Free: occurring without coercion within circumstantial and situational constraints imposed by normal conditions.
This is good, and it defines 'free' to be that the will is free to operate, the function of the will being to collapse scenarios of selections and their consequences into the best choice to be real-ized.
Hardly anyone would contest this, so there should be no big fuss so far.
While I concur wholeheartedly with this, it does merely kick the metaphysical can down the transcendental road. There has to be some logically sustainable rendition of “free” in order for the will to do its job. Therein lay the fuss.
removedmembershiprcAugust 27, 2019 at 21:28#3211170 likes
Free: occurring without coercion within circumstantial and situational constraints imposed by normal conditions.
One of my biggest issues with these debates is that people always define free as uncoerced. In my opinion, this is just framing the debate with loaded language. I do not believe in libertarianism.
I think the best you can do philosophically is to argue for "will." Just drop the qualifier, which is a theologically generated concept, which was invented to salvage the notion of God being just in the light of suffering. E.g. suffering is the result of human volition therefore God is still good.
So my argument for "will," would basically be Dennett's position. We have a range of options that appear to be able to be subjected to conscious deliberation on our part, and the range is determined by cause and effect, and it seems to be the case, that we can choose between these options. So epistemologically, it is not possible to know if we are actually deliberating or if it just appears that we are, for all intents and purposes, it seems to us as if we are making choices. Therefore, it might be safe to say that we have a "will."
PoeticUniverseAugust 27, 2019 at 21:40#3211190 likes
There has to be some logically sustainable rendition of “free” in order for the will to do its job.
The general job of the will might be to insure the person's future in combination with reflecting the person as s/he has become as of that moment.
The fuss is about the consistency of the will, which, although appreciated as nature's useful means toward one's survival and keeping one to basically remain as true to one's self, leaves the person to necessarily be an automated process, which is not well received emotionally, since, well, then it seems one is not in control, whatever 'control' means, really, and who knows what benefit it could confer over the quick and deep process of two hundred trillion neuron connections figuring things out quite well.
I have no problem with libertarianism of the philosophical sort, re: Belsham, 1789. So saying, the libertarian premise of the non-anarchist personal autonomy is a necessary condition for the will’s determinant functionality.
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Absolutely. Will is a rational faculty in and of itself, or rather, it must be treated as such if it is expected to be the foundation of moral dispositions. I guess the whole....er.....fuss..... really depends on what one thinks the will is supposed to do.
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a range of options that appear to be able to be subjected to conscious deliberation on our part
At no time is this more apparent then when the moral agent wills himself to do something he really doesn’t want to do.....and does it despite his wants.
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it seems to us as if we are making choices. Therefore, it might be safe to say that we have a "will."
Exactly. It is impossible to prove one way or another, but no one can rationally argue, except for the case of reflex or accident, that we do not weigh options for purely personal well-being, especially when no imperative is in residence.
The general job of the will might be to insure the person's future in combination with reflecting the person as s/he has become as of that moment.
I can live with that. It simplifies to that which I see you enunciated in the next paragraph: “...basically remain true to oneself”. Although, I would take exception to the “useful means to one’s survival”. We don’t have the survival issues of our predecessors. Nothing, in the normal course of current events, wants us for dinner, and nobody wants to hang our heads on a pike at the castle keep. Worldly scale and humanity in general being understood, of course.
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....which reflects back on what one thinks the will should be doing. If the will is the causal determinant of moral dispositions, and one remains, as you say, true to himself, in other words, he is a moral agent, then his will must be consistent. If the will is inconsistent, then the agent is necessarily contradicting himself, hence is immoral by implication. Consistency of will is morality reduced to its core.
One way of looking at it anyway.
PoeticUniverseAugust 27, 2019 at 23:35#3211380 likes
They wanted to be free of their wills,
Since wills seem to be full of old-time ills,
So, they cut them off, now of wills bereft—
The problem is that there was no ‘they’ left.
epistemologically, it is not possible to know if we are actually deliberating or if it just appears that we are, for all intents and purposes, it seems to us as if we are making choices. Therefore, it might be safe to say that we have a "will."
IMO, if we seem to deliberating, then we ARE deliberating. Similarly with the act of making choices.
Please explain how the SEEMING can be an illusion.
The fuss is about the consistency of the will, which, although appreciated as nature's useful means toward one's survival and keeping one to basically remain as true to one's self, leaves the person to necessarily be an automated process, which is not well received emotionally, since, well, then it seems one is not in control, whatever 'control' means, really, and who knows what benefit it could confer over the quick and deep process of two hundred trillion neuron connections figuring things out quite well.
The "automated process" consists of mental processes; they are performed by a mind. The output of this process would not come to be were this specific mind (which includes its beliefs, dispositions, desires, habits of thought...) not doing the processing.
My point is that determinism does not negate the fact that our minds are causal agents, agents whose beliefs (among other things) are factors that lead to the choice that is made. Yes, the beliefs were determined by prior experiences (as well as the DNA it started with), but they are still beliefs, and they are part of the processing.
The fuss is about the consistency of the will, which, although appreciated as nature's useful means toward one's survival and keeping one to basically remain as true to one's self, leaves the person to necessarily be an automated process, which is not well received emotionally, since, well, then it seems one is not in control, whatever 'control' means, really, and who knows what benefit it could confer over the quick and deep process of two hundred trillion neuron connections figuring things out quite well.
But this is only true if you separate the person from their substrate, that is, if you hold that there are brain-states that do not represent the person whose brain they occur in. I would hold that whatever brain-states we observe are merely physical manifestations of the person.
removedmembershiprcAugust 28, 2019 at 15:33#3213690 likes
IMO, if we seem to deliberating, then we ARE deliberating. Similarly with the act of making choices.
Please explain how the SEEMING can be an illusion.
Optical illusions are a great example. Also, our brain filling in missing information is another good example.
You begin by suggesting the matter be treated simply as will, which I am not immediately opposed to on the grounds that it is implicitly understood to be free. However, you then go on to undermine the purpose of this discussion by suggesting that will itself is merely an illusion, presumably by deterministic principles. While I agree that portions of our world are governed by deterministic principles there is no reason to assume all of it is, going to a physical example consider quantum mechanics in which there is very little that could be said to be determined until an ill-defined event called an observation takes place. The point is that we do not know how things work at this point and assuming that everything must be deterministic from the greatest cosmos to the tiniest atoms is jumping the gun a bit. Additionally I agree with @Relativist, if we seem to be deliberating then we are in fact deliberating.
First of all, a lot of our disagreement can be cleared up by simply saying I was not saying "will" is an illusion (although I happen to think it is), I said it is epistemologically ambiguous. We can only know from our perspective, which is tainted by mental constructions of "self, and will, and agency," etc.
As far as quantum indeterminacy, I do not see how random events means you have free will. In my opinion, suggesting there are random events at a particle level undermines the notion that a complex organism comprised of particles can thereby exhibit intentional volitional deliberation and action. If it is just random, where is the volition. I suppose you could argue that the conscious observer, or your "self" the thing which is "freely willing," is locating those particles within their field of probability, therefore initiating the mechanical process which actuates the desired action, but I think that is just a form of spooky action at a distance, and suggests a kind of ghost in the machine. If your mental processes are a function of physiological states, I think suggesting the physiological states are determined by mental processes is just putting the cart before the horse.
[quote]IMO, if we seem to deliberating, then we ARE deliberating. Similarly with the act of making choices.
Please explain how the SEEMING can be an illusion.
Optical illusions are a great example. Also, our brain filling in missing information is another good example.
Vision produces beliefs about the world; some of the beliefs may be false: illusions.
Why think the perception of deliberative control is an illusion? This seems like arguing for solipsism. Like with solipsism, it can't be proven false. But also like solipsism: nobody actually believes it. We actually innately believe there is an external world with other minds, and we innately believe we actually perform deliberations. Determinism doesn't falsify that. So you need some justification to consider it illusory- something more than logically possible.
removedmembershiprcAugust 28, 2019 at 16:55#3214230 likes
Vision produces beliefs about the world; some of the beliefs may be false: illusions.
Why think the perception of deliberative control is an illusion? This seems like arguing for solipsism. Like with solipsism, it can't be proven false. But also like solipsism: nobody actually believes it. We actually innately believe there is an external world with other minds, and we innately believe we actually perform deliberations. Determinism doesn't falsify that. So you need some justification to consider it illusory- something more than logically possible.
You are attempting to prove something like free will actually exists. If your argument is, it's epistemologically ambiguous so why not just agree with what appears to be the case, that's fine, but it does not show anything like free will actually exists. It sounds like you agree with my description of senses being easily duped and the notion of volitional causation is a function of our perspective. Where we disagree is you think given the evidence, we should just err on the side of our perception being correct.
I just happen to acknowledge that I could be mistaken, and you seem to suggest that because it APPEARS that we are having this experience, that qualifies as evidence in and of itself. In my opinion that argument works fine in getting around on a daily basis, but it does not prove anything.
As far as "Why think the perception of deliberative control is an illusion?" fair question. I think the reason to think this is because it is a more humane perspective. I approach this from wanting to have a more compassionate way of viewing humans, especially in their economic context. Our society ascribes this notion of free will to our actions, and therefore, suggests that your economic position is deserved because you were the architect of that experience through your mental activity or laziness, etc. This leads to the notion that punitive lack of access to resources (poverty and homelessness), are deserved conditions, and some hedge fund manager taking home a 20 mil dollar bonus is just exponentially more productive and valuable within the economic context. Once you introduce the idea of determinism, this whole idea of punishing people for "not being valuable enough to the economy through the impotence of their otherwise potential to be better through making better choices," divorces them of the environmental and economic contexts which constrain their range of "choices."
Therefore, I introduce the idea of determinism, not economic determinism proper, but a form of it, to hopefully create a space for a less punitive economic system, and to view outcomes in a more systemic and holistic sense. This is why erring on the side of the will being an illusion, or like the steam of bio-electrical-chemical reactions, serves my world view.
Reply to rlclauer To be clear, I think we have "free will" in the compatibilist sense, consistent with determinism. If you deny free will, you also deny responsibility and accountability for yourself and others. IMO the best evidence of free will is the fact that we can learn from our mistakes: we make many decisions out of ignorance, learn something from the experience, and then make better decisions in future similar situations. Do you deny that learnings can help us make better decisions? How can THIS possibly be an illusion?
This perspective doesn't diminish the compassion framework you have in mind. It's STILL true that our conditions and experiences determine the choices we make. This is not inconsistent with personal responsibility, because despite those conditions and experiences, we can still learn.
Where we disagree is you think given the evidence, we should just err on the side of our perception being correct.
No. I'm pointing out the fact that we DO believe our senses - and this belief is not a product of deduction; it's natural. Optical illusions prove that we can be mistaken, but they don't imply our natural trust is misplaced. It doesn't imply we should immediately start questioning every bit of sensory input we receive. The implicit trust is reasonable. Trusting that we are free to make choices based entirely on factors internal to ourselves is similar - we naturally trust that we're controlling it, and just like with vision, we shouldn't question this control except in those instances where we have reason to believe otherwise. Surely you DO actually have this implicit trust in your own ability to make choices, just like you also trust there is an external world despite the possibility that your mind is all that exists.
Although our internal factors were CAUSED, these factors collectively are who/what we are. Most of us also want to do better, and we can indeed take actions to help us do better. It doesn't matter that the "wanting to do better") has been caused (by DNA, conditioned responses, etc) - it's still a motivator, and a part of ourselves.
It's self-defeating to deny that you have the free will to address the factors that elicit your compassion (like poverty, child abuse, etc). To take action consistent with your compassion, you must feel that you actually have to power to alleviate these problems.
removedmembershiprcAugust 28, 2019 at 18:54#3214850 likes
Reply to Relativist I just do not agree with the way you frame this. Why do you need to invoke agency in order to have compassion? If compassion is a byproduct of information pertaining to the material conditions which generate outcomes, and that information can deterministically alter the way a particular brain interprets outcomes of individuals given material conditions, it is a completely superfluous step to invoke an agent, who analyzes the information and makes a decision. The argument I just made applies to your example of learning as well. If you have two AI's interacting with information and with each other, and those interactions alter their code, given certain deterministic programming and overseeing supervisory programs, are you gonna say that if the code is altered the AI is now a conscious agent. No, of course you would not make that argument. You only do it in the case of the human being because there is a dominant narrative in the strain of human thought which requires agents in order to be coherent.
As far as acting on your senses in a natural and non-deductive analysis, your point dissolves as information is obtained. If the first reaction to an optical illusion is to naturally believe it, then information which discloses the nature of the illusion is disclosed, now deduction will be applied to the viewing of phenomena similar to the optical illusion. This simply means that once deduction is introduced, naturally relying on sensory information no longer totally explains how that information is interpreted by the brain. Therefore, invoking natural responses dissolves as information is gained, and thereby, invoking it as a bit of evidence for free will, also dissolves.
A brief comment on compatibilism. Compatibilism simply redefines free will, and is only a viable argument given a lack of information about the system. Therefore, libertarianism and compatibilism are equally incoherent, as compatibilism acknolwedges causal determinants, but kicks the can into unexplained territory, and then claims, see free will must exist in this space!
If you have two AI's interacting with information and with each other, and those interactions alter their code, given certain deterministic programming and overseeing supervisory programs, are you gonna say that if the code is altered the AI is now a conscious agent.
The two AIs DO have a causal role, just not a conscious one - since they aren't conscious. The critical issue is that there's no basis for holding them accountable. (more on this later).
As far as acting on your senses in a natural and non-deductive analysis, your point dissolves as information is obtained. If the first reaction to an optical illusion is to naturally believe it, then information which discloses the nature of the illusion is disclosed, now deduction will be applied to the viewing of phenomena similar to the optical illusion. This simply means that once deduction is introduced, naturally relying on sensory information no longer totally explains how that information is interpreted by the brain. Therefore, invoking natural responses dissolves as information is gained, and thereby, invoking it as a bit of evidence for free will, also dissolves.
You're analyzing an instance of an optical illusion - which are notable only because they are exceptional. I'm talking about sensory input IN GENERAL. You don't skeptically analyze all the objects you encounter in the course of your everyday life simply because of the possibility you are misperceiving them.
A brief comment on compatibilism. Compatibilism simply redefines free will, and is only a viable argument given a lack of information about the system. Therefore, libertarianism and compatibilism are equally incoherent, as compatibilism acknolwedges causal determinants, but kicks the can into unexplained territory, and then claims, see free will must exist in this space!
My position is that "free will" is a concept associated with responsibility and accountability.
It makes perfect sense to hold someone accountable for their actions: the action one takes are a consequence of one's beliefs, genetic dispositions, environmentally introduced dispositions, one's desires and aversions, the presence or absence of empathy, jealousy, anger, passion, love, and hatred. These factors are processed by the computer that is our mind to make a choice. If the consequences of that choice cause harm to someone else, how SHOULD others respond? Should they just excuse it because he had not choice (this seems to be the implication of your position)? No. We know he could have chosen differently had he been less reckless, or considered others, or any number of things. By doing so, that person becomes less likely to repeat the mistake - because he will have learned something. In effect, his programming will be changed because consequences provide a feedback loop that changes him.
Suppose the AIs in your example could experience pain, pleasure, regret, empathy, love, hate, and if it had desires that it worked to fulfill for the positive feelings it would experience, and aversions that it avoided because the negative feelings it would experience. Also suppose it could relate its choices to the consequences including the emotions it invoked, and that it could reprogram itself so that future choices would produce more positive and less negative outcomes.That would be closer akin to the "free willed" choices of humans. Whether or not we call it "free will" is irrelevant - my point is that accountability and responsibility comprise a feedback loop that we should acknowledge exists, and be glad of it. You weaken or break the loop when you deny accountability.
The fuss is about the consistency of the will, which, although appreciated as nature's useful means toward one's survival and keeping one to basically remain as true to one's self, leaves the person to necessarily be an automated process, which is not well received emotionally, since, well, then it seems one is not in control, whatever 'control' means, really, and who knows what benefit it could confer over the quick and deep process of two hundred trillion neuron connections figuring things out quite well.
— PoeticUniverse
The "automated process" consists of mental processes; they are performed by a mind. The output of this process would not come to be were this specific mind (which includes its beliefs, dispositions, desires, habits of thought...) not doing the processing.
My point is that determinism does not negate the fact that our minds are causal agents, agents whose beliefs (among other things) are factors that lead to the choice that is made. Yes, the beliefs were determined by prior experiences (as well as the DNA it started with), but they are still beliefs, and they are part of the processing.
This discussion operates at the level of self-reflection - referring to a ‘self’ which purposefully maintains its relative consistency despite the variability of the related physical events/objects to which this ‘self’ conceptually refers or relates. It is the value of a consistent ‘self’ in relation to ‘survival’ that leaves the person to be an ‘automated process’.
When we recognise that these beliefs, dispositions, desires, habits of thought, etc are value structures determined by certain combinations of prior experiences, and therefore not only predictable but also subject to changes through experience (learning, etc), then we can prioritise/value a consistency of self as a ‘survival’ tactic, OR we can continually reflect on, evaluate and alter the factors that lead to our actions.
It is our subjective value structures (including those ‘outsourced’ to certain ideological or authoritative systems) that determine our actions, but it is our awareness of, connection to and collaboration with the options in these value structures that determine the freedom of this basic faculty for purposefully initiating actions. If one accepts the undeniable value of a consistent self as the only reality, as fundamental to their survival, for instance, then there is no capacity for evaluating all the factors that lead to any ‘choice’ that is made - no selection, no act of choosing, only a single realised item.
PoeticUniverseAugust 29, 2019 at 02:26#3215500 likes
we can continually reflect on, evaluate and alter the factors that lead to our actions
Pending the finding and better usage of the apparatus outside of time that has us choosing freely above and beyond our brain network process, one can hone one's natural awareness, connections, and collaboration—emotionally, logically, predictively, physically, and imaginatively, perhaps, by getting high on life, somehow, which ought to stir the pot of creativity. Well, it sounds good, anyway.
Heart-flight is love that the wondrous Earth brings,
Which winds to the soul whisper unimaged things;
Senses merge, as streams, to flow beyond joy;
Imagination fires enlightened wings.
In pro-active thinking processes future actions are not necessarily determined by previous experiences, conditioning, genes, etc. but rather may instead arise purely from intellectual processing towards some outcome. People do this all the time when they plan for possible future situations.
Thank you for expressing your position relative to mine. I recognise that you’re not entering into discussions about how free will relates directly to deterministic perspectives here, which is where my thread differs and you’ve noticed a focus on unconscious choices in some of the discussion. But I don’t think we differ that much in our viewpoints.
I agree with you that intellectual processing can imagine possible future situations that are not directly determined by previous experiences. However, in order to actualise any plan, there needs to be awareness, connection and collaboration with the potential for such a situation: how previous experiences, conditioning, genes, etc of ourselves and others can contribute to a plan for actualising this possible future situation. If we’re unaware of how these causal conditions can be structured and restructured, all the intellectual processing is effectively imagination.
I think it very difficult, if not impossible, to defend the idea of free will with rational argument. And it seems easy to disprove. So the matter would seem settled. And yet, I find myself unconvinced, as my intuition that I am free to act as I will is very strong. It reminds me of the sense of the flow of time, which is also hard to defend rationally. Some intuitions like this I find far more convincing than any tidy syllogism.
My existence is surprising to me. If it weren't so obvious, I wouldn't believe it either.
I think that we simply don't understand the deep nature of time, space, matter, causality, consciousness, agency, selfhood, and so on, well enough to be justified in drawing firm conclusions here. Frankly, we just don't understand what we are talking about. Puzzlement and uncertainty are warranted. Those who think they know for sure one way or another should check their hubris. My suspicion is that neither position really fits the reality. To know the truth here would probably involve having a quite different understanding of what everything really is than anyone has yet had. Maybe it is beyond our comprehension.
Honestly though, I have read and thought a fair bit about it and I have never seen a good argument for free will, nor have I even come across a clear definition of it that I think really captures what I intuit. And there is too much talk of deliberation, as if it is always a long process of thinking. The intuition of freedom deals with something much more basic and immediate, and something definitely related to a self, something owned. It isn't simply "will", but "my will". I caused the action, on purpose, and I could have done otherwise. There is an arbitrariness here, but mine. Not simply non-determined. I determined it, at least to a degree. And nothing beyond me fully determined my determination. But what am I? Answering that question rightly is critical! And it might be impossible for us to rightly answer it.
And the Libet results, IMO, are usually horribly misinterpreted. The experiment involves instructing the person to allow the rising random impulses in the nervous system to complete as actions, basically uninterfered-with, after first priming it with it a request for a certain kind of impulse. Given the instructions, the results don't surprise me at all, and they certainly don't show that all behavior at all times is entirely the outcome of impulses that are already in motion before awareness of the intention to act occurs.
Reply to Pathogen Nice. I think you need to elaborate further on the conjunction free will because while the analysis is superb free will I.e. free and will, together, adds another dimension to the problem. I mean what about awareness of factors that influence our choices?
PoeticUniverseAugust 29, 2019 at 05:52#3215790 likes
Honestly though, I have read and thought a fair bit about it and I have never seen a good argument for free will, nor have I even come across a clear definition of it that I think really captures what I intuit.
Aside from the trivial non-coercion meaning and the randomness that harms any kind of will, the "definition" eludes us since it never works out, so far, but the Holy Grail of the crux of it is to find a way above and beyond the automated brain will being true to itself that lets there be some higher agency that is somehow 'free' and 'independent' of the brain will or able to will the brain will, but, again, we not being able to well define this 'free' idea, much less to go on to show it.
And the Libet results, IMO, are usually horribly misinterpreted. The experiment involves instructing the person to allow the rising random impulses in the nervous system to complete as actions, basically uninterfered-with, after first priming it with it a request for a certain kind of impulse. Given the instructions, the results don't surprise me at all, and they certainly don't show that all behavior at all times is entirely the outcome of impulses that are already in motion before awareness of the intention to act occurs.
I’m with you on all of what you’ve said - this in particular.
I guess I’m just not content to leave it there, though. This is what philosophy is all about, isn’t it? Or are we just critics, waiting around for someone else to do the work? I was reading your post with great interest, but I hoped you would then offer something constructive to this particular discussion...
So my argument for "will," would basically be Dennett's position. We have a range of options that appear to be able to be subjected to conscious deliberation on our part, and the range is determined by cause and effect, and it seems to be the case, that we can choose between these options. So epistemologically, it is not possible to know if we are actually deliberating or if it just appears that we are, for all intents and purposes, it seems to us as if we are making choices. Therefore, it might be safe to say that we have a "will."
The whole issue with the "free" part is whether you really have different options or not. Whether you can really make a choice, including seemingly arbitrary choices.
Aside from the trivial non-coercion meaning and the randomness that harms any kind of will, the "definition" eludes us since it never works out, so far, but the Holy Grail of the crux of it is to find a way above and beyond the automated brain will being true to itself that lets there be some higher agency that is somehow 'free' and 'independent' of the brain will or able to will the brain will, but, again, we not being able to well define this 'free' idea, much less to go on to show it.
Of course, it's entirely impossible to identify something "free" in the physical world, using the scientific method. At best the scientific method can establish randomness. Freedom is definitely not physical.
You know...I always thought that, too. But then I came across this “degrees of freedom” for showing coordinate dimensions in a phase space, and I got to wondering how freedom was meant to apply there. I don’t consider freedom to be physical either, but apparently, somebody figured degrees of it, are.
removedmembershiprcAugust 29, 2019 at 18:57#3217500 likes
The two AIs DO have a causal role, just not a conscious one - since they aren't conscious. The critical issue is that there's no basis for holding them accountable. (more on this later).
Without getting lost in the weeds on the causal aspect, could you elaborate on why you believe the AI's cannot be held accountable, and why do you think the human brain and nervous system is different than a cybernetic neural network? To me this sounds like a anthropic bias.
You don't need agency to HAVE compassion. You need agency to act on this compassion.
I disagree. Instincts are something everyone would agree is an automatic action, which require no agency to be instantiated. I am simply saying all action looks like instincts when you have enough information.
You're analyzing an instance of an optical illusion - which are notable only because they are exceptional. I'm talking about sensory input IN GENERAL. You don't skeptically analyze all the objects you encounter in the course of your everyday life simply because of the possibility you are misperceiving them.
It really is irrelevant if our reality is not composed of mostly optical illusions, although there can be an interesting conversation about how the brain is really constructing what you perceive, you are not really perceiving "out there," you are perceiving your brain's model. The reason your point is irrelevant, is because my argument is not based on the commonality of illusion, but rather, whether a particular thing actually is an illusion, which it seems obvious, that the phenomena of self, will, and consciousness, are all just mental constructs, not some spooky thing which floats to the left of your prefrontal cortex.
My position is that "free will" is a concept associated with responsibility and accountability.
Sure, that's what all compatibilists argue. I just think it is an unnecessary maneuver. A rapid dog has no "agency, or free will," but you would shoot it if it was attacking your baby. Invoking free will in order to have accountability is an artifact that is no longer needed.
It makes perfect sense to hold someone accountable for their actions: the action one takes are a consequence of one's beliefs, genetic dispositions, environmentally introduced dispositions, one's desires and aversions, the presence or absence of empathy, jealousy, anger, passion, love, and hatred. These factors are processed by the computer that is our mind to make a choice. If the consequences of that choice cause harm to someone else, how SHOULD others respond? Should they just excuse it because he had not choice (this seems to be the implication of your position)? No. We know he could have chosen differently had he been less reckless, or considered others, or any number of things. By doing so, that person becomes less likely to repeat the mistake - because he will have learned something. In effect, his programming will be changed because consequences provide a feedback loop that changes him.
You are just arguing against a straw man. I never made such an argument. I never once said I am advocating for undermining any notion of responding to someone who may be harmful to someone else.
Suppose the AIs in your example could experience pain, pleasure, regret, empathy, love, hate, and if it had desires that it worked to fulfill for the positive feelings it would experience, and aversions that it avoided because the negative feelings it would experience. Also suppose it could relate its choices to the consequences including the emotions it invoked, and that it could reprogram itself so that future choices would produce more positive and less negative outcomes.That would be closer akin to the "free willed" choices of humans. Whether or not we call it "free will" is irrelevant - my point is that accountability and responsibility comprise a feedback loop that we should acknowledge exists, and be glad of it. You weaken or break the loop when you deny accountability.
This is just an extension of your learning argument, which I already responded to. I do not think learning something or having code or neural networks altered does anything for the notion of free will, which is why I invoked the AI example in the first place.
While I agree with what you say, it is indeed possible that consciousness is indeed how you describe, I would simply say the reason consciousness appears as a problem, is because we are not recognizing that it is simply a trick our brain pulls, like connecting the dots of an imagine, or other wising rendering its model of reality. I would argue that deliberation is similar. Just the product of brain activity, a kind of post hoc connecting of the dots.
removedmembershiprcAugust 29, 2019 at 19:07#3217560 likes
Reply to Terrapin Station even under comptaibilism the choices are determined, so I do not see what is relevant or interesting about "free will." it is incoherent as a concept
[quote=Relativist]It makes perfect sense to hold someone accountable for their actions: the action one takes are a consequence of one's beliefs, genetic dispositions, environmentally introduced dispositions, one's desires and aversions, the presence or absence of empathy, jealousy, anger, passion, love, and hatred. These factors are processed by the computer that is our mind to make a choice. If the consequences of that choice cause harm to someone else, how SHOULD others respond? Should they just excuse it because he had not choice (this seems to be the implication of your position)? No. We know he could have chosen differently had he been less reckless, or considered others, or any number of things. By doing so, that person becomes less likely to repeat the mistake - because he will have learned something. In effect, his programming will be changed because consequences provide a feedback loop that changes him.
You are just arguing against a straw man. I never made such an argument. I never once said I am[/quote]
I wasn't arguing against you, I was trying to get you to think in terms of accountability. Set aside all concepts of "free will". Do you agree with my model of accountability?
I disagree. Instincts are something everyone would agree is an automatic action, which require no agency to be instantiated. I am simply saying all action looks like instincts when you have enough information.
Let's assume an action is, in fact, free. How would you tell from the outside?
The reason your point is irrelevant, is because my argument is not based on the commonality of illusion, but rather, whether a particular thing actually is an illusion, which it seems obvious, that the phenomena of self, will, and consciousness, are all just mental constructs, not some spooky thing which floats to the left of your prefrontal cortex.
But if everything is constructed, it makes no sense to call one construct "illusion".
Sure, that's what all compatibilists argue. I just think it is an unnecessary maneuver. A rapid dog has no "agency, or free will," but you would shoot it if it was attacking your baby. Invoking free will in order to have accountability is an artifact that is no longer needed.
Perhaps the point of accountability is to establish what you are not accountable for? After all, if we were to just eliminate possible causes of danger, we'd never stop.
You know...I always thought that, too. But then I came across this “degrees of freedom” for showing coordinate dimensions in a phase space, and I got to wondering how freedom was meant to apply there. I don’t consider freedom to be physical either, but apparently, somebody figured degrees of it, are.
Wouldn't you need a conception of physical freedom before you can map degrees of it?
One way to try to support free will is to attack the strongholds of determinism, such as the causal closure of the physical, particularly where we, as consciousnesses, seem to influence bodily behavior. But this doesn't yet speak to the freedom of the will. Actually, I am not so sure about that. Anyway, for free will to not be the case, it seems to me that consciousness must then be ineffectual. And if consciousness is ineffectual, why does it exist? More to the point, if it were ineffectual, how could we possibly even know about it?!!
Consider that last point carefully. If consciousness has no effect on behavior, how could behavior ever come to contain information about it or refer to it? When I tell you that I find myself to be conscious, it would seem that the fact of my being conscious has necessarily somehow made a difference in my behavior. It goes deeper still. For me to even form thoughts about my consciousness, for my consciousness to refer to itself, for me to know that I am conscious, my consciousness must have some influence on the brain state that presumably determines the structure of my mental state, which contains references to my consciousness. I am aware of my awareness, and my internal verbal and bodily gestural behavior often reflect this.
Epiphenomenalism, one of the classic determinist positions, would seem ruled out, as it is a belief in an inefficacious subjective something that we nevertheless find objective traces of in behavior. We would have a hard time explaining why the idea of epiphenomenalism ever arose in the first place if it were true. Bodies are referring to consciousness. It must not be the epiphenomenal consciousness that they are referring to!
You'll find people who assert epiphenomenalism, especially as they do implicitly when they take Libet's results as proof against free will, and then they will also say things about why and how consciousness evolved by natural selection because it offers some kind of survival advantage. Clearly, they haven't thought things through!
We might model epiphenomenalism as follows, with mental states designated "M" and physical brain states as "P".
M1 M2 M3...
^ ^ ^
P1 -> P2 -> P3...
Here, mental states don't influence physical states, nor do they influence other mental states. There is no way for any feature of the mental state distinct from the pure physical state to make its way into the next physical state. In other words, they are pointless and non-detectable. To wipe that top mental series away completely would make no detectable difference in the world. So why do epiphenomenalists believe in their consciousness? I think it is obvious that we should throw this stupidity out! Epiphenomenalists are a weird sort of dualist anyway, often without realizing it, even though they sometimes heap scorn on dualism. Honestly, I don't think a weaker position on the mind-body problem exists than epiphenomenalism. How it persists is beyond me.
For us to know about and to talk about our mental states seems to require that consciousness is efficacious somehow. Further, even if a physical state influences a mental state, a mental state must introduce something extra into the next physical state, rather than just mediating the physical-to-physical influence. This would mean that to at least some extent, the mental is free from prior physical determination. So perhaps here we have something of the will and its freedom. Of course though, it could be that there is some other sort of unbroken chain of mental causation that eliminates the freedom here. To have real freedom would seem to require that the mental is causa sui. "I determine while not being determined by anything outside myself. I am the fundamental substance."
When we talk about free will, aren't we basically talking about our minds in relation to our bodies? I think so. Doing something unconsciously (presumably automatically?) seems not to involve free will. So consciousness is an issue here, as is time. And these, it seems, are deeply connected.
removedmembershiprcAugust 29, 2019 at 20:10#3217770 likes
Reply to Relativist I think when determinism is introduced, a lot of the things we blame or praise people for now will just be considered as outputs of deterministic inputs. The part of your model I disagree with is
hould they just excuse it because he had not choice (this seems to be the implication of your position)? No. We know he could have chosen differently had he been less reckless, or considered others, or any number of things.
Adding, "could have chosen differently," just muddies the water. should we promote good outcomes and mitigate bad? yes, but agency is irrelevant to that. In fact, I would go one step further. I would argue the idea of agency allows us to come to conclusions which are far less moral. For example, if someone is set up for failure by having a terrible childhood, their ACE score is 8/10, and they end up homeless standing on a street corner screaming at passing by cars, the notion of agency causes people to say, "well what's wrong with that guy? why doesn't he just choose to get a job or choose to stop drinking?" people are actually less sympathetic because we ascribe agency to people.
removedmembershiprcAugust 29, 2019 at 20:56#3217830 likes
Let's assume an action is, in fact, free. How would you tell from the outside?
There are no "free actions." if you want to define free as uncoerced, which is a loaded word, fine. There is not a guy with a gun to my head. But this does not capture the idea of the causal chain of material factors which generate what we perceive as "conscious deliberation." Consider the Libet experiment and the "pantyhose experiment."
But if everything is constructed, it makes no sense to call one construct "illusion".
It makes sense to call something an illusion because of the disconnect between how it actually is and how it is perceived. The only "constructed" element here is the perception, not the real.
Perhaps the point of accountability is to establish what you are not accountable for? After all, if we were to just eliminate possible causes of danger, we'd never stop.
I do not disagree with that. I think it is usually framed positively, (what one is accountable for) because of our commitment to agent causation.
Reply to rlclauer I erred by saying "could have chosen differently". Do you agree with what I wrote if I change that section to:
Should they just excuse it because he had not choice (this seems to be the implication of your position)? No. We [s]know[/s] have strong reasons to believe he [s]could[/s] would have chosen differently had he been less reckless, or considered others, or any number of things.
I agree with most of the rest of your comments (not your rejection of "agency", but I'll set that aside for now). What I infer is that there are cases in which the external causes (e.g. poverty, terrible childhood...) are mitigating factors. Those are important, but I don't think they imply we should abandon the notion of accountability I outlined. Here's a real-world example:
A few years ago, a 40 year-old woman in Houston was driving home late at night following a night of drinking at a bar. She got a bit lost, and wound up on an unfamiliar, dark street where she ran into a bicyclist who later died. The driver did not stop, but drove to her home. She was convicted of "failure to stop and render aid". In the punishment phase of her trial, her lawyer was pleading for leniency because she'd had a tough childhood: she came from a broken home, her single,twice-divorced mother was an alcoholic who never disciplined any of her kids, but she'd react at their bad behavior with verbal abuse. The mother kicked her out of the house when she was 14 because the girl was wild (promiscuous, using drugs, shoplifting). She and 2 of her 3 siblings dropped out of high school. Her brother is also in prison for repeated DUI (fortunately, he hasn't killed anyone). This was not an impoverished home - they were upper middle class.
There's a clear causal relationship between the girl's childhood and her recklessness at driving drunk, and failure to take responsibility for her actions. However, there are very good reasons to hold her accountable. Maybe, just maybe she will be more responsible when she's released from prison. Maybe the publicity this received will, in some small way, induce some people to take more care. Had she been given a slap on the wrist and sent home, it would have been only a matter of time before she was again driving drunk and risking lives. It is unfortunate that the girl had such a horrible childhood and suffered for it, but it's even more unfortunate that a completely innocent bicyclist was killed.
Wouldn't you need a conception of physical freedom before you can map degrees of it?
I would think. But in some defined coordinate system containing an observable object, the freedom it has is subject to the laws of the system, and the degrees of freedom it has are restricted by the system itself. Pretty lame kind of freedom, is all I’m sayin’.
Typical, though. Assigning a concept where it seemingly has no business. If we both hold that freedom isn’t physical, is that the same as saying freedom doesn’t belong to physical systems? And if that holds, why would there be such a thing as degrees of freedom in a physical system?
removedmembershiprcAugust 29, 2019 at 21:41#3217920 likes
Reply to Relativist Well, I do not think there is a problem with a punitive course of action in the case of the drunk driver. Just like the AI which learned Go, learned by playing itself, no agency, no consciousness. We can introduce information into the system which alters the components of the system (individual brains), and the notion of agency, is completely unnecessary for this. In fact, as I argued earlier, agency obfuscates the reality, in a terrible way.
Take the case you provided. You can look at her as an agent, who because of her moral depravity and "evil" nature, decided, after conscious deliberation to get drunk and then drive. It would be easy for someone to conclude, "I hate that miserable person, look at the harm they caused!" Exactly as Sam Harris argued, the logic of hate dissolves when agency is scrutinized through the lens of cause and effect.
Your story illustrates that the capacity for compassion can be realized in the case of knowing the causal chain of behavioral production. If people knew the back story, they would probably be a bit more sympathetic, although overcoming the horror of someone getting run over (especially by a drunk driver - which most people think of consuming alcohol as 100% a choice, whereas, if someone had a stroke while driving and hit someone, they would not be horrified), is almost impossible in this case.
I can appreciate the case you laid out, because it attempts to show that some things are within control and some things not, while placing these in the context of moral responsibility. I just think yes, punishing a drunk driver is fine, because they can be dangerous. However, assuming there is a ghost in the machine driving the behavior is worse in my opinion, because it inflames that aspect of human psychology associated with retributive justice. Recognizing the lack of agency lessens that sting, so to speak.
To me it sounds like your motivation for preserving agency is its utility in punishment. In my opinion, this is not needed. I probably have not convinced you of that, but I do not think there is justification of invoking this agency, when it is a spurious notion to begin with, and it is not needed to establish order within a criminal justice sense. Therefore, we do not need to invent a God to prevent people from doing bad things, we do need to invent a free will, or a causal agent to have order within society, and separation of peaceful living and dangerous chaotic elements.
PoeticUniverseAugust 29, 2019 at 22:28#3218030 likes
We have strong reasons to believe he would have chosen differently had he been less reckless, or considered others, or any number of things. — Relativist
It is that if his will was different than it actually was, he no longer being him, so to speak, the choices may have been different.
Determinism does not entail incorrigibility. You become a different "you" when you learn something. A person can learn from his mistakes; he can learn that there are consequences. He can even learn to think more rationally, or coping skills for anger management.
Reply to rlclauer I bring up agency to provide a locus for accountability/responsibility. and to highlight the difference between a causal chain and a chain of logic. The latter entails fatalism: the view there's nothing one can do to affect behavior (one's own, or anyone else's). We avoid fatalism by accepting that future behavior can be affected.
PoeticUniverseAugust 30, 2019 at 00:59#3218230 likes
Determinism does not entail incorrigibility. You become a different "you" when you learn something. A person can learn from his mistakes; he can learn that there are consequences. He can even learn to think more rationally, or coping skills for anger management.
There are no "free actions." if you want to define free as uncoerced, which is a loaded word, fine. There is not a guy with a gun to my head. But this does not capture the idea of the causal chain of material factors which generate what we perceive as "conscious deliberation." Consider the Libet experiment and the "pantyhose experiment."
Right. I am asking you to do a thought experiment though. Assume that, metaphysically, true freedom is real. How would it manifest physically?
It makes sense to call something an illusion because of the disconnect between how it actually is and how it is perceived. The only "constructed" element here is the perception, not the real.
But how do you know what's real? If both the internal perspective (freedom) and the external perspective (causality) are constructs, neither is real.
If we both hold that freedom isn’t physical, is that the same as saying freedom doesn’t belong to physical systems?
I'd think so, because to be part of a system, there'd have to be some kind of interaction. As system, the way I understand it, is a collection of factors with relevant interactions for a given question.
And if that holds, why would there be such a thing as degrees of freedom in a physical system?
There'd have to be degrees of interaction. So, maybe there could be degrees of determinism, and what remains without interactions is than negatively defined as "free".
Peoples choices (...) influenced by hormone signaling that is never perceived at a conscious level.
How very reminiscent of Skinner-esque empirical psychology are you!!!
It’s ok, though, no big deal; those are both....ehhhh, somewhat.......historically at least....valid subsets of their respective doctrines with respect to the human condition in general. My only point would have been that neither of those, while being sufficiently explanatory regarding “unconscious choice”, can have any bearing on arguments for or against free will, which requires necessarily its ground in a priori rationality, absent by definition in both of them.
Allow me to try to express how I think our views differ within a narrative,
Two boats are traveling down a river side by side. On the first boat the captain thinks to himself, my first mate is an experienced sailor and knows how I run my ship, I'll let him direct it while I enjoy the breeze. The other boat's captain knows his first mate is well experienced, he could talk with him about his future plans and rest assured they would be carried out, but as a matter of preference the captain takes the wheel and as an action in that moment steers the ship while enjoying the breeze on his face.
Of course, both captains enjoy the breeze :wink:
In my view, just to clarify, I think most of us can be either captain depending on the situation. I personally tend towards the latter, while I recognise there are many who prefer the former. That’s part of the freedom...
It’s probably impossible to ever know why or how the phrase “degrees of freedom” was chosen to represent the observable conditions of a physical system. I surmise its author had something in mind, such that the freedom relates some object to its lawful probabilities, and degree relates that object to a range within those probabilities. Or....he just picked the notion out of a lab-coat pocket because it sounded awe-inspiring. Who cares, really. The point is, freedom is strictly a metaphysical domain, an immaterial/rational....transcendental..... notion meant to qualify its object as to that object’s possession of it, but never to quantify its object as to how much of it that object has.
Which leaves us with, in a human physical system, in what manner of speaking can your “freedom absolutely applies” be true?
1.) If the will is free to do this but not free to do that, then it follows necessarily that freedom, in and of itself, cannot be a condition of the will, but must be either logically removed or temporally displaced from it.
2.) Or, there is no such thing, which is immediately self-contradictory from a metaphysicalist’s point of view with respect to morality and from a physicalist’s point of view with respect to degrees of freedom.
3.) Or, and which is much more prevalent, freedom is applied as an empirical predicate in the human system, just as it is in the dimensional domain in observable coordinate systems. Case in point...I am free to move my arm, free to like vanilla, and other similarly constructed absurdities, having nothing whatsoever to do with the faculty of will.
Opinions and noses........everybody’s got ‘em.
removedmembershiprcAugust 30, 2019 at 14:55#3220070 likes
Reply to Relativist I personally do not see a distinction between a chain of causation and a chain of logic. Fatalism may not be correct because of quantum indeterminacy. However, QI does nothing to support the notion of free will
removedmembershiprcAugust 30, 2019 at 15:17#3220190 likes
Right. I am asking you to do a thought experiment though. Assume that, metaphysically, true freedom is real. How would it manifest physically?
It would manifest as an action free of prior causes. This is why I think free will (or true freedom as you put it) is an incoherent concept.
But how do you know what's real? If both the internal perspective (freedom) and the external perspective (causality) are constructs, neither is real.
You do not "know" what is real, if you can only experience it subjectively. If you do scientific testing, and continuously get the same result, you can conclude that there is probably a real property which is affecting this outcome. I do not really know what you mean by "internal perspective" vs "external perspective." In my opinion, there is your perspective, which is subjective and therefore fallible, and there is the world we inhabit, which seems to be real, and we have discerned some properties about this world, but the discovery of those properties requires placing a check on our subjectivity, namely the scientific method.
Logic is transitive, so the above logic chain entails: P1=>Pn for all n. The intermediate Pi are irrelevant.
On the other hand, causation is NOT transitive. C1 does not directly cause Cn for all n. No Ci in the causal chain is irrelevant.
removedmembershiprcAugust 30, 2019 at 17:13#3220820 likes
Reply to Relativist In the context of the conversation, I think this is irrelevant. I have already posited that mental phenomena are really just products of material causes, an illusion that our brain generates, so suggesting that there is a distinction between causal chains and chains of logic does not mean anything to me. You are just reasserting your claim using philosophical jargon.
Whenever a will is unhindered to operate within its means, and seeing this is the normal state of human beings possessing the faculty of will, a logical conclusion is that their will is free.
Which is an exact demonstration of the flaw in common understanding: convention mandates “unhindered to operate” is synonymous with freedom, when it is more precisely synonymous with autonomy. Granting that the will is the sole determinant of our volitions should grant the logical conclusion that the will exists as an autonomous causality. That freedom is the necessary condition for autonomy serves as the aforementioned logical separateness and temporal displacement (that made “no sense whatsoever”), relieves infinite regress, and does not impinge on the natural principle of cause and effect.
——————-
Free will is not essential to morality as it is a set of rules society has set up to dissuade potentially harmful behaviors between its comprising members.
Another example of mere convention, the mixing of the subjective nature of personality manifestation with the objective nature of civil administration.
With that, I leave you and your....er.....scientific literature. And Google.
If you do scientific testing, and continuously get the same result, you can conclude that there is probably a real property which is affecting this outcome.
But scientific testing will only reveal causal connections, because causality is one of it's core assumptions. It only provides a constructed reality, albeit a very useful one.
I do not really know what you mean by "internal perspective" vs "external perspective."
In my internal experience, I have freedom. But from an external perspective, e.g. yours, there is only a causal chain of brain-states. The question is, why would we call one of these perspective an illusion?
In my opinion, there is your perspective, which is subjective and therefore fallible, and there is the world we inhabit, which seems to be real, and we have discerned some properties about this world, but the discovery of those properties requires placing a check on our subjectivity, namely the scientific method.
I think there is a difference between having a subjective perspective on objects and experiencing yourself as a subject. The observer is not part of that which is observed.
removedmembershiprcAugust 30, 2019 at 18:53#3221220 likes
why do you conclude that freedom is incoherent because it can not physically manifest as freedom?
Because the type of "freedom" humans care about, human actions, cannot possibly meet this criteria. If you want to talk about some abstract "freedom" that's fine, but I am thinking in terms of what matters to humans. I answered your question on what it looks like to me.
But I do experience freedom subjectively.
I am referring to knowing something epistemologically, not having self referential conclusions with reference to subjective perspective.
But scientific testing will only reveal causal connections, because causality is one of it's core assumptions. It only provides a constructed reality, albeit a very useful one.
I was answering the question of how can you know something to be true. I said scientific method is a good way to know things about reality, and account for fallible subjectivity. I am not saying science is infallible.
In my internal experience, I have freedom. But from an external perspective, e.g. yours, there is only a causal chain of brain-states. The question is, why would we call one of these perspective an illusion?
That's a good question. What you refer to as "external experience," e.g. "my perspective," or to say it in a more precise way, the argument which was typed onto this forum by the user called "rlclauer," my argument is not based on my subjective or "internal perspective" as you referred to it, experience. My subjective experience is that I am a free agent, I feel like a driver of a biological suit, giving the body commands and seeing it respond, etc. My subjective experience happens to be wrong, as shown by Libet experiment, "Pantyhose experiment." These experiments show that the reasons we conjure up to explain why we "did" something, are just post hoc rationalizations. It follows that our experience of the "self, will, agency," are all just like this. This is not even invoking material cause and effect, which once those are factored in, it's pretty obvious to see that the notion of "an agent performing a free action," is completely incoherent. So, you framed it as me calling "one of these experiences" false, but your framing is incorrect. Without thinking of whose perspective is being discussed, let's examine what is actually happening here, and not frame it as me being biased toward my own perspective.
I think there is a difference between having a subjective perspective on objects and experiencing yourself as a subject. The observer is not part of that which is observed.
I do not even know what this means, sorry. I am just a working class person, not a philosophy degree holder.
You speak of temporal displacement with respect to will, I speak of temporal displacement with respect to freedom.
I never gave even a hint of anything being separated from time. I wouldn’t know how such a thing could be conceivable, much less expressed in a dialogue.
Unless you have something to pique my interest, you may have the last word.
I do not even know what this means, sorry. I am just a working class person, not a philosophy degree holder.
Right, so perhaps we can discuss this further, since it's critical to my position. I don't want to ignore the rest of your post, just try to get this out of the way first.
Whenever you observe anything, including when applying the scientific method, the you, the observer is an important part of the resulting observation. Whatever you experience has been structured by your mind - certain information has been left out, certain principles have been applied. This includes all scientific knowledge.
The world you are seeing is not "out there". It is in your head. And hence, causality and determinism are also in your head. In the same place freedom is. It's just that you apply the concept of freedom to one perspective, and the law of causation to the other. One is not more real, or more subjective, than the other.
removedmembershiprcAugust 30, 2019 at 21:12#3221650 likes
Reply to Echarmion Ok thanks for explaining that. I would disagree with the characterization of the results of any scientific experiment being beholden to the subjectivity of the observer. I agree completely, what you experience has been structured by your brain, omitting certain information, and we are not really "seeing out there," but more or less "seeing" the model our brain creates.
That applies to your notion of free will also. The difference between your subjective experience of free will, and the subjective position of the observer relative to the scientific method, is repeatability, and physical analogues.
I do not think "causality" is just in your head, the same way free will is in your head, unless humans the world over have collectively hallucinated the reliability of things we have learned through science.
Ok thanks for explaining that. I would disagree with the characterization of the results of any scientific experiment being beholden to the subjectivity of the observer. I agree completely, what you experience has been structured by your brain, omitting certain information, and we are not really "seeing out there," but more or less "seeing" the model our brain creates.
It's not really about subjectivity in the sense of individual experiences and more about the realisation that experience is something subjects have.
That applies to your notion of free will also. The difference between your subjective experience of free will, and the subjective position of the observer relative to the scientific method, is repeatability, and physical analogues.
But free will is entirely repeatable. I don't know what you mean by "physical analogue".
I do not think "causality" is just in your head, the same way free will is in your head, unless humans the world over have collectively hallucinated the reliability of things we have learned through science.
Of course causality is not a hallucination. It's a part of the structure of our reality. But, crucially, we don't know whether this structure is part of "things as they really are" or added by human minds. The same is true for freedom. It's possible that causality is "how things really are", but we cannot know this without access to a non-human observer's perspective.
Reply to rlclauerI'm just describing my account of accountability. You don't have to accept it. My account treats individuals as causal agents which makes them a nexus of accountability. In this context, the distinction between a logic chain and causal chain is relevant. I can extrapolate from here to some notion of "free will", but you seem averse to the term so I didn't take it there.
I think my account is coherent. My only issue with your position is that I don't see that you have a basis for accountability. You accepted that it's reasonable to have accountability, but I don't understand how you can rationalize it without there being a causal agent to HOLD accountable.
removedmembershiprcAugust 30, 2019 at 21:39#3221700 likes
Reply to Echarmion Can you explain how free will is repeatable? By physical analogues, I mean we can have a theory for planetary motion, and then look through a telescope and see a physical analogue to the theory.
Could you please explain how it is not possible to know if causality is "how things really are?" In my opinion, if you are going to be skeptical as to whether or not we are correctly perceiving reality, how can you not also be skeptical of your experience of free will?
removedmembershiprcAugust 30, 2019 at 22:03#3221760 likes
Reply to Relativist I do not think I framed it as "accountability." I believe I framed it as taking a pragmatic approach to isolating dangerous elements of a system. So if you have a robot that is going haywire, you move it away from the general population and quarantine or take it to the repair shop. You do not need to assume the robot is "causing itself to go haywire through agency," in order to do something about the issue.
The same is true for humans. Agency is just an invention. Sure, if your goal is to "account for a breach of a moral code based on chosen actions," you will need to invoke agency in order for that line of thinking to be "self-coherent." But I have taken a different course to not throw what humans normally call "justice" out the window on a deterministic world view. It is basically Sam Harris' argument, that if there is a bear roaming the streets, you will act upon the knowledge of a bear which could hurt you.
If you have someone who enjoys flaying humans and wearing their skin, and they appear to have no remorse and wish to continue doing it, locking them in a cage forever is viable. You do not need to add the extra element, "the reason we are locking them in a cage is because they are an agent who we must hold morally accountable." in my opinion it's an unnecessary extra step, let alone the fact I do not even think it is a correct description of how humans function.
Metaphysician UndercoverAugust 31, 2019 at 00:59#3222250 likes
The will existing as an autonomous casual means in no way requires it to be separate from time itself. It acts in time, is constrained by it, and to say it is temporally displaced is nonsensical.
This concept of free will requires a particular understanding of the nature of time and change. We see that time passes, and as time passes, time which was to the future of us becomes to the past of us.
Now, we understand a continuity of existence, which is at the base of determinism. What has existed in the past will continue to exist onward into the future, unless there is a force which acts to cause change. This is expressed by Newton's first law, the law of inertia. However, we also can conclude that anything, and/or everything, including Newton's law, could possibly change at any moment of the passing time. This indicates that Newton's first law, which is the basis of causal determinism, is not itself a necessity.
So we have the brute fact that the continuity of existence, expressed by Newton's first law, which is fundamental to determinism, has no support as a universal law. This is sufficient to support the reality of the observations which produce this statement: Quoting Pathogen
4.) Non-deterministic factors do exist in the physical universe.
Furthermore, we observe that these non-deterministic factors, things which are not subject to Newton's first law, are very active within the internal parts of living beings, and this supports the thesis of free will.
The term “free will” is a misnomer; there exists no such thing except as yet another mere convention or rationally lackadaisical habit. “Free will” is not the autonomous faculty of volitional causality, for it is easy to understand the circumstances under which the will is not free at all, but must determine its volitions in flagrant opposition to our most valued inclinations, such being the highest demonstration of the moral constitution. Will, all by itself, a stand-alone object of pure reason unmodified by any superfluous conception, represents that causality. That being the case, it is more apt to say, “freedom is the condition the will takes place under”, which still isn’t quite right, but is close enough to work with, and incorporates the added bonus of showing how and why free and freedom both are necessarily separated/displaced from will. Logically separated because free will is always susceptible to self-contradiction, and temporally displaced because freedom is always antecedent to the will for which it is the condition.
So much for last words, huh? You’re welcome to the next last last word. (Grin)
Metaphysician UndercoverAugust 31, 2019 at 11:33#3223030 likes
Reply to Mww
If "freedom is the condition the will takes place under", then why is "free will" a misnomer? For example, lets say that "flow" is the condition a river takes place under. Why would it be a misnomer to talk about a flowing river?
That being the case, it is more apt to say, “freedom is the condition the will takes place under”, which still isn’t quite right, but is close enough to work with, and incorporates the added bonus of showing how and why free and freedom both are necessarily separated/displaced from will. Logically separated because free will is always susceptible to self-contradiction, and temporally displaced because freedom is always antecedent to the will for which it is the condition.
Of course "free" is logically separable from "will", the former is the predicate and the latter the subject. So "free" may be predicated of subjects other than will. Because of this, we can see that there were free things prior to there being a free will, and therefore conclude that freedom is antecedent to the will. But this does not mean that free will is temporally displaced, nor is this conclusion produced by any self-contradiction. The claim that free will is susceptible to self-contradiction represents a misunderstanding of free will.
Why would it be a misnomer to talk about a flowing river?
The concept “flow” is a condition of the concept “river”, but it is not a necessary condition, for a river that does not flow, i.e., tidal access rivers, is still a river. The concept “free will” is a misnomer, because a free will that is not free in its volitional determinations cannot be a “free will”, but nonetheless a will.
Freedom is an indirect condition of the will, insofar as it is a necessary condition for autonomy, which in its turn is the necessary condition for the will to operate in conformity to its prerogatives. Forgive me; I took liberties with the theoretical philosophy of morals by not specifying the distinction between conditions and necessary conditions.
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The claim that free will is susceptible to self-contradiction represents a misunderstanding of free will.
That the will is susceptible to self-contradiction not only represents a misunderstanding of will, but represents an impossible circumstance. To say that a free will is susceptible to self-contradiction is readily affirmed.
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Now, just between you and me and the fencepost, there is more to this moral philosophy than has been presented. Suffice it to say I favor Enlightenment deontology combined with the pervasiveness of the subjective mandate, which would do more to obfuscate the topic than clarify it, if I dragged my co-conversants any further into the proverbial rabbit hole. Hence, my liberties taken therein.
By physical analogues, I mean we can have a theory for planetary motion, and then look through a telescope and see a physical analogue to the theory.
Ok, so basically physical evidence? It doesn't make sense to ask for physical evidence of free will since, as was noted before, there is no reason to expect such evidence.
Could you please explain how it is not possible to know if causality is "how things really are?"
Only by asking the counter question: How could we possibly know? There is not a time any human can remember when they "discovered" causality. It seems to develop in some children somewhat graudally, but whether that is from the brain developing or the brain receiving external input is impossible to say.
In my opinion, if you are going to be skeptical as to whether or not we are correctly perceiving reality, how can you not also be skeptical of your experience of free will?
I am not really sceptical that we are "correctly" perceiving reality, in the sense that you might be sceptial about correctly identifying a fata morgana. It's more that physical reality is only part of the universe hat I inhabit, and I see no reason to elevate it above all else. In that sense, I am equally sceptical of free will. I am not claiming free will is "more real" than physical reality either, just that we don't know either way.
Metaphysician UndercoverSeptember 01, 2019 at 00:25#3225320 likes
The concept “flow” is a condition of the concept “river”, but it is not a necessary condition, for a river that does not flow, i.e., tidal access rivers, is still a river.
This is nonsense, a tidal river still flows according to the direction of the tide. You've just rejected the generally accepted definition of "river", for personal reasons, to say that "flow" is not a necessary condition of a river. Anyway, it's not relevant to the discussion. Either you accept the analogy or you do not, and obviously you do not.
The concept “free will” is a misnomer, because a free will that is not free in its volitional determinations cannot be a “free will”, but nonetheless a will.
I can't see your point. You seem to be suggesting that there is such a thing as a will which is not free, such that "free" is not a necessary condition of willing. How could that be, without accepting determinism. Care to explain, or are you just arguing determinism?
Freedom is an indirect condition of the will, insofar as it is a necessary condition for autonomy, which in its turn is the necessary condition for the will to operate in conformity to its prerogatives. Forgive me; I took liberties with the theoretical philosophy of morals by not specifying the distinction between conditions and necessary conditions.
If freedom is a condition of the will, as explained here, wouldn't this contradict your prior statement, where you talk about a "free will that is not free in its volitional determinations"? Isn't this contradictory in the first place, to refer to a free will which is not free?
I gave no indication that free will is displaced; I specifically itemized free as being separated from will.
OK, I do not mind separating "free" from "will", but then we must dispose of the idea that freedom is a necessary condition of will. If "free" is separate from and not a necessary condition of "will", then we have a will which may or may not be free. But if freedom is a necessary condition for will, then the will cannot be anything other than free. Which are you proposing? You seem to be talking both, which is contradiction.
This is nonsense, a tidal river still flows according to the direction of the tide.
C’mon, man, really? Nonsense? Look at what you wrote...river still flows according to the direction of the tide. If the tide is the major determinant factor, then the necessity resides in the tide, not the river, re: estuary. I can see one from my deck, complete with lobster boats. Navigational charts call it a river because shoreline proximity precludes calling it a bay, cove, inlet or sound.
And it does relate to the present discussion, insofar as the necessity for freedom (flow) resides in autonomy (tide), not the will (river), but common understanding nevertheless attributes freedom (flow) directly to the will (river).
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You seem to be suggesting that there is such a thing as a will which is not free, such that "free" is not a necessary condition of willing. How could that be, without accepting determinism.
Ahhh.....now we’re getting somewhere. There is a kind of determinism in play. Granting that a moral disposition is predicated on certain qualifications, whether innate genetically or instilled very early on from experience, then in order for proper moral agency to manifest, the agent must conform to whatever those qualifications happen to be. Hence, a form of determinism. It follows that the volitional determinations of the will must adhere to one’s moral disposition in accordance with his pre-established personal qualifications. Hence, a form of determinism.
The will has no part in that determinant condition given by innate qualifications, its job being to represent them in the volitions it determines as being exemplary of them. Hence, determinism of the same kind, re: non-physical, immaterial, insofar as a consequent is solely dependent on a particular antecedent, but in a different form. The former as innate qualifications is merely a natural condition, the latter as willed action is a product of pure practical reason alone.
All well and good, peachy, have a nice day.......right up until the will is called upon to determine a proper moral volition in direct conflict with a vested interest of the agent called upon to act. Here, the will is not free to relieve the conflict at the expense of the agent’s moral constitution. To do so is the epitome of immorality, which manifests in the agent as “guilty conscience”, “dishonor”, ill-will” and the like. And NOT....oh jeez, can you believe people actually think so???......as farging court appearance!!!!! (Gaspsputterchoke) ‘S-ok, though; they can’t separate ethics from morality either, so what can you expect?
Immorality is a reflection on the self, fercrissakes, not the freakin’ community. Commit a crime, go to jail, get out, you’ve re-paid your community for your crime as far as they’re concerned. Commit an immoral act that is not a crime.......ain’t no paybacks for that, nosiree bub. You just stabbed yourself in the back with your own knife and you get to live with it, as far as you’re concerned.
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we must dispose of the idea that freedom is a necessary condition of will.
Correct. Freedom is the necessary condition of autonomy. One of the two more explanatory reductions pending, one even more metaphysically speculative than the other, but if you find no value in any of what’s been said, there’s no point in continuing, right?
Metaphysician UndercoverSeptember 01, 2019 at 14:59#3226830 likes
C’mon, man, really? Nonsense? Look at what you wrote...river still flows according to the direction of the tide. If the tide is the major determinant factor, then the necessity resides in the tide, not the river, re: estuary. I can see one from my deck, complete with lobster boats. Navigational charts call it a river because shoreline proximity precludes calling it a bay, cove, inlet or sound.
So it's not a river you're talking about, it is an "estuary". Make up your mind, because my analogy did not refer to estuaries, it referred to rivers. Show me a definition of "river" which does not contain 'flow" or something synonymous. Then you might have an argument that some rivers don't flow.
Ahhh.....now we’re getting somewhere. There is a kind of determinism in play. Granting that a moral disposition is predicated on certain qualifications, whether innate genetically or instilled very early on from experience, then in order for proper moral agency to manifest, the agent must conform to whatever those qualifications happen to be. Hence, a form of determinism. It follows that the volitional determinations of the will must adhere to one’s moral disposition in accordance with his pre-established personal qualifications. Hence, a form of determinism.
I really don't see how this is a form of determinism. We can choose to go against our moral disposition. This is called doing what one knows is wrong, and people do it commonly. So one's moral disposition cannot act as a determinist force.
All well and good, peachy, have a nice day.......right up until the will is called upon to determine a proper moral volition in direct conflict with a vested interest of the agent called upon to act. Here, the will is not free to relieve the conflict at the expense of the agent’s moral constitution. To do so is the epitome of immorality, which manifests in the agent as “guilty conscience”, “dishonor”, ill-will” and the like. And NOT....oh jeez, can you believe people actually think so???......as farging court appearance!!!!! (Gaspsputterchoke) ‘S-ok, though; they can’t separate ethics from morality either, so what can you expect?
So this is where you're wrong. We often act against what our moral disposition dictates, and your appeal to "guilty conscience" does nothing to resolve this. A person may or may not feel a guilty conscience, but this is irrelevant to the fact that one is free to go against the dictates of one' moral disposition, and is evidence of this freedom.
We can choose to go against our moral disposition. This is called doing what one knows is wrong, and people do it commonly.
No, my friend. This is where you’re mis-informed. I won’t say you’re “wrong”; this is speculative philosophy, not a history class.
Morality speaks to what is good, not what is right. What people commonly do that is not right is with respect to an objective want, called inclination, in opposition to cultural acceptance, thus not necessarily against moral disposition. What people much less commonly do that is not good is with respect to a subjective interest, called obligation, in opposition to moral law, which is very much so against moral disposition.
Cultural acceptance makes explicit contingent objective validity in the form of an accessible code; moral law makes explicit necessary subjective validity in the form of a private law.
Moral law is the source of the form of determinism you said you don’t see. The laws conform to the agent’s innate qualifications, and determine one’s moral constitution, that which the will uses to formulate its volitions.
BartricksSeptember 02, 2019 at 01:52#3228940 likes
Here's an argument for free will:
1. If my reason and the reason of virtually everyone else represents something to be the case, that is good evidence that it is the case other things being equal.
2. My reason and the reason of virtually everyone else represents free will to be a reality.
3. Therefore, we have good evidence - other things being equal - that free will is a reality.
Metaphysician UndercoverSeptember 02, 2019 at 03:14#3229070 likes
Morality speaks to what is good, not what is right. What people commonly do that is not right is with respect to an objective want, called inclination, in opposition to cultural acceptance, thus not necessarily against moral disposition. What people much less commonly do that is not good is with respect to a subjective interest, called obligation, in opposition to moral law, which is very much so against moral disposition.
Moral law is the source of the form of determinism you said you don’t see. The laws conform to the agent’s innate qualifications, and determine one’s moral constitution, that which the will uses to formulate its volitions.
This is not true, by what you've said above. People behave in opposition to moral law, so moral law cannot act as a determinist force.
People behave in opposition to moral law, so moral law cannot act as a determinist force.
Here I was thinking you were a metaphysician. Since when would a metaphysician think a thing as immaterial as theoretical moral philosophy have any kind of deterministic force incorporated in it, as a means of its justification? Considering the hints you’ve been given with respect to the form of determinism in use, re: logical product of pure practical reason, immaterial, non-physical, necessary consequent from particular antecedent.....should suffice as ground to allow moral law to be nothing but the logical explication of a principle for what it is to be moral, not a force that prohibits a moral agent from being otherwise.
We as rational moral agents are guided by our moral dispositions, not unconditionally regulated by them.
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Yeah, so what? Trivially true and has nothing to do with the formulation of a logical moral theory, but only exhibits relative manifestations of it. Offend a moral law, you’re immoral. Simple as that. Breaking a law says nothing about the law, but only says something about the breaking.
Since when would a metaphysician think a thing as immaterial as theoretical moral philosophy have any kind of deterministic force incorporated in it, as a means of its justification?
That was your argument, that moral laws determine one's volition through the means of "moral constitution". I was merely pointing out the inconsistency in what you were saying, your self-contradiction. Quoting Mww
Moral law is the source of the form of determinism you said you don’t see. The laws conform to the agent’s innate qualifications, and determine one’s moral constitution, that which the will uses to formulate its volitions.
First you say people can behave in opposition to moral law, then you said that moral law determines ones volitions. How can moral law be said to determine one's volitions if people can behave in opposition to moral laws?
BartricksSeptember 03, 2019 at 00:56#3234390 likes
Reply to Pathogen Any case for the anything - including the Heisenberg uncertainty principle - will have to appeal to some rational intuitions and thus will presuppose the truth of the principle expressed in premise 1. Thus the Heisenberg uncertainty principle cannot be used to challenge the credibility of premise 1 - that'd be like using the fact you're on a second floor as evidence that there is no first floor.
It is also important to distinguish two distinct questions - do we have free will? And 'what does free will involve?'
The answer to the first question is "yes", for the evidence that we have free will is overwhelming - the rational intuitions of literally billions of people represent them to have free will. That is excellent evidence that we have free will.
But it does not tell us what free will involves. That question is trickly. But the trickiness and debatable nature of mooted answers does not call into question that we have it.
BartricksSeptember 03, 2019 at 00:58#3234400 likes
Reply to Pathogen So, for instance, let's say we uncover overwhelming evidence that everything we do has been determined by prior causes. Well, it is more reasonable to conclude that we have therefore discovered that free will and antecedent determination are compatible, rather than conclude that we therefore do not have free will. Why? Because it is more intuitively clear that we have freee will than that free will is incompatible with antecedent determination.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 03, 2019 at 01:26#3234500 likes
For example, if I am free of information is my will freer as a result?
No. The less information the narrower and less useful the will.
BartricksSeptember 03, 2019 at 02:19#3234600 likes
Reply to PoeticUniverse I don't offer a definition - you haven't understood my point at all.
Free will is free will and not another thing. Sometimes free will involves being free from things, sometimes it involves having things. Is there some pattern to it? Maybe, maybe not.
The point, though, is that we can be sure we have it, even if we don't know exactly what it involves.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 03, 2019 at 02:58#3234660 likes
The point, though, is that we can be sure we have it, even if we don't know exactly what it involves.
Compilation error… 'it': undefined reference.
You're not alone; no one has been able to define what else is outside of fixed will and random will.
'Free will', taken only as a stand alone, as something, independent of a definition, much like some do with 'Infinity' as being a completed amount or with 'Nothing' actually being, reduces to merely being something that sounds good to have, even over a fixed will that grants consistency and survival.
Our next step, then, should be to define it, so then we can know what we have and then what it implies. Shall we try?
('Infinite' and 'Nothing' can't even be meant, much less be.)
BartricksSeptember 03, 2019 at 03:00#3234670 likes
Reply to PoeticUniverse I don't know what you're on about. I don't have a definition of free will. But I know I have it.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 03, 2019 at 03:04#3234690 likes
I don't know what you're on about. I don't have a definition of free will. But I know I have it.
Well, then, could you freely state its opposite so we might get a hint of what it could be by some kind of contrast?
BartricksSeptember 03, 2019 at 03:28#3234790 likes
No, your approach is wrong. What deprives one of free will in one context may enhance it in another.
Its akin to asking when a meal is delicious. Sometimes a meal will be delicious becusae of the presence of garlic in it. Sometimes it will be disgusting because of the presence of garlic in it. Nevertheless, although I can give you no formula for deliciousness, I know it when I encounter it.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 03, 2019 at 04:04#3235050 likes
Let us then leave free will to be undefined. Perhaps other responders might either clarify or note that it's neither known what it is or what it is not and so it has no basis for discussion.
At some point here, I'll go on my own to at least narrow it down, if there's anything left.
Human rational agency naturally possesses both the capacity for morality, and its negation, equally, because of the intrinsically complementary nature of humanity in general. It follows that a human moral agent has the capacity to disregard his own moral constitution without contradicting the tenets and principles of any theory that merely describes and promulgates what his moral capacity ought to be. In other words, behavior is opposition to law reflects the immorality of the agent which in turn reflects on the agent’s disrespect for the law, but doesn’t contradict the theory that shows how he should have acted if he had acted morally. Moral theory cannot prevent immorality, so it cannot be said to be contradicted by it.
That was your argument, that moral laws determine one's volition through the means of "moral constitution". I was merely pointing out the inconsistency in what you were saying, your self-contradiction.
Perhaps you’re having issue with how it can be that the installation of law is so easily supervened by actions contrary to what the imperative of law implies. Not so difficult to understand, when considered that all moral theory up to volitions is under the auspices of pure practical reason. The pure practical determinations of the will are the “ought” or the “shall” of moral response to empirical circumstance. As soon as the mental volition transitions to a representation of a physical act, reason itself transitions from pure practical to common practical, which immediately calls into effect the faculty of judgement. As with the empirical domain of human mental activity wherein understanding unites conception with intuition, so too in the case of personal domain of mental activity wherein the will unites a law with a volition, judgement is the arbiter as the consciousness of that activity, empirically the representation of which is given as cognition and becomes knowledge, and subjectively the representation of which is given as motivation and becomes action.
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How can moral law be said to determine one's volitions if people can behave in opposition to moral laws?
Which is, I suppose, the seat of antagonism between the idea of law and the appearance of self-contradiction in the disregard for them in behavior. Such arises because behaviors are the ends of the faculty of judgement, while volitions are the ends of the faculty of will. Behavior is physical, the will is strictly a priori. One cannot possibly have complete and unconditional power over the other, the former being physically real, the latter being merely thought. It is not contradictory for the moral law to be disregarded in favor of a more pleasant behavioral inclination, but it is certainly immoral.
For each individual moral agent, moral constitution represents the compendium of moral laws given from innate (genetic) personality or very early-on experience, the ground of which is partially knowledge, partially feelings, hence must be thought as unconditioned, in order to thwart the absurdity of infinite regress.
The arrangement of the laws with respect to each other according to their respective value or power is the moral disposition.
Will is the faculty which represents the moral disposition and determines volitions with respect to them.
Volition is not the behavioral act, but merely the a priori object that represents the correlation between the law and the morally sufficient act. It is clear that the “guilty conscience”, “dishonor”, and the like, so recklessly dismissed at the same time perfectly exemplifies the case where judgement overrules volition, and the behavioral act does not conform to the law, which manifests in the agent’s unworthiness for deeming himself a moral agent, for he is thence simply immoral.
One would do well to abstract pragmatic observable empirical determinism, in which this necessarily follows from that physically, hence a posteriori, from dogmatic transcendental subjective determinism, hence a priori, in which this yet every bit just as necessarily follows from that morally. The practical application of the former is the means by which we fashion an understanding of the world in order to get something from it, the practical application of the latter is the means by which we fashion an understanding of ourselves with respect to others like us, in order to give something to it.
There is no such thing as a free will and never was. There is a will obligated by personality, and there is a certain freedom such that the will is enabled to choose which laws suit the best moral interests of that personality in the fulfillment of its obligations.
And for dessert we have........
......a perfectly reasonable system for relieving religion from its imprisonment of self-determinant human moral agency. Figurative alms and post-modernist accolades to Prof. Kant.
removedmembershiprcSeptember 03, 2019 at 17:40#3237370 likes
I consistently experience myself as having free will, and others do likewise.
This is the whole problem isn't it? You can simply redefine repeatability to make your claim appear to be coherent in a scientific sense, but that does not work, which is the argument I have been making this whole time. The problem is the subjective perspective. I can perceive myself as a continuously solid being, that does not negate the fact that 99% of the atoms comprising me are empty space. Do you see the problem with referring to your experience? If your experience is constructed as a byproduct of brain activity, why would you refer to it as trustworthy. This is why I refer to it as an illusion. Again, we are back to the same thing as before, is free will something you experience or something that actually exists. I would argue it cannot exist given what we know about cause and effect.
Ok, so basically physical evidence? It doesn't make sense to ask for physical evidence of free will since, as was noted before, there is no reason to expect such evidence.
It is not easy to have these conversations through these comment sections. When you say, "as noted before," I can't dig through a pile of comments to find what the argument was. To put this in context, I was describing what separates the scientific method from personal experience. The separation is in having physical references for the hypothesis being tested. If the hypothesis is both the product of subjective experience, and also being subjected to testing by that subjective experience, all you have is a circular argument, a self-referential, non-scientific grounds. Again, the whole point of me invoking the scientific method, and by extension, this appeal to physical analogues, was to show that when you can interact with things outside of yourself and compare them to other subjective being's experiences in interacting with those objects via the same method (repeatability), you have grounds on which to arrive at a non-circular theory to explain a phenomena. Your argument is basically, "I experience it, therefore it is real. It is real because I experience it." You are only providing a circular argument.
Only by asking the counter question: How could we possibly know? There is not a time any human can remember when they "discovered" causality. It seems to develop in some children somewhat graudally, but whether that is from the brain developing or the brain receiving external input is impossible to say.
I honestly do not follow your line of thought here. Perhaps you could phrase this in a different manner.
I am not really sceptical that we are "correctly" perceiving reality, in the sense that you might be sceptial about correctly identifying a fata morgana. It's more that physical reality is only part of the universe hat I inhabit, and I see no reason to elevate it above all else. In that sense, I am equally sceptical of free will. I am not claiming free will is "more real" than physical reality either, just that we don't know either way.
First of all, I do not think acknowledging cause and effect is "elevating it above all else." I am glad you said this because this is the whole rub of our disagreement. You seem to not really care what is "really real," only what you experience. This is exactly how every human lives their daily lives. Everyone operates on a pragmatic level. If you want to the analysis to end there, fair enough. I want to take it one step further and ask, what is producing these experiences, and is it possible that these experiences in themselves have some sort of dissimilarity to the "really real reality." In my opinion it is more interesting to posit this latter question, but if you only really care about pragmatic subjective experiences, I do not see that a inherently problematic, it would just appear that we have run out of things to discuss since we just have fundamentally different views.
This is the whole problem isn't it? You can simply redefine repeatability to make your claim appear to be coherent in a scientific sense, but that does not work, which is the argument I have been making this whole time. The problem is the subjective perspective.
But if you repeat an experiment, and get the same results, those results are only the same in the subjective perspective of each experimenter, right? Repeatability means that different people, doing the same thing, experience the same outcome. That is true for experiencing free will.
I can perceive myself as a continuously solid being, that does not negate the fact that 99% of the atoms comprising me are empty space. Do you see the problem with referring to your experience? If your experience is constructed as a byproduct of brain activity, why would you refer to it as trustworthy. This is why I refer to it as an illusion.
All experience is constructed as a product of brain activity. That includes "scientific facts".
Again, we are back to the same thing as before, is free will something you experience or something that actually exists. I would argue it cannot exist given what we know about cause and effect.
I can only know about what "actually exists" by experiencing it (that includes indirect experience such as reading a book about physics). So the question is why the experience of free will is supposedly less convincing than the experience of causality.
It is not easy to have these conversations through these comment sections. When you say, "as noted before," I can't dig through a pile of comments to find what the argument was.
Well, the argument was that, assuming free will is "actually real", it's invisible from the outside.
The separation is in having physical references for the hypothesis being tested. If the hypothesis is both the product of subjective experience, and also being subjected to testing by that subjective experience, all you have is a circular argument, a self-referential, non-scientific grounds.
But not everything can be established via the scientific method. For example: the scientific method itself. Do you agree?
Again, the whole point of me invoking the scientific method, and by extension, this appeal to physical analogues, was to show that when you can interact with things outside of yourself and compare them to other subjective being's experiences in interacting with those objects via the same method (repeatability), you have grounds on which to arrive at a non-circular theory to explain a phenomena.
Right, but what about things other than phenomena? Free will is not a phenomenon, I don't experience it via the senses.
I honestly do not follow your line of thought here. Perhaps you could phrase this in a different manner.
Let me put it this way: Do you think you "learned" what causality is by watching events happen? Or could it be that causality is a prerequisite for you to watch events happen in the first place?
First of all, I do not think acknowledging cause and effect is "elevating it above all else." I am glad you said this because this is the whole rub of our disagreement. You seem to not really care what is "really real," only what you experience. This is exactly how every human lives their daily lives. Everyone operates on a pragmatic level. If you want to the analysis to end there, fair enough. I want to take it one step further and ask, what is producing these experiences, and is it possible that these experiences in themselves have some sort of dissimilarity to the "really real reality." In my opinion it is more interesting to posit this latter question,
Do you think the scientific method can tell us what is "really real"?
removedmembershiprcSeptember 03, 2019 at 18:36#3237730 likes
But if you repeat an experiment, and get the same results, those results are only the same in the subjective perspective of each experimenter, right? Repeatability means that different people, doing the same thing, experience the same outcome. That is true for experiencing free will.
The problem with the free will is that the experiencer and the experimenter are the exact same person, and as you acknowledged, with no reference point but their experience. This is why I brought up physical analogues.
As far as the rest of your comments, the scientific method accounts for subjectivity. Is science done by subjective beings, yes. I honestly do not even understand why you are arguing that our subjective experience (like experiencing the earth as flat, from our limited subjective experience) is the same as the scientific method. The only reason I can imagine you are making this argument, is to elevate the reliability of your experience.
I do believe the scientific method gives us more reliable information about "reality."
I do believe the scientific method gives us more reliable information about "reality."
By Rovelli:
“Science is not reliable because it provides certainty. It is reliable because it provides us with the best answers we have at present. Science is the most we know so far about the problems confronting us. It is precisely its openness, its constant putting of current knowledge in question, that guarantees that the answers it offers are the best so far available: if you find better answers, these new answers become science. When Einstein found better answers than Newton, he didn’t question the capacity of science to give the best possible answers—on the contrary, he confirmed it.
The answers given by science, then, are not reliable because they are definitive. They are reliable because they are not definitive. They are reliable because they are the best available today. And they are the best we have because we don’t consider them to be definitive, but see them as open to improvement. It’s the awareness of our ignorance that gives science its reliability.
And it is reliability that we need, not certainty. We don’t have absolute certainty, and never will have it unless we accept blind belief. The most credible answers are the ones given by science, because science is the search for the most credible answers available, not for answers pretending to certainty.
Though rooted in previous knowledge, science is an adventure based on continuous change. The story I have told reaches back over millennia, tracing a narrative of science that has treasured good ideas, but hasn’t hesitated to throw ideas away when something was found that worked better. The nature of scientific thinking is critical, rebellious, and dissatisfied with a priori conceptions, reverence, and sacred or untouchable truth. The search for knowledge is not nourished by certainty: it is nourished by a radical distrust in certainty.”
“This means not giving credence to those who say they are in possession of the truth. For this reason, science and religion frequently find themselves on a collision course. Not because science pretends to know ultimate answers, but precisely for the opposite reason: because the scientific spirit distrusts whoever claims to be the one having ultimate answers or privileged access to Truth. This distrust is found to be disturbing in some religious quarters. It is not science that is disturbed by religion: there are certain religions that are disturbed by scientific thinking.”
Excerpt From: Carlo Rovelli, Simon Carnell & Erica Segre. “Reality Is Not What It Seems.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/reality-is-not-what-it-seems/id1112589038”
EcharmionSeptember 03, 2019 at 19:17#3237890 likes
The problem with the free will is that the experiencer and the experimenter are the exact same person, and as you acknowledged, with no reference point but their experience. This is why I brought up physical analogues.
But physical analogues are also just experienced. Noone has access to anything outside their experience.
As far as the rest of your comments, the scientific method accounts for subjectivity.
I know what you mean to say. It accounts for the mistakes individuals make. But there is another layer of subjectivity: The structure of every human brain. The scientific method does not allow us to escape the limitations of the human brain.
I honestly do not even understand why you are arguing that our subjective experience (like experiencing the earth as flat, from our limited subjective experience) is the same as the scientific method. The only reason I can imagine you are making this argument, is to elevate the reliability of your experience.
I never said anything of the sort. I am a bit confused as to where you take this from.
It appears that the problem comes about from the notion that the will is "freed" from the rules of a physical world and therefore exists as a personal supernatural means of determining one's course.
I could posit that the will has more inputs than we know, such as indications from the 5th dimension of the block universe about all of our possible futures via a survey of all our possible world-lines, but though would just be more inputs, although making the will work better; however, this wouldn't free the will from cause and effect, plus, who knows what 'free' really entails.
The problem at the end of my last sentence above begs for a definition of a deeper 'free' beyond no coercion and random. None have been forthcoming, so we can only suggest what free will wouldn't be, and then see if anything is left.
removedmembershiprcSeptember 03, 2019 at 22:19#3238620 likes
Yes I am familiar with the idea of reality behind reality, ie brain in a vat, simulation theory etc. So I do not really want to keep quibbling on minutiae. Can you just lay out your fully formed argument for why you think free will exists and why you think your subjective experience is an equally viable methodology for arriving at correct conclusions about the world we inhabit? all the quoting every other sentence and picking them apart ... I just don't have the energy to keep doing that
removedmembershiprcSeptember 03, 2019 at 22:21#3238640 likes
Reply to PoeticUniverse Yes that is a very good passage. I do not think I made the argument that science gives us "the truth." I was arguing basically what the passage suggests, that science gives us a more reliable picture of the world than our own subjective experience might, and the inherent human bias in everyone, is mitigated through the scientific method.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 03, 2019 at 23:49#3238890 likes
so we can only suggest what free will wouldn't be, and then see if anything is left.
Free will is not a fixed will voting as it must, nor is it 'random', which is the worst unfree, nor is it even having all known block universe futures to pick from, nor is it consciousness having the same information as the brain and using its own mechanism, without the brain, nor is it to be free of the will, nor …?
So, there's not anything left, which means that 'free will' as a stand-alone something cannot be, much like an oxymoron, and also that it cannot even be meant, such as the case we have with other words with no context, almost like 'Nothing' or 'Infinite', and although the latter have definitions, the definitions serve to undo the ability of the stand-alone words in themselves to be something extant.
So, we have will, its constancy reflecting us and also benefiting us—toward having a future via its predictions.
BartricksSeptember 04, 2019 at 02:16#3239540 likes
Reply to Pathogen I am not clear on your last point - if we have overwhelming evidence that we have free will (our reason, which is our ultimate guide to what's what, represents us to have it), then it is an objective possibility (for anything actual is possible).
If our decision-making processes are indeterministic to some degree, then I agree that this would seem to pose as much of a problem as antecedent determination by external causes. Both seem incompatible with free will. That is, our reason does not just represent us to have free will, it also tells us something about what it involves, albeit negative things. It tells us that having free will involves one's decision-making process not being wholly determined by external antecedent causes, and it tells us that it also involves an absence of indeterminacy. That our reason makes such representations cannot seriously be in doubt, for both compatibilists and incompatibilists in the traditional debate make appeal to these intuitions.
It is possible to satisfy those conditions if one exists of necessity rather than contingently.
made several points in that last post in no particular order, to which one specifically are you referring? I would be glad to explain my position more clearly
Your last point - you said that you were interested in being shown how free will is an objective possibility. If we have free will, then it is an objective possibility.
I would argue that randomness is not necessarily incompatible with free will but determinism always is.
What's the argument though? If we already have free will then yes, I grant that randomness does not preclude our continuing to possess it, likewise with antecedent causation. For instance, if I am wondering what to decide to do but, due to indeterminacy, it is indeterministic whether I will fall down dead or not - and I don't and I make the decision - then my decision was free, even though it was indeterministic whether I would make it or be dead.
But if my decisions are wholly determined by prior external causes - and you accept that this is incompatible with having free will - how would introducing some indeterminacy into the whole process give me free will? It's not as if my resulting decisions would be any more controlled than under the wholesale determinism scenario - I mean, if anything they'd be less controlled.
I don't understand this statement, would you mind clarifying it for me?
Something that exists contingently has come into being. Thus it has either been caused to come into being by something external to it, or it has popped into being out of nowhere (not, I think, a coherent possibility) in which case its existence is a result of pure chance. Either way, everything it subsequently does is going to be a product of antecedent determination and/or pure chance.
A necessarily existent thing, by contrast, has not come into being. It exists by its very nature. As a necessarily existing thing has not been caused to be by anything external and prior, and as its existence is the opposite of chancy (for necessarily existing things 'have' to exist - there is no possibility of them not doing so), then not everything a necessarily existing thing does will be wholly the product of prior external determination or pure chance. Thus, such a thing - and only such a thing - can have free will.
As I do have free will, I conclude that I am such a being.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 04, 2019 at 05:16#3240030 likes
Ok, in my view there are two ways in which we structure the world: causality and freedom. Causality structures the flow of events - time, essentially. Freedom structures the way we interact with the world, our choices and decisions.
One is our observer's perspective, the other is our actor's perspective. We need both to make sense of the world. Neither is "actually real" so far as we know.
Notably, causality is not something that we can establish using the scientific method. The scientific method relies on causality as an axiom. We cannot learn about causality, because in order to perceive the world as a coherent whole we need it to be given a priori.
Searching for free will in the world of causality is therefore useless. The very structure of that world - imposed on it by our minds - precludes freedom. But it does not follow that freedom is not real. Rather, freedom is a different, but equally valid, way to structure reality.
The very structure of that world - imposed on it by our minds - precludes freedom.
Well said. Freedom is not to be found in the list of a priori conceptions, that from which as you say, the very structure of the world is imposed by the mind. But causality is on the list, alongside possibility, necessity, existence, and so on.
And while I agree it does not follow from that, that freedom is not real, I hesitate to agree that freedom is still an equally valid way to structure reality, for in which case it would seem to be in direct conflict with that which does so structure, and from which it is itself excluded. Nevertheless, because from some P it does not follow that freedom is not real, says nothing about how freedom is real, beyond the mere existence of the conception of it.
...it would need to be determined what freedom is, in what manner or fashion it is real, in order to establish the equal validity for what it does.
I’m not sure that can be done.
So, then, as for free will, I'm figuring that its proponents want to have consciousness to be the cause of what one does, in real time, rather than any subconscious neural brain firings and figurings being already finished by the time their results get into consciousness as a product. So, that's what I'll be going forward with. Consciousness will have to do it all, as it being the will, and we'll still have to get this conscious will not to be fixed, but to be 'free', providing we can define 'free'.
removedmembershiprcSeptember 04, 2019 at 19:30#3243290 likes
Reply to Echarmion Thank you for laying out your case. Instead of dissecting your post and nit-picking it, I am simply going to engage your argument, if you do not mind. Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say "freedom?" I want to make sure I understand clearly the basics of the case you are laying out
Did you intend this for me? I ask because I have no interest in free, but rather in freedom. And my posting history here makes clear I reject “free will” as such.
I will say I am a fan of your “subconscious neural brain firings and figurings”, but I don’t see them as relevant to the subjective paradigm.
If by chance this was intended for me, I should forewarn you that I’m not going to be able to offer much support for your initial premises. But if you still want to elaborate on them, I’ll pay attention at least.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 04, 2019 at 20:47#3243510 likes
Ahhh, ok. Dialectic courtesy says https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/3486/echarmion has the right of way, with me just agreeing with a part of what was said.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 04, 2019 at 22:11#3243730 likes
So, to somehow have the deeper kind of free will hinted at, although not well defined, one approach is to shift the action to a consciousness, as a distinct thing, that is directly in charge in the right now of making thoughts and decisions; however, to do that we have to throw out the brain processes that we formerly had in charge, and, better yet, say that those process were never there. OK, they're gone, as they have to be gone. Now we can continue.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 04, 2019 at 23:03#3243820 likes
Since Existence is a given, having no opposite that could be, is all there in the block universe as everything, instantaneous, via something like as light being able to be everywhere in no time, for light cannot age. All the block universe is would be every path possible to all events, as their world-lines, it being made of events, just like space-time is considered to be, which gives credence.
The events would be such as occasions of experience already made, obviating any more processing time to make them, allowing consciousness to retain its instantness of decisions/thoughts. Consciousness, then, is fundamental and so it is totally connected to all the events, kind of like that even a part of a hologram still contains the whole, although in a dimmer way.
Are we getting anywhere?
PossibilitySeptember 04, 2019 at 23:44#3243930 likes
Reply to PoeticUniverse ‘Totally connected’ doesn’t take into account the structure of these connections in consciousness. While they appear “to be everywhere in no time”, as you say, these events are nevertheless interacting with experience according to some form of structure: value/significance.
There is a tendency to look beyond time to ‘all possible events’ as a single dimensional leap, but in my view jumping from existence as actuality to existence as possibility misses a step in how we structure and interact with our reality. It is in being aware of the paths (potential) themselves - including how they each connect to our own capacity and the collaboration involved - that the will gains access to its ‘freedom’.
‘Totally connected’ doesn’t take into account the structure of these connections in consciousness. While they appear “to be everywhere in no time”, as you say, these events are nevertheless interacting with experience according to some form of structure: value/significance.
Yes, in this new free will approach, consciousness contains all experiences and their relations and has real time access, somehow, in order for consciousness to be the instant cause. It is disconcerting, though, that the pre-made occasions of eternalism's experience would be even worse that presentism determining events as it went along.
PossibilitySeptember 05, 2019 at 00:05#3244030 likes
It is disconcerting, though, that the pre-made occasions of eternalism's experience would be even worse that presentism determining events as it went along.
How do you mean ‘worse’?
PoeticUniverseSeptember 05, 2019 at 00:13#3244050 likes
Seems like there's more hope to intervene in the actions of the 'now' production rather to the same that was carved in stone, but presentism has problems, so I went with the block idea in order to have events already there to pick from, although I suppose that should still work with brain memory. I'm not surprised about running into contradiction with this new free will approach, but I'm leaving out bias as best can do.
PossibilitySeptember 05, 2019 at 01:42#3244220 likes
Seems like there's more hope to intervene in the actions of the 'now' production rather to the same that was carved in stone
I’m finding it difficult to follow what you’re saying here - is there a word missing?
I’m going to bring Rovelli into the discussion again, with regards to this dichotomy of eternalism/presentism:
Carlo Rovelli, ‘The Order of Time’:The fact that we cannot arrange the universe like a single orderly sequence of times does not mean that nothing changes. It means that changes are not arranged in a single orderly succession: the temporal structure of the world is more complex than a simple single linear succession of instants. This does not mean that it is non-existent or illusory.
“The distinction between past, present and future is not an illusion. It is the temporal structure of the world. But the temporal structure of the world is not that of presentism. The temporal relations between events are more complex than we previously thought, but they do not cease to exist on account of this....
...We do not have a grammar adapted to say that an event ‘has been’ in relation to me but ‘is’ in relation to you....
The fundamental theory of the world must be constructed in this way; it does not need a time variable: it needs to tell us only how the things that we see in the world vary with respect to each other. That is to say, what the relations may be between these variables.
The concept of ‘eternalism’ for me is not an objective global order of the universe. Rather it is the way each observer structures their subjective experience of the universe. My block universe differs in 5D structure from your block universe - even though we can agree on many aspects of it in two, three and even four dimensional structures.
BartricksSeptember 05, 2019 at 02:56#3244340 likes
An analogy: I have cast iron evidence that my computer is working - it appears (visually) to be working. But I don't know how it is working. But only a fool would conclude that therefore I do not, in fact, have good evidence that it is working.
Likewise, I have cast iron evidence that I have free will - I appear, rationally speaking, to have it. I do not know 'how' I have it, but only a fool would conclude on that basis that therefore I do not.
If I have cast iron evidence that I have free will, then free will is an objective possibility even if none of us can figure out 'how' it could be.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 05, 2019 at 03:06#3244390 likes
Carlo Rovelli, ‘The Order of Time’:But the temporal structure of the world is not that of presentism.
Rovelli is against presentism, while his good friend and collaborator on Loop Quantum Gravity, Lee Smolin is wholly for it. Each have compelling arguments.
Carlo Rovelli, ‘The Order of Time’:...We do not have a grammar adapted to say that an event ‘has been’ in relation to me but ‘is’ in relation to you....
The relativity of simultaneity favors eternalism
Carlo Rovelli, ‘The Order of Time’:what the relations may be between these variables
Relations are paramount.
“The objective world is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling along the lifeline of my body, does a section of this world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time.”
? Hermann Weyl
So, then, in the new free will attempt, fundamental consciousness traverses already existent world-lines of events previously carved, although this doesn't seem so 'free'. I am failing…
PoeticUniverseSeptember 05, 2019 at 03:13#3244410 likes
The important part is that randomness only occurs at the observation. That randomness undermines the fully deterministic worldview.
Yes, for the wave function is deterministic before the collapse into a unitary probabilities that add to one, giving all a chance, eventually, and the "observation" probability means interactions of any kind. So I think it means that things could have turned out differently if we could have rerun the universe, but is this enough to free the will the way the proponents would want it? Who knows, without a meaningful meaning of what they are calling 'free'.
BartricksSeptember 05, 2019 at 03:16#3244420 likes
Reply to Pathogen I do not see how you're addressing my point. If antecedent determination of our decision making processes is incompatible with them exhibiting free will - and you think it is (as do I) - then how does making them indeterministic to some degree magically mean they do now exhibit free will?
If a past state of the universe that i had no hand in, and the laws of nature, which I also had no hand in, created me and determined both what qualities I would have and how I would develop, then I lack free will.
If, instead, a past state of the universe that I had no hand in, and the laws of nature that I had no hand in, and some chance events, created me, then I still lack free will.
I mean, take the colour of my eyes. I take it that I am not morally responsible for the colour of my eyes and that it is sufficient to explain this to cite the fact that their colour was not something I determined.
Now imagine that it turns out it was indeterministic what eye colour I would have - does that make me morally responsible for their colour? No. It makes no difference, for it was still not something I determined.
BartricksSeptember 05, 2019 at 03:18#3244440 likes
Reply to Pathogen I also do not understand why you looked to physics for answers to a philosophical question. Whether we have free will and what it involves are philosophical questions, not questions in physics. Physics know nothing about them. For free will is not something one can investigate empirically - free will is not something we can see, hear, smell, touch or taste. Our awareness of our free will is mediated by our reason, not our sensible faculties.
You need to answer the philosophical questions first before you can possibly know the implications of anything in physics. You're doing things the wrong way around, I think.
Nothing 'snide' here, just support and advancing the probabilistic quantum mechanic wave function:
Yes, for the wave function is deterministic before the collapse into a unitary probabilities that [s]add[/s] adds to one, giving all a chance, eventually, and the "observation" [s]probability[/s] probably means interactions of any kind.
So I think it means that things could have turned out differently if we could have rerun the universe, but is this enough to free the will the way the proponents would want it? Who knows, without a meaningful meaning of what they are calling 'free'.
It is disconcerting, though, that the pre-made occasions of eternalism's experience would be even worse that presentism determining events as it went along.
Why would the "occasions" of eternalism be "pre-made"? There is no before and after in eternity. You seem to be resiling to inappropriately thinking in terms of temporality.
So, then, in the new free will attempt, fundamental consciousness traverses already existent world-lines of events previously carved, although this doesn't seem so 'free'. I am failing…
PoeticUniverseSeptember 05, 2019 at 04:34#3244630 likes
All my references are to the block universe of eternalism derived from Einstein. I am for fixed will, but fairly trying to find if free will can be; I've only gotten as far as trying to make conscious free will instant and productive and thus not just showing what is past due to figurings having to take time. The block universe is eternally as it is, predetermined, so to speak. The traversal of it by consciousness is a kind of eternalistic 'time', at least seemingly to us.
Reply to PoeticUniverse OK, but I was referring specifically to your thought that events are "pre-made" and that consciousness "traverses already existent events previously carved" . I'm just pointing out that the events are not pre-made, already existent or previously carved from either the point of view of temporality or from the point of view of eternity. It seems as though you are trying to establish a temporal relation between temporality and eternity which would seem to be logically inapt in either context.
I'm just pointing out that the events are not pre-made, already existent or previously carved from either the point of view of temporality or from the point of view of eternity.
In presentism, there is only the dynamic now, just generated from the past, with the past then totally gone, and the future not yet created. In eternalism, the future and the past both exist (block universe) and always did. General Relativity suggests the 4D static block universe made of events. We can't tell them apart, so far.
Well said. Freedom is not to be found in the list of a priori conceptions, that from which as you say, the very structure of the world is imposed by the mind. But causality is on the list, alongside possibility, necessity, existence, and so on.
But isn't it also the case that the concept of freedom is necessary to arrive at an understanding of the world, or parts of it, since without freedom providing starting points, causal chains run into an infinite regress / first cause problem?
And while I agree it does not follow from that, that freedom is not real, I hesitate to agree that freedom is still an equally valid way to structure reality, for in which case it would seem to be in direct conflict with that which does so structure, and from which it is itself excluded.
I see your point. To equate freedom and causality as structure may be somewhat imprecise. Freedom is a constituent part of our internal, "actor" perspective. It's necessary for us to make choices.
Nevertheless, because from some P it does not follow that freedom is not real, says nothing about how freedom is real, beyond the mere existence of the conception of it.
True. My position is mostly intended as a refutation of the "freedom is just an illusion" argument. As to the metaphysical reality of freedom, I am not sure whether it's ultimately even relevant.
All my references are to the block universe of eternalism derived from Einstein. I am for fixed will, but fairly trying to find if free will can be; I've only gotten as far as trying to make conscious free will instant and productive and thus not just showing what is past due to figurings having to take time.
Your search for the will in action is a bit like looking for energy. I agree with you that what we understand to be the will appears ‘fixed’ in time, but that’s not much of a faculty, is it? I have empirical evidence that I have a will, that its effect on the universe is ‘caused’ by the sum of my subjective experience. What I struggle to verify is how that experience claims to be a ‘free’ agent based on what we can measure in time.
My view is that subjective experience, and by extension, the will, is not bound or structured by spacetime. The concept of eternalism was derived from a single quote by Einstein, taken out of context from a personal letter which pertains not to physics or philosophy, but to his experience of life itself.
Let’s put it back into context, and gain some perspective. Einstein writes, on the death of his dear friend, to the grieving sister:
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
He’s not talking to fellow physicists or even philosophers about an objective physical structure of the universe. These are words of consolation, sharing his own experience of grief and a view of his own approaching mortality (only five weeks later, I might add).
The disproportionate significance that philosophers have attached to this one Einstein quote is an example of how we experience the world: not as a sequence of events in time, but as an extended ‘now’ that interacts with whatever in our wealth of knowledge and awareness (experiencing past, present and future in a block universe) appears most significantly relevant, regardless of its temporality.
It is in this experience that the will is not constrained by spacetime - that it enables us to determine and initiate an event in time based on how our awareness of, connection to and collaboration with past, present and future events interact. But the ‘experienced’ freedom of the will is relative, even here. We experience more freedom than the 4D actual universe suggests, but the will is still subject to the relative value and significance we place on events, objects, stimuli and information.
It’s because we can also communicate our experiences, then recognise and critically examine other value systems, and even restructure our own through self-reflection, that the will gains even more freedom. And until we are capable of consciously exercising that amount of freedom with courage and wisdom, it really makes no sense to talk about any further sense of freedom at this stage, does it...?
But isn't it also the case that the concept of freedom is necessary to arrive at an understanding of the world, or parts of it, since without freedom providing starting points, causal chains run into an infinite regress / first cause problem?
Freedom as a starting point to alleviate infinite regress with respect to understanding the world.......not so much, methinks. The world, conceptually, makes explicit a posteriori conditions necessarily legislated by the principle of cause and effect, yet merely contingently understood within the confines of the principle of induction. This in turn makes explicit the inevitability of infinite regress and the unconditioned. Experience is required for understanding the world, and experience is at the mercy of the impossibility of its completion.
That being said does not necessarily remove freedom from being a starting point for something other than the world. The problem arises from the fact that freedom as a starting point for something other than the world can never be proven with the relative certainty implicit in a posteriori conditions, for the simple reason that conformity to principle and law implicit in empirical conditions, from which relative certainty is even possible, cannot apply to conditions that are not empirical. The very best the human rational system can do with freedom as a starting point, is construct with it a paradigm that holds with no inherent contradiction, either within the construction itself or to the empirical conditions already deemed sufficiently proven without it. It is, I agree, as you say, Quoting Echarmion
a constituent part of our internal, "actor" perspective. It's necessary for us to make choices.
The kicker:
All causality is meant to denote, is the means for a series of phenomena to be given in time. But the series, nor the time, are themselves causality. Therefore causality resides outside of and antecedent to, that which it describes, or implements, which implies if there is a form of causality for a series of phenomena in time, other than the form found in Nature, for another different class of objects, then it must be given equal validity.
“.....The transcendental idea of freedom (...) presents us with the conception of spontaneity of action, as the proper ground for imputing freedom to the cause of a certain class of objects. It is, however, the true stumbling-stone to philosophy, which meets with unconquerable difficulties in the way of its admitting this kind of unconditioned causality. That element in the question of the freedom of the will, which has for so long a time placed speculative reason in such perplexity, is properly only transcendental, and concerns the question, whether there must be held to exist a faculty of spontaneous origination of a series of successive things or states. How such a faculty is possible is not a necessary inquiry; for we are obliged to content ourselves with the a priori knowledge that such a causality must be presupposed, although we are quite incapable of comprehending how the being of one thing is possible through the being of another, but must for this information look entirely to experience. (...) But we ought in this case not to allow ourselves to fall into a common misunderstanding, and to suppose that, because a successive series in the world can only have a comparatively first beginning—another state or condition of things always preceding—an absolutely first beginning of a series (...) is impossible....”
Freedom as a starting point? Absolutely. But only if one thinks such a thing is both explanatorily sufficient, and theoretically necessary, and only as it relates to a thing as transcendental is itself.
———————
As an aside, while I respect your derivation of freedom for a starting point for understanding the world, as it is proved in the third thesis/antithesis antinomy, I rather prefer the thesis in its application to the will. We are not permitted, nor are we capable of, arriving at the unconditioned in Nature, but it is absolutely necessary to arrive at the unconditioned in the formulation of a sustainable moral philosophy.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 05, 2019 at 18:50#3247740 likes
What I struggle to verify is how that experience claims to be a ‘free’ agent based on what we can measure in time.
I haven't been able to show consciousness to even be an agent, which I would have to first do, I guess, and then go on to show that the conscious will is 'free' from the will's directives based on the nature of the person.
My view is that subjective experience, and by extension, the will, is not bound or structured by spacetime.
The will is in an inner space, anyway, and space-time is just the gradational field, but maybe you mean that the will is spaceless and timeless, being more fundamental. Chalmers posits consciousness as be as fundamental as other elementals, with information in physical neural form automatically also being able to get represented in consciousness form. That explains the explanatory gap, a bit, but this doesn't seem to get us to be free of the information having to be such as it is for individual person's make-up and get followed accordingly.
So, then, as for free will, I'm figuring that its proponents want to have consciousness to be the cause of what one does, in real time, rather than any subconscious neural brain firings and figurings being already finished by the time their results get into consciousness as a product. (...) Consciousness will have to do it all, as it being the will, and we'll still have to get this conscious will not to be fixed, but to be 'free', providing we can define 'free'.
I don’t hold with consciousness to be the cause of what one does, but I do agree that conscious subjectivity is not known to us as neural brain firings. THEY are the proverbial ghost in the machine.
——————
So, there's not anything left, which means that 'free will' as a stand-alone something cannot be (...), and also that it cannot even be meant, such as the case we have with other words with no context, almost like 'Nothing' or 'Infinite', and although the latter have definitions, the definitions serve to undo the ability of the stand-alone words in themselves to be something extant. So, we have will, its constancy reflecting us and also benefiting us—toward having a future via its predictions.
My sentiments pretty much. I would have used determinations rather than predictions, but that’s ok.
Correct me if I misunderstood your position.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 05, 2019 at 19:50#3247890 likes
In the otherworld of the haunts of thoughts, the neural activities go on in the dark, which we can't introspectively know, and don't like the idea of, but neurologists poked around and got some correlations and so we've been informed from that, but still not liking it, emotionally, and so we still wished for what sounded good, as free will, but couldn't logically define it deeper.
The ghosts rise from the deep, into our conscious world as qualia, the results from the spooky unknown workings of the machine that is the will, and therein in the conscious mind ever float the mysterious objects in the sea in which we see, and also in our imaginations beyond the present as even more faint and ghostly 90% reduced qualia to the point of just barely appearing in our imaginings, so as not to be confused with the actual qualia of our present reckonings.
We only ever 'see' the insides of our heads, as the mind, those specters already selectively painted in a useful way, as the glimmers, semblances, shadows, and whispers of reality, all toward the aim of us to be able to best continue on.
The ability of an actor to decide between two or more courses of action, based on that actors internal reasoning.
Assuming for the sake of argument that there is "internal deliberation," where does the information come from to initiate the deliberation process? Are there biological factors which influence the mental states, which are a function of brain activity (presumably)?
In presentism, there is only the dynamic now, just generated from the past, with the past then totally gone, and the future not yet created. In eternalism, the future and the past both exist (block universe) and always did. General Relativity suggests the 4D static block universe made of events. We can't tell them apart, so far.
I'm familiar with the ideas of presentism and eternalism. My concern is with trying to avoid inappropriate use of language like "the future and the past both exist...and always did". The logic inherent in the thoughts "future and past" and 'always did" is temporal and hence inappropriate to the logic of eternity, in my view.
I think it would be more appropriate to avoid the language of temporality (as much as we are able to) and say something like that in eternity every moment exists without passing away. Is the idea of existence necessarily temporal also? Perhaps; it is hard for beings who are conditioned to think temporally to think eternity.
The block universe theory states that time may be considered a forth dimension additional to our three spatial dimensions, therefore the past and future extend from the present moment to their limits or to eternity. In this view the future and past already exist as they will exist and do not change.
I think you are falling into the same trap as @Poetic Universe when you say the future and past already exist as they will exist and do not change. This suggest that eternity is temporally prior to temporality, and I think this is an incoherent thought. How could there be a temporal relationship between something temporal and something a-temporal? I don't think that idea could ever be made to make sense.
Your second post gets it I think. It makes no sense, in the context of eternity, to speak of the past as an infinite regression.There does not seem to be any reason why you could not have an eternity which consisted of a finite number of moments, for example. The general problem with thinking eternity is to conceive of what could distinguish the moments from one another if not spatiality or temporality. That is probably why eternalism is thought in spatial terms as a "block universe". The human mind has its limits no doubt!
PoeticUniverseSeptember 05, 2019 at 23:34#3248760 likes
That is probably why eternalism is thought in spatial terms as a "block universe".
Externally, if one could see it from the outside, which one never can, the block universe is 4 distances with no time or change, as dddd, dimensionally, as a hypercube, the past and the future both real, but, somehow, internally, to us, in space-time, one of the distances converts to what we call 'time', as if the speed of light, d/t, was a fundamental dimensional equivalence ratio; so, then, dddd / d/t = dddt = space-time.
It is to us as if the pages of a 3D flip book of 3D spaces are turning or a 3D DVD is playing. Each 3D image is as of a new 3D space, that is of a new universe going by. Our time, then, is as the differences of these spaces, making time to be a kind of index to these 3D spaces, although we can't use the index to go anywhere but have to always go on to the next 3D space.
Others liken it to the expansion of the universe being the 4D part, somehow.
Presentism looks the same to us, in that a whole new 3D space appears at every 'now', but that the 'now' was just manufactured from the immediate past, totally consuming the just past 'now'.
Einstein's relativity of simultaneity puts a big dent in presentism's claim that it is 'now' everywhere.
In my fun video below, a human in Tahiti asks a djinni to show him 'Eternity':
Einstein's relativity of simultaneity puts a being dent in presentism's claim that it is 'now' everywhere.
Yes, I understand that the idea of a universal "now" is inconsistent with relativity theory. Nows are local, and there is no absolute simultaneity. This leads me to wonder about McTaggart's "B-series" notion of time, though. If some events are, from a "universal" perspective, before others, say,in extremis the Big Bang is before the heat death for all observers, then the fact (if it is a fact) that there is no universal now is perhaps more of an artifact of our "fine-graining" than anything else. I don't know if I expressed that thought very well; I'm kind of groping here. :grin:
Reply to Pathogen I tend to agree with you that it seems more coherent and plausible to think that there are no actual infinities. But, we know so little! :yikes:
PoeticUniverseSeptember 06, 2019 at 02:46#3249400 likes
Eternalism nor presentism serve the purposes of arguing for free will, so the notion of a growing block universe is what were left with. I can't claim to know how time actually works but since choice requires the future to be undetermined or not exist yet feel free to throw any other ideas that would fit the bill my way.
Yes, a growing block is a combination of presentism and eternalism, with the past being kept and the future not yet existent. Growing block is probably the theory some say is supported by the expansion of the universe. So far, no one really knows the mode of time.
BartricksSeptember 06, 2019 at 03:16#3249550 likes
Reply to Pathogen I still don't see how indeterminism in the brain could give any mind associated with it free will.
Free will has to be capable of grounding moral responsibility. But if I'm not morally responsible if everything I am and do is antecedently determined, how am I going to be if it turns out that to some extent what I am and do is indeterministic? Perhaps if it is indeterministic what some brain event will cause my mind to think or decide then there is a sense in which I am the originator of my decision. But it is not the robust sense necessary to make me free in a way that could plausibly make me morally responsible for my resulting decisions. For if it really was indeterministic, then it was just a brute matter of chance that the brain events caused me to make one decision rather than another.
I still don't understand why you think physics will give you any answers to these questions - physicists are not studying free will. And although physical discoveries may have important implications for free will, we can't possibly know what those implications are until we know more about free will - something physics isn't even attempting to tell us about.
EcharmionSeptember 06, 2019 at 06:26#3250110 likes
Assuming for the sake of argument that there is "internal deliberation," where does the information come from to initiate the deliberation process? Are there biological factors which influence the mental states, which are a function of brain activity (presumably)?
The information comes from previous mind-states. Whether these are reducible to brain states is part of the question.
removedmembershiprcSeptember 06, 2019 at 14:59#3252000 likes
Reply to Echarmion If a mental state results from a previous mental state, going all the way back to the first brain state, like when a baby is looking into a mirror for example and begins the first stages of "thought," is there a primary state which is not the result of prior mental states? if so where does the information come from for that primary state?
PoeticUniverseSeptember 06, 2019 at 18:30#3252740 likes
I shall offer a view of the topic in which a kind of substantivalism, relationism, and eternalism can coexist on the basis of emergentism, the doctrine that qualitative systemic properties arise from more basic ontological levels devoid of such properties. The mechanisms that enforce emergence are composition and interaction. I hold that there is a level for each of the three ontological positions to be considered as a good option for a description of the way the world is.
– Spacetime substantivalism: Spacetime is an entity endowed with physical properties. This position is clearly expressed by Einstein (1920). The exact nature of this entity is open to discussion. I shall defend an event substantivalism.
– Spacetime relationism: Spacetime is not an entity that can exist independently of physical objects. Spacetime, instead, is a system of relations among different ontological items. The nature of these items is also open to discussion. I shall propose that there is a level where a form a relationism provides an adequate framework for current physics and that this is not in contraction with event substantivalism when the latter is applied to a different ontological level.
– Eternalism (also known as Block Universe – BU –): Present, past, and future moments (and hence events) exist. They form a 4-dimensional ‘block’ of spacetime. Events are ordered by relations of earlier than, later than, or simultaneous with, one another. The relations among events are unchanging. Actually, they cannot change since time is one of the dimensions of the block. I have defended this position in Romero (2012 and 2013a). The reader is referred to these papers as well as to Peterson and Silberstein (2011) and references therein for further arguments.
– Presentism: Only those events that take place in the present are real. This definition requires explanations of the terms ‘present’ and ‘real’. Crisp (2003, 2007) offers elucidations. See also the mentioned paper by Craig (2008), and Mozersky (2011). Presentism has been subject to devastating criticisms since the early attacks by Smart (1964), Putnam (1967), and Stein (1968). See Saunders (2002), Petkov (2006), Wu ?thrich (2010), Peter- son and Silberstein (2011), Romero (2012, 2015) for up-dated objections. ?
Some further objections against presentism:
Most of the arguments against presentism are based on the Special Theory of Relativity; see the references cited in the previous section and the discus- sions in Craig and Smith (2008).
Metaphysical arguments can be found, for instance, in Oaklander (2004) and Mellor (1998). Recently, several arguments based on General Relativity have been displayed against presentism. Romero and P ?erez (2014) have shown that the standard version of this doctrine is incompatible with the existence of black holes. In Romero (2015) I enumerate a number of additional objections based on General Relativity and modern cosmology. Wuthrich (2010) discusses the problems and inconsistence of presentism when faced with Quantum Gravity. Here, I offer a new argument based on the existence of gravitational waves.
The argument goes like this:?
P1. There are gravitational waves.?
P2. Gravitational waves have non-zero Weyl curvature.?
P3. Non-zero Weyl curvature is only possible in 4 or more dimensions.
P4. Presentism is incompatible with a 4 dimensional world.?
Then, presentism is false.
Yeah, I have the 1905 “On The Electrodynamics......” paper, which I prefer for showing the refutation of Newtonian absolute time. Nevertheless, I don’t see the connection to an argument disproving “free will”.
Dunno....you can use cement in a cake recipe, but ain’t nobody gonna get a bite out of it.
BartricksSeptember 07, 2019 at 00:01#3253700 likes
Reply to Pathogen Why can't you leave the restrictions of a physicist's mindset? Physics doesn't investigate free will at all, so what's to leave? Again, physicists are simply not studying free will at all.
To figure out what free will involves you have to use your reason. Your physics background will neither help nor restrict you - it is simply irrelevant.
BartricksSeptember 07, 2019 at 04:26#3254130 likes
Reply to Pathogen No, this is simply false: go into a physics department and ask the physicists in it what the difference is between a compatibilist and an incompatibilist about free will and see if they know.
The nature of free will is not something investigated by physics. if you've studied physics - and you say your background is in it - at which point in your studies did you study free will? Which module in a physics course studies it?
It isn't something physics studies.
BartricksSeptember 07, 2019 at 04:45#3254180 likes
Reply to Pathogen that same applies to other philosophical questions - they're not questions physicists address.
I think, perhaps, a lot of people with scientific backgrounds assume that they're the ones who are really studying reality and, as such, philosophy is just science without any empirical rigour. And thus if only scientists turn their attention to philosophical questions they'll be able to sort it all out.
Hmm...
The dichotomy suggested above between 'science' and 'philosophy' appears to be contradicted by developments in neuroscience, in which 'neurophilosophy' attempts to apply scientific findings to philosophical issues. Patricia Churchland, for example, using the principal of 'eliminative materialism', analysed issues of what we call 'free will' in terms of the neurological mechanisms involved in 'desire constraint'. Thus 'culpability' in the court room sense, becomes a function of the balance of neurological and hormonal processes and genetic dispositions. This approach makes no claim on the societal functionality of the concept of 'culpability', but does tend to indicate the liklihood of 'success' of sentencing responses.
PossibilitySeptember 07, 2019 at 09:12#3254580 likes
?Pathogen that same applies to other philosophical questions - they're not questions physicists address.
Just because physicists don’t address it, I don’t think that means we can’t use what we understand about physics (and how physicists approach the boundaries of their understanding) to address questions such as the nature of free will, particularly in relation to determinism (which seems to be ensconced safely in the realm of physics).
In fact, the way physicists approach the questions of energy, potentiality and quantum superposition, for instance, laps at the question of free will. All they really have here are formulas pertaining to a value in relation to variable events in time (and shared subjective experiences) as ‘evidence’ that these concepts exist. For most physicists, that’s enough - but if they ever wondered about the nature of potential energy, for instance, instead of resorting to SUAC, perhaps they’d realise that energy’s potential exists free of the constraints of spacetime, just like the will. It is only in actuality (as an event in time) that energy is constrained.
That may seem like a moot point to most physicists, but their own participation in using these formulae to predict, plan for and manipulate the causal conditions of an event (ie. how their will operates outside of spacetime to initiate a cause) is overlooked because they endeavour to exclude themselves (as a subjective, interacting observer) from the equation. QM shows that some formulae become ineffective past a certain point without this variable, suggesting that we may have to rethink the way we currently map reality in order to obtain a more accurate understanding of our interaction with the universe moving forward.
The dialogue between physics and philosophy is important here - we need to acknowledge alternative (ie. purely subjective) values or significance experienced by different observers in relation to the same event in order to more accurately map this additional aspect to reality, which has already enabled us to interact with the universe beyond the constraints of spacetime for thousands of years. Understanding how an observer is aware of and interacts with potential energy to initiate events, for instance, takes us into the realm of a will that is potentially free.
The way I see it, there is no border between physics and metaphysics - it’s just a misunderstanding. And I don’t think using reason without any reference to physics is going to help you to understand what free will really involves.
Reply to Possibility
Yes, the epistemological issue is one of priority. i.e Does 'philosophy' guide what we mean by 'scientific method' , or is 'scientific method' a function of 'brain mechanisms' which eliminative materialists might argue boils down to .physics and chemistry'.Dualists tend to reinforce the dichotomy, whereas pragmatists tend to ignore it.
Science is predicated on the scientific method, the major premise of which is predicated on observation.
Observation of the human brain is by attachment of machines, from which displays represent brain functionality directly proportional to experimental expectation.
A human does not think in terms of brain states, but a machine absolutely has no alternative but to represent human thought in terms of brain states. It follows that the human inventing a machine to objectify human thought uses a methodology that cannot be replicated in the machine he is inventing. The very best the machine can do is show one-on-one correspondence between human thought and its relational brain state, but can never have the identity of the thought it is representing. A brain state can identify a thought but can never have the identity of a thought.
Philosophy does not have that limitation, for the methodology of philosophy is exactly the same as the methodology for thought itself, in which thought and philosophy are identical. Which is not to say philosophy doesn’t have its own limitation, insofar as philosophy is not equipped for examination of the brain’s physical brain states from which it arises.
It remains as fact, as far as humans are concerned, that no machines are ever invented, nor is any science ever done, that does not first pass before the tribunal of human reason. From this, it is clear that human thought, and everything that arises from it, is the prime directive, and science is at the mercy of it, belongs to it, and for all intents and purposes, has nothing to say about it, but only objectifies its mechanisms.
The nullification of this particular dualism is a pipe-dream for wishful thinkers, without the foresight to understand that if or when future science shows the fundamental natural laws of their thought, they have in effect taken the first steps in the sacrifice of their humanity, in all its wonder and fallibility.
But I’ll be long gone by then, so.......ehhhhh......sucks to be you when that time comes.
If a mental state results from a previous mental state, going all the way back to the first brain state, like when a baby is looking into a mirror for example and begins the first stages of "thought," is there a primary state which is not the result of prior mental states? if so where does the information come from for that primary state?
Well the mind runs on some substrate. When the mind forms, it will inherit some information, along with it's basic functions, from the reality it is formed in. We can assume, for the sake of the argument, that it's properly represented by genetics forming the biological brain.
PoeticUniverseSeptember 07, 2019 at 18:37#3256730 likes
…
[i]Relations among basic events, or ‘ontological atoms’, can be the basis from which substantival spacetime emerges, in a similar way to how things emerge from spacetime events.
Change of space-time would require an extra dimension not included in space-time. This, in turn, would imply that space-time is a thing with an emergent relational property that should be measured by the extra dimension or ‘meta-time’. There is no physical reason to introduce such an ontology. And if someone is willing to pay the price to do it, an infinite regress follows immediately, since the 5D ‘super space-time’ might change requiring more extra dimensions ontological inflation would turn the price unaffordable.
The representation of spacetime appears, therefore, as the large number limit of an ontology of basic timeless and spaceless events that can be identified only at a more basic ontological level.
Composition leads to a hierarchy of events, with basic events on the lower level and increasing complexity towards higher levels. Reality seems to be organized into levels, each one differentiated by qualitative, emerging properties. Higher levels have processes and things with some properties belonging to lower levels in addition to specific ones.
At some point of this hierarchy of events, things can be introduced as classes abstracted from large number of events (see Romero 2013a for formal definitions). A thing-based ontology allows a simplification in the description of the higher levels of organisation of what is, essentially, an event ontology. Spacetime is then an emerging thing from the collection of all events.
Event substantialism regarding spacetime does not preclude relationism at a more basic level. Relations among basic events, or ‘ontological atoms’, can be the basis from which substantival spacetime emerges, in a similar way to how things emerge from spacetime events.
If we want to represent events at very small scale, the assumption of compactness must be abandoned. The reason is that any accumulation point implies an infinite energy density, since events have finite (but not arbitrarily small) energy, and energy is an additive property. In other words, spacetime must be discrete at the smallest scale.
Since the quantum of action is given by the Planck constant, it is a reasonable hypothesis to assume that the atomic events occur at the Planck scale. If there are atomic events, their association would give rise to composed events (i.e. processes), and then to the continuum spacetime, which would be a large-scale emergent entity, absent at the more basic ontological level. This is similar to, for instance, considering the mind as a collection of complex processes of the brain, emerging from arrays of ‘mindless’ neurons.[/i]
removedmembershiprcSeptember 09, 2019 at 18:30#3265440 likes
Reply to Echarmion Since there is a mental state which relies on genetics, or some non-mental state, and this mental state is the first mental state, doesn't it follow that all subsequent mental states are in some way set on a trajectory by the "prime mover of mental states" (I am not talking about god), and thus, the configuration of the progenitor of mental states is really constraining the make-up of the mental states which follow from it? In my opinion, this would be an infringement on the freedom of a future mental state.
EcharmionSeptember 10, 2019 at 17:58#3269800 likes
Since there is a mental state which relies on genetics, or some non-mental state, and this mental state is the first mental state, doesn't it follow that all subsequent mental states are in some way set on a trajectory by the "prime mover of mental states" (I am not talking about god), and thus, the configuration of the progenitor of mental states is really constraining the make-up of the mental states which follow from it? In my opinion, this would be an infringement on the freedom of a future mental state.
Mental states may well be "constrained" in some way, after all human thoughts tend to follow similar patterns. But what's important to note here is that mental states aren't necessarily deterministic. That means previous mental states, and sensory input, inform subsequent states, but do not determine them.
removedmembershiprcSeptember 10, 2019 at 18:05#3269850 likes
Reply to Echarmion Okay, so how does the mental trajectory which you admitted is constrained change course? Does one part of the mind act upon another? Isn't this just the homunculus argument? And if one part of the mind acts on another to changes the trajectory, wouldn't the "acting" part also be constrained by these pro generative conditions? It sounds like you are just quibbling with the word determined because of the implications it has for your position, but the space that you have to put this "willing mechanism" seems to be non-existent in my view.
EcharmionSeptember 10, 2019 at 18:27#3270000 likes
Okay, so how does the mental trajectory which you admitted is constrained change course? Does one part of the mind act upon another? Isn't this just the homunculus argument?
It changes course by making decisions. You seem to be asking me to explain how decisions "work" in some other terms, that is to reduce them so some other process. But I am saying that decision making is not reducible to some other process. It is what it seems to you in your head.
And if one part of the mind acts on another to changes the trajectory, wouldn't the "acting" part also be constrained by these pro generative conditions?
We could think of the different parts that make up the "decision" combining in several possible ways, only one of which is chosen.
It sounds like you are just quibbling with the word determined because of the implications it has for your position, but the space that you have to put this "willing mechanism" seems to be non-existent in my view.
That's because it's not a mechanism in the usual sense of the word. It wouldn't be some sort of algorithm that calculates an outcome. Willing is simply the way the mind operates when making decisions. LIke how physical laws tell you how physical processes operate, without these laws having some "space" where they "are"
Comments (202)
This is good, and it defines 'free' to be that the will is free to operate, the function of the will being to collapse scenarios of selections and their consequences into the best choice to be real-ized.
Hardly anyone would contest this, so there should be no big fuss so far.
While I concur wholeheartedly with this, it does merely kick the metaphysical can down the transcendental road. There has to be some logically sustainable rendition of “free” in order for the will to do its job. Therein lay the fuss.
One of my biggest issues with these debates is that people always define free as uncoerced. In my opinion, this is just framing the debate with loaded language. I do not believe in libertarianism.
I think the best you can do philosophically is to argue for "will." Just drop the qualifier, which is a theologically generated concept, which was invented to salvage the notion of God being just in the light of suffering. E.g. suffering is the result of human volition therefore God is still good.
So my argument for "will," would basically be Dennett's position. We have a range of options that appear to be able to be subjected to conscious deliberation on our part, and the range is determined by cause and effect, and it seems to be the case, that we can choose between these options. So epistemologically, it is not possible to know if we are actually deliberating or if it just appears that we are, for all intents and purposes, it seems to us as if we are making choices. Therefore, it might be safe to say that we have a "will."
The general job of the will might be to insure the person's future in combination with reflecting the person as s/he has become as of that moment.
The fuss is about the consistency of the will, which, although appreciated as nature's useful means toward one's survival and keeping one to basically remain as true to one's self, leaves the person to necessarily be an automated process, which is not well received emotionally, since, well, then it seems one is not in control, whatever 'control' means, really, and who knows what benefit it could confer over the quick and deep process of two hundred trillion neuron connections figuring things out quite well.
I have no problem with libertarianism of the philosophical sort, re: Belsham, 1789. So saying, the libertarian premise of the non-anarchist personal autonomy is a necessary condition for the will’s determinant functionality.
————————
Quoting rlclauer
Absolutely. Will is a rational faculty in and of itself, or rather, it must be treated as such if it is expected to be the foundation of moral dispositions. I guess the whole....er.....fuss..... really depends on what one thinks the will is supposed to do.
————————
Quoting rlclauer
At no time is this more apparent then when the moral agent wills himself to do something he really doesn’t want to do.....and does it despite his wants.
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Quoting rlclauer
Exactly. It is impossible to prove one way or another, but no one can rationally argue, except for the case of reflex or accident, that we do not weigh options for purely personal well-being, especially when no imperative is in residence.
I can live with that. It simplifies to that which I see you enunciated in the next paragraph: “...basically remain true to oneself”. Although, I would take exception to the “useful means to one’s survival”. We don’t have the survival issues of our predecessors. Nothing, in the normal course of current events, wants us for dinner, and nobody wants to hang our heads on a pike at the castle keep. Worldly scale and humanity in general being understood, of course.
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Quoting PoeticUniverse
....which reflects back on what one thinks the will should be doing. If the will is the causal determinant of moral dispositions, and one remains, as you say, true to himself, in other words, he is a moral agent, then his will must be consistent. If the will is inconsistent, then the agent is necessarily contradicting himself, hence is immoral by implication. Consistency of will is morality reduced to its core.
One way of looking at it anyway.
Since wills seem to be full of old-time ills,
So, they cut them off, now of wills bereft—
The problem is that there was no ‘they’ left.
IMO, if we seem to deliberating, then we ARE deliberating. Similarly with the act of making choices.
Please explain how the SEEMING can be an illusion.
The "automated process" consists of mental processes; they are performed by a mind. The output of this process would not come to be were this specific mind (which includes its beliefs, dispositions, desires, habits of thought...) not doing the processing.
My point is that determinism does not negate the fact that our minds are causal agents, agents whose beliefs (among other things) are factors that lead to the choice that is made. Yes, the beliefs were determined by prior experiences (as well as the DNA it started with), but they are still beliefs, and they are part of the processing.
But this is only true if you separate the person from their substrate, that is, if you hold that there are brain-states that do not represent the person whose brain they occur in. I would hold that whatever brain-states we observe are merely physical manifestations of the person.
Optical illusions are a great example. Also, our brain filling in missing information is another good example.
First of all, a lot of our disagreement can be cleared up by simply saying I was not saying "will" is an illusion (although I happen to think it is), I said it is epistemologically ambiguous. We can only know from our perspective, which is tainted by mental constructions of "self, and will, and agency," etc.
As far as quantum indeterminacy, I do not see how random events means you have free will. In my opinion, suggesting there are random events at a particle level undermines the notion that a complex organism comprised of particles can thereby exhibit intentional volitional deliberation and action. If it is just random, where is the volition. I suppose you could argue that the conscious observer, or your "self" the thing which is "freely willing," is locating those particles within their field of probability, therefore initiating the mechanical process which actuates the desired action, but I think that is just a form of spooky action at a distance, and suggests a kind of ghost in the machine. If your mental processes are a function of physiological states, I think suggesting the physiological states are determined by mental processes is just putting the cart before the horse.
Vision produces beliefs about the world; some of the beliefs may be false: illusions.
Why think the perception of deliberative control is an illusion? This seems like arguing for solipsism. Like with solipsism, it can't be proven false. But also like solipsism: nobody actually believes it. We actually innately believe there is an external world with other minds, and we innately believe we actually perform deliberations. Determinism doesn't falsify that. So you need some justification to consider it illusory- something more than logically possible.
You are attempting to prove something like free will actually exists. If your argument is, it's epistemologically ambiguous so why not just agree with what appears to be the case, that's fine, but it does not show anything like free will actually exists. It sounds like you agree with my description of senses being easily duped and the notion of volitional causation is a function of our perspective. Where we disagree is you think given the evidence, we should just err on the side of our perception being correct.
I just happen to acknowledge that I could be mistaken, and you seem to suggest that because it APPEARS that we are having this experience, that qualifies as evidence in and of itself. In my opinion that argument works fine in getting around on a daily basis, but it does not prove anything.
As far as "Why think the perception of deliberative control is an illusion?" fair question. I think the reason to think this is because it is a more humane perspective. I approach this from wanting to have a more compassionate way of viewing humans, especially in their economic context. Our society ascribes this notion of free will to our actions, and therefore, suggests that your economic position is deserved because you were the architect of that experience through your mental activity or laziness, etc. This leads to the notion that punitive lack of access to resources (poverty and homelessness), are deserved conditions, and some hedge fund manager taking home a 20 mil dollar bonus is just exponentially more productive and valuable within the economic context. Once you introduce the idea of determinism, this whole idea of punishing people for "not being valuable enough to the economy through the impotence of their otherwise potential to be better through making better choices," divorces them of the environmental and economic contexts which constrain their range of "choices."
Therefore, I introduce the idea of determinism, not economic determinism proper, but a form of it, to hopefully create a space for a less punitive economic system, and to view outcomes in a more systemic and holistic sense. This is why erring on the side of the will being an illusion, or like the steam of bio-electrical-chemical reactions, serves my world view.
This perspective doesn't diminish the compassion framework you have in mind. It's STILL true that our conditions and experiences determine the choices we make. This is not inconsistent with personal responsibility, because despite those conditions and experiences, we can still learn.
Quoting rlclauer
No. I'm pointing out the fact that we DO believe our senses - and this belief is not a product of deduction; it's natural. Optical illusions prove that we can be mistaken, but they don't imply our natural trust is misplaced. It doesn't imply we should immediately start questioning every bit of sensory input we receive. The implicit trust is reasonable. Trusting that we are free to make choices based entirely on factors internal to ourselves is similar - we naturally trust that we're controlling it, and just like with vision, we shouldn't question this control except in those instances where we have reason to believe otherwise. Surely you DO actually have this implicit trust in your own ability to make choices, just like you also trust there is an external world despite the possibility that your mind is all that exists.
Although our internal factors were CAUSED, these factors collectively are who/what we are. Most of us also want to do better, and we can indeed take actions to help us do better. It doesn't matter that the "wanting to do better") has been caused (by DNA, conditioned responses, etc) - it's still a motivator, and a part of ourselves.
It's self-defeating to deny that you have the free will to address the factors that elicit your compassion (like poverty, child abuse, etc). To take action consistent with your compassion, you must feel that you actually have to power to alleviate these problems.
As far as acting on your senses in a natural and non-deductive analysis, your point dissolves as information is obtained. If the first reaction to an optical illusion is to naturally believe it, then information which discloses the nature of the illusion is disclosed, now deduction will be applied to the viewing of phenomena similar to the optical illusion. This simply means that once deduction is introduced, naturally relying on sensory information no longer totally explains how that information is interpreted by the brain. Therefore, invoking natural responses dissolves as information is gained, and thereby, invoking it as a bit of evidence for free will, also dissolves.
A brief comment on compatibilism. Compatibilism simply redefines free will, and is only a viable argument given a lack of information about the system. Therefore, libertarianism and compatibilism are equally incoherent, as compatibilism acknolwedges causal determinants, but kicks the can into unexplained territory, and then claims, see free will must exist in this space!
The two AIs DO have a causal role, just not a conscious one - since they aren't conscious. The critical issue is that there's no basis for holding them accountable. (more on this later).
Quoting rlclauer
You don't need agency to HAVE compassion. You need agency to act on this compassion.
Quoting rlclauer
You're analyzing an instance of an optical illusion - which are notable only because they are exceptional. I'm talking about sensory input IN GENERAL. You don't skeptically analyze all the objects you encounter in the course of your everyday life simply because of the possibility you are misperceiving them.
Quoting rlclauer
My position is that "free will" is a concept associated with responsibility and accountability.
It makes perfect sense to hold someone accountable for their actions: the action one takes are a consequence of one's beliefs, genetic dispositions, environmentally introduced dispositions, one's desires and aversions, the presence or absence of empathy, jealousy, anger, passion, love, and hatred. These factors are processed by the computer that is our mind to make a choice. If the consequences of that choice cause harm to someone else, how SHOULD others respond? Should they just excuse it because he had not choice (this seems to be the implication of your position)? No. We know he could have chosen differently had he been less reckless, or considered others, or any number of things. By doing so, that person becomes less likely to repeat the mistake - because he will have learned something. In effect, his programming will be changed because consequences provide a feedback loop that changes him.
Suppose the AIs in your example could experience pain, pleasure, regret, empathy, love, hate, and if it had desires that it worked to fulfill for the positive feelings it would experience, and aversions that it avoided because the negative feelings it would experience. Also suppose it could relate its choices to the consequences including the emotions it invoked, and that it could reprogram itself so that future choices would produce more positive and less negative outcomes.That would be closer akin to the "free willed" choices of humans. Whether or not we call it "free will" is irrelevant - my point is that accountability and responsibility comprise a feedback loop that we should acknowledge exists, and be glad of it. You weaken or break the loop when you deny accountability.
This discussion operates at the level of self-reflection - referring to a ‘self’ which purposefully maintains its relative consistency despite the variability of the related physical events/objects to which this ‘self’ conceptually refers or relates. It is the value of a consistent ‘self’ in relation to ‘survival’ that leaves the person to be an ‘automated process’.
When we recognise that these beliefs, dispositions, desires, habits of thought, etc are value structures determined by certain combinations of prior experiences, and therefore not only predictable but also subject to changes through experience (learning, etc), then we can prioritise/value a consistency of self as a ‘survival’ tactic, OR we can continually reflect on, evaluate and alter the factors that lead to our actions.
It is our subjective value structures (including those ‘outsourced’ to certain ideological or authoritative systems) that determine our actions, but it is our awareness of, connection to and collaboration with the options in these value structures that determine the freedom of this basic faculty for purposefully initiating actions. If one accepts the undeniable value of a consistent self as the only reality, as fundamental to their survival, for instance, then there is no capacity for evaluating all the factors that lead to any ‘choice’ that is made - no selection, no act of choosing, only a single realised item.
Pending the finding and better usage of the apparatus outside of time that has us choosing freely above and beyond our brain network process, one can hone one's natural awareness, connections, and collaboration—emotionally, logically, predictively, physically, and imaginatively, perhaps, by getting high on life, somehow, which ought to stir the pot of creativity. Well, it sounds good, anyway.
Heart-flight is love that the wondrous Earth brings,
Which winds to the soul whisper unimaged things;
Senses merge, as streams, to flow beyond joy;
Imagination fires enlightened wings.
Thank you for expressing your position relative to mine. I recognise that you’re not entering into discussions about how free will relates directly to deterministic perspectives here, which is where my thread differs and you’ve noticed a focus on unconscious choices in some of the discussion. But I don’t think we differ that much in our viewpoints.
I agree with you that intellectual processing can imagine possible future situations that are not directly determined by previous experiences. However, in order to actualise any plan, there needs to be awareness, connection and collaboration with the potential for such a situation: how previous experiences, conditioning, genes, etc of ourselves and others can contribute to a plan for actualising this possible future situation. If we’re unaware of how these causal conditions can be structured and restructured, all the intellectual processing is effectively imagination.
My existence is surprising to me. If it weren't so obvious, I wouldn't believe it either.
I think that we simply don't understand the deep nature of time, space, matter, causality, consciousness, agency, selfhood, and so on, well enough to be justified in drawing firm conclusions here. Frankly, we just don't understand what we are talking about. Puzzlement and uncertainty are warranted. Those who think they know for sure one way or another should check their hubris. My suspicion is that neither position really fits the reality. To know the truth here would probably involve having a quite different understanding of what everything really is than anyone has yet had. Maybe it is beyond our comprehension.
Honestly though, I have read and thought a fair bit about it and I have never seen a good argument for free will, nor have I even come across a clear definition of it that I think really captures what I intuit. And there is too much talk of deliberation, as if it is always a long process of thinking. The intuition of freedom deals with something much more basic and immediate, and something definitely related to a self, something owned. It isn't simply "will", but "my will". I caused the action, on purpose, and I could have done otherwise. There is an arbitrariness here, but mine. Not simply non-determined. I determined it, at least to a degree. And nothing beyond me fully determined my determination. But what am I? Answering that question rightly is critical! And it might be impossible for us to rightly answer it.
And the Libet results, IMO, are usually horribly misinterpreted. The experiment involves instructing the person to allow the rising random impulses in the nervous system to complete as actions, basically uninterfered-with, after first priming it with it a request for a certain kind of impulse. Given the instructions, the results don't surprise me at all, and they certainly don't show that all behavior at all times is entirely the outcome of impulses that are already in motion before awareness of the intention to act occurs.
Aside from the trivial non-coercion meaning and the randomness that harms any kind of will, the "definition" eludes us since it never works out, so far, but the Holy Grail of the crux of it is to find a way above and beyond the automated brain will being true to itself that lets there be some higher agency that is somehow 'free' and 'independent' of the brain will or able to will the brain will, but, again, we not being able to well define this 'free' idea, much less to go on to show it.
I’m with you on all of what you’ve said - this in particular.
I guess I’m just not content to leave it there, though. This is what philosophy is all about, isn’t it? Or are we just critics, waiting around for someone else to do the work? I was reading your post with great interest, but I hoped you would then offer something constructive to this particular discussion...
What is an unconscious choice?
The whole issue with the "free" part is whether you really have different options or not. Whether you can really make a choice, including seemingly arbitrary choices.
Of course, it's entirely impossible to identify something "free" in the physical world, using the scientific method. At best the scientific method can establish randomness. Freedom is definitely not physical.
You know...I always thought that, too. But then I came across this “degrees of freedom” for showing coordinate dimensions in a phase space, and I got to wondering how freedom was meant to apply there. I don’t consider freedom to be physical either, but apparently, somebody figured degrees of it, are.
Without getting lost in the weeds on the causal aspect, could you elaborate on why you believe the AI's cannot be held accountable, and why do you think the human brain and nervous system is different than a cybernetic neural network? To me this sounds like a anthropic bias.
I disagree. Instincts are something everyone would agree is an automatic action, which require no agency to be instantiated. I am simply saying all action looks like instincts when you have enough information.
It really is irrelevant if our reality is not composed of mostly optical illusions, although there can be an interesting conversation about how the brain is really constructing what you perceive, you are not really perceiving "out there," you are perceiving your brain's model. The reason your point is irrelevant, is because my argument is not based on the commonality of illusion, but rather, whether a particular thing actually is an illusion, which it seems obvious, that the phenomena of self, will, and consciousness, are all just mental constructs, not some spooky thing which floats to the left of your prefrontal cortex.
Sure, that's what all compatibilists argue. I just think it is an unnecessary maneuver. A rapid dog has no "agency, or free will," but you would shoot it if it was attacking your baby. Invoking free will in order to have accountability is an artifact that is no longer needed.
You are just arguing against a straw man. I never made such an argument. I never once said I am advocating for undermining any notion of responding to someone who may be harmful to someone else.
This is just an extension of your learning argument, which I already responded to. I do not think learning something or having code or neural networks altered does anything for the notion of free will, which is why I invoked the AI example in the first place.
While I agree with what you say, it is indeed possible that consciousness is indeed how you describe, I would simply say the reason consciousness appears as a problem, is because we are not recognizing that it is simply a trick our brain pulls, like connecting the dots of an imagine, or other wising rendering its model of reality. I would argue that deliberation is similar. Just the product of brain activity, a kind of post hoc connecting of the dots.
You are just arguing against a straw man. I never made such an argument. I never once said I am[/quote]
I wasn't arguing against you, I was trying to get you to think in terms of accountability. Set aside all concepts of "free will". Do you agree with my model of accountability?
Let's assume an action is, in fact, free. How would you tell from the outside?
Quoting rlclauer
But if everything is constructed, it makes no sense to call one construct "illusion".
Quoting rlclauer
Perhaps the point of accountability is to establish what you are not accountable for? After all, if we were to just eliminate possible causes of danger, we'd never stop.
Quoting Mww
Wouldn't you need a conception of physical freedom before you can map degrees of it?
Consider that last point carefully. If consciousness has no effect on behavior, how could behavior ever come to contain information about it or refer to it? When I tell you that I find myself to be conscious, it would seem that the fact of my being conscious has necessarily somehow made a difference in my behavior. It goes deeper still. For me to even form thoughts about my consciousness, for my consciousness to refer to itself, for me to know that I am conscious, my consciousness must have some influence on the brain state that presumably determines the structure of my mental state, which contains references to my consciousness. I am aware of my awareness, and my internal verbal and bodily gestural behavior often reflect this.
Epiphenomenalism, one of the classic determinist positions, would seem ruled out, as it is a belief in an inefficacious subjective something that we nevertheless find objective traces of in behavior. We would have a hard time explaining why the idea of epiphenomenalism ever arose in the first place if it were true. Bodies are referring to consciousness. It must not be the epiphenomenal consciousness that they are referring to!
You'll find people who assert epiphenomenalism, especially as they do implicitly when they take Libet's results as proof against free will, and then they will also say things about why and how consciousness evolved by natural selection because it offers some kind of survival advantage. Clearly, they haven't thought things through!
We might model epiphenomenalism as follows, with mental states designated "M" and physical brain states as "P".
Here, mental states don't influence physical states, nor do they influence other mental states. There is no way for any feature of the mental state distinct from the pure physical state to make its way into the next physical state. In other words, they are pointless and non-detectable. To wipe that top mental series away completely would make no detectable difference in the world. So why do epiphenomenalists believe in their consciousness? I think it is obvious that we should throw this stupidity out! Epiphenomenalists are a weird sort of dualist anyway, often without realizing it, even though they sometimes heap scorn on dualism. Honestly, I don't think a weaker position on the mind-body problem exists than epiphenomenalism. How it persists is beyond me.
For us to know about and to talk about our mental states seems to require that consciousness is efficacious somehow. Further, even if a physical state influences a mental state, a mental state must introduce something extra into the next physical state, rather than just mediating the physical-to-physical influence. This would mean that to at least some extent, the mental is free from prior physical determination. So perhaps here we have something of the will and its freedom. Of course though, it could be that there is some other sort of unbroken chain of mental causation that eliminates the freedom here. To have real freedom would seem to require that the mental is causa sui. "I determine while not being determined by anything outside myself. I am the fundamental substance."
When we talk about free will, aren't we basically talking about our minds in relation to our bodies? I think so. Doing something unconsciously (presumably automatically?) seems not to involve free will. So consciousness is an issue here, as is time. And these, it seems, are deeply connected.
Adding, "could have chosen differently," just muddies the water. should we promote good outcomes and mitigate bad? yes, but agency is irrelevant to that. In fact, I would go one step further. I would argue the idea of agency allows us to come to conclusions which are far less moral. For example, if someone is set up for failure by having a terrible childhood, their ACE score is 8/10, and they end up homeless standing on a street corner screaming at passing by cars, the notion of agency causes people to say, "well what's wrong with that guy? why doesn't he just choose to get a job or choose to stop drinking?" people are actually less sympathetic because we ascribe agency to people.
There are no "free actions." if you want to define free as uncoerced, which is a loaded word, fine. There is not a guy with a gun to my head. But this does not capture the idea of the causal chain of material factors which generate what we perceive as "conscious deliberation." Consider the Libet experiment and the "pantyhose experiment."
It makes sense to call something an illusion because of the disconnect between how it actually is and how it is perceived. The only "constructed" element here is the perception, not the real.
I do not disagree with that. I think it is usually framed positively, (what one is accountable for) because of our commitment to agent causation.
Should they just excuse it because he had not choice (this seems to be the implication of your position)? No. We [s]know[/s] have strong reasons to believe he [s]could[/s] would have chosen differently had he been less reckless, or considered others, or any number of things.
I agree with most of the rest of your comments (not your rejection of "agency", but I'll set that aside for now). What I infer is that there are cases in which the external causes (e.g. poverty, terrible childhood...) are mitigating factors. Those are important, but I don't think they imply we should abandon the notion of accountability I outlined. Here's a real-world example:
A few years ago, a 40 year-old woman in Houston was driving home late at night following a night of drinking at a bar. She got a bit lost, and wound up on an unfamiliar, dark street where she ran into a bicyclist who later died. The driver did not stop, but drove to her home. She was convicted of "failure to stop and render aid". In the punishment phase of her trial, her lawyer was pleading for leniency because she'd had a tough childhood: she came from a broken home, her single,twice-divorced mother was an alcoholic who never disciplined any of her kids, but she'd react at their bad behavior with verbal abuse. The mother kicked her out of the house when she was 14 because the girl was wild (promiscuous, using drugs, shoplifting). She and 2 of her 3 siblings dropped out of high school. Her brother is also in prison for repeated DUI (fortunately, he hasn't killed anyone). This was not an impoverished home - they were upper middle class.
There's a clear causal relationship between the girl's childhood and her recklessness at driving drunk, and failure to take responsibility for her actions. However, there are very good reasons to hold her accountable. Maybe, just maybe she will be more responsible when she's released from prison. Maybe the publicity this received will, in some small way, induce some people to take more care. Had she been given a slap on the wrist and sent home, it would have been only a matter of time before she was again driving drunk and risking lives. It is unfortunate that the girl had such a horrible childhood and suffered for it, but it's even more unfortunate that a completely innocent bicyclist was killed.
I would think. But in some defined coordinate system containing an observable object, the freedom it has is subject to the laws of the system, and the degrees of freedom it has are restricted by the system itself. Pretty lame kind of freedom, is all I’m sayin’.
Typical, though. Assigning a concept where it seemingly has no business. If we both hold that freedom isn’t physical, is that the same as saying freedom doesn’t belong to physical systems? And if that holds, why would there be such a thing as degrees of freedom in a physical system?
Take the case you provided. You can look at her as an agent, who because of her moral depravity and "evil" nature, decided, after conscious deliberation to get drunk and then drive. It would be easy for someone to conclude, "I hate that miserable person, look at the harm they caused!" Exactly as Sam Harris argued, the logic of hate dissolves when agency is scrutinized through the lens of cause and effect.
Your story illustrates that the capacity for compassion can be realized in the case of knowing the causal chain of behavioral production. If people knew the back story, they would probably be a bit more sympathetic, although overcoming the horror of someone getting run over (especially by a drunk driver - which most people think of consuming alcohol as 100% a choice, whereas, if someone had a stroke while driving and hit someone, they would not be horrified), is almost impossible in this case.
I can appreciate the case you laid out, because it attempts to show that some things are within control and some things not, while placing these in the context of moral responsibility. I just think yes, punishing a drunk driver is fine, because they can be dangerous. However, assuming there is a ghost in the machine driving the behavior is worse in my opinion, because it inflames that aspect of human psychology associated with retributive justice. Recognizing the lack of agency lessens that sting, so to speak.
To me it sounds like your motivation for preserving agency is its utility in punishment. In my opinion, this is not needed. I probably have not convinced you of that, but I do not think there is justification of invoking this agency, when it is a spurious notion to begin with, and it is not needed to establish order within a criminal justice sense. Therefore, we do not need to invent a God to prevent people from doing bad things, we do need to invent a free will, or a causal agent to have order within society, and separation of peaceful living and dangerous chaotic elements.
It is that if his will was different than it actually was, he no longer being him, so to speak, the choices may have been different.
Determinism does not entail incorrigibility. You become a different "you" when you learn something. A person can learn from his mistakes; he can learn that there are consequences. He can even learn to think more rationally, or coping skills for anger management.
:up:
Right. I am asking you to do a thought experiment though. Assume that, metaphysically, true freedom is real. How would it manifest physically?
Quoting rlclauer
But how do you know what's real? If both the internal perspective (freedom) and the external perspective (causality) are constructs, neither is real.
Quoting Mww
I'd think so, because to be part of a system, there'd have to be some kind of interaction. As system, the way I understand it, is a collection of factors with relevant interactions for a given question.
Quoting Mww
There'd have to be degrees of interaction. So, maybe there could be degrees of determinism, and what remains without interactions is than negatively defined as "free".
How very reminiscent of Hume-ian British Enlightenment empiricism are you!!
Quoting Pathogen
How very reminiscent of Skinner-esque empirical psychology are you!!!
It’s ok, though, no big deal; those are both....ehhhh, somewhat.......historically at least....valid subsets of their respective doctrines with respect to the human condition in general. My only point would have been that neither of those, while being sufficiently explanatory regarding “unconscious choice”, can have any bearing on arguments for or against free will, which requires necessarily its ground in a priori rationality, absent by definition in both of them.
Moving on.....
In my view, just to clarify, I think most of us can be either captain depending on the situation. I personally tend towards the latter, while I recognise there are many who prefer the former. That’s part of the freedom...
It’s probably impossible to ever know why or how the phrase “degrees of freedom” was chosen to represent the observable conditions of a physical system. I surmise its author had something in mind, such that the freedom relates some object to its lawful probabilities, and degree relates that object to a range within those probabilities. Or....he just picked the notion out of a lab-coat pocket because it sounded awe-inspiring. Who cares, really. The point is, freedom is strictly a metaphysical domain, an immaterial/rational....transcendental..... notion meant to qualify its object as to that object’s possession of it, but never to quantify its object as to how much of it that object has.
Which leaves us with, in a human physical system, in what manner of speaking can your “freedom absolutely applies” be true?
1.) If the will is free to do this but not free to do that, then it follows necessarily that freedom, in and of itself, cannot be a condition of the will, but must be either logically removed or temporally displaced from it.
2.) Or, there is no such thing, which is immediately self-contradictory from a metaphysicalist’s point of view with respect to morality and from a physicalist’s point of view with respect to degrees of freedom.
3.) Or, and which is much more prevalent, freedom is applied as an empirical predicate in the human system, just as it is in the dimensional domain in observable coordinate systems. Case in point...I am free to move my arm, free to like vanilla, and other similarly constructed absurdities, having nothing whatsoever to do with the faculty of will.
Opinions and noses........everybody’s got ‘em.
It would manifest as an action free of prior causes. This is why I think free will (or true freedom as you put it) is an incoherent concept.
You do not "know" what is real, if you can only experience it subjectively. If you do scientific testing, and continuously get the same result, you can conclude that there is probably a real property which is affecting this outcome. I do not really know what you mean by "internal perspective" vs "external perspective." In my opinion, there is your perspective, which is subjective and therefore fallible, and there is the world we inhabit, which seems to be real, and we have discerned some properties about this world, but the discovery of those properties requires placing a check on our subjectivity, namely the scientific method.
Here's what I was referring to:
Contrast chains of logic with causal chains. Where Pi are propositions, and Ci are causes:
P1 =>P2=>P3=>....=>Pn (P1 implies P2, P2 implies P3...)
C1 ->C2->C3->...>Cn (C1 directly causes C2, C2 directly causes C3....)
Logic is transitive, so the above logic chain entails: P1=>Pn for all n. The intermediate Pi are irrelevant.
On the other hand, causation is NOT transitive. C1 does not directly cause Cn for all n. No Ci in the causal chain is irrelevant.
Times two. The accusations are false. I won’t bother with specifying the reverse.
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Quoting Pathogen
Which is an exact demonstration of the flaw in common understanding: convention mandates “unhindered to operate” is synonymous with freedom, when it is more precisely synonymous with autonomy. Granting that the will is the sole determinant of our volitions should grant the logical conclusion that the will exists as an autonomous causality. That freedom is the necessary condition for autonomy serves as the aforementioned logical separateness and temporal displacement (that made “no sense whatsoever”), relieves infinite regress, and does not impinge on the natural principle of cause and effect.
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Quoting Pathogen
Another example of mere convention, the mixing of the subjective nature of personality manifestation with the objective nature of civil administration.
With that, I leave you and your....er.....scientific literature. And Google.
Actions seemingly without cause exist on the micro scale. But randomness isn't freedom.
But more importantly, why do you conclude that freedom is incoherent because it can not physically manifest as freedom?
Quoting rlclauer
But I do experience freedom subjectively.
Quoting rlclauer
But scientific testing will only reveal causal connections, because causality is one of it's core assumptions. It only provides a constructed reality, albeit a very useful one.
Quoting rlclauer
In my internal experience, I have freedom. But from an external perspective, e.g. yours, there is only a causal chain of brain-states. The question is, why would we call one of these perspective an illusion?
Quoting rlclauer
I think there is a difference between having a subjective perspective on objects and experiencing yourself as a subject. The observer is not part of that which is observed.
Because the type of "freedom" humans care about, human actions, cannot possibly meet this criteria. If you want to talk about some abstract "freedom" that's fine, but I am thinking in terms of what matters to humans. I answered your question on what it looks like to me.
I am referring to knowing something epistemologically, not having self referential conclusions with reference to subjective perspective.
I was answering the question of how can you know something to be true. I said scientific method is a good way to know things about reality, and account for fallible subjectivity. I am not saying science is infallible.
That's a good question. What you refer to as "external experience," e.g. "my perspective," or to say it in a more precise way, the argument which was typed onto this forum by the user called "rlclauer," my argument is not based on my subjective or "internal perspective" as you referred to it, experience. My subjective experience is that I am a free agent, I feel like a driver of a biological suit, giving the body commands and seeing it respond, etc. My subjective experience happens to be wrong, as shown by Libet experiment, "Pantyhose experiment." These experiments show that the reasons we conjure up to explain why we "did" something, are just post hoc rationalizations. It follows that our experience of the "self, will, agency," are all just like this. This is not even invoking material cause and effect, which once those are factored in, it's pretty obvious to see that the notion of "an agent performing a free action," is completely incoherent. So, you framed it as me calling "one of these experiences" false, but your framing is incorrect. Without thinking of whose perspective is being discussed, let's examine what is actually happening here, and not frame it as me being biased toward my own perspective.
I do not even know what this means, sorry. I am just a working class person, not a philosophy degree holder.
You speak of temporal displacement with respect to will, I speak of temporal displacement with respect to freedom.
I never gave even a hint of anything being separated from time. I wouldn’t know how such a thing could be conceivable, much less expressed in a dialogue.
Unless you have something to pique my interest, you may have the last word.
Right, so perhaps we can discuss this further, since it's critical to my position. I don't want to ignore the rest of your post, just try to get this out of the way first.
Whenever you observe anything, including when applying the scientific method, the you, the observer is an important part of the resulting observation. Whatever you experience has been structured by your mind - certain information has been left out, certain principles have been applied. This includes all scientific knowledge.
The world you are seeing is not "out there". It is in your head. And hence, causality and determinism are also in your head. In the same place freedom is. It's just that you apply the concept of freedom to one perspective, and the law of causation to the other. One is not more real, or more subjective, than the other.
That applies to your notion of free will also. The difference between your subjective experience of free will, and the subjective position of the observer relative to the scientific method, is repeatability, and physical analogues.
I do not think "causality" is just in your head, the same way free will is in your head, unless humans the world over have collectively hallucinated the reliability of things we have learned through science.
It's not really about subjectivity in the sense of individual experiences and more about the realisation that experience is something subjects have.
Quoting rlclauer
But free will is entirely repeatable. I don't know what you mean by "physical analogue".
Quoting rlclauer
Of course causality is not a hallucination. It's a part of the structure of our reality. But, crucially, we don't know whether this structure is part of "things as they really are" or added by human minds. The same is true for freedom. It's possible that causality is "how things really are", but we cannot know this without access to a non-human observer's perspective.
I think my account is coherent. My only issue with your position is that I don't see that you have a basis for accountability. You accepted that it's reasonable to have accountability, but I don't understand how you can rationalize it without there being a causal agent to HOLD accountable.
Could you please explain how it is not possible to know if causality is "how things really are?" In my opinion, if you are going to be skeptical as to whether or not we are correctly perceiving reality, how can you not also be skeptical of your experience of free will?
The same is true for humans. Agency is just an invention. Sure, if your goal is to "account for a breach of a moral code based on chosen actions," you will need to invoke agency in order for that line of thinking to be "self-coherent." But I have taken a different course to not throw what humans normally call "justice" out the window on a deterministic world view. It is basically Sam Harris' argument, that if there is a bear roaming the streets, you will act upon the knowledge of a bear which could hurt you.
If you have someone who enjoys flaying humans and wearing their skin, and they appear to have no remorse and wish to continue doing it, locking them in a cage forever is viable. You do not need to add the extra element, "the reason we are locking them in a cage is because they are an agent who we must hold morally accountable." in my opinion it's an unnecessary extra step, let alone the fact I do not even think it is a correct description of how humans function.
Quoting Pathogen
This concept of free will requires a particular understanding of the nature of time and change. We see that time passes, and as time passes, time which was to the future of us becomes to the past of us.
Now, we understand a continuity of existence, which is at the base of determinism. What has existed in the past will continue to exist onward into the future, unless there is a force which acts to cause change. This is expressed by Newton's first law, the law of inertia. However, we also can conclude that anything, and/or everything, including Newton's law, could possibly change at any moment of the passing time. This indicates that Newton's first law, which is the basis of causal determinism, is not itself a necessity.
So we have the brute fact that the continuity of existence, expressed by Newton's first law, which is fundamental to determinism, has no support as a universal law. This is sufficient to support the reality of the observations which produce this statement:
Quoting Pathogen
Furthermore, we observe that these non-deterministic factors, things which are not subject to Newton's first law, are very active within the internal parts of living beings, and this supports the thesis of free will.
The term “free will” is a misnomer; there exists no such thing except as yet another mere convention or rationally lackadaisical habit. “Free will” is not the autonomous faculty of volitional causality, for it is easy to understand the circumstances under which the will is not free at all, but must determine its volitions in flagrant opposition to our most valued inclinations, such being the highest demonstration of the moral constitution. Will, all by itself, a stand-alone object of pure reason unmodified by any superfluous conception, represents that causality. That being the case, it is more apt to say, “freedom is the condition the will takes place under”, which still isn’t quite right, but is close enough to work with, and incorporates the added bonus of showing how and why free and freedom both are necessarily separated/displaced from will. Logically separated because free will is always susceptible to self-contradiction, and temporally displaced because freedom is always antecedent to the will for which it is the condition.
So much for last words, huh? You’re welcome to the next last last word. (Grin)
If "freedom is the condition the will takes place under", then why is "free will" a misnomer? For example, lets say that "flow" is the condition a river takes place under. Why would it be a misnomer to talk about a flowing river?
Quoting Mww
Of course "free" is logically separable from "will", the former is the predicate and the latter the subject. So "free" may be predicated of subjects other than will. Because of this, we can see that there were free things prior to there being a free will, and therefore conclude that freedom is antecedent to the will. But this does not mean that free will is temporally displaced, nor is this conclusion produced by any self-contradiction. The claim that free will is susceptible to self-contradiction represents a misunderstanding of free will.
The concept “flow” is a condition of the concept “river”, but it is not a necessary condition, for a river that does not flow, i.e., tidal access rivers, is still a river. The concept “free will” is a misnomer, because a free will that is not free in its volitional determinations cannot be a “free will”, but nonetheless a will.
Freedom is an indirect condition of the will, insofar as it is a necessary condition for autonomy, which in its turn is the necessary condition for the will to operate in conformity to its prerogatives. Forgive me; I took liberties with the theoretical philosophy of morals by not specifying the distinction between conditions and necessary conditions.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I gave no indication that free will is displaced; I specifically itemized free as being separated from will.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
That the will is susceptible to self-contradiction not only represents a misunderstanding of will, but represents an impossible circumstance. To say that a free will is susceptible to self-contradiction is readily affirmed.
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Now, just between you and me and the fencepost, there is more to this moral philosophy than has been presented. Suffice it to say I favor Enlightenment deontology combined with the pervasiveness of the subjective mandate, which would do more to obfuscate the topic than clarify it, if I dragged my co-conversants any further into the proverbial rabbit hole. Hence, my liberties taken therein.
I consistently experience myself as having free will, and others do likewise.
Quoting rlclauer
Ok, so basically physical evidence? It doesn't make sense to ask for physical evidence of free will since, as was noted before, there is no reason to expect such evidence.
Quoting rlclauer
Only by asking the counter question: How could we possibly know? There is not a time any human can remember when they "discovered" causality. It seems to develop in some children somewhat graudally, but whether that is from the brain developing or the brain receiving external input is impossible to say.
Quoting rlclauer
I am not really sceptical that we are "correctly" perceiving reality, in the sense that you might be sceptial about correctly identifying a fata morgana. It's more that physical reality is only part of the universe hat I inhabit, and I see no reason to elevate it above all else. In that sense, I am equally sceptical of free will. I am not claiming free will is "more real" than physical reality either, just that we don't know either way.
This is nonsense, a tidal river still flows according to the direction of the tide. You've just rejected the generally accepted definition of "river", for personal reasons, to say that "flow" is not a necessary condition of a river. Anyway, it's not relevant to the discussion. Either you accept the analogy or you do not, and obviously you do not.
Quoting Mww
I can't see your point. You seem to be suggesting that there is such a thing as a will which is not free, such that "free" is not a necessary condition of willing. How could that be, without accepting determinism. Care to explain, or are you just arguing determinism?
Quoting Mww
If freedom is a condition of the will, as explained here, wouldn't this contradict your prior statement, where you talk about a "free will that is not free in its volitional determinations"? Isn't this contradictory in the first place, to refer to a free will which is not free?
Quoting Mww
OK, I do not mind separating "free" from "will", but then we must dispose of the idea that freedom is a necessary condition of will. If "free" is separate from and not a necessary condition of "will", then we have a will which may or may not be free. But if freedom is a necessary condition for will, then the will cannot be anything other than free. Which are you proposing? You seem to be talking both, which is contradiction.
C’mon, man, really? Nonsense? Look at what you wrote...river still flows according to the direction of the tide. If the tide is the major determinant factor, then the necessity resides in the tide, not the river, re: estuary. I can see one from my deck, complete with lobster boats. Navigational charts call it a river because shoreline proximity precludes calling it a bay, cove, inlet or sound.
And it does relate to the present discussion, insofar as the necessity for freedom (flow) resides in autonomy (tide), not the will (river), but common understanding nevertheless attributes freedom (flow) directly to the will (river).
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Ahhh.....now we’re getting somewhere. There is a kind of determinism in play. Granting that a moral disposition is predicated on certain qualifications, whether innate genetically or instilled very early on from experience, then in order for proper moral agency to manifest, the agent must conform to whatever those qualifications happen to be. Hence, a form of determinism. It follows that the volitional determinations of the will must adhere to one’s moral disposition in accordance with his pre-established personal qualifications. Hence, a form of determinism.
The will has no part in that determinant condition given by innate qualifications, its job being to represent them in the volitions it determines as being exemplary of them. Hence, determinism of the same kind, re: non-physical, immaterial, insofar as a consequent is solely dependent on a particular antecedent, but in a different form. The former as innate qualifications is merely a natural condition, the latter as willed action is a product of pure practical reason alone.
All well and good, peachy, have a nice day.......right up until the will is called upon to determine a proper moral volition in direct conflict with a vested interest of the agent called upon to act. Here, the will is not free to relieve the conflict at the expense of the agent’s moral constitution. To do so is the epitome of immorality, which manifests in the agent as “guilty conscience”, “dishonor”, ill-will” and the like. And NOT....oh jeez, can you believe people actually think so???......as farging court appearance!!!!! (Gaspsputterchoke) ‘S-ok, though; they can’t separate ethics from morality either, so what can you expect?
Immorality is a reflection on the self, fercrissakes, not the freakin’ community. Commit a crime, go to jail, get out, you’ve re-paid your community for your crime as far as they’re concerned. Commit an immoral act that is not a crime.......ain’t no paybacks for that, nosiree bub. You just stabbed yourself in the back with your own knife and you get to live with it, as far as you’re concerned.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Correct. Freedom is the necessary condition of autonomy. One of the two more explanatory reductions pending, one even more metaphysically speculative than the other, but if you find no value in any of what’s been said, there’s no point in continuing, right?
So it's not a river you're talking about, it is an "estuary". Make up your mind, because my analogy did not refer to estuaries, it referred to rivers. Show me a definition of "river" which does not contain 'flow" or something synonymous. Then you might have an argument that some rivers don't flow.
Quoting Mww
I really don't see how this is a form of determinism. We can choose to go against our moral disposition. This is called doing what one knows is wrong, and people do it commonly. So one's moral disposition cannot act as a determinist force.
Quoting Mww
So this is where you're wrong. We often act against what our moral disposition dictates, and your appeal to "guilty conscience" does nothing to resolve this. A person may or may not feel a guilty conscience, but this is irrelevant to the fact that one is free to go against the dictates of one' moral disposition, and is evidence of this freedom.
Quoting Mww
I don't know, you seem to be arguing both sides of incompatible positions, as if they are compatible.
Well. If you didn’t dig any of that, you’re gonna really shake your head over this:
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
No, my friend. This is where you’re mis-informed. I won’t say you’re “wrong”; this is speculative philosophy, not a history class.
Morality speaks to what is good, not what is right. What people commonly do that is not right is with respect to an objective want, called inclination, in opposition to cultural acceptance, thus not necessarily against moral disposition. What people much less commonly do that is not good is with respect to a subjective interest, called obligation, in opposition to moral law, which is very much so against moral disposition.
Cultural acceptance makes explicit contingent objective validity in the form of an accessible code; moral law makes explicit necessary subjective validity in the form of a private law.
Moral law is the source of the form of determinism you said you don’t see. The laws conform to the agent’s innate qualifications, and determine one’s moral constitution, that which the will uses to formulate its volitions.
1. If my reason and the reason of virtually everyone else represents something to be the case, that is good evidence that it is the case other things being equal.
2. My reason and the reason of virtually everyone else represents free will to be a reality.
3. Therefore, we have good evidence - other things being equal - that free will is a reality.
Now you leave "moral disposition" as meaningless.
Quoting Mww
This is not true, by what you've said above. People behave in opposition to moral law, so moral law cannot act as a determinist force.
I’d be very interested in being informed as to how I managed to do that.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Here I was thinking you were a metaphysician. Since when would a metaphysician think a thing as immaterial as theoretical moral philosophy have any kind of deterministic force incorporated in it, as a means of its justification? Considering the hints you’ve been given with respect to the form of determinism in use, re: logical product of pure practical reason, immaterial, non-physical, necessary consequent from particular antecedent.....should suffice as ground to allow moral law to be nothing but the logical explication of a principle for what it is to be moral, not a force that prohibits a moral agent from being otherwise.
We as rational moral agents are guided by our moral dispositions, not unconditionally regulated by them.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Yeah, so what? Trivially true and has nothing to do with the formulation of a logical moral theory, but only exhibits relative manifestations of it. Offend a moral law, you’re immoral. Simple as that. Breaking a law says nothing about the law, but only says something about the breaking.
Oh. Sorry.
Hope nobody turns blue.
I stated my argument as plainly as I know how.
That was your argument, that moral laws determine one's volition through the means of "moral constitution". I was merely pointing out the inconsistency in what you were saying, your self-contradiction.
Quoting Mww
First you say people can behave in opposition to moral law, then you said that moral law determines ones volitions. How can moral law be said to determine one's volitions if people can behave in opposition to moral laws?
It is also important to distinguish two distinct questions - do we have free will? And 'what does free will involve?'
The answer to the first question is "yes", for the evidence that we have free will is overwhelming - the rational intuitions of literally billions of people represent them to have free will. That is excellent evidence that we have free will.
But it does not tell us what free will involves. That question is trickly. But the trickiness and debatable nature of mooted answers does not call into question that we have it.
I take it to mean that the will is free of something, maybe of some restriction, beyond the usual no coercion meaning.
What would you say is the meaning of 'free' then?
Quoting Bartricks
No. The less information the narrower and less useful the will.
Free will is free will and not another thing. Sometimes free will involves being free from things, sometimes it involves having things. Is there some pattern to it? Maybe, maybe not.
The point, though, is that we can be sure we have it, even if we don't know exactly what it involves.
I knew that.
Quoting Bartricks
Compilation error… 'it': undefined reference.
You're not alone; no one has been able to define what else is outside of fixed will and random will.
'Free will', taken only as a stand alone, as something, independent of a definition, much like some do with 'Infinity' as being a completed amount or with 'Nothing' actually being, reduces to merely being something that sounds good to have, even over a fixed will that grants consistency and survival.
Our next step, then, should be to define it, so then we can know what we have and then what it implies. Shall we try?
('Infinite' and 'Nothing' can't even be meant, much less be.)
Well, then, could you freely state its opposite so we might get a hint of what it could be by some kind of contrast?
Its akin to asking when a meal is delicious. Sometimes a meal will be delicious becusae of the presence of garlic in it. Sometimes it will be disgusting because of the presence of garlic in it. Nevertheless, although I can give you no formula for deliciousness, I know it when I encounter it.
Let us then leave free will to be undefined. Perhaps other responders might either clarify or note that it's neither known what it is or what it is not and so it has no basis for discussion.
At some point here, I'll go on my own to at least narrow it down, if there's anything left.
Our taste buds are roughly a 4-way matrix.
Word salad to follow........
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Perhaps you’re having issue with how it can be that the installation of law is so easily supervened by actions contrary to what the imperative of law implies. Not so difficult to understand, when considered that all moral theory up to volitions is under the auspices of pure practical reason. The pure practical determinations of the will are the “ought” or the “shall” of moral response to empirical circumstance. As soon as the mental volition transitions to a representation of a physical act, reason itself transitions from pure practical to common practical, which immediately calls into effect the faculty of judgement. As with the empirical domain of human mental activity wherein understanding unites conception with intuition, so too in the case of personal domain of mental activity wherein the will unites a law with a volition, judgement is the arbiter as the consciousness of that activity, empirically the representation of which is given as cognition and becomes knowledge, and subjectively the representation of which is given as motivation and becomes action.
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Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Which is, I suppose, the seat of antagonism between the idea of law and the appearance of self-contradiction in the disregard for them in behavior. Such arises because behaviors are the ends of the faculty of judgement, while volitions are the ends of the faculty of will. Behavior is physical, the will is strictly a priori. One cannot possibly have complete and unconditional power over the other, the former being physically real, the latter being merely thought. It is not contradictory for the moral law to be disregarded in favor of a more pleasant behavioral inclination, but it is certainly immoral.
For each individual moral agent, moral constitution represents the compendium of moral laws given from innate (genetic) personality or very early-on experience, the ground of which is partially knowledge, partially feelings, hence must be thought as unconditioned, in order to thwart the absurdity of infinite regress.
The arrangement of the laws with respect to each other according to their respective value or power is the moral disposition.
Will is the faculty which represents the moral disposition and determines volitions with respect to them.
Volition is not the behavioral act, but merely the a priori object that represents the correlation between the law and the morally sufficient act. It is clear that the “guilty conscience”, “dishonor”, and the like, so recklessly dismissed at the same time perfectly exemplifies the case where judgement overrules volition, and the behavioral act does not conform to the law, which manifests in the agent’s unworthiness for deeming himself a moral agent, for he is thence simply immoral.
One would do well to abstract pragmatic observable empirical determinism, in which this necessarily follows from that physically, hence a posteriori, from dogmatic transcendental subjective determinism, hence a priori, in which this yet every bit just as necessarily follows from that morally. The practical application of the former is the means by which we fashion an understanding of the world in order to get something from it, the practical application of the latter is the means by which we fashion an understanding of ourselves with respect to others like us, in order to give something to it.
There is no such thing as a free will and never was. There is a will obligated by personality, and there is a certain freedom such that the will is enabled to choose which laws suit the best moral interests of that personality in the fulfillment of its obligations.
And for dessert we have........
......a perfectly reasonable system for relieving religion from its imprisonment of self-determinant human moral agency. Figurative alms and post-modernist accolades to Prof. Kant.
This is the whole problem isn't it? You can simply redefine repeatability to make your claim appear to be coherent in a scientific sense, but that does not work, which is the argument I have been making this whole time. The problem is the subjective perspective. I can perceive myself as a continuously solid being, that does not negate the fact that 99% of the atoms comprising me are empty space. Do you see the problem with referring to your experience? If your experience is constructed as a byproduct of brain activity, why would you refer to it as trustworthy. This is why I refer to it as an illusion. Again, we are back to the same thing as before, is free will something you experience or something that actually exists. I would argue it cannot exist given what we know about cause and effect.
It is not easy to have these conversations through these comment sections. When you say, "as noted before," I can't dig through a pile of comments to find what the argument was. To put this in context, I was describing what separates the scientific method from personal experience. The separation is in having physical references for the hypothesis being tested. If the hypothesis is both the product of subjective experience, and also being subjected to testing by that subjective experience, all you have is a circular argument, a self-referential, non-scientific grounds. Again, the whole point of me invoking the scientific method, and by extension, this appeal to physical analogues, was to show that when you can interact with things outside of yourself and compare them to other subjective being's experiences in interacting with those objects via the same method (repeatability), you have grounds on which to arrive at a non-circular theory to explain a phenomena. Your argument is basically, "I experience it, therefore it is real. It is real because I experience it." You are only providing a circular argument.
I honestly do not follow your line of thought here. Perhaps you could phrase this in a different manner.
First of all, I do not think acknowledging cause and effect is "elevating it above all else." I am glad you said this because this is the whole rub of our disagreement. You seem to not really care what is "really real," only what you experience. This is exactly how every human lives their daily lives. Everyone operates on a pragmatic level. If you want to the analysis to end there, fair enough. I want to take it one step further and ask, what is producing these experiences, and is it possible that these experiences in themselves have some sort of dissimilarity to the "really real reality." In my opinion it is more interesting to posit this latter question, but if you only really care about pragmatic subjective experiences, I do not see that a inherently problematic, it would just appear that we have run out of things to discuss since we just have fundamentally different views.
(Shrug)
But if you repeat an experiment, and get the same results, those results are only the same in the subjective perspective of each experimenter, right? Repeatability means that different people, doing the same thing, experience the same outcome. That is true for experiencing free will.
Quoting rlclauer
All experience is constructed as a product of brain activity. That includes "scientific facts".
Quoting rlclauer
I can only know about what "actually exists" by experiencing it (that includes indirect experience such as reading a book about physics). So the question is why the experience of free will is supposedly less convincing than the experience of causality.
Quoting rlclauer
Well, the argument was that, assuming free will is "actually real", it's invisible from the outside.
Quoting rlclauer
But not everything can be established via the scientific method. For example: the scientific method itself. Do you agree?
Quoting rlclauer
Right, but what about things other than phenomena? Free will is not a phenomenon, I don't experience it via the senses.
Quoting rlclauer
Let me put it this way: Do you think you "learned" what causality is by watching events happen? Or could it be that causality is a prerequisite for you to watch events happen in the first place?
Quoting rlclauer
Do you think the scientific method can tell us what is "really real"?
The problem with the free will is that the experiencer and the experimenter are the exact same person, and as you acknowledged, with no reference point but their experience. This is why I brought up physical analogues.
As far as the rest of your comments, the scientific method accounts for subjectivity. Is science done by subjective beings, yes. I honestly do not even understand why you are arguing that our subjective experience (like experiencing the earth as flat, from our limited subjective experience) is the same as the scientific method. The only reason I can imagine you are making this argument, is to elevate the reliability of your experience.
I do believe the scientific method gives us more reliable information about "reality."
By Rovelli:
“Science is not reliable because it provides certainty. It is reliable because it provides us with the best answers we have at present. Science is the most we know so far about the problems confronting us. It is precisely its openness, its constant putting of current knowledge in question, that guarantees that the answers it offers are the best so far available: if you find better answers, these new answers become science. When Einstein found better answers than Newton, he didn’t question the capacity of science to give the best possible answers—on the contrary, he confirmed it.
The answers given by science, then, are not reliable because they are definitive. They are reliable because they are not definitive. They are reliable because they are the best available today. And they are the best we have because we don’t consider them to be definitive, but see them as open to improvement. It’s the awareness of our ignorance that gives science its reliability.
And it is reliability that we need, not certainty. We don’t have absolute certainty, and never will have it unless we accept blind belief. The most credible answers are the ones given by science, because science is the search for the most credible answers available, not for answers pretending to certainty.
Though rooted in previous knowledge, science is an adventure based on continuous change. The story I have told reaches back over millennia, tracing a narrative of science that has treasured good ideas, but hasn’t hesitated to throw ideas away when something was found that worked better. The nature of scientific thinking is critical, rebellious, and dissatisfied with a priori conceptions, reverence, and sacred or untouchable truth. The search for knowledge is not nourished by certainty: it is nourished by a radical distrust in certainty.”
“This means not giving credence to those who say they are in possession of the truth. For this reason, science and religion frequently find themselves on a collision course. Not because science pretends to know ultimate answers, but precisely for the opposite reason: because the scientific spirit distrusts whoever claims to be the one having ultimate answers or privileged access to Truth. This distrust is found to be disturbing in some religious quarters. It is not science that is disturbed by religion: there are certain religions that are disturbed by scientific thinking.”
Excerpt From: Carlo Rovelli, Simon Carnell & Erica Segre. “Reality Is Not What It Seems.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/reality-is-not-what-it-seems/id1112589038”
But physical analogues are also just experienced. Noone has access to anything outside their experience.
Quoting rlclauer
I know what you mean to say. It accounts for the mistakes individuals make. But there is another layer of subjectivity: The structure of every human brain. The scientific method does not allow us to escape the limitations of the human brain.
Quoting rlclauer
I never said anything of the sort. I am a bit confused as to where you take this from.
Quoting rlclauer
That's not exactly what I asked though. Are you familiar with the idea of a reality behind reality? LIke the Simulation hypothesis?
I could posit that the will has more inputs than we know, such as indications from the 5th dimension of the block universe about all of our possible futures via a survey of all our possible world-lines, but though would just be more inputs, although making the will work better; however, this wouldn't free the will from cause and effect, plus, who knows what 'free' really entails.
The problem at the end of my last sentence above begs for a definition of a deeper 'free' beyond no coercion and random. None have been forthcoming, so we can only suggest what free will wouldn't be, and then see if anything is left.
Yes I am familiar with the idea of reality behind reality, ie brain in a vat, simulation theory etc. So I do not really want to keep quibbling on minutiae. Can you just lay out your fully formed argument for why you think free will exists and why you think your subjective experience is an equally viable methodology for arriving at correct conclusions about the world we inhabit? all the quoting every other sentence and picking them apart ... I just don't have the energy to keep doing that
Free will is not a fixed will voting as it must, nor is it 'random', which is the worst unfree, nor is it even having all known block universe futures to pick from, nor is it consciousness having the same information as the brain and using its own mechanism, without the brain, nor is it to be free of the will, nor …?
So, there's not anything left, which means that 'free will' as a stand-alone something cannot be, much like an oxymoron, and also that it cannot even be meant, such as the case we have with other words with no context, almost like 'Nothing' or 'Infinite', and although the latter have definitions, the definitions serve to undo the ability of the stand-alone words in themselves to be something extant.
So, we have will, its constancy reflecting us and also benefiting us—toward having a future via its predictions.
If our decision-making processes are indeterministic to some degree, then I agree that this would seem to pose as much of a problem as antecedent determination by external causes. Both seem incompatible with free will. That is, our reason does not just represent us to have free will, it also tells us something about what it involves, albeit negative things. It tells us that having free will involves one's decision-making process not being wholly determined by external antecedent causes, and it tells us that it also involves an absence of indeterminacy. That our reason makes such representations cannot seriously be in doubt, for both compatibilists and incompatibilists in the traditional debate make appeal to these intuitions.
It is possible to satisfy those conditions if one exists of necessity rather than contingently.
Also see 'eternalism', which is the same idea, and 'presentism', which is the other mode that time could have.
Quoting Pathogen
Something clear that would at least give me something to propose a means for, since I always explore both sides.
Your last point - you said that you were interested in being shown how free will is an objective possibility. If we have free will, then it is an objective possibility.
Quoting Pathogen
What's the argument though? If we already have free will then yes, I grant that randomness does not preclude our continuing to possess it, likewise with antecedent causation. For instance, if I am wondering what to decide to do but, due to indeterminacy, it is indeterministic whether I will fall down dead or not - and I don't and I make the decision - then my decision was free, even though it was indeterministic whether I would make it or be dead.
But if my decisions are wholly determined by prior external causes - and you accept that this is incompatible with having free will - how would introducing some indeterminacy into the whole process give me free will? It's not as if my resulting decisions would be any more controlled than under the wholesale determinism scenario - I mean, if anything they'd be less controlled.
Quoting Pathogen
Something that exists contingently has come into being. Thus it has either been caused to come into being by something external to it, or it has popped into being out of nowhere (not, I think, a coherent possibility) in which case its existence is a result of pure chance. Either way, everything it subsequently does is going to be a product of antecedent determination and/or pure chance.
A necessarily existent thing, by contrast, has not come into being. It exists by its very nature. As a necessarily existing thing has not been caused to be by anything external and prior, and as its existence is the opposite of chancy (for necessarily existing things 'have' to exist - there is no possibility of them not doing so), then not everything a necessarily existing thing does will be wholly the product of prior external determination or pure chance. Thus, such a thing - and only such a thing - can have free will.
As I do have free will, I conclude that I am such a being.
First, we need to know what 'free' means in reference to the will—beyond someone saying that they have it.
What is it free of, concerning the will or what is it free to do, concerning the will, or what is it not fixed to do, concerning the will?
Ok, in my view there are two ways in which we structure the world: causality and freedom. Causality structures the flow of events - time, essentially. Freedom structures the way we interact with the world, our choices and decisions.
One is our observer's perspective, the other is our actor's perspective. We need both to make sense of the world. Neither is "actually real" so far as we know.
Notably, causality is not something that we can establish using the scientific method. The scientific method relies on causality as an axiom. We cannot learn about causality, because in order to perceive the world as a coherent whole we need it to be given a priori.
Searching for free will in the world of causality is therefore useless. The very structure of that world - imposed on it by our minds - precludes freedom. But it does not follow that freedom is not real. Rather, freedom is a different, but equally valid, way to structure reality.
Well said. Freedom is not to be found in the list of a priori conceptions, that from which as you say, the very structure of the world is imposed by the mind. But causality is on the list, alongside possibility, necessity, existence, and so on.
And while I agree it does not follow from that, that freedom is not real, I hesitate to agree that freedom is still an equally valid way to structure reality, for in which case it would seem to be in direct conflict with that which does so structure, and from which it is itself excluded. Nevertheless, because from some P it does not follow that freedom is not real, says nothing about how freedom is real, beyond the mere existence of the conception of it.
It would seem, therefore, that if freedom is Quoting Echarmion
...it would need to be determined what freedom is, in what manner or fashion it is real, in order to establish the equal validity for what it does.
I’m not sure that can be done.
So, then, as for free will, I'm figuring that its proponents want to have consciousness to be the cause of what one does, in real time, rather than any subconscious neural brain firings and figurings being already finished by the time their results get into consciousness as a product. So, that's what I'll be going forward with. Consciousness will have to do it all, as it being the will, and we'll still have to get this conscious will not to be fixed, but to be 'free', providing we can define 'free'.
Did you intend this for me? I ask because I have no interest in free, but rather in freedom. And my posting history here makes clear I reject “free will” as such.
I will say I am a fan of your “subconscious neural brain firings and figurings”, but I don’t see them as relevant to the subjective paradigm.
If by chance this was intended for me, I should forewarn you that I’m not going to be able to offer much support for your initial premises. But if you still want to elaborate on them, I’ll pay attention at least.
Well, yes, since you're investigating 'freedom', but for everyone, too.
Ahhh, ok. Dialectic courtesy says https://thephilosophyforum.com/profile/3486/echarmion has the right of way, with me just agreeing with a part of what was said.
The events would be such as occasions of experience already made, obviating any more processing time to make them, allowing consciousness to retain its instantness of decisions/thoughts. Consciousness, then, is fundamental and so it is totally connected to all the events, kind of like that even a part of a hologram still contains the whole, although in a dimmer way.
Are we getting anywhere?
There is a tendency to look beyond time to ‘all possible events’ as a single dimensional leap, but in my view jumping from existence as actuality to existence as possibility misses a step in how we structure and interact with our reality. It is in being aware of the paths (potential) themselves - including how they each connect to our own capacity and the collaboration involved - that the will gains access to its ‘freedom’.
Yes, in this new free will approach, consciousness contains all experiences and their relations and has real time access, somehow, in order for consciousness to be the instant cause. It is disconcerting, though, that the pre-made occasions of eternalism's experience would be even worse that presentism determining events as it went along.
How do you mean ‘worse’?
Seems like there's more hope to intervene in the actions of the 'now' production rather to the same that was carved in stone, but presentism has problems, so I went with the block idea in order to have events already there to pick from, although I suppose that should still work with brain memory. I'm not surprised about running into contradiction with this new free will approach, but I'm leaving out bias as best can do.
I’m finding it difficult to follow what you’re saying here - is there a word missing?
I’m going to bring Rovelli into the discussion again, with regards to this dichotomy of eternalism/presentism:
The concept of ‘eternalism’ for me is not an objective global order of the universe. Rather it is the way each observer structures their subjective experience of the universe. My block universe differs in 5D structure from your block universe - even though we can agree on many aspects of it in two, three and even four dimensional structures.
An analogy: I have cast iron evidence that my computer is working - it appears (visually) to be working. But I don't know how it is working. But only a fool would conclude that therefore I do not, in fact, have good evidence that it is working.
Likewise, I have cast iron evidence that I have free will - I appear, rationally speaking, to have it. I do not know 'how' I have it, but only a fool would conclude on that basis that therefore I do not.
If I have cast iron evidence that I have free will, then free will is an objective possibility even if none of us can figure out 'how' it could be.
Rovelli is against presentism, while his good friend and collaborator on Loop Quantum Gravity, Lee Smolin is wholly for it. Each have compelling arguments.
The relativity of simultaneity favors eternalism
Relations are paramount.
“The objective world is, it does not happen. Only to the gaze of my consciousness, crawling along the lifeline of my body, does a section of this world come to life as a fleeting image in space which continuously changes in time.”
? Hermann Weyl
So, then, in the new free will attempt, fundamental consciousness traverses already existent world-lines of events previously carved, although this doesn't seem so 'free'. I am failing…
Yes, for the wave function is deterministic before the collapse into a unitary probabilities that add to one, giving all a chance, eventually, and the "observation" probability means interactions of any kind. So I think it means that things could have turned out differently if we could have rerun the universe, but is this enough to free the will the way the proponents would want it? Who knows, without a meaningful meaning of what they are calling 'free'.
If a past state of the universe that i had no hand in, and the laws of nature, which I also had no hand in, created me and determined both what qualities I would have and how I would develop, then I lack free will.
If, instead, a past state of the universe that I had no hand in, and the laws of nature that I had no hand in, and some chance events, created me, then I still lack free will.
I mean, take the colour of my eyes. I take it that I am not morally responsible for the colour of my eyes and that it is sufficient to explain this to cite the fact that their colour was not something I determined.
Now imagine that it turns out it was indeterministic what eye colour I would have - does that make me morally responsible for their colour? No. It makes no difference, for it was still not something I determined.
You need to answer the philosophical questions first before you can possibly know the implications of anything in physics. You're doing things the wrong way around, I think.
Nothing 'snide' here, just support and advancing the probabilistic quantum mechanic wave function:
Yes, for the wave function is deterministic before the collapse into a unitary probabilities that [s]add[/s] adds to one, giving all a chance, eventually, and the "observation" [s]probability[/s] probably means interactions of any kind.
So I think it means that things could have turned out differently if we could have rerun the universe, but is this enough to free the will the way the proponents would want it? Who knows, without a meaningful meaning of what they are calling 'free'.
(Your long post was great, indeed.)
'Free' is the key to what free will is.
Why would the "occasions" of eternalism be "pre-made"? There is no before and after in eternity. You seem to be resiling to inappropriately thinking in terms of temporality.
And here you go again;
Quoting PoeticUniverse
All my references are to the block universe of eternalism derived from Einstein. I am for fixed will, but fairly trying to find if free will can be; I've only gotten as far as trying to make conscious free will instant and productive and thus not just showing what is past due to figurings having to take time. The block universe is eternally as it is, predetermined, so to speak. The traversal of it by consciousness is a kind of eternalistic 'time', at least seemingly to us.
In presentism, there is only the dynamic now, just generated from the past, with the past then totally gone, and the future not yet created. In eternalism, the future and the past both exist (block universe) and always did. General Relativity suggests the 4D static block universe made of events. We can't tell them apart, so far.
But isn't it also the case that the concept of freedom is necessary to arrive at an understanding of the world, or parts of it, since without freedom providing starting points, causal chains run into an infinite regress / first cause problem?
Quoting Mww
I see your point. To equate freedom and causality as structure may be somewhat imprecise. Freedom is a constituent part of our internal, "actor" perspective. It's necessary for us to make choices.
Quoting Mww
True. My position is mostly intended as a refutation of the "freedom is just an illusion" argument. As to the metaphysical reality of freedom, I am not sure whether it's ultimately even relevant.
Quoting Mww
What I mean by equally valid is that you're equally likely to be mistaken about the reality of causality than about the reality of freedom.
Quoting rlclauer
The ability of an actor to decide between two or more courses of action, based on that actors internal reasoning.
Your search for the will in action is a bit like looking for energy. I agree with you that what we understand to be the will appears ‘fixed’ in time, but that’s not much of a faculty, is it? I have empirical evidence that I have a will, that its effect on the universe is ‘caused’ by the sum of my subjective experience. What I struggle to verify is how that experience claims to be a ‘free’ agent based on what we can measure in time.
My view is that subjective experience, and by extension, the will, is not bound or structured by spacetime. The concept of eternalism was derived from a single quote by Einstein, taken out of context from a personal letter which pertains not to physics or philosophy, but to his experience of life itself.
Let’s put it back into context, and gain some perspective. Einstein writes, on the death of his dear friend, to the grieving sister:
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
He’s not talking to fellow physicists or even philosophers about an objective physical structure of the universe. These are words of consolation, sharing his own experience of grief and a view of his own approaching mortality (only five weeks later, I might add).
The disproportionate significance that philosophers have attached to this one Einstein quote is an example of how we experience the world: not as a sequence of events in time, but as an extended ‘now’ that interacts with whatever in our wealth of knowledge and awareness (experiencing past, present and future in a block universe) appears most significantly relevant, regardless of its temporality.
It is in this experience that the will is not constrained by spacetime - that it enables us to determine and initiate an event in time based on how our awareness of, connection to and collaboration with past, present and future events interact. But the ‘experienced’ freedom of the will is relative, even here. We experience more freedom than the 4D actual universe suggests, but the will is still subject to the relative value and significance we place on events, objects, stimuli and information.
It’s because we can also communicate our experiences, then recognise and critically examine other value systems, and even restructure our own through self-reflection, that the will gains even more freedom. And until we are capable of consciously exercising that amount of freedom with courage and wisdom, it really makes no sense to talk about any further sense of freedom at this stage, does it...?
Freedom as a starting point to alleviate infinite regress with respect to understanding the world.......not so much, methinks. The world, conceptually, makes explicit a posteriori conditions necessarily legislated by the principle of cause and effect, yet merely contingently understood within the confines of the principle of induction. This in turn makes explicit the inevitability of infinite regress and the unconditioned. Experience is required for understanding the world, and experience is at the mercy of the impossibility of its completion.
That being said does not necessarily remove freedom from being a starting point for something other than the world. The problem arises from the fact that freedom as a starting point for something other than the world can never be proven with the relative certainty implicit in a posteriori conditions, for the simple reason that conformity to principle and law implicit in empirical conditions, from which relative certainty is even possible, cannot apply to conditions that are not empirical. The very best the human rational system can do with freedom as a starting point, is construct with it a paradigm that holds with no inherent contradiction, either within the construction itself or to the empirical conditions already deemed sufficiently proven without it. It is, I agree, as you say, Quoting Echarmion
The kicker:
All causality is meant to denote, is the means for a series of phenomena to be given in time. But the series, nor the time, are themselves causality. Therefore causality resides outside of and antecedent to, that which it describes, or implements, which implies if there is a form of causality for a series of phenomena in time, other than the form found in Nature, for another different class of objects, then it must be given equal validity.
“.....The transcendental idea of freedom (...) presents us with the conception of spontaneity of action, as the proper ground for imputing freedom to the cause of a certain class of objects. It is, however, the true stumbling-stone to philosophy, which meets with unconquerable difficulties in the way of its admitting this kind of unconditioned causality. That element in the question of the freedom of the will, which has for so long a time placed speculative reason in such perplexity, is properly only transcendental, and concerns the question, whether there must be held to exist a faculty of spontaneous origination of a series of successive things or states. How such a faculty is possible is not a necessary inquiry; for we are obliged to content ourselves with the a priori knowledge that such a causality must be presupposed, although we are quite incapable of comprehending how the being of one thing is possible through the being of another, but must for this information look entirely to experience. (...) But we ought in this case not to allow ourselves to fall into a common misunderstanding, and to suppose that, because a successive series in the world can only have a comparatively first beginning—another state or condition of things always preceding—an absolutely first beginning of a series (...) is impossible....”
Freedom as a starting point? Absolutely. But only if one thinks such a thing is both explanatorily sufficient, and theoretically necessary, and only as it relates to a thing as transcendental is itself.
———————
As an aside, while I respect your derivation of freedom for a starting point for understanding the world, as it is proved in the third thesis/antithesis antinomy, I rather prefer the thesis in its application to the will. We are not permitted, nor are we capable of, arriving at the unconditioned in Nature, but it is absolutely necessary to arrive at the unconditioned in the formulation of a sustainable moral philosophy.
I haven't been able to show consciousness to even be an agent, which I would have to first do, I guess, and then go on to show that the conscious will is 'free' from the will's directives based on the nature of the person.
Quoting Possibility
The will is in an inner space, anyway, and space-time is just the gradational field, but maybe you mean that the will is spaceless and timeless, being more fundamental. Chalmers posits consciousness as be as fundamental as other elementals, with information in physical neural form automatically also being able to get represented in consciousness form. That explains the explanatory gap, a bit, but this doesn't seem to get us to be free of the information having to be such as it is for individual person's make-up and get followed accordingly.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
I don’t hold with consciousness to be the cause of what one does, but I do agree that conscious subjectivity is not known to us as neural brain firings. THEY are the proverbial ghost in the machine.
——————
Quoting PoeticUniverse
My sentiments pretty much. I would have used determinations rather than predictions, but that’s ok.
Correct me if I misunderstood your position.
In the otherworld of the haunts of thoughts, the neural activities go on in the dark, which we can't introspectively know, and don't like the idea of, but neurologists poked around and got some correlations and so we've been informed from that, but still not liking it, emotionally, and so we still wished for what sounded good, as free will, but couldn't logically define it deeper.
The ghosts rise from the deep, into our conscious world as qualia, the results from the spooky unknown workings of the machine that is the will, and therein in the conscious mind ever float the mysterious objects in the sea in which we see, and also in our imaginations beyond the present as even more faint and ghostly 90% reduced qualia to the point of just barely appearing in our imaginings, so as not to be confused with the actual qualia of our present reckonings.
We only ever 'see' the insides of our heads, as the mind, those specters already selectively painted in a useful way, as the glimmers, semblances, shadows, and whispers of reality, all toward the aim of us to be able to best continue on.
A pox on those high-falutin’ nurogis....neolog.....nuclur.....brain-pokers, I say!!!!
Assuming for the sake of argument that there is "internal deliberation," where does the information come from to initiate the deliberation process? Are there biological factors which influence the mental states, which are a function of brain activity (presumably)?
I'm familiar with the ideas of presentism and eternalism. My concern is with trying to avoid inappropriate use of language like "the future and the past both exist...and always did". The logic inherent in the thoughts "future and past" and 'always did" is temporal and hence inappropriate to the logic of eternity, in my view.
I think it would be more appropriate to avoid the language of temporality (as much as we are able to) and say something like that in eternity every moment exists without passing away. Is the idea of existence necessarily temporal also? Perhaps; it is hard for beings who are conditioned to think temporally to think eternity.
I know what you mean, though. :smile:
I think you are falling into the same trap as @Poetic Universe when you say the future and past already exist as they will exist and do not change. This suggest that eternity is temporally prior to temporality, and I think this is an incoherent thought. How could there be a temporal relationship between something temporal and something a-temporal? I don't think that idea could ever be made to make sense.
Your second post gets it I think. It makes no sense, in the context of eternity, to speak of the past as an infinite regression.There does not seem to be any reason why you could not have an eternity which consisted of a finite number of moments, for example. The general problem with thinking eternity is to conceive of what could distinguish the moments from one another if not spatiality or temporality. That is probably why eternalism is thought in spatial terms as a "block universe". The human mind has its limits no doubt!
Externally, if one could see it from the outside, which one never can, the block universe is 4 distances with no time or change, as dddd, dimensionally, as a hypercube, the past and the future both real, but, somehow, internally, to us, in space-time, one of the distances converts to what we call 'time', as if the speed of light, d/t, was a fundamental dimensional equivalence ratio; so, then, dddd / d/t = dddt = space-time.
It is to us as if the pages of a 3D flip book of 3D spaces are turning or a 3D DVD is playing. Each 3D image is as of a new 3D space, that is of a new universe going by. Our time, then, is as the differences of these spaces, making time to be a kind of index to these 3D spaces, although we can't use the index to go anywhere but have to always go on to the next 3D space.
Others liken it to the expansion of the universe being the 4D part, somehow.
Presentism looks the same to us, in that a whole new 3D space appears at every 'now', but that the 'now' was just manufactured from the immediate past, totally consuming the just past 'now'.
Einstein's relativity of simultaneity puts a big dent in presentism's claim that it is 'now' everywhere.
In my fun video below, a human in Tahiti asks a djinni to show him 'Eternity':
Thanks for your explanation. I'll watch your video when I have some time.
Quoting PoeticUniverse
Yes, I understand that the idea of a universal "now" is inconsistent with relativity theory. Nows are local, and there is no absolute simultaneity. This leads me to wonder about McTaggart's "B-series" notion of time, though. If some events are, from a "universal" perspective, before others, say,in extremis the Big Bang is before the heat death for all observers, then the fact (if it is a fact) that there is no universal now is perhaps more of an artifact of our "fine-graining" than anything else. I don't know if I expressed that thought very well; I'm kind of groping here. :grin:
Yes, a growing block is a combination of presentism and eternalism, with the past being kept and the future not yet existent. Growing block is probably the theory some say is supported by the expansion of the universe. So far, no one really knows the mode of time.
Free will has to be capable of grounding moral responsibility. But if I'm not morally responsible if everything I am and do is antecedently determined, how am I going to be if it turns out that to some extent what I am and do is indeterministic? Perhaps if it is indeterministic what some brain event will cause my mind to think or decide then there is a sense in which I am the originator of my decision. But it is not the robust sense necessary to make me free in a way that could plausibly make me morally responsible for my resulting decisions. For if it really was indeterministic, then it was just a brute matter of chance that the brain events caused me to make one decision rather than another.
I still don't understand why you think physics will give you any answers to these questions - physicists are not studying free will. And although physical discoveries may have important implications for free will, we can't possibly know what those implications are until we know more about free will - something physics isn't even attempting to tell us about.
How do we have information on how things look "from the outside"? That seems impossible to me.
Quoting rlclauer
The information comes from previous mind-states. Whether these are reducible to brain states is part of the question.
From Gustavo E. Romero:
I shall offer a view of the topic in which a kind of substantivalism, relationism, and eternalism can coexist on the basis of emergentism, the doctrine that qualitative systemic properties arise from more basic ontological levels devoid of such properties. The mechanisms that enforce emergence are composition and interaction. I hold that there is a level for each of the three ontological positions to be considered as a good option for a description of the way the world is.
– Spacetime substantivalism: Spacetime is an entity endowed with physical properties. This position is clearly expressed by Einstein (1920). The exact nature of this entity is open to discussion. I shall defend an event substantivalism.
– Spacetime relationism: Spacetime is not an entity that can exist independently of physical objects. Spacetime, instead, is a system of relations among different ontological items. The nature of these items is also open to discussion. I shall propose that there is a level where a form a relationism provides an adequate framework for current physics and that this is not in contraction with event substantivalism when the latter is applied to a different ontological level.
– Eternalism (also known as Block Universe – BU –): Present, past, and future moments (and hence events) exist. They form a 4-dimensional ‘block’ of spacetime. Events are ordered by relations of earlier than, later than, or simultaneous with, one another. The relations among events are unchanging. Actually, they cannot change since time is one of the dimensions of the block. I have defended this position in Romero (2012 and 2013a). The reader is referred to these papers as well as to Peterson and Silberstein (2011) and references therein for further arguments.
– Presentism: Only those events that take place in the present are real. This definition requires explanations of the terms ‘present’ and ‘real’. Crisp (2003, 2007) offers elucidations. See also the mentioned paper by Craig (2008), and Mozersky (2011). Presentism has been subject to devastating criticisms since the early attacks by Smart (1964), Putnam (1967), and Stein (1968). See Saunders (2002), Petkov (2006), Wu ?thrich (2010), Peter- son and Silberstein (2011), Romero (2012, 2015) for up-dated objections. ?
Some further objections against presentism:
Most of the arguments against presentism are based on the Special Theory of Relativity; see the references cited in the previous section and the discus- sions in Craig and Smith (2008).
Metaphysical arguments can be found, for instance, in Oaklander (2004) and Mellor (1998). Recently, several arguments based on General Relativity have been displayed against presentism. Romero and P ?erez (2014) have shown that the standard version of this doctrine is incompatible with the existence of black holes. In Romero (2015) I enumerate a number of additional objections based on General Relativity and modern cosmology. Wuthrich (2010) discusses the problems and inconsistence of presentism when faced with Quantum Gravity. Here, I offer a new argument based on the existence of gravitational waves.
The argument goes like this:?
P1. There are gravitational waves.?
P2. Gravitational waves have non-zero Weyl curvature.?
P3. Non-zero Weyl curvature is only possible in 4 or more dimensions.
P4. Presentism is incompatible with a 4 dimensional world.?
Then, presentism is false.
Is this going to relate in the “Arguments For Free Will” category?
I wouldn’t think so, but you never know.....maybe he’s got something cooking on the front burner here.
On the other hand, choice certainly does require the future, for choice can never be either antecedent nor simultaneous to its object.
Yeah, I have the 1905 “On The Electrodynamics......” paper, which I prefer for showing the refutation of Newtonian absolute time. Nevertheless, I don’t see the connection to an argument disproving “free will”.
Dunno....you can use cement in a cake recipe, but ain’t nobody gonna get a bite out of it.
To figure out what free will involves you have to use your reason. Your physics background will neither help nor restrict you - it is simply irrelevant.
The nature of free will is not something investigated by physics. if you've studied physics - and you say your background is in it - at which point in your studies did you study free will? Which module in a physics course studies it?
It isn't something physics studies.
I think, perhaps, a lot of people with scientific backgrounds assume that they're the ones who are really studying reality and, as such, philosophy is just science without any empirical rigour. And thus if only scientists turn their attention to philosophical questions they'll be able to sort it all out.
The dichotomy suggested above between 'science' and 'philosophy' appears to be contradicted by developments in neuroscience, in which 'neurophilosophy' attempts to apply scientific findings to philosophical issues. Patricia Churchland, for example, using the principal of 'eliminative materialism', analysed issues of what we call 'free will' in terms of the neurological mechanisms involved in 'desire constraint'. Thus 'culpability' in the court room sense, becomes a function of the balance of neurological and hormonal processes and genetic dispositions. This approach makes no claim on the societal functionality of the concept of 'culpability', but does tend to indicate the liklihood of 'success' of sentencing responses.
Just because physicists don’t address it, I don’t think that means we can’t use what we understand about physics (and how physicists approach the boundaries of their understanding) to address questions such as the nature of free will, particularly in relation to determinism (which seems to be ensconced safely in the realm of physics).
In fact, the way physicists approach the questions of energy, potentiality and quantum superposition, for instance, laps at the question of free will. All they really have here are formulas pertaining to a value in relation to variable events in time (and shared subjective experiences) as ‘evidence’ that these concepts exist. For most physicists, that’s enough - but if they ever wondered about the nature of potential energy, for instance, instead of resorting to SUAC, perhaps they’d realise that energy’s potential exists free of the constraints of spacetime, just like the will. It is only in actuality (as an event in time) that energy is constrained.
That may seem like a moot point to most physicists, but their own participation in using these formulae to predict, plan for and manipulate the causal conditions of an event (ie. how their will operates outside of spacetime to initiate a cause) is overlooked because they endeavour to exclude themselves (as a subjective, interacting observer) from the equation. QM shows that some formulae become ineffective past a certain point without this variable, suggesting that we may have to rethink the way we currently map reality in order to obtain a more accurate understanding of our interaction with the universe moving forward.
The dialogue between physics and philosophy is important here - we need to acknowledge alternative (ie. purely subjective) values or significance experienced by different observers in relation to the same event in order to more accurately map this additional aspect to reality, which has already enabled us to interact with the universe beyond the constraints of spacetime for thousands of years. Understanding how an observer is aware of and interacts with potential energy to initiate events, for instance, takes us into the realm of a will that is potentially free.
The way I see it, there is no border between physics and metaphysics - it’s just a misunderstanding. And I don’t think using reason without any reference to physics is going to help you to understand what free will really involves.
Yes, the epistemological issue is one of priority. i.e Does 'philosophy' guide what we mean by 'scientific method' , or is 'scientific method' a function of 'brain mechanisms' which eliminative materialists might argue boils down to .physics and chemistry'.Dualists tend to reinforce the dichotomy, whereas pragmatists tend to ignore it.
Observation of the human brain is by attachment of machines, from which displays represent brain functionality directly proportional to experimental expectation.
A human does not think in terms of brain states, but a machine absolutely has no alternative but to represent human thought in terms of brain states. It follows that the human inventing a machine to objectify human thought uses a methodology that cannot be replicated in the machine he is inventing. The very best the machine can do is show one-on-one correspondence between human thought and its relational brain state, but can never have the identity of the thought it is representing. A brain state can identify a thought but can never have the identity of a thought.
Philosophy does not have that limitation, for the methodology of philosophy is exactly the same as the methodology for thought itself, in which thought and philosophy are identical. Which is not to say philosophy doesn’t have its own limitation, insofar as philosophy is not equipped for examination of the brain’s physical brain states from which it arises.
It remains as fact, as far as humans are concerned, that no machines are ever invented, nor is any science ever done, that does not first pass before the tribunal of human reason. From this, it is clear that human thought, and everything that arises from it, is the prime directive, and science is at the mercy of it, belongs to it, and for all intents and purposes, has nothing to say about it, but only objectifies its mechanisms.
The nullification of this particular dualism is a pipe-dream for wishful thinkers, without the foresight to understand that if or when future science shows the fundamental natural laws of their thought, they have in effect taken the first steps in the sacrifice of their humanity, in all its wonder and fallibility.
But I’ll be long gone by then, so.......ehhhhh......sucks to be you when that time comes.
Well the mind runs on some substrate. When the mind forms, it will inherit some information, along with it's basic functions, from the reality it is formed in. We can assume, for the sake of the argument, that it's properly represented by genetics forming the biological brain.
[i]Relations among basic events, or ‘ontological atoms’, can be the basis from which substantival spacetime emerges, in a similar way to how things emerge from spacetime events.
Change of space-time would require an extra dimension not included in space-time. This, in turn, would imply that space-time is a thing with an emergent relational property that should be measured by the extra dimension or ‘meta-time’. There is no physical reason to introduce such an ontology. And if someone is willing to pay the price to do it, an infinite regress follows immediately, since the 5D ‘super space-time’ might change requiring more extra dimensions ontological inflation would turn the price unaffordable.
The representation of spacetime appears, therefore, as the large number limit of an ontology of basic timeless and spaceless events that can be identified only at a more basic ontological level.
Composition leads to a hierarchy of events, with basic events on the lower level and increasing complexity towards higher levels. Reality seems to be organized into levels, each one differentiated by qualitative, emerging properties. Higher levels have processes and things with some properties belonging to lower levels in addition to specific ones.
At some point of this hierarchy of events, things can be introduced as classes abstracted from large number of events (see Romero 2013a for formal definitions). A thing-based ontology allows a simplification in the description of the higher levels of organisation of what is, essentially, an event ontology. Spacetime is then an emerging thing from the collection of all events.
Event substantialism regarding spacetime does not preclude relationism at a more basic level. Relations among basic events, or ‘ontological atoms’, can be the basis from which substantival spacetime emerges, in a similar way to how things emerge from spacetime events.
If we want to represent events at very small scale, the assumption of compactness must be abandoned. The reason is that any accumulation point implies an infinite energy density, since events have finite (but not arbitrarily small) energy, and energy is an additive property. In other words, spacetime must be discrete at the smallest scale.
Since the quantum of action is given by the Planck constant, it is a reasonable hypothesis to assume that the atomic events occur at the Planck scale. If there are atomic events, their association would give rise to composed events (i.e. processes), and then to the continuum spacetime, which would be a large-scale emergent entity, absent at the more basic ontological level. This is similar to, for instance, considering the mind as a collection of complex processes of the brain, emerging from arrays of ‘mindless’ neurons.[/i]
Mental states may well be "constrained" in some way, after all human thoughts tend to follow similar patterns. But what's important to note here is that mental states aren't necessarily deterministic. That means previous mental states, and sensory input, inform subsequent states, but do not determine them.
It changes course by making decisions. You seem to be asking me to explain how decisions "work" in some other terms, that is to reduce them so some other process. But I am saying that decision making is not reducible to some other process. It is what it seems to you in your head.
Quoting rlclauer
We could think of the different parts that make up the "decision" combining in several possible ways, only one of which is chosen.
Quoting rlclauer
That's because it's not a mechanism in the usual sense of the word. It wouldn't be some sort of algorithm that calculates an outcome. Willing is simply the way the mind operates when making decisions. LIke how physical laws tell you how physical processes operate, without these laws having some "space" where they "are"