The Great Contradiction

[Angra Mainyu]

You seem to be saying that if you were being threatened by someone with a gun to your head you would not be writing of your own free will. And yet you still had to make a choice. I'm not saying the choice wasn't less free. But if you wanted to, for whatever reason, you could have chosen not to write. That's what dualists mean by free will. It's more like free-floating will. Untethered by any restraint of context and therefore essentially meaningless.

The expression 'of one's free will' is the same, and it's unlikely that dualists and non-dualists mean different things. Suppose Bob writes and sends a threatening letter to Mary. He is charged for that. His excuse? Jack pointed a gun at his head and credibly told him to do that or be killed on the spot. If Bob provides good evidence supporting the claim that Jack did that, then a reasonable judge (or jury, depending on the system) will acquit him, because Bob did not write or sent the letter of his own free will.

Dualists may have a mistaken theory about the meaning of the expression 'of one's own free will', or even use 'free will' to mean something else in different contexts. That, however, is not the kind of free will that is relevant morally, which is about whether one acted of one's own free will.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

We all make decisions and choices but none of those actions are unconditional. In another thread I agreed that free will is nothing more than a conditioned or conditional choice, as is everything else in life. The best way I can help you understand my take on free will is to tell you that it strikes me as being the same thing as grace or miracles. And of course there isn't any of that stuff either.

Words have meaning, and the meaning of 'of one's own free will' results from usage, not from the definitions of 'free will' given by theologians. In the usual sense of the term, that I'm writing this of my own free will does not seem to be at all like grace or miracles. It seems to be just an ordinary event.

Shall I go full Einstein and say that everything is relative? Does that help make my point?

It wouldn't, because as I told ruby sparks, our main disagreement is not about science at all. It's about the meaning of the words, and more precisely the expression 'of one's own free will' and related expressions in English.

Are you choosing for your heart to beat and your lungs to breath?

Usually not, though I can make that choice. If I chose for them not to beat/breathe, I would be able to do so. But I choose to let them work as they normally do.

If you have no choice over these things how can you argue that you have free will?

While I do have a choice, that's not relevant. Hypothetically, suppose that now, like in some movies or TV shows, I become invincible, so even if I tried to, I would not be able to kill myself, stop my lungs, etc. I would still be writing this post of my own free will...well, maybe if that were to happen, I would be so freaked out that I would choose not to reply for a while, but then I'd probably choose to come back - of my own free will.

Free will is not the same thing as the mundane act of making decisions and choices. Even squirrels do that.

Maybe. I do not know how compelled a squirrel is, or how much of a choice it has. I would need more info about squirrel's mind.

 

[ruby sparks]

But again, how does that imply it? In other words, how do you derive the conclusion from the premises? It does not follow without implicit premises, and those are the ones I'm asking you to defend - and those are not about the universe or about determinism, but about the meaning of the words. The rest are side disagreements.


Not at all. The issue is this. You earlier claimed

Something that is determined (and/or random) is not freely willed or freely done. I don't think I know how to put it any more bluntly than that.

That, however, does not follow. The argument is of the form:

Premise 1: X is P.
Conclusion: X is not Q.

That is of course invalid. You need further premises, linking P to Q. But you have not supported them. In particular, you said:

Because free and determined (constrained) are effectively opposites.

However, you have not argued that 'causally determined' means 'constrained', nor that the expression 'out of my own free will' is such that, by the meaning of the words, I can only act of my own free will if there is no causal determinism.

You are starting to sound like one of those fudge-makers.

You're now beginning to get it. I take issue with your characterization of compatibists as fudge-makers, or something to that effect. You make very negative claims, but present no presenting linguistic evidence to back up your claims or implications about the meaning of the words.

I mean, we could do the same with god, couldn't we? Maybe in some linguistic ways, there's a god. Are we any further on? I don't think so. We have just made some nice sophistry fudge.

You're getting closer to the real point of contention now.
Of course, changing the definition of what it is to act of one's own free will to make it so that one can act of one's own free will would be some nice sophistry fudge. I'm not doing that. The people you accuse of doing that, are not doing that. Rather, we do not agree with your claims or implications about what 'of one's own free will' and/or related expressions mean, and you have not properly supported your claims or implications (actually, it seems you haven't even tried, as you're still talking physics, biology, etc., rather than language, usage among English speakers, etc.).

What if I say to you that it's obvious to me that the leaves on the trees outside my window are held up by invisible angels? Is that really much of an explanation?

No, but if you told me that it's obvious to you that you are writing your posts because you feel like it, I would say it pretty much is. The problem with your comparison is that you badly misunderstand my claim.

I get that it strongly feels to you that you have free will.

You do not seem to get that at all, because you seem to think that acting of my own free will involves lack of causal determinism, which is something I do not have the slightest idea how it would feel like.

It's much the same set of sensations for me.

Could you please describe what you feel, and why do you think it is related to whether you act of your own free will?

But neither belief can seem to be rationally explained as to how they could even be possible.

Well, I do not have any feelings of anything that appears impossible or improbable going on. But maybe you do? Again, could you describe your feelings, please?

You may not be compelled by any threats, but surely you must be compelled by causal determinants, even if you don't detect them?

Why? Why would causal determinants be a form of compulsion?
Words have meaning, and that goes for the word 'compulsion'. If I say I'm not compelled to write it, I do not understand myself to be suggesting that my writing this was not brought about causally by previous events, like my previous thinking on these matters, reading from other people, my preferences to post, and so on. Nor do I understand myself as talking about causes before my birth. I'm not being coerced at gun or knife point. My brain is not failing in a way that produces a compulsion - like a heroin addict, or a kleptomaniac, etc. I'm acting of my own free will.

How, for example, can any one, or any group, of your brain neurons (that might be involved in a decision) 'fire' unless something has just caused it/them to do so? Then rinse and repeat the same question. Then again. Etc.

How is that relevant to whether I act of my own free will?

As to evidence, it is in the nature of illusions and delusions to not be noticeable to the person deceived by them.

You're going for the wrong evidence. The key disagreement is about the meaning of the expression 'of one's own free will', and related ones', not at all about what happens in the brain, or the early universe, or whatever. .

*ETA: while there is no conclusive empirical evidence, there is a great deal of empirical (eg neuroscientific) evidence from the last approximately 40 years that suggests free will may be unlikely.

I am familiar with such claims. I have no objection to the empirical evidence. I disagree with the claim that such empirical evidence makes it unlikely that we act of our own free will.

No, I don't think I do misunderstand your claim. I think I understand it very well.

I'm sorry but I have very little time for that sort of fudge-making compatibilist sophistry, which is what it clearly is, imo. I've heard it all before many times, and find it both unconvincing and indeed odd, because perhaps the only interesting, albeit secondary question might be to ask what exactly is it that motivates you to try to salvage free will in this way? My best guess is some form of psychological avoidance or denial. And/or possibly a concern that society will otherwise implode, as per what apparently worries Daniel Dennett.

Ok so what's up next, rescuing theology by coming up with a suitably shallow and convenient definition of god? I can see why you might want do that, in order to be consistent in your approach to issues generally.

 

[ruby sparks]

If I chose for them not to beat/breathe, I would be able to do so.

Suppose, temporarily and hypothetically, that your fully-awake brain made the above choice/decision, or indeed any other, completely non-consciously. In other words, what if you did not become consciously aware of a choice/decision (not even as a 'Libet veto' at the last instant) prior to a subsequent action. Would you say that that apparently fully automatic process was an instance of the exercise of what you are calling your free will?

A simple hypothetical yes or no response would be helpful and informative to me in the first instance and could be clarified, elaborated upon by you, qualified, or the implications unpacked afterwards.

 

[ruby sparks]

In the usual sense of the term, that I'm writing this of my own free will does not seem to be at all like grace or miracles. It seems to be just an ordinary event.

Assuming that you are talking about conscious thinking, then unless it's explained as to how it could possibly even be, or work, even in principle, then it arguably more or less belongs in the same general category as a miracle, or levitation, or magic, or a trick/illusion (or if you insist, at the very least as something unexplained, a mystery, apparently a currently unexplainable one in fact). That it seems an ordinary (I'm assuming you mean conscious) event is not that persuasive, in the final analysis, given that feeling that god exists and hears or answers prayers seems an ordinary or at least everyday/commonplace event to a theist. I agree that it feels like an ordinary event, and that the idea that it's something else seems mind-bendingly counter-intuitive. But to me that's what's so fascinating and amazing about it, and why it's so much more interesting to try to go beyond the numerous psychological illusions we are prey to, instead of diluting the term so much that it becomes almost meaningless, or an obstacle to deeper understanding, and/or only retained as something akin to a comfort blanket, or because of imagined consequences for morality and human behaviour (which is the way it is sometimes discussed).



By the way, I have probably been, in my replies to you, too dismissive of the possibility that we have something that could reasonably be called free will in any meaningful sense of the term. In the end, I am actually agnostic about it and by and large only object to the positive claim that we have it, which I feel is at least questionable, even as you seem to define and conceive of it.

I am finding it difficult to agree with myself that I have been too hard on compatibilism however, though it is possible I have been.

 

[ruby sparks]

Imagine two people, person A and person B, sitting either side of a large computer screen on which there are many small pictures of different objects. Both persons have their fingertips resting lightly on a large, flat, mobile 'mouse' in front of the screen and on a desk between them. They are to jointly and gently, via the 'mouse', move a cursor randomly around the screen in a circular way for a time and then after a certain audible signal they are instructed beforehand that they are each, in their own time and when they choose, to pick an object to then try to deliberately move the cursor to it, and stop. Now suppose at the time of the signal, person A thinks of a particular object (let's say a swan) and suppose that somehow person B knows A is thinking of the swan, and then person B, completely unbeknownst to person A, deliberately pushes the 'mouse/cursor' over to the swan and stops. Why is it that person A will often tend to think that they were the major contributing agent for that action, when they probably weren't?

It seems very possible, from this situation (it's an approximate description of a psychology experiment in which person A is the subject of the experiment and person B is secretly a confederate of the experimenters) and others studied, that the brain likes to think of itself as an agent and can delude itself that it actually is, when it isn't (when an outcome merely matches an expectation, for instance). To me, this is a non-trivial clue as to how the feeling of agency might 'work' and at the very least seems to highlight something that might be called an illusion of mind, and cast at least some doubt on our ideas of agency generally. It's only one small example and nowhere near conclusive, obviously, since any experiment or even series of experiments do not necessarily show what the experimenters conclude it/they seem to show.

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ce_of_Will/links/0c96051fbadb1903f0000000.pdf

 

[Angra Mainyu]

No, I don't think I do misunderstand your claim. I think I understand it very well.

You were making false claims about what I believe. I take it those were not deliberate, so you misunderstood.

I'm sorry but I have very little time for that sort of fudge-making compatibilist sophistry, which is what it clearly is, imo.

No, it is not sophistry. It is not fudge-making. It is, of course, compatibilism.

I've heard it all before many times, and find it both unconvincing and indeed odd, because perhaps the only interesting, albeit secondary question might be to ask what exactly is it that motivates you to try to salvage free will in this way?

More than one motivation, but one of them is similar to my motivation for arguing for atheism: Like atheism, compatibilism is true and warranted by the available evidence.

My best guess is some form of psychological avoidance or denial.

It's a very bad guess I'm afraid.

And/or possibly a concern that society will otherwise implode, as per what apparently worries Daniel Dennett.

No, it won't implode, for several reasons, such as:

1. Many, likely most people will likely reject the claim against free will. Unfortunately, theism will be much more appealing because of that, so you're helping theists persuade people, but that's another matter.
2. Many, perhaps most of those who accept the claim will likely not realize the consequences of their claim in re. morality.
3. At any rate, moral error theorists are not psychopaths. Sure, their belief does get in the way sometimes, making them morally worse than they would otherwise be. But for the most part - i.e., when it comes to most actions - it makes little difference.

It's sort of like theism. Adoption of theism would not make society collapse. In fact, its consequences are not even so bad. They are bad overall, but less bad than, say, the consequences of adoption of Christianity, or Islam, or other specific forms of theism - which do not make society collapse, either.

In short, the spread of false and unwarranted beliefs like the belief I'm not writing this of my own free will has negative consequences, but not to that extent. The spread of a custom of getting unwarranted beliefs is a problem, but then that is unfortunately already widespread.

Ok so what's up next, rescuing theology by coming up with a suitably shallow and convenient definition of god? I can see why you might want do that, in order to be consistent in your approach to issues generally.

Your insulting claim about me is false. Much worse than false, it is unwarranted. And it is your fault, because you wrote that of your own accord. In other words, you wrote that of your own free will (of course, if you were right that you did not write that of your own free will, I would be mistaken in thinking that you are at fault - though that would not be my fault, either, obviously. But you are not right).

As for the term "gods", actually different people seem to mean different things by that, and talk past each other. My general approach by the way is to try to look at people using terms 'in the wild' so to speak - in other words, I don't look at the definitions they give if they do, but at how they actually use the words. On the basis of that, I try to get acquainted with different English terms, and test also whether theories about them are correct.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Suppose, temporarily and hypothetically, that your fully-awake brain made the above choice/decision, or indeed any other, completely non-consciously. In other words, what if you did not become consciously aware of a choice/decision (not even as a 'Libet veto' at the last instant) prior to a subsequent action. Would you say that that apparently fully automatic process was an instance of the exercise of what you are calling your free will?

A simple hypothetical yes or no response would be helpful and informative to me in the first instance and could be clarified, elaborated upon by you, qualified, or the implications unpacked afterwards.

There is no 'yes' or 'no' response that would not be very misleading I'm afraid. The closest I can go with is this:

If the process that you describe is actually how normally decisions are made by humans, then yes, I would be acting of my own free will. Otherwise, probably not, as my judgement would have been somehow impaired, apparently in a significant manner.

Of course, there are other problems with your description, but that's the gist of it.


Perhaps, this question will help me explain a point. Words used colloquially seem to have truth-conditions usually depending on how things actually are, which are not implicit in the meaning of the terms. For example, if a glass has a liquid that contains no hydrogen atoms, can it have water? No, because water is H2O, right? But that's an empirical finding. The term 'water' does not say anything about H2O. Suppose a person lives in the time where the chemical composition of water was being studied, but was not yet known. If he had been asked 'If a glass has a liquid that contains no hydrogen atoms, can it have water?', a proper reply would have been: 'If water is composed of hydrogen atoms (+ something else), then no. Otherwise, then yes, but it depends on what water turns out to be made of'. So, the answer to your question depends on how the human decision-making process normally functions. Acting of our own free will is what we do in some (a gazillion) paradigmatic example cases (e.g., I write this because I feel like it, but it's not a compulsion like a kleptomaniac or a heroin addict), and what we do not do in another gazillion paradigmatic cases (gun to the head, knife to the throat, etc.). So, whether your scenario is one in which I would be acting of my own free will depends on how the human decision-making process normally functions.

Now, my impression as to how the human decision-making process normally functions (but I might be mistaken) is this (very rough sketch):

In most cases, our actions do not involve a conscious previous choice, but we actually can make it. For example, I just made a conscious choice to reply to one of your posts, but I'm not making a conscious choice to press every key I'm pressing. Now, I can do that if I so choose, but then I would be ridiculously slow at typing. So, essentially, conscious choices seem to be made when we want to, when it's important to us, etc., whereas most of the gazillion movements we made in order to carry them out (or to carry out other stuff that we do not bother to consciously decide beforehand) are not decided consciously before they happen, though we can choose to do so. We're still acting of our own free will.

What if that is not so, and I am mistaken as to how the human brain and decision-making process normally function?

Well, that means I'm mistaken about that, not that I'm not writing of my own free will. Consider the following analogy: before Einstein, nearly everyone at least believed that time was absolute. It turns out it's relative. That means that nearly everyone was mistaken about that aspect of time (or maybe everyone), but they were not mistaken that there is time, that some things happened before others, and so on. Similarly, I might be mistaken about an aspect of how I make free choices, but that does not mean I do not make free choices.

Granted, there are at least some conditions imposed by the meaning of the words, which might not obtain (both for time of human decisions) and would lead to error theories. But there is a lot of room for errors in beliefs that do not affect the existence of time/free choice.

Let me add one more point, which might be interesting to you given the way you are arguing:

If it turns out that every decision can be predicted accurately (by measuring stuff in the brain, or whatever) before the person was consciously aware of it, that would not at all provide good evidence that decisions are not conscious, or that consciousness is not causally effective.

For an analogy, consider the drone strike that killed Soleimani. Let's call the drone operator 'Bob'. Now, after Bob pressed a key, it was possible to predict that the drone would shortly afterwards fire a missile, that the missile would travel towards a target, and then explode. Indeed, if that sort of prediction could not be made accurately, then it would not even be possible to launch accurate drone strikes. Granted, drones are not 100% accurate, but they are very accurate, and for that matter, predictions of what people will do based on what happens in the brain is not and will never be 100% accurate (maybe a person suffers a heart attack before they move, or whatever). Moreover, assuming no randomness, the only thing precluding perfect accuracy of the predictions of the missile path, explossion, etc., is lack of information about the physical processes involved (it's not possible to have complete info, but the same applies to the brain).
Now, in particular, using that information, after Bob pressed the key, he could accurately predict that his target, Soleimani, would be killed by an explosion. Of course, the fact that Bob could predict that Soleimani would be killed by an explosion does not even suggest that the drone and the missile flying towards Soleimani played no causal role in his death. Indeed, that would be absurd.

But now suppose that by looking a Bob's brain, some scientists could predict before Bob did that, that Bob would decide to follow his orders and press the key to fire the missile. Surely, the fact that Bob's decision was predicted beforehand does not mean that his decision played no causal role. Indeed, Bob likely did think consciously about his decision of whether to fire before he did. Perhaps, he did not specifically think consciously about pressing a key - he just consciously decided to fire, and then unconsciously did the key-pressing -, or perhaps he did specifically think consciously about pressing the key. But either way, from the (let us assume) fact that Bob's decision and key-pressing was all accurately predictable before it happened (and so, before Bob was aware of it) does not mean that Bob's conscious decision was not causally effective.


P.S: Please do not reply to this post without first reading it carefully, with the intention of understanding it rather than just dismissing it as "sophistry" without understanding what I actually say. It took me a long time to write it, and I hope it's not all lost to a reply that badly misconstrues it, accuses me of having some beliefs I do not have, doing things I'm not doing, etc., and .

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Assuming that you are talking about conscious thinking, then unless it's explained as to how it could possibly even be, or work, even in principle, then it arguably more or less belongs in the same general category as a miracle, or levitation, or magic, or a trick/illusion (or if you insist, at the very least as something unexplained, a mystery, apparently a currently unexplainable one in fact).

No, again, you're talking about something else.

That it seems an ordinary (I'm assuming you mean conscious) event is not that persuasive, in the final analysis, given that feeling that god exists and hears or answers prayers seems an ordinary or at least everyday/commonplace event to a theist.

The massive difference is about what it takes to make it false. The theist beliefs God listens to her thoughts and prayers. But she would agree of course that if there is no one besides sometimes other humans listening to her thoughts and prayers, her belief in theism would be false. On the other hand, your proposed objections would not make it false that I'm writing this of my own free will, even if they are true - i.e., even if determinism is true, even if my brain makes decisions as you say, etc.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

It seems very possible, from this situation (it's an approximate description of a psychology experiment in which person A is the subject of the experiment and person B is secretly a confederate of the experimenters) and others studied, that the brain likes to think of itself as an agent and can delude itself that it actually is, when it isn't (when an outcome merely matches an expectation, for instance).

Actually, the brain - the person - is not deluding herself. Rather, other people are deceiving her. That's a pretty common occurrence. Humans often deceive each other. Now the experiment might have some value as a means of studying human psychology. But it provides no evidence against the hypothesis that both A and B were acting of their own free will.

 

[Wiploc]

Remez, you quoted Haldane's argument ...

“It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms.”
― J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds

... with, I thought, approval.

I entered this thread to point out that Haldane's argument is garbage.

Rather than agreeing or disagreeing with my point about Haldane's argument, you deflect to some point about the OP.

I'm happy to discuss the OP, but I'd like you to respond to my point about Haldane's argument.

 

[Treedbear]

...

Free will is not the same thing as the mundane act of making decisions and choices. Even squirrels do that.

Maybe. I do not know how compelled a squirrel is, or how much of a choice it has. I would need more info about squirrel's mind.

That was probably not the best example. The squirrels where I live seem to include a major random component in how they make choices.

 

[ruby sparks]

Suppose, temporarily and hypothetically, that your fully-awake brain made the above choice/decision, or indeed any other, completely non-consciously. In other words, what if you did not become consciously aware of a choice/decision (not even as a 'Libet veto' at the last instant) prior to a subsequent action. Would you say that that apparently fully automatic process was an instance of the exercise of what you are calling your free will?

A simple hypothetical yes or no response would be helpful and informative to me in the first instance and could be clarified, elaborated upon by you, qualified, or the implications unpacked afterwards.

.....If the process that you describe is actually how normally decisions are made by humans, then yes, I would be acting of my own free will.

Thanks. That tells me a lot. I had previously read material by compatibilists who went as far as to claim that free will (as they call it) could be exercised non-consciously, but as far as I can recall I had never actually conversed with one of them until now.

Also, that you apparently don't know whether or not what I described is how humans normally make decisions seems odd of itself.

 

[ruby sparks]

Now the experiment might have some value as a means of studying human psychology. But it provides no evidence against the hypothesis that both A and B were acting of their own free will.

That experiment is often cited in the literature on free will, for good reason (namely that it's obviously relevant) but you can't even see that exposing an apparently illusory aspect of the human sense of agency suggests that something may be awry regarding human agents claiming to be acting with free will?

That takes the biscuit and I see no point in continuing to waste time discussing this with someone who can't even recognise or accept something as basic as that when presented with it.

I did read all your posts carefully, but for various reasons, including the above, I will leave you with your unexplained, contradictory, pretty much meaningless, and apparently not very thoroughly-explored concept of free will, and your underlying assumption that you just have it, largely because it really really feels like you do.

It's probably a good idea if we stop discussing free will anyway and give the thread another chance to get back to an on-topic contradiction, the one in the OP.

 

[Treedbear]

You seem to be saying that if you were being threatened by someone with a gun to your head you would not be writing of your own free will. And yet you still had to make a choice. I'm not saying the choice wasn't less free. But if you wanted to, for whatever reason, you could have chosen not to write. That's what dualists mean by free will. It's more like free-floating will. Untethered by any restraint of context and therefore essentially meaningless.

The expression 'of one's free will' is the same, and it's unlikely that dualists and non-dualists mean different things. Suppose Bob writes and sends a threatening letter to Mary. He is charged for that. His excuse? Jack pointed a gun at his head and credibly told him to do that or be killed on the spot. If Bob provides good evidence supporting the claim that Jack did that, then a reasonable judge (or jury, depending on the system) will acquit him, because Bob did not write or sent the letter of his own free will.

Dualists may have a mistaken theory about the meaning of the expression 'of one's own free will', or even use 'free will' to mean something else in different contexts. That, however, is not the kind of free will that is relevant morally, which is about whether one acted of one's own free will.

I agree with your very useful and common definition of free will. But if you think it's the same one used by dualists then you haven't been keeping up with the discussion in this thread. Your moral definition of free will is dependent on context, whether that comes down to an actual legal interpretation, or simply having the ability to recognize as part of one's self the personal rights and responsibilities one has as a member of a community. That is essentially where we derive meaning and purpose. But the anti-determinists argue that the self exists independent of any such context. Several theists who profess dualism are adamantly arguing against determinism.

Just one question to clarify your view of compatiblism. Would you claim that for something that you did in the past, some act or thought (intentional or not), could you have acted or thought differently under the same circumstances? Because the classic definition of free will (one generally embraced by the public and even the judicial system) is in the idea that given the same circumstances one could have acted differently.

 

[Wiploc]

... an on-topic contradiction, the one in the OP.

Remez was saying something about that, but I never understood. Can you tell me about that contradiction in the OP?

 

[ruby sparks]

... an on-topic contradiction, the one in the OP.

Remez was saying something about that, but I never understood. Can you tell me about that contradiction in the OP?

Well I’m not sure if it’s a contradiction or the making of an exception (a version of special pleading perhaps) or as pointed out to me it could be a contradiction depending on how it’s presented, but basically it’s the idea that on the one hand god can be taken as having always existed but the universe can’t. Or perhaps more precisely that god’s existence does not need an explanation but the universe’s does.

Or vice versa in either case.

As I saw it, remez changed the subject, with his first post, on page 4, and in that post he introduced something from Haldane which I agree with you is awry, as well as being off-topic.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Thanks. That tells me a lot. I had previously read material by compatibilists who went as far as to claim that free will (as they call it) could be exercised non-consciously, but as far as I can recall I had never actually conversed with one of them until now.

Also, that you apparently don't know whether or not what I described is how humans normally make decisions seems odd of itself.

I already explained to you what I think goes on in normal human decision-making process, so you can assess whether that partially fits with your scenario, or not.

That experiment is often cited in the literature on free will, for good reason (namely that it's obviously relevant) but you can't even see that exposing an apparently illusory aspect of the human sense of agency suggests that something may be awry regarding human agents claiming to be acting with free will?

No, it is cited because some philosophers claim it is relevant, whereas other philosophers claim it is not, and cite it in order to make their case.

That takes the biscuit and I see no point in continuing to waste time discussing this with someone who can't even recognise or accept something as basic as that when presented with it.

You are making false and unwarranted disparaging accusations against me. And you are making them of your own free will.

I did read all your posts carefully, but for various reasons, including the above, I will leave you with your unexplained, contradictory, pretty much meaningless, and apparently not very thoroughly-explored concept of free will, and your underlying assumption that you just have it, largely because it really really feels like you do.

The concept of acting of one's own free will is not contradictory. It's the concept I am using, not another one.
Words have meaning. Take, for example, the word 'water'. People learn to use it by looking at others pointing at some stuff and calling it 'water', and some other stuff and not calling it so - or saying it's not water, and so on. Similarly, when people learn to use the expression 'of one's own free will', they learn from others, and they see that it is used to name some human behaviors, and not others. And they can in that way, acquire a concept. Just as the concept of water does not contain severely constraining conditions on what water is made of - H2O or whatever turns out to be -, the same goes for the concept of 'out of one's free will'. That is the usual situation for our concepts in a natural language such as English. There are some restrictions, which one picks intuitively with the concept, but causal determinism does not seem to be one of them.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I agree with your very useful and common definition of free will. But if you think it's the same one used by dualists then you haven't been keeping up with the discussion in this thread. Your moral definition of free will is dependent on context, whether that comes down to an actual legal interpretation, or simply having the ability to recognize as part of one's self the personal rights and responsibilities one has as a member of a community. That is essentially where we derive meaning and purpose. But the anti-determinists argue that the self exists independent of any such context. Several theists who profess dualism are adamantly arguing against determinism.

Just one question to clarify your view of compatiblism. Would you claim that for something that you did in the past, some act or thought (intentional or not), could you have acted or thought differently under the same circumstances? Because the classic definition of free will (one generally embraced by the public and even the judicial system) is in the idea that given the same circumstances one could have acted differently.

The concept of acting of one's own free will (synonym: of one's own accord) is the same used by dualists in the wild, when they are speaking normally, and not being blocked by their mistaken beliefs about the meaning of that expression. It is not the same as the concept of free will used by dualists when debating whether one can act of one's own free will, of course. Then, they are going by their mistaken definition, which fails to match common usage - even their usage, again 'in the wild'.

Regarding your point, sure, I could have acted differently in the sense I had the power, capacity, etc., to choose otherwise. On the other hand, I make no claim that given the history of the universe, it was not causally determined that I would act as I did. I take no stance on that.

Regarding the definition you mentioned (very debated in philosophy; look up "Frankfurt cases"), the meaning is as usual determined by usage, but it does not mean that the actions of the person were not causally determined. If it meant that, then in order to create reasonable doubt about whether a defendant is guilty, it would be sufficient to point out that there is reasonable doubt as to whether the universe is causally deterministic. Moreover, the jurors (or whoever the judge of fact is), if they are being rational and have considered the matter, would reckon that there is a reasonable doubt as to whether the universe is deterministic. As a result, for sufficiently informed jurors there would always be reasonable doubt. That is not how the system actually works, though.

 

[Learner]

Hi Remez,

I just realised what a boo boo I did with my response post #136 below.

Our friend remez has been implying that your free will is something separate from mere atoms. How then does mental illness happen? These are people who have lost their free will, at least as I understand what you mean by the phrase anyway. If it isn't particles, atoms, energy, then there should be no mental illness and loss of free will associated with brain anomalies, but there is. How is this so if your free will is something separate from mere atoms?

Perhaps I'm out of my league here as I am confined to simple basic logic. I avoid trying to philosophically "over-think" the sometimes uneccessary thought-exercises that may lead to confusion.

Philosophy over-think I was talking about some atheists (theists too of course), moogly as well trying to stretch further mind-puzzle arguments - beyond reasoning. Not at all meant to include you as it looks (because I agree with you on the atoms thing) . I'm sure you knew this, but just in case, which would be quite understandable, due to the usual lack of better wording.

Best wishes brother Remez