A scientific definition of the term 'free will'

[rousseau]

I am not sure about how to approach this thread topic, but only because I don't know what Rousseau thinks of as a "scientific definition". I certainly understand what a technical definition is, because I have worked on those for years.

Maybe 'scientific explanation' is a better way of wording it than 'definition'. Via scientific methodology we can uncover many tangible properties about a human being. We can deduce that cells have membranes and metabolize ATP. We now understand what the nervous system is and, roughly, how it works etc etc.

But free will or it's lack isn't actually a tangible property of a human being, it has no, and can't have, a scientific explanation behind it, because it's a semantic construct that's been stretched much too far, beyond the bounds of it's literal meaning.

 

[Jarhyn]

I am not sure about how to approach this thread topic, but only because I don't know what Rousseau thinks of as a "scientific definition". I certainly understand what a technical definition is, because I have worked on those for years.

Maybe 'scientific explanation' is a better way of wording it than 'definition'. Via scientific methodology we can uncover many tangible properties about a human being. We can deduce that cells have membranes and metabolize ATP. We now understand what the nervous system is and, roughly, how it works etc etc.

But free will or it's lack isn't actually a tangible property of a human being, it has no, and can't have, a scientific explanation behind it, because it's a semantic construct that's been stretched much too far, beyond the bounds of it's literal meaning.

Well, you say that, but I think my discussion was more explaining in rather concise terms that there IS a scientific, or at least mathematical explanation behind it, and that it really relates to the process by which agents pursue and attain goals vital to the survival and autonomy of said agents, and the phenomena which initially create the delineation of said agents' boundaries.

This can, and I argue should, be understood by the concept of will as algorithm, of freedom as execution, and of of understanding "free will" as the boundary heuristic of the automaton.

Seeing as people are interested in what makes us individuals, what drives us as automatons, the boundary heuristic might be one of the most important parts of the whole process to consider and understand.

Pretty much all of math, the very idea of the set, is tied up in the discussion of boundaries.

 

[rousseau]

I am not sure about how to approach this thread topic, but only because I don't know what Rousseau thinks of as a "scientific definition". I certainly understand what a technical definition is, because I have worked on those for years.

Maybe 'scientific explanation' is a better way of wording it than 'definition'. Via scientific methodology we can uncover many tangible properties about a human being. We can deduce that cells have membranes and metabolize ATP. We now understand what the nervous system is and, roughly, how it works etc etc.

But free will or it's lack isn't actually a tangible property of a human being, it has no, and can't have, a scientific explanation behind it, because it's a semantic construct that's been stretched much too far, beyond the bounds of it's literal meaning.

Well, you say that, but I think my discussion was more explaining in rather concise terms that there IS a scientific, or at least mathematical explanation behind it, and that it really relates to the process by which agents pursue and attain goals vital to the survival and autonomy of said agents, and the phenomena which initially create the delineation of said agents' boundaries.

This can, and I argue should, be understood by the concept of will as algorithm, of freedom as execution, and of of understanding "free will" as the boundary heuristic of the automaton.

Seeing as people are interested in what makes us individuals, what drives us as automatons, the boundary heuristic might be one of the most important parts of the whole process to consider and understand.

Pretty much all of math, the very idea of the set, is tied up in the discussion of boundaries.

Yea, that's fair. That's pretty much where we landed earlier. Then we're defining 'free will' as 'freedom to execute', which I'm ok with. But free will as a tangible, material property of the executor isn't a thing. There is a descriptive explanation of what the executor is / how they operate (in your words an algorithm, in my words science). Freedom only shows up in the equation because the operation isn't constrained, it is 'free'.

But the traditional way of viewing free will envisions a tangible component of human physiology that we actually lack. This can't be the case because the term 'free will' in it's real definition only refers to being free from constraint, it doesn't refer to a tangible thing.

 

[Jarhyn]

I am not sure about how to approach this thread topic, but only because I don't know what Rousseau thinks of as a "scientific definition". I certainly understand what a technical definition is, because I have worked on those for years.

Maybe 'scientific explanation' is a better way of wording it than 'definition'. Via scientific methodology we can uncover many tangible properties about a human being. We can deduce that cells have membranes and metabolize ATP. We now understand what the nervous system is and, roughly, how it works etc etc.

But free will or it's lack isn't actually a tangible property of a human being, it has no, and can't have, a scientific explanation behind it, because it's a semantic construct that's been stretched much too far, beyond the bounds of it's literal meaning.

Well, you say that, but I think my discussion was more explaining in rather concise terms that there IS a scientific, or at least mathematical explanation behind it, and that it really relates to the process by which agents pursue and attain goals vital to the survival and autonomy of said agents, and the phenomena which initially create the delineation of said agents' boundaries.

This can, and I argue should, be understood by the concept of will as algorithm, of freedom as execution, and of of understanding "free will" as the boundary heuristic of the automaton.

Seeing as people are interested in what makes us individuals, what drives us as automatons, the boundary heuristic might be one of the most important parts of the whole process to consider and understand.

Pretty much all of math, the very idea of the set, is tied up in the discussion of boundaries.

Yea, that's fair. That's pretty much where we landed earlier. Then we're defining 'free will' as 'freedom to execute', which I'm ok with. But free will as a tangible, material property of the executor isn't a thing. There is a descriptive explanation of what the executor is / how they operate (in your words an algorithm, in my words science). Freedom only shows up in the equation because the operation isn't constrained, it is 'free'.

But the traditional way of viewing free will envisions a tangible component of human physiology that we actually lack. This can't be the case because the term 'free will' in it's real definition only refers to being free from constraint, it doesn't refer to a tangible thing.

Well not quite but close. More "freedom" is about execution. "Free Will" in the sense of the thing people claim to have (or not) as a matter of existence is about "freedom to execute 'internal' wills to successful return; freedom to block execution of 'external' wills."

It's a tangible component, but to actually get your hands around it is like trying to get your hands around a "dwarf" within a computer simulation... It's emulated across such a gross set of hardwares and data values and busses that actually getting your hands around it would be very, very hard. You can view it in a debugger, see it's logical boundary there and know there is a physical boundary around it, but actually seeing it is another matter.

 

[Copernicus]

I am not sure about how to approach this thread topic, but only because I don't know what Rousseau thinks of as a "scientific definition". I certainly understand what a technical definition is, because I have worked on those for years.

Maybe 'scientific explanation' is a better way of wording it than 'definition'. Via scientific methodology we can uncover many tangible properties about a human being. We can deduce that cells have membranes and metabolize ATP. We now understand what the nervous system is and, roughly, how it works etc etc.

But free will or it's lack isn't actually a tangible property of a human being, it has no, and can't have, a scientific explanation behind it, because it's a semantic construct that's been stretched much too far, beyond the bounds of it's literal meaning.

I doubt the value of that kind of reductionist approach to explaining the nature of free will. The following lays out the essentials of my compatibilist approach to free will.

The concept of free will depends on the fact that human beings are ignorant of the future, which is indeterminate at the point they are making a choice. The future (irrealis) is only a set of imaginary outcomes of an action. Therein lies the choice. Hard determinists argue that there is no choice, because, once the future is known, the agent could not have acted otherwise in actuality. The problem with that is that hindsight is always looking into the past, which is known (realis). We can easily imagine having made a different choice, if circumstances had been different. If only we had known then what we know now. Hard determinists have created the illusion that there is no actual free will, because they confuse realis--fixed knowledge of reality--with irrealis--imagined realities. They ignore the imagined realities, because those never happened except in the agent's imagination.

As a linguist, I know that every language on record makes this distinction between realis and irrealis in its tense and mood systems--usually manifested in markings on verbs--in English, past and present suffixes for realis and modal auxiliary verbs for irrealis. Other languages can mark this distinction in different ways, but it is always there. This distinction is therefore a feature of basic human cognition.

Free will is an essential aspect of human behavior, because it is the yardstick that we use to assign responsibility to human beings for their actions. People are, and should be, held accountable for their actions. That is how they learn to fit in with human society. The problem with hard determinism is that they often attack the concept of human responsibility in their efforts to dismiss the concept of free will as merely an illusion. Free will is real, because selecting among imagined future outcomes is a real choice in the mind of an agent at the point in time when the choice is made. What makes a willful action "free" is the agent's belief that the chosen action was unimpeded by factors not under the agent's control.

 

[rousseau]

I am not sure about how to approach this thread topic, but only because I don't know what Rousseau thinks of as a "scientific definition". I certainly understand what a technical definition is, because I have worked on those for years.

Maybe 'scientific explanation' is a better way of wording it than 'definition'. Via scientific methodology we can uncover many tangible properties about a human being. We can deduce that cells have membranes and metabolize ATP. We now understand what the nervous system is and, roughly, how it works etc etc.

But free will or it's lack isn't actually a tangible property of a human being, it has no, and can't have, a scientific explanation behind it, because it's a semantic construct that's been stretched much too far, beyond the bounds of it's literal meaning.

I doubt the value of that kind of reductionist approach to explaining the nature of free will. The following lays out the essentials of my compatibilist approach to free will.

The concept of free will depends on the fact that human beings are ignorant of the future, which is indeterminate at the point they are making a choice. The future (irrealis) is only a set of imaginary outcomes of an action. Therein lies the choice. Hard determinists argue that there is no choice, because, once the future is known, the agent could not have acted otherwise in actuality. The problem with that is that hindsight is always looking into the past, which is known (realis). We can easily imagine having made a different choice, if circumstances had been different. If only we had known then what we know now. Hard determinists have created the illusion that there is no actual free will, because they confuse realis--fixed knowledge of reality--with irrealis--imagined realities. They ignore the imagined realities, because those never happened except in the agent's imagination.

As a linguist, I know that every language on record makes this distinction between realis and irrealis in its tense and mood systems--usually manifested in markings on verbs--in English, past and present suffixes for realis and modal auxiliary verbs for irrealis. Other languages can mark this distinction in different ways, but it is always there. This distinction is therefore a feature of basic human cognition.

Free will is an essential aspect of human behavior, because it is the yardstick that we use to assign responsibility to human beings for their actions. People are, and should be, held accountable for their actions. That is how they learn to fit in with human society. The problem with hard determinism is that they often attack the concept of human responsibility in their efforts to dismiss the concept of free will as merely an illusion. Free will is real, because selecting among imagined future outcomes is a real choice in the mind of an agent at the point in time when the choice is made. What makes a willful action "free" is the agent's belief that the chosen action was unimpeded by factors not under the agent's control.

The way I'm reading this explanation is that it jives with my view. We're really only discussing what to call human behavior. I have no problem calling people free, and personally responsible, I'm only pointing out that ipso facto free will is a qualitative description, not a material property of the human body. The actual human body can only be described in material, quantitative terms

One can qualitatively describe human beings as being 'free to choose' and 'personally responsible' without needing the term 'free will' at all. But if someone wants to call that 'free will' I have no issue with that, I'd just describe the usage as meaning that they were 'uncoerced', and that there is an underlying physical reality. So basically, my point is that if you want to understand human behavior you need to look at the tangible properties of the human body and understand how they work. That gets you a lot further than obsessing over the term 'free will'.

 

[Elixir]

“Free will is real … in the mind of an agent at the point in time when the choice is made.” Seems to be the case.
A lightbulb need not work, it just has to look like it works. Free will need not be free, it only has to feel like it to a person making a choice. What difference would it make if, in reality, some unknown external agent(s) had already forced that choice? It could only matter to someone experiencing freedom of choice.

 

[Copernicus]

One can qualitatively describe human beings as being 'free to choose' and 'personally responsible' without needing the term 'free will' at all. But if someone wants to call that 'free will' I have no issue with that, I'd just describe the usage as meaning that they were 'uncoerced', and that there is an underlying physical reality. So basically, my point is that if you want to understand human behavior you need to look at the tangible properties of the human body and understand how they work. That gets you a lot further than obsessing over the term 'free will'.

I think that pretty much every English speaker wants to call it that, and I think you agree. Nobody denies the underlying physical reality of human behavior here, but there are a lot of socially useful concepts that make little sense when reduced to low level physical activities. That's what made me doubt the usefulness of the type of scientific description that you seem to be seeking. It is a bit like asking a physicist to explain how to fix cars. If they know, they aren't going to spend a lot of time talking about solids, gasses, and liquids, although those things may be referenced in parts of the explanation.

 

[rousseau]

One can qualitatively describe human beings as being 'free to choose' and 'personally responsible' without needing the term 'free will' at all. But if someone wants to call that 'free will' I have no issue with that, I'd just describe the usage as meaning that they were 'uncoerced', and that there is an underlying physical reality. So basically, my point is that if you want to understand human behavior you need to look at the tangible properties of the human body and understand how they work. That gets you a lot further than obsessing over the term 'free will'.

I think that pretty much every English speaker wants to call it that, and I think you agree. Nobody denies the underlying physical reality of human behavior here, but there are a lot of socially useful concepts that make little sense when reduced to low level physical activities. That's what made me doubt the usefulness of the type of scientific description that you seem to be seeking. It is a bit like asking a physicist to explain how to fix cars. If they know, they aren't going to spend a lot of time talking about solids, gasses, and liquids, although those things may be referenced in parts of the explanation.

I'm not actually 'seeking' it, so to speak, the thesis is that one can't exist beyond it's everyday usage. Which is important because the term is often used in philosophy as an actual, objective and material benchmark that can be proven or disproven, as if it were a literal phsyiological property.

 

[Copernicus]

One can qualitatively describe human beings as being 'free to choose' and 'personally responsible' without needing the term 'free will' at all. But if someone wants to call that 'free will' I have no issue with that, I'd just describe the usage as meaning that they were 'uncoerced', and that there is an underlying physical reality. So basically, my point is that if you want to understand human behavior you need to look at the tangible properties of the human body and understand how they work. That gets you a lot further than obsessing over the term 'free will'.

I think that pretty much every English speaker wants to call it that, and I think you agree. Nobody denies the underlying physical reality of human behavior here, but there are a lot of socially useful concepts that make little sense when reduced to low level physical activities. That's what made me doubt the usefulness of the type of scientific description that you seem to be seeking. It is a bit like asking a physicist to explain how to fix cars. If they know, they aren't going to spend a lot of time talking about solids, gasses, and liquids, although those things may be referenced in parts of the explanation.

I'm not actually 'seeking' it, so to speak, the thesis is that one can't exist beyond it's everyday usage. Which is important because the term is often used in philosophy as an actual, objective and material benchmark that can be proven or disproven, as if it were a literal phsyiological property.

I wouldn't put it quite that way. Compatibilists are philosophers, and their position is usually that the cause of the philosophical controversy is basically failing to take into account ordinary usage. The concept that philosophers tend to adopt when they discuss its relationship with determinism is that free will means freedom from determinism or causal precedence. An agent is a sui generis causer. On that basis, they dismiss the concept without looking at its ordinary language usage. Hard determinists criticize those advocating free will for ignoring the physical (deterministic) nature of mental activity, but that is just not the case for compatibilists. It just isn't useful to try to define free will in terms of the physical substrate, because the cognitive system has properties that make more sense when given higher level descriptions. Some philosophers call that "folk etymology", which they dismiss by means of eliminative materialism.