking at here one is that of if man is a true carnivore capable of digesting mass quantities of fat, protein, and various of substances or a true herbavore and able to eat larges amounts of carbahydrates and cellulose(plant fiber). In reality we are both not being able to live on either or alone without modifications to our lifestyle or use of dietary substances. A man can survive however on meat alot easier than vegitables. A person can survive on meat alone as long as he exercises enough to burn all of the calories that he is ingesting and he doesn't just eat lean meat and does't avoid the organs. With vegitables you have to know which plants are high in protein and the essential nutrients needed. Yet scientfically speaking the only reason humans started to eat both is to increase the the range of food to increase calorie intake. Oh and about the sharp teeth for tearing meat well also have the crushers for vegitables.

p.s. I enjoy the free will stuff and believe in it entirely.

[Neil]

Humans are omnivores as many have pointed out - we're more like hairless bears than anything else - we have canines and incisors but also molars rather than carnassals.

We have forward facing eyes, good for getting the next hold in a tree but also a prerequisite for a hunter

We can eat and digest meat.

We are not designed to live solely off meat, our teeth show that we need our greens too, but from an evolutionary perspective we only need to ensure that our progeny make it to adulthood. If we bred when we were physiologically capable - early teens - then living to 30 is just fine.

Whatever we are, we're not vegetarians. Unless we use our big brains to overcome our physiology.

[Larry Stickletodd]

Humans are NOT carnivores, they are omnivores. Why Vegetarians, who are ALSO omnivores, insist that everyone except them are carnivores is beyond me. As far is free will goes, will is free, so there is free will. What you do with it is your business.

[mike wellington]

Is it me or is today especially bad for dumb comments?

Couple of my favourites:

"I believe in free will, even if there is zero evidence for it." - great argument, are you a creationist?

"I am a large mammal" - wow, you must be the first whale to post here!

You need to introduce some kind of test before people (and whales) can post.

Sorry to be so facetious but some people....

[Armando Esteban]

Please keep writing on free will.

[rei]

You don't get it do you.

We don't want to hear about it. It's like being reminded every time we look at your blog that humans excrete nasty smelling bowel roughly once a day.

Yes it's science. Yes it's inevitable. No we don't care to hear it, no matter how much it proves how much of a rationalist you are.

I don't know if you're the type to care or not, but you're losing audience. Same way you don't like watching depressing movies.

Come on man, talk about fun stuff!

[Ben]

Sorry Scott, but "Meat Machine" has a better ring to it than "Moist robots"...

[pauli]

Why everone arguing over this? Of course the Killer Whale should be let go.

[Robby]

Humans are carnivores? What idiot says that? Humans have both sharp and flattened teeth. We cannot eat too much meat without problems, but only a few plants contain all of the amino acids we need to live. Obviously, if humans are designed for anything, it is for being omnivorous, eating both vegetables and meat.

[Big Al]

Are the people who wrote "you choose to post this therefore you have free-will" retarded!!!

Whether or not you beleive you have free-will, that argument displays just how much you (don't) pay attention to any of the arguments!!

[Larry]

Since you don't believe in free will, do you believe in fate?

[Playtah]

Scott,
You are gradually winning me over with the free-will thing. Once I got past my knee-jerk reaction and actually thought about it, it's starting to make sense.

About the meat thing...do you think our sense of convenience can override our design? After all, whether we were designed to eat meat or not, it's just plain easier to shoot something than to watch it grow. Perhaps convenience leads to adaptation which leads to design override.

Yes? No?

--Playtah

[Big Al]

In response to your meat thingy...

Maybe we cant eat as much meat as true carnivores is because we're NOT true carnivores! nor are we herbivores. We are omnivores who can only eat/drink limited amounts anything including meat or even water. Our bodies are not designed solely for meat, but that doesn't mean that we're not designed for meat at all.

[John]

You don't have to be a scientist to acknowledge the existence of flirting, but can you really define exactly what it is? You certainly can't test for flirting, at least I can't since I can never tell how a girl feels about me.

I don't mind when you talk about free will. It's interesting.

[Todd]

I know the article went into the status of moral and ethical systems if free will was completely disproven, however I still don't see how we can hold anybody accountable for anything if we deny the existence of free will. I don't think the article did a good enough job of explaining this. Furthermore, for that guy to say "wouldn't it be nice if we could prevent someone like Hitler from coming to power before he did?" or something like that, he seems to be endorsing a version of free will in that human beings can change patterns of behavior or prevent the past from repeating itself. If humans have no control over their own actions, that torpedoes the foundation of every legal system and the very existence of law, order, ethics, and morality. They simply would not exist. So basically, what we're saying here is that if free will is an illusion, human civilization and thought(the idea of community, good, bad, etc.) is based on a lie.
Perhaps the definition of free will as it now stands needs something of a tweak in light of scientific advances (although scientific "fact" is being disproven and redefined constantly, so any of these studies could be rendered obsolete or false in the future for all we know). This even seems logical to me; can we really expect a bunch of ancient philosophers to correctly define something like free will without any medical training or knowledge of psychology?
And, just because I know it'll piss some people off, mentioning that the unconscious decides on an action before the conscious, coupled with the ever-increasing realization of the complexity of the physiology and psychology of man, actually promotes my faith in God and the existence of the soul.
And hey, if I'm completely wrong about all this, Pascal's wager still seems like the best way to go, in my opinion.

[Jake]

Free will,indeed. I'm forced to eat pseudo meat every time the family passes a MacDonalds on the highway.

In Norway, where they eat whale, it's called "Free Willy"

[TheSavageBeast]

From the article:
"Dr. Libet said his results left room for a limited version of free will in the form of a veto power over what we sense ourselves doing. In effect, the unconscious brain proposes and the mind disposes."

So, maybe, the truth of the matter is that free will doesn't exist per se, but "free won't" does exist!

[Mean Joe]

I read comments in a previous post that proved to my satisfaction that Scott Adams does believe in free will even with the 'must defy the laws of physics' definition he applies to it.

Scott Adams is therefore trying to yank our collective chains and is no doubt laughing his ass off watching the monkeys jump through hoops

Sorry Scotty this monkey ain't jumping. You believe in free will. The End.

[Jon G]

Godbert - What is the difference between free will and the illusion of free will? We do have the illusion of free will. That is beyond question, surely.

So unless you think you can overcome that illusion, and just switch off your mind 24 hours a day and let nature take its predetermined course, what is the difference?

Unless you think free will is a soul or spirit, what is the difference?

What about the randomisation caused by the massive complexity of the brain? If my next action is caused by physical workings so complex as to be unpredictable by any known means, is this not the same as free will?

I believe I have free will, because I am forced to believe it! I cannot choose not to choose.

I am not playing with words, this seems obvious and logical to me.

Jon G

[Eat Me]

Can't beat the logic below, quoted from OverheardinNewYork.com:

-------------------------------------
Girl #1: So, you're a vegetarian?
Girl #2: Yep. Eating animals kills.
Girl #1: Wait, but you had sushi the other night.
Girl #2: Fish doesn't count. It's, like, not an animal.
Girl #1: Huh? Yeah, it is. It, like, breathes and stuff.
Girl #2: But it's underwater.
Girl #1: No, it's an animal, 'cause it moves around and swims.
Girl #2: Then how come I can eat it?
--------------------------------

[Graham Robinson]

There is a third option in the "carnivore" or "herbivore" debate - "omnivore", which is quite obviously what we are. No land mammal is a pure carnivore (cats come closest, but still require small amounts of vegetation). Many are omnivores - including all primates, dogs, bears, rodents, etc. Even "herbivores" like deer and cattle will eat meat or bone, primarily for the mineral content.

Other science is also very strong for us "needing" to eat *some* meat. Simply put, there are some proteins that are very hard to find in vegetables, but plentiful in meat. Soy is an exception to this, but wouldn't have been part of the diet of early man. Missing those proteins isn't a major problem for an adult, but for growing children is disasterous.

As for free will, there is *no* science that provides any convincing evidence either way. To disprove the existence of free will you'd need a deterministic algorithm to determine any given decision. Quantum mechanics and chaos theory can only show a highly non-determinite universe - quantum events are observably random, and chaos theory states that multiple minor differences in microscopic observations compound to produce more random macroscopic observations. Current science theory is *entirely* consistent with free will, but that proves nothing...

**You end up with phrases like “emergent properties,” which is another way of saying you hope someday you can describe what free will is, but right now you can’t even define it, much less test for it.**

So you don't know what "emergent properties" means. Perhaps you should look up these phrases before dismissing the arguments that use them? Temperature can be tested for, defined, described, theorised about, etc. but it is still an emergent property of a system - in this case emerging from the average kinetic energy of the molecules within the system.

Another emergent property which we know exists is self. Free will could be defined as "I chose". But you'll struggle to find the "I" in the jumble of neurons in the average brain. Yet undoubtedly "I" exists, as proven by Descartes...

If "self" can emerge, why not "free will"?

Cheers,
Graham

[Gutta Gogh]

I propose that Congress should end the debate entirely, by imposing a tax on making a decision. There...no more free will!

Of course large corporations and charitable organizations would be exempt.

[Phillip J. Eby]

Actually, it's not the meat that kills you, it's the *cooking* it that kills you. It breaks down the meat fats in unhealthy ways, burns away important nutrients like creatine, and dries up enzymes needed for digestion. I personally used to find meat heavy and hard to digest, until I started eating it raw. Seriously. It's also much tastier that way - it tastes just like meat, only better.

By the way, most people think monkeys are primarily vegetarian, but in fact quite a few monkey species actually hunt other animals, including other species of monkeys!

And seriously, do you really think human beings waited until they had *fire* to start eating meat? The fire's just to warm it back up to a tasty temperature! Cold raw meat doesn't taste as good as warming it to that freshly-killed temperature.

(Yes, I really am serious; I've been eating raw meats for years now, and my health improved significantly compared to before; my total lean body mass now exceeds my previous lean+fat total, and I'm faster and stronger now as a 38-year old than I was as an 18-year old.)

In general, the evolutionary science weighs heavily towards the idea that we are human beings precisely *because* we evolved to eat meat. The major differences between us and other primates are *hunting* adaptations: we walk upright, have less fur, and sweat more than other apes.

These make us long-distance runners who can hunt in the midday sun, unlike virtually any other animal. Our ability to speak probably evolved to assist co-ordinated hunting behavior: "I'll chase it over there, you smack it in the head with a rock". We have greater endurance, as we are literally marathon runners: a human being can run almost any other animal to exhaustion, and still have enough energy left over to crack the exhausted animal's head with a rock!

And you don't think we needed to evolve these complex brains just to eat vegetables, do you? As far as we can tell, other apes -- even the ones who can be taught to use sign language -- have no sense of time or sequence or *plot*. Humans seem unique among the apes in being able to tell stories, especially about other animals. This is a critical hunting skill, the way humans hunt. We are the animal kingdom's best trackers, believe it or not. Even just using our natural senses, without any other technology. We have distance vision, fine detail vision, and even *color* vision, and we can deduce clues from these senses that other animals can't. We are in fact the supreme hunters of the animal kingdom, and that surely didn't happen by accident.

But enough about diet; have you checked out the Free Will Theorem?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_theorem
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0604079

It claims to prove that if humans have free will, then so do subatomic particles. The paper's authors, however, seem to think that this proves the universe has free will, instead of grasping the obvious conclusion that it means humans *don't* have free will. :)

[Paul]

Too many veggies can harm us too!
From the begining I suppose meat was and is harder to get than veggies. You could get killed or mamned finding meat on the hoof. Picking berries is prety harmless.......just a thought.

[Billy B]

Give it up, Scott. Jails everywhere are full of people that believe in freewill. Hell, they are out fighting wars also. We are surrounded by fucking idiots.
Billy B

[bro_100]

Animals that eat only vegetation are "designed" to be eaten by those who eat meat.

Think about that the next time you pass a crowded steak house, vegiboy.

[Jeff Asselin]

Free will can very simply be defined as a choice made by a being that cannot be predicted by the laws of nature. It can be extended as saying that the complete state of the Universe cannot be predicted at an arbitrary point involving such a being from knowing the laws of nature and the initial starting conditions of the Universe.

Or, in other words, is the Universe reducible to a calculation that can be made within its boundaries (spatial and temporal)?

Or, if you prefer, is the Universe so complex that no model of the Universe can successfully predict it that can run into a computer of a size less than the Universe itself for a length of time shorter than the duration of the Universe?

If any of the above are correct (and I'm not alone in believing that the uncertainty principle and Godel's theorem guarantee this), then the possibility of free will exists.

Whether or not it can be said that human beings have such a thing is another question, but the existence of quantum-level processes in our body pretty much ascertains it in my opinion (i.e. us being a part of the Universe makes it that we cannot be predicted, and thus we have free will).

Note: your lack of understanding or knowledge of the principles in my post or other principles, terms or ideas that are bound to arise in such a discussion doesn't make those arguments irrelevant, it simply shows your ignorance or stupidity.

[Steve]

Glad you brought it back up since I didn't get to comment on your previous challenge. That is, show me a guy that can talk after a doctor messes with the speech center of his brain.

It isn't a perfect analogy, but what about you? You had a disorder that affected your speech. In certain circumstances your brain literally didn't let you talk. But you overcame it by tricking your own brain. It seems to me you overcame a biological barrier by force of will.

Of course, maybe you are the only one that has free will!

Now-Acknowledge you are wrong!!!!!

[David Justiniano]

How can i trust the comments of a man who claims he has no opinion but the one imposed on him by random natural order? If we have no free will, my urge call all these arguments insane has as much validity as any other opinion.

[Florin]

gr8hands

Atkins died at the age of 72 and his medical records show a history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension.

I wouldn't take that as a role model :-)

[Adrian D.]

Here's a thought for you Scott. It has also been debated whether randomness exists. Sure; there are things that *look* random; but many of them (e.g. the throw of dice) can be predicted with sufficient information.

Incidentally, the molten chocolate example has a problem. No one ever said that free will was perfect in effect. To use an analogy, just because the brake pedal doesn't work in a particular car doesn't mean that brake pedals don't exist.

[Fuzznsmoo]

What we are clearly designed for is the ability to exploit whatever food source is available for our survival. Being an omnivore provides for tremendous flexibility. It was interesting to read how recently we adapted to drinking milk, which explains why there are so many that are lactose intolerant.

[Florin]

You couldn't help throwing in a couple vegetarian arguments either, could you?

Ok, I fully agree to the "too much meat" problem. But how about "too little meat"? If we are fair, we need to look at it from this perspective as well, so don't ignore it!

I have a relatively simplistic view over meat-eater vs. vegetarian debate. I look at nature. Herbivores live longer, but are stupid. Carnivores have shorter lives, but are more intelligent and are usually at the top of the food-chain :-) I think I read somewhere that there is a connection between humans' meat-eating and their evolution to being the most advanced species on the planet.

I will always follow the words of my wife's uncle Louie, who is 92 years old and kicking (dancing the hula and such): ENJOY EVERYTHING IN MODERATION. That's the secret, that's the recipe.

Sorry Babe, time to go turn you into a juicy steak...

[Gene H]

Actually, on the diet point, I recently read a book on the "paleo diet," which suggests that humans at least until fairly recently ate mostly meat and fruits and some vegetables. The diet-related health problems began when we began eating things that were otherwise inedible, by processing our food (such as making bread from wheat). The book also says that things like potatoes and legumes, in their raw form, are toxic, which is why they were not part of the human diet for the first several thousand years. Those processed foods (wheat, potatoes, legumes, refined sugar), when combined with meat and veggies, are what cause the artery-clogged, fat bastards we have walking around today.

Also, the sedentary lifestyle was not something our paleolithic ancestors were used to.

I found this to be an interesting theory, but I can't figure out what it's going to take to get me to try the diet. The fact that I look like a diabetic walrus has thus far failed to motivate me.

[Marco]

Well, there you go with your either-or categories again. There's herbivores and carnivores, of course, but there are also omnivores, who don't have the infinite meat-eating capacity of carnivores and could in fact live healthy lives on a strictly vegetarian diet, but also do well (better in fact) with a mixed meat-veggie one. It is generally agreed that humans fit this category.

I'm not sure how this affects your free will argument though.

[Terry Murphy]

Mr Adams - and for the second time

You have stated your belief in Affirmations -

Affirmations is a process by which, without direct intervention in the causal chain, an expressed desire changes reality.

Before a desire can be expressed it must be thought

By your definition 'Free Will' can only exist if it can be demonstrated that a thought can, without direct intervention in the causal chain, change reality

Ergo by your own admission you believe in free will

QED.

And as long as I am repeating myself I ask again if a steak, that is a genuine animal protein steak, could be produced by cloning in the same way it is hoped individual organs can be cloned for transplant - would you eat the steak. [Assume it is lean and modified to be healthy if you wish]

[EB]

1. Tomorrow I will have to make a thousand decisions, any of which can lead to consequences varying from horrible to wonderful...

2. The whole debate seems silly until science nails down where the "me" is in our bodies...the ethereal or spirit...or conscience. Good luck with that, too.

3. Sort of a sad philosophy to 'believe in'...which without proof...is no better than any other unproven concept taken on faith...

4. This whole topic peaked about a year ago...this is my first and last comment on the subject...let it go, please [pointless asking I suppose]

5. Will the "I get it, thus I'm smarter than you" types give it a rest??? Your beliefs are just that...beliefs.

6. Science has become the bastard soapbox for the 21st century

7. And I don’t know if soapbox is one word or two…

[Bill]

There are exactly zero tribes of pure vegetarian hunter-gatherers. And the average cholesterol level of hunter-gatherers is about 120, with great ratios. It is true that the worst hunter-gatherer average is the Eskimo, since they eat nothing but meat.

Humans evolved to eat a varied diet of fruits, nuts, greens, insects, fish, and antelope.

BTW, how veggie are you? Do you eat insects (or the equivalent, like lobster)?

[captain pickhardio]

Yeah Scott,

I say do away with all the superstitious cro-mags that believe in such poppycock as freewill, and god. We should round em all up and deprogram them in some kind of thought experiment, perhaps some kind of laboratory.

oh wait, someone already said that-

[Scott2]

Human beings are omnivores hence we have teeth for both plants and meat.
Free Will is a philosophical concept, you attempt to argue with it in scientific terms. Mutually exclusive arguments on either sides come to no answers.
As any true scientist will tell you, scientific knowledge is imperfect and always growing and improving. The definition and validity of free will as a conceptual variable is subjuect to interpretation solely on subjective reaction.
Someone who believes it has to be proved by science will therefore believe it is unprovable and therefore to be questioned, others taking it further and saying as it is unprovable it is disproven which is somewhat unscientific. Be skeptical not cynical.
Others will feel there are forms of knowledge science cannot yet touch and for them the scientific studies will be too incomplete to have validity.
A third group will put Free Will purely as a matter of belief. Arguing on believe is about as productive as smacking yourself in the head with a frying pan to make the ringing stop.

Saying that true will does not form a hypothesis is actually more damaging to your side of the argumen, as free will is not intented to have a hypothesis. The particular hypothesis some testers may come up with are specific attempts are proving a specific defintion that they have established. So both attempts to define free will as well as prove or disprove it. In science you can only disprove one version of an diea, at a time.

I don't care either way which someone believes, I just don't like seeing bad arguments.

[DanW]

The poeople making the point that, evolutionarily speaking, what happens in our 40s and 50s is moot, are not taking this line of reasoning far enough.

Civilization itself is a retardant to evolution. People who would in the normal course of events die at an early age and never reproduce, are surviving and reproducing. And passing on their faulty genes to the next generation. I know, I'm one of them. Generally speaking I'm very healthy, but my asthma & sinus issues being severe enough that had I been born 100 years ago, I'd probably be dead now. (That didn't come out quite right but you know what I mean.)

Instead, I have two young children, one of whom I'm sorry to say appears to have inherited all of my more fragile attributes. And the medical costs associated with my son are 10 times those of my daughter, even though I'm thrilled to even have the chance to spend that money.

And while this is a great thing for the individual, what is the impact on our viability as a species? I suspect that over time humans will become more and more fragile as medicine learns to cope better and better with health issues. At some point, though, the cost of doing this will exceed the capacity of society to support it. Heck, this is already the case in most of the world, even in parts of the first world.

[Corey Jason Feldman]

I think it is amusing you mentioned vegetarianism, also in an indirect way, I see a connection. I say indirect, because they both seem to fall into your world view. While I do not know you, and it could certainly be a function of your humor; the world you present is very black and white. We have evolved to eat a variety of foods, meat included. The deleterious effects of large quantities of meat does not mean we were not meant to eat meat, we may simply not be designed to eat prodigious quantities. Alcohol can be looked at in a similar way. There is a good deal of evidence of the benefit of small amounts of alcohol on our diet. Non human primates have even been shown to hike miles out of there typical area to occasionally imbibe in some fermented fruit. But as in many things, it does not take much to drown the benefits in excess. Freewill can be the same. Predetermination of certain behaviors does not mean all actions are predetermined. A square is a rectangle, but not all rectangles are squares. The fact that certain behaviors are influenced and shaped by unconscious processes and an assortment of genetic influences does not mean that behavior is predetermined or even predisposed. Predisposition is not equal to predetermination and one behavior does not equate to all behaviors. It is a logical flaw to assume that because some behaviors are predetermined, that all behaviors are as well. I agree that using phrases such as emergent properties is tantamount to saying, there is something out there, but we quite can’t define it. That is a normal function of trying to figure out the world around us. Maybe Consciousness/freewill is Dark Matter. Does it exist, maybe, can we define, no. Physics use Dark Matter and Dark Energy as a place holder, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something out there, it just means we haven’t quite figured out all the questions the ask, and even that is working on the assumption that the human mind can grasp the right questions to ask. The same thing is true with freewill. Right now we know too little about the human mind for science to back either theory, it is all just faith of one form or another.

[harry lime]

Another way to look at this whole "free will" thing (I'm not reading through hundreds of comments on the numerous posts to see if this has already been mentioned) is as basically a theory of the gaps. It seems that everyone at least roughly agrees that free will is the capability of choice making. Humans seem to be able to make choices, though that may just be to neuron firing patterns governed by physics.

However, it's also clear that we don't understand this *at all*. Yes, there's some science being done, but basically this seems to be not much better than "Oooh look, when I cause these people pain, the fMRI is bright over here."

So, we just call the whole thing "free will" and we're done with it.

How does gravity work? Are there waves, or particles, or some kind of anti-matter Star Trek crap? Mankind has no idea. We observe that, "Oooh, things fall toward other things", and more mass implies more gravity. We just call the whole thing "gravity" and we're done with it.

Maybe someday we'll know more. Maybe not.

I also can't help pointing out that "Intelligent Design" is largely a theory of the gaps. I choose not to comment freely.

[Bill]

Blah, blah, blah...

According to the article it depends on how you define "free will" as to whether you have it or not. Give it a rest.

[Norman Dicks]

Free will, or not, I will still have to go to work 5 days a week. I loke your blog, and you have a very intersting way of looking at things. Right or Wrong, I find it fascinating. keep up the good work (as if you wouldn't, had I not wrote that).

norm

[Simon]

It's nearly a surrreal experience to see, in my RSS reader, the Dilbert blog followed immediately by the Dilbert cartoon every day. It normally lends an entirely different perspective to the day's cartoon. Neat.

[Josh O]

Did you just admit that you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to convince people that something you can't define doesn't exist? If you yourself can't define it, then what are you trying to disprove. These arguments seem to keep distilling to "it doesn't matter either way."

Free Will's necessity depends upon its very existence. If it doesn't exist, it doesn't matter that it doesn't (There's no "person" for it to matter too.) If it does, then it's a good thing it does, I guess.

Incidentally, most primates seem to be omnivorous, and I don't think they decided to do that, nature did. And when we evolved to eat meat, we didn't have unlimited access to it, as we do now, therefore it wasn't necessary to evolve to withstand it's other effects, as intake was limited by scarcity. And lions live 10-14 years, so it sounds like that all meat diet isn't working out too well for them either.

[Don Chivali]

http://sentientdevelopments.blogspot.com/2006/10/does-brain-tap-into-future.html

What if the mind was able to see into the future and base it's choices on post-choice information collected by the brain? Would this, in your view, lend any credence to the idea of free will?

[car free since '93]

Gr8hands, You clearly misstated what your article said when you indicated that there are no centenarian vegetarians. Reread it. Of the 400 centenarians involved in the study, there were no vegetarians.

I see a life in politics ahead for you, my friend.

CFS '93

[Memphis Mobile]

We have Will but it is not Free - there is a price to pay - count the cost in Illusion and Delusion - don't buy Will - remain Free.

[Jez]

Chris Tann,

For your records, I am the most agnostic of eight siblings from a Jewish and vegetarian household. My Catholic neighbours eat meat and have a paltry six offspring. Next door to them, a couple one of whom is atheist and the other Church of England I think, and they eat meat and have a completely negligible two children. All the parents I have mentioned are now past child-bearing. Let us know if you find these results repeated elsewhere.

[Chris]

Scott, after reading a lot of the replies, I agree with you to a certain extent on your complaints in the free will discussion, especially since it's clear that many of the respondents either didn't read what you've written before, or are just not capable of understanding it, especially the "randomness is not free will" aspect.

Personally, I still think you're playing a long, drawn-out semantic game, by so carefully never saying that your definition of "free will" is simply "supernatural influence," in an effort to get the religious folks to commit before they get verbally squished. But semantic games can be fun, so that's OK.

Here's an angle I haven't seen you address before: with all your claims that science opposes the concept of unmeasurable influences on the perfectly measurable electrochemical processes of the brain, how do you reconcile that with the fact that these same scientists are ABSOLUTELY convinced that 97% or so of the universe is made up of "dark matter/energy," which is:

1) undetectable by any test, real or imagined
2) unmeasurable on any scale, real or imagined
3) but obviously a rational, correct belief

I don't see how science can unilaterally dismiss free will as "supernatural" and unilaterally accept dark matter--and I'm not talking about "well, they expect to solve that down the road." Right now, at this moment, dark matter is an absolute figment of the imagination, yet accepted as reasonable fact, just because "rational" scientists think something ought to be there.

Here's a stupid, and unrelated, thought: You've dismissed quantum uncertainty as evidence of free will because it's a source of randomness, and randomness doesn't indicate free will. What if free will is the mathematical explanation for the observation necessary for quantum events to occur? Hell, what if they're not really random?

[David Wilson]

Hmmm...so...you couldn't help stopping yourself from eating meat? The great chain of inevitability determined long ago that the guy who wrote that article would have chocolate, and you would not eat meat? It seems to me that in the very act of trying to decide if you have free will or not, you've exerted some form of same in stopping your inevitable forward lunging toward vegetables to consider whether you had to do it or not...??

[Michal MAlkowski]

Hm... Strange.
IMHO, what you write about free will is comlete rubbish... Altought not becouse I feel diffrently. It's becouse, you base many of your hypotesis on absolutelly nothing.

Our languages are simple. Altought, we can name something as ljsjl, connect bunch of other words(meanings) to it, and it works as a shortcut.
So, when discussing ANYTHING, we have to clarify, what do we mean by XKJJK.

As I see, you connectet "FREE WILL" with:
- magical babble
- something mistical
- not basing on any input while making decissions
- fuck the system
- not believing in theory of chaos

Actually, I beg you. Write for ONCE in your post... what do you mean by concept of free will. You deny it exists, but what do you think it is (would be)?

Becouse I link it with:
- basing decissions on multiple types of input
- complexity, ability to adjust
- making decissions that may damage us

So basicly, it's like a robot you described some time ago. Altough, x100000000, and IMO gap like this deserves some other term. So let's leave it with "programmable" for robots, and "free will" for humans.

You know, some Africans would say, that singing sucks. That's not becouse Britney came to jungle, but becouse it's the same word as "work", since they link those two activities.
If you don't explain what you mean, don't expect people will understand you.

BTW - I'm sorry, but built with flesh, we depend on flesh. Input changes us, so we depend on input. What should we think with, and base on what if not on those two?

[Jimbo]

The free will argument smells suspiciously like the existence of god argument.

[Randy]

Interesting note about the vegetarian argument. Our internal digestive system more closely resembles herbivores then carnivores.

[Harry Johnston]

It's starting to look as if you're right - an awful lot of people (or at least Americans!) seem to interpret "free will" in a dualist rather than a materialist way. That makes your definition reasonable by virtue of consensus even if (from my point of view) it's pretty bloody stupid.

Calling free will an illusion is misleading. It may be abstract and/or subjective but that's not exactly the same thing. We still have (materialistic) free will, even if it can't be defined in objective terms. (Is the number 1 an illusion, or is it a real though abstract concept?)

Is self-awareness real?

Harry.

[LemonCurry,]

We share 96% of our DNA with chimpanzees, and as everybody knows, chimps go bananas for monkey meat.

[Dick]

An analysis of free will isn't

[Mark Thorson]

Free will exists, but not
everybody has it. You can
only get it by EATING MEAT.

(By the way, yesterday's
e-mail joke about the imam,
the rabbi, and the Catholic
priest would have been
funnier if you replaced the
carrot with a zucchini.)

[dk]

Ummm... we're NOT carnivores. We're omnivores, like bears and (more relevantly) apes. We're supposed to mix meat, fruit and vegetables to get all we need. Humans didn't start out as huge hunters - we probably ate carrion (kinda like today, actually). Apes are probably more agile hunters, but they don't go hunting very often - once every week or two is enough.
So, yeah, modern life allows us eat way more meat than we were "designed" to eat, but going to the vegi extreme isn't too smart either. Sorry, Scott.

[Matt]

An appeal to Scott and DilbertBlog readers:

Freewill: What is it?
Traditionally, freewill was the opposite of destiny.

None of the arguments that I've seen Scott put forward make any reference to destiny.

What is destiny? Destiny is a state of doom. A predetermined destination for our lives. A state whereby it doesn't matter what your decisions are (or whether they are "free" or not), the outcome will always be the same.

Freewill is the ability for a man to change his destiny. The free choice of decisions along the way may be just a perception, but prevelance of freewill over destiny is only ever seen when there is a prediction. Regardless of perception, proof either way cannot be argued unless there is a prediction. Science is a belief built on proof. From Galileo to Einstein, science is built on observation, theorising, testing theory and seeking proof or disproof. Without proof there is only assumption and faith - these are not science. It is scientific suicide to acknowledge that some things can't be proven.

Facts are not decided by belief : no matter how many people believe the earth is flat, the evidence declares otherwise. Conversely, being the only one that believes in the evidence does not make you wrong. If your evidence is of doubtfull provinance and your observations can't be repeated (and I'm talking about all you Global-warming sceptics and religious zealots) then don't be suprised when more enlightened individuals reckon you're being foolish.

Scott: You can believe what you like, but please acknowledge that without a prediction of the future to test the accuracy of freewill against destiny, belief in freewill as an illusion is an act of faith unfounded in science.

Hands up if you agree.

[Matt]

Umm, Scott...

The choice does not have to be between Cows and lions. Herbavores or Carnivors. I think you have created a false dichotomy. That is why some biolgyst whose name I cannot remember so it must be true, created a third group called Omnivores. We are "designed" to eat both meat, when we can get it, and vegies when we can't and when it is available. I for one did not claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables.

So are we "designed" to eat meat? Yup, that is why you vegitarians are in a serious minority. However, the original design specs never anticipated that we would eat five pounds of the stuff a day. Mind you, the original design specs didn't anticipate an operational lifetime of more than 28 years so even that wouldn't be a problem. While we are on the original design specs, what the hell is up with hips wearing out and needing replacement. Shouldn't that be covered under some sort of powertrain warranty. To be honest it is sort of like taking a Ford with 250,000 miles on it and wondering why the muffler and filters stopped working. I blame it on the gas. Maybe we should be using ethinol in it.

[Matt]

An appeal to Scott and DilbertBlog readers:

Freewill: What is it?
Traditionally, freewill was the opposite of destiny.

None of the arguments that I've seen Scott put forward make any reference to destiny.

What is destiny? Destiny is a state of doom. A predetermined destination for our lives. A state whereby it doesn't matter what your decisions are (or whether they are "free" or not), the outcome will always be the same.

Freewill is the ability for a man to change his destiny. The free choice of decisions along the way may be just a perception, but prevelance of freewill over destiny is only ever seen when there is a prediction. Regardless of perception, proof either way cannot be argued unless there is a prediction. Science is a belief built on proof. From Galileo to Einstein, science is built on observation, theorising, testing theory and seeking proof or disproof. Without proof there is only assumption and faith - these are not science. It is scientific suicide to acknowledge that some things can't be proven.

Facts are not decided by belief : no matter how many people believe the earth is flat, the evidence declares otherwise. Conversely, being the only one that believes in the evidence does not make you wrong. If your evidence is of doubtfull provinance and your observations can't be repeated (and I'm talking about all you Global-warming sceptics and religious zealots) then don't be suprised when more enlightened individuals reckon you're being foolish.

Scott: You can believe what you like, but please acknowledge that without a prediction of the future to test the accuracy of freewill against destiny, belief in freewill as an illusion is an act of faith unfounded in science.

Hands up if you agree.

[Chris Tann - LAWNMOWER MAN]

HI SCOTT!

"When humans eat a lot of meat, our arteries clog, we have heart attacks, and we die."

You make this sound like a "bad thing"(TM). Don't forget that a measure of an individual organism's "success" is how much of its genetic material it floods back into the Gene-pool. If that clogged-artery human managed to generate 20 offspring before dieing, then it is still "functioning well" (in a Dawkin's-ey kind of way). An interesting analysis would be to study the link between meat intake and number of offspring...

[Saddam Hussein]

I had life expectancy of 77 years. I made 69 eating meat.

I liked to kill.

[Jimbo]

The free will argument sounds identical to the existence of god argument.

[Tigershire]

Humans are "omnivores". We eat something of everything.

Some nutriets are more easily derrived from eating meat than eating vegetables. The small size (and apparent lack of use) of our appendix is proof that we are not obligate herbivores just as the average human who only eats meat becomes unhealthy (think scurvy).

There are examples, however, of peoples who do quite well at either extreme. Look at the Inuit - no veggies there.

My theory is that most of humans problems with meat is that we consume too much at once AND most of the meat we eat has been confined, fed hormones and antibiotics, and pumped full of food that have led to fat but tender meat. If we still hunted our food or raised our food closer to wild animals (as well as eating smaller portions) then we would have less troubles. Of course that solution doesn't make as much profit. ~smirk~

Plus, people need to eat the way that best suits their bodies. I happen to be allergic to legumes. No peanuts, no soy (which made it hugely difficult to find stuff in the grocery store in Florida as the U.S. uses soybean oil in EVERYTHING. Thankfully here in Canada most manufacturers use canola oil) So a diet devoid of meat would make it really hard for me to get the protien I need to be healthy as my main plant source is unavailable to me.

Choose what works for your. If you are happy and healthy then nothing else matters.

[Javier Cámara]

I am sorry for being stupid, but I do not see any meaningful relationship between free will and diet. Neither I really understand the point of so much thinking about free will. When you finally made your choice that you did not really have free will, did it really make any difference to your life, or to the existence of any other thing in the universe? If so, could you explain which one?

Maybe I am stupid, because there seems to have been and be lots of people considering it an issue of utmost importance, but to me it is more or less as relevant as the one of the sex of angels, which has also enjoyed some degree of popularity in other times.

[Ron Hardin]

But free will isn't a fuzzy concept at all. It's just difficult to say what its rules are, just as it's difficult to say what's rude and what isn't. That doesn't mean that ``rude'' is a fuzzy concept.

Science is not a more precise language than ordinary speech. It's a narrowing of ordinary language to a reduced set of circumstances. It's parasitic on ordinary language, rather than ordinary language being dependent on it.

You can make a joke with ``free will,'' so exact is its correct use, the joke being to violate, and thus to bring to light by its effects, some fairly rigid convention.

``He's so unpredictable. He must carry dice around.''

Just off the top of my head.

[Andreas Toscano]

I don't see how discussing free will makes our life better or worse. In the end, our brain/decision goes left or right, up or down. Doesn't matter how the decisions are made or how random they are: they still happen.
But I have to disagree with you on the meat eating. Studies show that if you eat only meat (as a real carnivore) your body not only functions well, but also reduces cholesterol and "unclogs" arteries. Here's a random link about it: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2002-11-18-adkins_x.htm
As a fitness athelete, I can back it up with my own experience. Before competition, I had a protein only diet. After 4 days, your body starts to destroy any fat to be used as energy and you feel great. Why do you think lions and so lean and muscular? Don't give me the hunting routine. You must know that the lioness does that and not the lion.

Cheers,

A

[jim]

Well, at least it has experts giving their opinions. That's a start. What it doesn't give is a balanced view of the science out there. Like you said about Holocaust deniers...you can convince anyone of anything if you only provide one side of the arguement. There are other sides out there. Just go to wikipedia for a start.

[Frank Rogers]

For the last 2000 years or so, the Catholic Church as defined Free Will as "The faculty or capability of making a reasonable choice among several alternatives." See http://www.usccb.org/comm/alphagloss.shtml#f

It appears to me that Scott has taken a recent understanding of what is Free Will.

[meatpuppet]

Just look at our teeth and compare them to the teeth of herbivores...much smaller, thinner enamel, plus biting/tearing teeth. Humans are omnivores, get over it.

And since we lack free will, it seems that omnivorage is the design for most of us. The fact you are vegetarian freed of will, does not affect my love of meat since I am also freed of any will or responsibility to change.

[Bill Weitze]

Like Daniel C. Dennett of Tufts University, I don't have free will, and it doesn't bother me. Dr. Dennett reminds me of John Searle, who explains this stuff very well.

Why should anyone have a problem with your decision to be a vegetarian? And why should you have a problem with someone else eating meat, unless you have moral objections?

[Esteban]

I believe in free will, even if there is zero evidence for it.

I guess I can't help myself.

[Kevin]

I think I have a solution to the 'too much meat in a human diet is unhealthy' thing.

Don't eat too much meat. Eat just the right amount.

[jimbot]

ha ha. funny trick, Scott Adams.

You don't upload my post in the "first wave" of comments,

then, later, it "magically appears" where its supposed to be.

yuck, yuck.

...this proves that you DO have free will!!!

[Gary]

False duality: (1) Choice being an illusion does not mean (2) you are a machine.

People should work on untangling that false duality, instead of trying to protect their egos by proving the existence of free will.

[Fern]

Now these are the posts I keep coming back for.

[Jerry Wolfe]

Hi Scott,
There are other indicators that push the carnivore aspect of human beings, one being that we are equiped with forward looking eyes. Before you laugh, consider that cattle, sheep, chickens, (and most other food items, a.k.a. prey) have eyes that look to the sides, or in some cases can look to the rear, to be aware of predators stalking them. Lions, tigers and bears (oh my) along with almost all other meat eaters, including us, have eyes that allow watching the target while they are chasing it. This can also be seen underwater, where sharks and the like can see in front, while food fish have side mounted equipment.
Happy 2007, try an in and out burger some day!
Jerry

[Erich]

Aside from that being a somewhat poorly written hodgepodge article, the argument about free will is about the same as the argument about the stars....

How many stars are there in the Universe?

Answer: There is a finite answer, but nobody will ever know and the value keeps changing. Likewise, the answer has absolutely no value, other than "Huh?!, No kidding..."

Same goes for Free Will. But it's fun to talk about while sipping a cool beverage.

[Aaron]

Free will is a crazy idea! You have it down Scott. We are also better suited towards eating fruits and vegetables. Scientists believe that the most healty food humans can eat is a banana. This fruit can sustain most of our bodily functions. We thrive off of the nutrients contained within fruits and vegetables and without those, our bodies cannot function properly. Can you believe that we know this, but some people still believe we didn't evolve from primates!?

However, meat is also good for us in small quantities. Eating the right kind of meats can give you protein and help to build muscles. I think we were probably originally herbivores until our ancestors jumped down from the trees and decided to vend off predators. We probably needed to eat meat at that point to be able to compete with stronger predators to survive. You can't pick up a club if your limb is as limp as as cooked spaghetti!

Mostly, a balanced diet between meats and vegetables is probably the best for anyone and that's why we evolved to become omnivores. Bring on the steak and potatoes!

[mollishka]

... isn't this why the word "omnivore" exists? You know, like both meat and plants are good in their own way, and we can eat both?

[Elton]

Mr. Adams, I do not regard your arguments concerning humans as "designed" for the vegetarian diet as conclusive, although they are well taken. It is true that in our age, humans who consume too much meat tend to suffer heart problems, arterial plaques, etc. that shorten lives. However, it should also be noted that these problems are most noted in indviduals with a sedentary lifestyle -- and if humans evolved in an active lifestyle (which seems to fit the evidence), then it could be that meat provides high levels of calories and nutrients necessary for these activities (running from wolves, for example). Furthermore, evidence of heart problems and such in meat-eating humans does not necessarily mean that humans aren't "designed" to eat meat. Even today, people who suffer from cardio-vascular problems tend to be older, generally in their 50's and above. From an evolutionary standpoint, health problems that set in at these ages may be considered irrelelvant, since this is past the human reproductive age. As a thought experiment, one can imagine two groups of proto-humans. Group A is vegetarian, and Group B is omnivorous. Under some circumstances, it is reasonable to guess that members of group A would live longer (due to lower incidence of heart problems late in life) but these people might also have fewer children (childbirth and nursing require lots of calories) and might be more susceptible to famine (since a vegetarian diet is by definition less flexible than an omnivorous one). In contrast, invididuals in group B might live shorter lives on average, but might be able to support more offspring, due to the nutrient-rich food sources of animal protein and fat (bone marrow and brains being exceedingly nutrient-rich, and available year-round). In addition, the omvivorous group might be better able to withstand droughts and other catastrophes, due to flexibility in the diet. It is not unreasonable to assume that they might also be stronger and mor physically powerful, making them better able to conquer and steal from weaker groups. Also, I think it's safe to say that in the past, people didn't tend to die of arterial plaques even if they had them -- wars, starvation, predators, and ordinary illnesses probably killed them off first. Since evolution favors groups that reproduce more rather than groups whose members tend to live longer, it might make sense to say that the human organism is "designed" to be ovnivorous, since this strategy has been successful with respect to reproduction and survival in the evolutionary past. I believe (without being able to state outright) that for most of evolutionary history, humans have been omnivores rather than herbivors. Thus, the strategy must have worked pretty well, since it got us here in the first place. As further evidence, consider that hunter-gatherers (ominivores) were taller and healthier than early agriculturists (who were almost entirely vegetarian)(See "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond). In sum, by re-phrasing the question as one of evolutionary fitness rather than longevity, it seems that humans may have been "designed" to be omnivores. Of course -- we in the 21st century first world live in markedly dissimilar circumstances. . .

[Gleetnorx]

I am a large mammal.

If one examines things ever more closely they seem to dissipate into something else, kinda like the way old magazine pictures turned into dots under a magnifying glass.
We're energy sytems operating on this scale and under these physical restraints. Conscious self awareness is like a leaf bobbing on an ocean of bouyant support.

But that's only our baseline mundane consciousness.

Anyone who has taken a true psychedelic (LSD, psilocybin, DMT, mescaline) knows there can be vastly more available to us as experienced in certain states of being.

The free will article mentioned William James. Although a scientist, he gained much of his fame from a book he wrote,
"The Varieties of Religious Experience", about various "mystical" transcendent experiences people report having.
The word "religious" in this case is contextual. The book was written in the 19th century prior to the advent of more appropriate and articulate language describing various altered states.

Old pointy haired Schopenhauer keeps turning up in these discussions. One can assume he never had a peak experience, much less took a psychedelic.
He must be the grail of the Skinnerian ratmaze reductionists.

Jung, Huxley, Hoffmann, Ginsberg, Leary, Shulgin, et al, were seeing this issue from somewhere outside, beyond the box.

[Aaron Rhodes]

I believe in free will ... because I choose to.

[Roberto]

Defining free will is easy: it's the ability to make a muscular action independently of the nervous system configuration. If anyone can make two different movements parting from the exact same atomic arrangement of nervous cells, well, then it has free will.

In other words: if two exactly equal computers on exactly equal environments running exactly the same software display different results, then at least one of the computers have free will.

Needless to say, I don't believe in free will. And I don't believe it would be possible to test for it.

[Steve]

So, we're not "designed" to eat meat, but most of us are "wired" to eat it - or at least to want to eat it? Wouldn't evolution (to throw in another hot topic) support our "wiring" evolving towards not wanting to eat meat?

I find it confusing when you write posts about "deciding" whether to do one thing or something else. For instance, you wrote recently about an experience with dishes and your dishwasher. At one point, you state that you "decided" to leave the dirty silverware in the dishwasher. If there is no "free will", are any decisions ever made?

Perhaps I just don't have a clear understanding of the definition of "free will". It certainly seems to be an interesting blend of science and philosophy. I'm just not sure where I land on the subject yet.

[Adrian D.]

I agree that I (an others) have difficulty describing what I mean when I say free will. For that matter, I have asserted that existence or non-existence of free will is untestable. You may as well ask if our entire history is just a work of fiction on a bookshelf and if we are merely characters. Physics could simply be a persistent illusion; but it is useful to act as though it is real.

[basselope]

quote from article:
“If people freak at evolution, etc.,” he wrote in an e-mail message, “how much more will they freak if scientists and philosophers tell them they are nothing more than sophisticated meat machines, and is that conclusion now clearly warranted or is it premature?”
end quote

People will freak no more than they has already been pre-determined. And the Scientific discoveries indicating the non-existence of Free Will are no more accurate or all-encompassing than has already been pre-determined.

Too, the laws which govern the universe are no more than a perceived reality - a predetermined firing of neurons which has no more basis in "Truth" than a roomful of monkeys typing stories about Tigers.

By their own logic, the "No Free Will" believers have no leg to stand on. Any "proof" is nothing more than the conclusion of a series of events in the natural progression of the universe and cannot be said to be either accurate or conclusive... it simply exists.

[passerby]

Re eating meat. Here is an article about arguements for being vegetarian.

http://www.hyperactive-stage.co.uk/blog/comments.asp?ref=196

Well worth a read.

Re meat being bad for you in excess, well so are most things, including for example, potatoes. They are posionous to us, just such a low level of poision we dont notice the effects. Would take 2kg in one go to get enough poision to notice it and I think the effects of over eating would be the bigger problem. Problem with people is knowing when to stop, eg. alcohol, best shown at pub closing time by those puking in the gutter.

re 'happens pretty quickly' um it takes many years of over eating meat to get bad arteries, hardly quick. Same can be achieved by eating chocolate or from food fried in vegtable fat. Do you also avoid all chocolate and fried foods?

[Cyrus Uible]

Free Will starts to really seem like something different than what we "feel" it is when you consider the ideas of people like Roby Bryanton's 10th Dimension. He has a cool flash video explaining it here:
http://www.tenthdimension.com/flash2.php

Cyrus
http://blogging4bugers.blogspot.com

[Reader]

RE: Teeth
Carnivores also tend not to cook their meat and then process it into shapes that bear no resemblance to the animal from whence it came.

[Haytham Al-Dokanji]

"Every person is different, but on average, too much meat in a human diet is unhealthy. And “too much meat” happens pretty quickly. That’s not much of a design."

Your argument, dear Scott, is so rigorous that I feel like translating it to math! You blew away evolution theory to pieces.

Haytham
http://haythamaa.blogspot.com

[Blackwing1]

Hmmm...ever hear of "omnivore"? This means that humans evolved to eat small, front-wheel-drive Dodge automobiles.

Humans and rodents, the only animals that can safely digest almost anything, including cellulose. Proving once again that the cheap burger joints know what they're doing. And that we didn't climb to the top of the food chain just to eat vegetables.

[Andrew Koenig]

I think there is little point in having this debate unless you can define what you mean by "free will." If you define it to mean behavior that is inconsistent with the laws of physics, it is obvious that free will cannot exist. If you define it to mean random behavior coupled with the ability to do Turing-complete computations, then it is obvious that not only do humans have free will, but so do machines.

If you want to increase your understanding of this question, you might seek out a copy of Alan Turing's paper from the 1940's called "Can Machines Think?" He did not actually answer that question, but did make some real progress toward defining just what the question meant. We need an analogous test for free will before discussion of it can be meaningful.

[bcammack]

I still feel that, for the most part, the argument regarding the existence of "free will" that has played out here the past month or so is due to a lack of rigorous definition of what is meant by "free will".

If you could post in a concise, unambiguous fashion exactly what you are talking about when you say "free will", the signal-to-noise ratio here would most likely improve considerably.

Of course this will not deflect that percentage of your readership that reads what you post and then hallucinate their own interpretation of what you meant. :)

[Rene Bartar]

When you eat to much soy, you end up with kidneys problems.
When you eat to much egg, your colesterol rises and you die.
You dont digest celulose like herbivore animals.

And you CHOOSE not to eat meat!

[Juliette]

But then, I got sick from not eating enough meat...
I understand your point, though.
Out of curiosity, why are you a vegeterian? Animal rights? Trying to stop the land waste the raising cattle brings? Or did you just randomly decide to become a vegeterian? (as good a reason as any...)

[Patrick]

On the meat thing, yes we are "more" suited to eat vegetables, but since we dont puk our guts out when eating meat, we are also somewhat well suited to eating meat as well.

The ratio is definately favoring the vegetable side, probably because up until a few thousand years ago, Meat wasn't so available (hunting did get us meat, but not like today where you can have it at will), and the amount that people at 5000 years ago was easily digested.

Under normal 'evolution', and by normal i mean without the accelerated technological advances we have made as a species, had we become moderately better hunters so that we had 2 or 3 times more meat than the previous generation, the people that could handle this better would have an advantage and therefore pass on their genes, as is the case with evolution. Because we have advanced so fast, almost no one is capable of eating a large amount of meat without feeling negative effects, evolution can't catch up.

If anything, i would argue that even the little meat that was eaten 5000 years ago was still better than not eating meat at all in terms of a balanced diet, otherwise we would never have evolved to the point where it was acceptable, no matter how little.

The most interesting thing about the article is its implications with relgion. The foundation of most religions is that god gave us free will, and if we can prove that free will doesn't exist/is an illusion, that would effectively disprove the existance of god.

While i agree with most of the 'no free will' arguments, it doesn't sufficiently explain why society as a whole is always progressing to the greater good of mankind (more or less). I mean these are man-made ideals, so why would a random machine cater to our collective whim? surely we must be influencing the world outside of the machine, in a non deterministic way. Or did the universe really just churn out millions of good doing meatbags, with evil ones being the defective minority.

What about instinct? most people agree that we would prefer to screw everything in sight, and that we have to deny ourselves these things because morally and ethically (it is argued) it is better to not give in totally to our base instincts (which include violence and murder), is this conflict also an illusion?

[Mark Lepisto]

Why do we have to be either carnivore or vegetarian? Isn't omnivore a more evolutionary appealing concept? We can eat either or both meat and plants! If lions have no meat, they starve, if zebras have no leafy vegetation, they starve. We however can adapt and survive in either scenario. We are superior in a strictly "survival of the fittest" way.

Therefore, whatever you eat is a valid choice so long as it is palatable by homo sapiens. Getting an attitude that your choices are somehow better than the next persons choices is pretty narrow-minded unless you know everything about what made that other person reach his conclusions - and that is impossible.

As for this whole free will thing... I think you need to exactly define what you mean by "free will" before we can even have this discussion. Because at this point I am certain that what I mean by "free will" and what you mean by it are different things, if only slightly. Teasing people by tweaking their belief in a concept that you won't define exactly is hardly fair.

[tombest]

The current life expectancy of a human is 66 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy#Timeline_for_humans

The current life expectancy of a lion is 10-14 years:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion

Which of these carnivores fares better?

[Ed]

You talk about this lack of free will a lot. I'll agree with you that we don't have free will in the sense that our brains are just complicated biological systems that could (theoretically) be modeled and all our behavior predicted. That's fine, but we live our lives based on our perception of the world. If I perceive that I have free will then what is the difference if it was predetermined? Who cares? Don't you get satisfaction from making money by selling a stock at the right time or buying a restaurant when you think you can make it work? If we are just moist robots, you should have no emotions since nothing you do changes anything yet I'm sure you still do. I know, emotions are just part of the robot control system, but they are part of human existence, so why worry about it?

[DM]

Omnivores. We're omnivores.

[passerby]

As people cannot even decide what 'free will' is, an arguement over it is completely and utterly pointless. One says, 'Under my definition of free will it exists', other says 'Well under my definition of it, it doesn't exist' Both are completely right but cannot see the others point of view at all, so both assume the other is a complete moron for seeing how obvious it is that they are right.

I think we have got your message loud and clear. You dont know what free will is (sorry I mean of course, under your definition of it, it doesn't exist). And nytimes want to stir it up to get themselves publicity to make money just as much as you do.

[sheilah]

Humans are not carnivores. We are omnivores. I will eat anything I can get my fork into. If it doesn't run away too fast or fight back too hard, it is mine.

As for you argument the humans should not eat meat because if you eat too much of it you can die, remember you can die from drinking too much water too.

That must be why they invented beer.

[Noemi Pons]

Free will or No free will, let's just all drink to that!

[Sam Thornton]

There you go again. And here I go again. Just. Can't. Stop. Typing.

There! I did it.

[Ryan]

Humans are omnivores. It was in part eating meat and eating less roughage that pushed our ancestors along the evolutionary chain toward homo sapiens. It increased the size of our brain and decreased the size of our intestines, allowing us to walk more upright and run. So from a purely evolutionary standpoint, meat was a great thing. As it stands now? All things in moderation, my friend.

[Joe Canuck]

I seems to me that, science makes no pronouncement on motivation. A primitive animist might argue that a ball rolls downhill because gravity makes it uncomfortable. A scientist simply makes the observation that objects behave on a particular way when acted upon by a gravitational field. The objects' motivation does not enter into it.

Why should science treat the collection of particles that are us any differently? ;-)

/Joe

[Jess]

Hmm... I think your statement that science is all on the side of vegetarianism because of your carnivore analogy... Somewhat dubious, at best.

First of all, the types of meat that we eat are not the same as carnivores anyway - they're raised differently, fed differently, processed differently... Feed a lion with Big Mac patties for a few years, and I bet it would have the same deleterious health issues your average american does from eating them!

Second, I don't know of anybody that claims humans are carnivores - we're omnivorous, which means we can eat both plant and vegetable matter. I have seen no hard evidence (and believe me, I've read massive amounts of literature on the subject) that really proves vegetarianism is a better diet than a well-regulated diet that includes meat. It's better than your average person's diet, of course... But that's not saying a whole lot! About the best you can say is that a vegetarian diet makes lab rats live longer. But that's not a slam-dunk case in my book!

As for the free will issue, the first issue is one of semantics - does the ability to decide between issues require an outside source? I think not. If a computer can decide which is the best way to process information, then you could easily argue that the computer has free will on that issue - and not only would I argue that, but it is one of the topics mentioned in the article you linked to. We are hardwired to have preferences, no doubt about it. But does that mean we have no choices? That's a pretty ridiculous concept to try to prove (and none of your blog entries comes close to proving it)! And if we have choices, and can make them, then how is it not free will?

Does that mean that we're not meat machines? Certainly not. It means we're meat machines, programmed with the ability to make choices. Do we have unlimited free will? Hardly. I cannot choose to levitate. I cannot choose to bend a spoon with my mind. But I can choose a variety of things. I can type this, eat lunch, go play piano - and no matter how much you may believe that I'm programmed to HAVE to do one or the other, there is no proof that this is the case.

As far as the article backing your side completely - I would say read it again - it seems to say the question is undecided. Which means... You have to choose what to believe. Perhaps we have no free will to choose that. Or perhaps we do.

[Eben]

The carnivore question has to do with selection, which is relevant mainly until reproductive ages. Evolutionary selection will favor those properties that help you reach reproductive age, reproduce sucessfully, and ensure that your offspring fare well until their reproductive ages. Since human lifespans have only recently increased to much beyond 50 years, things that affect health badly for 50+ year olds have not been selected against. When we are living beyond 60 years or so, we are in realms for which our evolutionary selection has not had a chance to optimize. So we should be smart about it, and make choices based upon information about what we know, rather than saying that evolution has prepared as in the best possible shape, long-term healthwise.

[rockbert]

Scott, I agree with you on the non-existence of free will. (It was your lawn mower stating itself with no gas analogy that clicked with me, i.e. free will violates the laws of physics.)
What I don't get is why we should care.
You said yourself, and I agree, that this fact should not change things like criminal justice.
I play Windows Solitaire. The deal of the cards should be a random event, it is not. The deal is controlled by a pseudo-random number generator. Computer software can't generate true random numbers. However, the game appears random to me and I can still enjoy the game. The pseudo-random deal is "good enough".
I think of free will in the same way. Our actions are controlled by such a vast set of parameters that they appear to be free will. In reality it's "pseudo-free will". BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER, IT'S "GOOD ENOUGH". I still enjoy my life.
I wonder what environmental influences could make your brain STOP OBSESSING ABOUT FREE WILL!

[Allen]

Humans were never "designed" to live 80 years. Our bodies process meat just fine for the 20 to 30 years our bodies evolved to survive. I don't think a lion would be in very good shape after 80 years either. So it's not that the lion is better adapted to eat meat, it just dies when it is supposed to (as defined by it's evolution). Natural causes will kill the lion long before its arteries clog.

[elmegil]

If we were herbivores, we wouldn't have any of those sharp teeth. You set up a false dichotomy, and I'm ashamed of you.

We're omnivores, thank you. We're "designed" to get a significant portion of our protiens from meat, because vegetable sources of protien were not as widely available when we were evolving. Obviously enough, a badly balanced diet where we get no vegetable nutrients will cause us health problems, but that doesn't mean we aren't "designed" to eat meat.

Lucky for you, agricultural technology has reached a point where meat sources of protien are no longer necessary. But that doesn't change how the human body is "designed". In another couple millenia, if we can sustain this technology, we may start evolving away our sharp teeth. Or maybe not, since plenty of us enjoy a good steak now and then.

[JEC_31]

Every time I read or hear about free will, I am always left with the inescapable conclusion that our brains' congitive and communication abilities are not advanced enough to make any significant headway into making sense of ourselves or reality.

10,000 years from now historians will be looking over the preserved fragments of these primitive cave-wall bloggings and NY Times articles and laugh at our confused mental fumbling with everything. "They could only descibe things with flat-earth concepts like causal or emergent! Hee hee, read me another one!"

p.s. All blog-comment posters are liars.

[kevyn]

freewill....arghhhhhhh!!!!

[jsg]

NYT article too long - and not very funny. I've read myself into a stupor. And i really want some molten chocolate cake.

[billf]

Here's a fun argument meant to spur lots of nasty fighting and bickering.

If "free will" does not exist, I will have to assume that Darwin was completely wrong about "natural selection" and "survival of the fittest;" at least when it comes to humans and homosexuality.

If homosexuality is "hard-wired" in some human beings that's all and good, but then they really can't pass that on to another generation. By sketchy logic, this should mean that we should be seeing less homosexual desires in humans...

Unless, of course, we're seeing more homosexual desires because we're actually breeding out the heterosexual desires and/or heading towards an evolutionary jump in which gay sex (or maybe no sex) can result in offspring.

Now - if I could get an aborted fetus in a meat-coffin, we'd be set for the most frustratingly offensive and divisive comment yet left on your blog...

[Marc]

Scott, I think the discussion on free will is amusing. I won't reveal which side I think is correct because it doesn't matter.

I couldn't pass up the chance to point out that if the NY Times printed it, that "proves" that your argument is correct.

I'm sure you see the irony here given your predisposition to doubt experts.

[Techweenie]

Humans are omnivorous, it's one of our major evolutionary advantages. The human ancestors who could eat whatever was handy (as opposed to a specialized diet) and store it efficiently as fat were the ones who lived. Ergo, humans of today are big fat garbage disposal units and you can eat whatever you want, comfortable in the knowledge that you're using the gifts your ancestors gave you.

[MAL]

MALs Theory of Free Whatever...

I think that "free will" is more of a religious term than a scientific one - and possibly one that doesn't mean anything. The thing that I believe your readers are referring to when arguing with you is "freedom of choice".

At a class at my church we once discussed whether or not "original sin" exists. My theory is that what is referred to by "original sin" is our natural self-preservation instincts - driven by the least developed parts of our brains. Babies don't care about other people - they want what they want - food, clean diaper, cuddling, warmth, sleep, etc. - when they want it. As we get older, we learn to consider others, to consider other options, etc.

If it is true that our brains begin a response before we are aware it is happening (based on the linked article, this has been proven out in the laboratory), this response is that self-preservation, selfish instinct driven by that lesser developed portion of said brain. Fortunately, we have the choice after the initial brain instinct happens to do something different. If someone puts a container of chocolate covered peanut brittle in front of me, my pre-developed brain is going to move to have me grab and eat all of it. My more developed brain parts will stop my hand before it goes into the container.

I'm sure there are actual, scientific names to the parts of the brain but I'm just an advertising hack so I don't know them.

[Gabe]

You know, I just love meat too much (and vodka) to ever give it up, even if scientists prove that vegetarian diets lead to immortality and hot sex.

I really don't know how you people do it. I get it, but man.

[RogerTheShrubber]

For thousands of years, Eskimos lived on a diet of meat only. No veggies, no fruit.

If you spend your days hunting animals, meat is good food.

Sedentary living is not what we selected for.

[neil]

no matter how good the argument you make i have no free will and so no choice in what i eat

p.s mmmm meat

[Stuart Moore]

I think the free will discussions are very interesting although I find it a bit tough to wrap my mind around sometimes.

As for people being "designed" to eat meat, I believe that we are omnivores. Our ancient ancestors ate what they could get their hands on - which I'm sure tended to be a diet consisting of mostly plants (berries, leaves, tubers) with meat thrown in when it was available. Since fatty foods helped to create our big brains and sugars were excellent for energy we're genetically pre-disposed to crave them and that's why people, living in very prosperous societies, often have weight problems.

That's my amateur-anthropologist's 2 cents.

[Andrew Duncan]

It would be a fun test to see how natural selection would redesign us to fit in with not having to chase down food with a sharp stick or scavenge for rotten berries in treetops while fighting off giant lemurs. Someone should pick a lucky, isolated population then do the following:

1 – Stop science spoiling Natural Selection’s tendency to kick unhealthy people out of the gene pool.
2 – Figure out a way to help Natural Selection out by compensating for the gap between the time a person stops procreating and the time they drop.

Then, we can sit back and see what a well designed modern human would look like. Think of the saving in healthcare in 100,000 years time! I suspect we would not be faced with a super-race, though I wouldn’t challenge it to a cheese eating competition.

[David Hopkins]

Your argument is that the human body is not well designed to eat too much meat, which is the same for most types of food-stuffs. Most vegetarians I know go to some lengths to get enough protein, but it seems clear that the human body is well suited to some meat, rather than a diet of only fruit and veg.

[captain pickhard]

its no fun when you don't upload the comments right away

-captain pickhard

[Jack L. Watson]

I've just decided not to believe in free will. Hmmmm...

[neil]

it dosnt matter how convincing an argument you put to me about not eating meat i have no free will and therefore no choice in the mater

[Bud]

How can you make a vegetarian like dead meat?
If it's Saddam Hussein it's not difficult ;)

(See my point?)

[Smokefoot]

There is contrary evidence on the carnivore/vegetarian argument. There is a tribe in Africa which only eats meat and only drinks milk or blood. They don't have heart problems, probably due to exercise (they have an active lifestyle). This shows that humans are designed to be active, and that the meat/veg argument is not as important if they are.

[sherman]

I think you just kinda argued that humans are "designed" to eat *some* meat and *some* vegetables. How did you get to no meat?

[Ruckus]

Ah, but if Everett is correct then you can have free will. You choose what you want to do but your decisions really don’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_immortality

[Aelstro]

I still hold to my statement that the Placebo effect is an evidence of Free will.

It shows up in all kinds of experiments, has to be taken into account and adjusted for, but is usually ignored.

Yet it is ample evidence that the mind is able to alter the state of the physical body. It alters the body similar to what the person believes should happen, close enough to mimic very expensive drugs and theropy.

I would like to know if there is any explanation for the placebo effect except some sort of belief affecting the body in a non-random, generated purely by the "will". Or in other words, free will.

A second case for free will is the Global Consciousness Project. That somehow the emotions and feelings of people are able to alter the randomness of the universe.

Neither has been studied enough to provide "Evidence" yet both are recurring and testable.

Until both of these are either debunked or proven, I'll hold my Free Will belief, thank you.

[Josh]

The "designed" argument, I think, isn't meant to be taken on a purely scientific level, as you have. I've always heard it used with an intentional (if silent) nod to the designer, and an equally intentional (if silent) implication that the speaker has a special understanding of that designer's intentions for our diet.

[Michael]

>>I could be wrong about free will not existing. And I could be wrong about our bodies being more suited for the vegetarian diet than for meat. But in either case, science would have to discover something new in order to make the argument. The known facts all point in the same direction. The “feelings” all point in the other.<<

This works for free will (or at least I'll agree), but not for vegetarianism. That humans are capable of deriving nutrition from animal protein is a matter of well established fact, not feeling. Our species did not arise and disperse with the same diversity of agriculture and methods of food preservation that we enjoy today. Meat is a widely distributed source of essential amino acids, and we never would have populated the globe without it. I think almost everyone would have to agree that, in today's world, it is healthier to avoid meat altogether than to make it the predominant dietary feature. This does not mean that excluding meat from the diet is the healthiest part of the spectrum. Certainly, it's fine if someone wants to be a vegetarian for his or her own health reasons, or because of ethical concerns about farming methods or eating animals in general. We have the resources to make that a viable option. It's simply kind of silly to say that humans aren't well suited to eat meat when we've clearly done just that for hundreds of thousands of years.

[Shawn]

I apologize in advance for being snide (Again) but millions of people believe in Christianity. If 75% of the world decide to embrace this religion would that make the Bible a book of facts? Would that make God and Satan, Heaven and Hell, real? Blah, don't let this post through. I'm just being bitter.

:-(

[CLB]

Perhaps our bodies are best suited for a combined, balanced diet? True, too much meat is unhealthy. But as a vegetarian don’t you have to be more careful than meat eaters to find ways to get necessary vitamins?

A quick Google search turned up the following:
"Vegetarians may need riboflavin, vitamin B12, and vitamin D supplements. Vegans, vegetarians who do not eat dairy products or eggs, may be at further risk for vitamin A deficiencies if they do not eat plenty of dark colored fruits and vegetables." - Source: University of Maryland Medical Center(http://www.umm.edu/patiented/articles/what_vitamins_000039_1.htm)

I’ve also heard specific advisories for pregnant vegetarians to discuss possible B12 supplements with their doctor, to avoid potential birth defects.

Though when you start factoring in things like mad cow disease, e-coli outbreaks with spinach and such, and pesticides used on produce, it may be a wash.

[rd]

me too. humorously
http://greetings.banjig.net/send.php?card_type=f&card;_id=2129

[Tim Shepard]

I still don't know what you mean by "free will". What is it? If you cannot define it, how can you say it doesn't exist?
-----------------------------------------------------------
When humans eat a lot of meat, our arteries clog, we have heart attacks, and we die.

This is a misleading statement, the Inuit and Mongolian Herdsman eat diets exclusively of meat and animal fat, yet have extremely low incidences of heart disease. You are making a statement of faith, not evidence.

Furthermore, raw animal flesh has all of the necessary vitamins and essential proteins required for the human body. Vegetable matter is definitely a much much poorer source of nutrition, lacking in many vitamins and proteins, like Niacin and Taurine.

Of course you get enough of these nutrients because you are a rich Californian who can have exotic ingredients at every meal. But we are talking about the fit of an omnivore diet to the human metabolism, not whether you can survive on it with enough technology and money at your disposal.

Humans are definitely a Hunter/Gatherer species. The males evolved a taste for protein so they would be motivated to hunt prey to supplement the social groups protein budget. The females evolved a penchant for simple carbohydrates so they would spend their time foraging, which allowed them to care for their offspring at the same time.

I will agree that eating fried cheeseburgers everday is probably a bad idea, even though a lot of people do it with few ill effects. But that's a question of moderation.

[Matt E]

I've agreed with you for a while about free will. However, I do have a question: do you believe in consciousness? I've always said that it has emergent properties, but you just got through me thick skull saying that it's not a valid argument, just passing the baton to someone else.

[Solon]

unless there's been some breakthrough in vegetarianism that I haven't heard of (wouldn't surprise me, since I'm an avid meat-eater), a strictly vegetarian diet lacks all sorts of nutrients and protein. not surprisingly, it is strongly recommended that children do not adopt such a diet.

vegetarians either have to eat supplements or stick to a very complicated and specialized diet in order to fulfill their daily needs of vitamins, minerals and protein. which could be easily solved by eating meat.

humans are most definitely not herbivorous, but they're not carnivorous either. we're omnivorous, and as such must have meat in our diets. in this case, I'm afraid science and medicine are not on your side, Scott. but I'm also afraid that, as usual, there's no argument in the world that might convince you you're wrong.

[gr8hands]

Scott,

Sorry, but you apparrently aren't aware that there are no centenarians (people 100 years old or older) who are vegetarians. http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-lifespan25dec25,1,2938996.story?page=2

The effectiveness of the Atkins diet also disputes your comments about "When humans eat a lot of meat, our arteries clog, we have heart attacks, and we die." Your statement is not based on actual evidence, only incorrect anecdotes.

You clearly don't understand "emergent phenomena" because it is not what you describe. In fact, all the people I've discussed the matter with who feel there is no free will are also confused about what emergent phenomena are. There appears to be a link.

Your "known facts" are wrong on these topics. I suggest you do better research, or some research. I don't think The Economist or the New York Times are the best sources for scientific knowledge -- but they seem to be the limit of what you're willing to do.

Your laziness and refusal to read the books I've suggested (you only read reviews of the books) shows you're really not interested in finding out your opinion is not based on fact. Shame on you. You only get the intellectual high ground if you do the research.

Do some actual reading on emergent phenomena, or evolution, from the experts, and you'll learn. Until then, your opinions don't hold any validity.

[niCk(MemBeth)]

Last post on free will? I bet not.

[billf]

If "free will" is defined as the ability to do something that is physically impossible to do, based on your body's limitations; then fine. I have no free will.

If "free will" is defined as the ability to make decisions and choices based on something other than pure animal instinct; I still will contend I have some of that "will-power."

[Enviroman]

My perspective of free will;

When I was younger, I did not do very well in school. As a matter of fact, I did so poorly, I was asked (forced) to leave school in my junior year of high school. As the judge led me into the military recruiter’s office, I was reminded that I was being taken there because I did not have the WILL to learn.

Years later, when I was 36, I earned my high school diploma. I then went on to a college degree and on to graduate school to earn two Master’s Degrees. That was because I acquired the WILL to learn.

Will is not free – you either have it or you don’t. If you have the will to succeed or to do the right thing, then you do it. If you have the will not to comply, or to behave to societal norms, then that is what you do. If you don’t have the will, then you largely ignore the conflict (all of lifes choices require conflict).

WILL is fluid – you can have it one day, and lose it the next. It does not mean we have made the conscious choice, we just change from time to time. I don’t remember wanting to be a high school failure, I just needed to change and form the WILL to succeed. It requires an outside stimulus as well as a choice to deal with conflict.

[Daniel]

I don't think you can say carnivores can eat loads of meat with no consequences. I think if lions lived for 70+ years their arteries would clog up too. If you ate loads of meat, you'd probably be fine for about 25 years too.

[Jay]

Humans are not carnivores or herbivores; we are currently omnivores (more on that later), which means we can eat both. We need certain minimum quantities of specific vitamins and minerals each day; some of which are more prevalent in vegetables and some which are more prevalent in meat. We evolved to use both sources depending on what was more readily available, but who is to say we have stopped evolving?
We could be currently still evolving to prefer one to the other, as what our environment currently provides. Or maybe humanity will branch off into 3 new species much like neanderthals became cro-magnons; one of herbivores, one of carnivores and one which will remain consistant omnivores.
Note to the vegans: nature shows us that herbivores are usually eaten by the carnivores in the end.

[Catbert]

As a scientist myself, let me present a scenario:

If there is no free will, then when a human is placed into a specific situation, the result must always be the same. Though the result may not be known before, the result should always be the same. Thus, providing a repeatable case. Therefore, once I know the result, given the same situtation, I would know know the result from experiment for the second occurance.

However, this situation is hard to replicate because how do you create the same exact situation at different times?

I have identical twins. For those who are unaware (as I was) there are verying degrees of identicalness. DNA is matched against markers which are known to almost never be the same, even in siblings. To be considered identical they only needed to match 60% of these markers. They matched 100%. As far as science is concerned, they are the same person.

But guess what. They are not. I find myself amazed at the differences between them. I like to experiment just to see what happens. One has a favorite color of yellow, the other red. It has been that way since before they could speak. One likes seafood, the other one doesn't. One likes to draw, the other likes math.

While only us parents can tell them apart by looking at them, we can also tell who is who just by their personalities.

Therefore, according to my test case. I should be able to take these identical humans, present them with some test and by knowing what one of them did, I should automatically know what the other one did.

I'm sure you won't be surprised to find that it doesn't work that way.

I interpret this to mean they each have their own ability to make distinct choices despite the fact they are physically the same person.

[nwest]

Scott, the problem with the whole free will debate is that it has nothing to do with science; it's a theological debate. Those who claim free will exists do so because they believe in God, and in a soul that helps us make choices. Those who claim that free will is an illusion do so on the basis that there's no such thing as a soul. Since you cannot prove, scientifically that the soul does or does not exist, then neither side has a leg to stand on. You can't build your argument based on something that has never been proven.

[Elizabeth Baker]

I just wanted to be the first one to post a comment.

[Joel Varty]

I think that we are rather well suited to eat whatever we want to.

That being said, you'd probably live longer in the wild by catching and eating animals as well as finding edible plants than by eating edible plants alone.

Funnily enough, the hardest thing to find enough of in nature is fat. Unlike in urban areas, where the hardest food to find is a decent salad.

[chuck]

The fact that you can't stop yourself from blogging about the lack of free will simply proves you have no free will.

The fact that I'm writing this reponse (and others will write something similar) also supports this idea.

Tell me what to do next Scott. (And hurry, because I need to know what cereal to eat for breakfast.)

[DJH]

Scott you make me so angry. Getting Scientists to agree that something exists that has no way to measure is like getting journalists to agree Conservatives are bad or teachers to agree that they should get raises while not being held accountable for students results. Scientists by their nature beleive nothing they can not see touch and measure. Remember in the past scientists agreed the earth is flat, that the universe revolved around the Earth.

[chuck]

So lions can eat all the meat they want and it doesn't affect their health. But they also only live until their 18, and usually die from either old age (if they're lucky), starvation, or getting killed by another lion.

So I put it to you that humans are natural carnivores, but the smart ones (who want to live past 18 and not get eaten by someone else) will either become vegetarians, or at least cut back a little on red meat.

[Rich H.]

If "free will" can't be defined well enough to form a hypothesis, how can it be falsified; i.e., how can you argue that it _doesn't_ exist? The entire subject appears to be moot.

[Hovig]

Scott: Free will is an irrelevant question. Assume free will does not exist. The relevant question is: Do you still believe in personal responsibility?

[Justin Newman]

Regarding the meat vs vegetarian argument; I'm pretty sure we're omnivores. Because, well, we eat both. Obviously we can't sustain on just mean, as a lion, but that doesn't mean it can't be part of a healthy diet either. Conversely, you can also maintain a healthy diet without meat. In the end, it's simply a matter of personal choice.

As a side note, would it be possible to have a healthy diet with just meat if we ate all parts of the animal, like most carnivores? It seems to me that we're missing out on a lot of nutrients in the vitals organs. I honestly don't know, I'm just curious.

[Bytesage]

on the flip side of that coin, how do you prove destiny, the opposite of Free will?

stalemate.

PS Lions also have sex 30 times a day.

[Leif Wright]

Hear hear.
With you all the way.

[Ed]

I read the article, waiting for the scientific evidence that disproves free will, but found mostly the standard dismissals of free will based on the idea of materialism. Two experiments were cited; one gets at the free will thing in an indirect way; the other is completely irrelevant.

The second experiment cited, the voodoo experiment, just illustrates that people in general are superstitious and claim responsibility for things over which they have no control. There's a real shocker. The question at hand, however, is whether or not the will is something under our control.

The first experiment, that of the conscious choice being registered later than the muscle movement, is interesting but inconclusive to me. Our process of "verbalizing" things, even mentally, takes a bit of time. Perhaps the act of decision making is somewhat different than the ability to "verbalize" a decision? Again, an interesting experiment, but inconclusive.

The rest of the article was just handwaving about how materialism is true, so therefore we have no free will.

It disturbs me to read people say that X is an illusion, but a PERSISTENT illusion that we just cannot shake. I get the same sense when you (Scott) say that free will is a delusion that you yourself share, even while denying it scientifically. You wrote a while ago about the "sniff test", and to me that smells like the way people talk when they are sweeping inconvenient evidence under the rug to support a larger theory. Perhaps our theories of the universe are incomplete. . .

Just out of curiosity, Scott, what would be the sort of experiment that, given a certain result, would sway you TOWARD believing in free will?

[Steven]

It is obvious from our teeth that we are omnivores (i.e. can eat most anything.) It is likely that our species started out as scavengers and opportunistic hunters, with our diet being about 90 - 10 veg. vs. meat. The creation of COOKED MEAT aided greatly with our digestion and the release of protein and helped to develop our larger brain.

[David]

I'm sure I won't be the first to mention this, but humans are OMNIVORES, not carnivores. That means we should eat SOME meat, but also a lot of plant matter.

[Marty Fried]

As a vegetarian, aren't you pretty much forced to take vitamin supplements, like, for B-12? That seems to be as bad a design as being forced to limit protein.

Also, I think lions, etc, use a lot more protein than humans for building muscle. I don't really know, but I wonder if a caged lion couch potato would be harmed by lots of meat.

Also, true herbivores often get sick if they eat meat, which isn't true for us.

I think we're omnivores; not everything is black and white (except your daily cartoons).

[rockbert]

Your argument for "design" as a reason for vegitarianism falls flat. Typically humans who eat meat die from clogged arteries AFTER they've finished having kids. Driving your Crown Victoria to Old Country Buffet for the eary-bird special was NOT in the original design spec.

[Dan]

From the NY Times article:

"If by free will we mean the ability to choose, even a simple laptop computer has some kind of free will,"

Most computer users already know that is true. LOL!

[Flint_A]

Known fact: Meat tastes good.

Also, we're omnivores. That's why we can't eat as much meat as true carnivores. We're simply not. But we're not herbivores either.

[jeqp]

Sigh. The problem with all the evidence cited in the article is that it is based on certain assumptions. One assumption is that the only things that exist are those that are defined by physical dimensions -- which is fine as far as it goes and a very useful assumption for scientific enquiry, but it doesn't really gel with common experience. Then of course there is the argument that we're only "tricked" and our experience doesn't reflect reality, but if we take that argument we have to assume that all of our experiences could be "tricked" and not reflect reality. So the whole experience of reading the NYT article could be a trick. That goes back to the whole "nothing really exists" argument, which is fine if you want to get sophistic, but not really useful for rational debate. Or science.

[jimbot]

Heh, yeah Scott,

Being a vegetarian myself, I agree with you that the health implications of eating (esp. red) meat are very bad.

*******************

On the free will argument, we tend to attribute our evil actions as a ghostly doppleganger of our own perceived goodness, tending to excuse ourselves from the consequences as a redundant contradiction of autonomous free will.

[Noel]

As a programmer, I can imagine a person in a certain 'state' of mind, with all the 'variables' of the mind set to a certain value, and if that state of mind was reproducable, I sincerly believe that putting a person with a certain state of mind in a particular decision making environment (again, the exact environment each time) that they will ALWAY make the same decision over and over again, and that would prove the illusion of free will.

[Half a Bee]

Monster.ca made me view an ad before I could comment. What gives, Scott? You so poor that you can't fork out the $50 a year to make your blog ad-free? I even bought one of your desktop calendars for the office's "Secret Santa" draw.

The whole free will thing, again, isn't even a live question. Yes, go ahead and say physics determines everything. That means absolutely nothing to your own responsibility and ownership of your own actions.

Did physics and chemistry already determine that on one specific day you'd stumble on a way to cure your voice problem? Sure, fine. The organization of molecules in your brain on Jan 1st 2006, combined with everything you experienced after that (which were also all chosen because of the state of your brain on Jan 1 2006), combined to determine one specific day where you'd figure out that reciting fairy tales let you speak again.

Whoopity doo-dah, Scott. Does that mean you feel no onership of your achievement, or that you feel you're not somehow responsible for getting better? Do you really think it was impossible for you to have chosen to start reciting fairy tales one day earlier, or one day later, or even not at all?

Could you have chosen on one specific day (when you dithered about whether or not to buy a paper) to have ended up walking into a convenience store and talking to me, where I might have told you how to solve your problem, 6 months earlier?

[Jonathan Kantor]

I think eating meat is instinctive for a human being.

My next door neighbor is a devout vegetarian and during the summer, he comments to me over the fence that the smell of the steak sizzling on my grill, "smells pretty darn good".

Chalk one up for Darwin.

[JethroElfman]

Regarding your analogy last week, I suppose that as a compatibilist I would allow that the weather does have free will. The environment just doesn't happen to be sentient. Along this line of reasoning, you could devise a test to see whether an individual ant has free will, or if the colony as a whole does. When considering apes, you get similar issues regarding whether they are sentient, have free will, and have a soul.

[mel]

I wish I was strong enough to eliminate meat from my diet. I've tried it before, but man....everyonce in a while I just want a steak. It's too hard to live with that desire! *laughs* But other than that, yeah totally agree with you.

[Redneck Intellectual]

Actually, I think we are designed to be omnivores, you to eat both meat and vegetables and fruits, not to forget twinkies, yoohoo, and glazed donuts, and coffee. I mainly like meat, because it tastes like murder and to quote Dennis Leary, "Murder tastes pretty damn good."

[NSA the Accounting Troll]

The healthest combination is a balanced diet of both meat and vegetables. Too much of either and not enough of the other is bad for you. Too much meat, and you die of a heart attack. No meat and you're a sissy little nancy boy who dies of malnutrition.

[Jedi Kevin]

Zzzzzzzz..............

[CC]

Ignoring free will for the moment...

Humans clearly are 'designed' to eat meat in that we can eat it and extract nutrition from it. The fact that just eating it is bad for us doesn't really take away from that. Nor does the fact that humans can live without it. You can use a computer without ever using one (or more) of the major functions, such as word processing, or emailing, or any other usage. That doesn't mean the machine wasn't designed to do them now does it?

Aren't we humans 'designed' to be omnivores? That is, capable of eating both meat and vegetables? And in fact we're healthiest when eating a combination. Eating purely meat is bad for our systems, but equally vegetarians have to be careful in their diets to ensure that they are also perfectly healthy.

And yes, I have evidence for this as my aunt is a very strict vegetarian and has to plan what she eats in order to ensure she has a balance. It was even more important while her son was growing up.

[Phil]

You are rationalizing.

rationalize |ˈra sh ənlˌīz; ˈra sh nəˌlīz| verb [ trans. ] 1 attempt to explain or justify (one's own or another's behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true or appropriate. (addendum by me: or complete)

Maybe you are trying to convince yourself that there is no free will because you are afraid of something?

I suggest you pick up some books by Daniel Dennett for an explanation of how free will can evolve out of a deterministic system.

http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/~ddennett.htm

Not to mention, the very fact that people need to be convinced of free will implies they have free will to not believe it.

[Joel Tallent]

This reminds me of a problem I have with philosophy in general.

We use this thing called language to represent what we perceive to be the world around us. When we use language in this way, we greatly oversimplify that which we are describing, in effect creating a separate, much simpler model of the world in our minds. This world is completely separate from the real world, but much of philosophy seems to be just little tricks we play with language that exploit loopholes that exist in the oversimplified reality within our minds. Then we just assume that these tricks translate directly back to actual reality.

[Jon]

Chicken and fish is very good for you. You can eat lots of it and be fine. Put it on a grill... that is a different story.

I bet if you feed lions grilled food and had them lay around all day, not doing much exercise you'll probably get some human-like results.

[LA Clay]

Let me get this straight, you have no free will AND no will power? Are the two tied together? It seems to me that your free will was to NOT write about the subject and the you made the CHOICE to write about it. or did the "moist Robot" in you take over you hands and you merely reacted?

"Free will" and "choice" are the exact same thing, a couple of words that we as humans assign meaning to to fit our personal needs.

[Park lee-huang]

It seems to me that the USA is becoming police state, just like China. See here...

http://home.comcast.net/~plutarch/PoliceState.html

[Mj4ever]

jeez what difference does it make?
:) or am i just programmed to think that?

Even if what we have is only an illusion of free will, we have no concrete way to verify free will do we? this is just an arguement that could go on for ever... both sides would still believe in their own arguements...

and as for the vegetarianism-- too much chocolate is bad for us, doesn't stop us eating it does it?

[msl]

That's why we're considered omnivores and need the B-12 that's normally found in meat. Yes, I know it's available in other sources, but most commonly it's from meat. Free will might not go into the choice to eat meat, probably it's a custom we inherited from the environment in which we were raised. Some people never exposed to meat wouldn't be able to tolerate it easily, others would have no problem. And as to free will, probably not, we're a product of our upbringing and environment - pre-programmed to behave in specific ways (whether we realize it or not.)

[Paul O]

If I recall correctly, we're all just a part of your own dream, aren't we? Certainly, nobody can prove otherwise.

And since we don't actually exist outside of your own dreamstate, the supposition of the existence of free will arises from within yourself.

Ergo, you believe in free will, even if you believe that you don't believe in free will. QED

[Nick]

You chose to post this...exercising your free will Scott. Bad decision making is still free will. BOCTAOE!