On free will [part 2]

 EDIT:
It ocurred to me that you might want to read the first part of the essay here!
You probably can understand this current post without it, but it assumes some things I justified in the previous part, so you should at least read both before posting.


You see, even though I very much like to base my beliefs and decisions on facts, I am not actually ready to give up "free will".
See, I like judging people. I draw joy from pointing out the flaws in their decision-making process; I thrive in criticize their information-gathering technique and I become absolutely ecstatic when I get to extend my less than flattering opinion on their abilitiy to assess a situation.

A lot of people don't care for this attitude. They'd rather I approach a self-afflicted atrocity with grievance, sympathy or even blame! To me though, the best reaction by far to apparently zealous commitment to stupidity is that of amusement! And yes, I do extend this principle to myself as well.
Of course I don't judge indiscriminately. A tiny infant, for example, is expected not to hold the same standard of judgement as that of an adult. Same goes if you have some sort of condition that cause you to have the equivalent analyzing-prowess of a lobotomized sea-horse. Same goes if you are under the influence of alcohol or other drugs that impair your judgement, though I can, and will, judge the decision of becoming inebriated to the point where you are liable to drown from pissing in your own mouth. However, this is not always the choice of this person. They might be forced to consume it, or tricked, or perhaps it's consumed it compulsively. Which brings me to my next point; if there is only one choice to make then that cannot be a poor choice. If someone is coerced, through threat or blackmail, into doing something they would otherwise never do, they can't be judged for doing that. That will only display ignorance on the part of the judge.
What I fear is that these constraints are not exclusive to the ones mentioned above. What if every poor decision is actually the only conceivable outcome of a linnearly progressing universe? What if everyone who made an evidently poor choice is actually the victim of chance?

This is true for the opposite as well. As you no doubt have learned from my Nansen-thread, I am very enthusiastic of the subject of men and women who not only excel at their field, but make significant contributions to many if not all enterprizes they pursue.
Do you mean to say that what Nansen achieved when he crossed the ice-caps of Greenland was not just not impossible, as it was thought to be at the time, but in fact inevitable? After all, what evidence is there that these people are in fact the architects of their own fates?

So that's the gist of it. What happens when one of the fundamental premises of which we understand the world and according to which we operate turns out to be false? Am I to be forced to accept the fact that both the people I admire, and the guy who put his hand in the tank full of lobsters with rabies, are my...equals?

Now I want you to participate in a small experiment here before we continue. It will literally only take a couple of seconds:
Look up.



Alright, there are now two possibilities; you either looked up and then returned to look forward into your monitor; continuing to read this text. Or you did not look up and continued reading the text regardless to see where I am going with this, in which case I am very, very disappointed!
Now, for those of you that looked up, let me make some educated guesses as to what you saw:
the ceiling, the sky, perhaps a tree you are sitting under. But how can I know these things are actually "up"? The word "up" doesn't actually have any inherent meaning. The "up" of me is the "down" of some guy in New Zealand. In the midst of space, which I will remind you most of everything is, where "up" is can vary from one second to the next as you rotate indiscriminately
Evidently "up" is not a concept we can rely on if we want to understand the universe, but does that mean everyone who looked "up" is some kind of moron? My vote is for "no", because if I could not input the instruction of "up" into a coworker, that would be one sub-par window-cleaner!
I think there is a similar deal with the concept of "free will". Because it happens to coincide with the way we experience our everyday life so accurately, abolishing it would result in an inconvenience. It's a concept we use to imagine and evaluate the decision-making process of rational agents. It's used to, amongst other things, reason with concepts such as responsibility, credit, consent and guilt; things that carry much weight in our current society.
That is my answer; one might say that the concept of free will is nothing but an invention of mankind, but that does not mean it doesn't exist. After all, lots of things invented by mankind do in fact exist. What about the coffee-makers? Paint-brushes? Those bells you put around the necks of cows? This doesn't even apply to things that have physical representations. What about language? Math? Laws? All of those "exist" in a meaningful way, even though they are inventions of man. What makes the concept of "free-will" any different?

Of course, the way we perceive our environment is not constant thorough the course of time. Perhaps some time in the future, when travel through the solar system has become a commodity, we will have to use an alternative to "up" and "down" to navigate ourselves. And perhaps at some point, when the actions of sane individuals, if not accurately predicted, then accurately traced and explained. At this point our understanding of human agency will mutate, and our language with it. It is obvious, at least to me, that this is a type of change we should embrace; but is that what will happen? If we do, will our entire judical system be seen as a pretentious and cruel way to manipulate behaviour by means of coercion? With these implications in mind, will a conflicting view of volition be met with resistance? As a defense for our own cruel imagination? If so, are we expected to come up with alternatives now?

I am a little uncertain how to end this type of posts. I would prefer to end it with a question, but that seems a little... unsatisfying. I hope I have managed to pique your interest at least, but honestly I am just as satisfied if I managed to bore the shit out of you. Or if I manged to instill boiling rage inside you. Essentially the only objectionable outcome is if you just sat there with a moronic smile, nodding like a complacent yes-man. But there is nothing much I can do about that, other than start writing about something more interesting.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my input on this subject. I will make more philosophical posts in the future, but not so often.
Have a nice evening/day/night etc.