Sam Harris' argument against free will (video lecture)

[The AntiChris]

You appear to be claiming that the word 'free' is synonymous with, and can only mean, 'undetermined' (this is logically entailed by your statement above)? Can you confirm this is what you are saying?

Yes, of course.

Ok. This explains the problem.

You just don't use the word 'free' in the same way as the vast majority of competent English speakers. It's not surprising we're talking past each other.

 

[apeman]

Freedom, in terms of freedom of will, is about our ability to function in a way that has a degree of separateness from the reality around ( and within us)...we clearly do this all the time ..we virtually constantly operate on false ideas (for example). So my will is free from the reality around me, it is free to come to the wrong decision for example.

So, when the Distant Early Warning system set off the 'incoming nukes from Russia' alarm because it detected migrating geese over Canada, that meant the computers operating on the false assumptions that were not the reality, they had free will to sound the alarm?
Wrong = free?

Wrong equals free with regard to wrong thinking. The computer system mistakenly reacting as it did did not make a mistake from its own non-perspective...obviously...it just followed its programming...the mistake was within the minds of the programmers.

If our will is free in any way from the reality that surrounds it, then that freedom is freedom to think and base acts on those beliefs. So freedom of the will is demonstrated by man's ability to create something new, or by man's ability to believe in something that is wrong. If I can think of something that doesn't exist (even if that is a particular combination of things that do exist) then those thoughts of mine can not be caused by outside reality, they must be caused by a will that has a degree of freedom from that reality.

 

[fromderinside]

Word substitution (wrong = free, etc.) out of context isn't moving the discussion forward.

 

[Juma]

People discusd free will. I bet noone of them understand what "will" is supposed to mean.

 

[DBT]

Yes, of course.

Ok. This explains the problem.

You just don't use the word 'free' in the same way as the vast majority of competent English speakers. It's not surprising we're talking past each other.

Partly right but not entirely right...I also pointed what is considered to be the essential quality of free will; That will is free when alternative choices could have been made with the same pre-existing conditions.

Freedom of the will allows us to say, "I could have chosen (and done) otherwise."

Which of course is impossible, given that it was the immediate unchosen information state of the brain that determined the selection that was made in that instance in time, and if an error could have been avoided in that instance in time, it surely would have been avoided if you could have done otherwise. The World is full of people who wished they could have done otherwise, but now live with the consequences of their past decisions.

 

[apeman]

Word substitution (wrong = free, etc.) out of context isn't moving the discussion forward.

It is not word substitution to say that in order for will to have a degree of freedom it is required that it isn't caused directly by reality. The will in such a case is necessarily based on a thought that does not correspond completely with reality, therefore that will is free (to a degree). A will based on wrong ideas is just an easy example of free will, it could just as easily be will based on an unproven idea that will actually become true.

Simply put , freedom of the will involves the will being based on ideas that do not currently reflect reality and therefore can't be directly caused by it...our will has a degree of freedom from the reality around us. It also stands to reason that the more imaginative and intelligent we are the greater the potential for the freedom of our wills.

 

[Togo]

If you mean do I think there are better arguments, then yes.

Any chance we could get a clue as to what they are? Variety is good.

My interest here is in simply attempting to understand DBT's argument

Fair enough, I won't push you.

(I have no interest in arguing with proponents of libertarian free will for much the same reason I'm not particularly interested in arguing with committed theists).

So... Prejudice?

I note that you appear to be using 'causality and 'deterministic causality' as interchangeable. I'd suggest that this needs to be argued for, since one only implies the other if you previously assume a deterministic universe.

No, DBT and I may disagree about a number of things but I think we're on the same page as far as determinism and causality are concerned.

That doesn't make it any less of an equivocation.

Yes, of course.

Ok. This explains the problem.

You just don't use the word 'free' in the same way as the vast majority of competent English speakers. It's not surprising we're talking past each other.

This point has come up before.

 

[The AntiChris]

(I have no interest in arguing with proponents of libertarian free will for much the same reason I'm not particularly interested in arguing with committed theists).

So... Prejudice?.

Possibly.

You can only have so many of these hopeless debates before it gets a little old.

 

[DBT]

Yet all the same participants and characters appear, making all the same 'noises' whenever the subject is brought up, free will? I rest my case.

 

[The AntiChris]

There's a crucial difference between arguing against nonsensical conclusions (e.g. theism and libertarian free will) and arguing against bad reasoning even though I may agree with the conclusion.

There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.
- Daniel Dennett

 

[DBT]

There's a crucial difference between arguing against nonsensical conclusions (e.g. theism and libertarian free will) and arguing against bad reasoning even though I may agree with the conclusion.

There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.
- Daniel Dennett

Oh, for sure...compatibalism being so bad as an argument that it is no argument at all, including Dennetts the absurdity of Libertarianism, not to mention the argument from quantum, oh but wait...the argument from semantics, people refer to free will, therefore it exists, isn't that a beauty.

 

[The AntiChris]

There's a crucial difference between arguing against nonsensical conclusions (e.g. theism and libertarian free will) and arguing against bad reasoning even though I may agree with the conclusion.

Oh, for sure...compatibalism being so bad as an argument that it is no argument at all, including Dennetts the absurdity of Libertarianism, not to mention the argument from quantum, oh but wait...the argument from semantics, people refer to free will, therefore it exists, isn't that a beauty.

You seem completely oblivious to the fact that your argument is a wholly semantic argument (your insistence on an idiosyncratic and restrictive meaning of the word 'free').

 

[arkirk]

I don't think so...if you think so, which you apparently do, you need to explain your reasoning

How about an example:

2) Compatibalism is a failed argument
5) The term free will conveys no useful information <reason snipped>
How can you have an argument if the terms convey no useful information. I can understand you believing that an argument is unsound, and I can understand you believing that an argument has no content, but I don't see how you can have both.

Similarly:

1) Libertarian Free will is a fantasy
6) The term free will is irrelevant

How can something both be irrelevant and a fantasy?

And all four points presuppose that these terms in philosophy exist only for some utility or purpose. I can believe that you don't find them useful, but that says more about what you do and don't regard as useful than about the terms themselves. The claim that something is irrelevant can only be in reference to something it is relevant or irrelevant to. What is it relevant to, and why should our discourse be limited to that subject?

What I said was: the terms 'free will doesn't tell us anything about human behaviour or the nature and function of the brain. In other words, you cannot use the term 'free will' as source of information on human nature, cognition, character, individual sets of behaviours, or anything else.

Yes, but you also said 'The term free will is irrelevant', a far more general claim, and the one I specifically cited. Again, irrelevant to what?

Morals and principles...what else? Human brains are one of the few automatic mechanisms in existence that get infatuated with the wonder of itself and decree onto its significance roster importances that are not real. If wills were absolutely free, it may just become next to impossible to forgive anyone for anything with any assurrance that such forgiveness might accrue positive value in one's life. One of the things that has become again glaringly clear is that, while our moral ideas may not accurately describe the universe, no genuine rational system can operate to any effect, in fact no rational system can do anything but break down if it is fed a lifelong diet of lies (culture). Rational systems rely on primary assertions, taken by the reasoner to be fact Just like a computer...garbage in give you garbage out.

Oh, but the irony...Immanual Kant his gaunt ghost still fucking things up. Free will would mean you have the freedom to lie. For any system of communication and decision making involving more than one person, there has to be agreement on many ideas deemed to be facts, perhaps contributed by all the parties, or at least more than one party. It is this agreed on body of information that then is subjected to the deductive processes of all parties...yielding frequently garbage.

It does often appear that while our brains and their thoughts are completely determined, their perfidious failures to adequately deal with life's problems indicates there is a kind of roulette aspect to the various brains that analyze an idea. That is to say, there is a random quality to it. Linguists often describe our failures to reason well on the nature of language and interpretation. That remains even if we all are totally as honest as we can make ourselves. So if there is a freedom, it is nothing more than a kind of gamble always what the human mind comes up with next.

 

[DBT]

Oh, for sure...compatibalism being so bad as an argument that it is no argument at all, including Dennetts the absurdity of Libertarianism, not to mention the argument from quantum, oh but wait...the argument from semantics, people refer to free will, therefore it exists, isn't that a beauty.

You seem completely oblivious to the fact that your argument is a wholly semantic argument (your insistence on an idiosyncratic and restrictive meaning of the word 'free').

Given that I have given numerous references to neuroscience studies that show that brain state is in effect the state of decision making, or will, you appear to be willfully ignoring the fact that evidence has been provided, that I have provided evidence for what I have argued.

Even the semantics of 'freedom' has references to actual conditions, which I have itemized and described.

So your objections are based on your own flawed interpretation ( idiosyncratic, yada, yada ) of what I have said, and provided, and not what I have actually said, and provided.

 

[The AntiChris]

You seem completely oblivious to the fact that your argument is a wholly semantic argument (your insistence on an idiosyncratic and restrictive meaning of the word 'free').

Given that I have given numerous references to neuroscience studies that show that brain state is in effect the state of decision making, or will, you appear to be willfully ignoring the fact that evidence has been provided, that I have provided evidence for what I have argued.

We are in complete agreement about what neuroscience tells about the workings of the brain. Human decision making is, to all intents and purposes, deterministic. Libertarian/contra-causal free will does not exist. This is not in dispute.

Neuroscience does not tell us that it is inappropriate to use the word 'free' to describe will. Our dispute is about the meaning of the word 'free' (post #101 refers).

This is an entirely semantic dispute.

 

[DBT]

Given that I have given numerous references to neuroscience studies that show that brain state is in effect the state of decision making, or will, you appear to be willfully ignoring the fact that evidence has been provided, that I have provided evidence for what I have argued.

We are in complete agreement about what neuroscience tells about the workings of the brain. Human decision making is, to all intents and purposes, deterministic. Libertarian/contra-causal free will does not exist. This is not in dispute.

Neuroscience does not tell us that it is inappropriate to use the word 'free' to describe will. Our dispute is about the meaning of the word 'free' (post #101 refers).

This is an entirely semantic dispute.

But it is not just a semantic dispute. Words being merely symbols used to represent objects, events and concepts, etc, for the purpose of communication of information.

What I did was provide references to the meaning of the concept of 'freedom' just as the word represents, nothing more, nothing less, in relation to what is currently understood about the workings of the brain.

If decision making is determined by brain condition, as the evidence from neuroscience supports, decision making has no independent 'freedom' whatsoever. It cannot do whatever it pleases because it is neural information exchange that determines decision making and not 'free' will.

Semantics? Yes, indeed, but semantics with references to actual states and actual processes.

 

[The AntiChris]

We are in complete agreement about what neuroscience tells about the workings of the brain. Human decision making is, to all intents and purposes, deterministic. Libertarian/contra-causal free will does not exist. This is not in dispute.

Neuroscience does not tell us that it is inappropriate to use the word 'free' to describe will. Our dispute is about the meaning of the word 'free' (post #101 refers).

This is an entirely semantic dispute.

But it is not just a semantic dispute. Words being merely symbols used to represent objects, events and concepts, etc, for the purpose of communication of information.

What I did was provide references to the meaning of the concept of 'freedom' just as the word represents, nothing more, nothing less, in relation to what is currently understood about the workings of the brain.

If decision making is determined by brain condition, as the evidence from neuroscience supports, decision making has no independent 'freedom' whatsoever. It cannot do whatever it pleases because it is neural information exchange that determines decision making and not 'free' will.

Semantics? Yes, indeed, but semantics with references to actual states and actual processes.

I'm afraid this response makes no sense to me. If anyone has been following this exchange and thinks they can help out, please do.

 

[DBT]

It's self explanatory. As you claimed it be 'just' a symantic argument, I pointed out that because words are intended to refer to objects, events, etc, this isn't a case of ''just'' a semantic argument, it is about what the words - being symbols used in reference to an object for the purpose of communication - are actually referring to. So it is not 'just' or 'only' a symantic argument.

I hope that helps, but I doubt it.

 

[The AntiChris]

I pointed out that because words are intended to refer to objects, events, etc, this isn't a case of ''just'' a semantic argument, it is about what the words - being symbols used in reference to an object for the purpose of communication - are actually referring to.

The word in question is 'free'.

The referent is 'will' (deterministic human decision making).

Our only disagreement is over the use of the word 'free' to describe 'will'. You say there is no circumstance in which the 'will' can ever be described as free. I disagree (I claim there are meanings of the word 'free' which don't entail freedom from deterministic causes).

This is a dispute about the meaning of the word 'free'.

Disputes about the meanings of words are semantic disputes.

 

[DBT]

I pointed out that because words are intended to refer to objects, events, etc, this isn't a case of ''just'' a semantic argument, it is about what the words - being symbols used in reference to an object for the purpose of communication - are actually referring to.

The word in question is 'free'.

The referent is 'will' (deterministic human decision making).

Our only disagreement is over the use of the word 'free' to describe 'will'. You say there is no circumstance in which the 'will' can ever be described as free. I disagree (I claim there are meanings of the word 'free' which don't entail freedom from deterministic causes).

This is a dispute about the meaning of the word 'free'.

Disputes about the meanings of words are semantic disputes.

Then why not give an example of what you mean by 'free' or 'freedom of will?''

Give your definition of the word 'free' - a definition that is compatible with the deterministic nature of a brain (which you say you agree with), thereby giving a reasoned argument for compatibalism and free will?

Thank you