There isn't really a 'freewill problem'.

[DBT]

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

 

[ruby sparks]

Do you think it is impossible for such minute variances to exist? Do you believe that true randomness is impossible?

I allow for the possibility of randomness. I'm not an expert on quantum physics. I have read stuff by people with much more expertise than me saying opposite things about the possibility of a role for randomness at the macro level, so I keep an open mind.

My bottom line is that it wouldn't matter in any meaningful way that I can see. Being unshackled from determinism is not the same as exercising free will (or human agency if you like, or whatever capacity we're discussing here). In fact, randomness could easily be said to fundamentally confound such a process, not facilitate it.

Apologies if I didn't respond to certain specific things in your post. I'm a bit short of time right now. I'll have another go later.

 

[ruby sparks]

Let's assume, for argument's sake, that decisions within a brain are made based on the similarity of current conditions to the set of previously experienced conditions and the activities made as a result of those conditions, and a measure of how effective those activities were in producing a net beneficial outcome. And let's also say that the decision-making algorithm within the brain leverages a sufficiency condition across those two measures: How similar the current conditions are to previous conditions, and how beneficial the outcomes are. Let's also assume, for the sake of argument, that the decision-making algorithm within the brain works in series fashion: It selects a memory of a previous condition and outcome, compares that previous condition to the current condition, determines if the previous condition is "enough like" the current condition to be a valid comparison, then determines whether the previous associated outcome is "beneficial enough" to warrant adoption in this current condition.

How is the first memory chosen? Let's assume, for argument's sake, that the first memory chosen is the memory along the path of least resistance for the electron spat out by the neuron engaged that is prompting the use of the decision-making algorithm in the brain. Once that first path is taken, the next electron will take the path of second-least resistance. And it will keep repeating until a sufficiently similar memory is accessed that has a sufficiently beneficial outcome associated with it.

That's a lot of words, but it's actually not all that complex a concept. The math is messy as all hell, and I definitely don't want to have to do that math... but the concept isn't all that difficult if you can make it through the WoT.

Briefly....


To me, iow as I see it, You are describing there a very complicated but essentially automatic process.

Possibly you won't object to that. You won't mind if 'free will' plays out automatically. I would get that. You're not talking about Libertarian free will, and neither am I. I am, actually, trying to unpack compatibilist free will, or at least what seems to be roughly-speaking one version of it, or something like it. Whether that's the correct label for your understanding I don't know. But your position seems to be a variant on the 'randomness facilitates free will' position.

But I still think (and you will probably disagree) that it's barking up the wrong tree. In the final analysis, you could not ever do otherwise than what you ever did. That's a constraint that doesn't go away just because we cite an Epicurean random swerve at or just prior to the instant you do anything, imo, or an extra option being randomly added to the menu. Or to put it another way, you might (if randomness) do otherwise than what you did (if randomness enters just before or as you do it) but you could not have freely willed to do otherwise, (ie done otherwise by exercising personal control) which I think is the relevant litmus test.

In these determinism/randomness combo models, at least as I've come across it/them before, there seems to be a sort of two-stage process envisaged. First, the decoupling from determinism (the randomness) and second the application of determinism thereafter. Even if that's too simplistic and the process is not linear and sequential but stochastic, unpredictable and involving continuous feedback and so on, I still don't see where's there's any free will in any meaningful sense.

Of course 'free will in any meaningful sense' is a phrase that could mean different things. It's not clear to me yet what it means to you, precisely.

A simplistic analogy......You are choosing between two flavours of ice cream. Just at the instant you are about to choose, you notice a third flavour, and a fourth and so on. No matter which flavour you end up choosing (and let's say that 'go for a swim instead' also pops into your mind) you effectively and essentially had no control over it. It just happened, automatically. There is even a good (imo) case for saying that the other flavours (options) popping up works against your agency, not for it. And if I recall correctly, from another forum, some data from studies which suggest that more options reduces decision-making ability.

 

[ruby sparks]

I was with you up until the last bit, about responsibility. Having trouble seeing how that works. Do you for example mean awarding moral responsibility? I might agree that it's something we (our systems) do, in an automatic sort of way, as part of the way they function, but not that it can be justified, morally, as an ought. Though that's tricky, because I'm not wholly convinced that you can't get an ought from an is.

Let me try to put it this way. If a robot malfunctioned, we might (if we're temporarily being reasonable and rational) get it fixed, or taken out of service, or destroyed, but we wouldn't blame the robot itself........

And that's the same place that I fall off that bus. Without some acceptance of free will, I don't see how responsibility makes any sort of sense. It's completely senseless and simply cruel to blame anyone for anything ever, or to hold people accountable for their actions and decisions. When a company pollutes a stream with improperly treated waste... it wouldn't make any sense at all to hold them accountable for the damage done - they had no ability to take any other action, they could only have done exactly what they did. Punishing them for something they had no control over at all is simply cruel.

Might as well go back to shunning left-handed people because they're left-handed. Or you know, insisting that gay people are evil because they chose to be gay!

It isn't necessarily senseless or irrational to allocate responsibility. It may even be necessary to do so. Therefore, imho, we can (and would) still have to allocate responsibility even if there was no fundamental or absolute moral case for doing so. We could think of it as either (a) pragmatic or (b) unavoidable. And the suggestion, sometimes made (not by you) that giving up belief in free will would mean that we could or would not hold people responsible is of course untrue.

Now, to me, it's the particular way we allocate responsibility (specifically how much retribution or moral opprobrium we attach) that changes depending on our view of what capacities we understand ourselves to have. We'd be back to not blaming the malfunctioning robot, essentially.

I find this very very tricky, not least because we aren't actually rational beings, we are a mixture of rational and emotional (and a mix of conscious and non-conscious). But that's one reason I like to get into it rather than, say, only argue over terms (although some of that is necessary, but it can stifle the subsequent considerations). It's intellectually juicy. Or perhaps marshy would be a better word.

I think it's fair to say that compatibilists (I'm not necessarily suggesting that's your preferred self-label) and incompatibilists generally agree on a lot of things when it comes to the (imo key) issue of personal responsibility. Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett are often at loggerheads, but they end up in roughly the same place on this, I think. In other words, their prognosis and prescriptions are similar, that we 'should' (to introduce a normative) change the way we think about free will, that we should, because (to dilute the normative) we would be better off generally to allow our belief in it to weaken.

Some say they fear 'creeping exculpation' if free will were to be binned. I personally see creeping exculpation as an enlightened opportunity for personal betterment, if that's not being too optimistic (and I am not given to excessive optimism so I reckon the outcomes would be mixed), or at least a potentially 'good' thing if dealt with and understood appropriately and accurately. I'm sort of totally fed up of the human desire for blame (including my own most of all) and not entirely sure it has to be that way, or at least as often or as entrenched.

And it's already happening anyway (in certain places to certain extents). And imo likely to continue. Gradually*. Which is good, imo. I wouldn't advocate drastic change. For one thing, our knowledge is insufficiently complete at this time. For another, drastic change tends to rock the boat, as in risking inducing at least some social instability (and perhaps even personal angst). It's a good thing we are just having the equivalent of an engrossing pub chat about it here.


* And I think that future genetics is likely to have as much input as future neuroscience.

 

[ruby sparks]

I would like to throw one more thing into the mix here. I think that nearly everyone, almost all of us, are naturally inclined to over-estimate our capacities for agency (or free will if you prefer). It's as if we have an inherent (confirmation) bias. Even if we do have (some) capacities which might to some extent by some conceptions merit the term 'free will', it seems to me that it would only be via a relatively small hole in a blanket covering of profound and fundamental physical constraints, especially when we consider the plethora of ways in which our actions are not even conscious, and the ways in which some aspects of consciousness (and especially self-consciousness) may be illusory as to their role. It's as if we are hubristic enough to want to hold on to something that feels so essential to our sense of self and autonomy and our ability to navigate the world. One could argue that we are at the very least putting far too much emphasis on free will (trying to squeeze the last bit of magic toothpaste out of the tube) and not the lack of it, and what that implies as a consequent (a lot more humility for starters). It's sometimes hard to avoid concluding that the old paradigm, 'hoomans is spechul' ( and that there is spechul sauce in our brains) is still subtly operating here. You know what Ecclesiastes warned. All is vanity.

I sometimes, tangentially, cite the scene in the film, 'Toy Story' where Buzz Lightyear realises he's 'just' a toy and has a bit of an identity crisis. Although that again is only a partial analogy since Buzz still has (a sense of) free will to choose to run and jump, he just doesn't have 'superpowers' such as flying, or a laser that actually works. You could say he accepts compatibilism or some other realistic, limited version of himself, but actually the film doesn't really get into that in sufficient detail. That's not a criticism of the film.

 

[ruby sparks]

Determinism does not equate to pre-determinism, or fatalism, as it is sometimes called. It says nothing about the precursors of an event, but rather states that for each time-slice of the universe (or a region within it), there is only one possible subsequent time-slice. On any scale bigger than the subatomic, this hypothesis has so far not been disproven.

Just to say that when I read this a while back I thought it was interesting and thought that elaboration on it might also be interesting.

 

[untermensche]

It is amusing when dogmatists say things like that.

This is not controversial.

My dogma tells me so.

Hilarious coming from the King of Dogma....

Nor is the dictionary meaning objection valid. We all know what the word free means. It doesn't mean bound or restricted or determined, etc, but the opposite. My definition was fair and reasonable

My "dogma" is I can do something in my mind and move my arm.

In other words you call clear repeatable observation "dogma".

You have no clue.

 

[untermensche]

It is amusing when dogmatists say things like that.

This is not controversial.

My dogma tells me so.

Oh, shit.

There goes another irony meter.

View attachment 14400

What exactly is my dogma?

You are the religious nut that believes a unique and distinct organism can exist without a beginning to it's existence. You are the religious nut who talks about "no beginning". A serious delusion.

But go ahead spell out my dogma.

You are completely full of shit and cannot defend your nonsense.

 

[PyramidHead]

Determinism does not equate to pre-determinism, or fatalism, as it is sometimes called. It says nothing about the precursors of an event, but rather states that for each time-slice of the universe (or a region within it), there is only one possible subsequent time-slice. On any scale bigger than the subatomic, this hypothesis has so far not been disproven.

Just to say that when I read this a while back I thought it was interesting and thought that elaboration on it might also be interesting.

I was responding to the idea that determinism implies some kind of intelligent agency or force that sets things in motion with an awareness or intention of how they will turn out. Determinism in the sense that I described is much more a statement about what comes after each event, not what came before. Regardless of whether the event was initiated by an intelligent being or a natural force acting blindly upon it, determinism states that there is just one possible outcome of the event. The time-slice idea was originally proposed by Laplace, who said that if, at time n, we knew the exact location and state of every particle in the universe, as well as every physical law governing their behaviors, we would be able to accurately predict where and in what state they would be at time n + 1. The quantum mechanical revolution in physics has shown that this is not true at very small scales, but for anything large enough to influence the activity of a human brain, it is harder to refute.

It implies that each time you deliberate about what to do next, the materials that comprise your brain run a complicated but finite algorithm that has but a single result. This happens below the level of conscious awareness, so while the algorithm is running it seems as though the answer could go any number of ways. When the algorithm terminates, you experience the sensation of having arrived at a conclusion, and this bolsters the illusion that your conscious self was responsible for reaching it. Yet, if determinism is true, you were just undergoing a subjective phenomenon as a symptom of the actual decision-making, which unfolded in your brain the only way it could have due to the laws of physics.

 

[untermensche]

Can one force oneself to not comply with a desire?

The married man wants to cheat.

Sex is a huge drive and "cheating", spreading the seed, makes good evolutionary sense.

But the married man does not cheat most of the time. He overrules his strong desires and forgoes evolutionary success.

What does he do it with?

Why would the brain, the instrument that gives an evolutionary advantage, force a person to lessen their evolutionary success?

 

[fast]

The married man wants to cheat.

One can want what is attained through cheating without wanting to cheat.

 

[Kharakov]

Free will requires a lack of cohesive inhibitory social structures, a lot of money, and no conscience. It's basically the conservative asshole who wants to live the good life by tricking others into the heavy lifting's wet dream.

 

[The AntiChris]

Let me try to simplify the point I'm making. You say:

something that is impeded, restricted by conditions and/or determined by elements that are beyond its control, cannot logically be defined as free.

This simply isn't true.

Everything in the universe is impeded, restricted by conditions and/or determined by elements that are beyond its control to some extent but even you accept that that there are logically valid uses of the word 'free'. You are being inconsistent.

How do you explain this? And please, no attempted [neuro]scientific explanations - this is a philosophical problem.

You shouldn't try to simplify it by extending what are references to specific states within a system to the whole universe. If the universe is deterministic, all references to freedom are an illusion.

We are talking about the condition of a specific attribute or feature of brain cognition, will, what does will do? What is the role of will. Well, it doesn't make decisions, it doesn't acquire and process information, it does think or initiate actions. The brain does all that Conscious will merely serves as a conscious prompt to act, a sense of urgency, a felt need to take action...will does not decide to do this, it is just a part of conscious response as represented by the brain in response to a given situation.

So, the Agent Brain...brain agency if you like. One and the same thing.

I have absolutely no idea how this response addresses my question.

If anyone else reading this thread understands DBT-speak and believes this response adequately answers my question, I'd really appreciate a translation.

 

[The AntiChris]

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

This is the standard refutation of libertarian (incompatibilist) free will. I agree with it.

 

[The AntiChris]

If the universe is deterministic, all references to freedom are an illusion.

So, are you saying that all references to freedom in our universe are an illusion (I think you really mean 'mistaken')

Or, are you saying that all all references to freedom in our universe, if they are not an "illusion", are justified by indeterminism'?

 

[Emily Lake]

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

I disagree - I think that indeterminism and free will are compatible, given the right model. There's of course no guarantee that the model is accurate... but most of the advances in Artifical Intelligence and Machine Learning are currently leveraging indeterminism for advances in non-biological thinking and decision making.

As I've outlined a couple of times, indeterminism in terms of the reference set used for a sufficiency-based decision model creates a situation where the agent could have acted otherwise within the confines of how we think of "could have". That is to say, given the exact same starting conditions, a very small introduction of randomness without intent or control can lead to a different decision being reached - and thus a different action being taken.

 

[DBT]

It is amusing when dogmatists say things like that.

This is not controversial.

My dogma tells me so.

Hilarious coming from the King of Dogma....

Nor is the dictionary meaning objection valid. We all know what the word free means. It doesn't mean bound or restricted or determined, etc, but the opposite. My definition was fair and reasonable

My "dogma" is I can do something in my mind and move my arm.

In other words you call clear repeatable observation "dogma".

You have no clue.

The problem still remains....you ignore the means of your experience of conscious agency. An experience that falls apart whenever the actual agent of conscious experience becomes dysfunctional, the Brain.

 

[DBT]

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

I disagree - I think that indeterminism and free will are compatible, given the right model. There's of course no guarantee that the model is accurate... but most of the advances in Artifical Intelligence and Machine Learning are currently leveraging indeterminism for advances in non-biological thinking and decision making.

As I've outlined a couple of times, indeterminism in terms of the reference set used for a sufficiency-based decision model creates a situation where the agent could have acted otherwise within the confines of how we think of "could have". That is to say, given the exact same starting conditions, a very small introduction of randomness without intent or control can lead to a different decision being reached - and thus a different action being taken.

Whether you agree or not, under the given definition of Determinism, there is no possible freedom for the inhabitants or the objects within a determined system;

Determinism: The world is governed by (or is under the sway of) determinism if and only if, given a specified way things are at a time t, the way things go thereafter is fixed as a matter of natural law.

Fixed means no deviation. Compatibalism is a failed argument.

 

[DBT]

If you accept regulative control as a necessary part of free will, it seems impossible either way:
1. Free will requires that given an act A, the agent could have acted otherwise
2. Indeterminate actions happens randomly and without intent or control
3. Therefore indeterminism and free will are incompatible
4. Determinate actions are fixed and unchangeable
5. Therefore determinism is incompatible with free will

This is the standard refutation of libertarian (incompatibilist) free will. I agree with it.

You haven't offered an argument or an explanation.. As usual, you merely assert your belief.

 

[DBT]

If the universe is deterministic, all references to freedom are an illusion.

So, are you saying that all references to freedom in our universe are an illusion (I think you really mean 'mistaken')

Or, are you saying that all all references to freedom in our universe, if they are not an "illusion", are justified by indeterminism'?

These references are common usage based on limited observations the world and its objects and events, which does not take into account whether the World is Determined or not.....in other words, surface appearance.