Why Free Will can never be understood
I hope I don't have to define Freewill but what I understand of it is that to possess it one must be able to make choices without being influenced by anything.
Freewill is usually contrasted with determinism which is the belief that the any state of affairs is causally specified by what comes before it.
What is of note is that to understand x we need an explanation y and, the fact is, ALL explanations are causal in nature and that means, to explain freewill (necessary to comprehend it) we need to construct a causal model of it. That, it seems to me, is deterministic in flavor from the get go which Freewill, if extant, is NOT supposed to be.
Do you agree, then, that Freewill can't be understood because it can't be explained since that would require a causal (deterministic) model?
Freewill is usually contrasted with determinism which is the belief that the any state of affairs is causally specified by what comes before it.
What is of note is that to understand x we need an explanation y and, the fact is, ALL explanations are causal in nature and that means, to explain freewill (necessary to comprehend it) we need to construct a causal model of it. That, it seems to me, is deterministic in flavor from the get go which Freewill, if extant, is NOT supposed to be.
Do you agree, then, that Freewill can't be understood because it can't be explained since that would require a causal (deterministic) model?
Comments (164)
Totally uncaused "free will" would just be chaos. Imagine if you made choices without being caused to make those choices by rationality, life lessons, experience, values, etc.? It would just be random firings of the brain. Where is the freedom in that?
So, in a sense, determinism is what makes having choices possible.
Tom Clark is good for understanding how we should come to think of free will within a determined universe:
http://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/free-will/fully-caused-coming-to-terms-with-determinism
and :
http://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/free-will/dont-forget-about-me
Also some helpful articles collected here:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwIntroIndex.htm
It is obviously impossible not to be influenced by anything when making choices. A choice would not be possible without influences; we'd have nothing to graduate the decision by.
Quoting TheMadFool
I agree with your analysis. I think we are just like computers, our inputs (senses) determine our outputs (what we say and do).
Quoting NKBJ
The choices we make are determined by emotions (glands, hormones), logic, memory and senses. All of these things operate in a deterministic manner. I'm with Einstein on this one: free will is an illusion.
It's like you didn't bother reading my post.
You have a simplistic and outdated understanding of free will.
To pretend that there is no difference between being confined and being unconfined is merely to refuse to engage with the topic.
The philosophical difficulty is that one has to believe that the past is completely determined, and that will completes this determination; but one has also to believe that one's decisions remain undetermined until one determines them. One can only decide anything on the basis that the decision is efficacious.
There is a sense of 'determine' that means 'to find out'. Imagine the world as a computer game - fully determined in its internal workings, but requiring input from the player via a controller. These posts don't write themselves, do they?
It's contradictory to speak of choices and then claim free will is an illusion.
OK by 'choices' I meant 'the things that we do'.
Making a 'decision' is just like running a computer program IMO: same data, same program, always same results.
That's because it's reasonable to choose the same thing given the same data.
So therefore there is no free will. We respond to input data in a deterministic manner. No choice is involved.
Not if choices are also an illusion.
It's both. We use reason to make choices based on determined data.
But the logic we use is deterministic logic. We go from deterministic input data, through deterministic logic to deterministic output data.
We can never do it, but if you could put a person in exactly the same situation and state say 1000 times then I would guess them to make the same decision 1000 times out of a 1000 (even for something as arbitrary as 'will it be heads or tails?').
That's the thing: we can't think of free will as arbitrary. That wouldn't be any kind of freedom or will at all.
I really suggest you at least read the first article I posted. It will answer a lot of your concerns.
I believe the key to thinking we have free will is to intentionally limit our understanding to some extent. This is a future case. I believe at some point in the future our ability to predict the future will be tremendously enhanced. Free will is the product of being ignorant of all the laws and notions that make reality real. Its like playing chess against a human opponent instead of Rybka. For Rybka to lose more often it designers would have to purposely limit its knowledge of the game of chess.
Let's try to charitably understand this. I choose chocolate ice cream freely because I am only influenced by my liking for chocolate ice cream. If you have a gun to my head and promise to shoot me unless i choose [s]vomit[/s] tutti frutti flavour, then my choice is not free, and I may well choose against my will and according to your will.
Strictly speaking, I would say I am still free to defy you and your tutti frutti fascism, but there again, one must pick one's battles.
Right.
And to choose a flavor absent any influences whatsoever would just be random. It wouldn't even be your "choice."
Your whim is still going to be influenced by the tastes of foods you know you like.
But besides that, would you really want people going around making uncaused choices all the time?
Because we don't have it, not completely...
Maybe, maybe not. Maybe my lottery numbers are influenced by something or other, maybe not. I think it is a matter of faith that they 'must be'.
Oh, I didn't realise I had the choice. :joke: Can I suggest that reasons are not necessarily causes? I might choose an unknown flavour on one occasion, and stick with something I know I like on another. Each has its reasons.
How do you figure that? Lottery numbers are generated by computers and those have algorithms. Definitely caused and determined.
Quoting unenlightened
If a reason causes you to do something, then it is a cause.
No. I can pick my own numbers for my ticket.
Quoting NKBJ
Well yes, that's a bit tautological. But perhaps reasons are not the kind of thing that causes anything. It certainly seems that I can have a reason to do something and yet not do it.
You'd have other reasons that caused your action, though.
Quoting creativesoul
What about all the non Abrahamic religions? I feel this is getting off topic.
Off topic? I just told you the very origin of the term... It was a response to Epicurus' argument.
Using this train of thought as a springboard:
In common modern parlance, determinacy is not equivalent to causation. The material used in a construction determines the relative flexibility of the edifice (e.g., wood makes the edifice flexible in comparison to the material of stone); yet the material does not efficiently cause the flexibility of the structure: the material and the structure are simultaneous. The same can be said of formal determinacy—what determines some particular form (with emergent properties of constituents as one possible example)—as well as for teleological determinacy, namely those of motives that most always determine particular motions of sapient beings and which simultaneously co-occur with the given motions. Causation as commonly understood pertains only to efficient causation—wherein the cause temporally precedes the effect it has the agency to produce. (This, though, is not do deny that at times all four of Aristotle’s categories of determinacy can be addressed as causal factors—further obfuscating the issue with unnoticed equivocations.)
Freewill as defined by the op seems to me to be, at best, a logical contradiction: effects being themselves determined by some originative cause that a) is devoid of motives for the action of effect origination and also b) is non-stochastic.
If freewill does exist, it is always semi-determined by, at minimum, motives—which are not efficient causes. It’s just that what one chooses will not be fully determined by antecedent (efficient) causes. In other words, that which does the choosing will itself be a terminating efficient cause of the effects produced within the constraints of, at minimum, the motives that are present.
Yea, I’m battling with windmills in thinking this is going to hold any sway in soundbite form—though I find nothing irrational about what I’ve just addressed. And this is one means of going about a compatibilist universe: one where freewill requires determinacy for its very manifestation (but is contradictory to being fully determined by antecedent efficient causes, i.e. a causally deterministic universe).
And then you'd need to hypothesise a cause/reason why one reason was causal and the other was not.
I call that cause my choice; my choice determines whether I act accord ing to this reason or that reason or no reason. But you want a cause for my choice...
You make choices based on a mixture of your personal biology and past experiences. Take away those two things and there's nothing left of "you."
There's nothing "free" about a free will, because it's just random and wouldn't be based on reason or values or experience or knowledge or anything. It would be chaos.
I agree.
But I don't even think a causal (deterministic) model would sufficiently explain freewill. Suppose freewill is an immediate process of an individual's internal state. It follows that free will only seems to be the cause of the state of affairs which occurs subsequent to its act.
The illusion of freewill is that an external state of affairs corresponds to what has been willed. Even if the will corresponded perfectly to the state of affairs, there is no indication that the will is the causal factor.
So a deterministic model would only give greater reason for why the universe is the cause of any state of affairs, rather than a free will.
You are just going round and round, declaring without argument that everything must be like this because it must be. And you don't notice that it isn't like that after all.
What part is not determined?
You haven't provided any substantive argument for why it wouldn't be so.
If the will is the deciding agent for causality, then that would mean it chooses, and by choosing that implies some degree of freedom
Yes, there is freedom in the choice, but that freedom of choice is dependent on being determined. On what basis would you make a choice if not by predetermined data?
No. And you haven't provided any substantive argument for why it would be so. But I have the advantage that people make choices, and I don't need to explain it, merely notice it, whereas you need to explain it away.
But even if the choice is predicated upon determinate factors, the choice itself is not predetermined
If you had been paying attention, you'd have noticed that I never said that people don't make choices. They do. But those choices aren't "free" or untethered to determined causes.
You're the one who has to make a case for what part of the self could possibly make an uncaused choice. What part of you is untouched by biology and experience?
And what part of you is untouched by predetermining factors?
Or you could consider the Nietzschean idea that there are so many unknowns that factor into choice, that I have no idea what's going on, but like to think I cause things
Sure, that's how we act and think in the day to day. The predetermining factors of all the thousands of decisions we make are indeed so vast that we can't always comprehend them, so we go about our days with the impression that our wills are totally free.
Not one part.
Except maybe that part of me where my decisions are made
Suppose the predetermined factors are infinite, would that then give infinite possibility to the deciding agent? If so, that would make the will beyond free
Just because there are predetermined factors, it doesn't necessitate that they are the cause of choice
And just because a state of affairs corresponds to the will, it doesn't necessitate that willing is the cause
If the non-equivalence between determinacy and causation as I’ve previously described it is accepted, freewill could then be argued to be necessarily (pre)determined at all times.
--> It would only not be fully determined by antecedent efficient causes—such that the decision-as-effect which is produced holds that which makes the decision to be the metaphysically terminating origin—hence, originating efficient cause—of the decision (... this rather than the decision being a link in an infinite chain, or web, of efficient causal processes devoid of any exception).
One means of potentially arguing this is to provide for the contradiction of (a fully) causal determinism: In summation of one such argument, we agents (i.e., sentient beings; hence, instantiations of awareness in the form of ego) can only hold presence (i.e., exist, but not necessarily “stand out” … a subtle but metaphysically important clarification of semantics for some) given the presence of change, hence motion—this irrespective of whether the change/motion is physical or mental. That being a given, when impartially appraised, a world of full causal determinism does not logically allow for the possibility of change/motion—this since all relations of efficient causation are within this model perfectly immutable by definition, and because everything is deemed to consist of these perfectly immutable causal relations. Here, then, our experience of being directly contradicts with our theory of a fully casually deterministic being—for our experience entails the presence of change whereas the model of reality entails a perfect changelessness of being. I fully grant that the summation of this argument many be emotively lacking; yet I would challenge anyone to find rational fault with it. BTW, to hypothetically then claim that awareness is an illusion on grounds of the model used is to place the cart before the horse: it is our awareness which devises models of what being is; not vice versa.
If this logical contradiction is valid and if awareness holds ontological presence (rather than being chimerical), then (a fully) causally deterministic universe is rationally concluded to be an error of reasoning. This, minimally, then facilitates the possibility of freewill as I’ve just described it.
Another means is to address experiences (here granting that our awareness is not perfectly chimerical): we are aware that we strive to choose which alternative to commit to whenever we deliberate between alternatives. We are typically aware via non-physiological sensations (i.e. emotively) that there is a want in us whenever we so deliberate. This want, whatever it may be, is the a propelling motive for us to make a choice between alternatives—and this propelling motive determines our motion (roughly, our change of being) in actively making a decision; i.e., determines that we engage in the psychological action. Each want (each propelling motive) has some either ready established or else not yet established resolution that is pursued. The resolution to the want attracts us—and it too is a motive that determines what we choose; it is a fully teleological (goal-based) determinant that is entailed by the want. So when we deliberate in order to come to a decision we are determined by our propelling want and by that end/goal which we deem to resolve the given want. As to the actual alternatives between which we chose, at any given moment of deliberation, these are not determined by us as aware agents (but are instead determined, arguably, by our unconscious mind); these ready alternatives, instead, (pre)determine what our future courses of action can potentially be at any given instance of choice. We choose that alternative which best satisfies our motives—our desire when this is conceptualized as a propelling motive of want that simultaneously entails a sought after resolution to the same want, the latter being the telos/end that attracts or pulls.
In short, we are always determined by motives and by the alternatives we are aware of in the choices we make. Our choices are thereby never chaotic.
But add to this the following possible paradox: when we deliberate between alternatives, each alternative will be both a credible means toward the attracting motive we are determined by (otherwise we wouldn’t entertain it) AND each alternative will be to some extent an uncertain optimal means toward the attracting motive, which serves to determined what we choose (otherwise, were we to be certain that one alternative is better than all others, there would be no need for deliberation). Choosing which alternative is the best means toward the telos-motive, then, is a matter of metaphysical freedom—freedom strictly from antecedent efficient causes. We at these junctures of deliberation in essence momentarily become the causal origin of the ensuing decision as effect--thereby rationally holding responsibility for our choices.
I’m not claiming that what I’ve so far expressed is comprehensive. Though it’s an expansive topic, I’ve already written a mouthful, I’m thinking.
I am wanting to claim that what I’ve expressed does rationally illustrate how our choices are always determined and yet are—or at least rationally can be—metaphysically free from an otherwise infinite web of perfectly fixed efficient causations … and this without being in any way chaotic.
The will derives its freedom by relating itself to infinite possibility through the rational imagination. So, in one one sense, it is in the creative will that metaphysical freedom is obtained, and in a way that averts chaos.
So are you saying that this "want" or "motive" is determined or the part of choice that is not fully determined?
I appreciate that you are examining from multiple perspectives. It's worth a re-read
Stating it differently: there can be no choice (an action or motion) without some form of want (a driving motive where "motive" is understood as "something that determines motion"). The motive--irrespective of what it itself is determined by--determines the process of choice making.
I was going to pull just that aspect out from your dissertation there! :wink:
I agree that is a "want" that pushes us towards certain decisions, in fact, a whole host of them, sometimes contradictory ones pulling us in opposite directions.
The distinction if that want is determined or not is the crux of the matter. I would say that these wants are products of both our experiences and our biology, and that they are fully determined. In fact, if they were not determined, they would not be trustworthy.
Quoting NKBJ
As I so far see things, want is of course determined: by biology, by experience, as well as by our previous choices in life. I'll even go so far as to suggest that some form of meta-want is even a metaphysically predetermined facet of any awareness, or sentience--devoid of which no such thing as ego can be.
My contention is, again, in that the actual choice of which of two or more alternatives to choose (so as to approach and obtain the want's resolution) will itself not be an immutable link in infinite causal chains/webs. Rather, the act of making the specific choice will stem from the momentary form of the agent as an originating efficient cause, such that its effect is the choice taken.
I will agree that every choice is in itself another cause of a long line of events, so it is the efficient cause in that sense. I do not see how it is the "originating" cause if it itself is also caused.
Would you say this is true regardless of whether the choice can be shown to have any causal relation to the corresponding state of affairs?
Perhaps it's in the possibility that the choice can reconfigure the causal chain, in effect resetting its succession to a new origin.
How would that work?
Even if the choice has no causal relation to the state of affairs, it marks a resolution for the deciding agent so that the landscape of possibility becomes altered.
prior to that post I didn't see the origin or any word Epicurus but i'm not going to argue about that at this point.
Oh but you should, indeed, you should argue it
Right, it's an efficient cause. But that's not enough to claim it itself is uncaused.
These are indeed the hard to depict nuances that, all the same, distinguish causal determinism (including those forms that claim compatibilism) from any position affirming any type of metaphysical freewill (including those forms that also claim compatibilism).
We typically say that lightning causes thunder. In fact, lightning is fully determined by antecedent efficient causal factors; the thunder is then causes not by the lightning but by the set of these antecedent causal factors. Between these factors and the thunder, lightning is just an immutable link and is thereby fully non-efficacious. In other words, given the verity to these antecedent causal factors, lightning in truth holds no causal agency of its own. Hence, logically, it is not the lightning which causes the thunder but its antecedent causal factors.
In a system of causal determinism, then, there is no causal agency to speak of. All appraisals of causal agency become chimerical. Everything is causally predetermined in full by antecedent causal effects ad infinitum, such that causal agency as we “naively” conceive of it is an impossibility.
When it comes to choice between alternatives, what I’m saying is that despite its determinacy by motives (and other non-causal determinants), we agents in fact cause the effect. In effect, our commonsense notions of causal agency are in fact accurate representations of one underlying metaphysical form of causality, one that applies to freewill.
Each and every moment of our being we are different, thought the same person, and will have been in part predetermined by our former choices in life. Yet at each juncture of choice—part, present, and future—we again engage in being the agency for effects as decisions, or commitments, to future realities, this given two or more alternative means toward the end of resolving our want(s).
As causal agencies—and unlike the lightning bolt—we of our own constituency of being originate the effect of our particular decisions. … Whereas the lightning bolt does not causally originate the thunder of its own being (again, this since the thunder is causally predetermined by causal factors antecedent to the lightning).
If there’s a need, I’ll have to reply later on.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
From my vantage, it easy to forget or overlook that causation (of any variant) cannot be shown (empirically demonstrated) to be factual. The philosophy of causation is metaphysical in full. From the ontology of Aristotle, to the works of Hume, to those who have affirmed that reality is fully non-causal (e.g., instead being fully mathematical), the "showing" part can only pertain to reasoning and logic. I think for most of us, ideally a reasoning that is accordant to empirical world we experience.
Correlation does not entail causation. Yet causation is always co-relational. Given a sufficient quantity of uniform correlations between some given and its antecedent, one simply presumes causation.
So whether choice has any causal efficacy in relation to the corresponding state of affairs is, I believe, the crux of the freewill debate. Causal determinists presume it doesn't. Those who uphold freewill presume it does. And resolving this via empirical data has at least so far proven futile.
Thank you. You have a nice way of framing it all.
Quoting javra
I would add there is also the important debate of whether predetermined factors allow for the existence of the will, and to what degree it is free in relation to those factors.
Quoting javra
The eternal decision. I think this is what makes the willing agent relevent, whether or not its decision manifests into reality. In fact, I would say that when the will does not correspond to any existing state of affairs, it takes on even more importance.
It take it from your terminology, you hold to a few Aristotilean presuppositions.
In layman terms, causality is nullified by immutability, qua. the deterministic model.
The important distinction is, as you say: existing, versus standing out. But I might argue that this standing out is existing, as such. And, if the deterministic model does essentially negate the deciding agent, then, then thing that exists is gone, and what are we left with: the model and irrelevant spectators.
That is the extra claim you make, that I do not. And you keep making it and not justifying it. I'm unsurprised, because I have never heard any justification in many years of such discussion.
Perhaps it is impossible to justify since the one making the claim has to disavow his own existence. It is a contradiction in the sense that the will is being negated through an act of the will
That is most likely the case. But on days we're feeling generous, we can attribute it to being lost in speculation.
Quoting unenlightened
I totally get it. So let's not agree too much, lest it become a bore
Right. But the opposite of that wouldn't be decisions that are not influenced by anything. The opposite would simply be some departure from strict causality.
See what javra has recently posted.
What would you say that has to do with my post?
Ah, okay. I was just trying to simply clarify something about the distinction for TheMadFool (and for anyone who might have agreed), contra a misunderstanding that he had.
Why?
Because saying that the opposite is that we're not influenced by anything ignores other alternatives. So it's a false dichotomy.
Please elaborate.
Ask a more specific question if you don't understand something I said.
I'm not interested in typing some long, very generalized thing. I think it's rather a problem on this board that people tend to do that. There's usually no focus. People ramble on. They'll bring up 15-20 different topics in a long post without really addressing any of them, without having any clear logical connection or flow to their "argument," etc. I just wanted to simply correct a conceptual misunderstanding. If you disagree or don't understand what I said that's fine, but ask specific questions, keep things focused, etc.
Ok, then dodge the question.
You asked me and I responded promptly and directly. "I want to know exactly what you think that "opposite" is."
And you answer: Quoting Terrapin Station
Great philosophy guy
You posted twice and didn't address me either time. I only noticed the second one: "I was just giving you a chance to build your position "
Re "opposite," in this case it's the complement, or rather what people are (logically if not explicitly) implying when they deny that determinism is the case.
Doo doo
From where I'm sitting, you just keep repeating that there IS some undetermined part of the self that makes choices without being at all specific about what that is or whence it comes or how it works or ANYTHING.
When you take away biology, and you take away all the experiences of your life, WHAT is left of you that could make decisions?
The idea of free will is rooted in our defense mechanism against the concept of determinism. We desperately need to justify our own sense of control over ourselves and our life since the idea that we are part of a causality system is as close to cosmic horror we have in our knowledge about the universe. But the fact is that we can't escape the logic of determinism and any attempt to do so always fall flat when falsifying any argument in favor of free will. A common denominator for those arguing for free will is usually that they at the same time believe in supernatural elements to our existence and laws of the universe.
The closest thing to something breaking determinism is using quantum randomness as a deciding factor for choices and decisions, but that would only cause a physical representation of chaos that is causally undetermined, it would never grant the ability of free will. So, even if randomness were a factor within the causal system, it never supports free will as a system. However we verify or falsify the argument, free will never find solid ground outside of an irrational belief system.
I've never tried it. If you have, perhaps you can tell me, but your question is rhetorical, so of course you cannot, you merely show that you assume there is nothing, and cannot be anything.
Quoting Christoffer
However we verify or falsify the argument, determinism will never find solid ground outside of an irrational belief system.
However closely you examine the virtual world of a computer game, you will never find anything that violates the determinism of the program; you will never find any trace of the player, but only of his input, which you may see as 'either random or programmed'. But we know that people play games, and are more than their avatars.
My position is simple. It appears to me that I make choices, and the making of choices entails that they are not already determined. This could be an illusion, but no one has presented the least reason to think it is an illusion. So just as I do not assume the sky is pink because it appears to be blue, so I don't assume that I cannot choose because it appears that I can.
Until you can explain to me what about the self could be free from determinism, your entire theory is based merely on wishful thinking.
For the record, it's not a rhetorical question. I'm dead serious. Biology is determined, experiences are determined, so to claim there is free will you have to show there is something else.
No it isn't. I just told you my theory is based on what appears to be the case, that I can choose freely, not at all on what I wish. And whatever the basis of my theory which is hardly theory at all, it is in no way dependent on what I can explain to you, fortunately.
It doesn't appear that way at all. But since you can't explain it, I rest my case.
Feel free. :grin:
It was determined since the big bang that I would do so. :joke: :kiss:
Thanks
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
True. It’s why I find interest in exploring the mechanisms of volition. It can’t be completely determined, nor completely undetermined. Nor are our lives and experiences helped out by forsaking the subject of volition on grounds of it being illusory—this due to upholding a model of causal reality that (as I previously tried to illustrate) is contradictory to causal efficacy.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Via example, what I generally have in mind is: there’s my decision to move my hand, followed by the state of affairs of my hand moving as I willed; likewise, when I decide to not move my hand, my hand does not move. So there generally is a uniform correlation between what I willfully intend to do and what ends up being done.
On occasion though, my will shall not be efficacious. If I decide to express an idea I have in confident manners but instead end up being tongue-tied in the idea’s expression, the resulting state of affairs will not correlate with what I willed to occur.
As I interpret it, then, you’re saying that the property of will is more important when it is not efficacious—this as per my second example of ending up being tongue tied.
I’m curious to find out more about why you think so.
Yes. As I’ve previously expressed, I do believe in Aristotle’s four different types of determinacy.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Nicely summarized.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
The sneaky issue is that of the first-person point-of-view’s existence. It is, has being, but it does not stand out even to itself. You look into a mirror and see all the biological apparatuses via which you as a first-person point-of-view can physiologically see—but you never physiologically see yourself as that first-person point-of-view which is seeing … and which can also see with the mind’s eye. So if to exist is defined as to stand out, does one as first-person point-of-view of awareness exist?
It’s this same, ever-changing, first person point of view that does the choosing.
Quoting Merkwurdichliebe
Yup, I agree with the conclusion.
Quote from another interesting article on the matter:
"We can thus see that the free will wars – disputes about whether or not we should go around denying free will, and what free will really is – are a function of differing definitions. If you’re referring to our capacity for voluntary choice-making that gives us rational control over our behavior, and that makes us responsible, then it would be wrong to deny that. If, on the other hand, you’re referring to a contra-causal capacity that supposedly makes us more responsible than what deterministic voluntary action affords, then it would be wrong not to deny that, at least on the assumption that we want a well-informed public."
and:
"Given indeterminism, things might have turned out otherwise, but breaks in causal regularities in generating options to choose from can’t be credited to the agent. Moreover, we don’t want the agent’s choice among options to involve much randomness, since that would undermine responsibility by sidelining the agent’s character and intentions as primary determinants of the choice. What we can call agent determinism is necessary for control and responsibility. So, if a contra-causal swerve helps to determine a choice, that choice can’t more reflect the agent’s character or motives, so doesn’t make the choice more her doing in any morally significant respect than under determinism, even though she could, and might, have done otherwise. The upshot, it seems to me, is that it’s perfectly ok to tell folks they don’t have free will in this purportedly responsibility-enhancing sense, since there’s no good reason to suppose they do, even if determinism is false.[3] So go for it. But we have to make sure they understand that they can still, and will, be held responsible, since being held responsible is crucial in helping people do the right thing."
http://www.naturalism.org/philosophy/free-will/what-should-we-tell-people-about-free-will
:roll:
Not making an argument; just trying to share an article I thought was interesting.
There are certain things that aren't as easy to explain verbally as they are by simply witnessing an embodiment of it.
For example, I begun entrepreneurial endeavors very early, but always struggled with how to sell things to people. No matter how many times I would be told to sell to people, how many ideas I would be given, it was very difficult to execute. Eventually I began to work for MetroPCS, where as a Sales Associate, I witnessed just a few transactions in my first couple days and I was blown away and enlightened. I saw how Evil they did it, but I turned it into my own way, which felt so much better. My communication skills improved because of it in the business sense and my performance showed that.
Similar to Aristotle's thoughts on Eudaimonia -- if you have the example, others will follow... and others...
Determinism has solid ground mathematically through probability. At quantum levels, probability has a randomness that hasn't been combined with larger models yet, but the probability of anything other happening outside causality of larger than quantum events is so low that it's within infinitiy numbers.
Free will does not have such support. So saying that determinism has no solid ground outside of an irrational belief system is pretty much just nonsense.
Quoting unenlightened
How in any way does this relate to the laws of the universe? Are you using an analogy of a computer game to compare the free will of the player with the free will of our selves within our universe? I don't even need to break this down to show how irrational such an analogy is. Free will is governed by the same laws of physics and the same universe as anything else. Thinking that our free will and our sense of self is disconnected from that is both narcissistic and arrogant by us as humans. A desperation of holding on to an illusion based in a sense of importance to our existence within a universe that couldn't care less about us existing. And theological explanations have no solid ground to support such irrationality without including tons of cognitive biases.
Quoting unenlightened
If I program you, psychologically, to crave for a certain product through repetition of commercial exposure of that product; you will eventually include a will to use that product. Commercial work shows how infantile people are when thinking about free will. Corporations can control what people want by the illusion of what they need. So the choices you make do not appear in a vacuum, you have no isolated thinking that works as the basis for the will you act upon. So to detach your will from what creates that will is ignorance of how our mind actually works.
What "appears to be the case" is not in any way solid support for a conclusion that determinism doesn't exist and determinism does not mean "someone determined it", it's about causality, laws of physics. You need to ignore both the laws of physics and how psychology works in order to conclude your free will to be free of any influence and reason, both biologically and psychologically.
Quoting unenlightened
There's plenty of reasons and support for determinism, but if you have a cognitive bias towards believing determinism to be wrong, you will ignore those reasons and support.
Quoting unenlightened
This line of thinking is just naive. Your mind and brain are not detached from laws of physics and the rest of the universe. You cannot use your subjective feeling as support against determinism. And the sky is blue because of physics and your eye register the blue color because of it. Your assumptions are totally irrelevant when judging the nature of what spectrum the sky shows. Measure the spectrum and you get the data and if you get brain damage, the sky might change appearance, but the data is still the same, i.e your assumption about the sky is irrelevant since it's affected by how your brain works, not the actual composition of how the sky produce the blue color. The sky is blue whether you want it to be or not, determinism is governing everything in the universe, including our brain and mind, whether you want it to or not. What you assume to be true about your sense of free will is irrelevant as support for free will. You cannot prove the validity of the book you read by using the book itself as proof, that's fundamentally corrupt and biased.
There are a number of problems with that article but the first is this. Just how are we managing voluntary control over anything if causal determinism is the case?
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Christoffer
Quoting Christoffer
Yeah, but don't hold back, dude, let me know when I'm wrong. It's good to know that someone out there is rational and measured.
I paused at that line as well. The voluntary part doesn't bother me: you're determined to want to choose certain things over other things. Just because it's determined that these are the choices you would prefer, doesn't mean you don't "really" prefer them (as odd as that sounds).
In a similar vein, you still have control over which choices you make, in the sense that you are still the rational agent making the choices. Determinism is not a mystical force driving your decisions. It's just that the way you were raised, the experiences you had, and your dna and rna and all that lead to the fact that you are the kind of person who will be choosing x instead of y.
For me, the question really becomes (and I think the article doesn't do this justice) what does that mean for ethics? It seems then that the point of anything we do in reaction to bad or good actions should not be to punish or reward that past behavior per se, but to encourage or discourage certain behaviors in the future.
How is this possible? The antithesis of freewill is determinism. Determinism is defined in terms of causality. Freewill, if present, must be acausal.
Everything simply is.
There's no reason, cause or purpose to its being outside of simply being.
This is a self-determined act; so in that sense, sure, it's an accordance.
But it isn't influenced by anything, it is willed (determined) but also completely free.
When you think of free will think of actions, not intent.
Actions themselves are completely free; determinism arrives from intent.
There are two things at stake here:
1. The theoretical concept of a "free will" that denotes uncaused choices and actions.
2. The concept of "free will" that most people actually mean when they use the term.
Think about 1. for a second. If your actions are totally uncaused, they must also be uncaused by emotions, reason, past experiences, and anything else. What would that mean for your actions? Would they still be your "choice" if reason and experience weren't factors? I don't see how. They would be random (mis?)firings of the brain.
As for 2, most people aren't worried about "free will" being informed by reason, emotions, and experience. They just insist that they have "free will" in the sense that they do not know themselves to be externally coerced, and that they are able to make decisions based on a combination of their own personal reasoning, emotions, and experiences.
Determinism allows for #2, but obviously contradicts #1.
I see. Perhaps being uncaused has its own set of problems. Yet, I feel that to be completely free we must be, somehow, unaffected by causation but still be able to inject ourselves into the causal chain. In short, freewill, in my view, requires us to be causes but not effects. I guess I'm saying that to be truly free we must be able to overcome any and all influences including emotions and reason.
And then on what basis are you deciding things? If you make choices absent any good reasoning, or just absent any cause, are they really choices? Wouldn't that make them random?
It just seems to me that being subject to random firings of the brain that can't be controlled or directed by reason or experience is tantamount to being a ragdoll in a hurricane or tornado where you'll be tossed to and fro who knows where or why. I imagine that would be what it feels like to be insane.
To me, freedom means being able to make informed choices and being in control of myself and what happens to me. Yes, determinism tells us that we are not uncaused, uninfluenced agents, because we are always acting in accordance to the sum of our experiences and genetic make-up. However, it also tells us that the more aware we are of these influences, the more we can employ reason, the more we are able to comprehend the complex nature of our choices, the more in control of them we are.
Wouldn't they still be your choices - albeit unrecognized and unforced?
Choices that don't know or care about options
No, I don't believe they would be. Especially if you're not aware of options. Choice implies both having options and making a judgment call between them.
Wouldn't choice simply be 'one instead of the other'?
Well, you are what you are, instead of what you aren't.
That's a choice.
You don't have to be aware of what you could be and what you aren't, to be what you are.
You just are - it's a choice without intent.
Well, wasn't it Aristotle who observed that "everything is what it is and not some other thing"? Which is true, but it's a description of the basic law of non-contradiction, and not a choice. I cannot choose to be not me any more than a rock can choose to be a deer.
Technically, every desire bringing about discontentment with the self, sets one on the path to not be oneself.
Obviously, even during this process, you're you; of a sort.
But you being you is not a choice, the way you put it, because it's not a conscious choice.
But it's an unconscious choice; a free willed, spontaneous choice.
Which is to say it is both a choice and not a choice.
Pertaining to: Quoting NKBJ
That would mean everything is everything, which funnily enough makes it - everything it is and is not, so it amounts to everything.
They key to this predicament is the word is.
Now you're starting with the voodoo buddhist lingo, which relies on confused terminology.
You are ALWAYS yourself, because you cannot be anything but yourself. The cliche about "I'm not myself today" for example is not actually saying you're someone other than yourself, but that you're not acting like you usually do, or according to your ideal self. You cannot choose to be anyone but yourself. You can choose to change, but then the moment you do, that change is part of who you are.
And when we're talking about freewill, an unconscious "choice" is definitely not a "freewill" choice, because it was entirely out of your control.
Technically not, because who I am is not who I was; and yet, who I was, when I was, is who I am.
The self is just a frame of many; in this sense there is no self - as there is no permanance to comprise a self.
And yet each self is permanent, so there is a self. One self being change.
Quoting NKBJ
Free will that is controlled, is bond; it is not free.
Free will is free from control, consciousness and things altogether.
Free will is going with the flow; it doesn't care.
Look, you're clearly into this whole mantra-like, cliche-riddled mystical jargon, but I'm not and I don't see us having a fruitful conversation since I prefer my interlocutors a little more invested in reason and sense-making.
But I do wish all of the you's all the best on your spiritual energy life journey voyage thing.
Thanks for asking that question. I don't think denying determinism/causality automatically leads us to randomness. A non-determined system that isn't random. I can't explain it and that's the whole point of my OP.
As far as I can tell, the definition of "random" is "proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern." So, an uncaused freewill would fall right in that category.
I'm afraid I cannot come up with a way to think about an entirely uncaused freewill that doesn't fit the definition of random. This is why I think it's necessary to rethink what we mean by the term "freewill."
Well, examining my own thoughts, whether it's real/illusory, I can choose to be illogical or deny myself the best option in a situation. In other words I'm not bound by reason. In such cases my choices aren't determined but they're not random either. Am I making sense? I think there's a third option between determinism and randomoness, the area where freewill can exist.
On the other hand, if determinism is the case, then there aren't really two options, and given antecedent state x, then immediately consequent state y must follow 100% of the time, and any other scenario is actually impossible--it has zero chance of occurring at any stage, even though we may believe or be able to conceive otherwise.
Well, there's another possibility. It could be the case that there are two options, but there's something/some way to bias things so that they're not equiprobable. That could involve anything from a 99-point something chance that one is chosen rather than the other (where the other still has a non-zero possibility of being chosen), to just over a 50% chance that one will be chosen over the other.
Free will could typically involve such biasing.
No. But that's the consequence of trying to do away with reason, which I guess is your choice.
I've done a lot of stupid stuff in my life. Even now, after reaching some form of mental maturity, I can still opt to be irrational e.g. I can say something incoherent like ''3 is the father of Obama''. You probably can do that too but, of course, you won't. Anyway what I'm saying is we ''seem to'' possess freewill of some kind. I want to know if it's true or just an illusion.
Aw, thanks, I take that as a compliment! :blush:
So, I think probabilistic predictions aren't necessarily indicative of choice.
Take randomness: yes, you may have a 50/50 chance of choosing A or B, but "you" don't choose either of them. The choice just happens irrespective of reason, experience, etc. Randomness wouldn't be under your control in the least. The moment there is any part of "you" choosing something, that becomes involving a predetermined entity. And if you posit some "uncaused" essence of yourself...well, I think that would be invoking some theological/mystical/magical concepts that I personally am not willing to concede.
In determinism, yes, you will choose, say, A with a 100% certainty. But you still chose A. You used reason and experience to inform your choice, and because those are created by a determined universe, you always were going to choose A, but you nevertheless were the agent making the choice.
Why are you not addressing the biasing idea?
Welcome.
Quoting NKBJ
Astronomy (the science) evolved from astrology (the superstition). Flying machines were once mythical. I guess I'm saying the alternative to determinism, the uncaused, needn't be mystical/magical.
Because I'm not sure I follow what you even mean by it, how you think it would work, or that it's relevant. But if you elucidate more clearly what it is, I will do my best to address it.
I concede that it is entirely possible that there is something we do not currently understand that seems mystical now but could be considered scientific fact someday. However, with the multitude of things that would fall into that category, I hope you'll understand that until that day, I will continue to think of them as mystical.
Well, we don't know exactly how it would work, but we can describe what it would be. It's simply that there's not an equiprobable chance of each option occurring. Some options would occur more frequently than others. This isn't just hypothetical, by the way. We believe that it's the case with quantum phenomena, for example. Not every option is equiprobable.
So the idea is that there might be some way to bias probabilities willfully (where we don't know the exact mechanism for this yet), and that could happen dynamically, too. This biasing would be control over the decision.
That seems reasonable.
Well, anything is (strictly speaking) possible, I suppose. My response to that would be the same as my response to madfool, in that until it is more thoroughly proven it remains, to me, just a fun hypothetical.
However, even if I entertain the hypothetical for a moment, I'm not sure how it answers my concern that being uncaused, this conception of "freewill" is actually not under our control, and as such may be "free" but has nothing to do with "will." It seems that it would lead to the idea that, whether the odds are 50/50 or 99/1, there is an uncontrollable "force" (I can't come up with a better word. Maybe you have suggestions?) that is directing my actions apart from what I may actually want or think is wise.
If you can bias the odds, you're controlling them, and as we make a decision, we'd push the bias to 100% (at the point of decision).
If you are biasing them, isn't that a cause?
You're causing it ultimately, yes, where that's not deterministic.
On what basis are you causing it? I mean, why are you choosing A over B?
Depends on the scenario. It's not as if it's just one way that we choose things, and sometimes we basically do it by whim or "randomly."
If you're just doing it by whim or randomly, I don't see how you can call it "controlled" by anyone.
It's controlled by you, since you're choosing it by whim.
We're going around in circles. I simply don't see how you could call something that's a random whim under your control. But I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
Whose or "what's" whim is it? Who or what is doing something by whim?
That's just the thing--in your hypothetical, it doesn't matter really. You're not using any part of "you" to make the decision, you're just acting.
Furthermore, I don't think this is what most people are looking for when they speak of "freewill." They don't mean "I can sometimes choose randomly based on nothing, not even my own thoughts, ideas, reason, knowledge, and experience." Most people just want to be able to maintain that they're ability to use just those things is not coerced, which is compatible with determinism.
??
Say that you think, "I'm going to either listen to Led Zeppelin III or Yes' Relayer." You decide to choose which one by whim. You have to do something to do that. You have to make the effort to choose one by whim. It's your doing. You're in control of it, because it's an action that you take.
There are many examples of actions that you can theoretically take without actually being "in control." Like, when you sleepwalk, or are under the influence of some kind of "truth serum," or are being hypnotized, or have a disease like Tourette's Syndrome, etc etc.
In all these examples we would say that the person is not "in control," because they are not able to access their reasoning skills to willfully direct their actions.
You're bringing up whether someone is conscious or not. We're not talking about an example where someone isn't conscious. We're talking about an example where they're intentionally performing an action--choosing something per whim.
It's not based on "reasons," by definition--otherwise it wouldn't be by whim. But there's nothing about being in control of something that implies reasoning.
That's question-begging, imho.
Quoting Terrapin Station
On what basis is a person intending to do something on a whim? Even having the impetus to a whim is a cause.
Do you just mean that you believe that being in control does imply reasoning? Why would you believe that?
Quoting NKBJ
You're conflating cause and determinism--which just went over that earlier. If you pick Led Zeppelin III to listen to you were the cause of that, but you weren't determined to pick it, you chose it.
The basis of intending to do something on a whim is just that--it's a notion you have. Then you can make the whim choice. That's a conscious action.
I'm getting the impression that you never choose anything on a whim, by the way. Which seems weird to me.
Lol. I'm not that OCD. I just think in real life, the things we call "random" or "on a whim" just seem to be that way and are actually products of my subconscious desires or other predetermined factors. Like when you drop a bag of marbles, it "seems" random where they all go, but we know that it's determined by all sorts of physics. We call it random though because we can't immediately predict all of it.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Because otherwise I have no basis for choosing one mediocre 70's band over another. How do I then stop myself from listening to, *shudder* Glen Campbell?
I don't believe there are any good reasons to buy the notion of subconscious or unconscious mental content.
Quoting NKBJ
?? What would reasoning have to do with that, and how would this imply anything about whether control necessarily involves reasoning?
Aside from that, I love Glen Campbell, by the way. ;-)
Seems to me that if we just choose things on unreasoned whims, then we would constantly be doing unpredictable things. But take someone really close to you, whom you know very well: if they do something totally out of character, you don't typically say "oh, I guess that was just his "whim" taking over!" you wonder what the causes were that brought this action about. And, depending on the action, you may be more or less concerned about their mental state.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well, he was a pretty decent guitar player, I'll give him that.
This sucks because now I'm having to rehash really straightforward stuff that I already typed. I didn't type and I'm not saying anything even remotely near "We make all choices per whim." I wrote, " [It] Depends on the scenario. It's not as if it's just one way that we choose things, and sometimes we basically do it by whim or 'randomly.'"
You're right; you did make that distinction.
So let me rephrase:
Quoting NKBJ
Wait a sec--did my above scenario just apply here? :gasp:
Okay, but what does that have to do with being able to choose between two things by whim?