In Free Will, What Makes it "Free"

[rhutchin]

People have wills. They will to do this or that. To say that the will is "free" to do this or that - contra-causal freedom - requires, I propose, three things, at least.

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.

With regard to (1), contra-causal freedom says that the most basic choice that is required is A and ~A.
With regard to (2), the person must have a sense of the costs and benefits of choosing A and ~A.
With regard to (3), the person is not forced or compelled to choose A or ~A based on the relative values of A or ~A but rationally considers the choices with their values, and his choice of A or ~A is rational.

Does this work?

 

[Togo]

People have wills. They will to do this or that. To say that the will is "free" to do this or that - contra-causal freedom - requires, I propose, three things, at least.

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.

With regard to (1), contra-causal freedom says that the most basic choice that is required is A and ~A.
With regard to (2), the person must have a sense of the costs and benefits of choosing A and ~A.
With regard to (3), the person is not forced or compelled to choose A or ~A based on the relative values of A or ~A but rationally considers the choices with their values, and his choice of A or ~A is rational.

Does this work?

Seeems reasonable. You probably want some consideration in there of whether the choice A ~A is casually effective. In other words, that the choice is made, and then something happens (e.g. an action) as a result of making that change. Otherwise when you run into people who believe that conscious decision making occurs, but is separate from any process that actually controls what people do, your definition won't distinguish between the two positions. Ideally you'd want to be able to take a position on whether free will requires the choice to be causally effectice, or whether a fake or inconsequential choice will do.

 

[DBT]

People have wills. They will to do this or that. To say that the will is "free" to do this or that - contra-causal freedom - requires, I propose, three things, at least.

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.

With regard to (1), contra-causal freedom says that the most basic choice that is required is A and ~A.
With regard to (2), the person must have a sense of the costs and benefits of choosing A and ~A.
With regard to (3), the person is not forced or compelled to choose A or ~A based on the relative values of A or ~A but rationally considers the choices with their values, and his choice of A or ~A is rational.

Does this work?

Conditions one, two and three are shaped by neural activity prior to readiness potential and conscious representation. Neural information processing, inputs interacting with memory function, being the agency of perception, recognition, assessment, associated feelings, conscious thought followed by motor response. The brain forms the will to act on the basis of the information received via the senses and past experiences. The loss of memory function alone eliminates the ability to form coherent thought and decision making. The term 'free will' is a misnomer.

 

[dx713]

People have wills. They will to do this or that. To say that the will is "free" to do this or that - contra-causal freedom - requires, I propose, three things, at least.

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.

With regard to (1), contra-causal freedom says that the most basic choice that is required is A and ~A.
With regard to (2), the person must have a sense of the costs and benefits of choosing A and ~A.
With regard to (3), the person is not forced or compelled to choose A or ~A based on the relative values of A or ~A but rationally considers the choices with their values, and his choice of A or ~A is rational.

Does this work?

Depends what kind of free will you're arguing for.
Your 1-3 criteria are all subjective to the person making the choice, so they work too with compatibilist free will, or the non-compatibilist determinist "illusion of free will", or Spinoza's free will "I am made to want what I want". You only reject that kind of free will at the margin, like with Dennet two-stages model, where the choice considerations can appear by chance so the person might not have the chance to fully analyze their choice.
If that's your goal, fine.

But if you, as you'd been fond to do on this site's previous iteration, want to argue for some absolute, god-given, free will, or what some commonly call "libertarian free will" as a way to argue your way out of the problem of evil, then you need to add an external, objective criteria.
I can't help you with that, I'm a compatibilist, and not even sure an "objective" analysis of a choice is even possible. Good luck.

 

[rhutchin]

People have wills. They will to do this or that. To say that the will is "free" to do this or that - contra-causal freedom - requires, I propose, three things, at least.

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.

With regard to (1), contra-causal freedom says that the most basic choice that is required is A and ~A.
With regard to (2), the person must have a sense of the costs and benefits of choosing A and ~A.
With regard to (3), the person is not forced or compelled to choose A or ~A based on the relative values of A or ~A but rationally considers the choices with their values, and his choice of A or ~A is rational.

Does this work?

Seems reasonable. You probably want some consideration in there of whether the choice A ~A is casually (causally(?)) effective. In other words, that the choice is made, and then something happens (e.g. an action) as a result of making that change. Otherwise when you run into people who believe that conscious decision making occurs, but is separate from any process that actually controls what people do, your definition won't distinguish between the two positions. Ideally you'd want to be able to take a position on whether free will requires the choice to be causally effective, or whether a fake or inconsequential choice will do.

Would this work?

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.
4. The choice (A) that is made advances the person's wants and desires more than the alternative (~A).

 

[rhutchin]

People have wills. They will to do this or that. To say that the will is "free" to do this or that - contra-causal freedom - requires, I propose, three things, at least.

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.

With regard to (1), contra-causal freedom says that the most basic choice that is required is A and ~A.
With regard to (2), the person must have a sense of the costs and benefits of choosing A and ~A.
With regard to (3), the person is not forced or compelled to choose A or ~A based on the relative values of A or ~A but rationally considers the choices with their values, and his choice of A or ~A is rational.

Does this work?

Depends what kind of free will you're arguing for.
Your 1-3 criteria are all subjective to the person making the choice, so they work too with compatibilist free will, or the non-compatibilist determinist "illusion of free will", or Spinoza's free will "I am made to want what I want". You only reject that kind of free will at the margin, like with Dennet two-stages model, where the choice considerations can appear by chance so the person might not have the chance to fully analyze their choice.
If that's your goal, fine.

But if you, as you'd been fond to do on this site's previous iteration, want to argue for some absolute, god-given, free will, or what some commonly call "libertarian free will" as a way to argue your way out of the problem of evil, then you need to add an external, objective criteria.
I can't help you with that, I'm a compatibilist, and not even sure an "objective" analysis of a choice is even possible. Good luck.

We all seem to have agendas and I have one, also. I don't see that it makes a difference. My personal belief is that true free will requires that one be omniscient.

Otherwise, the problem that I have run into is that I can read a book that deals with free will but there is never an explanation of what it means for the person's will to be "free" other than to say that it is contra-causally free. What does contra-causally free mean - it is the ability to choose otherwise. So, I'm wondering what "the ability choose otherwise" could entail. I worked out the three, now four, points that are the subject of this discussion.

So, to make the above "objective" can we phrase it this way--

1. A person is presented the choice between A and ~A..
2. A person can evaluate the costs and benefits of A and ~A.
3. A person can make a rational decision to choose A or ~A consistent with the evaluated costs and benefits.
4. The decision to choose A provides actual benefits that are perceived to be greater than ~A (which cannot be evaluated since it was not chosen).

 

[rhutchin]

Conditions one, two and three are shaped by neural activity prior to readiness potential and conscious representation. Neural information processing, inputs interacting with memory function, being the agency of perception, recognition, assessment, associated feelings, conscious thought followed by motor response. The brain forms the will to act on the basis of the information received via the senses and past experiences. The loss of memory function alone eliminates the ability to form coherent thought and decision making. The term 'free will' is a misnomer.

Would free will be a misnomer if the person were omniscient?

 

[DBT]

Conditions one, two and three are shaped by neural activity prior to readiness potential and conscious representation. Neural information processing, inputs interacting with memory function, being the agency of perception, recognition, assessment, associated feelings, conscious thought followed by motor response. The brain forms the will to act on the basis of the information received via the senses and past experiences. The loss of memory function alone eliminates the ability to form coherent thought and decision making. The term 'free will' is a misnomer.

Would free will be a misnomer if the person were omniscient?

Yes it would. 'Free will' would be a misnomer in relation an Omniscient Being because every thought that was ever thought, or would ever be thought, and every action that had ever been performed, or is ever going to be performed is perfectly known. There is no necessity for decision making or contemplation, nothing to consider and nothing to decide, as is 'will' - free or otherwise - as a response to a given stimuli in the form of a perceived urge or prompt into taking action unnecessary for a Entity with absolute knowledge.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Would free will be a misnomer if the person were omniscient?

Free will and omniscience can't coexist. If you know every single input which goes into someone's decision making process and can therefore know with 100% certainty what he's going to do then there's no free will involved in his choice and it's simply the output which resulted from those inputs. If you can't know this with 100% certainty then there's a limit to your knowledge and you are therefore not omniscient.

Fortunately, both things are fictional concepts, so any logical contradictions between them are resolved by their not being real.

 

[bilby]

It's like the old saw about the irresistible force meeting an immovable object, which relies on the questioner being unaware that there is no such thing as an immovable object, and that all forces are irresistible.

It's entertaining navel-gazing for the ignorant, but like designing a perpetual motion machine, the concepts of free will and/or omniscience are ignored by the norant as the demonstrably futile excercise that they clearly are.

 

[rhutchin]

Free will and omniscience can't coexist. If you know every single input which goes into someone's decision making process and can therefore know with 100% certainty what he's going to do then there's no free will involved in his choice and it's simply the output which resulted from those inputs. If you can't know this with 100% certainty then there's a limit to your knowledge and you are therefore not omniscient.

For purposes of this discussion, we are dealing with a person who has omniscience and is able to make decisions. In this case, omniscience would not encompass the decisions he makes but only the information that he uses to make decisions. Can such a person be said to have "free" will?

Fortunately, both things are fictional concepts, so any logical contradictions between them are resolved by their not being real.

But this is philosophy, and concepts can be considered without regard to whether someone says they are fictional.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

For purposes of this discussion, we are dealing with a person who has omniscience and is able to make decisions. In this case, omniscience would not encompass the decisions he makes but only the information that he uses to make decisions. Can such a person be said to have "free" will?

Well, if it's limited in what it encompasses, then it's not omniscience. Having someone with a limited amount of knowledge does not logically contradict with free will.

For someone with the limited amount of knowledge that you're proposing, it wouldn't contradict free will but it would allow for a proof of free will. If he knows all of the inputs going into the decision and he is correct about what the decision will therefore be 100% of the time, then it would prove that there's not free will. If he can't always be correct about the decision even though he knows all of the inputs going into making them, it would prove that we have the free will to make whatever decisions we want despite any influences on our making of those decisions.

 

[fromderinside]

People have wills. They will to do this or that. To say that the will is "free" to do this or that - contra-causal freedom - requires, I propose, three things, at least.

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.

With regard to (1), contra-causal freedom says that the most basic choice that is required is A and ~A.
With regard to (2), the person must have a sense of the costs and benefits of choosing A and ~A.
With regard to (3), the person is not forced or compelled to choose A or ~A based on the relative values of A or ~A but rationally considers the choices with their values, and his choice of A or ~A is rational.

Does this work?

The assertion that people have will is wrong. Humans are reactive beings even if they think not.

Point by point

1. a person must have awareness of choices available?

Why? Is it not sufficient that one reconstruct a rationale for what takes place that fits in with what others can tolerate. And isn't what other can tolerate ultimately restricted to that which won't kill one.

2. A person must have some sense of value inherent in the choices that exist.

Since I disagree one must be aware of choices I shall only respond to the inherent value bit. value is an over time developed construct accessible to one's awareness on a case by case basis augmenting one's overall sense that he is not about to be done away with. The only reason I even go that far is that we are designed to survive among others in our kind's recent environment. So one would presume there are tools there for assessing one risk thereby the value of one's current condition. None of this requires free will or choice of available options of which we are aware.

3. a person must be able to rationally choose this or that.

Oh come on. Rationality is an invented form of considering things that is rapidly being replaced by more computable forms of logic. The notion that one need consider emotion and reason together is outside normal conscious activity, most suitable for closed rooms with wall filled with blackboards.

Replace rational choosing with after the fact rationalization which is both flawed and not true and you begin to see where I want to go.

As a second year philosophical reasoning exercise Tom Sawyer comes closest to nail on head hitting.

 

[DBT]

For purposes of this discussion, we are dealing with a person who has omniscience and is able to make decisions. In this case, omniscience would not encompass the decisions he makes but only the information that he uses to make decisions. Can such a person be said to have "free" will?

Making decisions implies a degree of uncertainty - whether to take option A, option B, option C, etc.

By definition (absolute knowledge), there can be no uncertainty within Omniscience, therefore there are no decisions to make.

 

[dx713]

Would this work?

1. A person must have an awareness of the choices available.
2. A person must have some sense of the value inherent in the choices that exist.
3. A person must be able to rationally choose this or that.
4. The choice (A) that is made advances the person's wants and desires more than the alternative (~A).

I don't think (4) adds anything to a free will definition. It doesn't solve the problems with the first iteration, and restricts it somehow.
Your list might work for an "informed consent" type of checklist. If a rational agent's choice doesn't advance its wants and desires more than the alternative, it might question whether it was informed enough.
But for a free will debate I'm dubious about the use of (3) and (4). Are bad decisions not freely made? What if I make an emotional decision, is it not free?

Also, I'm still not sure what free will definition you're trying to corner here. Are we talking about compatibilist free will or libertarian free will? A lot will depend from the answer to this question

 

[rhutchin]

I'm still not sure what free will definition you're trying to corner here. Are we talking about compatibilist free will or libertarian free will? A lot will depend from the answer to this question

I'm trying to nail down what "free" means with regard to the will for either the compatibilist or the libertarian.

The most I ever see is that libertarian free will requires the ability to choose otherwise often referred to as contra-causal freedom. I started thinking about that and figured that an ability to choose otherwise requires that one know what is otherwise. Then to choose otherwise seems to require a sense of the relative costs and benefits of the choice and then the ability to make rational decisions. Now, if a person makes a "bad" decision, was he "free" in making that decision? If someone lies to you leading you to make a decision that was other than that you would have chosen if you knew the truth, was your freedom negated by the lie?

I have yet to figure out what a compatibilist means by free will. The most I get is that it eliminates coerced decisions. Not entirely sure.

 

[Perspicuo]

Chance is at the heart of 'free-' in the issue of "free will".

The gist is unpredictability because, first, decisions are decided mostly at the unconscious level, and second, because they are generated as final sums of a daunting amount of complex combinations of events. Decision-making is an attempt at predicting outcomes, and since real-world outcomes are ultimately unknowable, in addition to our drives being multifarious and postponable ("Do I have sex now do I eat... should I eat now and have the sex later or vice versa? Or perhaps should I increase my desirability by not being so available at this time?", and so on), the human brain is a sort of a "random decision generator", evolved to decide in conditions of undecidability.

It may seem Buddhist to say so, but the subject is free because ultimately there is no subject.

 

[rhutchin]

Chance is the heart of "free".
The fact is the unpredictablility factor is because, first, decisions are mostly unconscious,...

I think free will issues actually deal with conscious decisions - I can choose A or ~A.

 

[fromderinside]

By setting the conditions relative to your 'choice' the outcome is determined, except we probably aren't choosing based on the conditions one sets so the outcome is unknowable to the subject. Without the subject things are determined.

 

[Perspicuo]

Chance is the heart of "free".
The fact is the unpredictablility factor is because, first, decisions are mostly unconscious,...

I think free will issues actually deal with conscious decisions - I can choose A or ~A.

Sorreee...

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2014/10/28/4115528.htm

http://www.mpg.de/567905/pressRelease20080414

It's not that deliberation does not exist, but research shows unconscious processes tip the scales. And if you add up the rest of the particulars I mentioned, the conscious self is a poor thing indeed.