There isn't really a 'freewill problem'.

[Emily Lake]

Will doesn't choose. It is the brain that acquires and processes information and makes a selection from a set of realizable options based on a given set of criteria, wants, needs, fears, hopes, desires, which are based on past experience, weighing of cost to benefit....or simply emotion taking over, a snap decision, sometimes leading to regret.

That entire bit there is what pretty much everyone means when they use the term "free will".

Will isn't a separate thing. It's a process which runs on the architecture of a brain. Just like thinking is a process and decision-making is a process. Will is the meta-process that incorporates all aspects of agency, volition, and extrapolation. In general, the "will" at question here is the nounification of a verb. It's the name of a process of volition and choice.

 

[Emily Lake]

There are no examples of mind without the existence and activity of a brain. If you can explain mind without brain agency, go ahead, do your best.

Sure, but there are PLENTY of examples of a brain without a mind.

Brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the existence of a mind.

Think about an analogy: There is no person without a body. Yup, that's true. But that doesn't make a body alone into a person. A body is a physical construct. A person is a set of experiences, patterns, and processes that act upon a body.

 

[ruby sparks]

Why do you think it is acceptable to hold people accountable for things over which they have no volition?

I thought I'd had a go at answering just exactly that.

Self-policing is only logical when self-policing can alter a decision.

Not following.

But in a fully deterministic schema, that is not possible - a decision cannot be altered, because that decision is the only decision possible for that person at that time.

Of course a decision can be altered, but it will, in my view and even that of many compatibilists who say we have free will, still be the only decision possible for that person at that time. There seems to be no way around this. In other words, if you were literally in that other person's shoes, you would have done what they did. No way around it, apparently.

Self-policing, then, is an illusion that accomplishes nothing except to introduce a feeling of guilt onto a person for something over which they have no control.

I'm not following.

By a similar token conforming to group rules is a meaningless concept in a deterministic view. Group rules, and expected conformation to them, is only logical when the entity has a choice of whether or not to conform. If the entity has no choice, then they aren't rules, and conformity is meaningless - an entity will either conform with an illusory construct of social contract, or they won't, they have no power and no agency to do other than they actually do. There are no alternatives available. And since there are no alternatives available... that makes group rules themselves a shared delusion.

Again, I'm not following. Imo, group rules are fully compatible with a lack of free will.

If humans have a capacity for agency, then they have free will.

So you keep saying.

Introducing, again, the strawman of "free" with respect to will implying that it is free from prior causality is irrelevant.

I disagree.

Look - there's a difference here that seems to get lost. A non-linear stochastic outcome set can still be subject to prior cause. Free will doesn't mean that there is no causality - that's just plain silly. Free will does, however, mean that the next step is not deterministic. It means that the prior causes produce a set of options available to the agent, and that those options can be chosen based on reason, emotion, or at random. The only thing that free will actually means is that the set of options at a decision point can be a set with more than one element in it. A deterministic view implies that for each illusory decision point, there is one and only one next step available. That is what it means. One input --> one output. Therefore, in a deterministic schema, there is no choice, no agency, no decision.

I'm not sure about any of that at all.

Arguably what's getting lost on you is that no matter how stochastic the system is, there seems to be no way whatsoever to explain how any person could have freely chosen, or perhaps even chosen, to do differently at any moment other than what they did. To me your stochastic system just seems to be some kind of magic box.

Prevention has no particular meaning in a deterministic framework. Prevention as a concept requires that the entity be able to extrapolate a set of possible consequences for an outcome, select the desired outcome from within that set, and take purposeful effort to achieve the desired outcome. But a deterministic framework eliminates the SET from consideration. In a deterministic framework, there is one and only one possible consequence and there is one and only one possible action. No other options exist - no other actions are possible. There is no set. Prevention becomes an illusion.

I disagree.

If you acknowledge that the set of possible consequences is an input into a decision... then you are implicitly accepting free will as legitimate.

Nope.

Without free will, there are no "possible" consequences from which to select - there is only one path. You frame the entire discussion here in terms of innately non-deterministic concepts. Likelihoods, possible consequences, accountability, prevention, agency, decision-making... all of those depend on free will in order to have any meaning. In a deterministic framework, every one of those concepts would have to be illusions. Your entire argument is based on illusions in an attempt to convince people (who, lest you've forgotten, have no agency or choice anyway) to cast aside the illusion of free will. You implicitly appeal to free will when trying to convince people that free will doesn't exist.

I totally disagree with that one.

... I'm pretty well convinced that I have control over my actions, and that I can freely decide what I do, and I can weigh the immediate gratification of setting a bad neighbor on fire against the long-term consequences of jail time and loss of freedom and make an informed choice about what is most likely to produce the best outcome from within a set of possible actions

As I have said many times, the statement, 'I think I have free will because it feels like it' is not very persuasive.

 

[DBT]

You haven't given an explanation based on evidence, you are merely repeating and reaffirming your belief in autonomy of mind over brain. The ability to raise one's arm at will is not evidence for autonomy of will or mind over brain activity and brain function.

A person knows a mind exists when they have one.

Nobody has to tell any human with a mind that minds exist.

It takes a special kind of self delusion to not see it.

Nobody is denying the existence of mind, surely you realize that?

 

[DBT]

Is your will free from the influence of psychotropic drugs? How about the influence of violent threats to your person? Is it free from constraint by mechanical impediments such as handcuffs, ropes? Is it free from coercion by special interests trying to gain your favor? What about the effects of debilitating disease or injury?

I'm not sure if that is directed at me or The AntiChris.

It's directed at you. If your will is free from the above things, then your will is free, because free does not mean free from every possible constraint. It's relative. When people in ordinary situations ask whether something was an act of free will, the above concerns are what matters.

Nothing is free from causal determination except for subatomic particles. But some things are free in the limited sense you have mentioned. Yet, you do not allow the will to be free in any sense, not even a limited sense, even though it plainly is. A choice that is made under threat of bodily harm is not as free as a choice made without such a threat, all else being equal, even if neither choice is free from the laws of nature that describe how the brain responds to stimuli. Do you disagree?

But it goes deeper than just free from this is or that constraint, as related to your examples. It is also a question of the mechanisms of decision making, the state of the neural architecture determining the decision that is made in any given instance in time.


All the rest is mere window dressing to the agency of neural architecture. Decisions that have no outward appearance of constraint or coercion are still determined by the state and condition of neural network activity in the moment a decision is made.

That being the ultimate constraint to the ability to have chosen otherwise under the same conditions.

 

[DBT]

There are no examples of mind without the existence and activity of a brain. If you can explain mind without brain agency, go ahead, do your best.

Sure, but there are PLENTY of examples of a brain without a mind.

Didn't say otherwise. A dead brain has no mind. A brain that has lost memory function has lost coherency of mind, recognition and rational thought, and so on.

This just proves what I said.

[
Brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the existence of a mind.

Really? There are many examples of brain without mind but not a single example of mind without the presence and electrochemical activity of a brain.

If you have an example of mind without brain, please share.

 

[DBT]

Will doesn't choose. It is the brain that acquires and processes information and makes a selection from a set of realizable options based on a given set of criteria, wants, needs, fears, hopes, desires, which are based on past experience, weighing of cost to benefit....or simply emotion taking over, a snap decision, sometimes leading to regret.

That entire bit there is what pretty much everyone means when they use the term "free will".

People assume a lot of things on face value, what I described was not will but specifically decision making. Decision making is - specifically - decision making, it is not will.

Will does not make decisions, the brain as an information processor makes decisions based on a set of criteria.

Will isn't a separate thing.

Of course it is separate. A computer as an information processor is able to make selections, which are decisions, based on a given set of criteria without either consciousness or will....and sometimes being better at it than humans.

Decision making does not require will. The brain responds to its stimuli according to its architecture and in the process generates decisions, feelings thoughts and will.

What you argue is not supported by evidence.

 

[ruby sparks]

Will doesn't choose. It is the brain that acquires and processes information and makes a selection from a set of realizable options based on a given set of criteria, wants, needs, fears, hopes, desires, which are based on past experience, weighing of cost to benefit....or simply emotion taking over, a snap decision, sometimes leading to regret.

That entire bit there is what pretty much everyone means when they use the term "free will".

Up to a point, maybe, but I don't think most people would say that it's all happening automatically to them, that they're sophisticated robots, slaves to prior causalities they don't control, and that at the end of the day, the decision that was made by their brain was the one that the internal algorithms would always have outputted if the same events were re-run again (allowing that randomness beyond the system's control might throw curve balls into the mix) or that the brain's accompanying experience of the sensation of a conscious self exercising personal direction is a system illusion.

 

[untermensche]

You haven't given an explanation based on evidence, you are merely repeating and reaffirming your belief in autonomy of mind over brain. The ability to raise one's arm at will is not evidence for autonomy of will or mind over brain activity and brain function.

A person knows a mind exists when they have one.

Nobody has to tell any human with a mind that minds exist.

It takes a special kind of self delusion to not see it.

Nobody is denying the existence of mind, surely you realize that?

So you recognize the mind exists as a distinct entity. That is good.

So the only difference between us is you see this distinct entity as powerless and I do not.

Despite your experience you still use your mind freely to conclude it is not free.

Bizarre irrational behavior.

 

[Copernicus]

Nobody is denying the existence of mind, surely you realize that?

So you recognize the mind exists as a distinct entity. That is good.

So the only difference between us is you see this distinct entity as powerless and I do not.

Despite your experience you still use your mind freely to conclude it is not free.

Bizarre irrational behavior.

Not at all. Many of us believe that minds are fully dependent on physical brain activity. Thought cannot exist independently of such activity, because every aspect of mental function can be traced to some sort of physical changes to the brain. So your term "independent" is confusing. If you mean that mental activity can occur independently of brain activity--an empirical question--then you need just produce evidence that that is possible. Can you?

 

[PyramidHead]

It's directed at you. If your will is free from the above things, then your will is free, because free does not mean free from every possible constraint. It's relative. When people in ordinary situations ask whether something was an act of free will, the above concerns are what matters.

Nothing is free from causal determination except for subatomic particles. But some things are free in the limited sense you have mentioned. Yet, you do not allow the will to be free in any sense, not even a limited sense, even though it plainly is. A choice that is made under threat of bodily harm is not as free as a choice made without such a threat, all else being equal, even if neither choice is free from the laws of nature that describe how the brain responds to stimuli. Do you disagree?

But it goes deeper than just free from this is or that constraint, as related to your examples. It is also a question of the mechanisms of decision making, the state of the neural architecture determining the decision that is made in any given instance in time.

The same can be said of any object in the universe at any given instance in time, above the level of quantum randomness. Yet, the word 'free' may still be used in limited circumstances to describe the state of that object relative to some other condition. You have not demonstrated why this cannot be permitted in the case of will, while it can be permitted in the case of (say) a flag freely blowing in the wind, a dog free of its leash, or a society with freedom of the press. The flag, the dog, and the society are all determined on a basic physical level in exactly the same way that the decision-making process is determined on a basic physical level. Yet, it makes sense to differentiate a free flag from a bound one, a free dog from a leashed one, and a free press from a state-controlled one. Why does it not make sense to differentiate a free will from a constrained one?

 

[untermensche]

Nobody is denying the existence of mind, surely you realize that?

So you recognize the mind exists as a distinct entity. That is good.

So the only difference between us is you see this distinct entity as powerless and I do not.

Despite your experience you still use your mind freely to conclude it is not free.

Bizarre irrational behavior.

Not at all. Many of us believe that minds are fully dependent on physical brain activity. Thought cannot exist independently of such activity, because every aspect of mental function can be traced to some sort of physical changes to the brain. So your term "independent" is confusing. If you mean that mental activity can occur independently of brain activity--an empirical question--then you need just produce evidence that that is possible. Can you?

Does being dependent on brain activity also mean cannot influence the brain?

I see no connection.

 

[Emily Lake]

Without free will, there are no "possible" consequences from which to select - there is only one path. You frame the entire discussion here in terms of innately non-deterministic concepts. Likelihoods, possible consequences, accountability, prevention, agency, decision-making... all of those depend on free will in order to have any meaning. In a deterministic framework, every one of those concepts would have to be illusions. Your entire argument is based on illusions in an attempt to convince people (who, lest you've forgotten, have no agency or choice anyway) to cast aside the illusion of free will. You implicitly appeal to free will when trying to convince people that free will doesn't exist.

I totally disagree with that one.

^^^ This statement is in contradiction to the one below:

Of course a decision can be altered, but it will, in my view and even that of many compatibilists who say we have free will, still be the only decision possible for that person at that time. There seems to be no way around this. In other words, if you were literally in that other person's shoes, you would have done what they did. No way around it, apparently.

You simultaneously hold that 1) a decision can be altered and 2) only one path is possible. You simultaneously hold that 1) the chosen decision is the only possible decision that could have occurred and no others are possible and 2) disagree that appeals to likelihood, possible consequences, and prevention are reasonable and relevant under that framework.

ETA: In case you're missing this... if there is only one possible decision, then the likelihood of any other option is zero. If there is only one possible path, then the opportunity to prevent an outcome is always either 1 or 0, and is assigned after the fact, not as a prior possibility. If in retrospect the outcome was avoided, then the likelihood of prevention is 100%, if the outcome was not avoided, then the likelihood of prevention is 0%.

 

[Emily Lake]

Brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the existence of a mind.

Really? There are many examples of brain without mind but not a single example of mind without the presence and electrochemical activity of a brain.

If you have an example of mind without brain, please share.

I'd like you to take a moment and re-read my post, please.

 

[ruby sparks]

^^^ This statement is in contradiction to the one below:

Of course a decision can be altered, but it will, in my view and even that of many compatibilists who say we have free will, still be the only decision possible for that person at that time. There seems to be no way around this. In other words, if you were literally in that other person's shoes, you would have done what they did. No way around it, apparently.

You simultaneously hold that 1) a decision can be altered and 2) only one path is possible. You simultaneously hold that 1) the chosen decision is the only possible decision that could have occurred and no others are possible and 2) disagree that appeals to likelihood, possible consequences, and prevention are reasonable and relevant under that framework.

ETA: In case you're missing this... if there is only one possible decision, then the likelihood of any other option is zero. If there is only one possible path, then the opportunity to prevent an outcome is always either 1 or 0, and is assigned after the fact, not as a prior possibility. If in retrospect the outcome was avoided, then the likelihood of prevention is 100%, if the outcome was not avoided, then the likelihood of prevention is 0%.

What I meant was, to clarify, choices can happen, including for example changes to plans (simple example, I decided to go for a run but then I watched tv instead) but both the changes and the final decision (and action) are inevitable (barring random curve balls). I have never yet read of any explanation as to how it could possibly be otherwise, no matter how unpalatable or paradoxical some might think it to be, or how much of a brainache it gives us to consider or what the implications are.

Worse perhaps, it is all, it would seem, bound (literally) to be happening ('to us') automatically, even if stochastically, despite us thinking 'we' are steering it. They (our thoughts, decisions and actions) are probably, in the absence of a better explanation, being steered by what we might call the laws of physics and they, and our lives, are part of the natural unfolding of the universe.

I still think that when Einstein said that if the moon were by some possible means to become self-conscious, it might think it was continuously guiding itself around the earth, it was a nice analogy, albeit simplistic.

 

[Treedbear]

...
Prevention has no particular meaning in a deterministic framework. Prevention as a concept requires that the entity be able to extrapolate a set of possible consequences for an outcome, select the desired outcome from within that set, and take purposeful effort to achieve the desired outcome. But a deterministic framework eliminates the SET from consideration. In a deterministic framework, there is one and only one possible consequence and there is one and only one possible action. No other options exist - no other actions are possible. There is no set. Prevention becomes an illusion.
...

You seem to be over-simplifying what determinism entails. You might think it should be like a computer running its programs based only on a truth table made up of all possible inputs and outputs. But that's not how computers work. While conceptually simpler the truth table would be excessively large. A computer has programs containing rules that are designed to handle a wide array of possible situations, many of them going unrealized. That seems wasteful and inexact, but that's the way nature works because it doesn't know exactly what it will encounter. While the brain is far more complex and interactive than any computer there still isn't enough room to create the truth table needed for all of life's contingiencies. It becomes a matter of ascertaining what is possible and what is probable. As a general rule if something along the lines of prevention appears to be important it's more probable that it will occur than if it were disregarded. That's not an illusion.

 

[Emily Lake]

^^^ This statement is in contradiction to the one below:

Of course a decision can be altered, but it will, in my view and even that of many compatibilists who say we have free will, still be the only decision possible for that person at that time. There seems to be no way around this. In other words, if you were literally in that other person's shoes, you would have done what they did. No way around it, apparently.

You simultaneously hold that 1) a decision can be altered and 2) only one path is possible. You simultaneously hold that 1) the chosen decision is the only possible decision that could have occurred and no others are possible and 2) disagree that appeals to likelihood, possible consequences, and prevention are reasonable and relevant under that framework.

ETA: In case you're missing this... if there is only one possible decision, then the likelihood of any other option is zero. If there is only one possible path, then the opportunity to prevent an outcome is always either 1 or 0, and is assigned after the fact, not as a prior possibility. If in retrospect the outcome was avoided, then the likelihood of prevention is 100%, if the outcome was not avoided, then the likelihood of prevention is 0%.

What I meant was, to clarify, choices can happen, including for example changes to plans (simple example, I decided to go for a run but then I watched tv instead) but both the changes and the final decision (and action) are inevitable (barring random curve balls). I have never yet read of any explanation as to how it could possibly be otherwise, no matter how unpalatable or paradoxical some might think it to be, or how much of a brainache it gives us to consider or what the implications are.

Worse perhaps, it is all, it would seem, bound (literally) to be happening ('to us') automatically, even if stochastically, despite us thinking 'we' are steering it. They (our thoughts, decisions and actions) are probably, in the absence of a better explanation, being steered by what we might call the laws of physics and they, and our lives, are part of the natural unfolding of the universe.

I still think that when Einstein said that if the moon were by some possible means to become self-conscious, it might think it was continuously guiding itself around the earth, it was a nice analogy, albeit simplistic.

If it is inevitable, then there is no choice. There is no possibility for a change within that framework, because it is inevitable.

...
Prevention has no particular meaning in a deterministic framework. Prevention as a concept requires that the entity be able to extrapolate a set of possible consequences for an outcome, select the desired outcome from within that set, and take purposeful effort to achieve the desired outcome. But a deterministic framework eliminates the SET from consideration. In a deterministic framework, there is one and only one possible consequence and there is one and only one possible action. No other options exist - no other actions are possible. There is no set. Prevention becomes an illusion.
...

You seem to be over-simplifying what determinism entails. You might think it should be like a computer running its programs based only on a truth table made up of all possible inputs and outputs. But that's not how computers work. While conceptually simpler the truth table would be excessively large. A computer has programs containing rules that are designed to handle a wide array of possible situations, many of them going unrealized. That seems wasteful and inexact, but that's the way nature works because it doesn't know exactly what it will encounter. While the brain is far more complex and interactive than any computer there still isn't enough room to create the truth table needed for all of life's contingiencies. It becomes a matter of ascertaining what is possible and what is probable. As a general rule if something along the lines of prevention appears to be important it's more probable that it will occur than if it were disregarded. That's not an illusion.

If possible and probable contains more than one element in the set, then it is not deterministic. If multiple possibilities exist prior to action being taken, then that action is not deterministic. Unless you're using a special version of deterministic that is at odds with the mathematical definition.

 

[Copernicus]

Not at all. Many of us believe that minds are fully dependent on physical brain activity. Thought cannot exist independently of such activity, because every aspect of mental function can be traced to some sort of physical changes to the brain. So your term "independent" is confusing. If you mean that mental activity can occur independently of brain activity--an empirical question--then you need just produce evidence that that is possible. Can you?

Does being dependent on brain activity also mean cannot influence the brain?

I see no connection.

The brain is an analog machine that constantly reconfigures its own hardware. Even computer programs can reconfigure their operating instructions on the fly. So, yes, brain activity can influence the physical structure of the brain. The problem is that words like "dependent" and "independent" can be construed as referring to Cartesian dualism--the doctrine that reality consists of at least two non-overlapping, independent domains: the physical and the spiritual.

 

[DBT]

Nobody is denying the existence of mind, surely you realize that?

So you recognize the mind exists as a distinct entity. That is good.

So the only difference between us is you see this distinct entity as powerless and I do not.

Despite your experience you still use your mind freely to conclude it is not free.

Bizarre irrational behavior.

You are making up your own interpretation of what I said. Which is not what I said. I said that nobody is arguing that mind does not exist. Mind exists.

I did not say that mind is a distinct entity in the sense that mind is separate or autonomous from the brain

That being your assumption.

An assumption that is not supported by evidence.

 

[DBT]

Brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the existence of a mind.

Really? There are many examples of brain without mind but not a single example of mind without the presence and electrochemical activity of a brain.

If you have an example of mind without brain, please share.

I'd like you to take a moment and re-read my post, please.

Maybe you should rephrase your post - ''Brain is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the existence of a mind.'' - implies mind that is independent from brain.

Maybe you meant something else, but what that may be is not clear.