Does free will exist?

[The Engineer]

Do you think free will exists? If so, which form of free will do you believe in?

Sorry if there's already a thread like this. The search function yielded nothing, at least for me.

I will elaborate on my position later. Don't have the time to do so right now.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Compatibilism is OK. If you count it as free will.

But a poll like that will be pretty meaningless.

 

[The Engineer]

But a poll like that will be pretty meaningless.

Yeah, I already suspected that. Still wanted to know what it would look like in the end.

 

[quatona]

I´ve just finished reading Bieri´s "Das Handwerk der Freiheit".
400 pages dealing with concepts of freedom and freewill. In my view Bieri is one of the great thinkers of our times. The book is not only intelligent but highly pleasurable to read, and it doesn´t require you to be well-versed in philosophy (e.g. he avoids all philosophical technical terms).
Recommended to everyone who´s capable of reading German.

 

[AlexBP]

I firmly believe in free will as I've always understood it. I think my position is the one that philosophy junkies call "libertarian" free will.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I have a dispositonal beief in compablism, but it doesn't occur too often; except in free will discussions. I am glad I learned it as it has clarified my thought, but any use other than that I am not aware of.

 

[dysert]

I say that free will does exist, but I don't know the various "forms" it comes in. If free will didn't exist, then we couldn't very well hold anyone accountable for their actions.

 

[Eudaimonist]

Do you think free will exists? If so, which form of free will do you believe in?

Yes, I do. At least, I lean strongly in that direction. I believe in a form of free will that arises from an irreducible personhood as a source of causation. One could call it "self-determination" or "agent causation". It is not, to my mind, a form of compatibilism or libertarian free will, at least as far as I have seen these views defined and discussed. It is obviously not "determinism" in the free will denying sense either.

I reject mechanistic event-event causation in favor of entity-action causation. I favor emergentism over reductionism. I also have a dual-aspect view of the mind-body distinction as opposed to monism. Those doctrines I drop simultaneously drop the sort of viewpoint in which free will is impossible or incoherent.

I'll grant that we, as persons, are influenced in many ways in our decision-making, but influence does not quite equal a pre-determined outcome. We are capable of reflecting on our future, and can make genuine choices from among a number of fully possible courses of action. In other words, we as persons can be the cause of a pattern of change that wasn't inevitable.

However, I don't think that free will decisions are frequent in most people's lives. Some people can live on an unreflective "auto-pilot" for years (acting on habit, emotion, desire, urge, etc), making hardly one free willed decision. Any action that seems lilke it arises from habit or unreflective motivation is almost certainly not an act of free will.

I don't claim to be able to prove this model correct, nor do I have some knock-out punch against relatively deterministic views. It is what makes the most sense to me given human experience and philosophical considerations.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Yeah, I already suspected that. Still wanted to know what it would look like in the end.

So, what would I have to vote? Do I vote yes, along with the Libertarians with whom I absolutely disagree. OTOH, it is not that it matters so much.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I´ve just finished reading Bieri´s "Das Handwerk der Freiheit".
400 pages dealing with concepts of freedom and freewill. In my view Bieri is one of the great thinkers of our times. The book is not only intelligent but highly pleasurable to read, and it doesn´t require you to be well-versed in philosophy (e.g. he avoids all philosophical technical terms).
Recommended to everyone who´s capable of reading German.

Das hört sich ja gar nicht schlecht an.
(That doesn't sound too bad.)

 

[The Engineer]

I'm not exactly an advocate of mind-body-dualism, in fact I created an entire thread about this topic in which I refuted the idea of the brain and the mind being separate entities. Obviously, this means that I won't accept the notion of free will as being separated from our brain processes.


Our will is yet another brain process, and obviously, this process is influenced by our thoughts, emotions and desires. You could call those things the input, the output is our decision. Obviously, without an input, you can't have an output. To say that your decisions can be independent of your internal processes is like saying that a mathematical formula with only blanks can give you an actual number.


In short, your free will is not free of the influence of internal factors.


The next question would be if our free will can be independent of external factors. This isn't the case, as our brain is influenced by the outside world, and even if the decision-making process itself wasn't influenced by external factors, then its input would be influenced or even determined by them; this, in turn, would influence the output, i.e. the decision.


Does this mean we don't make our own decisions? No. Our brain makes the decisions, and we are our brain. The decision-making process is a part of ourselves.


I hope I made myself clear. Took me half an hour to formulate this, for some reason.

So, what would I have to vote? Do I vote yes, along with the Libertarians with whom I absolutely disagree. OTOH, it is not that it matters so much.

If you really can't answer the question of whether free will exists with yes or no, then it makes no sense for you to vote. The poll wasn't so much meant to represent any actual views, rather my intention was to see whether the users (a) believe in a concept of free will, (b) believe their concept of free will to be something that can even be called free will. For example, I have a concept of free will, but it's nothing like the mainstream version of it, which is why I voted for no.

 

[Rajni]

I voted "yes", but I want to explain that a bit.

I usually say that, to some degree, our wills aren't free, sometimes referencing the bible which contains a boatload of verses that suggest God's in the driver's seat, at least more so than what is commonly thought, and certainly more than it feels He is. I mean, is He making me type this right now, or have I chosen to type this? I feel as though I've chosen to do so, but not knowing the intricacies of how God operates, it could very well be all Him, and just because I feel as though it was my choice to post this doesn't have to mean that it was my choice.

Anyway, yeah, I tend to believe for practical purposes that while we (seem to) have a limited range of choices we can make, they are decisively contained within Divinely-set parameters. For example, I can freely choose chocolate ice cream over vanilla or blue socks over white (well as freely as such options are available -- oops!), but my will isn't free enough to change the color of my eyes from blue to hazel, or my gender from female to male, no matter how willful I am about it.

In fact, now that I think about it, not only are my choices of ice-cream/socks limited by the latter's availability, but my very inclination to even want ice-cream/socks at all is predetermined based upon the personality/tendencies wired into me prior to my having a vote on said wiring.

 

[Paradoxum]

I don't believe we have free will. By this I mean that we couldn't have acted differently than we did.

I say this because either our decisions are made in a certain direction for some reason, or they are random. Random isn't free. Even if you make decisions for some reason, those reasons will ultimate be traced back to conditions outside your control, including your state of mind and the way you think.

Objectively this is true, and inescapable in my opinion. Subjectively, though, we must assume free will to be able to act. But I do think ethics should consider our determined and weak nature when trying to figure out what is right.

Yes, I do. At least, I lean strongly in that direction. I believe in a form of free will that arises from an irreducible personhood as a source of causation. One could call it "self-determination" or "agent causation". It is not, to my mind, a form of compatibilism or libertarian free will, at least as far as I have seen these views defined and discussed. It is obviously not "determinism" in the free will denying sense either.

How could such a thing make a choice that isn't random? If there is no reason you point to why it chose to act like it did, then it would appear to be random.

I reject mechanistic event-event causation in favor of entity-action causation. I favor emergentism over reductionism. I also have a dual-aspect view of the mind-body distinction as opposed to monism. Those doctrines I drop simultaneously drop the sort of viewpoint in which free will is impossible or incoherent.

If this is important to your view on free will could you explain why?

Does this mean we don't make our own decisions? No. Our brain makes the decisions, and we are our brain. The decision-making process is a part of ourselves.

But you can only come to this conclusion because you assume the brain makes a decision. But the brain is just a machine, working by physics and biology. The word 'decision' can only be applied to mental events, or at least can't be applied the same to physical and mental events.

Perhaps you mean that we make the decisions because a process that we have named 'decision' has taken place in us. But is this much different from saying that rocks control their own actions? Obviously the process which decides how the rock will act occurs within the rock.

 

[juvenissun]

I don't believe we have free will. By this I mean that we couldn't have acted differently than we did.

Have you experienced a moment when you have a real hard time to determine one way or another? Are you really fee to choose at that moment?

 

[Paradoxum]

Have you experienced a moment when you have a real hard time to determine one way or another? Are you really fee to choose at that moment?

Yeah, I'm not good at making decisions quickly.

But I don't think we are free.

 

[Eudaimonist]

How could such a thing make a choice that isn't random?

The reason you think that a free will choice has to be random is almost certainly because at some deep cognitive level you are implicitly accepting reductionism, mechanistic causation, or something related to such paradigms. I take the radical view that we make decisions as irreducible persons, not clockwork mechanisms or random number generators. It a different paradigm.

I'll grant that if one allows oneself to apply a Newtonian way of looking at the nature of reality, determinism is an inevitable conclusion.

If this is important to your view on free will could you explain why?

Entity-action causation recognizes that entities, not events, are the source of causes. That means that one isn't stuck with an infinite or extremely long chain of ineluctable causes causing everything we see today. Human individuals may be sources of causation themselves.

Emergentism recognizes that the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. The powers of an entity aren't limited to the powers of its parts. An emergent person may be self-determining.

The reason why dual-aspect theory helps is best understood by reading the article that I had linked, but I'll just mention now that it allows one to see how one could accept introspection as a reason to see oneself as causally efficacious, instead of a windup robot.


eudaimonia,

Mark

 

[Paradoxum]

The reason you think that a free will choice has to be random is almost certainly because at some deep cognitive level you are implicitly accepting reductionism, mechanistic causation, or something related to such paradigms. I take the radical view that we make decisions as irreducible persons, not clockwork mechanisms or random number generators. It a different paradigm.

Well I agree that thinking there is some sort of 'soul' that is separate from the causation of nature does seem to free the mind from the determinism of physics. I accept that the mind could be an emergent entity that is more than the neurons that cause its existence. This seems like a good way of understanding why mind is so different from matter. It just doesn't seem to free the mind from determinism.

I'll grant that if one allows oneself to apply a Newtonian way of looking at the nature of reality, determinism is an inevitable conclusion.

My explanation wasn't about the determinism of physics though. It was about the reasons for decision or action. If I choose to pick up a pen there is a reason I choose that. Those reasons will eventually be followed back to circumstances outside my control or prior states of mind. Those prior states of mind will be follow back until my birth. At that point I can't be considered free; therefore the first decision I make is made because of a state of mind outside my control and because of stimuli outside my control.

Entity-action causation recognizes that entities, not events, are the source of causes. That means that one isn't stuck with an infinite or extremely long chain of ineluctable causes causing everything we see today. Human individuals may be sources of causation themselves.

In response I would say that entities were once just events when they were young.

Emergentism recognizes that the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. The powers of an entity aren't limited to the powers of its parts. An emergent person may be self-determining.

I'm not against an emergent mind.

The reason why dual-aspect theory helps is best understood by reading the article that I had linked, but I'll just mention now that it allows one to see how one could accept introspection as a reason to see oneself as causally efficacious, instead of a windup robot.

Sorry but I can't be bothered to read the link right now.

If you want to type up your personal understanding I will read it though.

I think I know about double-aspect theory is anyway. I have considered that this could be true. I think Spinoza also held this and also rejected free will. Not that he must be right, but I also don't think this means there must be free will on this view. Even if there isn't event-event causation there could be (and probably must be to avoid randomness) thought-thought causation.

 

[juvenissun]

Yeah, I'm not good at making decisions quickly.

But I don't think we are free.

Why not? You considered this and that and this and that. Finally, you still don't know which one to choose. But eventually, you choose one.

Why are you not free in this case?

 

[quatona]

Why not? You considered this and that and this and that. Finally, you still don't know which one to choose. But eventually, you choose one.

Why are you not free in this case?

Because the final choice will still be determined by all the factors involved.
As has been the entire back and forth with the decision, the considerations and the reconsiderings.

 

[Paradoxum]

Why not? You considered this and that and this and that. Finally, you still don't know which one to choose. But eventually, you choose one.

Why are you not free in this case?

If I choose to pick up a pen there is a reason I choose that. Those reasons will eventually be followed back to circumstances outside my control or prior states of mind. Those prior states of mind will be follow back until my birth. At that point I can't be considered free; therefore the first decision I make is made because of a state of mind outside my control and because of stimuli outside my control.