A Logical Proof of Free Will ?

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi, there.

I found this proof of Free Will recently. I can't see anything wrong with it, but then I'm not brilliant at logic. If I put it up here, would any proper philosophers/logicians be interested in checking it out?

Cheers,

Gnu.

[~enigma~]

Hi, there.

I found this proof of Free Will recently. I can't see anything wrong with it, but then I'm not brilliant at logic. If I put it up here, would any proper philosophers/logicians be interested in checking it out?

Cheers,

Gnu.
Had you posted the link instead of asking if we would read it I might have wasted my time but not anymore.

[Ron_Tomkins]

Hi, there.

I found this proof of Free Will recently. I can't see anything wrong with it, but then I'm not brilliant at logic. If I put it up here, would any proper philosophers/logicians be interested in checking it out?

Cheers,

Gnu.

Is this part of the psychological game of testing our free will to read the link? :)

[the PC apeman]

Hi, there.

I found this proof of Free Will recently. I can't see anything wrong with it, but then I'm not brilliant at logic. If I put it up here, would any proper philosophers/logicians be interested in checking it out?

Cheers,

Gnu.

They would have no choice.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi Enigma,

I take your point, sorry, I didn't mean to waste your time.

I thought it might be more interesting, and probably more educational for me, to present the proof in my own words initially. The reason for this is that the premises of the argument may require some explanation and discussion, and I want to see if I can explain them adequately. I hope that's understandable.

I may as well put the first one here now, rather than wasting anyone else's time.

The first premise is hopefully not controversial, as it is simply Kant's ought-implies-can principle. From Blackwell's Dictionary : A formula in Kant's ethics, meaning that correctly judging that a given agent is obliged to perform a certain action logically presupposes that the agent can perform it.

In other words, it would be nonsensical to say that someone should do something impossible.

Thus, Premise 1 : Whatever should be done can be done.

Is that premise valid/true?

[PixyMisa]

Problem with that is that it assumes perfect knowledge, which is, um, impossible. So it's fine as a vage handwavey principle, but it doesn't actually mean anything.

[PixyMisa]

By the way, refusing to grant "non-controversial" premises is something of a specialty of mine. ;)

[Twiler]

Hi Enigma,

I take your point, sorry, I didn't mean to waste your time.

I thought it might be more interesting, and probably more educational for me, to present the proof in my own words initially. The reason for this is that the premises of the argument may require some explanation and discussion, and I want to see if I can explain them adequately. I hope that's understandable.

I may as well put the first one here now, rather than wasting anyone else's time.

The first premise is hopefully not controversial, as it is simply Kant's ought-implies-can principle. From Blackwell's Dictionary : A formula in Kant's ethics, meaning that correctly judging that a given agent is obliged to perform a certain action logically presupposes that the agent can perform it.

In other words, it would be nonsensical to say that someone should do something impossible.

Thus, Premise 1 : Whatever should be done can be done.

Is that premise valid/true?

What sense of obligation are we talking about? What does 'should be done' mean?

[Yoink]

Hi Enigma,

I take your point, sorry, I didn't mean to waste your time.

I thought it might be more interesting, and probably more educational for me, to present the proof in my own words initially. The reason for this is that the premises of the argument may require some explanation and discussion, and I want to see if I can explain them adequately. I hope that's understandable.

I may as well put the first one here now, rather than wasting anyone else's time.

The first premise is hopefully not controversial, as it is simply Kant's ought-implies-can principle. From Blackwell's Dictionary : A formula in Kant's ethics, meaning that correctly judging that a given agent is obliged to perform a certain action logically presupposes that the agent can perform it.

In other words, it would be nonsensical to say that someone should do something impossible.

Thus, Premise 1 : Whatever should be done can be done.

Is that premise valid/true?

I think the premise is misstated (unless the whole purpose is to smuggle in a petitio principii). Shouldn't it be--as PixyMisa seems to be implying--"Whatever we hold that people should do we believe that they can do"?

We might be wrong, of course. It might be that they are, in fact, incapable of doing this thing that we think they "should" do. But if we make the statement "A should do so-and-so" it is implicit within the statement (unless explicitly qualified) that we believe it possible for A to do that.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi PixiMisa,

Well, that's a bummer. I thought Kant's principle was generally considered to be true. I really don't have the ability to establish that it is.

<thinks>

I'm not sure if it makes any difference, but would you accept that in certain situations we do have perfect knowledge?

For example, say somebody bumps into me in the street, and I angrily say Oy, you should watch where you're going!!

I then notice that the person is in fact totally blind, and I can see that his eyes are actually missing, so therefore I know that it is impossible for him to follow my advice.

And my advice is therefore logically revealed to be nonsense, according to Kant's principle, and the only sensible option would be for me to withdraw it.

In a situation like this, would you agree that the application of Kant's principle does result in the correct conclusion, that I should apologize to the blind man?

Gnu.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi Twiler,
What sense of obligation are we talking about? What does 'should be done' mean?


In respect of the should of morality compared to the should of epistemic rationality, the author of the proof does not believe that there is any real difference.

Therefore the should in this premise could mean either.

Twiler, since one of the other premises also contains a should, maybe we could postpone the question of its exact meaning until we see how it is used in that one?

If we ever get to it, of course. :)

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi Yoink,

I think the premise is misstated (unless the whole purpose is to smuggle in a petitio principii)


I advise people now that my knowledge of logic is very limited. I don't know logic symbols or notation, for example. And I certainly don't know what a petitio principii is.

So whatever it is, Yoink, I'm not trying to smuggle it anywhere !

I'll come back to your point about belief, I've got to go out for a while now. But what do you think about my example of the blind man? No belief required there. Does that make a difference?

Catch you later.

[Twiler]

Hi Twiler,



In respect of the should of morality compared to the should of epistemic rationality, the author of the proof does not believe that there is any real difference.

Therefore the should in this premise could mean either.

Twiler, since one of the other premises also contains a should, maybe we could postpone the question of its exact meaning until we see how it is used in that one?

If we ever get to it, of course. :)

This seems nonsensical so far. The statement equates to 'Something that someone feels to be a morally correct action must be something that they are capable of doing'. But surely, the only way to know for certain if they are capable of doing something is to do it.

So, as PixyMisa says, it fails on the grounds that we don't have perfect knowledge. And, as Descartes demonstrated, we can only have perfect knowledge about a priori things, such as logic.

[Jonnyclueless]

Seems nonsensical to me too. But what if we apply it to something like the Christian god?

God requires that ever person be perfect or they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Yet that god knows that expectation is impossible for people.

"a given agent is obliged to perform a certain action logically presupposes that the agent can perform it"

[Dave Rogers]

In a situation like this, would you agree that the application of Kant's principle does result in the correct conclusion, that I should apologize to the blind man?

Yes, you should. Unfortunately, he only speaks Armenian, and you don't, so you can't apologise to him. There goes Kant's principle again.

Dave

[PixyMisa]

While this might seem like nit-picking, it's not, really. This sort of proof always collapses when it runs into the real world, because it's based on hidden assumptions which simply don't hold true.

[sphenisc]

By the way, refusing to grant "non-controversial" premises is something of a specialty of mine. ;)

I find that statement non-controversial. ;)

[Gnu Ordure]

Twiler,Pixy,Yoink,

If I may address you together, to save time, I understand the point that in some circumstances the distinction between something being possible or impossible may be difficult to establish.

But in some circumstances, such as my example of the blind man, it is immediately obvious, so Kant's priciple is applicable.

So maybe I could amend the premise to acknowledge this difference, and we could decide later whether it's actually required, thus...

1 : In some circumstances, whatever should be done can be done.

... on the understanding that we know which circumstances those are? (I don't know whether this will affect the actual argument, we'll have to wait and see).

Would that modification be acceptable to you? Any of you? Anyone else? If it is, I'll put out another premise. Actually I'll put one out anyway, in the hope that someone accepts the first one (in original or modified form).

Jonny:
God requires that ever person be perfect or they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Yet that god knows that expectation is impossible for people.

I'm not sure what you're getting at, Jonny, but Kant's principle would say that god should withdraw this requirement on the grounds of it being illogical. Doesn't it seem illogical to you?

Dave:
Yes, you should. Unfortunately, he only speaks Armenian, and you don't, so you can't apologise to him. There goes Kant's principle again

If he only understands Armenian, Dave, he won't have understood what I said in the first place, so there's no harm to apologize for, and no need to withdraw my advice, as it was never received.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Gnu, why don't you just present the proof?

Whenever someone starts off by trying to get me to accept a premise without showing me the entire argument, I sense he's trying to lay a trap so I refuse to cede anything.

[sphenisc]

This seems nonsensical so far. The statement equates to 'Something that someone feels to be a morally correct action must be something that they are capable of doing'. But surely, the only way to know for certain if they are capable of doing something is to do it.

So, as PixyMisa says, it fails on the grounds that we don't have perfect knowledge. And, as Descartes demonstrated, we can only have perfect knowledge about a priori things, such as logic.

I would equate "should" more closely with "is a morally correct action" rather than "'Something that someone feels to be a morally correct action ".

[GreedyAlgorithm]

The question and solution to the whole free will (http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Free_will) thing, courtesy of your local reductionists.

[Jonnyclueless]

Twiler,Pixy,Yoink,

I'm not sure what you're getting at, Jonny, but Kant's principle would say that god should withdraw this requirement on the grounds of it being illogical. Doesn't it seem illogical to you?


That's kind of the point.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi all.

One thing I should mention is that this proof takes it that determinism and free will are incompatible ie it's a disproof of hard determinism.

And, I will of course cite my source in due course.

Speaking of which, I know some of you think that I'm talking nonsense. I may appear to be, because of the limitations of my knowledge and my ability to express it, but the source of this proof is a philosophy professor at an american university, author of several books and many papers. That's not an appeal to authority, just saying that he's not some nut off teh interweb.

Here's another premise. It's a bit weird, I admit. I want you to accept as true a statement in the form, I believe in x.

Obviously I don't want you to accept that x is true, that would be silly. But it is an empirical fact that I do believe in x, known to me via introspection. I cannot prove it here (you'd have to know me pretty well to be able to verify it) but it is true nonetheless.

But it shouldn't be too difficult for you to accept that I hold this belief, as it's quite plausible, and very common, and I'm sure many of you also hold it.

Enough preamble.

I believe that at least some of the time, I have more than one course of action that I can perform. In other words, I believe in free will, and that to a certain extent I can freely affect the course of my life. Within a number of limitations, to be sure, but there are certain other times when I have a free choice.

I agree I could be lying when I say I believe in free will. I am asking you give me the benefit of the doubt, for the sake of the argument. If it turns out I was lying, I promise to send all of you a 1000 dollars. How's that for confidence?

Premise 2: I believe in Free Will.

[rocketdodger]

I am getting mighty tired of reading one premise per 20 posts.

Why don't you just put the whole thing down in one darn post?

[JoeTheJuggler]

Enough preamble.


Please post the argument in its entirety, and then we can discuss it.

[Jonnyclueless]

Free Will. Isn't that a movie about a boy who falls in love with a whale?

[Yoink]

Hi Yoink,

I advise people now that my knowledge of logic is very limited. I don't know logic symbols or notation, for example. And I certainly don't know what a petitio principii is.

So whatever it is, Yoink, I'm not trying to smuggle it anywhere !

I'll come back to your point about belief, I've got to go out for a while now. But what do you think about my example of the blind man? No belief required there. Does that make a difference?

Catch you later.

Hi Gnu Ordure: I think your example of the blind man supports my restatement of your premise.

If a blind man bumps into me and I say "hey, you should watch where you're going!" at the moment of saying it I believe that the person can watch where he is going. When I realize that he can't I amend my statement that he should.

So, is my restated version of your premise usable for your proof?

Let me propose a slightly clearer version of it:

1/ "In order to hold that someone is morally culpable for failing to do X, one must believe that the person is able to do X."

Good enough?

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi Joe.

Gnu, why don't you just present the proof?

Because the thread would rapidly become unmanageable.

We've had this much discussion already on the first premise. If I presented all four premises and then the four steps leading to the conclusion all at once, huge numbers of people would be jumping in all over the place addressing every objection at once. I would be overwhelmed by the responses.

Does that make sense?

If I do it this way, we can go through it step by step, in a somewhat more orderly fashion. Fair enough?

And I'm not going to get bogged down in arguments. If someone can't accept a premise, that's OK, the proof fails for them. Others may accept the premise, so after a certain amount of discussion I'll put out the next step. Which is why I've just put out the second premise.

Whenever someone starts off by trying to get me to accept a premise without showing me the entire argument, I sense he's trying to lay a trap so I refuse to cede anything.

I understand. If you feel you want to retract your acceptance of a premise in the light of new information, no problem. You're not committed to anything by going along with the premises for the time being.

[rocketdodger]

Alright then, I will check this thread again in a month.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi Yoink,

I appreciate your thoughts.

Listen, I just realized that it doesn't really make sense for me to amend the author's argument as we go along. It's his argument, so when it is fully presented it really needs to be in his exact words. But I'm still interested in discussing what he's saying, as we've been doing.

So I'm going to revert to his original words, while bearing in mind your reservations, which we can review later to see if they are still pertinent.

Would that be OK with you? Hope so.

What do you think of the second premise?

[Gate2501]

And I'm not going to get bogged down in arguments. If someone can't accept a premise, that's OK, the proof fails for them.


It sounds like you aren't going to let anyone change your mind.

I will echo what other posters have said. You need to post the entire proof, all premises and the conclusion that you draw from them.

I think that most of us here, who are incompatibilists(myself included), aren't going to accept a flimsy ontological proof for something that would plainly violate macro scale causality. What you are supposed to do is invoke Quantum Mechanics!

Yr doin' it wrong.

[PixyMisa]

Premise 2: I believe in Free Will.
Nope. I don't grant this premise either.

[Personal Grudge]

Premise 2: I believe in Free Will.

Yeah, I don't think I can accept this premise either.

I'm currently sitting here with a full bladder. Now, I suppose I can choose to not walk the 20 feet to the restroom to relieve myself. I can choose to sit in this chair and attempt to ignore the growing discomfort. However, I have a feeling that I cannot choose to just not urinate... I think that's bound to happen sooner or later regardless of my choice to ignore it. I can choose to urinate in the restroom or in my chair... but I can't choose to never urinate. :D

But please, just post the entire proof, I would like to read the entire thing before bothering to comment on it.

[jsfisher]

Premise 2: I believe in Free Will.


Nope, can't grant you that. Where does that leave you? You claimed there were four premises in all. The first two are now laying in waste. I sure hope they aren't all that necessary to your argument.

[Gnu Ordure]

It sounds like you aren't going to let anyone change your mind.

Gate, I'm sorry,you misunderstand. I'm not defending this proof; I don't believe it to be correct. I am therefore presenting it to be attacked, to see what objections to it come up. I'm not going to argue with the objections, merely discuss them.

I will echo what other posters have said. You need to post the entire proof, all premises and the conclusion that you draw from them

I've explained why I'm managing the thread in the manner I am. If you want to wait until the conclusion is on the table, that's fine by me.

Pixy/Personal Grudge/jsf :
Nope. I don't grant this premise either.

er, you think I'm lying to you about my own beliefs ?

That's fine. It's a bit weird, though. After all, the vast majority of rational people believe in freedom and personal responsibility. I am merely identifying myself as one of those people.

And I don't see that I've given you any reason to believe I should lie that I hold a certain belief when in fact I don't. And why would I anyway? We're trying to establish what's true concerning free will, aren't we? It's not going to help if I lie about stuff, is it?

Anyway, I'm not lying. It is true that I believe in free will. If you don't wish to believe me, fair enough. We can move on.

Cheers,

Gnu.

[fromdownunder]

One of the premises "I believe in Free Will" is part of the basis of the argument "Free Will exists"?

I believe in free will, therefore free will is proven!!!!

Perhaps you really do need to post the whole thing at once. What you have said so far simply is not leading to a productive discussion.

Norm

[Maia]

Hmm, this is really weird... I was thinking of another specific proof of free will while driving home today. (Clearly, I should open that 1-900 psychic hotline. Only $4.99 a minute!) Should I present it here, or start another thread?

[Gate2501]

Gate, I'm sorry,you misunderstand. I'm not defending this proof; I don't believe it to be correct. I am therefore presenting it to be attacked, to see what objections to it come up. I'm not going to argue with the objections, merely discuss them.

Oh, right then. Then why not just post the whole thing? If you are not arguing on it's behalf, there should be no issue with becoming "overwhelmed".


I've explained why I'm managing the thread in the manner I am. If you want to wait until the conclusion is on the table, that's fine by me.

Your explanation is inconsistent with someone who does not believe (or want to believe) that this proof is correct. Would it be accurate to say that you want this proof to withstand scrutiny?

[Gate2501]

Hmm, this is really weird... I was thinking of another specific proof of free will while driving home today. (Clearly, I should open that 1-900 psychic hotline. Only $4.99 a minute!) Should I present it here, or start another thread?

Might as well just state it here! At least someone will have posted a full proof for us to look over.

How does it get around the causal violations required for classic free will? Please lawd tell me it doesn't involve Quantum Mechanics.

[Personal Grudge]

er, you think I'm lying to you about my own beliefs ?

That's fine. It's a bit weird, though. After all, the vast majority of rational people believe in freedom and personal responsibility. I am merely identifying myself as one of those people.

And I don't see that I've given you any reason to believe I should lie that I hold a certain belief when in fact I don't. And why would I anyway? We're trying to establish what's true concerning free will, aren't we? It's not going to help if I lie about stuff, is it?

Anyway, I'm not lying. It is true that I believe in free will. If you don't wish to believe me, fair enough. We can move on.

Cheers,

Gnu.

Okay, granted... you may believe in Free Will. But, I figured that the purpose of a "logical" proof of Free Will would be to establish accepted premises and then follow through to the conclusion.

Are you saying that one of the premises is that "Gnu Ordure believes in Free Will?" For the sake of this proof, will it matter that I personally do not believe in Free Will?

Will this proof only be valid for those who already believe in Free Will? That's just going to end in circular reasoning, if that's the case.

[Gnu Ordure]

Personal Grudge:
I'm currently sitting here with a full bladder. Now, I suppose I can choose to not walk the 20 feet to the restroom to relieve myself. I can choose to sit in this chair and attempt to ignore the growing discomfort. However....


I tried to make clear that I acknowledge that free will has limitations, but that minimal free exists. When I say I believe in free wiil, it means I believe in at least some free will.

Having to go the toilet would be a good example of the dynamic limitations of free will, as you point out.

[Gnu Ordure]

OK, moving on...

The next one is a conditional relating to an implication/definition of (hard) determinism.

Thus:

Premise 3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.

This is the standard determinist position that in any particular situation a person can only select one choice from amongst an array of illusionary options.

So from a 'choice' of 20 options, the one and only thing that can be done, is done. The other 19 can't be done, and are not done.

[Gate2501]

Is your proof for free will: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/fwill.htm ?

It was the first thing I find when I Google "proof of free will".


1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods. (premise)
2. Whatever should be done can be done. (premise)
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done. (premise)
4. I believe MFT. (premise)
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)


Seems familiar.

[Gate2501]

Uh-oh, looks like I just pwned this thread.

[Jonnyclueless]

Um, has Gnu even defined free will yet? Explain to us what you think free will is first.

[Maia]

Okay. :) First of all, everyone really does have to understand that this is not, I repeat, NOT anything remotely resembling some sort of classical mathematical proof (runs far, far away from scary math). Any attempt on my part to concoct anything along those lines would not be pretty to see. Nope, this lies more in a field while I actually can speak to, which, in this case, is psychopharmacology.

Topamax (topiramate) is a truly fascinating drug. I consider it to be the first genuinely behavioral medication. Its original application was/is as an anticonvulsant; it's also used for treatment-resistant bipolar disorder and severe migraines. However, its most interesting uses, which are still in the experimental stages, are in the treatment of compulsive and addictive behaviors. It's been used for compulsive eating and eating disorders, gambling, sexual addictions, alcoholism, treatment-resistant OCD among others, and it's the only medication that has been consistently shown in studies to have any effect on post-traumatic stress disorder. (I have many many many studies if anyone wants to see them).

One problem, however, is that its effects against compulsive and addictive behaviors are often not permanent,and nobody seems to know why. Formal qualitative studies need to be done in this area, and they haven't been. However, I can speak to what my experience has been. It's as if Topamax seems to take over and "do the work for you" for a short amount of time. But then... it's absolutely the strangest experience you could ever imagine. It's like it's not doing the work anymore at all, but the truth about why you've been doing all those compulsive behaviors is 100% revealed to you-- anew every day, in fact-- and you can never go back; you can't get rid of that knowledge. But part of the knowledge is that you DO have the ability to stop the compulsions. It's really like someone hands you free will. You realize that it has always been pointless to discuss it. Whether you ever wanted it or not, you now have it. This may sound like some kind of bizarre, completely subjective nuttiness, but whatever it is, it's not unique to me. It really does seem to be the experience everyone has who takes it. What a number of other people (who've taken it for addictions/compulsions) have told me is that they stopped taking it because "it made me feel too crazy, and I couldn't stand it anymore." It's like a mirror being held up to your inmost self constantly.

So it definitely provides the perception of free will. As far as the reality... well, compulsions are there for a reason, whatever they are (eating, gambling, OCD, the compulsions that accompany PTSD, etc): they exist as a response to extreme anxiety. So when the compulsions go away, the anxiety is going to get much worse. That's the entire problem with trying to get rid of OCD, for example. So there you are, faced with self-knowledge, knowing that you really can stop your compulsions, that you have the ability, but NOTHING is made any easier for you at ALL. You're faced with a completely existential choice, IMHO. Will you stop taking the drug and slip back into ignorance, which definitely seems like it might be easier, or will you take this opportunity to get rid of your compulsions? It's terrifying. And you really can choose to do either one. Now personally, that's my idea of free will. ;)

[PixyMisa]

Pixy/Personal Grudge/jsf :


er, you think I'm lying to you about my own beliefs ?
Lying? No.

But I'll ask you, if you believe in something - some process or property - to which you attach the label "free will", to define it, please.

Operationally.

Anyway, I'm not lying. It is true that I believe in free will. If you don't wish to believe me, fair enough. We can move on.
No, we can't. If you have an argument (whether you agree with the argument or not) that is based on certain premises, and those premises are not accepted, then that's where it stops. You have to establish the premises first.

Of course, you can go ahead and lay out the entire argument; that's not a problem. Indeed, it's a good idea. But if your premises are not established then your argument necessarily founders.

[PixyMisa]

OK, moving on...

The next one is a conditional relating to an implication/definition of (hard) determinism.

Thus:

Premise 3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.

This is the standard determinist position that in any particular situation a person can only select one choice from amongst an array of illusionary options.
I don't grant that premise. I don't even grant that that premise has any meaning.

[PixyMisa]

Is your proof for free will: http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/fwill.htm (http://home.sprynet.com/%7Eowl1/fwill.htm) ?

It was the first thing I find when I Google "proof of free will".

Seems familiar.
Gack.

Yeah, that's what passes for logic when you don't bother to define your terms. What a mess.

[Gate2501]

I don't grant that premise. I don't even grant that that premise has any meaning.

If you read the entire proof which I posted above (this is definitely the one he is posting snippets of), this premise is worded in this incoherent manner to fit in with one of the conclusions.

[UndercoverElephant]

Yes, you should. Unfortunately, he only speaks Armenian, and you don't, so you can't apologise to him. There goes Kant's principle again.

Dave

I don't agree. How can you be obliged to do something which you cannot do? All Kant is saying here is that the word "should" can only be applied to things which the word "can" can be applied to. IOW, if you don't apologise to a person when you can't speak their language, you have not acted immorally.

[Gate2501]

Basically this argument looks like rubbish.

The author links what should be(subjective) done with what must be done with respect to macro scale determinism. He then goes on to link the premises "we shouldn't believe falsehoods" with "I believe in free will !" to prove that free will must exist.

This is trash. Sorry.

Here is his logic:

1: We shouldn't believe things that are false.
2: Determinism makes it so we can't believe things that are false(though an absolute BUTCHERY of logic)
3: I believe in free will, and that can't be false.
4: LOL!

Did I get that all right?

[Gnu Ordure]

Fromdownunder:

One of the premises "I believe in Free Will" is part of the basis of the argument "Free Will exists"?

Yes. I already admitted I might be mistaken in my belief. But it is an empirical fact that I have it. It may turn out one way or the other, but at this stage of the argument it's a simple statement of belief, not knowledge.

And for all of you out there who also believe that you have free will, it's an empirical fact for you too, is it not? Your belief, not your free will.

Fromdown, you'll see later that if you insert an obvious falsehood into the argument, if you try to use it prove the existence of something patently false such as gnomes, it will fail to reach that conclusion, even after accepting I believe in gnomes as a true premise - which it would be, if the person concerned truly believed in them.

[Gate2501]

Were the logic in this proof solid, it could be used as a proof for the existence of anything that anyone believes.

That should throw up a huge red flag for you.

[Jonnyclueless]

How can it be an empirical fact if you have not even defined free will yet?

[Gnu Ordure]

Jonny, I did, when introduced that premise:

I believe that at least some of the time, I have more than one course of action that I can perform. In other words, I believe in free will, and that to a certain extent I can freely affect the course of my life. Within a number of limitations, to be sure, but there are certain other times when I have a free choice.

Pixy:
I don't grant that premise. I don't even grant that that premise has any meaning.

Then Pixy, I can't really help you.

If you have an argument (whether you agree with the argument or not) that is based on certain premises, and those premises are not accepted, then that's where it stops.

For you, Pixy. Others may accept the premises.

Gate:
Were the logic in this proof solid, it could be used as a proof for the existence of anything that anyone believes.

It can't, Gate. Try it with the gnome issue, instead of the free will issue. It fails at step 7.

[Gnu Ordure]

OK, You've found the paper. No problem.

In introducing the fourth premise, I was going to quote the author's words, so I would have been obliged to cite the source anyway.

He (Michael Huemer, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Colorado) explains the premise in these terms:

First: with respect to the free-will issue, we should believe only what is true; that is, we should refrain from believing false propositions. We should not accept determinism unless it is true; likewise, we should not accept the free-will thesis unless it is true.

This is a presupposition of rational discourse on the topic of free will. When we sit down to talk about this issue, or any philosophical issue, there is a tacit assumption that we are all interested in finding out the truth, and we accept this goal as governing the discussion.

This does not mean that all of us will always think in the manner that is in fact most truth-conducive, for we may occasionally make mistakes or be unknowingly influenced by biases. What we may not do, consistent with rational discourse, is to accept mistakes or biases as such. That is, we are at least committed in theory to renouncing such mistakes and biases, even if that commitment is sometimes difficult to implement in practice.

Thus, if someone announces that he thinks that we should believe what is false, or that having a false belief would be just as good as having a true belief on this matter, then, I think, that person has explicitly disavowed rational discourse on the topic of free will. I will therefore assume that my audience accepts this first premise.

[Jonnyclueless]

Jonny, I did, when introduced that premise:




No you didn't. You just said you can perform action and then went on to say you believed in free will. It's right there in your quote.

I am asking you to provide a definition of free will. It's a very simple request.

[Ichneumonwasp]

The problem with the argument is that, like many others, it rests on an equivocation fallacy.

For instance, your premise 3 assumes hard determinism. Two of the premises make no sense from a hard determinist position or hard determinism provides an entirely different definition for "should" or "ought". In hard determinism, the way premise 3 runs, there is no difference between "should" and "is".

Also, if you play out the entire argument, does it not simply assert that false beliefs are impossible in determinism. Since that is obviously false, there must be a mistake. I suggest that one of the big ones is an equivocation fallacy.

[Paulhoff]

If there is or isn't Free Will, how would you know the difference?

Paul

:) :) :)

[jsfisher]

Then Pixy, I can't really help you.


Umm, s/he wasn't asking for your help. You were asking for her/his.

Take a breath, Gnu. You wanted comments on a "proof" of free will that relied on four premises. All four premises need to be accepted for the proof to progress. You stand at zero for four. What does that say about your proof?

[Gnu Ordure]

Jonny,

I said:
I believe that at least some of the time, I have more than one course of action that I can perform
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:
Free Will is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives.


Those are essentially the same, are they not?

[Gate2501]

Also, if you play out the entire argument, does it not simply assert that false beliefs are impossible in determinism. Since that is obviously false, there must be a mistake. I suggest that one of the big ones is an equivocation fallacy.

It doesn't simply assert that, no, but that seems to be the basis of his logic when you take away all the semantic jibber-jabber, and as you have pointed out, equivocation.

This is more of a language puzzle than anything. It reminds me of something you would encounter in a Professor Layton game(NDS). It is a weak(and demonstrably false) ontological proof, filled with loaded language to arrive at the desired outcome in a semantics break dance the likes of which I have not seen in quite some time.

[fallout]

So it definitely provides the perception of free will. As far as the reality... well, compulsions are there for a reason, whatever they are (eating, gambling, OCD, the compulsions that accompany PTSD, etc): they exist as a response to extreme anxiety. So when the compulsions go away, the anxiety is going to get much worse. That's the entire problem with trying to get rid of OCD, for example. So there you are, faced with self-knowledge, knowing that you really can stop your compulsions, that you have the ability, but NOTHING is made any easier for you at ALL. You're faced with a completely existential choice, IMHO. Will you stop taking the drug and slip back into ignorance, which definitely seems like it might be easier, or will you take this opportunity to get rid of your compulsions? It's terrifying. And you really can choose to do either one. Now personally, that's my idea of free will. ;)

I so get you Maia! Though this answer is not only about your points! In my oppinion , I personally think there´s no problem regarding the existence of "free will" , either if it does exist or not, it´s completely irrelevant. Either if it is an illusion or not, will never be proved and doesn´t matter at all. It lies beyond the realm of proof, no way we are going to get the two sides of the coin (believers and non believers in free will) to come to an agreement about that, no logic can be used as a tool for any of the sides "winning" this debate.

So, an elegant and interesting position imo would be staying exactly between em. We can both perceive ourselves as a being that chooses and changes reality based on our subjectivity and intuition, and as being a small piece of an enourmous "universal" machine, hence, in the end, having no choices at all. I mean, if you can label anything here as being real, is the fact that both are correct AT the same time.

I mean, there is no problem here, it´s possible and imo most logically acceptable that we would accept living this paradox and be happy with that, anything towards trying to establish only ONE of the two possibilities seems to me pure nonsense.

Let´s see what follows if we choose one side and dare to study the implications of the belief. For example, when we think about having no free will, we believe that the universe in the end is fully deterministic, like Einstein commented about god not throwing dice. What I understand from that is that the dice would be free will (laughs). And wow, thinking about the universe being completely deterministic, it´s kinda creepy, because we know that our destiny is already determined let´s say by the very moment of the creation of the universe, at the big bang explosion for example, that of courseif we accept the possibility that the universe ever had a start and an end. And above all, the creepiest fact that follows from this assertion is that randomness doesnt exist in the end. OMG! We embrace randomness all the time in our everyday lives, knowing that in the end that is only a cover-up for our ignorance, and the results that follow from our man-made randomness, are far from presenting something kinda in the line that we hope for when using it. Anyone disagrees with me regarding this? Again, if we think there´s no free will, we are saying that randomness does not exist, and thus, destiny is our best friend?


Sorry about the non-native english again. :)

[Twiler]

Okay... Here's the history of the 'free will' debate as I recall it.

It begins with the observation that determinism (the view that history consists of a chain of cause-effect pairs) seems to prohibit 'freedom' among humans, on the grounds that their actions are caused not by their 'choices' but by preceding causes.

One attempt to resolve this was the consideration of 'souls' non-physical entities attached to humans that would allow them to avoid determinism, and be free. This became less satisfactory as humans became more sceptical of religion. The existence of such entities could not be proven, and it was not clear how they could interact with physical matter.

The two deterministic viewpoints used most are Fatalism and Functionalism. Fatalism states that all 'freedom' is just an illusion, and everything humans do is 'set up' in advance.

Functionalism (which I consider to be the correct view) states that human minds are functions of the cause-effect chain; Essentially, someone deciding something equates to a section of cause-effect pairs.

'Free Will' was originally meant to refer to a special quality in humans that set them apart from other material entities, so I don't consider it to exist.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Will this proof only be valid for those who already believe in Free Will? That's just going to end in circular reasoning, if that's the case.

That's sort of what I suspect too.

Morality presupposes the existence of free will. (ETA: And once you introduce a "should" you have presupposed the existence of morality.)

If you don't have a choice, then there is no point in discussing whether or not your decision to do one thing or another is good or bad.

So if he's going to present an argument for the existence of free will and he begins with premises that assume there is such a thing as morality, then it's circular reasoning.

[Gnu Ordure]

I just realized I did something really silly by introducing the premises in a different order, as now they don't match the numbers in the final version.

Sorry.

From now on, could everybody please use the numbers as the author uses them:

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe MFT.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

Ichneumonwasp, would you mind clarifying which premise you meant by premise 3?

[Twiler]

I just realized I did something really silly by introducing the premises in a different order, as now they don't match the numbers in the final version.

Sorry.

From now on, could everybody please use the numbers as the author uses them:

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe MFT.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

Ichneumonwasp, would you mind clarifying which premise you meant by premise 3?

Doesn't work.

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe there is no free will.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then there is no free will. (from 6,4)
8. There is no free will. (from 7)

[Ichneumonwasp]

The way you have them now laid out, I mean the current premise 3.

Premise 3 states, "whatever can be done, is done." This is hard determinism -- in other words, the only thing that can happen is what happens because all events are pre-determined.

One of the first big issues is that there is no reason for anyone to accept hard determinism in this day and age. Indeterminism is the reigning paradigm.

But, even if we did accept premise 3, the use of the words "can be done" is different from their use in premise 2. And the 'should' of premise 1 and premise 2 have no real meaning in a framework that includes premise 3, unless the words all collapse to "whatever is, is". 'Should', 'can', and 'done' all have the same meaning in hard determinism because things are as they must be -- things happen only through causal action.

[dasmiller]

Actually, I'm having my big problem with the word "should." As it's being used here, the word itself implies that there is a choice. Which makes this a sort of proof-by-semantics.

We could shorten the proof to:

The word "should" implies choice
The word "should" is applicable to human actions
Human actions exist, therefore choice exists.

I don't find it very compelling.

[Gnu Ordure]

Take a breath, Gnu.

I'm cool, js. Thank you for your concern.

You wanted comments on a "proof" of free will that relied on four premises.

And I've got them. Thank you all.

All four premises need to be accepted for the proof to progress. You stand at zero for four. What does that say about your proof?

That it's really, really difficult to understand? ;)

[JoeTheJuggler]

Actually, I'm having my big problem with the word "should." As it's being used here, the word itself implies that there is a choice. Which makes this a sort of proof-by-semantics.

We could shorten the proof to:

The word "should" implies choice
The word "should" is applicable to human actions
Human actions exist, therefore choice exists.

I don't find it very compelling.
Well said.

Morality presupposes free will, unless you want to use really tortured definitions of the terms.

[jsfisher]

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.

This is not really a premise or a deduction. More of a moral imperative. Rejected.

2. Whatever should be done can be done.

Rejected.

3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.

Nonsense. Rejected.

4. I believe MFT.

I cannot absolutely determine if you do or don't. So, as a premise, Rejected.

5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

You never established the condition in 7 as true (let alone any of the premises).

[Gnu Ordure]

Twiler, I see you've changed premise 4, as you're entitled to do:

Doesn't work.

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe there is no free will.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then there is no free will. (from 6,4)
8. There is no free will. (from 7)

There is an error in your logic. There is no way to get from step 7 to step 8, because step 7 is a truism.

If determinism is true, then there is no free will

is the same as saying

If determinism is true, then determinism is true.


An obviously correct conditional statement, but there's no way of deducing from that whether determinism is true or not. So your step 8 is invalid.

Gnu.

[Twiler]

Twiler, I see you've changed premise 4, as you're entitled to do:

Doesn't work.

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe there is no free will.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then there is no free will. (from 6,4)
8. There is no free will. (from 7)

There is an error in your logic. There is no way to get from step 7 to step 8, because step 7 is a truism.

If determinism is true, then there is no free will

is the same as saying

If determinism is true, then determinism is true.


Obviously correct, but there's no way of deducing from that wheather determinism is true or not. So your step 8 is invalid.

Gnu.

But, if free will contradicts determinism, then your step 7 is

If determinism is true, then determinism is false

Which contradicts the law of identity, indicating that the argument cannot be valid.

EDIT:

Hang on, no. It demonstrates that determinism is false, because the law of identity is violated if it is true. Perhaps that's meant to be the point?

Better objection:


1. We should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. We can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
5. If determinism is true, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)

As we have believed falsehoods, this argument is false.

EDIT2:

Wait, if my above observation is correct, the point of the original argument is to kneecap determinism, not to use it as a premise. Hence, my objections must be the premises, not the argument.

Okay:

Premise 1: Subjective morality cannot be part of a deductive argument.
Premise 2: Subjective morality cannot be part of a deductive argument.
Premise 3: Correct.
Premise 4: It really needs to be a hypothetical statement, such as 'A human can believe in free will.'

In the absence of objective morality, this argument won't work.

[fallout]

Guys, there´s no room for logic in this discussion, believe me.

Everything regarding this can be posted as and rejected as logic, ad infinitum.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi Dasmiller.
Actually, I'm having my big problem with the word "should." As it's being used here, the word itself implies that there is a choice


Not just here, surely? Any usage of should anywhere implies a choice.

It might be more accurate though, to say that it implies that there might be a choice, given the current absence of proof one way or the other. So it's a presupposition of should, but that doesn't mean its accepted as true, just that it is believed and supposed.

And most of us do act as if free will is true. Even determinists have to go through the process of making 'decisions' - difficult to get through the day otherwise.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hang on, no. It demonstrates that determinism is false, because the law of identity is violated if it is true. Perhaps that's meant to be the point?


Exactly, Twiler. That's precisely the point.

The assumption of determinism leads to its own contradictory.

This allows step 8 to be deduced:

Any proposition that thus implies its own contradictory is false, so determinism is false, and MFT must be true.

I haven't read the rest of your post yet, I'll get back to you..

Gnu.

PS It might be tomorrow, it's getting late. Nice meeting or re-meeting you other guys.

[Ichneumonwasp]

And most of us do act as if free will is true. Even determinists have to go through the process of making 'decisions' - difficult to get through the day otherwise.


Yes, but that's not the point. Acting as if free will is true does not make it true. Ev'ryb'dy got a gris-gris.

Feelings are not logic.

[Cavemonster]

But, if free will contradicts determinism, then your step 7 is

If determinism is true, then determinism is false

Which contradicts the law of identity, indicating that the argument cannot be valid.

EDIT:

Hang on, no. It demonstrates that determinism is false, because the law of identity is violated if it is true. Perhaps that's meant to be the point?


That's the meat of the attempted argument, that assuming determinism is true leads to pardoxical conclusions.

Where this argument really fails is in level mixing.
I should study tonight instead of going out to a party (If I want good grades)

But in a deterministic universe, it's a forgone conclusion whether or not I actually will stay in and study. Only one of those options can happen, and it may not be the one I should do.

So it seems to create a situation in which I should do something which I cannot do. This is because, the whole imperative of should isn't an evaluation of the whole situation, but an evaluation from a limited perspective with incomplete knowledge.

Statistics work the same way. In a deterministic universe, a flipped coin can only land one way that one time, yet we talk about the 50% probability of either outcome even though in reality there is a 100% chance of one outcome and a 0%.

We use the word "should" and probabilities, to discuss and make predictions and suggestions based on our limited knowledge of the world. This argument puts "should" and determinism together and says that since they result in a paradox (determinism = Free Will) assumes that one of them must be false, and it must be determinism.

In reality, it's the introduction of "should" which is a tool for an incomplete perspective into a formal setup describing a complete perspective that creates the problem.

[Gnu Ordure]

Before I go, I'll put two more issues through the formula to see how it copes, one a known truth, that the earth goes round the sun, the other a very probable falsehood, the existence of gnomes.

1. With respect to the heliocentricity issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe in heliocentricity.
5. With respect to the heliocentricity issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the heliocentricity issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then heliocentricity is true. (from 6,4)

The logic stops there, with the conditional. The fact that heliocentricity actually is true does not allow us to conclude anything about determinism (that would be affirming the consequent). And determinists should be happy with the conclusion because if determinism does apply, the earth will still be going round the sun.

Let's try gnomes.

1. With respect to the gnome issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe in gnomes.
5. With respect to the gnome issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the gnome issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then gnomes are true. (from 6,4)

Actually, I was wrong before when I said the gnome logic ran out at step 7. It doesn't. I forgot we were using gnomes as an example of an obvious untruth. So gnomes are false and step 7 leads to:

8. Determinism is false, therefore free will is true.

Gnu.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.

Do you really mean to say:

3'. If determinism is true, then whatever was predetermined is done.

Because certainly there are events that can logically occur under materialism but do not in fact occur.

In which case:

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can [logically] be done.
3'. If determinism is true, then whatever was predetermined is done.
4. I believe MFT.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can [logically] refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. DOESN'T FOLLOW

7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

Now if you're going to try to repair this by saying that we will only think that something should be done if in fact it is a predetermined thing that will be done, I'm quite sure everyone will simply refuse to accept that premise.

~~ Paul

[PixyMisa]

That it's really, really difficult to understand? ;)
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmno.

[Gnu Ordure]

Cavemonster,
But in a deterministic universe, it's a forgone conclusion whether or not I actually will stay in and study. Only one of those options can happen, and it may not be the one I should do.

So it seems to create a situation in which I should do something which I cannot do.


Cavemonster, I think Professor Huemer addressed this in his paper, though in respect of the should in the first premise. He raised this hypothetical objection:

Objection #1:
Premise (1) begs the question, because, if determinism is true, then it is never the case that a person 'should' do anything, because in order for it to be true that S should do A, it must be true both that S can do A and that S can refrain from doing A. Determinism implies that S is never both able to do A and able to refrain from doing A. Therefore, a determinist would obviously reject (1).

He then answered himself thus:

BQ1: An argument begs the question iff the premises contain the conclusion.

<snip bq2 and 3>

Which view of begging the question might the objector have in mind? Start with BQ1. One can see by inspection that MFT is not contained in (1). (1) only says that we should not believe what is false with respect to the free-will issue; that by itself does not say anything about which position is in fact true or false. Nor does (1) by itself even entail MFT; (1) must be combined with premises (2), (3), and (4) in order to derive MFT. Alternately, it may be combined with (2), (3), and the premise, "Whatever a person should do, he can fail to do." But presumably if (1) 'contained' MFT (in any decent sense of 'contain'), then (1) alone would be logically sufficient for MFT.

I'm not sure if that answers your objection or not.

[PixyMisa]

1. An irrelevancy, used to set up later equivocation.
2. Still assumes perfect knowledge. In the real world, this is simply false.
3. Determinism is false, so also an irrelevancy. (In the real world, quantum events are either truly random, or determined in such a way that violations of causality must be possible. Either way, determinism is toast.)
4. Your beliefs are demonstrably irrelevant, since people believe false things all the time.
5. False.
6. False.
7. No matter what, this depends on multiple false premises. It's a non-sequitur of epic proportions.
8. Epic fail.

I award you zero points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

[porch]

And most of us do act as if free will is true. Even determinists have to go through the process of making 'decisions' - difficult to get through the day otherwise.

I'm no determinist (who is these days?) but I do not believe in Free Will. I'm a machine that makes decisions, and I experience myself making decisions, but I don't act as if I have Free Will at all. Do I? How would I behave differently if I had Free Will or if I didn't?

This is another way of asking you to please define free will properly if you want to get anywhere.

[fromdownunder]

If there is or isn't Free Will, how would you know the difference?

Paul

:) :) :)

Exactly. I could say I have the free will to fly up to Queensland and visit my sister by using the rent money. But I always choose to pay the rent.

This is not free will coming into play, it is a lifetime of experience that knowing if I do not pay the rent, I will be out on the street. I prefer the comfort of a home, and I have hard evidence from observation that people living in the streets are less comfortable than I am.

This sort of "decision", for want of a better word, can be used to pretty much everything we do, all the way down to buying a beer instead of a Coke at the pub. We do it, conciously or sub-conciously, because the alternatives will usually bring negative results, either physically or emotionally.

I can happily live in a world where I do not think I have free will since I will never know what is going to happen tomorrow (other than the obvious - eat, drink, go to work). I do not lay awake at nights worrying about it.

Norm

[Yoink]

I just realized I did something really silly by introducing the premises in a different order, as now they don't match the numbers in the final version.

Sorry.

From now on, could everybody please use the numbers as the author uses them:

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe MFT.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

Ichneumonwasp, would you mind clarifying which premise you meant by premise 3?

As I suspected, the problem here is a mistatement of the premises. This is nothing but a rather uninteresting equivocation on the meaning of the word "should."

Let us replace his #1 and #2 with far more precise statements and see where we get:

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should, where possible, refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. "In order to hold that someone is morally culpable for failing to do X, one must believe that the person is able to do X."

One immediately sees now where his #5 falls apart.

5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)

This is utterly unjustified by properly clarified versions of the 1 and 2. He has simply smuggled in the unjustified assumption that we can refrain from believing in a falsehood when it comes to free will. Now, it is central to many theories that dispute the possibility of free will that free will is an unavoidable illusion. If those theories are correct, then it may very well be that we can't refrain from believing in free will even if it is a falsehood, so it may very well be that we cannot be held to be morally culpable for that false belief.

The equivocation on "should" here is obvious. He's using it in a general, unspecific way in 1 and in a specific and restricted way in 2. While we may hold that all people in general "should" say "thank you" if someone does them a favor, we do not think that a coma patient in particular "should" say "thank you" to the nurse who provides him with a sponge bath.

A trivial error.

[Cavemonster]

Cavemonster,



Cavemonster, I think Professor Huemer addressed this in his paper, though in respect of the should in the first premise. He raised this hypothetical objection:

Objection #1:
Premise (1) begs the question, because, if determinism is true, then it is never the case that a person 'should' do anything, because in order for it to be true that S should do A, it must be true both that S can do A and that S can refrain from doing A. Determinism implies that S is never both able to do A and able to refrain from doing A. Therefore, a determinist would obviously reject (1).

He then answered himself thus:

BQ1: An argument begs the question iff the premises contain the conclusion.

<snip bq2 and 3>

Which view of begging the question might the objector have in mind? Start with BQ1. One can see by inspection that MFT is not contained in (1). (1) only says that we should not believe what is false with respect to the free-will issue; that by itself does not say anything about which position is in fact true or false. Nor does (1) by itself even entail MFT; (1) must be combined with premises (2), (3), and (4) in order to derive MFT. Alternately, it may be combined with (2), (3), and the premise, "Whatever a person should do, he can fail to do." But presumably if (1) 'contained' MFT (in any decent sense of 'contain'), then (1) alone would be logically sufficient for MFT.

I'm not sure if that answers your objection or not.

No, it doesn't even answer the question it's supposed to.

I think you should read my objection and most of this thread again.

When we say "S should do A", we're not talking in formal terms. In a more complete logical sense, what we mean is really, based on our limited information, S should do A. For instance I could say I should study tonight, but I could be crushed by a falling safe making it impossible for me to do anything. Can I study tonight? No, I'm dead. So here's something I should do that it turns out that a can not do.

Do you see the problem? The declaration of "should" is from a perspective of limited information. Even without bringing determinism into the mix there's a major logical problem there.

1. With respect to the dental hygene, issue, we should brush our teeth several times a day.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. I'm locked in a straightjacket in a closet. All my teeth have been ripped out of my head and crushed into a powder and thrown into a volcano.

Whoa, we've hit that same internal contradiction without even introducing determinism.

[dasmiller]

Any usage of should anywhere implies a choice.

So, when I say "it should be sunny tomorrow," I'm implying that the clouds have volition?

As for the whole argument - imagine that there are two similar planets, one inhabited by beings with free will and another inhabited by deterministic zombies. And imagine that on both worlds, they're having exactly this discussion. On both planets, wouldn't the argument come to the same conclusion?

[Gnu Ordure]

twiler:
This is nothing but a rather uninteresting equivocation on the meaning of the word "should."

The Prof adresses this point in Objection 2:

The argument involves an equivocation, since the "should" in premise (2) is the "should" of morality, while (1) employs the "should" of epistemic rationality.

Reply:

I do not believe that there exist these different senses of "should." What there are, admittedly, are different reasons why a person should do a particular thing. One reason for doing A might be that A advances your own interests. Another might be that A helps out a friend of yours. Another might be that A fulfills a promise. Etc. I do not see that these different possible reasons why an action should be performed generate different senses of the word "should."

Be that as it may, even if there are different senses of "should," there is no reason why (2) must employ the moral "should." Any relation to a potential action worthy of the name "should" must at least have this feature: it is normative, i.e., to say one "should" do A is to in some manner recommend in favor of A. This is sufficient for (2) to be true, for it is nonsensical to recommend the impossible. That is, he who recommends a thing is committed to its being possible to follow his recommendation. If he admits the thing recommended to be impossible, he must withdraw the recommendation

Paul, Cavemonster, I'll get back to you.

Gnu.

[Yoink]

twiler:


The Prof adresses this point in Objection 2:

The argument involves an equivocation, since the "should" in premise (2) is the "should" of morality, while (1) employs the "should" of epistemic rationality.

Reply:

I do not believe that there exist these different senses of "should." What there are, admittedly, are different reasons why a person should do a particular thing. One reason for doing A might be that A advances your own interests. Another might be that A helps out a friend of yours. Another might be that A fulfills a promise. Etc. I do not see that these different possible reasons why an action should be performed generate different senses of the word "should."

Be that as it may, even if there are different senses of "should," there is no reason why (2) must employ the moral "should." Any relation to a potential action worthy of the name "should" must at least have this feature: it is normative, i.e., to say one "should" do A is to in some manner recommend in favor of A. This is sufficient for (2) to be true, for it is nonsensical to recommend the impossible. That is, he who recommends a thing is committed to its being possible to follow his recommendation. If he admits the thing recommended to be impossible, he must withdraw the recommendation

Paul, Cavemonster, I'll get back to you.

Gnu.

The Professor misunderstands the objection.

ETA: To elaborate a little (and a little should be all that's needed, because it's an incredibly trivial error): when he writes "Any relation to a potential action worthy of the name "should" must at least have this feature: it is normative, i.e., to say one "should" do A is to in some manner recommend in favor of A" he is simply mistaken that this has any relationship to whether one can perform the action. He is mistaken, in particular, with regard to his first premise. The statement "we should refrain from believing falsehoods" in no way entails the claim "one can never be constrained to believe something false" any more than the statement "one should not kill innocent men and women" entails the claim "one can never be constrained to kill innocent women and children." It is, again, taking what one knows to be a general guide that is clearly only to be understood with an unspoken "unless, of course, it's impossible to do otherwise" and pretending that it is a specific statement about all possible specific situations.

It's an error so trivial as to be uninteresting.

[Maia]

Exactly. I could say I have the free will to fly up to Queensland and visit my sister by using the rent money. But I always choose to pay the rent.

This is not free will coming into play, it is a lifetime of experience that knowing if I do not pay the rent, I will be out on the street. I prefer the comfort of a home, and I have hard evidence from observation that people living in the streets are less comfortable than I am.

This sort of "decision", for want of a better word, can be used to pretty much everything we do, all the way down to buying a beer instead of a Coke at the pub. We do it, conciously or sub-conciously, because the alternatives will usually bring negative results, either physically or emotionally.

I can happily live in a world where I do not think I have free will since I will never know what is going to happen tomorrow (other than the obvious - eat, drink, go to work). I do not lay awake at nights worrying about it.


I think that this is a good practical illustration of what I meant about the effects of topiramate. Let's say that one has treatment-resistant OCD. We don't know exactly what causes the far more common form of OCD, but the short version (I do have tons of cites if anyone wants to see them), is that there's a glitch in the brain at some point. Not so with the treatment-resistant kind. It's a defense against the unendurable traumatic memories of PTSD. One of the things which topiramate seems to do is to tear away that veil, and to reveal those defenses for what they actually are. And that's exactly when a "lifetime of experience" seems to indicate that the wiser choice by FAR is to drop the meds and run, run, run back into ignorance!! If you choose to reject ignorance, lying awake nights is only the tiniest possible beginning, the smallest imaginable first step. Because it swiftly becomes obvious that what's really at stake is the PTSD itself, and to go into treatment for PTSD, for any of the traumatic disorders, is like voluntarily walking through fire. This is why most people with PTSD quite literally can't do it... okay, almost all...okay, the true long-term success rate up until now has been REALLY bad, although some people do manage to do it. Truthfully, there is no evidence-based treatment for PTSD that has yet held up over the long run.

If I had to guess, I would say the reason isn't so much that there is no way to know or feel or guess or have faith in what's on the other side of that firewall, although that is certainly true. It's that you have no faith in your own ability to choose anything freely. Making the choice to put yourself in fire, and continuing to renew that choice every day, seems to go against everything the brain was designed for in terms of survival. If there was ever anything that tested pure free will, the choice to try to overcome PTSD would have to be it, and topiramate seems to be the first drug that has ever had any effect on the success rate. I have to say that I think this is the reason why: it somehow seems to offer that inward choice, to offer a genuine reason to believe-- not that the results will be great or that everything will work out, but that you yourself have the capacity to make a choice of your own free will. So I've got to say it: philosophical arguments about free will may all sound very nice; in everyday life, it probably doesn't particularly matter if anyone can prove it exists or not, but this is where it is tested by fire, and it's where we find it because we must, or we will not make it at all.

Um... I didn't mean to turn this into such a heavy discussion, but I do think that sometimes the practical applications can really cut through the endless sophistry, for my purposes anyway! We will now return to our regularly scheduled programming. :)

[Ron_Tomkins]

So is it coincidence that every single poster that comes with a type of woo approach, mentions Kant as his/her role model?

[blobru]

Prof.'s Proof of Free Will

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe MFT.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

The problem stems from premise 1: "We should refrain from believing falsehoods."

A falsehood is something that is false. Our beliefs are our best attempts to discern falsehood from truth. Since none of us is omniscient, our refraining from belief never guarantees something is a falsehood; it is just our best guess. (To suggest that our beliefs equate to truth is argumentum ad populum).

With respect to matters of experience (including the free-will issue), it is impossible for us to absolutely guarantee a statement of belief is a falsehood: we can only present evidence and arguments. Though in some cases the evidence and arguments may seem overwhelming, they are never absolute guarantees of falsehood. To reflect this epistemic limitation, this addendum:

1. ...we should refrain from believing falsehoods, though our refraining from belief does not guarantee something is a falsehood.

Step # 6 then becomes:

6. ...we refrain from believing falsehoods, though this does not guarantee the something not believed (in this case, determinism) is a falsehood, or that its negation (in this case, MFT) is true.

Step #7 now no longer yields a contradiction; rather, something like:

7. If determinism is true, then we refrain from believing in determinism (which pretty much sums up the reaction to the imagined implications of determinism many people have).

Finally, step #8 now becomes:

8. Heh. :scarper:

(Note: I think other posters may have suggested as much in other words; I'm tackling it from scratch for [my own] clarity).

[Andrew Wiggin]

Bearing in mind that I think I'm nowhere near drunk enough (stone cold sober actually) for this proof to make any sense, I think I'll just post something about Kant. It's always playing in the back of my mind when someone brings the bugger up in debate.


Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable.

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table.

David Hume could out-consume
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates, himself, was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will,
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.

Plato, they say, could stick it away--
Half a crate of whisky every day.

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle.
Hobbes was fond of his dram,

And René Descartes was a drunken fart.
'I drink, therefore I am.'

Yes, Socrates, himself, is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker,
But a bugger when he's pissed.

[Robin]

If determinism is true, then there is no free will

is the same as saying

If determinism is true, then determinism is true.

No, you have a false dichotomy there - you are saying that "no free will" is equivalent to "determinism is true".

Not so, determinism might be false but there might still be no free will.

For example random events, arbitrary events, events that happen for no reason would all be non-deterministic but would be inconsistent with free will.

That appears to be the implicit assumption of your original argument - that determinism and free will are a dichotomy - but you have simply not taken into account that neither determinism nor free will might be true.

[Ichneumonwasp]

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that this was invented as a teaching exercise for the philosophy students in Boulder?

I think it's a great exercise for that purpose - spot the equivocation, etc. Surely no one would think this proof works?

[Robin]

The first premise is hopefully not controversial, as it is simply Kant's ought-implies-can principle. From Blackwell's Dictionary : A formula in Kant's ethics, meaning that correctly judging that a given agent is obliged to perform a certain action logically presupposes that the agent can perform it.

In other words, it would be nonsensical to say that someone should do something impossible.

Thus, Premise 1 : Whatever should be done can be done.

Is that premise valid/true?
Whether or not it is valid it clearly misstates the quote from Blackwell's, note the referent for "presupposes":

correctly judging that a given agent is obliged to perform a certain action logically presupposes that the agent can perform it.

So in the Blackwell's quote it is not the obligation itself that presupposes the possibility, it is the act of judging whether a given agent has that obligation.

So if you are taking the premiss from the Blackwell's quote, then clearly it should be:

Premiss 2 : Whatever can be correctly judged to be something that should be done, can be done


(Note also that the Blackwell's quote refers to an obligation, not a recommendation - this is the problem with framing logical arguments with ambiguous terminology)

[!Kaggen]

So is it coincidence that every single poster that comes with a type of woo approach, mentions Kant as his/her role model?

Examples would be nice with special reference to the issue of Kant being a role model.

[Robin]

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that this was invented as a teaching exercise for the philosophy students in Boulder?

I think it's a great exercise for that purpose - spot the equivocation, etc.
Only if you also think that shooting fish in a barrel is a great exercise for teaching angling.
Surely no one would think this proof works?
I hope not.

[Robin]

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe MFT.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)
Has it been pointed out yet that this argument is not even valid?

What rule of inference is supposed to make 8 follow from 7?

I suspect that a key assumption has been left out here - that if determinism is false then MFT is necessarily true - as I pointed out this assumption is wrong.

[Cavemonster]

Am I the only one waiting for the primary woo to show up?

It's been my experience on this forum that people who insist on a really flawed proof, like 9-11 folks, why healthcare is communism etc. seem to have a primary woo motivator that makes them blind themselves to the specifics since the proof fits so elegently with their overarching assumptions.

My guess is that free will here is the gateway to dualism and religion for Gnu, but I may be wrong.

[Yoink]

Has it been pointed out yet that this argument is not even valid?

What rule of inference is supposed to make 8 follow from 7?

I suspect that a key assumption has been left out here - that if determinism is false then MFT is necessarily true - as I pointed out this assumption is wrong.

If you read the original proof, he's defining "determinism" simply as non-free-will. So the assumption that "if determinism is false then MFT must be true" is actually explicit.

None of which matters because the entire argument is a sham long before it reaches that step.

[Robin]

If you read the original proof, he's defining "determinism" simply as non-free-will. So the assumption that "if determinism is false then MFT must be true" is actually explicit.
Actually he seems to be defining MFT as non-determinism if I am reading correctly, he is counting random events as cases where there is more than one thing that we can do.

Be that as it may, it is not made explicit in the argument itself and this step is still invalid.
None of which matters because the entire argument is a sham long before it reaches that step.
True - it is a sham at P1.

[Robin]

So is it coincidence that every single poster that comes with a type of woo approach, mentions Kant as his/her role model?
That does not make Kant a woo.

And as I pointed out before, Kant has been misrepresented in this argument. Kant would say that we should first determine if something is possible before saying we ought to do it.

This argument has it completely the other way around, that we ought to do something and therefore it is possible.

Applying the Kant's principle to P1 we would have to say that it could only be true if it is in fact possible to completely refrain from believing anything false about free will.

And in any case, as Kant was talking about obligations and not recommendations.

[Yoink]

That does not make Kant a woo.

And as I pointed out before, Kant has been misrepresented in this argument. Kant would say that we should first determine if something is possible before saying we ought to do it.

This argument has it completely the other way around, that we ought to do something and therefore it is possible.

Applying the Kant's principle to P1 we would have to say that it could only be true if it is in fact possible to completely refrain from believing anything false about free will.

And in any case, as Kant was talking about obligations and not recommendations.

Well put.

[Yoink]

Actually he seems to be defining MFT as non-determinism if I am reading correctly, he is counting random events as cases where there is more than one thing that we can do.

Be that as it may, it is not made explicit in the argument itself and this step is still invalid.

True - it is a sham at P1.

As far as I can see he makes MFT and determinism complementary: "It will be convenient to have a name for the contradictory of MFT. With apologies to compatibilists, I use the label "determinism.""

But you're right that it doesn't get built into the proof directly. Then again, given how sloppily written the proof is, that's no surprise.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Has it been pointed out yet that this argument is not even valid?

What rule of inference is supposed to make 8 follow from 7?

I suspect that a key assumption has been left out here - that if determinism is false then MFT is necessarily true - as I pointed out this assumption is wrong.
Good point. We're we supposed to be reading it this way?

7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
[Let's assume determinism is true.]
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

That fixes the problem, doesn't it (all the other problems notwithstanding)?

Edited to add: But then it makes steps 7 and 8 identical.


~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

As far as I can see he makes MFT and determinism complementary: "It will be convenient to have a name for the contradictory of MFT. With apologies to compatibilists, I use the label "determinism.""
Wait a minute. If this is the case then step 7 contradicts those definitions:

7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)


~~ Paul

[Yoink]

Wait a minute. If this is the case then step 7 contradicts those definitions:

7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)


~~ Paul

Yes, I wondered about that. I mean, the 'logic' is something along the lines of "Either MFT is true OR determinism is true; but even if determinism is true MFT must be true TOO--so such on that, bitches!!"

[sphenisc]

--deleted--

[Cavemonster]

No, I think the point is that determinism, if assumed to be true, leads to an identity statement that is clearly untrue.

Sort of like if I assume a value of X in a mathmatical proof, and it leads me to 0 = 1 then so long as my logic was sound, I have proved that the value I assumed cannot be X.

[PixyMisa]

Proof by contradiction, yes. Except that the proof in this case is horribly flawed.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi guys.

I'm knackered after yesterday; more or less 12 hours straight on this. Way behind on chores and stuff as a result, so this will have to wait.

Thanks to those that have taken the discussion seriously. It's been educational, for me at least (for example, I didn't know that Kantian thought was connected with woo - would anyone like tp explain this connection?). And I have some more questions, but I'll have to get back to you.

And no, there's no woo waiting in the wings to be revealed with a flourish. This discussion is what it appears to be, a simple deconstruction of a proposed logical proof. When there is nothing more to be said about it, that will be it - no hidden agenda, I assure you.

Gnu.

PS One quick response to Robin - I think the Prof addresses your point about the Blackwell definition in Premise 1 in his Objection #3 in his paper. (Link to paper here. (http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/fwill.htm)). If not, I'll look at it again. Also, I have never heard of anyone taking the position that neither determinism nor free will are true. And I'm finding it difficult to imagine how such a world would operate or function. What is that position called, technically speaking?

[~enigma~]

And no, there's no woo waiting in the wings to be revealed with a flourish. This discussion is what it appears to be, a simple deconstruction of a proposed logical proof. When there is nothing more to be said about it, that will be it - no hidden agenda, I assure you.
Then this is in the wrong forum for any logic.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Then this is in the wrong forum for any logic.
I believe logic is a primary (if not the primary) topic in philosophy.

[PixyMisa]

Thanks to those that have taken the discussion seriously. It's been educational, for me at least (for example, I didn't know that Kantian thought was connected with woo - would anyone like tp explain this connection?). And I have some more questions, but I'll have to get back to you.
It's not really that Kant is connected with woo; it's more that believers in woo have a tendency sieze upon anything they don't understand and use it to support the impossible. Kant and Wittgenstein seem to be popular philosophers for this, but I've seen some cite David Hume, who was among the most rational and empirical of all philosophers.

It's very similar to the "quantum" thing. "We don't understand ghosts, and we don't understand quantum mechanics, therefore ghost are caused by quantum mechanics."

PS One quick response to Robin - I think the Prof addresses your point about the Blackwell definition in Premise 1 in his Objection #3 in his paper. (Link to paper here. (http://home.sprynet.com/%7Eowl1/fwill.htm)). If not, I'll look at it again. Also, I have never heard of anyone taking the position that neither determinism nor free will are true. And I'm finding it difficult to imagine how such a world would operate or function. What is that position called, technically speaking?
Pessimistic incompatibilism, I think.

Determinism isn't true; that's experimentally and theoretically established.

Libertarian free will is not a coherent concept; it posits events that are neither random nor deterministic, and no such thing is possible.

So all that is left is compatibilism - which defines "free will" in such a way that it is coherent and possible - and incompatibilism, which chooses to simply do away with the concept.

Both are correct, depending only on which definition you choose.

[PixyMisa]

Then this is in the wrong forum for any logic.
This is religion and philosophy. It's not actually required to be crazy to start a thread here... Though it is traditional.

[Lord Emsworth]

Also, I have never heard of anyone taking the position that neither determinism nor free will are true.

The position that indeterminism is not identical with (libertarian) free will is fairly wide-spread. Incompatibility with determinism is built-in to LFW.

So, all you need is someone who denies LFW and holds that determinism is ultimately not true.

[!Kaggen]

It's not really that Kant is connected with woo; it's more that believers in woo have a tendency sieze upon anything they don't understand and use it to support the impossible. Kant and Wittgenstein seem to be popular philosophers for this, but I've seen some cite David Hume, who was among the most rational and empirical of all philosophers.

It's very similar to the "quantum" thing. "We don't understand ghosts, and we don't understand quantum mechanics, therefore ghost are caused by quantum mechanics."


I would add that those that don't recognize woo, but do recognize Kant even if they do not understand him, use this as an excuse when Kant comes up to say it must be woo.

[Jonnyclueless]

Jonny,

I said:

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says:



Those are essentially the same, are they not?

No, because you didn't say "here is what free will is:" and present the dictionary definition or state that you were defining free will. At best it's a badly formatted presentation.

And the premise is silly at best to claim that being able to make a decision needs to have a term or be a concept. We make choices, this cannot be disputed. It's an observation.

[Paulhoff]

There is no Free Will, everything you do has some cost.

Paul

:) :) :)

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi guys.

I agree the problem is in Premise 1. As has been pointed out, the mere usage of the word should implies that alternative courses of action are possible, regardless of whether the word is used in terms of morality or expediency.

The Prof's justification for the premise was :

One can see by inspection that MFT is not contained in premise (1). (1) only says that we should not believe what is false with respect to the free-will issue; that by itself does not say anything about which position is in fact true or false. Nor does (1) by itself even entail MFT; (1) must be combined with premises (2), (3), and (4) in order to derive MFT.

He's right in saying that the premise doesn't say anything about which position is true or false. But that doesn't alter the fact that it does assume that one particular position is true, because merely using the word should implies choice.

In other words, his first and second premises would make more sense if they were conditionalised, (just as Premise 3 is):

1. If MFT is true, with respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.

So the premises would be:

1. If MFT is true, with respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods
2. If MFT is true, whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe MFT.

Step 5 is correct if it also includes the conditional:

5. If MFT is true, with respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)

But step 6 now doesn't follow:

6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)

Step 3 is reliable, but Step 5 is now conditional on MFT being true, so it can't be used, because Step 6 starts by assuming determinism is true.

Logic train hits buffers.

Is that right?

Gnu.

[Yoink]

Hi guys.

I agree the problem is in Premise 1. As has been pointed out, the mere usage of the word should implies that alternative courses of action are possible, regardless of whether the word is used in terms of morality or expediency.

The Prof's justification for the premise was :

One can see by inspection that MFT is not contained in premise (1). (1) only says that we should not believe what is false with respect to the free-will issue; that by itself does not say anything about which position is in fact true or false. Nor does (1) by itself even entail MFT; (1) must be combined with premises (2), (3), and (4) in order to derive MFT.

He's right in saying that the premise doesn't say anything about which position is true or false. But that doesn't alter the fact that it does assume that one particular position is true, because merely using the word should implies choice.

In other words, his first and second premises would make more sense if they were conditionalised, (just as Premise 3 is):

1. If MFT is true, with respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.

So the premises would be:

1. If MFT is true, with respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods
2. If MFT is true, whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe MFT.

Step 5 is correct if it also includes the conditional:

5. If MFT is true, with respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)

But step 6 now doesn't follow:

6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)

Step 3 is reliable, but Step 5 is now conditional on MFT being true, so it can't be used, because Step 6 starts by assuming determinism is true.

Logic train hits buffers.

Is that right?

Gnu.

I don't think this is right yet. Even in a world in which we have non-illusory free will it is not reasonable to from that "whatever should be done, can be done" to "we should do this, therefore we can." You're still incorporating his equivocation on the word "should" (which, again, is the the "moral/pragmatic" equivocation that he addresses).

"Everyone should save one fifth of their income each year" is a reasonable statement (whether sound advice or not). But I cannot infer from that that it is, in fact, possible for everyone to do this.

"Everyone should exercise at least three times a week for 20 minutes" is a reasonable statement; but it is obviously not possible for a coma patient to do this.

The "should" in #1 should be written as "should, where possible." And in that case there is simply not reasonable inference to draw from #1 to #5.

[Singularitarian]

Hi, there.

I found this proof of Free Will recently. I can't see anything wrong with it, but then I'm not brilliant at logic. If I put it up here, would any proper philosophers/logicians be interested in checking it out?

Cheers,

Gnu.

logical proof exists everyday. The plural of the one consciousness [1] allows us to experience again logically a reality which is... choice-dependant. The choice-dependancy may be an illusion however, since the plurality of consciousness (and indeed the whole ensomble of consciousness) may not be an extension of space and time itself.


[1] - the mind of wigners friend and Hermathea, Ludwig Bass student of schrodnger

[Robin]

PS One quick response to Robin - I think the Prof addresses your point about the Blackwell definition in Premise 1 in his Objection #3 in his paper. (Link to paper here. (http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/fwill.htm)). If not, I'll look at it again.
No, that is not what I said.

Let me requote something I said earlier:
And as I pointed out before, Kant has been misrepresented in this argument. Kant would say that we should first determine if something is possible before saying we ought to do it.

This argument has it completely the other way around, that we ought to do something and therefore it is possible.

Applying the Kant's principle to P1 we would have to say that it could only be true if it is in fact possible to completely refrain from believing anything false about free will.

And in any case, as Kant was talking about obligations and not recommendations.

You see - P1 cannot possibly be true unless it is first known to be possible to avoid believing falsehoods about free will. As Yoink has pointed out, this is probably not even possible in an MFT world.

So you need to change P1 as suggested by Yoink, or add a new premiss "It is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will". But of course adding this as a premiss would preclude it from being a conclusion within the argument.
Also, I have never heard of anyone taking the position that neither determinism nor free will are true.
If you suggest that determinism/free-will forms a dichotomy, then you would have to say that any non-deterministic event was free will

If a single photon is fired at a half-silvered mirror it might pass through or reflect off it at random.

So would you say that the trajectory of the photon after it arrives at the mirrror is the result of free will?

Of course not - so there is an example of an event where there is more than one possible outcome that is neither the result of determinism, nor free will.

Therefore determinism/free-will is not a dichotomy.
And I'm finding it difficult to imagine how such a world would operate or function. What is that position called, technically speaking?
Do you mean what is the position called that suggests that the world is not necessarily deterministic, but likely contains randomness as well?

Mainstream physics.

But in a world that contained only determinism and randomness - there could be no libertarian free will.

[Yoink]

Gah--the edit window is closed on it, but in post 125 where I wrote "which, again, is the the "moral/pragmatic" equivocation that he addresses" I meant, of course, to write "which, again, is NOT the the "moral/pragmatic" equivocation that he addresses."

If only one could make the inference from "one should always write typo-free posts" to "one can always write typo free posts."

[Robin]

Gah--the edit window is closed on it, but in post 125 where I wrote "which, again, is the the "moral/pragmatic" equivocation that he addresses" I meant, of course, to write "which, again, is NOT the the "moral/pragmatic" equivocation that he addresses."

If only one could make the inference from "one should always write typo-free posts" to "one can always write typo free posts."
:)

[Gnu Ordure]

Yoink:
Gah--the edit window is closed on it, but in post 125 where I wrote "which, again, is the the "moral/pragmatic" equivocation that he addresses" I meant, of course, to write "which, again, is NOT the the "moral/pragmatic" equivocation that he addresses."

Heh.

I never got to notice that, Yoink, because if you look at what you said, you also missed out a verb earlier in the sentence, so I gave up on it at that point:

Even in a world in which we have non-illusory free will it is not reasonable to from that "whatever should be done, can be done" to "we should do this, therefore we can." You're still incorporating his equivocation on the word "should" (which, again, is the the "moral/pragmatic" equivocation that he addresses).

I'm guessing "go"... is that right?

[PixyMisa]

I would add that those that don't recognize woo, but do recognize Kant even if they do not understand him, use this as an excuse when Kant comes up to say it must be woo.
No.

[Ron_Tomkins]

Originally Posted by Ron_Tomkins
So is it coincidence that every single poster that comes with a type of woo approach, mentions Kant as his/her role model?

Examples would be nice with special reference to the issue of Kant being a role model.

See also Undercover Elephant for countless examples of this.

Also, you. And don't ask me to give you the post number. It was somewhere, I believe, in the "mathematics discovered or invented" or the derailed thread.

[Ron_Tomkins]

Originally Posted by Ron_Tomkins
So is it coincidence that every single poster that comes with a type of woo approach, mentions Kant as his/her role model?

That does not make Kant a woo.

Did I claim that?

[Gnu Ordure]

< self-censored >

[Robin]

<reply to a withdrawn post>

[Robin]

Did I claim that?
No, it is just that poor old Kant so often gets the guilt by association treatment.

[Robin]

Actually I was incorrect in stating that 8 does not follow from 7, it does as long as you accept the premiss that determinism and free will are complements, ie that any non-deterministic event is an example of free will.

Using the author's own symbolic representation (he only represents 1-4 so I have to assume the symbolic representation of the inferences):

Fx = x is false,
Tm = x is true,
Bx = I believe x,
S[x] = I should do x,
C[x] = I can do x,
D[x] = I do x,
m = the minimal free-will thesis.

1. (x)(Fx → S[~Bx]),
2. (x)(S[x] → C[x]),
3. (Fm → (x)(C[x] → D[x])),
4. Bm;
5. (x)(Fx → C[~Bx]), (1,2)
6. Fm → (x)(Fx → D[~Bx]), (3,5)
7. Fm → Tm, (6,4)
8. Tm; (7)

So 8 is a reductio ad absurdum conclusion from 7 ie (not m implies (m and not m), therefore m)

7 is a modus tollens (assuming D[~Bx] implies ~D[Bx] and Bx implies D[Bx]), 5 and 6 are substitutions.

But the problem still remains that the truth of 1 depends on the possibility of the situation it describes.

And the problem still remains that it is not arguing in favour of actual free will, merely something that is not strict determinism.

[Dave Rogers]

Dave:


If he only understands Armenian, Dave, he won't have understood what I said in the first place, so there's no harm to apologize for, and no need to withdraw my advice, as it was never received.

He'll have heard a stranger address him in an angry tone, which is what requires an apology. Anyone who's been sworn at in a foreign language is likely to have realised that they are, in fact, being sworn at, even though the specific content of the invective may be a mystery.

You're not in a position to make any such apology, yet morally you should do so.

Dave

[Dave Rogers]

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
2. Whatever should be done can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
4. I believe MFT.
5. With respect to the free-will issue, we can refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 1,2)
6. If determinism is true, then with respect to the free will issue, we refrain from believing falsehoods. (from 3,5)
7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

OK, let's start from the assumption that MFT is not true, and see where that gets us.

1. This premise is meaningless in the case where MFT is not true, as the word "should" has no meaning in a deterministic universe. Therefore, as a meaningless statement, it cannot be taken to contradict the starting assumption.
2. This premise is meaningless, for the same reason.
3. This premise is consistent with the assumption.
4. This premise is consistent with the assumption.
5. This premise follows from two meaningless statements, and is therefore unproven.
6. This premise follows from unproven premise 5, and is therefore unproven.
7. This premise follows from unproven premise 6, and is therefore unproven.

None of the premises 1-7 imply any contradiction in the case where MFT is not true, and cannot therefore be taken as proof that MFT is true.

Now let's start from the assumption that MFT is true.

1. This premise is consistent with the assumption.
2. This premise is not accepted, as it has been inverted from its original meaning. The original meaning was that the choice of moral imperatives imposed should be restricted to possible actions. The meaning implied here is that any action identified as a moral imperative is by definition possible. Not only is this the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, but it is also re-framing a moral recommendation as an existence theorem.
3. This premise is irrelevant.
4. This premise is consistent with the assumption.
5. This premise is unproven, as it follows from rejected premise 2.
6. This premise is irrelevant.
7. This premise is irrelevant.

Therefore, none of the premises are inconsistent with MFT either.

So it seems perfectly clear to me that this line of argument proves nothing.

Dave

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Actually I was incorrect in stating that 8 does not follow from 7, it does as long as you accept the premiss that determinism and free will are complements, ie that any non-deterministic event is an example of free will.
But 7 and 8 are:

7. If determinism is true, then MFT is true. (from 6,4)
8. MFT is true. (from 7)

If we are to take as a premise that determinism and free will are complements, then 7 contradicts that premise.

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

OK, let's start from the assumption that MFT is not true, and see where that gets us.

1. This premise is meaningless in the case where MFT is not true, as the word "should" has no meaning in a deterministic universe. Therefore, as a meaningless statement, it cannot be taken to contradict the starting assumption.
But should does have a meaning. It means that I have (deterministically) arrived at the conclusion that a particular action ought to be taken, regardless of whether that action will in fact (deterministically) be taken. The problem comes when we go on to step 2: The deterministic universe has no obligation to restrict my should-conclusions to those things that will in fact happen.

~~ Paul

[Towlie]

The first premise is hopefully not controversial, as it is simply Kant's ought-implies-can principle. From Blackwell's Dictionary : A formula in Kant's ethics, meaning that correctly judging that a given agent is obliged to perform a certain action logically presupposes that the agent can perform it.

In other words, it would be nonsensical to say that someone should do something impossible.

Thus, Premise 1 : Whatever should be done can be done.

Is that premise valid/true?That would have been an interesting contribution to the thread and poll about volitionalism (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=151058) that I posted last month. The consensus was "no", you cannot choose to believe as you wish, and that, together with this principle, logically invalidates the Christian doctrine that those who don't believe in Jesus will be punished. (Or it implies that God is irrational.)

[David Wong]

3. Determinism is false, so also an irrelevancy. (In the real world, quantum events are either truly random, or determined in such a way that violations of causality must be possible. Either way, determinism is toast.)



The way you use "quantum events" you might as well be saying "the soul." There's just as much scientific evidence that it functions in that way.

"Quantum events" is the new cheat for people who don't want to believe in the soul, but want to believe in choice. Might as well say "magic."

If there is no soul, you're a machine. The mechanism by which you act is formed by genetics and sensory input that happens completely against your will. You just create a black box called "Quantum Something" and hope that this gives you your humanity back somehow some way maybe.

[porch]

The way you use "quantum events" you might as well be saying "the soul." There's just as much scientific evidence that it functions in that way.

"Quantum events" is the new cheat for people who don't want to believe in the soul, but want to believe in choice. Might as well say "magic."

If there is no soul, you're a machine. The mechanism by which you act is formed by genetics and sensory input that happens completely against your will. You just create a black box called "Quantum Something" and hope that this gives you your humanity back somehow some way maybe.


No. Determinism is toast, and there is no free will.

[Yoink]

The way you use "quantum events" you might as well be saying "the soul." There's just as much scientific evidence that it functions in that way.

"Quantum events" is the new cheat for people who don't want to believe in the soul, but want to believe in choice. Might as well say "magic."

If there is no soul, you're a machine. The mechanism by which you act is formed by genetics and sensory input that happens completely against your will. You just create a black box called "Quantum Something" and hope that this gives you your humanity back somehow some way maybe.

How on earth are you getting this from what PixyMisa wrote?

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The way you use "quantum events" you might as well be saying "the soul." There's just as much scientific evidence that it functions in that way.
I don't think Pixy was attributing any soul-like attributes to quantum events.

"Quantum events" is the new cheat for people who don't want to believe in the soul, but want to believe in choice. Might as well say "magic."
Now that's coming from a different direction, to be sure. Seems to me that quantum events are the cheat for people who want to believe that there is more to the brain than meets the eye. I don't think I have libertarian free will, quantum events or not.


If there is no soul, you're a machine. The mechanism by which you act is formed by genetics and sensory input that happens completely against your will. You just create a black box called "Quantum Something" and hope that this gives you your humanity back somehow some way maybe.
Okay, so let's assume I buy this. Can you explain how the "soul" works in such a way as to provide more than just another mechanism? What's the magic?

~~ Paul

[PixyMisa]

The way you use "quantum events" you might as well be saying "the soul."
Well, if by "the soul" you mean alpha & beta decay, spontaneous fission, neutron decay, and so on, sure.

That would be kind of a weird definition, but whatever floats your boat.

There's just as much scientific evidence that it functions in that way.
I'm not sure what you're talking about.

"Quantum events" is the new cheat for people who don't want to believe in the soul, but want to believe in choice. Might as well say "magic."
No. When I refer to quantum events, I mean quantum events. Neither souls nor magic - nor choice - enters into it.

If there is no soul, you're a machine.
There's a non-sequitur for you.

Are you asserting that if there is a soul, you are not a machine? If so, how, precisely, does the soul achieve this?

The mechanism by which you act is formed by genetics and sensory input that happens completely against your will.
Nope. That's what your will is.

You just create a black box called "Quantum Something" and hope that this gives you your humanity back somehow some way maybe.
No I don't. In fact, there's no evidence that quantum mechanics plays any significant role in consciousness.

[PixyMisa]

No. Determinism is toast, and there is no free will.
Personally, I'm a compatibilist. But some of my best friends are soulless zombies!

[porch]

Personally, I'm a compatibilist. But some of my best friends are soulless zombies!

Are there people that don't believe in compatibilist free will? I'm not even sure what that would mean.

[PixyMisa]

Well, there are are certainly people who disavow the term. That is, people make choices (obviously) but they don't consider the term "free will" to be useful.

[Gnu Ordure]

Robin:
You see - P1 cannot possibly be true unless it is first known to be possible to avoid believing falsehoods about free will.

I don't get this, Robin. Why should it be impossible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will?

If you're a rational person, which you appear to be, can you refrain from believing me when I tell you that Jupiter is made of cheese? I'm sure you can.

In which case, if I tell you that your Will is actually being controlled by extraterrestials on Jupiter, can you refrain from believing that?

If you can't, you must be crazy, and I would advise you to seek medical assistance. If you can, you've demonstrated that it is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will.

Which was one of the Prof's points. Some crazy people have diminished free will because they believe they have diminished free will. They pass the buck to extraterrestials (or god). Removal of the delusion indicates a return to sanity and the resumption of personal responsibility.

Gnu.

[Gnu Ordure]

Dave:
Now let's start from the assumption that MFT is true.

1. This premise is consistent with the assumption.
2. This premise is not accepted, as it has been inverted from its original meaning. The original meaning was that the choice of moral imperatives imposed should be restricted to possible actions. The meaning implied here is that any action identified as a moral imperative is by definition possible. Not only is this the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent, but it is also re-framing a moral recommendation as an existence theorem.

Dave, I can't see any inversion going on. The second premise is supposed to be Kant's principle, in the original sense, not as an existence theorem (whatever that is).

Kant's original wording was :

What we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.

The Prof said : Whatever should be done can be done.

And he pointed out that any obligation/advice that was impossible to fulfil/follow was nonsense and should be withdrawn, ie those things shouldn't be done, leaving the integrity of the premise intact.

Gnu.

[Twiler]

Robin:


I don't get this, Robin. Why should it be impossible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will?

If you're a rational person, which you appear to be, can you refrain from believing me when I tell you that Jupiter is made of cheese? I'm sure you can.

In which case, if I tell you that your Will is actually being controlled by extraterrestials on Jupiter, can you refrain from believing that?

If you can't, you must be crazy, and I would advise you to seek medical assistance. If you can, you've demonstrated that it is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will.

Which was one of the Prof's points. Some crazy people have diminished free will because they believe they have diminished free will. They pass the buck to extraterrestials (or god). Removal of the delusion indicates a return to sanity and the resumption of personal responsibility.

Gnu.

Surely, any argument to demonstrate the existence of free will must include the assumption that, prior to making the argument, we don't have absolute knowledge on the issue.

Thus, within the context of the premises of the argument, it is impossible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will unless we don't believe anything about free will.

And this contradicts premise 4, which is based on a particular belief about free will.

[Gnu Ordure]

Twiler,

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
4. I believe in Free Will.


When I say, I believe in Free Will, what falsehood about Free Will am I not refraining from believing?

The falsehood that Free Will exists? That hasn't been established, and as you say, the argument assumes lack of knowledge on the issue.

So as regards free will, I do refrain from believing falsehoods, such as me being controlled by aliens.

I still believe in free will though. So where's the contradiction?

Gnu.

[Twiler]

Twiler,

1. With respect to the free-will issue, we should refrain from believing falsehoods.
4. I believe in Free Will.


When I say, I believe in Free Will, what falsehood about Free Will am I not refraining from believing?

The falsehood that Free Will exists? That hasn't been established, and as you say, the argument assumes lack of knowledge on the issue.

So as regards free will, I do refrain from believing falsehoods, such as me being controlled by aliens.

I still believe in free will though. So where's the contradiction?

Gnu.

But, even if free will has not been established as a falsehood, believing in it when it hasn't yet been established as truth introduces the possibility of believing in a falsehood.

While it has not been demonstrated that you ARE believing in a falsehood, the possibility remains.

[Gnu Ordure]

But, even if free will has not been established as a falsehood, believing in it when it hasn't yet been established as truth introduces the possibility of believing in a falsehood.

While it has not been demonstrated that you ARE believing in a falsehood, the possibility remains.

Agreed, and if that turns out to be the case, then I should indeed have refrained from believing in free will.

But until that is established, the fact that I do believe in it doesn't contradict the recommendation that I refrain from believing in falsehoods about it.

The falsehood that aliens control our thoughts has been established (as much as anything can be), and I refrain from believing it. The falsity of free will itself hasn't. So there's no specific reason at the moment for me to refrain from believing in free will. And I don't.

[Twiler]

But if this is a deductive argument, premise 1 must be an absolute. You must NEVER believe in a falsehood. So, if you can't demonstrate that free will is not a falsehood, the argument cannot hold. And as proving free will is the aim of the argument, it becomes a circular argument.

Parallel:

1. If I eat green fruit I am a green-fruit-eater.
2. I eat an apple without knowing the colour.

If the apple is green I am a green-fruit-eater. If it is not green, I am not. Until I know whether the apple is green or not, I cannot dismiss the possibility that I am a green-fruit-eater.

[Gnu Ordure]

How can it be an absolute? It's a recommendation, a piece of advice.

I'm not sure what an absolute piece of advice is.





Twiler, can I ask you, do you agree with Dave and others who have asserted that words such as should, could and might all imply the presupposition of Free Will, as they all imply alternative possible courses of action?

If you agree with that, then as someone who doesn't believe in Free Will, what exactly do you mean when you use those words?

For example, I just searched your recent posts for 'could'. Yesterday you said:

Anyone could get out of it by saying that the former pledge takes precedence, and that as he isn't 'being American', they don't have to honour the latter pledge.

What does that mean? Your usage of 'could' seems to imply an alternative available course of action. Why use it, and what do you mean by it, if you don't believe in Free Will?

I am genuinely curious about this.

Gnu.

[PixyMisa]

Robin:

I don't get this, Robin. Why should it be impossible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will?
Because (a) it's not a well-defined concept, and (b) people get things wrong.

Since there are people holding mutually contradictory beliefs with respect to free will, it is clearly not possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will. Someone has to be wrong.

If you're a rational person, which you appear to be, can you refrain from believing me when I tell you that Jupiter is made of cheese?
No.

I'm sure you can.
On what basis?

In which case, if I tell you that your Will is actually being controlled by extraterrestials on Jupiter, can you refrain from believing that?
No.

If you can't, you must be crazy, and I would advise you to seek medical assistance.
Ad hominem.

If you can, you've demonstrated that it is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will.
And that's a non-sequitur.

Which was one of the Prof's points. Some crazy people have diminished free will because they believe they have diminished free will. They pass the buck to extraterrestials (or god). Removal of the delusion indicates a return to sanity and the resumption of personal responsibility.
And that is special pleading and a contradiction. You first posit that people can "refrain from believing falsehoods about X" - i.e. that everyone agrees about the properties of X. Since this is obviously untrue, you then argue that anyone who disagrees with you is crazy - an ad hominem - and that if you cure them they will agree with you - which is a circular argument.

This is madness!

[PixyMisa]

So as regards free will, I do refrain from believing falsehoods, such as me being controlled by aliens.
Do you believe that your conscious mind plays a causal role in your actions? That is, do you believe that you consciously make decisions, and then act upon them?

[Robin]

I don't get this, Robin. Why should it be impossible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will?
Because I am not omniscient and cannot guarantee that every single belief I have on free will is verifiably true. On any belief I have I could be wrong.

Are you telling me that you believe you can provide a 100% guarantee that every single belief you have on the subject of free will is verifiably true?
If you're a rational person, which you appear to be, can you refrain from believing me when I tell you that Jupiter is made of cheese? I'm sure you can.

In which case, if I tell you that your Will is actually being controlled by extraterrestials on Jupiter, can you refrain from believing that?

If you can't, you must be crazy, and I would advise you to seek medical assistance. If you can, you've demonstrated that it is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will.
So you think the prof meant that we should refrain from believing certain falsehoods about free will? Not any falsehood?

If so then his logic is simply invalid. The logic only works if the quantifier for P1 is "any".

Tell me, is there anything at all that you believe about free will?

[Robin]

The falsehood that aliens control our thoughts has been established (as much as anything can be), and I refrain from believing it. The falsity of free will itself hasn't. So there's no specific reason at the moment for me to refrain from believing in free will. And I don't.
Hmmm... so you believe in free will and you are certain that in doing so that you are not believing a falsehood because you don't know it is a falsehood. Is that right?

So you have now changed P1 to say

With respect to free will we should refrain from knowingly believing a falsehood

Is that right?

So in his symbolic version you have altered his definition:

Fx = x is false

to

Fx = x is known to be false

Yes?

[Gnu Ordure]

Pixy:
You first posit that people can "refrain from believing falsehoods about X" - i.e. that everyone agrees about the properties of X.

No, the Prof specifically states the 'we'' in Premise 1 refers to rational people, not everyone. So your argument is misplaced.

you then argue that anyone who disagrees with you is crazy

Pixy, it seems to me that such a ridiculous misrepresentation of what I was trying to say can only be wilful.

If I really expressed myself so badly that Robin believes I was directing an ad hominem at him, it was not my intention, and I apologize for any distress caused.

[Robin]

If I really expressed myself so badly that Robin believes I was directing an ad hominem at him, it was not my intention, and I apologize for any distress caused.
I did not take it that way, nor was there any distress.

Only questions about your position which are in the posts above.

[Gnu Ordure]

I did not take it that way, nor was there any distress.

Good. Thank you for the reassurance, Robin.

Only questions about your position which are in the posts above

2:45 am . Must sleep. Catch you later.

Gnu.

[blobru]

...But, even if we did accept premise 3, the use of the words "can be done" is different from their use in premise 2. ...

Just to make this explicit:

2. Whatever should be done, can be done.

(including sense one is physically able to)

One should be dancing implies one is physically able to.

3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.

However, one is physically able to dance doesn't imply one is dancing.

(the sense has shifted to metaphysically able to)

Why do I have the sneaking suspicion that this was invented as a teaching exercise for the philosophy students in Boulder?

I think it's a great exercise for that purpose - spot the equivocation, etc. Surely no one would think this proof works?

I hope not. :scared: :covereyes

As you say, it's great as an exercise (there are probably a dozen different problems with it, fairly well disguised); however, if the prof thinks his proof is going to turn heads, eggheads, well, he might need a little more quality coop time with the chicken.

...2:45 am . Must sleep. Catch you later.

Gnu.

Determinist! ;)

[PixyMisa]

Pixy:


No, the Prof specifically states the 'we'' in Premise 1 refers to rational people, not everyone. So your argument is misplaced.
Not at all. In fact, that is exactly the problem I'm highlighting.

Pixy, it seems to me that such a ridiculous misrepresentation of what I was trying to say can only be wilful.
No, you misunderstand.

I'm not accusing you of dismissing people who disagree with you as crazy. I'm pointing out that the argument depends on this. And that is an ad hominem attack and a circular argument.

If I really expressed myself so badly that Robin believes I was directing an ad hominem at him, it was not my intention, and I apologize for any distress caused.
Again, you misunderstand.

Ad hominem attacks don't cause distress. What they do is render your argument invalid.

[PixyMisa]

To put it briefly, you are arguing:

It is possible for rational people to refrain from believing falsehoods about X.
Anyone who believes falsehoods about X is irrational.

This is circular, and hence worthless.

[Twiler]

How can it be an absolute? It's a recommendation, a piece of advice.

I'm not sure what an absolute piece of advice is.





Twiler, can I ask you, do you agree with Dave and others who have asserted that words such as should, could and might all imply the presupposition of Free Will, as they all imply alternative possible courses of action?

If you agree with that, then as someone who doesn't believe in Free Will, what exactly do you mean when you use those words?

For example, I just searched your recent posts for 'could'. Yesterday you said:

Anyone could get out of it by saying that the former pledge takes precedence, and that as he isn't 'being American', they don't have to honour the latter pledge.

What does that mean? Your usage of 'could' seems to imply an alternative available course of action. Why use it, and what do you mean by it, if you don't believe in Free Will?

I am genuinely curious about this.

Gnu.

Firstly:

Deductive arguments cannot be based upon 'recommendations', they have to be based upon absolutes.

For example, this is a deductive argument:

1. Statement A is true.
2. Statement B is true if statement A is true.
3. Therefore, Statement B is true.

And this is not:

1. I recommend that statement A is true.
2. Statement B is true if statement A is true.
3. Therefore, Statement B is true.

Secondly:

As I mentioned above, I am arguing against 'free will' as something outside of determinism, as created by 'souls' or 'quantum uncertainty'. I don't consider such a thing to be necessary, as 'free will' in the more mundane sense is compatible with determinism.

Consider:

If we could map out all the cause-effect chains within our minds, working out the relationships between the information we receive via our senses and our subsequent actions, some people might consider that this means that we do not truly make our own decisions, that what we do is the inevitable result of causality.

But, from that perspective, we don't exist. A chair is made from molecules. These molecules have no fundamental label marking them as chair components, the chair is formed by the molecules together. Similarly, breaking down a mind into a series of patterns causes one to lose sight of the mind.

If I, Twiler, am free, I will be doing the things that Twiler does, in response to the things that Twiler perceives. An examination of my mind will determine that I perceive, I consider, and I act. Therefore, I am free.

[Dave Rogers]

Dave, I can't see any inversion going on. The second premise is supposed to be Kant's principle, in the original sense, not as an existence theorem (whatever that is).

Kant's original wording was :

What we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.

I would argue that you and the Prof are reading this the wrong way round. Kant's principle is intended to place limitations on what should be considered an obligation. In other words, you should not be obliged to apologise to the blind man.

Let's alter your example a bit. Suppose you feel someone shove you violently in the back, and you turn round and shove him violently in return. You then realise that he's blind, and try to apologise because it's clear his shove was accidental. However, he only speaks Armenian, and you don't. Kant's principle states that you should not be obliged to apologise to him, because it is impossible for you to do so. That's a viable principle, though it's arguable whether it's correct in this instance.

What the professor's statement implies is that, should your personal morals be such that you are, in your own judgement, obliged to offer an immediate apology, then you will immediately acquire the ability to apologise in Armenian. This is patently absurd.

Therefore, Kant's principle cannot be considered a means of determining what is possible. It is rather a means of determining what obligations should be imposed.

The Prof said : Whatever should be done can be done.

And he pointed out that any obligation/advice that was impossible to fulfil/follow was nonsense and should be withdrawn, ie those things shouldn't be done, leaving the integrity of the premise intact.

His reasoning is backward. Kant's principle doesn't prove premise B from premise A, because it cannot prove a premise as to what is possible. It can only prove or disprove premise A.

Dave

[Robin]

Let's alter your example a bit. Suppose you feel someone shove you violently in the back, and you turn round and shove him violently in return. You then realise that he's blind, and try to apologise because it's clear his shove was accidental. However, he only speaks Armenian, and you don't. Kant's principle states that you should not be obliged to apologise to him, because it is impossible for you to do so. That's a viable principle, though it's arguable whether it's correct in this instance.

What the professor's statement implies is that, should your personal morals be such that you are, in your own judgement, obliged to offer an immediate apology, then you will immediately acquire the ability to apologise in Armenian. This is patently absurd.

Therefore, Kant's principle cannot be considered a means of determining what is possible. It is rather a means of determining what obligations should be imposed.
Yes, well put. I tried to make this point earlier, that possibility was a presupposition, not a consequence of obligation.

[Robin]

I think that the problems noted earlier about the different types of possibility in P2 and P3 can be overcome:

D(r,a,t) = r does a at time period t
S(r,a,t) = r should do a at time period t
A(a,p) = a is the act of refraining from believing p
R(r,t) = r is rational over time period t

m = \neg ( \forall r \forall a \forall t ( \Diamond D(r,a,t) \rightarrow \Box D(r,a,t) ) )

P1: \forall r \forall a \forall p \forall t (R(r,t) \wedge \neg p \wedge A(a,p) \rightarrow S(r,a,t) )
P2: \forall r \forall a \forall t (S(r,a,t) \rightarrow \Diamond D(r,a,t) )
P3: \neg m \rightarrow \forall r \forall a \forall t ( \Diamond D(r,a,t) \rightarrow \Box D(r,a,t) )
P4: \exists r \exists a \exists t ( R(r,t) \wedge A(a,m) \wedge \neg D(r,a,t) )
C: m


This way P3 is a direct consequence of the definition of m, and there is the same type of situational possibility in P2 and P3. Also I think this is within the spirit of what the Prof is trying to say.

But the problem with P1 remains.

[Robin]

I don't get this, Robin. Why should it be impossible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will?
In any case you are missing the point.

If you use the premiss "It is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will" to support P1, then how can you use P1 to conclude in P5 that it is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will?

That is simply circular.

If the premiss "It is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will" is true then you can simply scrap P1 and P2 and replace it with this one.

On the other hand if the premiss "It is possible to refrain from believing falsehoods about free will" is undischarged at P1 then P1 fails and hence the argument fails.

[Gnu Ordure]

Hi Robin, Twiler, Dave, Paul, Blobru.

Just to re-iterate what I said forty posts ago, I'm satisfied that this proof is dead. As far as I'm concerned we are now picking over the carcass, and I'm merely seeing whether some of the tangential questions raised in this thread can be explained to me. If they can't, that will probably be due to my limitations.

Robin:
So you think the prof meant that we should refrain from believing certain falsehoods about free will? Not any falsehood?

That's how I read it, Robin. Doesn't the act of refraining imply knowledge of that which should be refrained from?

With respect to free will we should refrain from knowingly believing a falsehood

It seems clearer to say:

With respect to free will we should refrain from believing a known falsehood

But it still seems to be redundant, as it would be nonsense to suggest that someone should refrain from believing an unknown falsehood - that would contradict Kant's principle (unless one refrained from believing everything, which is impractical).

Blobru :

Just to make this explicit:

2. Whatever should be done, can be done.
(including sense one is physically able to)
One should be dancing implies one is physically able to.

3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
However, one is physically able to dance doesn't imply one is dancing.
(the sense has shifted to metaphysically able to)
Dave:
What the professor's statement implies is that, should your personal morals be such that you are, in your own judgement, obliged to offer an immediate apology, then you will immediately acquire the ability to apologise in Armenian. This is patently absurd.


Dave, the Prof isn't changing Kant's meaning at all. You can see exactly the same ambiguity if you use Kant's terminolgy, what we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.

In our example, Kant would say: If I am obliged to apologize in Armenian, it must be possible for me to attain that.

In saying that, Kant would not be implying that I had magically acquired Armenian because of the obligation. Absurd, as you say. He would be meaning that the obligation did not exist because I couldn't speak Armenian. I agree the ambiguity is there, but I think it's clear what Kant meant. He wasn't suggesting that magic exists.

Blobru, I think (and I think Dave agrees) that Premise 2 implies free will, just as the main clause of Premise 3 implies determinism (which is why it's explicitly qualified)

So amending Premise 2 I get :

2. If MFT is true, whatever should be done, can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.

Both those premises make sense to me. Premise 2 implies that the set of things that "can be done" can contain more than one member. Free Will implies options and possibilities, plural.

Premise 3 implies that the set of things that "can be done" contains only one member. Determinism implies no options and only one possibility. Which is then done, inevitably.

The word 'can' seems to me to be used in the same sense in both cases - 'is possible'. But under determinism, the 'possible' becomes 'necessary', as there is no alternative.

The problem for the Prof is that adding the conditional to Premise 2 invalidates the proof.

Twiler:
Deductive arguments cannot be based upon 'recommendations', they have to be based upon absolutes. For example, this is a deductive argument:

< snip>

And this is not:

1. I recommend that statement A is true.
2. Statement B is true if statement A is true.
3. Therefore, Statement B is true.


What's wrong with this conclusion:

3. Therefore, I recommend that Statement B is true.

Doesn't that follow from the premises?

If I, Twiler, am free, I will be doing the things that Twiler does, in response to the things that Twiler perceives. An examination of my mind will determine that I perceive, I consider, and I act. Therefore, I am free.


Twiler, I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question, but I confess I'm baffled by this.

My main question is, you previously said you don't believe/think that free will exists, but now you're saying you're free? I am confused.

Hey, Twiler, instead of trying to explain it to me, which might be a dauntingly tedious task, maybe you could you give me a link to some background info? For example, something which explains cause-effect pairs, a term you use that I am not familiar with (which somewhat hinders my ability to understand you).

But if you want to put it in your own words, knock yourself out, and I'll give it a go.

Cheers,

Gnu.

[Robin]

That's how I read it, Robin. Doesn't the act of refraining imply knowledge of that which should be refrained from?
All you need to know to refrain from believing a false proposition is that you don't know it is true.
But it still seems to be redundant, as it would be nonsense to suggest that someone should refrain from believing an unknown falsehood - that would contradict Kant's principle (unless one refrained from believing everything, which is impractical).
Or if you refrained from believing anything of which you did not have reasonable certainty of it's truth. That would seem quite a practical proposition. But of course no-one could guarantee that they did not believe some falsehood.
Dave, the Prof isn't changing Kant's meaning at all. You can see exactly the same ambiguity if you use Kant's terminolgy, what we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.

In our example, Kant would say: If I am obliged to apologize in Armenian, it must be possible for me to attain that.

In saying that, Kant would not be implying that I had magically acquired Armenian because of the obligation. Absurd, as you say. He would be meaning that the obligation did not exist because I couldn't speak Armenian. I agree the ambiguity is there, but I think it's clear what Kant meant. He wasn't suggesting that magic exists.
But if Kant had said:

1: I should apologize in Armenian
2: If I am obliged to apologize in Armenian, it must be possible for me to attain that.
5: It is possible for me to speak Armenian (1,2)

Then he would be suggesting that magic exists. But that is just the inference that the Prof makes in his proof.
Blobru, I think (and I think Dave agrees) that Premise 2 implies free will,
Actually it doesn't. Any premiss in the form "a implies b" does not presuppose that there is any instance of such an a unless it is explicitly quantified.
... just as the main clause of Premise 3 implies determinism (which is why it's explicitly qualified)
No it doesn't imply determinism, it defines what is implied by determinism.
So amending Premise 2 I get :

2. If MFT is true, whatever should be done, can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.
Hence your amendment is unnecessary.
Both those premises make sense to me. Premise 2 implies that the set of things that "can be done" can contain more than one member. Free Will implies options and possibilities, plural.

Premise 3 implies that the set of things that "can be done" contains only one member. Determinism implies no options and only one possibility. Which is then done, inevitably.

The word 'can' seems to me to be used in the same sense in both cases - 'is possible'. But under determinism, the 'possible' becomes 'necessary', as there is no alternative.
No, this distinction is important - the situational vs the absolute possibility.

The set of things that are, in general, possible for Robin is different to the set of things that are possible for Robin right now - for example learning to tie shoelaces - I can't learn to tie them because I already know how.

P2 refers to the first kind of possibility, P3 refers to the second..

Nevertheless I think the problem can be fixed with the change I made
The problem for the Prof is that adding the conditional to Premise 2 invalidates the proof.
But as I said, there is no need for the conditional in P2, because P2 has no existential quantifier.

[Robin]

My main question is, you previously said you don't believe/think that free will exists, but now you're saying you're free? I am confused.

It seems to hinge on what you mean by free will.

Twiler is using the term in the compatibilist sense, ie that free means relatively free from external determinants.

I would define free will as meaning "a conscious intention can be the primary proximate cause of an action".

And as far as I can see this is the only type of free will of which we have experience. People talk about the "illusion of free will", but I am never sure what they mean.

If someone does something, then I might ask "why did you do that?" then they will usually reply "because of ...". You see, they are not saying that their action was non-deterministic, they are saying that they were the determinant of their action.

And if I asked "why did you do that?" and they replied "I don't know" then we would not classify this as free will.

So note the paradox here - we only ever call a choice free will when we can identify a determinant for it.

[Yoink]

It seems to hinge on what you mean by free will.

Twiler is using the term in the compatibilist sense, ie that free means relatively free from external determinants.

I would define free will as meaning "a conscious intention can be the primary proximate cause of an action".

And as far as I can see this is the only type of free will of which we have experience. People talk about the "illusion of free will", but I am never sure what they mean.

If someone does something, then I might ask "why did you do that?" then they will usually reply "because of ...". You see, they are not saying that their action was non-deterministic, they are saying that they were the determinant of their action.

And if I asked "why did you do that?" and they replied "I don't know" then we would not classify this as free will.

So note the paradox here - we only ever call a choice free will when we can identify a determinant for it.

I don't think this quite captures what people mean when they insist that the will is free. That is, there is a kind of "freedom of the will" that is explicitly conceived of as lacking determinants. This is the "well, I could wave my hand to the right, or I could wave my hand to left, and it's completely within my arbitrary power to decide which one I do."

And it's within that context where we can talk of an "illusion" of free will. That is I may feel that right up until the point where I "choose" there is absolutely no chain of causality in motion that will lead "left" or "right"--that only when I arbitrarily make the decision is that chain of causality set in motion (never mind that I can point to a determinant for waving at all--i.e., wanting to "prove" my free will). Now, is my subjective feeling that this is purely arbitrary--that even I don't know which way I'll go until I decide--'true' or not? If it's not true, then isn't that an illusion of free will?

[Robin]

I don't think this quite captures what people mean when they insist that the will is free. That is, there is a kind of "freedom of the will" that is explicitly conceived of as lacking determinants. This is the "well, I could wave my hand to the right, or I could wave my hand to left, and it's completely within my arbitrary power to decide which one I do."

And it's within that context where we can talk of an "illusion" of free will. That is I may feel that right up until the point where I "choose" there is absolutely no chain of causality in motion that will lead "left" or "right"--that only when I arbitrarily make the decision is that chain of causality set in motion (never mind that I can point to a determinant for waving at all--i.e., wanting to "prove" my free will). Now, is my subjective feeling that this is purely arbitrary--that even I don't know which way I'll go until I decide--'true' or not? If it's not true, then isn't that an illusion of free will?
No, because if it is arbitrary then it is not will at all, never mind free. If I select A between alternatives A and B and there is no reason at all why A was chosen rather than B then that is not choice, it is just a random event.

[Robin]

It seems clearer to say:

With respect to free will we should refrain from believing a known falsehood

But it still seems to be redundant, as it would be nonsense to suggest that someone should refrain from believing an unknown falsehood - that would contradict Kant's principle (unless one refrained from believing everything, which is impractical).
As I pointed out before, this is not nonsense at all, nor does it contradict Kant's principle - I only need to ensure that I only believe things of which I have a reasonable certainty of their truth.

Refraining from believing a known falsehood is, of course, trivial - it is simply saying "Refrain from believing anything that you don't believe".

Moreover, if you interpret P1 in this way it completely invalidates the logic of the argument and the conclusion becomes "Somebody believes MFT who either knows it to be true or does not know whether MFT is true or false".

So if the prof is claiming valid logic then he must be interpreting P1 in the way I suggest.

[willhaven]

Sorry to interject with no real substance, but I'm not sure that a logical proof of free will is possible.

Every action we perform and every decision we make is based on previous experiences. The way our brains function is inherently deterministic. New input data from our five senses is compared to our previous experiences and our observed cause/effect relationships. This causes us to make decisions as to what we do next.

We are the slaves of our previous experiences and the limits of our current knowledge.

[blobru]

Hi Robin, Twiler, Dave, Paul, Blobru.

Just to re-iterate what I said forty posts ago, I'm satisfied that this proof is dead. As far as I'm concerned we are now picking over the carcass, and I'm merely seeing whether some of the tangential questions raised in this thread can be explained to me. If they can't, that will probably be due to my limitations.
:deadhorseHey, lay off, chachi! I don't care if you did lead me to water, I ain't drinkin' (just my luck, guy's never heard of determinism).

You shouldn't feel obligated to defend this thing, Gnu. We're just beatin' it around for fun now (I think).

-- Blobru, I think (and I think Dave agrees) that Premise 2 implies free will, just as the main clause of Premise 3 implies determinism (which is why it's explicitly qualified)

So amending Premise 2 I get :

2. If MFT is true, whatever should be done, can be done.
3. If determinism is true, then whatever can be done, is done.

Both those premises make sense to me. Premise 2 implies that the set of things that "can be done" can contain more than one member. Free Will implies options and possibilities, plural.

Premise 3 implies that the set of things that "can be done" contains only one member. Determinism implies no options and only one possibility. Which is then done, inevitably.

The word 'can' seems to me to be used in the same sense in both cases - 'is possible'. But under determinism, the 'possible' becomes 'necessary', as there is no alternative.

The problem for the Prof is that adding the conditional to Premise 2 invalidates the proof. ...

I agree. It was suspicious he left the determinism conditional until premise #3. Once you realize premise #2 assumes free will, you see why.

Thanks for having posted it, though, eh. Good practice. :)

[Robin]

Once you realize premise #2 assumes free will, you see why.

I don't agree that premiss #2 assumes free will because it does not have any quantifiers, nor in an existential quantifier implied.

A formula in the form "a implies b" does not imply that there are in fact any a. The proof works just as well if this describes a null set (because premiss #4 does not specify that I believe because I should).

[Robin]

A lot of people are assuming that a deterministic process never has more than one option open to it and therefore that "should" does not apply to it.

But this is not right.

Imagine a robot that is running a deterministic program to manage a warehouse.

It's program tells it that when it receives a box it must identify all shelves with sufficient space for the box and then, based on the delivery and reception schedules, must find the space that will necessitate the least amount of handling

It receives a box and notices that out of 20 shelves there are 4 with sufficient free space for the box.

Therefore the robot has four alternative courses of action at this point even though it will only pick one.

The one it will pick will be deterministically selected, but this selection cannot take place until it has analysed all the alternatives open.

[Dave Rogers]

Dave, the Prof isn't changing Kant's meaning at all. You can see exactly the same ambiguity if you use Kant's terminolgy, what we are obliged to attain, it must be possible for us to attain.

In our example, Kant would say: If I am obliged to apologize in Armenian, it must be possible for me to attain that.

In saying that, Kant would not be implying that I had magically acquired Armenian because of the obligation. Absurd, as you say. He would be meaning that the obligation did not exist because I couldn't speak Armenian. I agree the ambiguity is there, but I think it's clear what Kant meant. He wasn't suggesting that magic exists.

I still think that you're reading Kant the wrong way round. I think Kant would not say: If I am obliged to apologise in Armenian, it must be possible to attain that. I think he would say: If it is impossible for me to apologise in Armenian, I cannot be obliged to do so. If we accept (as I do) that Kant is not suggesting that the impossible can be made possible because of an obligation, then Kant's principle can only be taken as a means of restricting the possible obligations that can be imposed.

So, let's take modified versions of two premises.

1. We are obliged not to believe falsehoods concerning free will.
2. Our obligations are limited to actions it is physically possible to perform.

Since we must start the proof from an assumption that we do not know the truth of free will (otherwise the proof would necessarily be circular), it follows that we cannot with any certainty refrain from believing falsehoods concerning free will. Therefore, we cannot draw any conclusions from premises 1 and 2 together, because the premises are contradictory. One or the other must therefore be discarded. Since the remainder of the proof relies on both being correct, then the proof is invalid.

Dave

ETA: Actually, I think you are now reading Kant the right way round. You say "He would be meaning that the obligation did not exist because I couldn't speak Armenian." Therefore, I can use the same form of words to refute premise 1: the obligation not to believe falsehoods about free will does not exist because I don't know the truth about free will. So premise 1 must be discarded, and the whole proof falls with it.

[Gnu Ordure]

Imagine a robot that is running a deterministic program to manage a warehouse. It's program tells it that when it receives a box it must identify all shelves with sufficient space for the box and then, based on the delivery and reception schedules, must find the space that will necessitate the least amount of handling.i t receives a box and notices that out of 20 shelves there are 4 with sufficient free space for the box.

Therefore the robot has four alternative courses of action at this point even though it will only pick one.

I don't get you, Robin.

It seems to me that the robot is still determined to do the one thing ie at the beginning of the job (before the robot does any processing) there already exists one space (call it Shelf 28) which (a) is big enough and (b) requires the least handling (assuming at least one space exists and that all spaces require different degrees of handling).

As far as the robot is concerned it will select Shelf 28 each and every time, given the same initial conditions in the warehouse. It can't do anything else. The 'alternative' empty shelves 7, 66 and 91, which are big enough but further away, will be rejected by the robot just as surely as if they were already filled.

OK, I suppose what you're saying is, If Shelf 28 was not available, the robot would select Shelf 7 as an alternative (because 7 is empty and big enough), whereas Shelf 222 cannot be selected (because even though it is the nearest big enough shelf, it's already occupied).

But that means your statement

If Shelf 28 is not available, Shelf 7 is an alternative

is as valid as (or, no more meaningful than)

If Shelf 222 is available, Shelf 222 is an alternative.

You shouldn't feel obligated to defend this thing, Gnu. We're just beatin' it around for fun now (I think).

Cool, Blobru. That's certainly what I'm doing.

Thanks for having posted it, though, eh. Good practice.

Nice of you to say so, Blobru.

Cheers,

Gnu.

[Robin]

I don't get you, Robin.

It seems to me that the robot is still determined to do the one thing ie at the beginning of the job (before the robot does any processing) there already exists one space (call it Shelf 28) which (a) is big enough and (b) requires the least handling (assuming at least one space exists and that all spaces require different degrees of handling).

As far as the robot is concerned it will select Shelf 28 each and every time, given the same initial conditions in the warehouse. It can't do anything else.
Well of course not, that is what determinism means.

But that does not change the fact that the robot had 4 alternatives to choose from - the robot could not go straight to shelf 28 because it did not have enough information until it had investigated the 4 alternatives.

Or are you suggesting that it can go straight to shelf 28 without bothering to investigate the 3 other alternatives?

There is the question - does the robot have to investigate all 4 alternatives before it can go to 28?

Or can it ignore the other alternatives and go straight to shelf 28?

[Robin]

But that means your statement

If Shelf 28 is not available, Shelf 7 is an alternative
Er... That was not my statement. That was your statement.

Unless of course you are my sock puppet.

[Yoink]

No, because if it is arbitrary then it is not will at all, never mind free. If I select A between alternatives A and B and there is no reason at all why A was chosen rather than B then that is not choice, it is just a random event.

Arbitrary does not mean the same thing as random.

I agree that there is no "will" involved if some force simply takes over my body and starts waving my limbs around. The question, though, is whether or not I have an arbitrary power of decision over the actions of my limbs. Can I truly and freely decide whether or not to lift my arm (say) at a given moment or would an all-knowing demon who was fed every single piece of information about my mental and physical state prior to the moment of lifting be able to predict exactly what I was going to do.

[yy2bggggs]

Can I truly and freely decide whether or not to lift my arm (say) at a given moment or would an all-knowing demon who was fed every single piece of information about my mental and physical state prior to the moment of lifting be able to predict exactly what I was going to do.
What does this demon have to do with whether or not you are the one who made the decision?

[Yoink]

What does this demon have to do with whether or not you are the one who made the decision?

If the demon can predict which way I will "decide" before I am aware of having made the decision then it seems fairly self-evidently the case that my conscous sensation of being able to freely and arbitrarily decide whether or not to lift my limbs at any given moment is illusory.

[Robin]

Arbitrary does not mean the same thing as random.
Well tell me what it does mean.
I agree that there is no "will" involved if some force simply takes over my body and starts waving my limbs around.
And there is no will involved if there is no reason at all why you choose one course of action over another.
The question, though, is whether or not I have an arbitrary power of decision over the actions of my limbs. Can I truly and freely decide whether or not to lift my arm (say) at a given moment or would an all-knowing demon who was fed every single piece of information about my mental and physical state prior to the moment of lifting be able to predict exactly what I was going to do.
And if an all-knowing demon could not predict what you were going to do, would that entail that there was no reason at all for your decision?

For surely if there was a reason then the demon would have known it. And if the demon, knowing the reason, could still not predict your next move, then that was not the complete reason for your decision.

The only way the all-knowing demon could not predict your next move is if there was no reason for it, or only an incomplete reason for it.

For example if you have two courses of action open to you - A and B, and you choose A, do you suppose there is a reason you chose A instead of B?

And if there was not a reason was it a choice?

That, to me, is the main challenge of libertarian free will - defining exactly what it means.

[yy2bggggs]

If the demon can predict which way I will "decide" before I am aware of having made the decision then it seems fairly self-evidently the case that my conscous sensation of being able to freely and arbitrarily decide whether or not to lift my limbs at any given moment is illusory.
Why? What exactly does the prediction change?

[Yoink]

And there is no will involved if there is no reason at all why you choose one course of action over another.

And if an all-knowing demon could not predict what you were going to do, would that entail that there was no reason at all for your decision?

For surely if there was a reason then the demon would have known it. The only way the all-knowing demon could not predict your next move is if there was no reason for it.

For example if you have two courses of action open to you - A and B, and you choose A, do you suppose there is a reason you chose A instead of B?

And if there was not a reason was it a choice?

That, to me, is the main challenge of libertarian free will - defining exactly what it means.

Let us say that two people are in an argument about whether or not the will is free. Person A says "look, I hold out my hand, and it is entirely in my power whether, in 20 seconds' time, to move it up, down, or leave it still. At this point I have no idea at all what movement, or non-movement, I will make; I will decide at the spur of the moment, and my decision will be completely arbitrary."

20 seconds go by and the person moves his hand up.

What, in your view, was the "reason" he went up rather than down? Or, rather, what, in your view, would count as "reasons" for such a choice? Do any or all of these reasons have to be accessible to the mover's introspection? In other words, would he have to be lying if he said "I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?

Would a demon with total awareness but no supernatural prescience have, in your view, been able to predict which movement the man would make long before the man himself was even aware that he would make a decision, let alone what the decision would be? Or would that demon see a moment of indeterminacy ahead which would only be resolved at the point of "decision"?

[Yoink]

Why? What exactly does the prediction change?

The prediction itself changes nothing. The ability to predict defines what kind of process we're observing. I think you're getting confused about two different kinds of prediction (or, possibly, two different accounts of 'free will'). The question at stake here is whether or not I have an aritrary power of decision: that is, is it possible for me to initiate a sequence of causes and effects that is not in any way determined by what came before my arbitrary act. Can I, in a given moment, make a genuinely unconditioned and free choice: i.e., can I go out for a walk in the morning with no clear idea of where I'll go and genuinely and freely choose whether or not to go down road A or road B: 'arbitrarily' here meaning that if one were to instantaneously recreate the universe in exactly the same state as the one in which I am in just before I make my decision and then let that act of decision play out over and over again, it would land on A as often as it lands on B.

Now I say you're getting confused about types of prediction because it is certainly possible to imagine a divine omniscience which foreknows the decision I will make without that foreknowledge implying that the decision is in any way non-arbitrary. But a foreknowledge that is derived simply from a complete knowledge of the state of affairs at T1 and from that is able to predict the necessary development of that state at T2, T3, T4....implies a system which is purely deterministic and in which no "decider" can possibly have an arbitrary decision-making power. They may be "free" in the sense that we might say, for example, that a pendulum can "swing freely." But like the pendulum, any "free" motion that they undertake will be solely the result of some prior sequence of causes and effects acting mechanically upon them.

[Cynic]

Regardless of whether or not one posits determinism or non-determinism, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which total knowledge of all the chemical interactions within the brain could not accurately predict the action of the hand. Because determinism necessarily precludes freewill, people tend to insist that conversely, non-determinism allows for it. Yet I have never seen such a thing demonstrated. Whether through causation or a random assortment of inputs, the action cannot be considered a choice.

[Robin]

Let us say that two people are in an argument about whether or not the will is free. Person A says "look, I hold out my hand, and it is entirely in my power whether, in 20 seconds' time, to move it up, down, or leave it still. At this point I have no idea at all what movement, or non-movement, I will make; I will decide at the spur of the moment, and my decision will be completely arbitrary."

20 seconds go by and the person moves his hand up.

What, in your view, was the "reason" he went up rather than down? Or, rather, what, in your view, would count as "reasons" for such a choice? Do any or all of these reasons have to be accessible to the mover's introspection? In other words, would he have to be lying if he said "I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?
I think you are missing my point - I am not saying there definitely has to be a reason. But what I am saying is that if there is not a reason - then it is not volition. If he really has no idea at all why he did it then how could you call it a choice?
Would a demon with total awareness but no supernatural prescience have, in your view, been able to predict which movement the man would make long before the man himself was even aware that he would make a decision, let alone what the decision would be? Or would that demon see a moment of indeterminacy ahead which would only be resolved at the point of "decision"?
Again - if there was a reason for the movement then the demon would have been able to predict it. If there was no reason then the demon would not have been able to predict it.

But if there was no reason then it was not choice.

[Robin]

Regardless of whether or not one posits determinism or non-determinism, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which total knowledge of all the chemical interactions within the brain could not accurately predict the action of the hand. Because determinism necessarily precludes freewill, people tend to insist that conversely, non-determinism allows for it. Yet I have never seen such a thing demonstrated. Whether through causation or a random assortment of inputs, the action cannot be considered a choice.
Yes, this is just my point.

If the demon can't predict the next move, that does not entail that the next move was the result of free will.

[yy2bggggs]

I think you're getting confused about two different kinds of prediction (or, possibly, two different accounts of 'free will').
I think you are, because you seem to be describing these as the two types:
The kind we have
The kind we seem to have
I don't think we seem to have to the kind you say we do. It's based on a misinterpretation. You don't actually actively sense that your will is uncaused, do you? Nay, rather, you lack sensation of the entire process behind the will. These are entirely different kinds of things.

There's this dark abyss from which my decisions arise, that I attribute to myself. I think it's extremely inaccurate to say that it seems to be uncaused, just because you don't sense the causes.
The question at stake here is whether or not I have an aritrary power of decision:But that's not what you said. You said this:
it seems fairly self-evidently the case that my conscous sensation of being able to freely ...
I'm addressing the subjective element.
Can I, in a given moment, make a genuinely unconditioned and free choice:
Do you seem to be able to make it? What does it feel like to sense that your choice is unconditioned? Does it feel any different from simply not sensing the entire mechanism behind your choice?

[Yoink]

I think you are missing my point - I am not saying there definitely has to be a reason. But what I am saying is that if there is not a reason - then it is not volition. If he really has no idea at all why he did it then how could you call it a choice?

Seriously? You've never encountered this kind of scenario as an instance of what people mean by "free will"? I would have said that the vast majority of people would reach for precisely this kind of situation as the most clarifying example of free will: where there is no clear advantage to us which way we choose and the choice seems (at least subjectively) to be entirely arbitrary. I think this is exactly what most people would mean by "choosing" to do something: there's no sense in which the decision feels thrust upon us by circumstances--it is, therefore, a pure act of "choice."

This is what people mean by free will: the ability to freely and arbitrarily choose what course of action to take at a given moment. I call it a "choice" because if I decide to move my hand up rather than down it certainly feels, subjectively, as if I am capable of simply "choosing" which one to do. "What the hell, this time I'll go up!" I am certainly not aware of any reason to go up rather than down (I don't have to think, for example, "heh, he always expects me to go down, so this time I'll fool him and go up!" or "I'm in an upbeat mood, so I think I'll move my arms up.")

Again - if there was a reason for the movement then the demon would have been able to predict it. If there was no reason then the demon would not have been able to predict it.

Well, no. The demon has only (and all) physical information. It's begging the question here to simply assume that it is impossible for someone to arbitrarily choose to do the "wrong" thing (i.e., to make the choice that goes against all "reason").

But if there was no reason then it was not choice.

You're simply inventing an idiosyncratic definition of the word "choice" here in order to provide a circular support for your argument. This definition of the word "choice" simply does not match real word experience or usage. It is precisely in those cases where we have no "reasons" that we feel most fully the burden of choice. Think, for example, of a situation where you have to select between different courses of action which both present equal but different advantages and disadvantages (do I paint the walls color A or color B, do I hire person A or person B etc.). In cases where the "reasons" to go with one rather than the other are clear, we would often say "well, there's no real choice, is there? It's obviously A." Where the reasons seem equally balanced, though, we will say "well, you'll just have to choose; which is it going to be, A or B?"

I think the claim that a "choice without reasons is no choice at all" is almost exactly backwards. The purest example of "choice" is the choice made in the absent of clear reasons.

[Yoink]

Regardless of whether or not one posits determinism or non-determinism, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which total knowledge of all the chemical interactions within the brain could not accurately predict the action of the hand. Because determinism necessarily precludes freewill, people tend to insist that conversely, non-determinism allows for it. Yet I have never seen such a thing demonstrated. Whether through causation or a random assortment of inputs, the action cannot be considered a choice.

This doesn't address my point. I agree entirely that one could have a nondeterministic world with nothing like free will in it. I'm simply saying that if free will operates the way it feels subjectively (which I very much doubt), then the world would be nondeterministic AND allow for free will.

[Cynic]

This doesn't address my point. I agree entirely that one could have a nondeterministic world with nothing like free will in it. I'm simply saying that if free will operates the way it feels subjectively (which I very much doubt), then the world would be nondeterministic AND allow for free will.

Freewill feels subjectively as if we're controlling our actions, which is an effective enough definition of freewill. Substitute that into your argument above and we've got "freewill, therefore freewill and nondeterministic", which is kind of a well-duh kind of observation to make. I can have seen no mechanism that would allow us to distinguish whether or not our subjective feeling about freewill has a basis in reality. It would feel the same to us, real or imagined.

[Yoink]

I think you are, because you seem to be describing these as the two types:

The kind we have
The kind we seem to have
I don't think we seem to have to the kind you say we do. It's based on a misinterpretation. You don't actually actively sense that your will is uncaused, do you? Nay, rather, you lack sensation of the entire process behind the will. These are entirely different kinds of things.

"Nay"?? Zounds!

"Lack sensation of the entire process behind the will"? I probably do, but obviously I can't "lack sensation" of anything that I feel subjectively--that would be a contradiction. Subjectively it appears to me that I have complete arbitrary control over my will when I make a conscious decision. Again, if presented with a choice in which there is no clear advantage (do I wander down this street or that street, do I choose the chicken or the beef etc.) then it feels subjectively as if I have it entirely in my power to go either way and it feels as if I can arbitrarily impose my will one way or the other. Of course, that feeling may very well be illusory (and there's suggestive laboratory work that points that way), but that's not what I'm discussing here.


There's this dark abyss from which my decisions arise, that I attribute to myself. I think it's extremely inaccurate to say that it seems to be uncaused, just because you don't sense the causes.

I think you may be misunderstanding the meaning of the word "seems." If I don't sense the causes then, by definition, it "seems to be uncaused"--just as if I don't sense light it will seem to be dark and if I don't sense any objects it will seem that I am in a void etc. etc.

But that's not what you said. You said this:

No, what I said was this:

I don't think this quite captures what people mean when they insist that the will is free. That is, there is a kind of "freedom of the will" that is explicitly conceived of as lacking determinants. This is the "well, I could wave my hand to the right, or I could wave my hand to left, and it's completely within my arbitrary power to decide which one I do."

And it's within that context where we can talk of an "illusion" of free will. That is I may feel that right up until the point where I "choose" there is absolutely no chain of causality in motion that will lead "left" or "right"--that only when I arbitrarily make the decision is that chain of causality set in motion (never mind that I can point to a determinant for waving at all--i.e., wanting to "prove" my free will). Now, is my subjective feeling that this is purely arbitrary--that even I don't know which way I'll go until I decide--'true' or not? If it's not true, then isn't that an illusion of free will?

Feel free (ha!) to look it up.

I'm addressing the subjective element.

And so am I: "Now, is my subjective feeling that this is purely arbitrary--that even I don't know which way I'll go until I decide--'true' or not? If it's not true, then isn't that an illusion of free will?"

Do you seem to be able to make it? What does it feel like to sense that your choice is unconditioned? Does it feel any different from simply not sensing the entire mechanism behind your choice?

How could I possibly know? You seem to think that I'm arguing that my subjective feeling must be an accurate reflection of what is really going on when my entire argument has been that it's possible that the subjective feeling of freedom is entirely illusory.

[Yoink]

Freewill feels subjectively as if we're controlling our actions, which is an effective enough definition of freewill. Substitute that into your argument above and we've got "freewill, therefore freewill and nondeterministic", which is kind of a well-duh kind of observation to make. I can have seen no mechanism that would allow us to distinguish whether or not our subjective feeling about freewill has a basis in reality. It would feel the same to us, real or imagined.

Where do I say otherwise? My argument was with Robin who said that it makes no sense to say that there might be an illusion of free will. I say that it does make sense to say that it is possible that our sense of free will is illusory. That doesn't imply any claim that this issue could be proven one way or the other.

[Cynic]

Where do I say otherwise? My argument was with Robin who said that it makes no sense to say that there might be an illusion of free will. I say that it does make sense to say that it is possible that our sense of free will is illusory. That doesn't imply any claim that this issue could be proven one way or the other.

Then we agree. I thought the notion that our freewill was illusionary was so obvious that it scarcely need be mentioned, let alone denied. :)

[yy2bggggs]

"Nay"?? Zounds!

"Lack sensation of the entire process behind the will"? I probably do, but obviously I can't "lack sensation" of anything that I feel subjectively--that would be a contradiction.Why not? I lack sensation of the color of your hair.

Subjectively it appears to me that I have complete arbitrary control over my will when I make a conscious decision.And when you type a sentence, how do you come up with each of the words as you type it? Do you know the second to last word of the sentence when you start forming it?
Again, if presented with a choice in which there is no clear advantage (do I wander down this street or that street, do I choose the chicken or the beef etc.) then it feels subjectively as if I have it entirely in my power to go either way and it feels as if I can arbitrarily impose my will one way or the other.
But that's not a conflict with determinism yet. You could go one way or the other, true. Both ways are available to you to consider--you can't travel a third way, hidden to you, that you don't know about and don't sense, so you can only choose to do something among the options you sense are possible.

That just means both options are represented as hypothetical scenarios in your mind, is all, and that's all it feels like. It doesn't actually feel like I went this way, and that I went that way, nor does it feel like I will go this way, and that I will go that way. It only feels like both options are available to me from which to select one.

It doesn't even feel like I could select both options (unless it's possible)--it only feels like I could select one.

Now go forward in time a bit, and at some point, I actually do choose which way to go. What does that feel like? Well, it feels like I am going one particular way. It feels like I now know which of the two ways I will go, and that I am now committed to going that way. If the demon knew I would go this way, nothing stated prior changes--nothing about what it felt like is conflicted by the reality of this demon knowing what I did before I knew.

I think you may be misunderstanding the meaning of the word "seems." If I don't sense the causes then, by definition, it "seems to be uncaused"This is simply untrue. Not sensing x is not equivalent to sensing not x. I don't sense your hair color--that doesn't mean that I sense you have none.
just as if I don't sense light it will seem to be dark and if I don't sense any objects it will seem that I am in a void etc. etc.And if I don't sense heat it will seem to be cold, and if I don't feel wet I feel dry, and if I don't sense what's behind this wall I will sense that nothing is.

None of these are true.


No, what I said was this:You also mentioned the illusion of free will. Oh, and we already had a big discussion of the ambiguity of arbitrary. Go ahead--look it up! It doesn't help!
How could I possibly know? You seem to think that I'm arguing that my subjective feeling must be an accurate reflection of what is really going onNope. I think you're arguing that you are accurately describing what you are subjectively feeling, and I'm arguing that you're not actually feeling those things.
when my entire argument has been that it's possible that the subjective feeling of freedom is entirely illusory.
Right. And I don't think it's illusory. I think it's misconception. As I said, I'm addressing the subjective element.

I've been reading this thread--I know what your position is. That's fine--I'm with you up until the point to where you propose that we actually have an illusion that I don't believe we actually have.

[Yoink]

Why not? I lack sensation of the color of your hair.

And you "feel subjectively" nothing at all about the color of my hair either, right? I have no idea what your point is here.

And when you type a sentence, how do you come up with each of the words as you type it? Do you know the second to last word of the sentence when you start forming it?

Nope--and that feels subjectively like free will too. What's your point?

But that's not a conflict with determinism yet. You could go one way or the other, true. Both ways are available to you to consider--you can't travel a third way, hidden to you, that you don't know about and don't sense, so you can only choose to do something among the options you sense are possible.

Where am I saying that there is an objective conflict with determinism? You keep thinking I'm trying to "prove" free will. I'm not. I'm saying that it is meaningful to talk of an illusion of free will.

That just means both options are represented as hypothetical scenarios in your mind, is all, and that's all it feels like. It doesn't actually feel like I went this way, and that I went that way, nor does it feel like I will go this way, and that I will go that way. It only feels like both options are available to me from which to select one.

You're arguing with some imaginary person. My whole point is that it "feels like both options are available to me from which to select one."

It doesn't even feel like I could select both options (unless it's possible)--it only feels like I could select one.

Of course I can't select both. That would be crazy.

Now go forward in time a bit, and at some point, I actually do choose which way to go. What does that feel like? Well, it feels like I am going one particular way. It feels like I now know which of the two ways I will go, and that I am now committed to going that way. If the demon knew I would go this way, nothing stated prior changes--nothing about what it felt like is conflicted by the reality of this demon knowing what I did before I knew.

Again, I'm not saying that it would change the way it subjectively felt. Again, you're arguing with some person who thinks that the subjective feelings prove the reality of freedom. That isn't me.

This is simply untrue. Not sensing x is not equivalent to sensing not x. I don't sense your hair color--that doesn't mean that I sense you have none.

No, it means you have no subjective impression of my hair color at all. What's your point?

And if I don't sense heat it will seem to be cold, and if I don't feel wet I feel dry, and if I don't sense what's behind this wall I will sense that nothing is.

None of these are true.

And none of them are parallel to the situations I was describing. Things that are utterly outside of our subjective experience are irrelevant to the situation.

You also mentioned the illusion of free will. Oh, and we already had a big discussion of the ambiguity of arbitrary. Go ahead--look it up! It doesn't help!
Nope. I think you're arguing that you are accurately describing what you are subjectively feeling, and I'm arguing that you're not actually feeling those things.

You don't seem to have the foggiest clue what I'm subjectively feeling--or the foggiest clue how I'm describing it, so I have no idea what your argument is.

Right. And I don't think it's illusory. I think it's misconception. As I said, I'm addressing the subjective element.

I've been reading this thread--I know what your position is. That's fine--I'm with you up until the point to where you propose that we actually have an illusion that I don't believe we actually have.

So you don't think that anybody, ever, in the history of the world has looked at two options and thought "you know, I could go either way--there's no reason to go for A over B, it's just my free choice."

You must live in a very different world from the one that I live in.

[blobru]

I don't agree that premiss #2 assumes free will because it does not have any quantifiers, nor in an existential quantifier implied.

A formula in the form "a implies b" does not imply that there are in fact any a. The proof works just as well if this describes a null set (because premiss #4 does not specify that I believe because I should).


Well, now that I mull it over again, your null set objection makes sense. The difference to me was between physical and metaphysical ability. "I can" premise 2 should be translated "I am physically able to", i.e. "I can, if I choose to" [free will or not: 'choice' is simply the transition from thought to action; i.e., even under determinism, I can think about doing something and not do it], which is still vacuously true if I don't choose to (the null set). "I can" premise 3 translates "I can (if I choose to), and I will choose to", i.e. "I am metaphysically able to" [I must], which removes the possibility of vacuous truth. Since the vacuous truth imported from premise 2 cannot be satisfied in premise 3, the import fails.

[Robin]

Seriously? You've never encountered this kind of scenario as an instance of what people mean by "free will"?
No I have never heard of someone saying "I have no idea why I did that, it must have been free will".

Usually when people talk of volition they mean actions that are preceded by intentions.
I would have said that the vast majority of people would reach for precisely this kind of situation as the most clarifying example of free will: where there is no clear advantage to us which way we choose and the choice seems (at least subjectively) to be entirely arbitrary
I would still like to know how you define "arbitrary"
I think this is exactly what most people would mean by "choosing" to do something: there's no sense in which the decision feels thrust upon us by circumstances--it is, therefore, a pure act of "choice."
So what you are saying is that what most people call free will is then they do something and have no idea why they did it?
This is what people mean by free will: the ability to freely and arbitrarily choose what course of action to take at a given moment.
Free from what?
I call it a "choice" because if I decide to move my hand up rather than down it certainly feels, subjectively, as if I am capable of simply "choosing" which one to do.
But the man in your example claims not to have chosen, he had no idea why he did that specific action so how can you say he chose it if he had no idea until after he had done it what the action would be. Here is what he says:

"I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?

So he doesn't even have the illusion of free will.

Well, no. The demon has only (and all) physical information.
Well you did not stipulate that before, you called said it was "an all-knowing demon who was fed every single piece of information about my mental and physical state", now you are saying that this demon is denied some information.
It's begging the question here to simply assume that it is impossible for someone to arbitrarily choose to do the "wrong" thing (i.e., to make the choice that goes against all "reason").
Ah now you are fiddling with different meanings of the word "reason" to make a straw man of my position.

A man might choose to arbitrarily do the "wrong" thing and make a choice that seems to go against all reason, but that does not imply there was no reason he did it.
You're simply inventing an idiosyncratic definition of the word "choice" here in order to provide a circular support for your argument.
Hmm... you are using the word "choice" to describe an action where a man says afterwards "I have no idea why I did that - it was just arbitrary".

And you are calling my usage idiosyncratic?

I am using the word in the way I have used it and heard it used for some decades now. If I go to the ballot box and choose one of the candidates it seems to imply that I am exercising some volition, that I am forming an informed intention to vote for a particular candidate.

You say that my choice would be freer if I had no idea why I voted for one candidate over the other (as in your example of the man moving his hand).

I say it is a freer choice for the more information that I applied to making the choice.

I say it is a freer choice if I can really understand the reasons I made the choice because that implies I made the choice. If I did not know why I made the choice then I would not feel that I made the choice

I can assure you that I did not just make up that that usage of the word. I have been using it all my life and most people I know have used it that way.
This definition of the word "choice" simply does not match real word experience or usage. It is precisely in those cases where we have no "reasons" that we feel most fully the burden of choice. Think, for example, of a situation where you have to select between different courses of action which both present equal but different advantages and disadvantages (do I paint the walls color A or color B, do I hire person A or person B etc.). In cases where the "reasons" to go with one rather than the other are clear, we would often say "well, there's no real choice, is there? It's obviously A." Where the reasons seem equally balanced, though, we will say "well, you'll just have to choose; which is it going to be, A or B?"
I think most people would choose to toss a coin.
I think the claim that a "choice without reasons is no choice at all" is almost exactly backwards. The purest example of "choice" is the choice made in the absent of clear reasons.
So a device that was attached to a true random event generator would be the purest example of free will?

[Yoink]

No I have never heard of someone saying "I have no idea why I did that, it must have been free will".

I love the way you invent this statement, and then start to attribute it to me throughout this post. If you're saying that you live in a world where you have never heard some form of the sentence "I didn't have any reason to choose A over B, so I just made an arbitrary decision" then you are either lying or you do not live in the same world that I do.

Usually when people talk of volition they mean actions that are preceded by intentions.

Yes, usually. But there is least sense of "choice" where there is most sense of determination. If the only breakfast food you have in the house is cornflakes, you feel very little sense of "choosing" when you eat cornflakes for breakfast. If you have both cornflakes and eggs but you're allergic to eggs, you still don't feel like you're really "choosing" to eat the cornflakes. If you are equally attracted to both the cornflakes and the eggs and you see no clear advantage or disadvantage, then you feel the strongest sense of making an active "choice" (of "freely" choosing) if you decide--arbitrarily--one way or the other.

I would still like to know how you define "arbitrary"

Consult any decent dictionary.

So what you are saying is that what most people call free will is then they do something and have no idea why they did it?

No, they know perfectly well why they did it--because they chose to do it. I'm saying we are most aware of the freedom of our act of choosing when that choice feels unconstrained by circumstances.

Free from what?

From constraining circumstances.

But the man in your example claims not to have chosen, he had no idea why he did that specific action so how can you say he chose it if he had no idea until after he had done it what the action would be. Here is what he says:
"I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?
So he doesn't even have the illusion of free will.

Please, read my example again. And please stop substituting your words for mine. I didn't say he has no idea why the hand went up: he knows perfectly well why the hand went up (at least, subjectively speaking). It went up because he chose to move the hand up. What he doesn't know is why he chose up rather than down. Neither up nor down seemed to have any greater claim on his free choice.

I'm not describing someone whose hand moves in spastic jerks.

Well you did not stipulate that before, you called it "all-knowing", now you are saying that this demon is denied some information.

I should have been more specific--I thought it was fairly obvious from the context.

Ah now you are fiddling with different meanings of the word "reason" to make a straw man of my position.

No, I'm not. Subjectively we feel it is possible to make decisions that go in the face of all "reasons" to the contrary: define "reason" any way you like in that sentence it's still true.

A man might choose to arbitrarily do the "wrong" thing and make a choice that seems to go against all reason, but that does not imply there was no reason he did it.

So? I'm not saying that there isn't a reason; I'm saying that that it may be possible for someone to choose to do something for no reason at all--even when there seems to be every reason to take some other course of action. To take as a premise the claim that all choices are grounded in determining causes is to make the argument purely circular.

Hmm... you are using the word "choice" to describe an action where a man says afterwards "I have no idea why I did that - it was just arbitrary".

And once again you're quoting your own sentence and attributing it to me. I--just to remind you again--am not saying anything so silly. I'm describing as "choice" an action where a man says afterwards "I did that because I chose to do it, and have no idea why I chose to do that rather than something else."

And you are calling my usage idiosyncratic?

Yes, yours was; mine isn't. It would have been if it had had anything to do with your false representation of it, but luckily it didn't.

I am using the word in the way I have used it and heard it used for some decades now. If I go to the ballot box and choose one of the candidates it seems to imply that I am exercising some volition, that I am forming an informed intention to vote for a particular candidate.

And how many times have you heard someone come away from the ballot box and say "well, there was no choice really, I had to vote for so-and-so." Again, choice is felt most clearly where the reasons for one action rather than another are least clear. Again, can you really not imagine someone coming back from the voting booth and saying "you know, I found it so hard to pick between Candidate A and Candidate B; it was so nice to finally have a real choice to make."

You say that my choice would be freer if I had no idea why I voted for one candidate over the other (as in your example of the man moving his hand).

Yes, your choice would be a freer choice if the selection of candidates were such that you didn't think "oh well, there's really no choice here, Candidate A is obviously the only one who isn't a bozo." If you find Candidates A and B equally attractive and can see no clear advantage or disadvantage in voting for either of them over the other then in that case you will have to exercise a choice that will feel like a completely free (or arbitrary) decision.

I say it is a freer choice for the more information that I applied to making the choice.

How is that "freer"? It's simply "more informed." Nothing in my scenario implies a lack of information.

I say it is a freer choice if I can really understand the reasons I made the choice because that implies I made the choice. If I did not know why I made the choice then I would not feel that I made the choice

But what if there are no reasons? What if you have fully informed yourself on all the policies and all the positions adopted by Candidate A and Candidate B and you really, genuinely, cannot decide on a "reason" to prefer A to B. How can you deny that you are then in a position where you must "simply choose" between the two? And if you say "oh well, screw it, I'll go with A" in what world are you not "choosing" A?

I can assure you that I did not just make up that that usage of the word. I have been using it all my life and most people I know have used it that way.

Sorry, I refuse to believe that there is a community of people out there who would not recognize the situation I just described as "making a choice."

I think most people would choose to toss a coin.

Oh yes, most people in the world are like Two-Face, the Batman villain. Come off it--we're faced every day all the time with choices that appear to us roughly equal (do I put this CD on in the morning or that CD, do I add basil or oregano to this dish, do buy a Snickers or Mars Bar etc. etc.). Again and again we say "oh well, I'll just have to choose" and afterwards all we can say is that we don't know why we chose A over B, we just felt that we had to make a choice in order to get on with our day.

And even on those very rare occasions where we do decide to toss a coin, how is that different? What kind of "choice" is it--in your theory--to "choose" to be controlled by a random coin flip? How is that self evidently bowing to consciously understood reasons? What "reason" do I have for subjecting my choice to a random flip?

So a device that was attached to a true random event generator would be the purest example of free will?

No, of course not--and I've already said so explicitly. The purest example of free will is when we feel that we have made an arbitrary choice. That is not remotely the same thing as feeling that we are subject to random events. Again, I'm not describing someone with uncontrollable spastic tics when I describe someone as arbitrarily choosing to move their hand up or down (which would be truly random); I'm describing someone who feels as if they have complete and arbitrary power over whether the hand goes up, down or stays still. If it goes up their response is not "OMG, how did that happen?" it is "that happened solely because I willed it to happen."

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So what you are saying is that what most people call free will is then they do something and have no idea why they did it?
No, that's what we call "free from will." I'm a proponent of libertarian free from will, myself.


No, of course not--and I've already said so explicitly. The purest example of free will is when we feel that we have made an arbitrary choice.
Your use of the word arbitrary is correct as far as its definition goes, but I think it still conveys the wrong meaning.


If you're saying that you live in a world where you have never heard some form of the sentence "I didn't have any reason to choose A over B, so I just made an arbitrary decision" then you are either lying or you do not live in the same world that I do.
If I heard someone say that, I would think that by "arbitrary" they meant "random." At the very least, I would think that they didn't have any particular reason for the choice, which is what Robin is perhaps alluding to.

I'd be careful of the word arbitrary.

~~ Paul

[Yoink]

No, that's what we call "free from will." I'm a proponent of libertarian free from will, myself.


Your use of the word arbitrary is correct as far as its definition goes, but I think it still conveys the wrong meaning.


If I heard someone say that, I would think that by "arbitrary" they meant "random." At the very least, I would think that they didn't have any particular reason for the choice, which is what Robin is perhaps alluding to.

I'd be careful of the word arbitrary.

~~ Paul

That they "don't have a particular reason for the choice" is my whole point.

[Cynic]

I'm not sure what the advantage of discussing degrees of choice is. Either one has some influence on his own actions or he does not. In the problem of freewill, the degree doesn't matter. Regardless of the physics involved, the degree is, at the moment, hopelessly muddied by physiology anyway.

[Robin]

No I have never heard of someone saying "I have no idea why I did that, it must have been free will".
I love the way you invent this statement, and then start to attribute it to me throughout this post.

Here is your precise sentence about your example of an action that is perceived as free will:
Do any or all of these reasons have to be accessible to the mover's introspection? In other words, would he have to be lying if he said "I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?
If you're saying that you live in a world where you have never heard some form of the sentence "I didn't have any reason to choose A over B, so I just made an arbitrary decision" then you are either lying or you do not live in the same world that I do.
I didn't say I had never heard someone say that I said that I had never heard of this provided as an example of what is meant by free will.
But the man in your example claims not to have chosen, he had no idea why he did that specific action so how can you say he chose it if he had no idea until after he had done it what the action would be. Here is what he says:
"I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?
So he doesn't even have the illusion of free will.
Please, read my example again. And please stop substituting your words for mine.
The indented words are a direct cut and paste from your post. Direct.

If you want to withdraw this or clarify it please do. But quit accusing me of substituting words when you know very well I didn't.
I didn't say he has no idea why the hand went up:...
Again, your direct words "I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down"
... he knows perfectly well why the hand went up (at least, subjectively speaking). It went up because he chose to move the hand up. What he doesn't know is why he chose up rather than down. Neither up nor down seemed to have any greater claim on his free choice.
In other words he knows why he moved the hand, but he has no idea why the hand went up - just as I said.
I'm not describing someone whose hand moves in spastic jerks.
No, you are describing someone who voluntarily moves his hand but has no idea why that particular hand movement was selected above others.
Well you did not stipulate that before, you called it "all-knowing", now you are saying that this demon is denied some information.
I should have been more specific--I thought it was fairly obvious from the context.
You mean it should have been fairly obvious when you said:

"an all-knowing demon who was fed every single piece of information about my mental and physical state",

that you in fact meant;

The demon has only (and all) physical information
?
I suppose you are now going to accuse me of substituting my words for yours.
So? I'm not saying that there isn't a reason; I'm saying that that it may be possible for someone to choose to do something for no reason at all--even when there seems to be every reason to take some other course of action. To take as a premise the claim that all choices are grounded in determining causes is to make the argument purely circular.
I never made the claim that all choices are grounded in determining causes.

I have already explicitly clarified that I am not arguing that.
Hmm... you are using the word "choice" to describe an action where a man says afterwards "I have no idea why I did that - it was just arbitrary".
And once again you're quoting your own sentence and attributing it to me.
And once again, here is the precise you attributed to the person in your example of perceived free will:

"I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?

I'm describing as "choice" an action where a man says afterwards "I did that because I chose to do it, and have no idea why I chose to do that rather than something else."
So in other words he is saying he has no idea why he went up or down. So I paraphrased that as "I have no idea why I did that", (ie went up rather than something else).
Yes, yours was; mine isn't. It would have been if it had had anything to do with your false representation of it, but luckily it didn't.
Right now I have no idea what you mean by choice.
Oh yes, most people in the world are like Two-Face, the Batman villain.
So you live in a world where you have never heard people say something like "Your place or mine? Let's toss a coin". You are saying that only happens in comic books???
And even on those very rare occasions where we do decide to toss a coin, how is that different?
It is not different at all. Who said it was.
What kind of "choice" is it--in your theory--to "choose" to be controlled by a random coin flip?
So you are saying that if someone says "let's toss a coin", they have not chosen to toss a coin? I don't understand what you are saying here.

Deciding to toss a coin is no differnent from "Where the reasons seem equally balanced, though, we will say "well, you'll just have to choose; which is it going to be, A or B?" "

You describe that last sentence as choice, and yet if they added "let's toss a coin" you seem to think that it would be no choice at all. What is the difference?
The purest example of free will is when we feel that we have made an arbitrary choice.
You send me to the dictionary for the word "arbitrary", so which do you prefer from Merriam-Webster? :

based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something

or

existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance or as a capricious and unreasonable act of will

[Robin]

Your use of the word arbitrary is correct as far as its definition goes, but I think it still conveys the wrong meaning.
But which definition are you referring to? I asked Yoink and he sent me off to the dictionary which has inconsistent meanings as I quoted above. So I can take "arbitrary" to mean "seemingly random or by chance or as a capricious or unreasonable act of will", or I can take it to mean : "based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something".

The first and the second do not seem to mean the same thing to me.

[Robin]

It seems to me that any description of free will offered in this thread is perfectly consistent with both determinism and a universe where some things are deterministic and others random.

I don't see the problem "I chose to move my hand" describes determinism and "I don't know why I moved my hand up, rather than down", describes either unknown determinants, or perhaps the result of some randomness.

I don't see why this would have to be illusory in a deterministic or physical world.

[Cynic]

I don't see why this would have to be illusory in a deterministic or physical world.

Maybe the thing we need to look at then is what constitutes an illusion. An illusion is something that seems real but isn't. I seem to be having thoughts that I'm fashioning into sentences, typing those down, reading them back, making corrections, etc. All of those actions, from chosing words and trains of thought, typing -- everything -- are examples of what we'd call freewill. Choices are made faster than I can possibly track them, unconsious or not, and I feel that the experience is absolutely real. In contemplating its realness, I'm doing more thinking.

If we assume determinism, everything described above happened because it had to. Not decisions were made, no choices. That it seems that my thoughts and actions are an extension of will must be an illusion because in a deterministic setting it cannot be real. Something that seems real but isn't is the very definition of illusion.

We can of course debate the merits of "thoughts" and "seemings" and "experience" when the subject in question can be seen as so many lines of code in a reality machine. But it's the "perceptions" of those programs gearworks that we're talking about (I think!) -- not whether those perceptions themselves are genuine. Yes, it's probably illusion all the way down, but we can consider the construct itself without considering all levels at once.

(Otherwise we'd be guilty of a Loki's Wager fallacy.)

[Robin]

Maybe the thing we need to look at then is what constitutes an illusion. An illusion is something that seems real but isn't. I seem to be having thoughts that I'm fashioning into sentences, typing those down, reading them back, making corrections, etc. All of those actions, from chosing words and trains of thought, typing -- everything -- are examples of what we'd call freewill. Choices are made faster than I can possibly track them, unconsious or not, and I feel that the experience is absolutely real. In contemplating its realness, I'm doing more thinking.

If we assume determinism, everything described above happened because it had to. Not decisions were made, no choices.
But doesn't a decision have to be deterministic anyway? For example if I decide between 2 options I have determined which option is taken - that is to say it is deterministic, but I am one of the determinants.
That it seems that my thoughts and actions are an extension of will must be an illusion because in a deterministic setting it cannot be real. Something that seems real but isn't is the very definition of illusion.
I think that it is beyond doubt that some behaviours give us the illusion of free will, in fact neuroscience can probably describe pretty well how it gives us this illusion.

But we are never under any great illusion that we are under conscious control of day-to-day activities, there are common names for the times our unconscious mind takes control of this, "force of habit", "auto-pilot".

But in terms of well thought out decision, introspective decision - I see no incompatibility between determinism and these being just what they seem to be.

[Cynic]

But doesn't a decision have to be deterministic anyway? For example if I decide between 2 options I have determined which option is taken - that is to say it is deterministic, but I am one of the determinants.

But with determinism, there are no options, and thus no choice can be made. All states are a direct result of the state before them. Suggesting that the decider (damn -- can't hear that word without thinking of Bush now) is the determining factor is an interesting idea, but I think that it fails because you're giving that decider a priviledged place in the universe -- exempting him from the rules we're seeking to test.

[Robin]

But with determinism, there are no options, and thus no choice can be made. All states are a direct result of the state before them.
As I pointed out before, there are options even under determinism, we can envisage a future quite a few states after the next state and bring it about.

I have no problem with the next state being a direct result of the prior state, because the prior state contains my knowledge, experience, intelligence, attitudes, beliefs, prejudices etc.

And the prior state will contain my intentions and my blueprint of the future I am trying to bring about.

And again, I don't see how a choice could possibly exist without there being deterministic processes.
Suggesting that the decider (damn -- can't hear that word without thinking of Bush now) is the determining factor is an interesting idea, but I think that it fails because you're giving that decider a priviledged place in the universe -- exempting him from the rules we're seeking to test.
It would not involve exempting the decider or giving him a special place in the universe

In would just involve the decider having the same kind of place everything else has in one particular tiny part of the universe at a particular time.

Exempting us from the rules of the universe would not make us free in any case, it would make us cease to exist.

As I said before, it makes no sense to wish to be free of the underlying order that makes choice possible in the first place.

The laws of physics may constrain us to certain courses of action, but they also make us possible in the first place.

In order to think and decide it is necessary to have some underlying order, and any underlying order - be it physics or something else - would necessarily constrain us.

In other words it is logically impossible to have an unconstrained choice - any being in any type of possible universe that could make a choice would be constrained by the underlying order that made the choice possible.

[yy2bggggs]

And you "feel subjectively" nothing at all about the color of my hair either, right? I have no idea what your point is here.
But I "feel subjectively" that I'm being talked to, I sense that there is a person producing the posts, and I even sense thoughts coming from that person. Yet I don't sense your hair color. I see a pair of headphones laying on the bed, yet I don't feel them, and don't hear anything from them.

Even closer, I sense that my fingers are typing, I sense that I am breathing, and I sense my heart beating. I sense that I'm the one causing my fingers to move as I type, so I sense a cause behind it. I sense somewhat that I control my breathing, but only when I pay attention to it--otherwise, it's kind of on autopilot (technically, my fingers go on autopilot too until I pay attention to them, though I sense they are moving still). But my heart beating is something I do not sense that I am causing--I simply lack the sensation of the cause of my heart's beating. Yet I don't sense that it is uncaused. That's an utterly distinct, in a modal sense, kind of thing to sense--that a thing is uncaused--and, quite frankly, I've never sensed uncausedness, and don't even know how you would sense such a thing.

So I know, by example, that I "lack sensation" of things I subjectively feel. All it takes it just that--to lack a particular sensation of the thing--just a mere absence. And like breathing, it can lie on a spectrum in between.
Nope--and that feels subjectively like free will too. What's your point?
That's a bit handwavy. Dig into details. What exactly does it feel like along the way? Do you sense how you select particular words to use? Do you sense where they come from? Don't you sense, when you type the entire sentence, that it is not only grammatically correct, but expresses a single coherent idea that you had in mind and intended to convey--even though you don't sense in particular how it comes to form a coherent whole until you produce the last phrase or two? Most people do indeed sense a "gappiness" when they try to account for the whole thing.
Where am I saying that there is an objective conflict with determinism? You keep thinking I'm trying to "prove" free will. I'm not. I'm saying that it is meaningful to talk of an illusion of free will.
You're not paying attention to what I'm objecting to. You are, indeed, saying that something conflicts with determinism. Read:
This doesn't address my point. I agree entirely that one could have a nondeterministic world with nothing like free will in it. I'm simply saying that if free will operates the way it feels subjectively (which I very much doubt), then the world would be nondeterministic AND allow for free will.
In bold, you stated that you don't believe this something that conflicts with determinism actually holds true, but you do express that it conflicts with determinism. The thing you expressed conflicts with determinism, highlighted above, is what you feel subjectively.

That is what I'm objecting to--again, I stress, that I'm addressing the subjective element--the very thing that in post #200, highlighted above, you did say conflicts with determinism.
You're arguing with some imaginary person.I doubt you're imaginary :).My whole point is that it "feels like both options are available to me from which to select one."
Yes, but that feeling doesn't contradict determinism. In order to have two options available to you from which you select one, you merely need to sense both options at once. These might be mutually exclusive options, so certainly you cannot do both at once, but you can sense both at once in a modeled, hypothetical, scenario. It no more conflicts with determinism than a checkers program that I write which considers two possible moves.
Of course I can't select both. That would be crazy.Again, you're missing the point. You don't sense that you can select both.
No, it means you have no subjective impression of my hair color at all. What's your point?From your heartbeat to your breathing--the entire range of being able to sense cause is possible, without specifically sensing that any of them are uncaused.
So you don't think that anybody, ever, in the history of the world has looked at two options and thought "you know, I could go either way--there's no reason to go for A over B, it's just my free choice."

You must live in a very different world from the one that I live in.
I only sense that I control a few things. I don't sense that they are uncontrolled. And I think it's common--not in a "this peripheral drift illusion seems to move" sense, but in a "this Monty Hall problem seems to present a choice that doesn't matter" sense--to mistake the fact that you don't sense the full sequence of events leading up to your choice with sensing that there is no full sequence of events leading up to your choice...

...and might I remind you, again, that I'm talking about the thing sensed per se.

[Robin]

I think everybody would agree that without some sort of underlying order we could never observe, think and make choices.

But everybody seems to think that the underlying order we have (the laws of physics) does not allow for free will (whatever free will is).

So can somebody describe the sort of underlying order that would allow us to have free will?

[porch]

Here's my personal take on the supposed illusion of free will. The times in my life when I most strongly believed in free will were the times I most strongly interpreted my experiences as free will. Now that I've ceased to believe completely, I no longer interpret any of my experiences as free will. I behave exactly as I would expect someone with no free will would behave. I guess. I think the strangest thing for me out of all this is that I've lost the ability to recall what it was that I thought I may or may not have believed in when considering free will. During my deconversion process, a statement like "Even if you don't believe in free will, you must act as if you have it" meant something to me. Now I don't even understand what it could possibly mean.

I suppose it's similar to when I used to entertain notions that there was some kind of intelligent force that could nudge events one way or another. The more I believed, the more it seemed like coincidence was synchronicity. It's also different though. Now that I have zero belief in a cosmic guiding hand, there are still occurrences that feel eerie or karmic, despite not assigning much meaning to the feeling. With zero belief in free will, however, I can't conceive of any action that I or another could take that would make me say, "Even though I don't intellectually believe in free will, that sure seemed free-willesque."

[Cynic]

As I pointed out before, there are options even under determinism, we can envisage a future quite a few states after the next state and bring it about.

I have no problem with the next state being a direct result of the prior state, because the prior state contains my knowledge, experience, intelligence, attitudes, beliefs, prejudices etc.

And the prior state will contain my intentions and my blueprint of the future I am trying to bring about.

In determinism, all instances are products of those states that came before them. All of them. We can imagine a future quite a few states after the next state, but in determinism, all of that imagining happened because of the states before it too. If we imagine it, it was because we had to. If we don't, its because we couldn't. There's no choice there. The plans, the blueprints, the desires, etc. All of those things -- every instance of every state -- is determined. There is zero room for choice. The consequences of a deterministic universe is that everyone that has every existed and everything that has ever happened has done or occured because that is the only way in which it could have played out, just as a die roll turns up the number it does because of the physics involved. Everything is like that die in determinism.

What I meant when I suggested that you were assiging a priviledged position to people speaks to that: such a special place is what would be required to avoid the consequences of determinism, not the opposite. Everything I've just written and your reply to it is and will be a necessary consequence of determinism. That you feel otherwise is also a consequence of determinism.

In other words it is logically impossible to have an unconstrained choice - any being in any type of possible universe that could make a choice would be constrained by the underlying order that made the choice possible.

Choice is an illusion. The logical contradiction is treating it as if it were possible in a deterministic setting. If every action is the product of the one before it, there are no choices.

[porch]

Choice is an illusion. The logical contradiction is treating it as if it were possible in a deterministic setting. If every action is the product of the one before it, there are no choices.


Choice is only impossible and illusory if you assign an incoherent, magickal meaning to it in the first place.

[yy2bggggs]

Cynic:

The core assumption that is being challenged is the assumption that determinism conflicts with choice.

Your argument is circular. You're trying to point out just how much determinism there is, and you go to conclude that--given all of this inevitable determinism, there couldn't have been a choice.

This assumes the conclusion. It begs the question. If we don't start out by assuming that choice conflicts with determinism, we can't get from the stressed "inevitability" to the "there's no choice there"--that particular thing becomes a leap.

Choice is commitment to a particular selected option from a number of options you sensed were available to you for consideration, and actually considered. That we consider the options doesn't conflict with determinism. That we commit to a particular one not only doesn't conflict, but is an absolute mechanical necessity (along the lines of Buridan's ass). But that doesn't conflict either!

That we chose because we "had to" has to be true anyway--ignoring determinism, we choose a particular option, necessarily, because we were such a person as to choose it. The key question is whether or not we were the ones who caused that choice to happen. Since we're actually part of the universe, again, there's no conflict in having us be a cause.
Choice is an illusion.
Then what aspect of choice, precisely, is not happening in a deterministic universe?
Consideration of multiple options?
Commitment to a particular option?
Being a part of the causal chain?
The logical contradiction is treating it as if it were possible in a deterministic setting.
There are levels of "possibility"--logically possible, historically possible, physically possible, etc. In a choice, it's something like "within the realm of what we're capable of, and within the options we sense possible". And we are, usually, capable of doing the things we sense that we can do (in that we don't consider whether to drive to work or fly to work). That's actually the point of choice--to play out the scenarios of the things we can do in this sense, and commit to (so that we can usefully act upon) the particular one that best satisfies all of the goals we have in mind.
If every action is the product of the one before it, there are no choices.
Why not?

[Cynic]

I think everybody would agree that without some sort of underlying order we could never observe, think and make choices.

But everybody seems to think that the underlying order we have (the laws of physics) does not allow for free will (whatever free will is).

So can somebody describe the sort of underlying order that would allow us to have free will?

I think Porch hinted at the root of this when he mentioned the idea that even though we know there isn't freewill, we must act as if there is (and his not knowing even what that means anymore). It's an absurd thing, contemplating this stuff. Very surreal. I think it would be more accurate to say that even though we know that there is no freewill, we will act as if there was.

Imagine trying to act as if there were no freewill. You can't do it, right? It's impossible. Everything you do feels very authentically like an act of your will, even the act of trying not to act. As Rush said so well, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."

So what's the point -- why systems evolve that have the illusion of freewill (systems like us) anyway? I think that's what sticks in the craw of most people thinking about determinism. I think the answer is utility. Even though determinism means that all things are determined (by definition) and thus choices are illusions, "inside" the system freewill is effectively real, else it would have no utility at all. From our perspective, freewill is real. From an objective perspective, it isn't.

If I had look for an underlying physical mechanism that explains the possibility of freewill, I'd first look at the thing that governs everything else -- the universal law of laziness, that is, that which requires or results in the lowest possible energy state is favorable. Conservation and thermodynamics laws all boil down to essentially that, right? There ain't no such thing as a free lunch (TANSTAFL!) and that is why. It's the nature of self-replicating systems to acquire the means to replicate, else they wouldn't exist. But making intelligent choices along the way allows a more efficient, and thus favorable path, driving evolution to develop thinking systems to accomplish it. It may some contradictory to put so much energy into being lazy, but "making sense" isn't so much a requirement.

[yy2bggggs]

So what's the point -- why systems evolve that have the illusion of freewill (systems like us) anyway?
There's nothing particular to evolve, except for the things that are actually useful.
Even though determinism means that all things are determined (by definition) and thus choices are illusions, "inside" the system freewill is effectively real, else it would have no utility at all.Everything you actually sense about this, I allege, is something particularly useful. But there's no point, drive, or impetus, to explain what it is that you're sensing, so when you interpret it as something that conflicts with determinism, why should the brain or evolution care?
From our perspective, freewill is real. From an objective perspective, it isn't.I allege that the only pieces that aren't real are the pieces you misinterpret, not the pieces you sense. There's no particular sensation that isn't explainable in terms of merely what an integrated planning complex must do in order to be useful.
But making intelligent choices along the way allows a more efficient, and thus favorable path, driving evolution to develop thinking systems to accomplish it.Not just more efficient--you might find that certain choices accomplish a goal that another wouldn't even accomplish in the first place. And if the way you decided to build the trap due to your imaging how exactly two possible traps would work, and due to adjusting the particular trap in your head based on this contemplation, actually catches prey, you're going to eat tonight.

You're thinking too small with "energy conservation"--everything you do as a result of planning and comparing is at stake. We have to be able to do option B because we might find, by imagining it, that it's actually more conducive to our goals, even though option A seems to be on a quick analysis--so option B has to not only "feel" available to us, it must be available, pending our consideration (and this doesn't conflict with determinism). And we have to be able to commit to an option because we can't accomplish anything without a commitment, or by going back and forth constantly.

Nothing about what we sense has to be fictional--what we sense has to actually be so, in order for all of this "thinking" stuff to have any utility at all (otherwise, disposing of the wasteful thinking would save quite a few calories). The only thing that need be fictional is a certain interpretation of what we sense, but then, obviously, not everyone has the same interpretation of it.

[porch]

I think Porch hinted at the root of this when he mentioned the idea that even though we know there isn't freewill, we must act as if there is (and his not knowing even what that means anymore). It's an absurd thing, contemplating this stuff. Very surreal. I think it would be more accurate to say that even though we know that there is no freewill, we will act as if there was.

Imagine trying to act as if there were no freewill. You can't do it, right? It's impossible. Everything you do feels very authentically like an act of your will, even the act of trying not to act. As Rush said so well, "if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."


I wasn't trying to hint at anything. I'm saying that I can't imagine what it would be like to act as if there IS free will. And here we are in yet another free will thread with no coherent definition of free will.

[Cynic]

The core assumption that is being challenged is the assumption that determinism conflicts with choice.

Your argument is circular. You're trying to point out just how much determinism there is, and you go to conclude that--given all of this inevitable determinism, there couldn't have been a choice.

This assumes the conclusion. It begs the question. If we don't start out by assuming that choice conflicts with determinism, we can't get from the stressed "inevitability" to the "there's no choice there"--that particular thing becomes a leap.

Conversely, if we start out by assuming choice is possible, we assume the other conclusion and end up with a circular argument in the other direction.

What you're doing is like trying to figure out if a die has a choice about where it lands. Exactly like trying to figure that out, and for the same reason. This isn't even an analogy.

Determinism conflicts with choice by definition. That means you can't use the terms in the same argument at all without violating logic. This isn't the same as assuming the conclusion -- definitions aren't so constrained. The question is flawed.


Choice is commitment to a particular selected option from a number of options you sensed were available to you for consideration, and actually considered. That we consider the options doesn't conflict with determinism. That we commit to a particular one not only doesn't conflict, but is an absolute mechanical necessity (along the lines of Buridan's ass). But that doesn't conflict either!

That we chose because we "had to" has to be true anyway--ignoring determinism, we choose a particular option, necessarily, because we were such a person as to choose it. The key question is whether or not we were the ones who caused that choice to happen. Since we're actually part of the universe, again, there's no conflict in having us be a cause.

Then what aspect of choice, precisely, is not happening in a deterministic universe?
Consideration of multiple options?
Commitment to a particular option?
Being a part of the causal chain?

There are levels of "possibility"--logically possible, historically possible, physically possible, etc. In a choice, it's something like "within the realm of what we're capable of, and within the options we sense possible". And we are, usually, capable of doing the things we sense that we can do (in that we don't consider whether to drive to work or fly to work). That's actually the point of choice--to play out the scenarios of the things we can do in this sense, and commit to (so that we can usefully act upon) the particular one that best satisfies all of the goals we have in mind.

But you're conflating the objective and subjective perspectives with each other. Objectively, determinism rules out choice. Subjectively, determinism is irrelevant. It's like the dice again, only dice don't have a subjective point of view. If they did, however, I would challenge you to properly differentiate between the mechanics of falling and bouncing and the far more complex Rube Goldbergian processes that are the mental equivellent to that.

Choice is ruled out when every action is caused by the one before it because -- and here I introduce another analogy that might confuse things -- everything in such a scenario, objectively, runs along a track like a train. Seeing the problem, thinking about the problem, making the decision, and acting on that decision -- those are all things that, sequentially, are necessarily determined by what came before. Simplifying the problem by only talking about the outcomes at those breakpoints and not the process that lead to them is exactly like only discussing the outcomes of die rolls and not the process that lead to them.

Again, I'll be happy to be proven wrong on this. I think a formal treatment of this will show that there is conflation of incompatible elements at work here.

[PixyMisa]

Cynic, you're missing the point. The point is, how, exactly, are you defining choice such that it is ruled out by determinism?

[Cynic]

I wasn't trying to hint at anything. I'm saying that I can't imagine what it would be like to act as if there IS free will. And here we are in yet another free will thread with no coherent definition of free will.

I contend that there is no coherent definition of freewill.

[yy2bggggs]

Conversely, if we start out by assuming choice is possible, we assume the other conclusion and end up with a circular argument in the other direction.True, but the difference is that you're arguing that choice is impossible because things are deterministic, and I'm arguing that the situation is otherwise. So my burden is entirely appropriate.
What you're doing is like trying to figure out if a die has a choice about where it lands. Exactly like trying to figure that out, and for the same reason. This isn't even an analogy.
This is a black and white fallacy.
Determinism conflicts with choice by definition.No it doesn't.Objectively, determinism rules out choice.
No it doesn't.
It's like the dice again, only dice don't have a subjective point of view.Ah, so it's not like the dice at all!
Choice is ruled out when every action is caused by the one before it becauseNo, choice is ruled out when you show that I'm not the one making the decision.

Saying "things are inevitable" is insufficient to prove your point. If I had two options yesterday--option A and option B, and I picked A, then I inevitably picked A. Option A had to have been picked, because it was the one I actually did pick. But that doesn't count, because if "inevitable" includes "my choosing the particular option", it doesn't rule out choice.

So put this into the future, and you have the same thing. If you show option A is inevitable, but it's inevitable because I chose it, then you haven't shown that I can't choose it.

What you have to show in order to show that choice isn't happening, is that I'm not choosing.
Seeing the problem, thinking about the problem, making the decision, and acting on that decision -- those are all things that, sequentially, are necessarily determined by what came before. Simplifying the problem by only talking about the outcomes at those breakpoints and not the process that lead to them is exactly like only discussing the outcomes of die rolls and not the process that lead to them.
The question is whether or not what seems to happen describes what does happen, so describing what seems to happen in terms of what does happen is exactly what I should be doing. And I do that, and run into no conflict.

The entire conflict is the sense in which you think you "can" do the thing you don't, in fact, do, and the sense in which you "choose" the thing you do, in fact, do. You choose in a deterministic sense, and you can, subjectively, in a hypothetical sense. It both is and is perceived as hypothetical. So everything about what seems to happen is consistent with what does happen. I don't actually seem to be doing a particular option until I actually do it--when I mull it over, I only seem to be mulling it over--and then, I'm actually mulling it over.
Again, I'll be happy to be proven wrong on this. I think a formal treatment of this will show that there is conflation of incompatible elements at work here.
I'd love a formal treatment... gofer it!

I'd rather you set it up to show I have nothing up my sleeves.

[porch]

I contend that there is no coherent definition of freewill.


Me too. But if we don't have a useful definition of free will, how can we say anything useful about it? Can you imagine behaving as if you don't have gluwargon? Why do we have the illusion of krimkalouse?

[Cynic]

Me too. But if we don't have a useful definition of free will, how can we say anything useful about it? Can you imagine behaving as if you don't have gluwargon? Why do we have the illusion of krimkalouse?

I take the inability to come up with a concise and non-contradictory definition as the first red flag indicating that it might not actually exist, sort of like with square circles.

In common usage, it means our thoughts, actions, and desires are directed from within and not dictated from an outside entity or derived from a set of rules.

As a combination of "free" (unfettered) and "will" (desire), it kind of fails. A will that isn't free can't be said to be your own will -- at best, it's someone else's.

[Robin]

Me too. But if we don't have a useful definition of free will, how can we say anything useful about it? Can you imagine behaving as if you don't have gluwargon? Why do we have the illusion of krimkalouse?

There is a definition given by C D Broad (who goes on to say that he believes it impossible) in his essay Determinism, Indeterminism and Libertarianism (http://www.ditext.com/broad/dil.html)

We are now in a position to define what I will call "Libertarianism." This doctrine may be summed up in two propositions.



Some (and it may be all) voluntary actions have a causal ancestor which contains as a cause-factor the putting-forth of an effort which is not completely determined in direction and intensity by occurrent causation.
In such cases the direction and the intensity of the effort are completely determined by non-occurrent causation, in which the self or agent, taken as a substance or continuant, is the non-occurrent total cause. Thus, Libertarianism, as defined by me, entails Indeterminism, as defined by me; but the converse does not hold.

I posted this some years back, but did not have a chance to stay around and debate it at the time.

I think that Undercover Elephant has suggested that this type of free will does not so much entail indeterminism, more that causality is not necessarily time bound.

I suppose that this would entail that the forming of an intention was a sort of bifurcation or point of origination in time where the direction of information and resources was toward the intention and the direction of effort was away from the intention.

It is not a view I hold, but on the other hand it is not one that I dismiss out of hand.

[Robin]

Cynic, you're missing the point. The point is, how, exactly, are you defining choice such that it is ruled out by determinism?
In fact the reverse would seem to be the case - choice implies determinism, how could there be a choice if we were not capable of determining a particular outcome?

I think the warehouse robot example showed this - the outcome was deterministic, but one of the determinants was the robot's act of choosing.

However this may be part of cynic's point about a concise and non-contradictory definition for free will.

[dlorde]

Consider:

If we could map out all the cause-effect chains within our minds, working out the relationships between the information we receive via our senses and our subsequent actions, some people might consider that this means that we do not truly make our own decisions, that what we do is the inevitable result of causality.

But, from that perspective, we don't exist. A chair is made from molecules. These molecules have no fundamental label marking them as chair components, the chair is formed by the molecules together. Similarly, breaking down a mind into a series of patterns causes one to lose sight of the mind.

If I, Twiler, am free, I will be doing the things that Twiler does, in response to the things that Twiler perceives. An examination of my mind will determine that I perceive, I consider, and I act. Therefore, I am free.
Exactly - the free will vs determinism argument is a confusion of levels of abstraction. At the level of individual deterministic or random events, there is no meaning, free will isn't relevant. What gives free will meaning is that what determines the outcome, given certain alternatives, is the extraordinarily complex knot of experiences, sensations, reflections, and memory that we call 'I' or 'me'. Filtered through a different person, the outcome might be different, filtered through the same person at a different time, the outcome might be different. It is the 'sum' of that person over the period they evaluate the options that determines the outcome - it is their choice. That is the basis of free will. We, as (mainly?) deterministic individuals (with a smidgin of randomness), uniquely determine the outcome. The amount of freedom we feel we have is related to the degree to which we feel we are unconstrained by external influences when determining the outcome. The degree to which we feel constrained is subjective, so the degree of freedom of choice (the degree to which we can exercise free will) we feel we have in a situation is subjective.

[porch]

There is a definition given by C D Broad (who goes on to say that he believes it impossible) in his essay Determinism, Indeterminism and Libertarianism (http://www.ditext.com/broad/dil.html)

I posted this some years back, but did not have a chance to stay around and debate it at the time.


Wow. I think that's the most together description of the concept of libertarian free will that I've ever read. And I agree that it's impossible.

I think that Undercover Elephant has suggested that this type of free will does not so much entail indeterminism, more that causality is not necessarily time bound.

I suppose that this would entail that the forming of an intention was a sort of bifurcation or point of origination in time where the direction of information and resources was toward the intention and the direction of effort was away from the intention.

It is not a view I hold, but on the other hand it is not one that I dismiss out of hand.


Yes, it's almost like people created god as a person, then conceived of people as gods. Or, if you believe that the illusion of free will is an inherent human experience, it's the other way around: people considered themselves god-like, then created god as a person.

[Robin]

Wow. I think that's the most together description of the concept of libertarian free will that I've ever read. And I agree that it's impossible.
Yes, C D Broad was a bit of a conundrum. He was able to write clearly and logically on a number of quite complex topics, and yet in many ways he was a woo - President of the Society for Psychical Research for example.

[Yoink]

Here is your precise sentence about your example of an action that is perceived as free will:
Do any or all of these reasons have to be accessible to the mover's introspection? In other words, would he have to be lying if he said "I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?
I didn't say I had never heard someone say that I said that I had never heard of this provided as an example of what is meant by free will.

The indented words are a direct cut and paste from your post. Direct.

If you want to withdraw this or clarify it please do. But quit accusing me of substituting words when you know very well I didn't.

Again, your direct words "I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down"

In other words he knows why he moved the hand, but he has no idea why the hand went up - just as I said.

No, you are describing someone who voluntarily moves his hand but has no idea why that particular hand movement was selected above others.

You mean it should have been fairly obvious when you said:
"an all-knowing demon who was fed every single piece of information about my mental and physical state",
that you in fact meant;
The demon has only (and all) physical information
?
I suppose you are now going to accuse me of substituting my words for yours.

I never made the claim that all choices are grounded in determining causes.

I have already explicitly clarified that I am not arguing that.

And once again, here is the precise you attributed to the person in your example of perceived free will:
"I have no idea at all why I went up rather than down--it was purely arbitrary"?
So in other words he is saying he has no idea why he went up or down. So I paraphrased that as "I have no idea why I did that", (ie went up rather than something else).

Right now I have no idea what you mean by choice.

So you live in a world where you have never heard people say something like "Your place or mine? Let's toss a coin". You are saying that only happens in comic books???

It is not different at all. Who said it was.

So you are saying that if someone says "let's toss a coin", they have not chosen to toss a coin? I don't understand what you are saying here.

Deciding to toss a coin is no differnent from "Where the reasons seem equally balanced, though, we will say "well, you'll just have to choose; which is it going to be, A or B?" "

You describe that last sentence as choice, and yet if they added "let's toss a coin" you seem to think that it would be no choice at all. What is the difference?

You send me to the dictionary for the word "arbitrary", so which do you prefer from Merriam-Webster? :
based on or determined by individual preference or convenience rather than by necessity or the intrinsic nature of something
or
existing or coming about seemingly at random or by chance or as a capricious and unreasonable act of will


Sorry, had to be away from the computer yesterday. The discussion has mostly moved on from here, so I won't go through this point-by-point; I just want to respond to a few things.

1/ my apologies for missing the one occasion when you did actually use my words rather than substituting your own restatement.

2/ The difference between my formulation and yours is important. You want to claim that the man has no idea why his hand went up. That, of course, is nonsense. I am saying that he has no idea why he choseto move his hand up. He knows perfectly well why his hand went up (at least, he thinks he does): it went up because at the moment of decision he chose "up" rather than "stay still" or "down."

3/ The "demon" thing. You misunderstand the distinction I was making (and fair enough too because I didn't express myself very clearly). When I say that the demon's knowledge is restricted to "physical" information I'm not contradistinguishing that from "mental" information. I'm assuming that our thoughts are simply the result of brain-states, and that therefore the demon would, in fact, know everything about my thoughts. I was distinguishing it from "metaphysical" knowledge of the future. The question here, after all, is whether my thoughts (including decisions) are deterministic (a series of billiard balls colliding with each other A->B->C->D....) or whether there are some "special" kinds of thoughts ("decisions") which have the power to inaugurate new series (A->B->C--Decision--P->Q->R....). The point is that a demon with the capacity to "know the future" would "know" about the jump from C to P; I'm only interested in whether a Demon who knows about A,B and C can predict what necessarily comes next. My guess is that it can, but subjectively it feels as if it could not. This is what I am calling the illusion of free will.

4/ Your dictionary definitions are both broadly workable. The first quoted is perfect, the second--as long as one notices that "seemingly at random" and assumes that the "seemingly" covers the "by chance" as well is perfectly workable. A "capricious" or "unreasonable" act of will is exactly right. I'm not sure what great gulf fixed you see between those two definitions.

ETA: 5/ Oops, forgot to add: you said that you'd never heard of something like my "hand moving" example being offered as an example of free will. I suggest you go to Google Books and enter "free will" (in quotation marks) "move" and "finger." You'll see that it's an absolutely standard example in the philosophical literature.

[Yoink]

But I "feel subjectively" that I'm being talked to, I sense that there is a person producing the posts, and I even sense thoughts coming from that person. Yet I don't sense your hair color. I see a pair of headphones laying on the bed, yet I don't feel them, and don't hear anything from them.

Even closer, I sense that my fingers are typing, I sense that I am breathing, and I sense my heart beating. I sense that I'm the one causing my fingers to move as I type, so I sense a cause behind it. I sense somewhat that I control my breathing, but only when I pay attention to it--otherwise, it's kind of on autopilot (technically, my fingers go on autopilot too until I pay attention to them, though I sense they are moving still). But my heart beating is something I do not sense that I am causing--I simply lack the sensation of the cause of my heart's beating. Yet I don't sense that it is uncaused. That's an utterly distinct, in a modal sense, kind of thing to sense--that a thing is uncaused--and, quite frankly, I've never sensed uncausedness, and don't even know how you would sense such a thing.

Ever heard the expression "I tossed a mental coin"? ("Mental coin toss" gets 15,000 hits on a Google search, "tossed a mental coin" gets almost 6,000--if you imagine all the possible variants out there, I'd be surprised if you've never come across the expression). That is the "sensation" of one's decisions being "uncaused." If all decisions felt that way, the expression "tossed a mental coin" would be meaningless, because it would be the description we offered for every single act of choosing we ever made.

That's a bit handwavy. Dig into details. What exactly does it feel like along the way? Do you sense how you select particular words to use? Do you sense where they come from? Don't you sense, when you type the entire sentence, that it is not only grammatically correct, but expresses a single coherent idea that you had in mind and intended to convey--even though you don't sense in particular how it comes to form a coherent whole until you produce the last phrase or two? Most people do indeed sense a "gappiness" when they try to account for the whole thing.

Sure. So? I'm describing the conscious sense of "having to decide arbitrarily." The conscious sense of "tossing a mental coin." The fact that we make decisions unconsciously all the time is neither here nor there. Just as you having no subjective impression of my hair color is not the same thing as you looking at me and seeing I'm bald, or the same as you looking at me and not registering what color my hair is.

You're not paying attention to what I'm objecting to. You are, indeed, saying that something conflicts with determinism. Read:In bold, you stated that you don't believe this something that conflicts with determinism actually holds true, but you do express that it conflicts with determinism. The thing you expressed conflicts with determinism, highlighted above, is what you feel subjectively.

I'm saying that we may have an illusion of being free from determinism. I'm saying that what we feel to be the case may not be the actual case. When I see a mirage of water lying on the road, what I subjectively perceive is not what is actually the case. My subjective perceptions are at variance with reality. This is not the same thing as saying that my subjective perceptions prove that there really is water on the road.

That is what I'm objecting to--again, I stress, that I'm addressing the subjective element--the very thing that in post #200, highlighted above, you did say conflicts with determinism.

O.K., great; all of this to get us to the very point I made at the outset? That it is conceivable that we may have an illusory belief in the freedom of the will?

Yes, but that feeling doesn't contradict determinism. In order to have two options available to you from which you select one, you merely need to sense both options at once. These might be mutually exclusive options, so certainly you cannot do both at once, but you can sense both at once in a modeled, hypothetical, scenario. It no more conflicts with determinism than a checkers program that I write which considers two possible moves.

The checkers program must select the move which your program defines as 'best.' The illusion of free will is that I can select any move; including saying "bugger this, checkers is boring; let's reinvent the rules."

Again, you're missing the point. You don't sense that you can select both.

No, I sense that I can select either and that I am absolutely free to make whichever selection I wish. In a deterministic world that would be false.

From your heartbeat to your breathing--the entire range of being able to sense cause is possible, without specifically sensing that any of them are uncaused.

But it's not a sensation of "uncausedness" that's at issue. It's a sensation of "being subject to my arbitrary will." I don't feel that my heart rate is subject to my will, I do feel that my breathing is partially subject to my will and partially not. I feel as if the decision about what word to write next or whether or not to move my hand or whether or not to get up from the sofa now is entirely subject to my arbitrary will.

I only sense that I control a few things. I don't sense that they are uncontrolled. And I think it's common--not in a "this peripheral drift illusion seems to move" sense, but in a "this Monty Hall problem seems to present a choice that doesn't matter" sense--to mistake the fact that you don't sense the full sequence of events leading up to your choice with sensing that there is no full sequence of events leading up to your choice...

And, once again, you're talking about the unconscious or the disregarded. I'm talking about a conscious feeling of pure arbitrary control. Again, hold your hand up before your face and say to yourself: "some time in the next 10 seconds I will either move this hand up or move it down." Now, in the full consciousness of your attention to your hand at this point, do you not feel--palpably--that you have complete freedom to do either, and no compelling reason to do one rather than the other? That is the feeling of (apparently) arbitrary control. It might, of course, be an illusion.

...and might I remind you, again, that I'm talking about the thing sensed per se.

Yes, and at the moment when you hold that hand up before your face, you will (at least, if you are anything like me and hundreds of philosophers who have used this example) sense--rightly or wrongly--that you have complete freedom to go either way. If, however, the choice you are about to make (let us say "move upwards in 7 seconds time") is utterly predictable--simply term D in a fixed series of cause-effect dominoes A->B->C->...then that feeling of complete, arbitrary freedom is illusory. You think you could have done something else at that point, but in fact you are wrong; only one possible outcome was ever going to occur.

[yy2bggggs]

Decide which of these two you're going to stick with. This?[Tossing a mental coin...] is the "sensation" of one's decisions being "uncaused."
...or this?
But it's not a sensation of "uncausedness" that's at issue.

The fact that we make decisions unconsciously all the time is neither here nor there.
The claim this refutes is:
obviously I can't "lack sensation" of anything that I feel subjectively--that would be a contradiction.
I can "lack sensation" of things I feel subjectively--even with breathing, where if I control it, I have causal influence over it that I specifically sense, but if I just "let it happen", it "just happens", and I have no sense of the same exact aspect of how I'm breathing. So it's not only not contradictory--it actually happens.
When I see a mirage of water lying on the road, what I subjectively perceive is not what is actually the case.
Alright, let's put it this way. You see the mirage on the road. You know it's not there. You tell yourself that it's not there. You look at it again, and, sure enough, you still see it--it still seems like a mirage.

It's immutable--you cannot help but to sense it in whatever ways you sense it.

But I posit that I have the same sensation you do, and it's a lack of sensation of cause, not a sense of lacking of cause. It's not that I'm looking at it and I merely "know" that it really is caused, but it "looks like" it's not. I'm looking at it, and what I sense about its cause is nothing--it's like the things I sense behind this wall, not the items I sense in this empty cup.

I have an interpretation which my senses are entirely consistent with.
My subjective perceptions are at variance with reality.No they aren't. You just don't have a proper interpretation of it.
O.K., great; all of this to get us to the very point I made at the outset? That it is conceivable that we may have an illusory belief in the freedom of the will?Why, yes, I am and have been throughout addressing your point, despite the fact that you accuse me of talking to an imaginary person.
The checkers program must select the move which your program defines as 'best.'
But you're begging the question by describing the program this way. The programmer likely didn't program the checkers game to simply "make the best move, and here's what best means".

The programmer, rather, more than likely, programmed it to select a set of moves to specifically consider, according to some rules. The consideration itself runs through an algorithm, uncommitted as to which particular move (thus, it can play either of them), that searches deeper into the play tree according to resources. This continues until some other part of the algorithm decides that enough is enough (and almost certainly, that part exists in any decent checkers playing program), at which point, the checkers program actually plays what it thinks is the best move.

This is, realistically, how the checkers program actually proceeds. If you note, there are multiple phases:
Pretty much at any phase before the actual commitment to move is actually made, the program holds a number of potential candidates for best move in memory--those are the ones it will explore at the moment.
Before the commitment to the particular move, any move is fair game, but more specifically, the moves under consideration are the current candidates.
Occasionally the candidates themselves will change--if a certain set of branches are exhausted and something interesting, such as a forced opponent win, is discovered, a candidate could be knocked out.
And this seems like exactly what I sense that I'm doing.

The illusion of free will is that I can select any move; including saying "bugger this, checkers is boring; let's reinvent the rules."See above.
No, I sense that I can select either and that I am absolutely free to make whichever selection I wish.See? It's like my checkers program. You can, but only in the sense that these options are available to you for consideration, or, when you so develop the whim, for selection. But when the time comes, you pick the one that you wish. (And in fact, this in itself isn't atomic--possibly will discuss the relevance later)
In a deterministic world that would be false.Nope. Highlighted is the key to why determinism allows this. So long as your act of volition is a process that is causal, and actually leads to the thing you pick, it's entirely consistent with determinism.
But it's not a sensation of "uncausedness" that's at issue.Yes it is!
It's a sensation of "being subject to my arbitrary will."And determinism doesn't allow this... why? Because you're not part of the causal chain? What are you then, chopped liver? In a deterministic universe, if you exist at all, you can cause.

Things being subject to your will are not excluded from things being subject to causation.
Yes, and at the moment when you hold that hand up before your face, you will (at least, if you are anything like me and hundreds of philosophers who have used this example) sense--rightly or wrongly--that you have complete freedom to go either way.
By freedom here, you mean control--you mean that I sense that I can be the one that makes it happen according to my wishes. That's consistent with determinism.

But you also, and for some odd reason I haven't figured out yet--every incompatibilist does the same thing--simultaneously mean "not controlled by anything other than me", as if the two were absolutely identical things--as if one is like saying "this is a circle" and the other saying "this is round".

But they are not identical, and are contradictory. What you sense is your control. What you do not sense is how you do it in detail.

If, however, the choice you are about to make (let us say "move upwards in 7 seconds time") is utterly predictable--simply term D in a fixed series of cause-effect dominoes A->B->C->...then that feeling of complete, arbitrary freedom is illusory. You think you could have done something else at that point, but in fact you are wrong; only one possible outcome was ever going to occur.

Alright, analogously, I think I could be wrong, or could be right. But if the world is logical, then I'm mistaken in thinking that I could be wrong and could be right.

I'm either wrong, or I'm right. Those are the only two possible options. If it is the case that I'm wrong, then it's not possible that I could be right, because I would necessarily be wrong--that's the only way things could be. If it is the case that I'm right, then it's not possible that I could be wrong, because I would necessarily be right--that's the only way possible it could be.

This is the sense in which you're invoking modality with determinism. I think that I actually can choose A, and that I can choose B, but if determinism is right, you allege, then I must choose a particular option--A. And if that's the case, then it's not possible for me to have chosen B, so I'm actually mistaken in my belief--just as, if I'm wrong about all of this, then it's not possible I could be right, so I'm actually mistaken in my belief that I could be right.

But I posit this is a confusion of application of modality, not an error. I can do either option only in the sense that I don't know which I actually am going to do until the commitment happens, thus culling out all of the calculations (considerations) I have done, some of which I sense, some of which I simply do not sense.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

That they "don't have a particular reason for the choice" is my whole point.
Then why were you arguing with Robin when she said:

No I have never heard of someone saying "I have no idea why I did that, it must have been free will"

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So can somebody describe the sort of underlying order that would allow us to have free will?
No.

Apparently libertarians feel that underlying order is the very thing that must be eliminated in order to have free will.


I contend that there is no coherent definition of freewill.
In the case of libertarian free will, I agree.

~~ Paul

[Yoink]

Then why were you arguing with Robin when she said:
No I have never heard of someone saying "I have no idea why I did that, it must have been free will"

~~ Paul

I don't know how many times I have to repeat this point, but here's yet another go:

Because the person has no question in their mind at all about why their hand moved. They do not say "gee, that's strange! Why did my hand suddenly move? Why, it must have been free will!" This was the absurd implication that Robin was trying to impose upon my position.

What I am saying is that the person attributes the motion of their hand to their decision ("I made up my mind to move my hand upwards, and it moved upwards") but has no idea why they chose upwards rather than downwards.

So the statement (which one, in fact, hears daily--in some form or other) is not "I don't know why this happened, it must have been free will" but rather, "I don't know why I did that--I just decided to for no reason at all."

Do either of these strike you as unusual or forced exchanges?"

"Why did you go for chocolate rather than banana icecream?"
"No reason; I just had to make a decision or I'd have been standing there all day."

"Do you want to meet Wednesday or Thursday evening?"
"Both are equally good to me."
"Well, choose one."
"O.K., Wednesday."
"Why Wednesday"
"I don't know, I just chose the first one that popped into my head."

In neither case is their any bafflement over why the outcome is what it is ("OMG, there's a chocolate icecream in my hand all of a sudden!"). In both cases we know perfectly well how the decision leads to the result. What we have no idea at all about (and what we feel to be completely arbitrary--rightly or wrongly) is how the decision came about--we feel as if there were no determinants at all that prompted us to choose this way rather than that way.

[Yoink]

I can "lack sensation" of things I feel subjectively--even with breathing, where if I control it, I have causal influence over it that I specifically sense, but if I just "let it happen", it "just happens", and I have no sense of the same exact aspect of how I'm breathing. So it's not only not contradictory--it actually happens.

You're not "feeling it subjectively" if you are not conscious of it. It is simply contradictory to say I "feel this subjectively and I lack sensation of it."

Alright, let's put it this way. You see the mirage on the road. You know it's not there. You tell yourself that it's not there. You look at it again, and, sure enough, you still see it--it still seems like a mirage.

It's immutable--you cannot help but to sense it in whatever ways you sense it.

Yep, just as when I hold up my hand, I'm incapable of not feeling that its movements are completely subject to my arbitrary and undetermined control.

But I posit that I have the same sensation you do, and it's a lack of sensation of cause, not a sense of lacking of cause. It's not that I'm looking at it and I merely "know" that it really is caused, but it "looks like" it's not. I'm looking at it, and what I sense about its cause is nothing--it's like the things I sense behind this wall, not the items I sense in this empty cup.

But if the sensation of "uncausedness" is exactly the same as the "lack of sensation of a cause" then why is there any difference at all between me voluntarily moving my hand and me being subjected to an involuntary spasm? In both cases, according to you, I lack the sensation of cause and my hand moves. What distinguishes these cases?

I have an interpretation which my senses are entirely consistent with.

I have an interpretation of the water mirage that my sense-data are entirely consistent with. You're reaching a point where you're just equivocating over the meaning of word "illusion." Of course our sense data must, ultimately, be consistent with any "truthful" and "correct" interpretation of the facts. But "consistent" doesn't mean "non-illusory."

No they aren't. You just don't have a proper interpretation of it.

No YOU'RE a towel!

Why, yes, I am and have been throughout addressing your point, despite the fact that you accuse me of talking to an imaginary person.

No, you eventually got around to addressing it. And quite a lot of the time you're still not addressing it.

But you're begging the question by describing the program this way. The programmer likely didn't program the checkers game to simply "make the best move, and here's what best means".

Yes they did. Not in the simplistic sense of defining all possible moves and listing the best, but they have provided the algorithm for determining the best and defined exactly how many cycles to run before quitting etc. etc. Every single time the same program is presented with the same situation and the same inputs it will decide the same thing. Our capacity for choosing simply does not feel as if it operates that way. We feel that we are capable of making choices that surprise us.

Again, it is a perfectly familiar experience to hear and exchange of this sort:

"Why on earth did you say that?"
"I don't know, I was as surprised as everyone else!"

or

"But you always choose chocolate!"
"I know, and I was going to do it again, but then--and I don't know why--I just decided to go with raspberry."

Such perfectly ordinary and anodyne examples show that we feel as if we are free to make our decisions entirely ad libertum.

The programmer, rather, more than likely, programmed it to select a set of moves to specifically consider, according to some rules. The consideration itself runs through an algorithm, uncommitted as to which particular move (thus, it can play either of them), that searches deeper into the play tree according to resources. This continues until some other part of the algorithm decides that enough is enough (and almost certainly, that part exists in any decent checkers playing program), at which point, the checkers program actually plays what it thinks is the best move.

That's an amazingly tendentious use of the word "thinks."


This is, realistically, how the checkers program actually proceeds. If you note, there are multiple phases:

Pretty much at any phase before the actual commitment to move is actually made, the program holds a number of potential candidates for best move in memory--those are the ones it will explore at the moment.
Before the commitment to the particular move, any move is fair game, but more specifically, the moves under consideration are the current candidates.
Occasionally the candidates themselves will change--if a certain set of branches are exhausted and something interesting, such as a forced opponent win, is discovered, a candidate could be knocked out.
And this seems like exactly what I sense that I'm doing.

That may be true, I'm not in your mind--it is, however, massively unlike any account of normal human decision making I have ever read. It is not, for example, remotely capable of producing the kinds of exchanges I provided above. Nobody to whom making a decision felt like that would ever reply "I don't know" to the question "why did you do that" unless they were lying.


See? It's like my checkers program. You can, but only in the sense that these options are available to you for consideration, or, when you so develop the whim, for selection. But when the time comes, you pick the one that you wish. (And in fact, this in itself isn't atomic--possibly will discuss the relevance later)

You're reading far too much into the word "wish." You're taking it to imply some fully-formed preexisting desire that informs my decision. But take, once again, the example of the hand. I say to you "hold your hand in front of your face and, sometime during the next 10 seconds, move it either up or down." What "wish" are you fulfilling if you move it up? What desire has that movement met? Explain the "decision tree" that you felt yourself run through that determined that "up" was the optimum movement strategy.

Subjectively speaking, it feels as if nothing determined the movement. It feels as if the hand was simply going to stay put unless you arbitrarily made a decision. And when that arbitrary decision is made, the hand responded to your will.

Now, none of that may be true; it may be that your sense of "deciding" was a mere epiphenomenon of a purely deterministic process--a piece of mental theater. But if so, then that is an "illusion" of pure freedom.

Nope. Highlighted is the key to why determinism allows this. So long as your act of volition is a process that is causal, and actually leads to the thing you pick, it's entirely consistent with determinism.

Again, you're confusing me with a person who thinks that the subjective experience of freedom disproves determinism. Remember the mirage? The subjective existence of the mirage is entirely consistent with the road being, in fact, dry. It just gives the illusion of it being wet. I'm not saying that my sensation of freedom is in fact inconsistent with a deterministic universe, I'm saying that if the universe is deterministic then my sensation of freedom is an illusion.

Yes it is!

No it's not! (I can't actually remember what you were referring to here, but it seemed the right thing to reply;))

And determinism doesn't allow this... why? Because you're not part of the causal chain? What are you then, chopped liver? In a deterministic universe, if you exist at all, you can cause.

Again, you're confusing me with the anti-determinist person who lives in your imagination. Nothing I'm describing "disallows" determinism.

Things being subject to your will are not excluded from things being subject to causation.

No, but my will being genuinely arbitrary (i.e., being capable--as the checkers program is not--of coming to variant decisions when presented with identical initial conditions) means that my capacity for decision must not be subject to causation.

By freedom here, you mean control--you mean that I sense that I can be the one that makes it happen according to my wishes. That's consistent with determinism.

Everyone assumes that subsequent to the moment of decision the world operates deterministically. What is in dispute (or, more precisely, what I am claiming we feel to be the case, probably falsely) is whether or not the decision itself is deterministically conditioned.

But you also, and for some odd reason I haven't figured out yet--every incompatibilist does the same thing--simultaneously mean "not controlled by anything other than me", as if the two were absolutely identical things--as if one is like saying "this is a circle" and the other saying "this is round".

But they are not identical, and are contradictory. What you sense is your control. What you do not sense is how you do it in detail.

Of course I don't sense "how I do it in detail." If I did I would probably find something rather like your checkers program decision-tree. But that's entirely my point: we have an illusion that we can make decisions without any processing of any kind, without any chain of causes leading up to that moment. When I tell you "hold your hand in front of your face and some time in the next 10 seconds, move it up or move it down" you feel as if the next 10 seconds is utterly at your disposal. You feel as if your hand movement could come at any time and could be in either direction. And, more importantly, you feel that it hinges on nothing except the arbitrary power of your will to force a moment of decision. There's no "decision tree" (because there's no advantage in any of the decisions you might make), there's no "wishing" or "calculating" of any kind. There's just a blank space of time during which you will apparently inaugurate a new causal sequence ab initio.

Now if someone comes along afterwards with a super-duper-brain scan and says "lookie here, see these neurons firing here, and this sub-routine here, and see this preformed decision structure here; it was obvious as soon as the conditions were put to you that you would move your hand in 5.4 seconds and that you would move it down" you will, of course, be capable of being persuaded that this is, in fact, the way your brain works. But you will also certainly feel that the way you had felt that it worked was--and continues to be--illusory.

Alright, analogously, I think I could be wrong, or could be right. But if the world is logical, then I'm mistaken in thinking that I could be wrong and could be right.

I'm either wrong, or I'm right. Those are the only two possible options. If it is the case that I'm wrong, then it's not possible that I could be right, because I would necessarily be wrong--that's the only way things could be. If it is the case that I'm right, then it's not possible that I could be wrong, because I would necessarily be right--that's the only way possible it could be.

This is the sense in which you're invoking modality with determinism. I think that I actually can choose A, and that I can choose B, but if determinism is right, you allege, then I must choose a particular option--A. And if that's the case, then it's not possible for me to have chosen B, so I'm actually mistaken in my belief--just as, if I'm wrong about all of this, then it's not possible I could be right, so I'm actually mistaken in my belief that I could be right.

But I posit this is a confusion of application of modality, not an error. I can do either option only in the sense that I don't know which I actually am going to do until the commitment happens, thus culling out all of the calculations (considerations) I have done, some of which I sense, some of which I simply do not sense.

But this kind of modality simply does not adequately describe my subjective feeling of "freedom." I feel that in identical circumstances I would be capable of making different decisions. I feel that if the universe were run over again and arrived at the point at which my hand moved up, it's possible that this time I would move it down. That's simply not adequately described by your "well of course it can decide either up or down in the abstract, it's just that in this particular instance it will go down." A traffic light can go either red, green or yellow, but I know that after it has been red it can only go green. My arbitrary power of decision simply does not feel like that, nor would that be what any of us mean by "free to choose." We do not think of a balloon that is blowing about outside as being "free to choose where it goes" despite the fact that it is "free" to move in all directions.

The fact that the balloon would strike almost nobody as a good model of free will in action surely shows that this is not what free will feels like?

Now, again, that may be an illusion. We may be able to have the illusion explained to us. We may be able to accept it's illusory power and even to simply discount it--just as we learn to recognize mirages on a hot day on a country road, and have no sense of surprise at the way that they vanish on our approach, or the fact that the road isn't wet when we reach the spot where we "saw" a pond. But our ability to "see through" the illusion doesn't mean that the illusion never occurred, or even that it is no longer occurring.

[yy2bggggs]

I'm going to turn some examples I mentioned earlier into technical terms for this discussion:

Empty Cup is a situation in which you have a positive sense of lack. This is analogous to looking at a cup, and, seeing no objects within it, formulating the percept (and damned the judgment) that there is nothing in the cup.

Solid Wall is a situation in which you do not sense something beyond, behind, in addition to, etc, some basic level. This is analogous to looking at a solid wall within a room, and simply not seeing behind the wall.

Now here's the thing. What I'm arguing is that determinism is consistent with what we feel we do. Now it is indeed the case that most people are incompatibilists about free will, and I generally hate the term itself anyway. But I'm putting forth the premise that the type of free will that doesn't exist, that we don't have, is not what we have an illusion of, but rather, is based on a misjudgment.

In the lingo I'm introducing, then, my claim is entirely equivalent to the claim that there exists no Empty Cup sensations of indeterministic free will--that all of the claims about this kind of free will that we could possibly claim to have an illusion of are Solid Wall with regards to determinism.

If my claim is true, you get to the conclusion of indeterminism by formulating a theory of what goes on behind the Solid Wall--it would not actually be a percept, but a theory. And if the theory goes that the fact that you see nothing behind the Solid Wall supports that there is nothing behind the Solid Wall, then it would be a mistaken theory.

If my claim is false, in the straightforward way, this would imply that you actually do sense--i.e., you have an actual percept--that indeterminism is going on, which would imply Empty Cup. Other ways I can be false (e.g., that we don't perceive things at all... all of those sorts of weird things) I'm going to assume we're not taking seriously.

Subjectively speaking, it feels as if nothing determined the movement.
That is an Empty Cup claim. But nothing you say convinces me that you are seeing an Empty Cup:
Again, it is a perfectly familiar experience to hear and exchange of this sort:

"Why on earth did you say that?"
"I don't know, I was as surprised as everyone else!"
These are Solid Wall claims.
"But you always choose chocolate!"
"I know, and I was going to do it again, but then--and I don't know why--I just decided to go with raspberry."
These are also Solid Wall claims.

Now, before continuing, there is an idiom that goes like this, which is very typical:
"But you always choose chocolate, so why raspberry this time?"
"Yeah, and I was going to choose chocolate again, but then, well, no reason. I simply decided to go with raspberry this time."
This idiom, taken literally, would be an Empty Cup claim. The problem is, it's simply used as an idiom (and could even be used by the same person giving the above account--if simply prompted this way) that means there's no really good or important reason, and it doesn't really mean there's no reason.

And finally, there is this critical concession:
Of course I don't sense "how I do it in detail."
...which is conceding a Solid Wall case. So, as mentioned, you need an Empty Cup, but you're giving me Solid Wall. That rules out sensation giving you the conclusion and leaves only judgment, which was my point all along.

Now, you expound on this concession by saying this:
If I did I would probably find something rather like your checkers program decision-tree.
...which only strengthens my allegations that you're using a judgment of what's behind a Solid Wall, not an Empty Wall sensation, to justify that your sensations suggest indeterminism. If there are things that you lack which, if given, you would conclude are like the checkers program decision-tree, then isn't it an inescapable conclusion that the thing you have lacking these is consistent with the checkers program? Doesn't this ipso facto lead to compatibilism?

If you really did sense that incompatibilism is the case, then why are you giving me Solid Wall justifications versus the required Empty Cup justifications?

Now then... onto correct some other things about what I didn't say, and to spill a few more beans:
But if the sensation of "uncausedness" is exactly the same as the "lack of sensation of a cause" then why is there any difference at all between me voluntarily moving my hand and me being subjected to an involuntary spasm? In both cases, according to you, I lack the sensation of cause and my hand moves. What distinguishes these cases?
I didn't claim that the sense of uncausedness is exactly the same as the lack of sensation of cause. My claim was that given a Solid Wall, the things that you do not sense are behind the wall are consistent with anything at all being behind the wall.
[Checkers programmers didn't program it to make the best move] Yes they did.
No they didn't...
Not in the simplistic sense of defining all possible moves and listing the best,
...then they didn't! Do you have anything more than a simplistic sense of your will? If not, you're comparing apples to oranges. That you happen to be able to see all of the details in the checkers program--which is part of the point of the analogy--is neither here nor there. It might have been if you put up a solid Empty Cup case, but you didn't--you put up, and conceded to, a Solid Wall case, which means that in order to fairly compare to checkers, we have to look at it from the same lacking information point of view that your sensations actually give you--any conclusions you reach from a fuller consideration are certainly not coming from your senses.
but they have provided the algorithm for determining the best and defined exactly how many cycles to run before quitting etc. etc.
Actually, no. They didn't necessarily define exactly how many cycles. A common constraint would be to run against a clock--in which case, the actual runtime environment (how fast is your machine? What else is it doing? Oh, and do you have limited resources for it to use that it has to wait on?) would partially determine how long it runs.
Every single time the same program is presented with the same situation and the same inputs it will decide the same thing.Depends on what you mean by same. If it times out with a clock, it'd be quite possible to be different for every equivalent board position.

And given that we're constantly bombarded with information we may or may not critically use for our choices, and that we have memories, and changing mental states in general (emotions, etc), it's quite a fair thing to add this concession to make the comparison more equivalent.
Our capacity for choosing simply does not feel as if it operates that way.And rightly so. Another apples to oranges thing--we have memories and changing mental states. So if we're put into the same checkers game twice, we don't have to play the same way--but since our memories and states are changing, that's consistent with determinism too. (Reminder: "What we feel" consistent with determinism--this is a compatibilism claim).
We feel that we are capable of making choices that surprise us.
Sure, because it's a Solid Wall.
You're reading far too much into the word "wish." You're taking it to imply some fully-formed preexisting desire that informs my decision.Not necessarily. The desire could come about on the fly, being created by whatever things create those desires beyond the Solid Wall, which, as far as I sense, may or may not be deterministic--I don't know, because it's behind the Solid Wall.
Subjectively speaking, it feels as if nothing determined the movement.No it doesn't. It feels as if we determined the movement, not nothing determined it. And how we did it comes from somewhere that may be on either side of a Solid Wall, but certainly doesn't arise from an Empty Cup.
Now, none of that may be true; it may be that your sense of "deciding" was a mere epiphenomenon of a purely deterministic process--a piece of mental theater. But if so, then that is an "illusion" of pure freedom.
The only part of this "illusion" that we actually sense is control (see below). The uncausedness is theory--what really happens is that we sense some parts, and don't sense other parts, of what cause us to select certain plans--i.e., it comes from things on either side of a Solid Wall.

There's no epiphenomenon--there are just sensations (again, see below).
It's a sensation of "being subject to my arbitrary will."And determinism doesn't allow this... why? Because you're not part of the causal chain? What are you then, chopped liver? In a deterministic universe, if you exist at all, you can cause.Again, you're confusing me with the anti-determinist person who lives in your imagination. Nothing I'm describing "disallows" determinism.
Here we go again.
Let "C" be the statement: "I sense that things are subject to my arbitrary will". (Mind you, "arbitrary" is still ambiguous, but you insist on using it)
Let "D" be the statement: "Determinism is false".
Questioning why D doesn't allow for C is essentially questioning, not your stance of anti-determinism which you don't hold, but your stance of incompatibilism which you do hold. Everything above, right down to the chopped livers, is about your incompatibilism.
I feel that in identical circumstances I would be capable of making different decisions.It's critical that you feel this out--is this the you that you are now being somehow moved back in time to that point, or the you that you were?
I feel that if the universe were run over again and arrived at the point at which my hand moved up, it's possible that this time I would move it down.Do you feel that it is impossible that the same you that you were at that point in time would always move it up?
We do not think of a balloon that is blowing about outside as being "free to choose where it goes" despite the fact that it is "free" to move in all directions.

The fact that the balloon would strike almost nobody as a good model of free will in action surely shows that this is not what free will feels like?
But a balloon is not an agency. We are.

By that, I mean that we're a planning complex, into which pours information at certain levels which is shared among multiple modules, which also feed back some information at certain levels into the complex. There are three major portions, which should sound very familiar in terms of computing--though they're a bit distorted in the neural sense: inputs, processing, and outputs.

The distortion happens because, basically, the planning complex is not our entire brain, yet it's also not a single specific area of the brain. It is, rather, an interconnected network of information sharing. But it is a set of neurons, exactly like the sets of neurons standing as "gateways" to our "classic senses", and as such, it can be analyzed into higher levels in itself in the same fashion that the sensory inputs are. And it is--but, basically, this means that a lot of the "processing" is sort of the same thing as "inputs" from a neural perspective. The "outputs" are also somewhat distored in the reverse fashion--the planning complex basically works with certain levels of information, but more details are needed to carry out particular tasks, so really, the "outputs" aren't something like "move this muscle this way" necessarily, but rather, "spawn off this module to go do this sort of thing". And finally, the "outputs" aren't drastically different neurologically from the "analyzing" of the "primary inputs" leading into the complex--their key difference is that they actually cause these wonderful complex indirect sensations--body movements--which we categorize as special.

So, essentially, the planning complex itself, which is sort of a "shared side" of multiple modules communicating with each other, is a collection of sensations, both internal, and external. In terms of the will, what happens is that we formulate goals--these goals are at high levels, and are generally not so much things to do as they are things to accomplish. The goals can generally be broken down into subgoals, and these can be broken down, etc, until they become individual acts, but in terms of the complex per se, only certain levels of this are shared among all of the modules--the rest are the boring ugly details we need not bother with. However, the high level goals are meant to be accomplished by the lower level goals, and in order to actually carry out the planning process successfully, you need to know what these things do. This knowledge came to you by experience, and/or inheritance, and I won't try to debate how much of either.

Suffice it to say, though, that at the low level points, you have things you can do, you have expectations of what will happen if you do certain kinds of things, and you have representations of the kinds of things to do to accomplish those expectations. These "atoms" of behavior (by "atom", I only mean that they are fundamental to the planning complex per se) are necessary in a representational sense to build plans in the first place, else nothing would work at all. But going to the higher levels, you can model the results of entire plans to figure out if they, in themselves, carry out even higher level goals.

Now then, all of this is required for agency--you need to be a planning complex. A balloon isn't even close, neither is the die that Cynic mentioned earlier. And you need a planning complex to decide, and commit to, an actual plan, in order to have will.

But given this, a plan which the planning complex is considering as a possible action is something that the planning complex should sense that it can do, subject to its actually deciding to actually do it--something that, for us, sometimes comes from within this Solid Wall, and sometimes without. This is what we, as agencies, sense--that we can do something if we choose to--that the planning complex can commit to a plan, and with a reasonable level of success, actually carry out that plan to accomplish a goal that it separately represented. And it can be plan A--eat the chocolate--or, it can be plan B--eat the raspberry. In some cases it can be both and neither as well, and in other cases it's mutually exclusive--nominally speaking, the planning complex, not being mistaken about the logical possibilities, would correctly assess which, if it were relevant, if it so desired, if it's useful, and possibly incorporate that into the plans. But whatever things this planning complex thinks of doing, it's going to be very difficult to actually do if the planning complex isn't, pun intended, "single minded" about it. So there's a particular "mode" of action whereby the planning complex actually commits to carry out a particular plan, for some sort of reason, which we call a decision and/or act of volition (depending on where you want to draw the line).

The sense of control happens during the carrying out of the plan we committed to--it's a feedback of how well our expectations of the results of the plan correspond to what we sense happens as we carry it out. If those two correlate, which they usually do, we feel we have control. If they don't, we feel we lack control (e.g., circulation cut off too badly, and the arm just doesn't move; or, the involuntary spasm doesn't correlate to normal expectations).

[dlorde]

The sense of control happens during the carrying out of the plan we committed to--it's a feedback of how well our expectations of the results of the plan correspond to what we sense happens as we carry it out. If those two correlate, which they usually do, we feel we have control. If they don't, we feel we lack control (e.g., circulation cut off too badly, and the arm just doesn't move; or, the involuntary spasm doesn't correlate to normal expectations).
Yes.

[Robin]

I don't know how many times I have to repeat this point, but here's yet another go:

Because the person has no question in their mind at all about why their hand moved. They do not say "gee, that's strange! Why did my hand suddenly move? Why, it must have been free will!" This was the absurd implication that Robin was trying to impose upon my position.
I made no such implication - as well you know.

I merely repeated your own characterisation of the event, using your own owrds, that the person reported having no idea of why the hand went up, rather than some other direction.

I don't know how many time I have to repeat that!

[yy2bggggs]

Errata in my previous post:
"D" is meant to be the statement "determinism is true".
I said "Empty Wall" once where I meant "Empty Cup".
And regarding the "no epiphenomenon", a clarification--this claim is intended to be interpreted in the specific weak sense in regards to the subject of control/will (any other sense I merely make no claims about, though I reserve the right to raise an eyebrow).