Praising A Rock: My Argument Against Free Will
Discussions about free will usually center around an affirmation and/or a denunciation of it. Typically, very interesting notions on both sides come out of such conversations, many well thought out and others not so much. Whatever the case, there's frequently been a problem with what is meant by "will" and free will," so much so that the issue can quickly become mired in misunderstanding. To avoid this I've found the following definitions to be pretty much on point and helpful.
Will is the capacity to act decisively on one's desires.
Free will is to do so undirected by controlling influences.
For many people the concept of free will is important because without it would mean each of us is nothing more than an automaton; a "machine" that performs a function according to a predetermined set of instructions, which is anathema to the notion personal freedom. If people lack freedom of choice how can they be blamed for what they do, or deserve praise? For Christians this has the added consequence of robbing the concept of sin/salvation of any meaning. So most people are loath to even entertain the idea of no free will. Free will is almost always regarded as a given, and often touted in some religions---Christianity comes to mind here.
Any exception to free will is often regarded as an interfering constraint. "I am free to to do this or that unless someone/thing comes along and prevents it. Of course this isn't what the issue of free will is about at all. Free will is about the idea that, aside from any external constraints, "I could have chosen to do differently if I wished." So I think another valid way way of looking at free will is just that: the ability to do differently if one wished. "I got a haircut yesterday, but I could just as well have chosen to have hot dog instead."
Those who most disagree with this are hard determinists, people claiming that everything we do has a cause. And because everything we do is caused we could not have done differently---no, you could not have chosen to have a hot dog---therefore it's absurd to place blame or praise. A pretty drastic notion, and one rejected by almost everyone. So whatever else is said about the issue of free will ultimately it must come down to this very basic question: Are we free to do other than what we did or not? I say, No you were not. Free will is an illusion.
Here's how I see it.
There are only two ways actions take place; completely randomly, or caused. By "completely" randomly I mean utterly randomly, not an action which, for some reason, we do not or cannot determine a cause. This excludes things such as the "random" roll of dice. Dice land as they do because of the laws of physics, and although we may not be able to identify and calculate how dice land it doesn't mean that the end result is not caused. This is the most common notion of "random" events: those we are unable to predict and appear to come about by pure chance. The only place where true randomness, an absolutely uncaused event, has been suggested to occur is at the quantum level, which has no effect on superatomic events, those at which we operate.* And I don't think anyone would suggest that's how we operate anyway, completely randomly: what we do is for absolutely no reason whatsoever. So that leaves non-randomness as the operative agent of our actions. We do this or that because. . . . And the "cause" in "because" is telling. It signals a deterministic operation at work. What we do is determined by something. Were it not, what we do would be absolutely random in nature: for absolutely no reason at all. But as all of us claim from time to time, we do have reasons for what we do. And these reasons are the causes that easily negate randomness.
So, because what we do obviously has a cause, could we have done differently? Not unless at least one of the causal events leading up to the Doing in question had been different. If I end up at home after going for a walk it would be impossible to end up at my neighbor's house if I took the exact same route. Of course I could take a different route and still wind up at home, but I would still be in the same position of not ending up at my neighbor's. To do that there would have had to be a different set of circumstances (causes) at work. But there weren't so I had no option but to wind up at home. The previous chain of cause/effects inexorably determined where I ended up. So to is it with what we do. We do what we do because all the relevant preceding cause/effect events inexorably led up to that very act and no other. We HAD to do what we did. There was no freedom to do any differently.
What does this all mean then? It means we can never do anything differently than what we are caused to do. Our life is solely determined by previous causal events, including intervening outside events (also causes), and nothing else. Even our wishing to think we could have done otherwise is a mental event that was determined by all the cause/effect events that led to it. We think as we do because. . . . And that "because" can never be any different than what it was. We have no ability to do anything other than what we're caused to do. In effect then, free will does not exist, nor does choosing, selecting, opting, etc..
This means that praise and blame come out as pretty hollow concepts. As I mentioned, if you cannot do other than what you did why should you be praised or blamed for them? To do so is like blaming or praising a rock for where it lies. It had no "choice" in the matter.
Of course we can still claim to have free will if we define the term as simply being free of external constraints, but that's not really addressing free will, and why free will exists as an issue. The free will issue exists because people claim "I could have done differently if I had wished." Problem is, of course, they didn't wish differently because . . . .
This, then, is my argument---a bit shortened to keep it brief---against free will as it stands in opposition to determinism.
__________________________
*Any proposition that the mind can be affected by random quantum events has to take into consideration the fact that "quantum states in the brain would decohere before they reached a spatial or temporal scale at which they could be useful for neural processing." This argument was elaborated on by MIT physicist, Max Tegmark. Based on his calculations, Tegmark concluded that quantum systems in the brain decohere quickly and cannot control brain function.
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Comments (61)
That's a preposterous definition of free will.
You're right, it's poorly worded. I'll go along with:
"The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate."
Not chosen? Not "influenced"?
In as much as the possible randomness of quantum events doesn't affect neural processing, being chosen and being influenced would be caused reactions.
And I need a bit of help here in quoting folk here. Exactly how is it done? I've been cutting and pasting, and attaching names. ALSO, is there an edit function?
Thanks for your help.
In the menus on the left, bottom section, you want "Useful Hints and Tips".
Quoting Lida Rose
Who says you can't edit?
Quoting Lida Rose
Okay?
Will basically is just desire, specifically whichever desire it is that ultimately moves you to act.
Free will is the ability to control what you desire, or at least which desire it is that ultimate moves you to act.
To be free of will, in the useful functional sense above, is for your desires about {which of your desires are causally effective on your behavior} to be causally effective on your behavior.
That requires that the function of your brain be at least adequately deterministic.
To be free of will in the sense of being free from determination is not only useless, but counterproductive, leaving your actions random, uncontrollable by you, and so you unaccountable for them.
But why is one desire ultimately more persuasive than another desire? And how did that "more persuasiveness" arise?
Quoting Pfhorrest
First you said that will is desire, "Will basically is just desire," but now you're saying that will that's free controls desire. Free will controls itself? Fine, but then something has to work as a causal (deterministic) agent.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Hmmmm. :roll:
Quoting Pfhorrest
I think I agree.
Quoting InPitzotl
Thanks. But no ability to edit? Boy, that's almost a membership breaker.
I think there is an often overlooked sense of will as restraining or opposing desire. Will as self-control. I think the whole notion of appending "free" to will is a straw man. Determinism is quickly becoming an antiquated viewpoint.
What does necessity mean in this context? (I'm good on fate btw, but I think too many people confuse fate with determinism).
A variety of complicated psychological and neurological reasons, that aren't especially relevant at this stage of discussion. (They become relevant in discussions about how in practice to increase one's freedom of will, but that's a study for psychologists, not philosophers, as it's about the contingent ways that human brains actually work, not about necessary a priori concepts.)
The processes that lead to that outcome could be determined or not, but if we want hope of being able to direct those processes, they better be at least adequately determined, because there's no controlling a figurative roll of the dice.
Quoting Lida Rose
Will is desire. Free will is when you are free to desire what you desire to desire. When wanting to for a certain want to be the want you act on causes that want to be the want you act on. Yes, that's completely deterministic; indeterminism has nothing to do with this, other than possibly as an impediment; indeterminism is just noise in the process that at most could screw things up.
This is best illustrated with examples. Sometimes we want things that we want to not want. A reluctant drug addict wants to take drugs, and wishes that they didn't want to take drugs. It's a second-order want: a want about wants. They want to get over their addiction, and to stop wanting to take drugs; or at the very least, they want to not act on their desire to take drugs. Their will is free to the extent that they are able to control at least the relationship between their desires and their behavior, if not the desires themselves.
Free will is the ability that lets someone resist from taking a drug even though they really really want to, and possibly even lets them stop wanting to in the first place. It's not some magical intervention in the causal processes, it's just a functional state of the mind and brain: a state where thinking something is or isn't the best course of action, reflexively judging one's own desires as the right or wrong things to desire, is causally effective in making one have or not have, or at least act on or not act on, those desires.
Quoting Lida Rose
Click the little pencil icon below and to the left of your post. You may need to click a "..." icon there first, to reveal the pencil icon.
The fact of being required.
Quoting Pfhorrest
How could it not be determined?
Quoting Pfhorrest
Ahhhh, so that's it. I've always wondered what being free to desire what you desire to desire was called.
I just mean that it doesn’t matter how well determined the process is, how much randomness features in it; it doesn’t matter for the purpose of freedom.
There's an aprocryphal story about Nostradamus visiting a lord who tests him by showing him two pigs, one white, one black, and asking him to predict which pig they would eat. Nostradamus tells him they will eat the black pig and a wolf will eat the white one. The lord secretly orders his chef to cook the white pig. His chef starts to prepare it, but after leaving it unattended, a wolf comes in and eats the white pig. To make up for this the chef prepares the black pig. When the lord tries to catch Nostradamus in an error, the chef fesses up and regales them about the story. Shrugs. Oh well, such is fate.
So let's play our own predict-a-pig game. I have a box with a light bulb, a button, and a two way switch (left/right) on it. You're charged to press the button on the box, but before you do, you have to pull a Nostradamus. Your charge is to predict whether the bulb will light up or not. To indicate your prediction, if you think the bulb will light up, you should ensure the switch is in the left position. If you think it will stay off, you indicate that by ensuring the switch is in the right position.
So here's my ingenious lordly design. I just put a battery in the box, wire it to the button, run that through the right side of the switch, and connect the resulting circuit to the bulb.
So here are my definitions (by example). If you believe in fate, then you can easily win my challenge. All you need is a Nostradamus. That bulb is either going to be lit or not; just figure out which one and you're nearly done. Indicate that knowledge with the switch position, and my evil complicated box design will be thwarted. A wolf will come and either eat or complete the circuitry. But if you think I'm playing a rigged game... if you think there is no way to win, then you believe that at least this box's behavior is deterministic. In that case, too, that bulb is either going to be lit or not; however, whether it is lit or not will be determined by the state of that switch. Fate = not even the switch can thwart what happens. Determinism = what happens depends on the switch.
So by being required, do you mean to convey a Nostradamus mechanic... that it doesn't matter what we do, where the switch is... a wolf will appear and force the forseen outcome? Or do you mean to convey a deterministic mechanic, where it does matter what we do, where the switch is... because that is how the bulb gets to be lit or not? (Either way, there's only one possible evolution towards the bulb state when the button is pressed; so we could in theory say that the bulb is required to be in that state).
Book extract - Free Will
In as much as the ability to predict X or any kind of knowledge of the factors behind it has absolutely nothing to do with the operation of determinism I fail to see their relevance here. The outcome will be what it will be.
I was going to reply, but decided not to so as not to take the thread off course. I suggest you make a separate thread to get feedback on your book. It looks interesting. Flawed, but interesting. :chin:
.
You're right. Whether an act is wholly determined, wholly random, or a combination of the two, it robs the will of all freedom.
That conclusion suggests you’re employing an incoherent notion of “freedom” that doesn’t actually distinguish some possibilities from others, since in every possible scenario it renders itself impossible.
A gave a more useful concept that actually distinguishes between things we care above early in the thread.
SS!
Have you considered one's own stream of consciousness, as being the analogous illusionary free will? For example, when driving, meditating, etc. random thoughts just 'appear' in consciousness. And due to those causes, choice is [often] made. (Or like in other modes of logicizing/cognition.) So, random thoughts, or in this case randomness, can contribute to that 'cause and effect' viz the illusion of free will. This suggests both randomness and determinism at work. (Also, see Wheeler's Cloud/20-questions.)
Likewise, according to some interpretations of quantum mechanics, we can’t precisely predict the motions of single particles. In the infamous double-slit experiment, we cannot predict where exactly an individual photon passing through two slits will land on the photo-sensitive wall on the other side. But we can make extremely precise predictions of the distribution of multiple particles (to many decimal places what the distribution of billions of photons shot at the double slit will look like).
And lastly, have you considered Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Gödel's incompleteness theorem in any theories relative to free will?
Let's backtrack.
Quoting Lida Rose
I agree that if (A1) the universe is deterministic, then (B) the outcome will be what it will be. However, I can derive (B) from a much weaker premise than (A1); namely, I can derive it from (A2a) the past is fixed (i.e., there are facts about the past, and they do not change), and (A2b) A2a applies at all points in time. But that leads to a question of what you mean by free will again.
Here's how it works. Assume I have free will by this definition, and I will use that to perform an act a few moments from now. I will either do A, or I will do B; right now I haven't made up my mind (and again we're presuming it will be done by free will). But by A2a, tomorrow I will have done one of these things; perhaps I can resolve to even say tomorrow: "Yesterday I did X", where X is either A or B. I can possibly do that because by tomorrow, a few moments from now will be yesterday; and per A2a there's a fact about what I did, and it will not change. But everything I just said, by A2b, is true today (bear with me, lots of qualifiers). So today, it is true that tomorrow I will be able to say "Yesterday I did X" where X is either A or B, and be able to say it factually. Therefore, today it is true that the outcome of what I do a few moments from now will be what it will be (e.g., what it will be tomorrow).
So if I can derive (B) from merely presuming A2a and A2b, why does it matter that you can derive it from A1? I'm a bit skeptical that your definition of free will requires us to reject A2a and A2b though.
Similarly, I think your definition of will requires at least one controlling influence... the subject himself must be the controlling influence. As a consequence, your definition of free will inherits this dependency on a controlling influence. I suggest that determinism then is a distraction; if your definition of free will requires a controlling influence anyway (the subject), then you cannot by identifying a controlling influence rule out free will, unless your definition is contradictory from the get go.
Or to phrase it another way, "X made me do it" doesn't necessarily mean X forced me to do it; in particular, if X actually is me, then this just reduces to "I made me do it", which has to be true anyway for it to be will, right?
Damn web site. :rage: I don't know if it makes any difference, but what I meant to say, but was unable to correct, is "Whether an event is wholly determined, wholly random, or a combination of the two, it robs the will of all freedom to create it."
And, just what are these relevant possibilities?
1.___________
2. ___________
3. ___________
4. ___________
Quoting Pfhorrest
This isn't making sense. Please rephrase.
Nope, my response would have been the same.
Quoting Lida Rose
Did you see my tip for how to edit earlier?
Click the little pencil icon below and to the left of your post. You may need to click a "..." icon there first, to reveal the pencil icon.
Quoting Lida Rose
The way you construe free will, the relevant possibilities are a determining world and a nondeterministic world. Free will as you construe it stand the same (impossible) in either scenarios, and so doesn’t really mean anything. What would “having free will” look like, in an imaginary world where you had it? That imaginary world can’t be deterministic, and it can’t be nondeterministic, so what would you actually imagine “free will” to be?
The way I construe free will, the relevant possibilities are things like an alcoholic resisting the urge to drink (if she is able to do that, she has free will in that moment) versus an alcoholic trying but failed to resist the urge to drink (in which case her will was not free in that moment).
Quoting Lida Rose
I mean the bit I said earlier:
Quoting Pfhorrest
I fail to see the import of the fact that A2a, the past is fixed, although true, bear B, the outcome will be what it will be. It's like, Okay, so what?
Quoting InPitzotl
Again, so what? The problem is you've yet to demonstrate the mechanism by which the will freely works. How does the will go about choosing Y over Z? If you say it's because of M then you have the added task off showing how M works as it does. And if you say it's because of J &W then the same requirement applies to them as well. It's turtles all the way down---or back as the case may be.
Ahhh,
1.Highlight,
2.click on "Options"
3. click on the pencil
4. make the correction
Thanks.
It would help newbies a lot if these functions were plainly laid out somewhere.
Quoting Pfhorrest
Fine, but where does that get us? NOTE, I'm taking your " nondeterministic world" to only apply to the will. The rest of the world would be entirely deterministic, with the possible exception of quantum events.
Quoting Pfhorrest
No, in a nondeterministic world free will has the possibility of existing, which it doesn't have in a deterministic world.
Quoting Pfhorrest
I haven't the faintest idea. You'd have to as a free willer.
Quoting PfhorrestBy default it would have to be a nondeterministic (see my NOTE above) world.
But you said earlier that "Whether an event is wholly determined, wholly random, or a combination of the two, it robs the will of all freedom to create it." A non-deterministic world is just a world with randomness; randomness is the lack of determination, determination is the lack of randomness. You said as much in the OP, when you wrote "There are only two ways actions take place; completely randomly, or caused." For every event, either there is sufficient cause to explain it happening, in which case it is determined by those causes, or whatever causal influences there may have been on it are insufficient, to some degree it happens "for no reason", not because of anything, just at random.
If determinism (everything happening from exact causes) and nondeterminism (some things happening just at random) both undermine the possibility of something you're calling "free will", then you the thing you're calling "free will" is a useless concept that doesn't signify anything. You can't tell any difference between "free will exists" and "free will doesn't exist", if "free will" means what you take it to mean.
But there are other, more useful concepts that also answer to our folk concept of "free will", and have nothing at all to do with determinism or randomness. Like I already gave before.
That's actually my question, in regards to this:
Quoting Lida Rose
I.e., the outcome will be what it will be anyway. So what?
Quoting Lida Rose
And again, that's my question, in regards to this:
Quoting Lida Rose
...the same question I ask you. So what?
Again, let's backtrack. Here are your definitions:
Quoting Lida Rose
Will, as defined here, requires that a subject is a controlling influence. Free will, as defined here, seems to suggest that it is an ability to be a controlling influence without having a controlling influence, which is just a contradiction.
A property with a contradictory definition vacuously cannot be had. So, so what?
Quoting Lida Rose
No, that's not the problem. The problem is that your definition of free will can be ruled out vacuously, and that seems to conflict with how you want to use the term. For example you mentioned this (ETA: also in the title of this thread):
Quoting Lida Rose
...so this is common... people like to tie the concept of free will to blameworthiness. But that's a usage contraint on your term. But I have some serious questions about the connection between your ruling out this vacuous form of free will and the ability to hold people blameworthy/praiseworthy.
Quoting Lida Rose
Nope; that's not my burden. It's your definition. If you want to talk about blameworthiness/praiseworthiness (for example), you have to show how lacking this vacuously impossible property makes such assignments impossible.
But I can see how to assign blameworthiness/praiseworthiness to a person choosing Y over Z without positing that they need to jump through a hoop that doesn't exist. If the person actually was the thing that caused Y, and caused Y intentionally, that suffices. But it suffices even in the absence of said person having this impossible property. So I think there's something off about your definition.
Quoting Lida Rose
All of the stuff you said above presumes the principle of alternate possibilities (PAP). Since I don't subscribe to PAP, I need not demonstrate any of those things.
You're absolutely right. I posted it amid three Zoom conference calls and in considering the issue during my free time failed to connect nondeterminism with randomness :facepalm: which may be because I seldom see randomness in this context referred to as nondeterminism. :shrug: AND, "indeterminism." is the proper word describing events that don't happen deterministically.
Yesterday, post #4 by my count (Why the hell can't this site at least number posts?) I changed my definition of free will to "The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate." to better reflect the concept. Truly sorry you missed it.
Quoting InPitzotl
Only, because I changed my definition, let's try it your way.
Define "free will" however you like and then tell me how the will goes about choosing Y over Z?
I like your thinking and writing.
This is a fundamental point you’re making. But I think it’s an argument for free will rather than against it, because isn’t the cause to each one of your actions, within each anterior state, yourself?
If so it follows that you are the cause of your own actions. If you are both cause and effect, what other than yourself can determine your actions?
Sure; I was involved in that interchange, but after your response to the necessity part, I didn't feel anything relevant changed. You questioned the relevance of the Nostradamus versus the deterministic model. Well, the relevance is that in the latter, the outcome may happen as a result of the subject, which in turn can be used to assign blame/praise to the subject. Only in the Nostradamus mechanic does the subject truly not matter.
But in your response to it, you were just dismissive about the difference. I can only conclude from that that to you the difference doesn't matter... that the only thing that does is:
Quoting Lida Rose
...so I read this as your sticking to the original definition with a qualification that even if the controlling influence is the subject, you would count that as a controlling influence and, as a consequence, would conclude there was no free will.
Quoting Lida Rose
Well the conflicting case here is that of compatibilist free will. So a good model of that would start with an agent. Agents are entities that interact with the world continuously. Agents act with intention; i.e., they direct their behaviors towards goals. The intention per se, being an intention, can be described loosely as a meaningful direction of behavior. So if we are discussing free will, we are discussing the selection of an intention to act upon. In your question you're labeling these as Y and Z. In this compatiblist model, the nature of the options is that of counterfactual goals... Y is something that "could" be done in the sense that there exists a known way to initiate an action and direct it towards Y, and Z is something that "could" be done in the sense that there exists a known way to initiate an action and direct it towards Z. In a (minimally considered; @Pfhorrest gives a more common practical criteria) compatibilist choice, the agent considers two such counterfactual goals and selects one of them to commit to act towards. Given compatibilism's definitive nature, the hypothesis is that this choice occurs in a way compatible with determinism... so in our model we can just commit to that and say that the choice happens deterministically.
Since you are asking the question of "how", I think that deterministic part is the part that bugs you, so let's get that out of the way. We may presume full determinism here. Compatibilists contend that only one outcome can happen in a deterministic universe. But as you apparently contended, only one thing will happen anyway. This would drive a libertarian nuts, since libertarians presume that unless there's some "ontic" way in which the considered-but-not-chosen path "could" happen, that it's impossible to assign responsibility to the agent. But compatibilists don't presume such a thing; all a compatibilist needs (minimally) to assign responsibility is to establish that it was the agent that made the choice. Compatibilist choices aren't "routings" of "reality itself" towards one of many "ontic futures"... they are merely selections of an action to commit to among a set of counterfactual considerations. So to a compatibilist it's simply not relevant how many of those futures there are... what's relevant is simply whether or not it was the subject that did the choosing (see first part of the post again).
The rest of what I added above is a rough sketch of bootstrapping... unless there's a modeled intention of an agent here, we're not talking about choice in the right sense (so, e.g., chess playing engines do not have free will).
Thank you.
Quoting NOS4A2
External factors aside, yes.
Quoting NOS4A2
I'm not saying the determining causes must come from without, but only that they rob the will of freedom . . .whatever their origin. A person must do whatever he has been directed to do by all the relevant cause/effect events leading up to the moment of the doing. There is no such thing as choosing. To paraphrase: "The previous chain of cause/effects inexorably determine what a person does."
Thing is, if there aren't any determinant causes, as some people claim, then exactly what is the Operation that induces a person to choose A over B?
The fact remains, you could not have chosen to have a hot dog (see the OP), which is something free willer denies.
Compatibilism is the wimp's "Yah-but" way of skirting around their acceptance of determinism, and I have absolutely no interest in their "apologetics."
As a free will agnostic, I'm unconvinced by your ad hominem arguments and appeal to motive fallacies.
I personally find the whole free will debate a bit fishy, on all sides... people have been arguing this stuff for well over 2 millennia... certainly something's off. I find that incredibly interesting. But I find it a bit suspicious that this thread had "Praising A Rock" in the title, that you wrote a 1000+ word op on a philosophy forum complaining about free will, that compatibilism allows for assigning praise and blame in such a way that none of your points stick, and that you find no interest in it.
There is something to this 2+ millennia old idea of compatibilism... it's not a reaction to (at least the modern) determinism. Several people besides me have already pointed this out. Just in case you're interested (the proper way to show lack of interest is to not reply).
Suspect away, but just to remind you, it comes from my OP where I said,
Quoting Lida Rose
Quoting InPitzotl
1,172 words to be exact, but who cares other than yourself? And, you mistake argument for complaint. Moreover, I never brought up compatibilism. I believe you were the first to do that.
Quoting InPitzotl
No it isn't. In polite discourse the proper way to indicate one's disinterest in going down a whole other path of discussion is to let it be known. I have an interest in forestalling any further discussion about compatilibism, which is why I said "I have absolutely no interest in their "apologetics"; something that obviously hasn't worked because here you are still wanting to talk about it and me having to reiterate my :yawn: with it. But be assured, this will be my last word about it to you. :smile:
Here's what I don't get about this type of argument. The very definition, "having the capacity to act" is equivalent to "initiating an action" i.e. autotelic behaviour. That, in and of itself, contradicts the possibility that will could be "not free." Being subject to external direction, or being externally caused, means that you do not have the "capacity to act." The secondary, dependent assumption contradicts the primary assumption.
If you can "act," you must, a fortiori, be free.
And that thing in your OP comes from your intuitions. You have libertarian intuitions; that is, you intuit PAP. But you're not the only one with intuitions; compatibilists have intuitions too. But there's an overall context implied by the fact that you're posting on a philosophy forum... I would think people actually interested in philosophy should be interested in analyzing and questioning their intuitions, especially if the intuitions are not universal.
But that means less than what you're making it out to mean. A rabbit (B)can go into my shed, but an adult blue whale (B)cannot go into my shed. I had lemonade last night, but I (C)could have had milk. (A), (B), and (C) all use different senses of the world could/can.
You're presenting a pet theory... that one (D)cannot be assigned praise/blame if one (A)cannot do other than what they do. But why (D)can't they? Why (D)can't someone be assigned praise/blame based on whether or not the (C)could have done otherwise as opposed to (A)could have?
I don't think your pet theory has weight; rather, I think your intuition's messed up.
If I choose with intention, because I chose with intention.
The rock is not an agent; people are agents. People act with intention; rocks do not go to places due to intentions. People actually mean to do what they (intentionally) do; rocks do not. Those are significant and relevant differences. It's impossible to blame a rock for being where it is because the rock didn't "mean" to go there, but the same cannot be said of a person acting with intent. In fact, it's not even the actual act we tend to hold people responsible for... it is just the intent behind it. (This isn't always true, but in the ways relevant to praise/blame it's true enough for government work as they say).
That we (A)can't do other than what we will do is simply a consequence of the fact that there's only one reality, but we still in that reality are causes of the thing we intend. Determinism doesn't conflict with the fact that we act based on intentions; in fact, the suggestion that we act based on intentions is causal by nature.
Quoting Lida Rose
I'm not buying into that narrative. From start to end, this is a public forum, and when you reply someone it's like ringing their doorbell, especially with this setup. Also, you're not merely indicating your disinterest; you're advancing arguments. And this is not "a whole other path of discussion", it is the thing you're discussing... you're explicit here that you're interested in praise and blame in this previous reply.
Quoting Lida Rose
But your alleged interest does not compel me to share it. And your discussion about compatibilism is where the primary weakness of your argument against the ability to assign blame/praise lies. In theory we could talk about original causation as a third mechanic (besides determinism/randomness), but I think the biggest problem is your acceptance of PAP. It's reasonable to reject original causation until the burden is met demonstrating that it is indeed a possible mechanic, and whereas libertarians tend to demonstrate this by appealing to the fact that we have free will and that it's impossible without PAP, I don't see that as compelling... especially when PAP itself is suspect.
Quoting Lida Rose
...of course it hasn't "worked"; I don't share your interest in forestalling discussions of why you're wrong, and your conveying that interest doesn't compel me to share it.
I think a serious consideration of compatibilism will reveal the flaws in your argument. I could possibly be in error here, but if I am, then I have a vested interest in correcting that error, which counters your vested interest in forestalling discussion of it.
So our interests conflict.
Quoting Lida Rose
...but that's the thing... you don't have to reiterate your disinterest in it. All you have to do is not reply. This is a public forum, not your email inbox. So others may be interested in the flaws of your arguments even if you aren't.
Quoting Lida Rose
In this case, inaction speaks louder than words. But it's also irrelevant to me anyway. Disinterest is not a compelling argument.
Not an argument at all, just two definitions.
Quoting Pantagruel
No it isn't. Whereas "capacity " is a noun indicating "actual or potential ability to perform, yield, or withstand," "initiating" is a verb showing "to begin, set going, or originate."
Have a nice day
You don't have direct personal experience of yourself choosing between two options? Because I have experienced that many times. And since I experienced it, it would seem to follow that it "exists" in some way (how could I experience something that doesn't exist?).
Quoting Lida Rose
The operation you perform when you choose. Namely, weighing all the different reasons for choosing one or the other and deciding which side tips the scale.
having the "capacity to act" is the same thing as having the "capacity to initiate an action" to be more precise. So if you can "initiate" an action that is the definition of autotelic. Otherwise, you don't have the capacity to act, you have the capacity "to be acted upon".
No, like everyone else, I only have the illusion of doing so.
Quoting Echarmion
But one doesn't, in fact can't, choose. (We're talking freely choose as with a free will) A person can only do what they're inexorably led to do, and nothing else.
Thank you, you too, and I mean that sincerely! Behind all these terminals, we're all just ordinary people.
But let's keep the idle chat down (and the sarcasm)... this forum has a purpose... it's a community of people with a shared interest. That's what we're all here for, and that's whose stage you're borrowing from our kind hosts.
What is an illusion in this context?
Quoting Lida Rose
Well you asked for an operation. If you didn't want to hear about it, why did you ask?
Well it's that precision that makes all the difference. So yes, "capacity to act" is the same thing as having the "capacity to initiate an action"
Quoting Pantagruel
I always thought "autotelic" meant something like having a purpose not outside itself, (yup, it does---just looked it up) and the purpose to initiate a whole slew of things certainly exists outside the act of initiation.
You're quite right, and I apologize for the characterization.
The impression that when you do (did) something, you could just as well choose to do (to have done) something else instead.
Quoting Echarmion
But I do want to hear about it, only something more than the name of an operation I've already dismissed as true. If you truly want to claim choosing is an explanation then tell us the process by which one arrives at choosing A rather than B. I'm all ears.
Ah, sorry for not being clear. I meant to ask what your definition of an illusion is in this context.
Quoting Lida Rose
So, this makes me wonder why you dismiss the thing you have first-hand experience of. You're asking for an explanation, but why do you expect there to be an explanation?
Maybe you expect choice to be the result of some other, more basic process, but I don't think there is a rational reason to expect that. Your mind is the most basic thing you have access to. Everything else depends on it. Including all your knowledge of the outside world. The choice you experience is more basic than the determinism you observe.
Perhaps not "just as well". In a particular situation, say, coming across a lost boy crying for his parents, I might decide to take him to the nearest police officer. I could instead kick the kid in the shins, but I wouldn't. It would not be just as well. It's a ridiculous choice, but in principle the equal of any other option in this formulation of the question.
On which, I notice whenever I see this question in the context of philosophy instead of psychology, the actual process of decision-making never enters into it. The act of choosing may as well be instantaneous and arbitrary, and therefore is not realistic.
The "just as well" point is pertinent, for instance. Human decision-making involves a human in a given mental and emotional state, in a given situation, within a given interval of time (short for urgent problems, long for non-urgent ones), weighing up the potential efficacies of each of a tiny subset of available options drawn from personal experience and emotional reactivity from an uncountably large number of actual possibilities to affect a desired outcome. It sounds deterministic... because it probably is.
Okay,
An illusion in this context is: [i]the impression that when you do (did) something, you could
just as well choose to do (have chosen to do) something else.[/i]
Quoting Echarmion
Because my experience isn't supported by appealing to a free will as its cause. No one has yet to divulge the machinery that drives a free will decision. They simply assert "It Is," and walk away. Meanwhile, it's well agreed upon that everything else in the universes is deterministic. Every outcome is preceded by cause/effect events that inexorably led up to that very outcome and no other. Except, that is, stuff people decide to do. The stuff people decide to do is controlled by free will, and what's free will . . . . . . . ? "HEY! look at that rabbit over there in the underbrush. Ain't he big. Must go a good five pounds, at least."
Quoting Echarmion
Because If there is no foundational explanation for free will then why bother to accept it as true, other than to save oneself from the onerous thought that a person has no control over their thoughts or behavior? One may as well suppose that faeries are at its helm.
Quoting Echarmion
If there's no basic process (reason) for choosing A over B then the event could just as well be one of choosing B over A, there being no reason for either. A mental world of true randomness; we do things for absolutely no reason what so ever. When it comes to human activities, mental or otherwise, we may as well take "because" out of our vocabulary.
The illusion assumes equal opportunity.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
But for perhaps the rare exception, I don't believe a free willer sees any of his choices as arbitrary.
Quoting Kenosha Kid
:up:
And yet this is rather implied by "I could have done otherwise," unless we take that to mean nothing more than "I was capable of doing otherwise." My recollection of the usual free will thought experiment is a thousand replicas of the same person in the same state in the sane situation: a determinist would expect the same outcome 1000 times; a free willer would expect different outcomes.
The illusion you speak of seems to me only an illusion for an extreme definition of free will, free even from causality. But that's a case of setting oneself up to fail. It is I who am in the situation, I who considers the options, I who evaluate the relative efficacies, and I who choses, and I can stand by my choice as being what appeared to be the best at the time, knowing what I knew then. I don't know how much freer I could expect my will to be and still function as a decision-making process.
Illusion is the wrong word. Illusion suggests a percept, and the notion of free will you're describing is not a percept. Feelings of control, feelings of agency behind an action, and feelings of authorship are percepts, but none of those are based on perceiving alternate futures.
Not if one takes the definition of "arbitrary" into consideration
ar·bi·trar·y
/?ärb??trer?/
adjective
adjective: arbitrary
based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.
That'd be an example. A definition is something like: an illusion is when something seems to have attributes that it actually doesn't have.
Quoting Lida Rose
But, conversely, your experience of choosing is supported by determinism?
Quoting Lida Rose
Logically, there have to be some things that don't have any further machinery behind them. Otherwise, you run into an infinite recursion of machinery behind machinery. Do you agree?
Quoting Lida Rose
That's not actually true. Quantum physics aren't deterministic in this sense. There are multiple outcomes from a single cause.
But apart from that, how do you know the determinism you only observe via your fallible senses isn't the "illusion"? Can you explain the machinery behind causality?
Quoting Lida Rose
There is no foundational explanation of space and time, cause end effect, either. Physics describes those, but it doesn't provide a "foundational explanation".
Quoting Lida Rose
The process is known, as I have already pointed out. It's just that this process is for some reason considered "not good enough" because it doesn't look like the kind of explanation we see in physics. But physics is just another product of the mind.
I'll let you figure out out which meaning I have in mind.
il·?lu·?sion | \ i-?lü-zh?n
\
plural illusions
Definition of illusion
1a(1) : a misleading image presented to the vision : optical illusion
(2) : something that deceives or misleads intellectually
b(1) : perception of something objectively existing in such a way as to cause misinterpretation of its actual nature
(2) : hallucination sense 1
(3) : a pattern capable of reversible perspective
2a(1) : the state or fact of being intellectually deceived or misled : misapprehension
(2) : an instance of such deception
b obsolete : the action of deceiving
3 : a fine plain transparent bobbinet or tulle usually made of silk and used for veils, trimmings, and dresses
(Source: MERRIAM-WEBSTER DICTIONARY)
Why does there "have to be"?
Quoting Echarmion
I've already conceded that QM events may be random, and I'm not about to qualify determinism every time I mention its ubiquity.
Quoting Echarmion
See here
And
See here
Quoting Echarmion
Naming a process and presuming to "know" it doesn't explain it.
That was exactly the definition I had in mind. I'll leave you to figure it out.
But what is the [I] mechanism [/I] that causes the illusion?
Quoting Lida Rose
As I said, otherwise you run into a problem of infinite recursion. Any machinery you discover will have moving parts, which will require more machinery to explain, which will have more moving parts, requiring yet more machinery, and so on ad infinitum.
Quoting Lida Rose
Fair enough. We're on the same page there then.
Quoting Lida Rose
The first link is a very basic overview of space-time. I didn't see anything about the mechanics behind space-time. No foundational explanation for why things are the way the theory describes them.
The second is a list of very technical descriptions of papers. Most of these seem to be related to statistics and algorithms. Not sure how that relates to the question.
Quoting Lida Rose
I didn't just name it, I described what happens. What else do you want, exactly? Can you give me a detailed explanation of explanation?
On your second point, I have thought about this one, as I was keen on Quantum Physics as an undergrad. The problem I have here is the scale at which these probabilities and uncertainties operate. It seems a stretch that they can roll up to the thoughts through our brain neurons and synapses to form alternatives and choose one of them. The scale, energy and forces seem out of reach of the weak and strong nuclear forces and the wave-particle nature of the particles.
On your last question, Heisenberg's Uncertainty yes, but not Godel's Incompleteness. I will read up on the latter and consider its implications.
Thanks again, and totally appreciate your taking the time to respond.