Unfree will (determinism), special problem

The whole notion of "free reasoning" seems rather odd. That doesn't seem to mesh with the logical notions of validity, soundness, implication, etc. We don't choose what follows logically.

Physical and chemical processes are the means by which bodies and brains operate. It might be an error to suppose that the means and output are the same thing.

Did "I decide to respond" to the title of this thread, or was "I compelled to respond"? Did this series of symbols on the landing page of TPF "Unfree will (determinism), special problem" caused me to respond? Or, was I moved by my interest in the perplexing issue of will--determined, free, or a combination of compulsion and freedom?

People don't seem to be entirely free to respond however they wish (or we wish they would), and they don't seem to be automatons, either. (Of course, if we were all automatons, we wouldn't, couldn't care or notice that we were.)

It seems impossible to claim all freedom or all compulsion in our behavior.

Quoting Terrapin Station

The whole notion of "free reasoning" seems rather odd. That doesn't seem to mesh with the logical notions of validity, soundness, implication, etc. We don't choose what follows logically.

Actually we do, because we choose our rules of logic out of many possible alternatives, because they work better than others and because they persuade better than others. If we had just our rules and couldn't think of alternatives, then how to trust them since we couldn't compare them to alternatives? It seems the notion of freedom is built into our logic and proof systems thru bivalance: you never have just p, you always have p v ~p available. But determinism undermines this notion and leads to one-dimensionality we can't make sense of and can't trust therefore.

If I understand these determinists rightly they basically say this: XYZ is true and from there it follows determinism/unfree will; yes, that also means this very proof/logic is determined but we just trust that the proof/logic is determined to be correct, giving us the truth, because ?!? we just trust, period. So basically all deteminism is religious and irrational eventually. That doesn't help libertarism though since that position would be just circular since we just saw that freedom is a-priori within our logical apparatus. So it's kind of like with God: nobody can prove anything rationally, so atheists and theists just toss around their irrational ideas that are more or lesss popular/believed. Is it that?

Reply to Pippen

So would you say that you're choosing to believe the principle of noncontradiction, for example, where you could just as easily choose to believe the opposite?

Quoting Terrapin Station

So would you say that you're choosing to believe the principle of noncontradiction, for example, where you could just as easily choose to believe the opposite?

No, I choose to believe in non-contradiction, because it compares better to the alternative (contradictions). Without an alternative you can't compare, without comparison you have very little information, because you just have some p, which can be T oder F, but it's wide open if you just got p and no alternative like ~p.

Just that we not forget it: the question is if one can hold determinism rationally because it seems in case one holds determinism, i.e. thinks determinism is true, one has no reason to trust ones thinking since it's determined itself. It seems we need to hold free will as a position, it seems our epistemological apparatus presupposes some freedom to work properly from our perspective. But if that is the case then determinism is not a rational position at all, as well as its counterpart (since it's presupposed in us), so the whole free/unfree will problem is undecideable.

Quoting Pippen

No, I choose to believe in non-contradiction, because it compares better

Are you choosing that it "compares better"?

Reply to Pippen

i agree with this. Even if determinism was true it can be extremely dangerous over the long term and possibly comforting in the short term. On a different not i believe forgiveness is critical for any given society.

I think for science to function there has to be accidents in nature that the method is filtering out. If everything operated as billiard balls then it would be a demonstration video not an experiment.

As far as neuroscience goes, I don't think brains look deterministic by a long shot. The best neuroscientists stick to the science and tend to discuss how XYZ can help stroke victims, recover lost senses ect. Neurodevelopment is too complex to made broad arguments for/against long dead male philosophers.

"How do these people deal with this problem, because I never saw them deal with it. They usually just discuss the brain, Libet, neuronal levels etc. and how physics (causation, randomness) governs all of that so that we are also governed by it, but they seem to fail to deal with the fact that it seems self-refuting to believe in unfree will (determinism)."

Free will is impossible with or without determinism and it's not circular reasoning ... it's a basic argument. Namely:

(1) Ultimately, to control your actions you have to control your fundamental nature.

(2) But you can't control your fundamental nature.

(3) So, ultimately, you can't control your actions.

This is true with or without determinism.

Quoting luckswallowsall

Free will is impossible with or without determinism and it's not circular reasoning ... it's a basic argument. Namely:

(1) Ultimately, to control your actions you have to control your fundamental nature.

(2) But you can't control your fundamental nature.

(3) So, ultimately, you can't control your actions.

This is true with or without determinism.

But from your (3) it also follows that you can't control your very argument, so how can you believe in it? That's exactly my problem.

Reply to luckswallowsall
I'm having trouble accepting (2) as self-evident. To my knowledge, there has been a significant body of philosophical work devoted to the cultivation of virtue. Are virtues not part of one's fundamental nature?

Reply to Pippen There are 2 assumptions you are making that are a bit problematic:

1. Determinism and ‘unfreewill’ are synonymous
2. Unfreewill implies reasoning is circular

Im still not sure how you came to the second assumption. You can have a deterministic processs that lets you compare and consider all alternative explanations for something. And the first is not true. They’re distinct concepts and there are many people ready to defend the belief that both are compatible with each other

Probably all of our choices are determined. However, we have the illusion of free will. That's all that matters. What use is it to think "I don't control my thoughts"?

Quoting Pippen

But from your (3) it also follows that you can't control your very argument, so how can you believe in it? That's exactly my problem.

That's the problem with determinism. The conclusion we reach is determined by preexisting causes, not necessarily by the force of the accuracy of the argument. If one makes an argument, it is assumed the conclusion is accepted because it makes sense, not because you were forced to accept it, but that's inconsistent with determinism.

I love determinism. I think we don't have free will at all.

There are choices you can make and choices that are already taken. And think how immensely the latter has influenced your life. You didn't choose your parents; you didn't choose your homeland; the age you were born into; your face; your race; and you can't freely determine which scientific hypothesis should be correct. Your parents themselves didn't choose such things either.
Truth is like a fossil buried deep in our ignorance. Even if we have no idea about it, it's there, determined.

Reply to Pippen I don't have to "control" my argument in order to present it or believe in it. If determinism is true it doesn't mean we can't give arguments or believe things.

Reply to Couchyam Our fundamental nature goes much deeper than virtues.

if you try to change the way you are that comes about through the way you already are, and if you try to change that it comes about through how you already are before that, and so on. Fundamentally we can't change our essence ... our essence changes by itself due to how our essence already was previously.

Reply to luckswallowsall But isn't the world bigger than any one person? How does one decouple 'essence' from the rest of the universe, which includes conscious experience?

Reply to Couchyam One cannot decouple one's essence from the rest of the universe which is precisely why one cannot be free. We do what we do because of the big bang or we do what we do because of the universe's probabilistic acausal nature ... in either case, we can't control our nature.

Reply to luckswallowsall Well, even assuming the universe is perfectly causal, who controls (or even knows) its initial conditions? What 'determines' them? Is it possible that the actions of a human being could in theory be interpreted by a qualified judge as willfully "writing" those initial conditions through their choices? People accept as much responsibility as they can personally tolerate. Our circumstances are largely beyond our control, but circumstance alone doesn't eliminate the possibility of freedom.

If u ignore contextual and interpersonal past variables, u have free will. We extend ourselves from the past. I will now choose to eat pizza, I did not choose to be hungry.

Reply to luckswallowsall but it does mean that the arguments we give and the things we believe are determined.

Reply to Arne

So what?

Reply to luckswallowsall exactly!

And philosophical determinism doesn't imply scientific determinism.

Furthermore. ... I wouldn't describe a random essence that decides our behavior as a determinist one. Even if it 'determines' it in the sense that it's due to our random nature that our behavior is random.

Philosophical determinism is not implied. That's the point. Philosophical determinism is the view that there is only one possible future ... and there's nothing about the argument I provided that requires that truth.

There might be just one possible future, or there might be several. If general relativity is to be believed, and if spacetime is asymptotically flat as satellite data seems to indicate, then there are an infinite number of future null infinities that one might choose from. Moreover, if one has the resources to undergo constant acceleration for arbitrary lengths of time (and if one is extremely patient), one can even in principle choose which future to attend for a concept of self that is purely material. In any event, if your experience is in any way like mine, then the 'you' that is 'you' now is now probably (not necessarily) encoded in photons that have already made their way past the moon, and are well on their way to one of those future null infinities.

Reply to Pippen

You mention that belief in determinism is self refuting. I don't see it. Your belief is determined, just like anything else. Yes, their argument would be determined. Yes, their conclusion would be determined.

The materialist cannot reduce consciousness to some material phenomenon without thereby manifesting the power that consciousness has to think matter: however, there have always been and always will be materialists, who will rely on their own ambiguity to reduce it artificially to the absolute and sterile unity of matter.
— Francis Jeanson

Quoting Pippen

Many neurobiologists conclude from premises X, Y, Z to the conclusion that our will is unfree. But that means that their very argument is based on unfree reasoning, i.e. having no alternatives, undermining any confidence or justification in that process and therefore in the conclusion.

I don't find this a sound argument at all. I incline to believe in free will though. Those who disbelieve in it don't seem to realize that free will is a type of multi-tasking

Reply to Pippen
I don't see how this changes anything in determinism, or the notion of it,
Quoting Pippen

Many neurobiologists conclude from premises X, Y, Z to the conclusion that our will is unfree. But that means that their very argument is based on unfree reasoning, i.e. having no alternatives, undermining any confidence or justification in that process and therefore in the conclusion. If you have no choice what to think it's basically circular reasoning: you can just hope your one way is right, no other chance since no other way.

Unfree reasoning doesn't entail a conclusion being false, this notion that determinism defeats every action is quite false, it doesn't, you still have the illusion of your own will,
and also now you've created a paradox, either neurobiologists prove determinism with their free will, disproving it, but they also already proved determinism, so this stops making sense,
or they prove determinism and are determined to prove it, so they do, it wouldn't be circular reasoning, since proving its existence in an argument doesn't have "I was determined to" as a premise.
and it wouldn't be self refuting, its the same as saying I exist in the universe.

Reply to Pippen
Quoting Pippen

But from your (3) it also follows that you can't control your very argument, so how can you believe in it? That's exactly my problem.

you have the illusion of so,
so when you believe in it, you didn't truly will to, does that mean its incorrect? no
it just means that you didn't get to choose to believe it, like everything else, and if everyone can logically reach the same conclusion we can assume its correct, that's truly what it boils down to.

Quoting Augustusea

Unfree reasoning doesn't entail a conclusion being false, this notion that determinism defeats every action is quite false, it doesn't, you still have the illusion of your own will,

There’s no reason for the will to be an illusion, even in determinism. Determinism and underterminism are both compatible with taking the mind seriously, as an agent. It’s called ‘compatibilism’.

Reply to Olivier5
Quoting Olivier5

There’s no reason for the will to be an illusion, even in determinism. Determinism and underterminism are both compatible with taking the mind seriously, as an agent. It’s called ‘compatibilism’.

Ignoratio elenchi, I know what compatibilism is lol.

Reply to avalon

You mention that belief in determinism is self refuting. I don't see it. Your belief is determined, just like anything else. Yes, their argument would be determined. Yes, their conclusion would be determined.

What else beyond oneself determines the belief? If nothing else determines the belief, oneself has determined it.

@NOS4A2 I agree! See,if you say the individual determines or controls his actions then freewill is proven.
The rest is nonsense and dodgy semantics. How folks make a case for refuting their own sphere of personal control is bizarro!

Reply to Augustusea
So why do you think your own mind is an illusion?

Reply to Olivier5 I'm a physicalist, and I believe life and consciousness are processes and not something out of the physical world

Quoting Pippen

Many neurobiologists conclude from premises X, Y, Z to the conclusion that our will is unfree. But that means that their very argument is based on unfree reasoning, i.e. having no alternatives, undermining any confidence or justification in that process and therefore in the conclusion. If you have no choice what to think it's basically circular reasoning: you can just hope your one way is right, no other chance since no other way.

So math is circular reasoning all along, undermining any confidence or justification in that process and therefore in the conclusion.

Quoting Augustusea

I believe life and consciousness are processes and not something out of the physical world

I agree, but illusions are not part of the physical world, by definition. Ergo consciousness is no illusion.

Reply to Olivier5 I would agree, my wording may have been a bit off/incorrect, I apologize
Consciousness is a process, free will is an illusion.

Quoting Augustusea

Consciousness is a process, free will is an illusion.

Free will is a poor concept. It falls apart under examination. Agency is a better one in my view, and I don’t see why it would be an illusion.

Reply to Olivier5
I would agree free will as a concept doesn't apply to living beings.

It doesn’t apply, period. Even a god cannot freely will what he wants to will. But we do have, I believe, the capacity to make choices, with a certain degree of freedom.

It's seems to me that free will either is real or its not. It must be discrete. There may be levels of existence in objects and we can debate all day what pure potentiality is. But the Kant and Fitche in me says you guys are wrong when you say "we are free, kinda". It appears to be black and white imo

@Gregory Walking to the shops today a bird flew near me. Right there I thought so people are Really saying that was fate or the bird and I had no choice but to both be there at that exact time!!! Determinism is ludicrous. 100% we have free will. And the slightest perusal of a life emphasises and proves that. In fact,if not for academic philosophy and materialism it would never even be a question.

Reply to Olivier5 Quoting Olivier5

It doesn’t apply, period. Even a god cannot freely will what he wants to will. But we do have, I believe, the capacity to make choices, with a certain degree of freedom.

but every choice either warrents a want or is influenced by what happened before it

for example lets say you like chocolate cake,
I offered you either chocolate cake or pancakes, you will either choose the chocolate based on preferences which never were your choice,
now lets assume you don't care about either you just want to eat

in order to do something you either are forced to do it or want to do it,

lets say you wanted chocolate cake and took it, if we went back in time, could you want pancakes? you would have to not want to want chocolate cake, and then want to want pancakes, and it would lead you down an infinite path of wants this way, which is illogical, the simple explanation is you cannot control your wants therefore you cannot control your doings

Quoting Augustusea

the simple explanation is you cannot control your wants therefore you cannot control your doings

You choose between different wants which have different strengths. Even if compatibilism is true and you choose the strongest want every time, you would still be free

Quoting Asif

In fact,if not for academic philosophy and materialism it would never even be a question.

People's thinking on this in the modern world is weird. In physics they tried to get away (I think unsuccessfully) with spooks such as action from a distance when it comes to gravity. But the brain, however, is made of determinism and randomness. So free will turns out to be a spook of the brain, a power that emerges from it. I am working on my materialistic tendencies by reading Hegel's logics

Reply to Gregory
Quoting Gregory

You choose between different wants which have different strengths. Even if compatibilism is true and you choose the strongest want every time, you would still be free

but in order to choose you must want to choose,
randomness can be present, in the form of quantum indeterminacy, but I doubt this even applies to human beings, and if it did, then you can't control what this particle turns into, which would defeat the point
compatibilism and physicalism don't go hand in hand,
anywho that doesn't mean the choices aren't ours, it just means we didn't get as a self to make them

Quoting Augustusea

but every choice either warrents a want or is influenced by what happened before it

Of course we take into consideration what happened to us before, and what our desires are. That’d be why we have memory and desires, I suppose. To take them into account when making choices.

Quoting Olivier5

Of course we take into consideration what happened to us before, and what our desires are. That’d be why we have memory and desires, I suppose. To take them into account when making choices.

exactly, then it wouldn't be your choice, because it comes from something, something is influencing/forcing it, so defies free will ultimately.

Just because we can take stuff into consideration when making a choice, does not imply we’re not making a choice...

Just because we can choose, this does not imply our choices spring from nothing

I guess I'm being ambiguous there. I was thinking even if materialism is true and free will is an emergent spook of matter, this doesn't mean choses made come from nothing (ex nihilo). It's a faculty exercising its power.

Most things are predetermined. From our physical features, to the place we live (Earth), even to our proclivities (I like to consume oxygen, water and certain amino acids and proteins). However, I want to consume Helium only, and I want it to give me as much pleasure as consuming chocolate or steak, and I want it to make me so healthy that I live in bliss for one million years. Determinism says that is not going to work; but my free will says that regardless of what works or not, I want it and desire it: thus a Will that desires exists, and this desire is an example, albeit one of the few examples, of free will. Even if the mechanical movement of particles "causes" me to have this desire, the particles and molecules which cause me to experience thought are collectively, "me."