NationStates Jolt Archive

One of those religion discussions brought up the question, in my mind, of "how much free will do we really have?"

Thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that we have free will in how we act, but not in how we think.

A person can "choose" to say or do something;
however, a person often cannot "choose" to think or not think something.

(Whimsical example - WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT THINK ABOUT A PINK ELEPHANT!)

We have no choice in anything, free will is a myth. We just try to enjoy the ride.

We have no choice in anything, free will is a myth. We just try to enjoy the ride.


Yup

All seems to depend upon what you understand by the word free in the phrase free will.
If you were, at the time of making a decision, compelled to make that decision in the sense that no other alternative was available, then this is clearly not free.

However, if other alternatives were available, and you did not take them, then by one sense of the word your decision was of your own free will. This is, however, a very limited sense, as it does not consider psychologuical factors in any way.

If you want to have a strong view of freedom of the will, one in which not only are there other alternative actions available, but in which the decision as to which action will be realised is in no way whatsoever determined by prior events, then you have a problem. The problem is that specified by Leibniz in his arguments against absolute space, transferred to another field. If there is no determination, then why would you choose one action and not the other? Purely voluntary action appears to be a paradox.

So, I opt for weighted determinism of the will, wherein there is some freedom of movement in the choice space, but the actual decision will be determined by the factors present at that moment, these include the attitude of the individual toward things.

(The whole discussion gets horribly complicated after a while)

I believe free will exists. If it doesn't, then I could easily go on a killing spree. If I don't have free will, then why does it matter? It's not like I had a choice in whether I went on a killing spree. As such, I tend to favor philosophical libertarianism.

about 30%

we have our genetics, our past, our current evironment, the laws of the universe, our societal and family programming.

then we have the things we can exercise our free will on

sorta like when you ask the 2 year old "do you want to wear the red dress or the blue dress?"

Wow, tahts totally the opposite of what i think, reasonabilityness. I mean, no one really has freedom to act however they want, there are numerous societal constraints, and acting a certain way can be punishable or inappropriate. You can choose however you want to act, but with consequences, some very undesriable, simply because of social norms. Though no one can control your thoughts, and you can think whatever you want, consequence free. It's until thoughts become actions that you really feel the constraint. I mean has someone ever heard of law, those are a set of constraints and guidelines, some make a lot of sense, some dont, like not being able to park on a meridian in the road. They do it in europe all the time, no big deal, here, in NA, big no-no, why? though no one can have access to your mind and no one can control your thoughts, besides you can think about a pink elephant all you want, they wouldnt know you would anyway, how could they enforce it?. Thats my peice. Though you truly can act and think however you wnat, just one comes with consequences and the other one doesnt. So yes, free will exists, personally, not communally. or nationally, or any larger scale then personal will.

I believe free will is an illusion. When you get a choice, you decide according to an immense amount of factors. You couldn't possibly make a different decision that moment, since there is only one possible outcome of those factors, (you can think of it as a calculation filled with loads of variables. these variables have certain values right when you decide, and there is only one possible outcome from the calculation for those values) the one possible decision that you can make. So since you can't choose what to choose, you have no free will.

(Whimsical example - WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT THINK ABOUT A PINK ELEPHANT!)

I decided not to think about a pink elephant and I stood by it.

The matrix revolutions finally came up with a phrase that makes sense of how I think of free will. This was when the oracle said "You didn't come here to make the choice. You've already made it. You came here to understand why you made it."

We have no choice in anything, free will is a myth. We just try to enjoy the ride.

Of course, this means that there is no way to blame anyone for doing anything right or wrong. Are you willing to accept those consequences? This means that we should shut down all of the prisons because we can't hold the criminals responsible. We should also shut down the Nobel Prize because we can't hold people responsible for the good things they do either.

Of course, this means that there is no way to blame anyone for doing anything right or wrong. Are you willing to accept those consequences? This means that we should shut down all of the prisons because we can't hold the criminals responsible. We should also shut down the Nobel Prize because we can't hold people responsible for the good things they do either.

free will can be separated from responsibility for your actions. I could look it up, but it's a few pages and it's allready late.

i'll try to give an example anyway:
Most people don't want to die, so when faced with someone who commited murder, they will have to punish him. If they punish him, others will see that if they murder someone, it will cost them. As a result of this, they will be less inclined to murder someone and less people will be murdered which is a goal of society.

Of course, this means that there is no way to blame anyone for doing anything right or wrong. Are you willing to accept those consequences? This means that we should shut down all of the prisons because we can't hold the criminals responsible. We should also shut down the Nobel Prize because we can't hold people responsible for the good things they do either.

Someone always pulls this fallacy. (So much for free will, heh)

Why punish criminals?

Think about it.

Why would you want to take prisoners and throw them in jail.

What possible effect could it have since everything's determined based on what goes on around one.

It can't possibly be that people, knowing that doing crime will result in jail time, will, in a determinable fashion, be less inclinced to do crime, as the benefits become outweighed by the possible penalty.

Certainly not.

here's a slight tangent, but one i always enjoy discussing:

assuming, for the sake of argument, that human beings can have free will, would it be possible to have that free will if there were no evil in the world? if it was impossible for humans to choose to be wicked, would we still have free will?

Someone always pulls this fallacy. (So much for free will, heh)

Why punish criminals?

Think about it.

Why would you want to take prisoners and throw them in jail.

What possible effect could it have since everything's determined based on what goes on around one.

It can't possibly be that people, knowing that doing crime will result in jail time, will, in a determinable fashion, be less inclinced to do crime, as the benefits become outweighed by the possible penalty.

Certainly not.


This, and the previous post by Illich Jackal both assume that prison is a deterent to others and not a punishment for the crime itself. This, if true, would be the most blatant distortion of ethical reasoning that there can be.

If we have no free will, then, as a matter of necessity we have no moral obligations, nor can we make moral judgements. Placing people in jail, as a deterent to others is permissable under that system only because there would be no basis upon which to criticize the punishment of the innocent. (The person committing the crime is innocent as he or she could not do other than commit the crime, innocent in the true sense of the word.) The argument that punishment for crime would not be justified is not a falacy. The replies given do not deal with punishment. They deal only with social engineering in a fully deterministic world.

However, I do not believe in determinism, so for me morality still has value.

free will can be separated from responsibility for your actions. I could look it up, but it's a few pages and it's allready late.

i'll try to give an example anyway:
Most people don't want to die, so when faced with someone who commited murder, they will have to punish him. If they punish him, others will see that if they murder someone, it will cost them. As a result of this, they will be less inclined to murder someone and less people will be murdered which is a goal of society.

Nope. People would still murder, as a deterant is based on the idea that people will choose based on the consequences. Determanism says that we can't choose.

Someone always pulls this fallacy. (So much for free will, heh)

Why punish criminals?

Think about it.

Why would you want to take prisoners and throw them in jail.

What possible effect could it have since everything's determined based on what goes on around one.

It can't possibly be that people, knowing that doing crime will result in jail time, will, in a determinable fashion, be less inclinced to do crime, as the benefits become outweighed by the possible penalty.

Certainly not.

Why punish criminals? It wouldn't be punishment, as we can't hold people responsible for their actions when they were not free to do otherwise. People have acknowledged this since at least Kant. Morality implies free will. If we can't hold people responsible, we can't do morality.

here's a slight tangent, but one i always enjoy discussing:

assuming, for the sake of argument, that human beings can have free will, would it be possible to have that free will if there were no evil in the world? if it was impossible for humans to choose to be wicked, would we still have free will?

As evil is determined to be that that is contrary to a defined belief system and moral code, then it would clearly be possible to have free will and no evil. Just change your belief system and moral code in such a way that no possible human act contravenes either. Free will to do whatever you want, but no evil acts ever done.

As evil is determined to be that that is contrary to a defined belief system and moral code, then it would clearly be possible to have free will and no evil. Just change your belief system and moral code in such a way that no possible human act contravenes either. Free will to do whatever you want, but no evil acts ever done.
yay, another moral relativist! good, we need more of you around here :).

Nope. People would still murder, as a deterant is based on the idea that people will choose based on the consequences. Determanism says that we can't choose.

The determinism includes all past experience. The punishment of others would be added into this expewriential equation and thereby have a deterent effect. That is the theory, anyway.

Why punish criminals? It wouldn't be punishment, as we can't hold people responsible for their actions when they were not free to do otherwise. People have acknowledged this since at least Kant. Morality implies free will. If we can't hold people responsible, we can't do morality.

Well, for Kant, at least, free will implies that one is subject to the moral law, not the other way round. The Kantian moral law, though, is empty, and non normative. If we are determined, then all moral evaluation is null and void. we are left only with social engineering as a justification of crime and punishment. That is unless the desire for vengeance is also determined to exist of course.

yay, another moral relativist! good, we need more of you around here :).

Not so fast my friend.
Evil, for me has nothing to do with morality at the end of the day, I view it as a purely religious concept. However, when discussing "the problem of evil" in any of its forms, one is normally arguing with a theist of some kind, who accepts an externally imposed "moral code".

I used the term moral code, as this is a relatively clear way of explaining the position. Actually I am a moral humanist, in the sense that I believe our moral values derive from our human existence and the condition of being human. So yes, in one sense I am a relativist, but only in contrast to say, Kant's, universilism of rationality.

I think that we have partial free will.
We have to choose but really we are not choosing anything we just follow the destiny of God.

The argument of whether punishment is necessary IS in fact a fallacy of distraction. It is irrelevant to the topic and should be dropped immediately.

The reason that we do not have free will is simple. If you are put into multiple situations in which all constraints are the same and all stimuli are the same, you are going to make the same choice over and over and over again. Therefore you are given an illusion of choice, but the other choice was not a viable one.

The argument of whether punishment is necessary IS in fact a fallacy of distraction. It is irrelevant to the topic and should be dropped immediately.

The reason that we do not have free will is simple. If you are put into multiple situations in which all constraints are the same and all stimuli are the same, you are going to make the same choice over and over and over again. Therefore you are given an illusion of choice, but the other choice was not a viable one.

If you consider all constraints to include your conscious desire, then this is both true and trivial. If you allow free will, then the conscious desire may be different even if all other constraints were identical. Of course this is untestable, either way, as the same constraints can not be imposed at two diferent times, by definition. (The times are diferent to start with, experience will also be necessarily diferent.)

That is why true democracy is impossible...

I believe in a prewritten destiny in a sense. It is not something which has been written out or something, it is simply that there are multiple universes occuring simultaneously. Each universe is an infinitesimal quantity of time ahead of another, so all that we have done, already occured in one of those parallels. So in theory we have free will, but at the same time our action has already been determined, I can roll a die (I originally wrote day, don't ask why) and it can come out as a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, but whatever I rolled was already rolled. Doesn't make much sense, but meh.

If you consider all constraints to include your conscious desire, then this is both true and trivial. If you allow free will, then the conscious desire may be different even if all other constraints were identical. Of course this is untestable, either way, as the same constraints can not be imposed at two diferent times, by definition. (The times are diferent to start with, experience will also be necessarily diferent.)
I think his point was that if you play the universe forward from any given point in its history, right up to the point where you decide something, your decision will be the same. Of course, that's (at present) an untestable hypothesis.

There might be some clever indirect way of testing it. For example, if we ever got good enough at modelling, and had powerful enough computers, and we were able to inerringly predict anyone's behaviour in, say, a second in advance, I'd be suitably convinced. A complete physical model of humans would do it for me as well. I don't expect to see either in my lifetime though.

But doesn't a model presume determinance?

I think his point was that if you play the universe forward from any given point in its history, right up to the point where you decide something, your decision will be the same. Of course, that's (at present) an untestable hypothesis.

And I was disagreeing with this, whilst recognising that no empirical testing of either position could be done.

There might be some clever indirect way of testing it. For example, if we ever got good enough at modelling, and had powerful enough computers, and we were able to inerringly predict anyone's behaviour in, say, a second in advance, I'd be suitably convinced. A complete physical model of humans would do it for me as well. I don't expect to see either in my lifetime though.

Any computer model will be a highly complex algorithm. Now that builds in determinism. It won't work as a test of human free will. A complete physical model also presumes that we are 100% physical. It happens that I agree with this, but not everyone will. Even if these objections are found wanting, it would still be impossible for either model to be placed in the identical situation twice. There is a logical impossibility involved here, which can not be removed by physical means.

Note: I no longer prescribe to Christianity.

~From a religious stand point (christian)...

Bible says free will exsists, but it also says God knows everything that can and will be and who is and isn't going to make it to Heaven. Contradictory, I know, explaination follows allowing both statements to exsist.

Free Will in life is to walk down a path of your choosing and to have that path constantly branch off into a zillion different directions to follow for every second that passes by and choose to one of the branches.

Every second that passes presents a person with an infinite amount of choices to make at that instant, an infinite amount of branching paths to follow. Ex: I could keep typing, or I could go get a drink, or I could go get some food, or I could...et cetra. After that choice has been made, a person is presented with another infinite amount of choices to make at that instant. Ex: Choosing to get some food I could then decide that I'm no longer hungry and come back and keep typing, or I could instead get a drink, or I could instead go talk to a friend, or I could...et cetra.

For God to know everything that can and will be is to simply have him know every possible branch that could ever exsist and to know every possible combination of branches that could be taken and their outcomes within a person's lifespan. Ex: I keep typing and decide to go get something to eat, I keep tpying and I decide to go get a drink, I keep typing and I decide to...et cetra.

~Personal Belief

We have the free will to do whatever we want. The only restrictions on this are the situational/financial restrictions that are in place by our own doing and the social restrictions we place on ourselves.

situational/financial restrictions Ex: I would love to fly to Europe and just toot around, I don't have the money to do that though, and I wouldn't be able to support myself while there. I could choose to make that my goal one day....

social restrictions Ex: I would love to just walk over there and kiss that girl, but she'd probably slap me and I'd get laughed at. The kiss'd be great, but the resulting embarrasement would be a downer. Therefore I don't do it.

*insert crappy path branching explaination here* We choose one path over the other using our personal belief systems and morals, our fear of public scrutiny, and our fear of our friend's thoughts. (these, by far, the most base restrictions we place on ourselves)

To believe that you are not in control of your own will is to simply shirk your responsibilities, whatever they may be. Plus, what's the fun in not having any free will? =P

LOL

...my two cents anyways.

There might be some clever indirect way of testing it. For example, if we ever got good enough at modelling, and had powerful enough computers, and we were able to inerringly predict anyone's behaviour in, say, a second in advance, I'd be suitably convinced. A complete physical model of humans would do it for me as well. I don't expect to see either in my lifetime though.

Actually, if I remember my physics class well enough...if you know the present position and speed of every single piece of matter, you can predict the future because at any given point in time you will be able to calculate where each and every molecule will be at any given moment. So, technically it is possible =) ...but I also remember that position/spead thing breaking down at some point too, so I don't know for sure...

Actually, if I remember my physics class well enough...if you know the present position and speed of every single piece of matter, you can predict the future because at any given point in time you will be able to calculate where each and every molecule will be at any given moment. So, technically it is possible =) ...but I also remember that position/spead thing breaking down at some point too, so I don't know for sure...

Yeah, it breaks down. Heisenberg showed that it is impossible to know the present position and speed (velocity actually) of any piece of matter. You can know either one, but if you know it precisely the other is completely indeterminate.
Also the prediction presumes classical Newtonian mechanics, which could have been right if Mercury had been in a slightly diferent place. Quantum mechanics simply eliminates the possibility of prediction, as wave functions collapse in an unpredictable manners.

The free variety stinks. It installs that horrible spyware known as physics.

Spend the extra $9.95 per month for the professional version.

It's well worth it. Trust me.

There IS an answer to this discussion...and it's provided by science!

Assume we had NO free will. Then, the world would be predictable (at least by a creator, if not also by its inhabitants). But when we look at the tiniest parts of it - electrons and photons and such - we find that it is not at all predictable, but rather completely statistical.

Therefore, we MUST have free will.

If you examine quantum physics, you will find that it is absolutely impossible to predict the behavior of tiny particles: the building blocks of the world. And it's not that we aren't good enough to do the predictions, but rather that god DOES play dice with the universe -- the behavior of particles is affected by the very act of observing them, and is therefore fundamentally impossible to predict the outcome of anything - not even an omniscient god could do it.

And if you belive in a creator, that's OK - it's just the way that creator set things up. Cool beans!

And notice...you are free NOT to believe me if you so choose. In which case...you PROVE my point anyway!

I tend to classify myself as a philosopher. But the problem of free will is only partially one of philosophy- it's also a problem of biology.

Say we have a bicycle. It's a standard issue, bright pink Huffy with a banana seat, one speed with old-fashioned, my-first-bike backpedal brakes. This bicycle is a machine. You can see all the components of the machine- gears, chain, pedals, wheels, et cetera. As a machine, it is entirely predictable. If you push down on a pedal, that spins a gear, which in turn pulls a chain, and the chain rotates a wheel, and the wheel's spin gives the device movement along the ground. Even if the bicycle were flawed, it would be entirely predictable (though it'd need more complex mathematics)- you could calculate the speed and angle at which a broken chain would fly off, or the amount of energy wasted with a bent gear tooth.

If you were to see this bicycle moving down the street, you could see it as a bicycle moving down the street, of its own free will, with some freak with a fanny pack riding on top with a dopey grin. You could also see it as some prat squat-flying down the sidewalk, and its gender-confused bicycle buddy tagging along, uncomfortably close beneath said prat. However, knowing cause-and-effect, you'd know that the 'tard's pedaling causes the bike's mechanisms to work, and because of the entirely-predictable workings of the bike, movement is achieved.

The human brain is similar. Just more complicated, by leaps and bounds. If you provide electrical stimulus to a single, specific part of the brain, you will have the same result every time. You stimulate one synaptic connection, say, in the lymbic system of the brain, the subject will recall something, and not just something, the SAME thing, every time. Pulses in the medulla oblongatta can make a subject experience thirst or lust or fatigue.

The human brain is a machine.

So let's make this hypothetical. You walk into a white room, close the door, look around. From behind you, a train comes out of a heretofore-unseen hole in the wall, chugging rapidly, blaring its horn, its light in your eyes, barreling along tracks that lead right under your feet. You jump out of the way. And, say, you don't get off the tracks in time and die. Or you jump and roll and live. Or you leap, but not enough, and end up with a bloody stump in place of a leg.

Now, say we take this room, with you in it, reset it, and double it. Now, there are two identical rooms, with two identical yous, and two identical trains. Since you have not changed, everything that happens in both rooms will not only be identical to each other, but will be identical to the first experiment. Because the brain is a machine. You have a set of gears and chains and wheels- the way your brain reacts to stimuli- and they always react in a predictable way. Open door -> Close door. Empty white room -> Dawdle. Evil killer train -> Oh, shit, an evil killer train!

Multiply this as many times as you want- a hundred, a thousand, a million, won't matter. Same, every time.

You are a bike. You are influenced, and you react. It may look like you're acting of your own free will, but you're just a mechanism, a fleshy, pink arrangement of gears and chains and wheels.

And as for the final word?

And notice...you are free NOT to believe me if you so choose. In which case...you PROVE my point anyway!

I am not free to disbelieve your point. I have a pool of experiences that prevents me from doing so- things I've read and thought determine what I will think or believe in the future. I cannot choose what I experience- I just process whatever comes my way, and thus is my world-view formed.

To understand "Free Will" you must watch the movie "Devil's Advocate" Then you'll get it.

As evil is determined to be that that is contrary to a defined belief system and moral code, then it would clearly be possible to have free will and no evil. Just change your belief system and moral code in such a way that no possible human act contravenes either. Free will to do whatever you want, but no evil acts ever done.

Hrm. . .sounds like inverted Augustine, in that in such a system, people are at once both perfectly free, and yet have no choice in whether or not they commit sin (in your hypothetical example, they have no choice about abstaining from sin, whereas Augustine's doctrine of original sin holds that man can do naught but sin).

Nevertheless, I've never been particularly fond of Augustine's reasoning on this point, so by extension I'm not sure I can agree with yours. As a logical counterexample, suppose that a hypothetical people had could elect as their president any person in their country, with one sole proviso: that person had already been vetted by a dominant political party. Would you then be inclined to call the elections in that country free? Or perhaps as a better counterexample, suppose everyone in the country had been brainwashed into a single orthodox political belief. Would you be inclined to call that country democratic if they held elections, or Orwellian (a word that has a strong connotation of being not free)?

Personally, I'm an ardent advocate for free will, even at the expense of Christian dogmas like Augustine. My rationale for this is that in order to accept determinism, you first have to accept some kind of identity theory of mental behavior: the view that any behavior/mental state is linked one for one with a corresponding brain state, and secondly that the brain itself is a rigidly deterministic organ. However, I don't agree with identity theories, because as Hilary Putnam pointed out, you can have brain states without behavioral states (supposing you were trained well enough to endure pain stoicly, you could be in agony but never emote it), and you can have behavioral states without mental states (an actor can easily pretend to be in pain while not suffering from any such condition). As such, mental states and physical states are distinct.

Moreover, I don't think that the brain is a rigidly deterministic organ, because even assuming no spooky ghost in the machine banging on the pineal gland (Descartes' conception of how the soul interacted with the body), quantum mechanics and complexity theory are quite clear about how even simple systems can give rise to emergent properties that were inherently unpredictable from the initial conditions. Granted this would mean redefining the mind as some kind of emergent property of the brain, but this is not unheard of, as there are functionalists today who make precisely that claim.

Thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that we have free will in how we act, but not in how we think.

Explain how this works to me..

If you have no free will in how you think, and what you think determines how you act.. how is it that you can have free will in how you act?

To understand "Free Will" you must watch the movie "Devil's Advocate" Then you'll get it.

Lemme get this straight- my post, featuring eons of philosophy, coupled with minutes-old neuroscientific theory... has been under-cut by a reference to a Keanu Reeves movie?

Ugh. I feel ill.

There IS an answer to this discussion...and it's provided by science!

Assume we had NO free will. Then, the world would be predictable (at least by a creator, if not also by its inhabitants). But when we look at the tiniest parts of it - electrons and photons and such - we find that it is not at all predictable, but rather completely statistical.

Therefore, we MUST have free will.

If you examine quantum physics, you will find that it is absolutely impossible to predict the behavior of tiny particles: the building blocks of the world. And it's not that we aren't good enough to do the predictions, but rather that god DOES play dice with the universe -- the behavior of particles is affected by the very act of observing them, and is therefore fundamentally impossible to predict the outcome of anything - not even an omniscient god could do it.

And if you belive in a creator, that's OK - it's just the way that creator set things up. Cool beans!

And notice...you are free NOT to believe me if you so choose. In which case...you PROVE my point anyway!


This is false logic.

Just because things on the atomic level are unpredictable does not mean that somehow a human being is an exception to the physical rules he lives by. A human being's "free will" isn't going to move those unpredictable electrons any which way.

When atoms move, they move; when rules are acted upon, they exert measurable consequences. These trivialities on the quantum level don't give human beings (or anything) "freedom" by any means.

And notice...you are free NOT to believe me if you so choose. In which case...you PROVE my point anyway!

I am not free to disbelieve your point. I have a pool of experiences that prevents me from doing so- things I've read and thought determine what I will think or believe in the future. I cannot choose what I experience- I just process whatever comes my way, and thus is my world-view formed.


Thank you for trying to clear up one of the most nonsensical things I've ever heard in my life.



Clockwork Thought, thanks for making sense. Thank you thank you.

Thank you for trying to clear up one of the most nonsensical things I've ever heard in my life.

Clockwork Thought, thanks for making sense. Thank you thank you.

Not a problem. But hey, I didn't have a choice in the matter.

*Rimshot*

Hrm. . .sounds like inverted Augustine, in that in such a system, people are at once both perfectly free, and yet have no choice in whether or not they commit sin (in your hypothetical example, they have no choice about abstaining from sin, whereas Augustine's doctrine of original sin holds that man can do naught but sin).

Yes it is the good saint inverted.

Nevertheless, I've never been particularly fond of Augustine's reasoning on this point, so by extension I'm not sure I can agree with yours. As a logical counterexample, suppose that a hypothetical people had could elect as their president any person in their country, with one sole proviso: that person had already been vetted by a dominant political party. Would you then be inclined to call the elections in that country free? Or perhaps as a better counterexample, suppose everyone in the country had been brainwashed into a single orthodox political belief. Would you be inclined to call that country democratic if they held elections, or Orwellian (a word that has a strong connotation of being not free)?

My problem was not with the free will aspect of the question posed by Bottle, but with the use of the term evil. The preseelection aspect of my position here is of a much wider scale than the counter example you give. Using the same counter example, but placing it in the scope I was using we get:

Suppose that a hypothetical people could elect as their president any person in their country, with one sole proviso: that person has to be human. Would you then be inclined to call the elections free?

Well, yes actually, I would.

The brainwashing argument, would hold if I had specified a particular view of evil. This or that is evil, these rules or those ones are not to be broken. Which is of course what the religious view does. If the scope of acceptable human action is set so wide that it includes all possible actions, then free will can coexist with the absence of evil.

Personally, I'm an ardent advocate for free will, even at the expense of Christian dogmas like Augustine. My rationale for this is that in order to accept determinism, you first have to accept some kind of identity theory of mental behavior: the view that any behavior/mental state is linked one for one with a corresponding brain state, and secondly that the brain itself is a rigidly deterministic organ. However, I don't agree with identity theories, because as Hilary Putnam pointed out, you can have brain states without behavioral states (supposing you were trained well enough to endure pain stoicly, you could be in agony but never emote it), and you can have behavioral states without mental states (an actor can easily pretend to be in pain while not suffering from any such condition). As such, mental states and physical states are distinct.

Identity theories have their problems, and Hilary Putnam worked hard to undermine them, however one half of his argument, as you present it, simply fails. The actor pretending to be in pain is not behaving as if being in pain without the mental states that are associated with that behaviour. He does not suffer any pain itself, this is true, nor does he have the mental states for suffering pain, but suffering and behaviour are different things, his behaviour still corresponds to certain mental states. If you want to identify a brain state, this being the physical condition of the whole brain at any one moment, with behaviour, then you are restricting us to being linear processors, which seems to be unviable. Mental states are not equivalent to brain states as a whole, but only to some portion of the brain state. Thus mental states and physical states can be necessarily linked. It is just the combination of unusual sets of mental states that allows for stoic resistance to real pain, or realistic representation of unreal pain.

Moreover, I don't think that the brain is a rigidly deterministic organ, because even assuming no spooky ghost in the machine banging on the pineal gland (Descartes' conception of how the soul interacted with the body), quantum mechanics and complexity theory are quite clear about how even simple systems can give rise to emergent properties that were inherently unpredictable from the initial conditions. Granted this would mean redefining the mind as some kind of emergent property of the brain, but this is not unheard of, as there are functionalists today who make precisely that claim.

This part I agree with in general but with one deep unresolved reservation. The mind, or consciousness is often seen as an emergent property, but if this is the case then free will has to be illusiory. The emergent property is an epiphenomenon on the phenomenon of brain activity. This means that it is non essential to that activity. Consciousness, however, is essential to the possession of free wil. No the brain is not rigidly deterministic, but how is it that the will affects the brain?l

Lemme get this straight- my post, featuring eons of philosophy, coupled with minutes-old neuroscientific theory... has been under-cut by a reference to a Keanu Reeves movie?

Ugh. I feel ill.

No, no, I'm saying the movie explains and relies on what you posted to establish its premise that there is free will - that we can choose good or evil.

Say we have a bicycle. It's a standard issue, bright pink Huffy with a banana seat, one speed with old-fashioned, my-first-bike backpedal brakes. This bicycle is a machine. You can see all the components of the machine- gears, chain, pedals, wheels, et cetera. As a machine, it is entirely predictable. If you push down on a pedal, that spins a gear, which in turn pulls a chain, and the chain rotates a wheel, and the wheel's spin gives the device movement along the ground. Even if the bicycle were flawed, it would be entirely predictable (though it'd need more complex mathematics)- you could calculate the speed and angle at which a broken chain would fly off, or the amount of energy wasted with a bent gear tooth.

OK, A Newtonian Bicycle. Fine

If you were to see this bicycle moving down the street, you could see it as a bicycle moving down the street, of its own free will, with some freak with a fanny pack riding on top with a dopey grin. You could also see it as some prat squat-flying down the sidewalk, and its gender-confused bicycle buddy tagging along, uncomfortably close beneath said prat. However, knowing cause-and-effect, you'd know that the 'tard's pedaling causes the bike's mechanisms to work, and because of the entirely-predictable workings of the bike, movement is achieved.

Um, er, whaere is this cause thing you are talking about. I don't see it anywhere. I see actions that are in constant conjunction, I have never seen the prat squat flying without the bicycle, nor the freak without the prat. But I can not see anything that is a cause here. (Hume rules)

The human brain is similar. Just more complicated, by leaps and bounds. If you provide electrical stimulus to a single, specific part of the brain, you will have the same result every time. You stimulate one synaptic connection, say, in the lymbic system of the brain, the subject will recall something, and not just something, the SAME thing, every time. Pulses in the medulla oblongatta can make a subject experience thirst or lust or fatigue.

The human brain is a machine.

Um, no. The same stimulus to the brain dos not always produce the same results. Unfortunately for the determinists, the brain is not a straightforward alfgorithmic device. It behaves chaotically at the least. It may well be a machine, in some sense, but self awareness and consciousness are not part of that mechanism.

So let's make this hypothetical. You walk into a white room, close the door, look around. From behind you, a train comes out of a heretofore-unseen hole in the wall, chugging rapidly, blaring its horn, its light in your eyes, barreling along tracks that lead right under your feet. You jump out of the way. And, say, you don't get off the tracks in time and die. Or you jump and roll and live. Or you leap, but not enough, and end up with a bloody stump in place of a leg.

Now, say we take this room, with you in it, reset it, and double it. Now, there are two identical rooms, with two identical yous, and two identical trains. Since you have not changed, everything that happens in both rooms will not only be identical to each other, but will be identical to the first experiment. Because the brain is a machine. You have a set of gears and chains and wheels- the way your brain reacts to stimuli- and they always react in a predictable way. Open door -> Close door. Empty white room -> Dawdle. Evil killer train -> Oh, shit, an evil killer train!

Hypothetical experiments that are logically impossible demonstrate nothing. There can not be two identical yous (See Leibniz on the indiscernability of identicals) without them being the one and the same you. If there are two, then there is necessarily a difference. If there is a difference this may affect any deterministic conclusion.

Multiply this as many times as you want- a hundred, a thousand, a million, won't matter. Same, every time.

If they are indiscernable then they are the same, a unity, It is not possible to have more than one, so multiplying by a million won't matter as it too is impossible.

You are a bike. You are influenced, and you react. It may look like you're acting of your own free will, but you're just a mechanism, a fleshy, pink arrangement of gears and chains and wheels.

And as for the final word?

I am not free to disbelieve your point. I have a pool of experiences that prevents me from doing so- things I've read and thought determine what I will think or believe in the future. I cannot choose what I experience- I just process whatever comes my way, and thus is my world-view formed.

What then, in your theory, is this "I" that experiences and is determined by this experience? Our brains may be water based electrochemical mechanisms, but our identity and awareness are not identified with our brains. There is plenty of evidence from schizophrenia, for example, that one brain can have more than one awareness associated with it. (I doubt that one awareness can be associated with more than one brain until someone convinces me of reincarnation that is). The mind - brain identity thesis is severely holed beneath the water line. In may be possible to salvage it before it sinks without trace, but I personally doubt it.

(A more complete reply than citing a Keneau Reeves movie. :cool: )

Even if the bicycle were flawed, it would be entirely predictable (though it'd need more complex mathematics)-

no, no, NO!!!

It would, I absolutely, positively, guarantee...NOT BE PREDICTABLE! Absolutely NOTHING is precisely predictable.

Quantum physics (QED to be precise) is THE most well-tested theory in all of physics. There is more doubt whether an egg-salad sandwich contains egg, then whether Quantum Physics is accurate.

And the problem you run into with your powerful computer, is that as you break the problem down into smaller and smaller pieces (the electrons in the atoms in the molecules that surround the flaw in the chain), you find that things are ENTIRELY UNPREDICTABLE.


A human being's "free will" isn't going to move those unpredictable electrons any which way.


yes, yes, YES it WILL! The VERY ACT OF OBSERVATION changes the subatomic world. Your very existence changes reality. Everything you choose to do changes the future of the world in some manner.


----


I was trying for some humor in my posts, but in all seriousness, I refer you all to some simple quantum physics texts. It is 1) facinating and 2) undeniably pronounces that humans do, in fact, have free will...as it disproves any posibility of predetermination at any level.

It does NOT however, preclude the existence of a creator, as it allows perfectly well for that creator to have set things up in precisely the manner we now find them. i.e. God gave us free will, and while god is all-powerful, god does not "choose" to control our actions moment to moment.

Really - philosophy is interesting, logic and reason are entertaining - but this question has truly been answered by Heisenberg: it is not possible to know the precise momentum and spin of an electron (at the same time). It requires some thought to see why that creates my free will, but fortunately you are free to ponder it!

Really - philosophy is interesting, logic and reason are entertaining - but this question has truly been answered by Heisenberg: it is not possible to know the precise momentum and spin of an electron (at the same time). It requires some thought to see why that creates my free will, but fortunately you are free to ponder it!

In principle I agree, but there is still missing a QED (Quantum Electrodynamics for the laymen) explanation of consciousness. Until we have some such theory, philosophy, logic and reason still have a role in this discussion.

I don't see why, even if there is a QED explaination for conciousness, that necessitates that we have free will. I can imagine a universe based on stochastic processes, where we still do not have actual free will.

In principle I agree, but there is still missing a QED (Quantum Electrodynamics for the laymen) explanation of consciousness. Until we have some such theory, philosophy, logic and reason still have a role in this discussion.

Granted, without question!

Ah yes, you caught me oversimplifying, just to make a point.

I have no doubt that we truly have free will, as otherwise, the world would be predictible, but it's not (check out Quantum Physics or Chaos Theory - I refer you to Geoff Goldblum in Jurasic Park of all things!).

On the other hand, I totally grok what the other guys are saying - it certainly appears that things are predetermined.

My own idea stems from Gurjeiffian philosophy, about the true nature of self and the potential of man.

Here it is in a nutshell:

We appear to have no free will, and in our normal state of consciousness, do not. The 3-D world we live in is simply a slice of a 4-D reality, and has therefore already occured an infinite number of times before we experience it!

But...we have the potential (e.g. becoming one with god; becoming conscious; reaching heaven; discovering our true nature; becoming time-travelers; destroying the personality!) to realize higher dimensions, and therefore have free-will in the lower dimensions (a potential that is guaranteed by the 3-D theory of quantum physics).

If you wonder whether this recursion has an end...it does...at the moment we become "one with god", in which case we have destroyed all illusion, realized the reality of our true self, and the question of free will becomes irrelevant.

So, whatchya think about that??

I don't see why, even if there is a QED explaination for conciousness, that necessitates that we have free will. I can imagine a universe based on stochastic processes, where we still do not have actual free will.

It does not necessitate anything. At least until we have such an explanation, or a failure of the theory, whichever comes first. I was simply arguing to keep my future profession employed (I am a graduate philosophy student at the moment.)

Granted, without question!

Ah yes, you caught me oversimplifying, just to make a point.

I have no doubt that we truly have free will, as otherwise, the world would be predictible, but it's not (check out Quantum Physics or Chaos Theory - I refer you to Geoff Goldblum in Jurasic Park of all things!).

On the other hand, I totally grok what the other guys are saying - it certainly appears that things are predetermined.

My own idea stems from Gurjeiffian philosophy, about the true nature of self and the potential of man.

Here it is in a nutshell:

We appear to have no free will, and in our normal state of consciousness, do not. The 3-D world we live in is simply a slice of a 4-D reality, and has therefore already occured an infinite number of times before we experience it!

But...we have the potential (e.g. becoming one with god; becoming conscious; reaching heaven; discovering our true nature; becoming time-travelers; destroying the personality!) to realize higher dimensions, and therefore have free-will in the lower dimensions (a potential that is guaranteed by the 3-D theory of quantum physics).

If you wonder whether this recursion has an end...it does...at the moment we become "one with god", in which case we have destroyed all illusion, realized the reality of our true self, and the question of free will becomes irrelevant.

So, whatchya think about that??

Duh, let me think a week or two. :confused:

I don't see why, even if there is a QED explaination for conciousness, that necessitates that we have free will. I can imagine a universe based on stochastic processes, where we still do not have actual free will.

Assume for a moment, the QP says that the building blocks of all matter and energy are fundamentally unpredictable.

This means, that when you build your massive computer to calculate the future of even the simplest system...the model you create of your system must either be incomplete, or eventually get down to a small enough particle that your prediction becomes statistical.

The very idea of it being a truly random event of whether an electron will move this way or that, implies that electorn is unpredictable. And not having free will (i.e. being able to predict the future based on history) would require that all aspects of the computer model you are building are completely predictable.

A contradiction! Therefore we must, regardless of how it appears, have free will.

I truly do not wish to sound arrogant, but I think this simple reasoning is sound. And I do understand the basic assumption of QP I made to be accurate.

I am a graduate philosophy student at the moment.

And you have stumbled upon an excellent thesis topic. You could be counted among the wisest philosophers of history!

You could even patent a theory of time travel, and reap a royalty everytime someone uses it...it's the only way your ever gonna make money at your profession anyway! :) :) :)

One of those religion discussions brought up the question, in my mind, of "how much free will do we really have?"

Thinking about it, I came to the conclusion that we have free will in how we act, but not in how we think.

A person can "choose" to say or do something;
however, a person often cannot "choose" to think or not think something.

(Whimsical example - WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT THINK ABOUT A PINK ELEPHANT!)
Free will is the ability to choose between all available options at any given moment. We have limited options all the time. We are limited by other people, by physical existence, by streets and roads, by traffic lights, etc. But we have total free will, even if our options are limited, because we can choose between things, even if we feel there is no other choice but to choose but one option.

In the matter of choosing to think or not think about the pink elephant, the thought itself is an event, so we couldn't choose it. But now I have the option to forget. ;-)

great now all i can see are pink elephants...ima use my free will to kill u now...*chambers round*

How the bloody does showing that chaotic factors determine one's actions show that free will exists?

Unpredictable will does not equate to free will.

Any computer model will be a highly complex algorithm. Now that builds in determinism. It won't work as a test of human free will. A complete physical model also presumes that we are 100% physical. It happens that I agree with this, but not everyone will. Even if these objections are found wanting, it would still be impossible for either model to be placed in the identical situation twice. There is a logical impossibility involved here, which can not be removed by physical means.
I'm talking about what would convince me, not anyone else. If someone could come up with a model that would unerringly predict the actions of anyone even a second in advance (which would be a great achievement), I'd be convinced.

Actually, if I remember my physics class well enough...if you know the present position and speed of every single piece of matter, you can predict the future because at any given point in time you will be able to calculate where each and every molecule will be at any given moment. So, technically it is possible =) ...but I also remember that position/spead thing breaking down at some point too, so I don't know for sure...The position and momentum (and hence velocity) of any particle can't be known at the same time was the problem you're looking for.

And you have stumbled upon an excellent thesis topic. You could be counted among the wisest philosophers of history!

You could even patent a theory of time travel, and reap a royalty everytime someone uses it...it's the only way your ever gonna make money at your profession anyway! :) :) :)

Dosen't work that way here. I had to enter with a thesis project already defined. (Hume on Morality), and it has to be the study of the philosophy of someone. No general subjects of issue such as free will, or moral relativism, or such allowed. (crap huh!).
No I know I ain't never gonna get rich, but let me tell ya its better than kickin a ditch. (100 points for the first one to recognize the song.) :D

Assume for a moment, the QP says that the building blocks of all matter and energy are fundamentally unpredictable.

This means, that when you build your massive computer to calculate the future of even the simplest system...the model you create of your system must either be incomplete, or eventually get down to a small enough particle that your prediction becomes statistical.

The very idea of it being a truly random event of whether an electron will move this way or that, implies that electorn is unpredictable. And not having free will (i.e. being able to predict the future based on history) would require that all aspects of the computer model you are building are completely predictable.

A contradiction! Therefore we must, regardless of how it appears, have free will.

I truly do not wish to sound arrogant, but I think this simple reasoning is sound. And I do understand the basic assumption of QP I made to be accurate.


Even though the universe may be stochastic and not deterministic, that does not mean automatically that we posses free will. I can quite easily concieve - as a thought experiment - a tremendously complex computer program that will give different responses to random inputs. (Indeed I could even concieve of a computer program that not only gives responses to random inputs, but additionally those responses are based on the total history of all inputs recieved.)

Now I have no idea how this program will behave at any given moment, as I have no idea what type of input it will recieve at any given second, nor can accurately construct the time history of all inputs the program will receive either. Thus the program will behave in a completely unpredictible fashion, and no amount of computer modelling can predict its behavior. It would still be wrong to say, because its behavior was unpredictable, that it had free will. The human condition may be analagous to this. (We are slaves to random inputs).

In other words, unpredictable != Free will.

-snip-
Random OT question:
Why is it that you switched between nations like that?
And how'd you do it so fast? I usually have to go through and find and delete the cookies.

I can quite easily concieve - as a thought experiment - a tremendously complex computer program that will give different responses to random inputs.

:) Great! I think you should be up for the Fields medal in mathematics! :)

As it turns out (I am a computer programmer when not battling cancer...), generating random numbers is a huge problem in computer science! Why? Because computers (aka Von Neuman machines) simply cannot do it! The best we can do is approximate them, by capturing the system time in miliseconds and dividing this by some number choosen from a huge list - something along those lines.

But even that is not random. If you run your random generator long enough, you are GUARANTEED (it is mathematically proven to be so) to repeat a sequence at some point.

My basic argument/proof says that if we did NOT have free will, then some subset of the universe would necessarily be perfectly predictable - not a big leap there.

From there, it is easy to see that no part of the universe can be predictible, since it is made up of huge numbers of tiny and TOTALLY UNPREDICTIBLE little bits of matter and energy.

On the other hand, just because we have free will does not mean that we exercise it!

How the bloody does showing that chaotic factors determine one's actions show that free will exists?

Unpredictable will does not equate to free will.

Well, I think it does equate. Here's how I reason it:

If we do NOT have free will, then it is possible, given a large enough computer, to enter the current "state" of the universe (the position, velocity, etc. of every particle within it), and like a billiard game - run a simulation that would perfectly predict some future "state" of the universe - I claim that without free will, such a computer model could conceptually exist.

But we know, from QP or from Chaos theory, that such prediction is impossible. (Chaos theory shows us patterns that repeat in a bizarly unpredictible way - and if you graph those patterns, they make beautiful images that resemble mountains or coastlines, or cool mandlebrot images - but that's neither here nor there.)

So it follows that if we cannot predict the future using any conceivable method (regardless of whether it is practical to build such a tool), that the universe is not, on any time scale, predictible, and therefore our destiny cannot be predetermined.

Voila! Free will!

no, no, NO!!!

It would, I absolutely, positively, guarantee...NOT BE PREDICTABLE! Absolutely NOTHING is precisely predictable.

Quantum physics (QED to be precise) is THE most well-tested theory in all of physics. There is more doubt whether an egg-salad sandwich contains egg, then whether Quantum Physics is accurate.

And the problem you run into with your powerful computer, is that as you break the problem down into smaller and smaller pieces (the electrons in the atoms in the molecules that surround the flaw in the chain), you find that things are ENTIRELY UNPREDICTABLE.


You're right that it might not be predictable, but that doesn't matter. The bicycle would be entirely explainable with a complex enough formula -- but assuming it wasn't.. that doesn't give the bicycle free will. The fact that it's unpredictable still depends on the actions of it's environment and nothing else.

All of you who are using Quantum Mechanics as a means for justifying free will are barking up the wrong tree. Just because some specific particles are so small that we can't figure out what they're doing doesn't mean that on a much larger scale (the human brain) things aren't predictable. For those of you who say the brain isn't predictable -- you're right -- but that's only because we don't understand it yet. We're getting better and better as time goes by. Rest assured, the mind will be reducted to little more than an incredibly complex and organic machine eventually.

(Hume rules)

AND

Dosen't work that way here. I had to enter with a thesis project already defined. (Hume on Morality)

Hume! Dude! You're awesome. I'm only a lowly Philosophy major with legal aspirations but I wrote a little paper on Hume's emotivism and Thomas Nagel's idea of the Golden Rule last semester. It was pretty ace.

And I really like your defense against determinism. It's everything I wanted to say, but was too stupid to.

:) Great! I think you should be up for the Fields medal in mathematics! :)

As it turns out (I am a computer programmer when not battling cancer...), generating random numbers is a huge problem in computer science! Why? Because computers (aka Von Neuman machines) simply cannot do it! The best we can do is approximate them, by capturing the system time in miliseconds and dividing this by some number choosen from a huge list - something along those lines.

But even that is not random. If you run your random generator long enough, you are GUARANTEED (it is mathematically proven to be so) to repeat a sequence at some point.

My basic argument/proof says that if we did NOT have free will, then some subset of the universe would necessarily be perfectly predictable - not a big leap there.

From there, it is easy to see that no part of the universe can be predictible, since it is made up of huge numbers of tiny and TOTALLY UNPREDICTIBLE little bits of matter and energy.

On the other hand, just because we have free will does not mean that we exercise it!


I wasn't talking about generating random numbers, I was talking about the program responding to random inputs. In other words it is a deterministic process responding to random stimuli. (Say for example, we used measurements of quantum processes to generate the set of inputs).

From that, we couldn't possibly hope to predict how the program would respond, and how it would act from moment to moment. Indeed, as I pointed out, if the program altered its responses in accordance with the total time history of all inputs, its behavior could conceivably be tremendously complex. Nevertheless, it would not have free will. The human condition could be analagous to this.

From what I gather you are saying, we have free will and therefore the universe must be random. I am not taking that position. I am saying, I do not know whether or not we have free will, and even if the universe is random this does not necessarily entail that we have free will. (Although randomness may be a necessary pre-condition). I am looking at it from the other end perhaps.

And if I don't have free will, it's not like I have any choice in the matter. ;)

Random OT question:
Why is it that you switched between nations like that?
And how'd you do it so fast? I usually have to go through and find and delete the cookies.

I have a second nation because my forumban was not lifted and I had to post in moderation. I was banned for some reason Neo. I can't recall though ;) .

As to the switching, I do work/other things while I post here, sometimes I flip between browsers, and it flicks between I and II. No biggie.

There, now I have bared my soul and all my secrets,

And I really like your defense against determinsm. It's everything I wanted to say, but was too stupid to.
I enjoyed that too, Alien Born. Can I have your children? (If you're not using them, that is.)

Granted, without question!

Ah yes, you caught me oversimplifying, just to make a point.

I have no doubt that we truly have free will, as otherwise, the world would be predictible, but it's not (check out Quantum Physics or Chaos Theory - I refer you to Geoff Goldblum in Jurasic Park of all things!).

On the other hand, I totally grok what the other guys are saying - it certainly appears that things are predetermined.

My own idea stems from Gurjeiffian philosophy, about the true nature of self and the potential of man.

Here it is in a nutshell:

We appear to have no free will, and in our normal state of consciousness, do not. The 3-D world we live in is simply a slice of a 4-D reality, and has therefore already occured an infinite number of times before we experience it!

But...we have the potential (e.g. becoming one with god; becoming conscious; reaching heaven; discovering our true nature; becoming time-travelers; destroying the personality!) to realize higher dimensions, and therefore have free-will in the lower dimensions (a potential that is guaranteed by the 3-D theory of quantum physics).

If you wonder whether this recursion has an end...it does...at the moment we become "one with god", in which case we have destroyed all illusion, realized the reality of our true self, and the question of free will becomes irrelevant.

So, whatchya think about that??


You've been reading too much "Stranger in a Strange Land", my friend.

What then, in your theory, is this "I" that experiences and is determined by this experience? Our brains may be water based electrochemical mechanisms, but our identity and awareness are not identified with our brains. There is plenty of evidence from schizophrenia, for example, that one brain can have more than one awareness associated with it. (I doubt that one awareness can be associated with more than one brain until someone convinces me of reincarnation that is). The mind - brain identity thesis is severely holed beneath the water line. In may be possible to salvage it before it sinks without trace, but I personally doubt it.

Identity and awareness are unquestionably identified with the brain. In terms of schizophrenia, having more than one awareness with one brain doesn't prove anything. All that's saying is that a mind is capable of compartmentalizing itself into multiple awarenesses. If anything, that proves even more than identity is completely dependent on the physical state of the brain and nothing more.

Take this argument against free will (speaking of Hume):

Just about everyone has noticed the apparent conflict between free will and determinism – if your actions were determined to happen billions of years ago, then how can they be up to you? But Hume noted another conflict, one that turned the problem of free will into a full-fledged dilemma: free will is incompatible with indeterminism. Imagine that your actions are not determined by what events came before. Then your actions are, it seems, completely random. Moreover, and most importantly for Hume, they are not determined by your character – your desires, your preferences, your values, etc. How can we hold someone responsible for an action that did not result from his character? How can we hold someone responsible for an action that randomly occurred? Free will seems to require determinism, because otherwise, the agent and the action wouldn't be connected in the way required of freely chosen actions. So now, nearly everyone believes in free will, free will seems inconsistent with determinism, and free will seems to require determinism.


^-- In other words, if there was no determinism.. your actions are RANDOM and are based off of nothing? Determinism is required for free will to even be considered.





Also interesting:

Compatibilists often argue that, on the contrary, determinism is a prerequisite for moral responsibility — you can't hold someone responsible unless his actions were determined by something (this argument can be traced to Hume and was also used by the anarchist William Godwin). After all, if indeterminism is true, then those events that are not determined are random. How can you blame or praise someone for performing an action that just spontaneously popped into his nervous system? Instead, they argue, you need to show how the action stemmed from the person's desires and preferences — the person's character — before you start holding the person morally responsible. Libertarians sometimes reply that undetermined actions are not random at all, and that they result from a substantive will whose decisions are undetermined.

So then take what Moore said about "good" and apply it to free will. Free will is not indeterminism, nor is it determinism. It is something different that cannot be defined in such a way that someone without inherent understanding of the concept will be able to comprehend it. Those of you who are hard determinists, unlearn what you have learned; it is wrong.

At least that's how an oversimplification of the idea would work.

I always find the concept of free will an odd one. Clearly we have been made by something. Therefore, our actions are decide by that making. If not, then are actions are ultimately random.

Perhaps when people claim we have free will they mean that no specifi thing has decided what we are going to do.


I happen t like the idea of a deterministic universe. I do not know fi anyone has said this, but chaos theory is not about randomness. Its actually saying that determinsitic events can lead to unpredictable outcomes due to simple errors. Essentially, every model we use to measure the world cannot be totally accurate. In certain systems (chaotic systems) these errors quickly become apparent, and the model soon becomes wrong. Chaos theory is fully compatable with a deterministic universe. Unfortunately quantum theory appears to be random, but I still think there is an underlying deterministic system beneath, hidden because its happens at unmeasurable levels. It is possible, last time I checked....

My problem was not with the free will aspect of the question posed by Bottle, but with the use of the term evil. The preseelection aspect of my position here is of a much wider scale than the counter example you give. Using the same counter example, but placing it in the scope I was using we get:

Suppose that a hypothetical people could elect as their president any person in their country, with one sole proviso: that person has to be human. Would you then be inclined to call the elections free?

Well, yes actually, I would.

The brainwashing argument, would hold if I had specified a particular view of evil. This or that is evil, these rules or those ones are not to be broken. Which is of course what the religious view does. If the scope of acceptable human action is set so wide that it includes all possible actions, then free will can coexist with the absence of evil.


Forgive me for my ignorance, but I'm not entirely clear on what you mean. What it seems is one of several possible options. One, you might be redefining "evil" to include only those actions that human beings are incapable of doing, such as saying "Flying to Jupiter by flapping your wings is evil". Two, you might be saying that there is no such thing as evil; that all actions are really based on some standard (perhaps efficacy, perhaps a sliding scale of happiness, etc.) where the terms "good" and "evil" simply don't apply.

The problem, however, is that if you are saying that, then you've explained away the argument only by redefining what "evil" means, without presenting any rational or empirical argument for why that definition of "evil" is better or should be adopted over the present one. It is almost as if I argued that an Explorer gets better gas mileage than a Prius by completely redefining what the technical term "MPG" means without saying that I had redefined it. Forgive me if I've misconstrued your argument, but that is the way it comes across to me. If so, then you have an undefended presupposition in your argument that you must defend before I can argue the point.


Identity theories have their problems, and Hilary Putnam worked hard to undermine them, however one half of his argument, as you present it, simply fails. The actor pretending to be in pain is not behaving as if being in pain without the mental states that are associated with that behaviour. He does not suffer any pain itself, this is true, nor does he have the mental states for suffering pain, but suffering and behaviour are different things, his behaviour still corresponds to certain mental states. If you want to identify a brain state, this being the physical condition of the whole brain at any one moment, with behaviour, then you are restricting us to being linear processors, which seems to be unviable. Mental states are not equivalent to brain states as a whole, but only to some portion of the brain state. Thus mental states and physical states can be necessarily linked. It is just the combination of unusual sets of mental states that allows for stoic resistance to real pain, or realistic representation of unreal pain.


If I follow your argument correctly, you are saying that the actor in question still has a mental state when he pretends to be in pain, and that said mental state corresponds with a physical state (namely his pretending to be in pain), therefore I have not refuted the claim? I suppose you could go this route, but doesn't that then mean there is an "acting" mental state? Or more precisely, since one can "act" in many different ways, that there is therefore many different kinds of "acting" mental states, each with their own associated behavior? What you are proposing is essentially an infinite number of mental states, with some being associated with real behavior, some with "acting" behavior, some with fake-acting behavior, etc. I suppose you could say that you've saved identity theory, but only at the cost of making it horribly unwieldy.

Moreover, the whole point of identity theory is to say that the mind is some kind of linear processor. To say that the mind is only partly associated with brain states may be perfectly accurate, but it isn't identity theory, and it also leaves open a gaping hole for the Cartesian dualist conception of the mind to slip through, and if that is the case, then you can't really accept it without also accepting the corrolary of free will. . .unless you want to argue that the unextended mind also follows some set of definite, deterministic rules, which is completely ad hoc.


This part I agree with in general but with one deep unresolved reservation. The mind, or consciousness is often seen as an emergent property, but if this is the case then free will has to be illusiory. The emergent property is an epiphenomenon on the phenomenon of brain activity. This means that it is non essential to that activity. Consciousness, however, is essential to the possession of free wil. No the brain is not rigidly deterministic, but how is it that the will affects the brain?l

You don't necessarily have to be an epiphenomenalist to be an emergent theorist. A traffic jam is an emergent property of hundreds of individual drivers, but you wouldn't say that the traffic jam is an epiphenomenal quality of those drivers, because that emergent property (the traffic jam) also affects the actors that gave rise to it (the drivers), which goes against the very idea of epiphenomenalism. I don't think it much of a leap to say that the mind can work on the brain in similar fashion.

Absolutely there is free will. If I want a tuna salad sandwich today instead of a BLT I'll have one.

QED.

I enjoyed that too, Alien Born. Can I have your children? (If you're not using them, that is.)

For a few weeks, while my wife and I go on a long and relaxing trip, sure. Post your address and i'll pop him in the mail (fedex or some such to be sure)

Forgive me for my ignorance, but I'm not entirely clear on what you mean. What it seems is one of several possible options. One, you might be redefining "evil" to include only those actions that human beings are incapable of doing, such as saying "Flying to Jupiter by flapping your wings is evil". Two, you might be saying that there is no such thing as evil; that all actions are really based on some standard (perhaps efficacy, perhaps a sliding scale of happiness, etc.) where the terms "good" and "evil" simply don't apply.

It is not you being ignorant, it is me being unclear, my apologies.
What I was saying, in reply to the question as to whether free will implied the existence of evil, was simply that this does indeed depend upon the definition of evil. The first position you mention is what I was saying, but the example does not have to be of something that is physically impossible, it could simply be psychologically impossible (if such a thing exists, which is another discussion entirely).


The problem, however, is that if you are saying that, then you've explained away the argument only by redefining what "evil" means, without presenting any rational or empirical argument for why that definition of "evil" is better or should be adopted over the present one. It is almost as if I argued that an Explorer gets better gas mileage than a Prius by completely redefining what the technical term "MPG" means without saying that I had redefined it. Forgive me if I've misconstrued your argument, but that is the way it comes across to me. If so, then you have an undefended presupposition in your argument that you must defend before I can argue the point.

The existing definition for evil is non existent anyway, unlike that for MPG which is clearly defined. When a question is asked concerning the relationship between two terms, these terms have to be at least defined in principle before any answer can be given. What I was doing was defining the term evil in a strange but plausible manner. The intent was to induce a refutation of this definition and to establish a mutually aceptable definition that would make the question of the relationship between free will and evil something that could be moved forward.



If I follow your argument correctly, you are saying that the actor in question still has a mental state when he pretends to be in pain, and that said mental state corresponds with a physical state (namely his pretending to be in pain), therefore I have not refuted the claim? I suppose you could go this route, but doesn't that then mean there is an "acting" mental state? Or more precisely, since one can "act" in many different ways, that there is therefore many different kinds of "acting" mental states, each with their own associated behavior? What you are proposing is essentially an infinite number of mental states, with some being associated with real behavior, some with "acting" behavior, some with fake-acting behavior, etc. I suppose you could say that you've saved identity theory, but only at the cost of making it horribly unwieldy.

I actually have no intention of saving identity theory, as I am opposed to it in principle. What I am arguing is that an intentional state is only part of the brain state. A sensation is another part of the brain state. The brain state at any given moment is a composite of many different states with each of these substates representing sensations, memories, intentions, beliefs etc. Therefor the actor that exhibits behaviour that we interpret as indicating that he is in pain can have the same sub brain states, those that define the physical responses of the body as a person who is actually in pain. The difference is only that the act does not have the sub system state that results in his feeling pain. No infinite number of individual states but a combinatorial number of states.

Moreover, the whole point of identity theory is to say that the mind is some kind of linear processor. To say that the mind is only partly associated with brain states may be perfectly accurate, but it isn't identity theory, and it also leaves open a gaping hole for the Cartesian dualist conception of the mind to slip through, and if that is the case, then you can't really accept it without also accepting the corrolary of free will. . .unless you want to argue that the unextended mind also follows some set of definite, deterministic rules, which is completely ad hoc.

The identification of the brain as a linear processor is the reason I oppose it in principle. It is clearly not linear in operation, in any sense of the word. It is massively parallel at the least. I am not opening a door to Descartian dualism by asserting that brain states are only partially associated with mind states. (Which what I implied, not the other way round. The other way round would invite dualism, almost demand it in fact.) The mind, and awareness are only part of what our brains do. That was the point.



You don't necessarily have to be an epiphenomenalist to be an emergent theorist. A traffic jam is an emergent property of hundreds of individual drivers, but you wouldn't say that the traffic jam is an epiphenomenal quality of those drivers, because that emergent property (the traffic jam) also affects the actors that gave rise to it (the drivers), which goes against the very idea of epiphenomenalism. I don't think it much of a leap to say that the mind can work on the brain in similar fashion.

When dealing with physical phenomena, then emergent properties do not have to be epiphenomena. The problem is that the mind is not a physical phenomenon. It is not an organisation of physical objects into a pattern by the action of some external and otherwise directed causes, as is the case with a traffic jam, or other physical emergent phenomena (fractal growth patterns etc.) If the mind is not an epiphenomenon, then I, for one, fail to see how emergent properties enter the picture.

Anopia posted this in an uncredited quote (please identify your sources, it helps a lot)

Then your actions are, it seems, completely random. Moreover, and most importantly for Hume, they are not determined by your character – your desires, your preferences, your values, etc. How can we hold someone responsible for an action that did not result from his character?

This is a complete and total misrepresentation of Hume. For Hume your character, which is made up of your desires, beliefs and so on, is the sole source of your volition to action. What is not responsible is your power of reason. This is, and should be, as he famously said, a slave to your passions.


Sorry, I get tired of Hume being so badly misrepresented

Just about everyone has noticed the apparent conflict between free will and determinism – if your actions were determined to happen billions of years ago, then how can they be up to you? But Hume noted another conflict, one that turned the problem of free will into a full-fledged dilemma: free will is incompatible with indeterminism. Imagine that your actions are not determined by what events came before. Then your actions are, it seems, completely random. Moreover, and most importantly for Hume, they are not determined by your character – your desires, your preferences, your values, etc. How can we hold someone responsible for an action that did not result from his character? How can we hold someone responsible for an action that randomly occurred? Free will seems to require determinism, because otherwise, the agent and the action wouldn't be connected in the way required of freely chosen actions. So now, nearly everyone believes in free will, free will seems inconsistent with determinism, and free will seems to require determinism.
This is odd to me, because it seems to ignore the definition of "will", which is individual determination. Will is subjective. The act of asserting will is for an individual to direct himself towards an outcome. To acknowledge that we have will already defies that the universe external to our minds dictates our actions, even before determinism/fate is brought into the picture, so eliminating determinism/fate has no effect on will, whatsoever.

If there is a randomness of actions, one has no will, nevermind "free will."

This is odd to me, because it seems to ignore the definition of "will", which is individual determination. Will is subjective. The act of asserting will is for an individual to direct himself towards an outcome. To acknowledge that we have will already defies that the universe external to our minds dictates our actions, even before determinism/fate is brought into the picture, so eliminating determinism/fate has no effect on will, whatsoever.

If there is a randomness of actions, one has no will, nevermind "free will."

The quote you are replying to is not from Hume, but from some as yet unidentified comentator, or a modern philosopher.
Acknowledging that we have will, does not mean that this will is uncoerced. (i.e free, in the terms of the early 18th C). nor does it mean that it is a determining cause in our actions, it could simply be a parallel effect of whatever did determine our action. Herin lies one of the problems. No-one denies that we believe that our actions are a result of our will, but whether this is really the case or not is disputable.

One of those religion discussions brought up the question, in my mind, of "how much free will do we really have?"


If a god has a purpose for each and every one of us, then we wouldn't have any free will.

If there was no free will there would be no evil since a god would be behind every action.

If a god gave us free will, then he has no excuse for making people suffer since there would be no purpose behind the suffering.

If people do believe that a god has a specific purpose for our existence, then they have to at least entertain the possibility that I was put here to prove to them that their god doesn't exist.

The quote you are replying to is not from Hume, but from some as yet unidentified comentator, or a modern philosopher.
Acknowledging that we have will, does not mean that this will is uncoerced. (i.e free, in the terms of the early 18th C). nor does it mean that it is a determining cause in our actions, it could simply be a parallel effect of whatever did determine our action. Herin lies one of the problems. No-one denies that we believe that our actions are a result of our will, but whether this is really the case or not is disputable.
Thank you.

This is false logic.

Just because things on the atomic level are unpredictable does not mean that somehow a human being is an exception to the physical rules he lives by. A human being's "free will" isn't going to move those unpredictable electrons any which way.

When atoms move, they move; when rules are acted upon, they exert measurable consequences. These trivialities on the quantum level don't give human beings (or anything) "freedom" by any means.

the rules of physics get broken alot at the atomic level.that is what makes freewill a reality.the universe is CHAOS,merely it looks orderly on the large scale.but the large scale doesnt do anything but look nice.

Anopia posted this in an uncredited quote (please identify your sources, it helps a lot)



This is a complete and total misrepresentation of Hume. For Hume your character, which is made up of your desires, beliefs and so on, is the sole source of your volition to action. What is not responsible is your power of reason. This is, and should be, as he famously said, a slave to your passions.


Sorry, I get tired of Hume being so badly misrepresented


The quote is from Wikipedia.org. I think you misread the quote.. The quote is saying that in the case of having "Free Will" one would NOT be a slave to one's inhibitions.. which is why Hume was determinist.

Thank you.

The quote is an interpretation of Hume's beliefs.

This is odd to me, because it seems to ignore the definition of "will", which is individual determination. Will is subjective. The act of asserting will is for an individual to direct himself towards an outcome. To acknowledge that we have will already defies that the universe external to our minds dictates our actions, even before determinism/fate is brought into the picture, so eliminating determinism/fate has no effect on will, whatsoever.

If there is a randomness of actions, one has no will, nevermind "free will."

I couldn't agree more.

the rules of physics get broken alot at the atomic level.that is what makes freewill a reality.the universe is CHAOS,merely it looks orderly on the large scale.but the large scale doesnt do anything but look nice.

I'm not sure you completely understand what chaos or disorder mean. It doesn't matter if we can predict or understand what's happening on the subatomic level - there are still rules for its function no matter how complex. Things don't need to be orderly or straightfoward for rules to be in place.

When dealing with physical phenomena, then emergent properties do not have to be epiphenomena. The problem is that the mind is not a physical phenomenon. It is not an organisation of physical objects into a pattern by the action of some external and otherwise directed causes, as is the case with a traffic jam[...]

It's not? If the human mind isn't a physical phenomenon or an organization of physical objects (brain, neurons, body, there are many ways of looking at it) then what it is?

It's not? If the human mind isn't a physical phenomenon or an organization of physical objects (brain, neurons, body, there are many ways of looking at it) then what it is?
That the human mind is a perspective on immaterial events taking place in the human brain, namely the subjective perspective.

The problem that we're having here is that we're assuming that people are nothing more than physical objects. When we take that stance, then it is ineveitible that determanism will arise. But are we willing to accept it? Morality goes down the tubes. So does love and every other human emotion. For an example of what determanism does to a person, try looking up the Marquis de Sade.

Even presuming a spiritual world, it, too, would be determined.

The morality argument is also utter bull.

Even presuming a spiritual world, it, too, would be determined.
A "spirit world" is a projection (abstraction) upon the material world of the subjective perspective.

However you want to define it, it, too, would be determined.

However you want to define it, it, too, would be determined.
Then there is no "will", which of itself means "self-determined."

If there is no will, then you had no choice but to post what you did, and I had no choice but to oppose it.

That's stupid.

There is a perfectly valid way for free will to exist, yet be able to predict future outcomes by probability. For example, it is highly likely that I will get to know my friend a lot better before I ask her out on a date.