Free Will

[elman]

It seems to me that no one has answered the fundamental question here: what is 'free will'? How does it work?

If cognitive processes are fundamentally mechanistic in nature (as our understanding of brain science strongly suggests) then implicit in the assertion of the existence of this 'free will' is the assertion as well that there's some 'ghost in the machine' somewhere 'in there' making these supposedly free choices, in a way that is not fundamentally deterministic, but which is not fundamentally random either (since free will adherents clearly don't mean that either).

It seems to me then that this all gets back to an assertion of something called a soul, I guess, which it seems quite apparent to me is beyond any ability to prove (or disprove) but which I can find no reason to believe.

So I guess, on reflection, this is a 'never the twain shall meet' sort of discussion, a realization I always come to (again) whenever I get involved in a discussion of this topic. I don't seem to be able to come to any other conclusion. Hmmm....

Free will is the ability to chose to love or not love. It works when you chose one way or the other. The existence of free will does not depend on the existence of God or of a soul. I don't think our brain processes are like a robot would be if we were able to build one this sophisticated. The ghost in the machine making the choices is us. Free will does not mean our choices are random and it does not mean we make choices without a reason for our choices and it does not mean we are God and unlimited in our ability to do anything we want. It does mean the choices we make are not forced upon us and it is legitamate to hold us responsible for them-sometimes. Sometimes of course what appears to be our choice is not and is forced on us by something other than our true deciding.

 

[Marz Blak]

Free will is the ability to chose to love or not love. It works when you chose one way or the other.

What about choices that don't have anything to do with love? What about things about which, as far as I can tell, my 'love quotient' is neutral? Does the existence of free will (assuming it exists) affect them too?

It seems you're using an unwarrantedly circumscribed definition here.

In other words, I choose to have a donut or a piece of peach cobbler, a choice which (so far as I can see) has no relationship to love as I think you're using it.

Is the question of whether I have free will or not irrelevant as regards this sort of choice, as you seem to be suggesting? Or am I wrong about what you mean by love?

The existence of free will does not depend on the existence of God or of a soul. I don't think our brain processes are like a robot would be if we were able to build one this sophisticated.

Why not? Are brain processes distinct from the laws of chemistry and physics that describe every other process we're aware of? What reason is there to believe such a thing? And assuming that they are, how do they work? What are the rules?

The ghost in the machine making the choices is us.

So you are saying that 'we' exist somehow distinctly from our brains and the processes running in them? What is this if not a soul?

Free will does not mean our choices are random and it does not mean we make choices without a reason for our choices and it does not mean we are God and unlimited in our ability to do anything we want. It does mean the choices we make are not forced upon us and it is legitamate to hold us responsible for them-sometimes. Sometimes of course what appears to be our choice is not and is forced on us by something other than our true deciding.

If your basic definition of free will is the ability to choose among available options without (or apart from) any external coercion, then I certainly have no argument with your definition, or with the existence of free will defined thusly.

In talking to free will adherents, though, I usually get the sense that they mean something more than that, though they seem to have a difficult time explaining what that 'something more' is, exactly.

As far as responsibility goes, it seems to me that many people assert the existence of free will because they can't see a logical justification for the assignment of responsibility without it, but I think that that is a misguided notion. I think of responsibility as just a sort of feedback mechanism influencing our desires and thus allowing us to learn to make better choices. In feeling responsible, or in (in some cases) having responsibility imposed on us, our desires are affected, and this affects our actions.

The sociopath is the way he is mainly because his desires to do hurtful things are not mediated by empathy or a sense of responsibility to others for his acts, which, in 'normal' people, cause desires that conflict with the hurt-causing ones. It doesn't follow that he has more 'free will' than the average person who does have a conscience.

 

[crazy4Christ007]

Interesting. Humans have free will to a point, yet God has destined some (Romans- "vessels for Him...") to be His chosen people. Here I am not referring to Jews or Gent. rather the flock itself. We don't know who is chosen though, even if some claim to be. God knows what we are going to pick just as me and you know that it is normal to marry at age 18-30. God know's it will happen we have a choice for it to happen. This is clearly speaking upon a Christian view apparently.

What about choices that don't have anything to do with love? What about things about which, as far as I can tell, my 'love quotient' is neutral? Does the existence of free will (assuming it exists) affect them too?

It seems you're using an unwarrantedly circumscribed definition here.

In other words, I choose to have a donut or a piece of peach cobbler, a choice which (so far as I can see) has no relationship to love as I think you're using it.

Is the question of whether I have free will or not irrelevant as regards this sort of choice, as you seem to be suggesting? Or am I wrong about what you mean by love?



Why not? Are brain processes distinct from the laws of chemistry and physics that describe every other process we're aware of? What reason is there to believe such a thing? And assuming that they are, how do they work? What are the rules?



So you are saying that 'we' exist somehow distinctly from our brains and the processes running in them? What is this if not a soul?



If your basic definition of free will is the ability to choose among available options without (or apart from) any external coercion, then I certainly have no argument with your definition, or with the existence of free will defined thusly.

In talking to free will adherents, though, I usually get the sense that they mean something more than that, though they seem to have a difficult time explaining what that 'something more' is, exactly.

As far as responsibility goes, it seems to me that many people assert the existence of free will because they can't see a logical justification for the assignment of responsibility without it, but I think that that is a misguided notion. I think of responsibility as just a sort of feedback mechanism influencing our desires and thus allowing us to learn to make better choices. In feeling responsible, or in (in some cases) having responsibility imposed on us, our desires are affected, and this affects our actions.

The sociopath is the way he is mainly because his desires to do hurtful things are not mediated by empathy or a sense of responsibility to others for his acts, which, in 'normal' people, cause desires that conflict with the hurt-causing ones. It doesn't follow that he has more 'free will' than the average person who does have a conscience.

 

[elman]

Interesting. Humans have free will to a point, yet God has destined some (Romans- "vessels for Him...") to be His chosen people. Here I am not referring to Jews or Gent. rather the flock itself. We don't know who is chosen though, even if some claim to be. God knows what we are going to pick just as me and you know that it is normal to marry at age 18-30. God know's it will happen we have a choice for it to happen. This is clearly speaking upon a Christian view apparently.

We do know who God has chosen. The scriptures tells us we can know them by their love. God forces no one to love their neighbor or not love their neighbor.

 

[crazy4Christ007]

Yes well not always, one can be hypocritical.

We do know who God has chosen. The scriptures tells us we can know them by their love.

 

[elman]

Yes well not always, one can be hypocritical.

If you keep watching you will be able to tell the ones who are hypocitical.

 

[levi501]

It seems to me that no one has answered the fundamental question here: what is 'free will'? How does it work?

Freewill is comfort food for the mentally sick.

 

[elman]

Marz Blak
Quote
Originally Posted by: elman

Free will is the ability to chose to love or not love. It works when you chose one way or the other.

"What about choices that don't have anything to do with love? What about things about which, as far as I can tell, my 'love quotient' is neutral? Does the existence of free will (assuming it exists) affect them too? "

We have choices that do not have eternal significance. The choice to love or not does have eternal consequences.

"It seems you're using an unwarrantedly circumscribed definition here."

I am discussing what matters. The same free will that we share with the animals is boring to discuss.

"In other words, I choose to have a donut or a piece of peach cobbler, a choice which (so far as I can see) has no relationship to love as I think you're using it."

OK that is part of free will-not worth talking about-but a part of free will.

"Is the question of whether I have free will or not irrelevant as regards this sort of choice, as you seem to be suggesting? Or am I wrong about what you mean by love?"

I am talking about action for others rather than self as being love.

The existence of free will does not depend on the existence of God or of a soul. I don't think our brain processes are like a robot would be if we were able to build one this sophisticated.

"Why not? Are brain processes distinct from the laws of chemistry and physics that describe every other process we're aware of? What reason is there to believe such a thing? And assuming that they are, how do they work? What are the rules?"

We are able to love or not love. I don't think you are going to create a machine able to duplicate us on that. I guess when you do we will have to discuss it.

The ghost in the machine making the choices is us.

"So you are saying that 'we' exist somehow distinctly from our brains and the processes running in them? What is this if not a soul?"

I think it is a soul. I do believe we are more than the sum total of our chemicals.

Free will does not mean our choices are random and it does not mean we make choices without a reason for our choices and it does not mean we are God and unlimited in our ability to do anything we want. It does mean the choices we make are not forced upon us and it is legitamate to hold us responsible for them-sometimes. Sometimes of course what appears to be our choice is not and is forced on us by something other than our true deciding.

"If your basic definition of free will is the ability to choose among available options without (or apart from) any external coercion, then I certainly have no argument with your definition, or with the existence of free will defined thusly."

That is not my defintion. I think when we love we do have external influences going on but they do not force us to love. There are also external influences going on that do not force us to not love. Being influence does not mean we are completely controled. If it is more than influences and into coercion to the point that we have no choice then yes of course we are unable to have free will in that case.

"In talking to free will adherents, though, I usually get the sense that they mean something more than that, though they seem to have a difficult time explaining what that 'something more' is, exactly."

Maybe they like me don't agree with your defintion.

"As far as responsibility goes, it seems to me that many people assert the existence of free will because they can't see a logical justification for the assignment of responsibility without it, but I think that that is a misguided notion. I think of responsibility as just a sort of feedback mechanism influencing our desires and thus allowing us to learn to make better choices. In feeling responsible, or in (in some cases) having responsibility imposed on us, our desires are affected, and this affects our actions."

If you think you are not responsbile for you choices, you are deluding yourself. I think some people want to argue there is no free will because they want to avoid taking responsibilty for their own bad actions.

"The sociopath is the way he is mainly because his desires to do hurtful things are not mediated by empathy or a sense of responsibility to others for his acts, which, in 'normal' people, cause desires that conflict with the hurt-causing ones. It doesn't follow that he has more 'free will' than the average person who does have a conscience."

I agree that someone who is mentally defective may not have control of themselves and may not have free will but that does not let you off the hook.

 

[divided sky]

Interesting. Humans have free will to a point, yet God has destined some (Romans- "vessels for Him...") to be His chosen people. Here I am not referring to Jews or Gent. rather the flock itself.

So, the ones who have free will are the ones not chosen by God? And the ones chosen do not?

We don't know who is chosen though, even if some claim to be. God knows what we are going to pick just as me and you know that it is normal to marry at age 18-30. God know's it will happen we have a choice for it to happen. This is clearly speaking upon a Christian view apparently.

But if God has chosen some to be saved and others to be not saved, doesn't he have to pretty much direct the course of history so that things work out as he planned them? If so, the reason God knows everything from beginning to end is because he predetermined it to be that way. So, even if it feels like you have free choice, you're just playing your part in God's already written book.

 

[David Gould]

I will repeat here the argument that I have used ad nauseum against free will on these forums:

1.) A cause is either caused or uncaused.

(Law of excluded middle. Examples of uncaused causes would be God or a quantum event. Examples of caused causes would be dominos falling over.)

2.) If a cause is caused, it is not free. (For example, if me saying 'boo' causes you to jump, you jumping was not free.)

3.) If a cause is uncaused, it is not willed.
(self explanatory, imo, but this is the one where the most difficulty arises)

4.) Hence, free will cannot exist.

I think this logically follows.

Of course, this again depends on what definition you use for free will. Personally, I think that it removes the definition of free will that everyone actually thinks we have - which is a magical ability to be our own first causes in some bizarre infinite regression.

 

[Marz Blak]

David--

...I think that it removes the definition of free will that everyone actually thinks we have - which is a magical ability to be our own first causes in some bizarre infinite regression....

This is what I was trying to get at when I said, earlier in the thread (#19):

It seems to me any given event must either be deterministic or random, with no gray zone between.
...

Free will as commonly described is stipulated to be neither. Thus, the only way it could exist is as an ad-hoc first cause seated in the mind.

This implies some sort of dualistic philosophy of the mind, and unless/until someone shows me a mind separated from a brain, I won't go there. It makes free will something in the realm of the supernatural, where I will not follow it, because even if it's true, it is epistemically out of bounds, with no way to know anything about it that I can see.

I guess it all comes down to whether one believes that mental processes are the same as any others we know of--that is, that they follow the laws of physics as we understand them--or whether one believes they are behave according to some other rules (which one can refer to as 'supernatural' or 'magical', since that's basically what something must be if it's not subject to the laws of physics, right?).

As I also said earlier, this is, I think, a 'never the twain shall meet' sort of thing: people who believe in things like magic have a fundamentally different model of the universe from empiricist/naturalist types, with no way I can see to bridge this gap.

 

[elman]

David--

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This is what I was trying to get at when I said, earlier in the thread (#19):

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I guess it all comes down to whether one believes that mental processes are the same as any others we know of--that is, that they follow the laws of physics as we understand them--or whether one believes they are behave according to some other rules (which one can refer to as 'supernatural' or 'magical', since that's basically what something must be if it's not subject to the laws of physics, right?).

As I also said earlier, this is, I think, a 'never the twain shall meet' sort of thing: people who believe in things like magic have a fundamentally different model of the universe from empiricist/naturalist types, with no way I can see to bridge this gap.

I don't believe in magic but I don't believe oour thoughts are totally controled by chemistry either or if they are we have some way of controling the chemistry that we do not understand. I do understand a chemical imbalance can effect our mental ability.

 

[elman]

I will repeat here the argument that I have used ad nauseum against free will on these forums:

1.) A cause is either caused or uncaused.

(Law of excluded middle. Examples of uncaused causes would be God or a quantum event. Examples of caused causes would be dominos falling over.)

2.) If a cause is caused, it is not free. (For example, if me saying 'boo' causes you to jump, you jumping was not free.)

3.) If a cause is uncaused, it is not willed.
(self explanatory, imo, but this is the one where the most difficulty arises)

4.) Hence, free will cannot exist.

I think this logically follows.

Of course, this again depends on what definition you use for free will. Personally, I think that it removes the definition of free will that everyone actually thinks we have - which is a magical ability to be our own first causes in some bizarre infinite regression.

I will respond as I have ad nauseum- if I caused it that shows I have free will. Hence free will can exist. Example you chose to help someone in need. To do that you use your own magical ability to be your own primary cause just as you did when you posted here, no bizarre infinte regression involved. This magical ability is what makes you a human instead of a rock.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

I will respond as I have ad nauseum- if I caused it that shows I have free will. Hence free will can exist. Example you chose to help someone in need. To do that you use your own magical ability to be your own primary cause just as you did when you posted here, no bizarre infinte regression involved. This magical ability is what makes you a human instead of a rock.

If I choose to help someone in need, I either have a reason or I do not. If I do not have a reason, then I'm acting randomly, which would negate freewill.

If I have a reason, then we need to investigate that reason. Is there a cause for the reason I helped someone? If there is no cause for that reason, then it was random, which negates freewill. If there was a cause for the reason I helped someone, then we need to investigate that reason.

Is there a cause for the reason for the reason I helped someone? If there is no cause for that reason, then it was random, which negates freewill. If there was a cause for the reason for the reason I helped someone, then we need to investigate that reason.

And so on and so forth...

Are we in agreement so far? If not, please point out the error in the logic.

 

[Marz Blak]

This is very clear. Very good.

It hightlights, too, something I've always sensed about the assertion of free will but never quite formed as a thought up to now, and that is how, in my experience, most people who assert the existence of free will don't want to do so by completely denying the existence of deterministic processes (well, some *do* deny that the universe is fundamentally deterministic, but for most people determinism is, pragmatically speaking, a well-settled existential principle, at least at the macro level; so this doesn't seem to be a fruitful approach).

So they sort of draw a line and say, in effect, 'before this line things are somehow non-deterministic' (though they don't generally define *where* or *how* that line is drawn, or *how* things work in this non-deterministic event space).

Then they pretty much leave at that and try to stop thinking about it, it seems.

Your regression example shows how this approach is completely unsatisfactory and question-begging.

 

[elman]

If I choose to help someone in need, I either have a reason or I do not. If I do not have a reason, then I'm acting randomly, which would negate freewill.

If I have a reason, then we need to investigate that reason. Is there a cause for the reason I helped someone? If there is no cause for that reason, then it was random, which negates freewill. If there was a cause for the reason I helped someone, then we need to investigate that reason.

Is there a cause for the reason for the reason I helped someone? If there is no cause for that reason, then it was random, which negates freewill. If there was a cause for the reason for the reason I helped someone, then we need to investigate that reason.

And so on and so forth...

Are we in agreement so far? If not, please point out the error in the logic.

Yes there is always a reason, no that reason did not force you to act.

 

[elman]

This is very clear. Very good.

It hightlights, too, something I've always sensed about the assertion of free will but never quite formed as a thought up to now, and that is how, in my experience, most people who assert the existence of free will don't want to do so by completely denying the existence of deterministic processes (well, some *do* deny that the universe is fundamentally deterministic, but for most people determinism is, pragmatically speaking, a well-settled existential principle, at least at the macro level; so this doesn't seem to be a fruitful approach).

So they sort of draw a line and say, in effect, 'before this line things are somehow non-deterministic' (though they don't generally define *where* or *how* that line is drawn, or *how* things work in this non-deterministic event space).

Then they pretty much leave at that and try to stop thinking about it, it seems.

Your regression example shows how this approach is completely unsatisfactory and question-begging.

If I understand what you mean by deterministic processes as we are forced to do everything we do by some force outside of ourselves, then I deny deterministic processes. There seems to be no reasonable reason to believe I am unable to make my own choices.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

Yes there is always a reason, no that reason did not force you to act.

Your reasons don't cause you to act? I find that odd. My reasons cause me to act. I wonder if I'm the only one...

What causes you to act?

 

[Marz Blak]

If I understand what you mean by deterministic processes as we are forced to do everything we do by some force outside of ourselves, then I deny deterministic processes. There seems to be no reasonable reason to believe I am unable to make my own choices.

By deterministic processes, in this instance, I mean only common-sense cause and effect.

I don't mean to say that in the case of people doing things, that this cause is external to them, or anything like that, nor do I mean to imply that any person lacks the ability to make choices in what actions he will take.

 

[levi501]

If I choose to help someone in need, I either have a reason or I do not. If I do not have a reason, then I'm acting randomly, which would negate freewill.

If I have a reason, then we need to investigate that reason. Is there a cause for the reason I helped someone? If there is no cause for that reason, then it was random, which negates freewill. If there was a cause for the reason I helped someone, then we need to investigate that reason.

Is there a cause for the reason for the reason I helped someone? If there is no cause for that reason, then it was random, which negates freewill. If there was a cause for the reason for the reason I helped someone, then we need to investigate that reason.

And so on and so forth...

Are we in agreement so far? If not, please point out the error in the logic.

He will never get it... the idea that free-will might not exist is too uncomfortable for the guy. He trolls free-will threads not looking for discussion but rather to reassert ad nauseum that free will exists as if doing this is a compelling argument. Just FYI, before you spend too much time on him...