Free Will

[Question everything]

here is my question, could free will exist, if there is an all knowing, all powerful God (an idea rejected by most of you) there is no such thing as free will. If you don't believe in the Soul, then isn't will simply nature and nurture? simply hormones and complex impluse? (sorry if there is already a thread on this)

[PRC-UTE]

nuerologists research has implied there is no free will, that it's a 'necessary illusion'. I can find the link later.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Neurological research cannot establish this; such 'conclusions' can only be based on confused ideas (which such neurologists share with most traditionally-minded theorists).

As to what those confused ideas are, see the recent thread on this:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=62845

And since the word 'god' is meaningless, it is impossible to assess QE's claim that 'he' might or might not have something/nothing to do with all this -- since any sentence (other than trivial ones) that contain this word will be meaningless too.

[Question everything]

And since the word 'god' is meaningless, it is impossible to assess QE's claim that 'he' might or might not have something/nothing to do with all this -- since any sentence (other than trivial ones) that contain this word will be meaningless too.

that was just to point out, whether or not you believe in the soul, free will does not seem to exist.

[Kropotkin Has a Posse]

I certainly hope we have free will. I've done things that required immense personal conflict and I nearly didn't do them, yet I did. (Wait did I just support or refute my agruement?)

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Radio:


I certainly hope we have free will.

It neither makes sense to assert (or hope) that we have free will than it does to deny it: both would be empty strings of words, devoid of sense.

More details in the thread I linked to.

[ifeelyou]

There is no "free will" in a unconditional and absolute sense. Each of us operates and makes decisions based on a complex set of options that culture(s) provide(s).

[bretty]

What's the 'will'?

In what context are you using the word 'free'?

[bretty]

I challenge someone to answer my questions, only then will I understand vaguely your initial question. And if you can't answer my questions, you certainly can't answer the question "do we have free will?".

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I'm going to give it a shot Bretty, doomed as I am to get it all wrong. :)

Will is just the capacity to make decisions, to my mind.

Free in this context just means the capacity to make decisions without limitation.

Excepting that which isn't possible by physical laws, of course.

How's that?

-Alex

[bretty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 05:30 pm
I'm going to give it a shot Bretty, doomed as I am to get it all wrong. :)

Will is just the capacity to make decisions, to my mind.

Free in this context just means the capacity to make decisions without limitation.

Excepting that which isn't possible by physical laws, of course.

How's that?

-Alex
I'll deal with 'free' first off.

So your definition is the capacity to make decisions without limitation, except those which are not possible by physical laws.

I'm not really sure what you mean by this, because there are physical limitations in the universe. Your basically saying you couldn't decide your going to fly without a plane over a cliff. You could decide it, you'd fail but you can decide that. So making decisions isn't the best description of what you call 'free'.

Second point, 'will' is addressed in Philosophical Investigations by this:

"615. "Willing, if it is not to be a sort of wishing, must be the action itself. It cannot be allowed to stop anywhere short of the action." If it is the action, then it is so in the ordinary sense of the word; so it is speaking, writing, walking, lifting a thing, imagining something. But it is also trying, attempting, making an effort, - to speak, to write, to list a thing, to imagine something etc." (Wittgenstein 160)

[Eleutherios]

Free will is an incoherent concept.

The universe, as far as we can tell, consists of spacetime through which matter and energy move according to the laws of physics. There really isn't any way to get around that. All the atoms in your brain are moving according to strict mathematically defined trajectories, and the only thing keeping it from being a completely predictable deterministic system is quantum mechanics.

According to quantum mechanics, there are, at the microscopic level, events which occur at random according to probability waves. We cannot tell exactly when a radioactive particle will decay, for instance, but we can measure the probability that it will decay in any given length of time. So the universe isn't exactly deterministic, but what does that mean for free will?

Exactly what you are going to eat for dinner on July 18 is based on two things: the current arrangement of matter and energy in the universe, and the random quantum events that will occur between now and then. It is conceivable that these random quantum events could affect your choice of dinner that day. There are random number generators hooked up to Geiger counters (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hotbits/) that rely on quantum uncertainty, and you could use such a random number generator to choose between macaroni and cheese and spaghetti, and your decision would not be predictable beforehand.

However, a randomly selected choice is not what most people think of when they think of free will. When it is said that you are using your "free will" to decide to eat spaghetti instead of macaroni and cheese, that doesn't mean that your brain did the equivalent of flipping a coin. So what does it mean?

Absolutely nothing. If your action was not based upon the deterministic laws of macroscopic physics, nor on the random quantum events of the microscopic world, what the hell was it based on? Anything? What caused one decision to be preferred to another? How did the particles in our physical universe come to be influenced by something other than these two things? It's impossible.

Your decisions are based upon a number of things: the genetically determined structure of your brain, what you have learned in the past, what drugs if any you are under the influence of, what injuries if any have occurred to your brain, and what sensory information is currently being input into your brain. If we could find a way to predict when the seemingly random quantum events occur, and we knew the position and velocity of every particle in the observable universe, we could in principle predict exactly what you will do for the rest of your life and what will happen throughout the entire universe for the rest of eternity.

You still have the capacity to make choices, though, even though free will is an incoherent concept. It's just that whatever you ultimately choose to do is going to be based on your brain structure, your experience and memory, the sensory stimuli your brain receives, and whatever chemicals you decide to introduce into your brain. The meat computer in your skull will mull over its options and do an exceedingly complex calculation to make its best guess as to what decisions will be most conducive to your happiness. It will do so according to its unique configuration and the unique circumstances of the situation, and maybe a little random quantum fluctuation thrown in for good measure.

Making a choice essentially amounts to using your brain to compute the decision most likely to be conducive to your happiness based upon the information you know. What more could anybody possibly want?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I'm not really sure what you mean by this, because there are physical limitations in the universe. Your basically saying you couldn't decide your going to fly without a plane over a cliff. You could decide it, you'd fail but you can decide that. So making decisions isn't the best description of what you call 'free'.

Yeah, so completely free will isn't possible. It doesn't mean that the whole concept is just nonsensical. It's a hypothetical, really. In reality we can only get a bastardised form of free will, because we have lots of physical constraints in the universe. :)

I think I was actually in agreement with good old Ludwig there, as well. If you make a positive decision, it is necessarily a decision to take a certain course of action, an attempt. Whether it's succesful or not is irrelevant, what matters is that you willed it to happen.

-Alex

[bretty]

The term 'free will' is nonsensical though. That is my point.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Yes, Bretty. I disagree:


Yeah, so completely free will isn't possible. It doesn't mean that the whole concept is just nonsensical. It's a hypothetical, really. In reality we can only get a bastardised form of free will, because we have lots of physical constraints in the universe.

So erm, how about the good old response-response style of discussion?

-Alex

[bretty]

I didn't say the concept I said the term free will was nonsensical.

The point I'm also trying to make is, we don't even have a definition yet of 'free will' that hasn't been shown to be infallible against context.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Which words are infallible, then? And if you understand the concept, you must understand the term, surely? Has somebody drawn you a picture of free will? :unsure:

-Alex

[Tommy-K]

I started a thread on free will ages ago and many more people have done in the past.

Free will does not and probably will not ever exist. Every decision you make is based on some kind of pressure, be it going to college because other people do or because your parents would like you to or whatever.

[Ezan]

Originally posted by Question [email protected] 22, 2007 02:03 am
here is my question, could free will exist, if there is an all knowing, all powerful God (an idea rejected by most of you) there is no such thing as free will. If you don't believe in the Soul, then isn't will simply nature and nurture? simply hormones and complex impluse? (sorry if there is already a thread on this) In my view i believe human beings have free will and sometimes they don't have free will. To be free in my view is to have no internal or external forces controlling your choice.

I go college every day, if i stopped going my parents would disapprove and throw a fit over it, also i would understand that by giving up my A levels i would be reducing my chances of landing myself a good job. This would be the start of my many problems with this decision and thus i decide to carry on going to college.

I may of made the final decision, but i had considered external influences (my parents) and thus my decision was influenced and i had no true free will.

However...

While i read this now, if i stopped reading and decided to close the window, i would be doing exactly what i want. No one told me to do it, no one said i should not do it, there are no negative consequences in doing so. So in this case my decision was free of any influences. Isn't that free will?

[Djehuti]

Originally posted by Question [email protected] 22, 2007 03:03 am
here is my question, could free will exist, if there is an all knowing, all powerful God (an idea rejected by most of you) there is no such thing as free will. If you don't believe in the Soul, then isn't will simply nature and nurture? simply hormones and complex impluse? (sorry if there is already a thread on this)
I would say that free will is an religious idea, we have free will because god said so. But in reality, there can't really be anything such as a free will. If one ask himself what determines the will, one must sooner or later come to the conclusion that it is some or other external factor behind it. I can't see how it can be any different. There are no autonomous forces, the will does not exist in it self. Our will is the product of a lot of different things (and we can't fully understand how it functions, but we can see tendencies), but it is still a product.

[bretty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 07:42 am
Which words are infallible, then? And if you understand the concept, you must understand the term, surely? Has somebody drawn you a picture of free will? :unsure:

-Alex
umm both are infallible against context.

I understand the concept you provide me but it doesn't have any relation to reality.

What do you mean picture?

[BurnTheOliveTree]

If you understand it, then it isn't nonsensical. If you think it doesn't affect reality, then it does not exist.

Which is exactly my point. :lol:

-Alex

[apathy maybe]

I personally think free will is bunk. It is a pointless discussion with no possible answer. In this thread I outlined my thoughts on the matter http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=55047

These threads also have some discussion,
http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=50132
http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=55548
http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=57667

[bretty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 07:52 am
If you understand it, then it isn't nonsensical. If you think it doesn't affect reality, then it does not exist.

Which is exactly my point. :lol:

-Alex
My point is that nobody can ask the question, do we have free will? unless they give a proper definition of the term free will. Then you can examine the sentence and tell if its true or false.

[apathy maybe]

I think that even if you do give a clear definition of what is meant by "free will", you will fail to convince believers that it does not exist (for how could it?). Why bother discussing something that does not affect your life or mine in any way shape or form?

One thing that disappointed me about my university philosophy was the focus on stupid questions such as the existence of free will. With all those compatiablists redefining the term to mean nothing at all and so on.

Fuck free will, we don't have it, but it doesn't matter anyway because we appear to have it, and that is all that matters.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

My point is that nobody can ask the question, do we have free will? unless they give a proper definition of the term free will. Then you can examine the sentence and tell if its true or false.

But you understand what I mean when I say free will, Bretty. If what you're saying was genuinely true, you would, genuinely, have no idea what I meant.

-Alex

[Axel1917]

People are limited by the conditions in which they live, so there is no free will. It is best to recognize necessity and understand how the world works to put ourselves in a more favorable condition to change it.

[bretty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 07:31 am

My point is that nobody can ask the question, do we have free will? unless they give a proper definition of the term free will. Then you can examine the sentence and tell if its true or false.

But you understand what I mean when I say free will, Bretty. If what you're saying was genuinely true, you would, genuinely, have no idea what I meant.

-Alex
No, my initial point is that you already tried to give me a definition of free will that does not reflect reality. So I said that I understand what you're trying to say by your definition but it's an impossible state of affairs.

So therefore we still have no definition of free will that satisfies reality.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Just because something is impossible doesn't make it gibberish. Travelling faster than the speed of light is impossible, but it's still a coherent concept.

Free will is just like going faster than the speed of light. We know exactly what it means to say that, but it isn't possible, or "doesn't reflect reality" if you will.

-Alex

[bretty]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 06:38 pm
Just because something is impossible doesn't make it gibberish. Travelling faster than the speed of light is impossible, but it's still a coherent concept.

Free will is just like going faster than the speed of light. We know exactly what it means to say that, but it isn't possible, or "doesn't reflect reality" if you will.

-Alex
Travelling faster then the speed of light is a coherent scientific concept.

Free will is not a scientific concept because it's essentially a misuse of our language. We can't prove free will exists or does not exist because we can't even define and conceptualize it concretely.

[gilhyle]

I think Djehuti got it right: The concept of free will comes from the theology of Christianity and was emphasised particularly by Augustine. It is not a concept of absolute freedom, but rather of freedom from direction by the will of God, providence, fate.

Nor is it just a concept of willing, since it includes akrasia - weakness of will - as something of which we are capable. It is, in other words, a concept of moral responsibility.

It is not unlike the concept of legal culpability which exists in capitalist criminal law - usually using the test of having the capacity to know you were breaking the State's law (often shortened inaccurately to the idea that you can distinguish between right and wrong).

I have no particular problem with the quote from Wittgenstein. I do have a problem with the idea that to debate free will is meaningless. Simply on the evidence : the concept of free will is widely used in a generally consistent way by a wide variety of users, with only a normal level of incoherence around the edges about its correct and incorrect use. If other concepts which suffer from similar levels of marginal incoherence were all rejected we would find language impossibly constrained - not least the concept of meaninglessness itself !

To debate free will is certainly problematic, but not meaningless. To debate free will as a Marxist is to engage with an intellectual tradition and to reject its key ideas - for a Marxist does reject the idea that free will is the key political concept which it is taken to be in the classical liberal tradition. It does not reject it as Spinoza does as an illusion. That is too simplistic and mechanical. But rather Marxism reject it as a substantive political goal worthy of support and rejects it as a substantive definition of the essence of what it is to be human.

But that is not to deny the issue of freedom of the will as a substantive political issue.

The basis for accepting that it involves real issues is recognising that the concept of a will is not at all incoherent. To take an example, a long distance runner battles constantly with his/her mind to keep the will focused on the goal, ignore the pain and to resist the temptation just to stop, to rest. It is not incoherent for me to portray this experience and any reader of this who has tried a bit of running knows well the mental battle that the will fights.

Nor is this a computational conception. No serious model of human decision making can afford to ignore the role of emotions and various other ways for short circuiting the otherwise impossible process of calculating self-interest. The concept of the will as an a-rational act of the mind is one closely bound up with the the capacity of the mind for emotional cathexis.

Once we recognise the existence of a will we can differentiate between a will which is more or less constrained, more or less coerced. Unless we can make this distinction we will be unable to differentiate many forms of political oppression.

Equally, we can recognise the voluntary submission to a discipline, a collective discipline or collective will. We can recognise the process of development that individuals (and social groups) go through of gaining certain powers by loosing certain options. I wont go into this in more detail but it is also a politically important concept.

Putting these together, we cannot define a communist society except as either a state of substantive freedom of the will or optimal enrichment. Personally, I prefer the latter concept of a communist society, but many prefer the former. If someone dscribes an ideal communist society as one in which all the substantive constraints on the will are those positive constraints arising from within the nature of the person....I wouldn't particularly object, unless I was being particularly bloody minded and insisting on going on to define the conditions of that outcome in terms of wealth.....but that is another debate.

[VeratheFastest]

Free will is the ability to make choices based entirely on what you believe is best for the moment/yourself/others. It also implies that you are fallible and can make mistakes, but you can correct some of those as well. You can change your mind.
That's the traditional Christian stance I have been raised on in any case.

[beneath the wheel]

i believe that we will never know the answer to this until we are able to see into the future, and i mean actualy see into the true, unchangible future. only then will we be able to tell if our lives are actualy on some grid that decides what we will do, and all that humans are is an od pattern of elements bonding with other elements.

but personaly i still like having the illusion of free will, because after all, life is only that which we percieve through out senses.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Gil, once again you make some excellent points, but spoil it all with a few unwarranted metaphysical conclusions.

Your example of the runner, for instance: the runner does not focus on her will (which is not a separate part of her), but on the race. To do otherwise would be a distraction.

You might have misdescribed what you meant to say, however, and perhaps intended: "She focuses her will on the race"; but even so, what does that add to "She focuses on the race"?

And I am sure you know that determinism has just as shady a past as the doctrine of the 'freedom of the will'. Both are Christian notions.

-------------------------------------------------------

Other comrades in this debate have ignored the debunking exercise found here:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=62845

The terms you are using make no sense at all, and depend on a traditional view of philosophial speculation.

[syndicat]

gilhyle:
I think Djehuti got it right: The concept of free will comes from the theology of Christianity and was emphasised particularly by Augustine. It is not a concept of absolute freedom, but rather of freedom from direction by the will of God, providence, fate.

Yes, the concept of "free will" derives from Augustine's "theodicy". Theodicy is the attempt to reconcile the depravity and oppression and pain in the world with the Christian idea of an all-powerful and loving god. If god is omnipotent and omniscient, and creator of everything, then all that transpires is within the power of this god, and this god knows what will transpire and yet allows these things to happen even tho it was within its power, according to the Christian god concept, to prevent them.

But "free will" on this conception is not just a notion about the relative presence or absence of constraint or coercion. It has to be a metaphysical notion. That's because humans are physical organisms whose physical being and activity is explainable in terms of ultimate physical "laws" or tendencies together with earlier physical conditions.

There is a very different, more social, concept of being "free" that is more relevant to us. When there are struggles against oppression, we call these "freedom struggles".

As Marx pointed out, humans have, as an inherently human capacity, the ability to envision courses of action in advance, and to plan these out, and through communication also to coordinate cooperation in actions that affect many, and to carry out our actions to achieve our own ends, ends that we have decided on. Marx discusses this especially in his discussion of the labor process and the concept of "alienated labor" but it applies more generally to society and human action.

This capacity to decide on our own ends, plan out courses of action and then carry them out under our own control is the capacity for self-management. This is why the class system is essentially a trampling of our human capacity for, and need for, self-management.

Some people say that self-management or self-determination is a "positive" understanding of what freedom is, as opposed to the bourgeois liberal notion of "freedom" as a mere absence of legal constraints or prohibitions. Thus even if workers are forced to put themselves at the disposal of tyrannical management regimes, they are "free" because they can "choose" to work for some other tyrant...or starve. Freedom is reduced to the freedom of "exit", the freedom to quit, not substantive power. Similarly the "freedom" of people as consumers is also the freedom of "exit"...you can buy from this other firm.

But freedom as self-determination, as control over your fate, does not require the absence of causes of your action, as the notion of "free will" seems to. There could be an explanation in principle of why you do what you do, and it could still be "free" in the sense that is an action that you do in a context where you are able to be self-determining, self-managing your life, your work.


The basis for accepting that it involves real issues is recognising that the concept of a will is not at all incoherent. To take an example, a long distance runner battles constantly with his/her mind to keep the will focused on the goal, ignore the pain and to resist the temptation just to stop, to rest. It is not incoherent for me to portray this experience and any reader of this who has tried a bit of running knows well the mental battle that the will fights.

Right. but the notion of "will" you're using here isn't the same as the ideological concept of "free will". when someone actually tries to do something, that is what they are willing. For example, a person who has had their arm amputated, might still try to move it. What is their "trying"? It's not the action of moving the arm since that can't happen without an arm.

To continue the analogy i made earlier with production, Marx said that the artisan raises in his or her consciousness the design of the product before making it in physical reality. in the example you discuss, the runner raises in his or her consciousness the goal, crossing that finish line, obtaining a good running time, etc. And he/she keeps focused on this as a way of sustaining effort.

[Hegemonicretribution]

As Rosa has said both determinism and free-will have less than favourable histories; and in my experience the whole debate surrounding these issues, is for the most part, completely futile.

If all that can be considered to exist is material, then should it not follow (assuming a deterministic stance) that at some stage there is a lowest level of existence? If indeed there are "laws of nature" that bind us, should there not bea determined reality at the lowest level also (especially so?)

Of course this has been suggested, but at this point the debate does seem to be heading in the direction of an infinite regress; or pending (eventually) a smallest level of matter, a long way off.

Of course our understanding of science does require us to take a deterministic stance, and then again we are confined to the illussion of free will in our day to day dealings with the world around us.

My personal stance here would be to concern myself with more pressing matters; as far as I am concerned I choose and and condemned to do so. When a decision needs to be made I will make it. Furthermore, shit happens.

As for a big, tidy metaphysical explanation or insight...well I don't think that I (or perhaps anyone) can provide one if indeed such an idea is possible.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

I still fail to see what alternative there is. Either we choose or we don't.

-Alex

[syndicat]

Even assuming that some physical, causal determinism is true, at, say, the micro-physical level, that doesn't mean you are "forced" to do something. Being "forced" to do something is defined by a social context. If a person puts a gun to your head and says "your money or your life?", we'd say you're "forced" to had over the money. That's because this person has set things up so that if you don't go along, there a big likelihood of something really bad happening to you, i.e. being shot.

Now we'd say an action is "free" to the extent it flows from your own beliefs and desires, is an expression of your own self-determination, your own self-management of your life. If, on the other hand, constraining social structures make your life the plaything of another group, as happens with the working class under class society, this is oppression and alienation, which is the opposite of "freedom." But whether you are oppresed or free in the sense just explained, both situations would be consistent with a micro-level physical causal determinism.

I don't know if such a determinism exists, but whether it does or not is completely irrelevant to "freedom" in the ordinary sense, and the way that we're interested in it. That's because, if we suppose you're "free" in the sense of self-determining, this just means your life flows out of your own purposes, your own plans, you own desires and thoughts, in cooperation with other people in your society. But this is compatible with the existence of some micro-level physical causal determinism. That's because "determinism" in that sense merely means that events emerge out of previous events in ways that would be explicable in terms of the structures and conditions in which they occur.

[luxemburg89]

Free will is the ability to make choices based entirely on what you believe is best for the moment/yourself/others. It also implies that you are fallible and can make mistakes, but you can correct some of those as well. You can change your mind.
That's the traditional Christian stance I have been raised on in any case.

So free will is not being free of mental and physical oppression? I don't think your christian stance will hold much ground here.

[la-troy]

Our decisions are heavily impacted by our environment but i don't believe in determinism saying that our environment makes the decision for us. As for if free will exists, if you take free will to mean making a decision without the influence of outside forces no there is no such thing. If you take it to mean making a decision after evaluating your environment, then yes there is free will. Adding this to the mix, is there any such thing as someones own opinion?

[Oedipus Complex]

If you take it to mean making a decision after evaluating your environment, then yes there is free will.

Who's to say that when one observes their own environment they are not influenced mainly by internal conflicts, internal desires from childhood/biological urges? Therefore their "decision" is rather a manifestation of repression brought on by one's environment.

[Question everything]

Originally posted by Oedipus [email protected] 16, 2007 12:35 am

If you take it to mean making a decision after evaluating your environment, then yes there is free will.

Who's to say that when one observes their own environment they are not influenced mainly by internal conflicts, internal desires from childhood/biological urges? Therefore their "decision" is rather a manifestation of repression brought on by one's environment.
pretty much what I think about it.

[RevMARKSman]

I'd like to see what CR, our resident physicist, has to say about this. I'm pretty sure that free will doesn't exist. But if there's some quantum-mechanics thing that ensures the possibility of free will, I'd like to know about it.

[apathy maybe]

Rev: There is some quantum-mechanics thing, but it basically means that we don't have free will. We are composed of matter, and like all matter our actions are the result of matter interacting.

There is no special "substance" which means that we can evade material interactions. Our thoughts are the result of chemical and quantum events, and we can't choice what they are. (If nothing else, how could we choice which of several neurons fire? We don't, we can't. It is most probably random to a certain extent.)

Of course, as I have said many times before, it doesn't matter, because it appears we have free will. This whole discussion is pointless and a waste of everybody's time!

[Hegemonicretribution]

Just to add a different approach to apathy maybe's.......some philosophers have used quantum uncertainty (if it is the true state of things and not a gap in our understanding) to allow for the existence of free will....If there is unpredictability at the smallest level then there could be on others.

Of ocurse this does mean that the like of Hooft have invoked a deeper level of reality; on that is predicatable, determined and beyond the capabilities of our equiptment to observe :P Of course this lowest level could go on forever...

[apathy maybe]

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Even allowing for randomness (quantum uncertainty), we still don't have free will. Because we cannot make a choice as to which was things will go. Unpredictability does not equal free will, it merely equals unpredictability.

Like all matter, we are governed by the laws of nature, and just like we can't fly unassisted, we cannot have free will. (And I don't apologise for my "anthropomorphising" of nature, because I don't mean it. I'm not interested in a discussion on the matter, as I have presented my case in at least on other previous thread. I don't care if you can't grasp what I tried to say in that other thread, or even if you can't find that other thread.)

[Episteme]

Originally posted by Question [email protected] 22, 2007 02:03 am
here is my question, could free will exist, if there is an all knowing, all powerful God (an idea rejected by most of you) there is no such thing as free will. If you don't believe in the Soul, then isn't will simply nature and nurture? simply hormones and complex impluse? (sorry if there is already a thread on this)
I have found the problem of free will and determinism to be one of the most thorny philosophical issues (especially in the context of Marxism).

The problem is reconciling two contrasting points of view. On one hand we have determinism which states that all events are caused. This seems to be the basis for the historical materialism of Marx (feudal society following slave, capitalism following feudalism, and hopefully a society where workers dominate super ceding capitalism sometime in the future).

But really when I look at the theory (however desirable I find it in my subjective opinion) all it is really saying is that these things must come to pass, and it does not say anything as to whether they should or not (lest we fall into the naturalistic fallacy).

On the other hand we have free will, which states that all persons are free agents. Free will is necessary for moral inquiry (that is to say some actions are better than other actions) because how could there be moral praise or blame when there is no real choice in the matter?

To affirm both free will and determinism at once violates the law of non contradiction

~(P^~P)

Or does it? We do not ask reality to conform to the rules of logic, we only require that of statements. Is there anything contradictory in light behaving like a wave and simultaneously like a particle? It appears that way but we must accept that reality can be paradoxical. This is how I will try to answer the problem, but before I do say I will examine what I feel are the best cases for free will and determinism.

Redstar2000 (a person I look up to) once made to a fairly good case for determinism. He stated that we have apperant free will, and we just do not have the technology to examine all the small micro-biological causes for the reason we behave as we do.

In terms of free will I think the best case for it is made by phenomenology, an appeal to the integrity of our experience. After all, is not even the determinist not conscious of his freedom to write or not to write in support of determinism?

I think these two seemingly contradictory propositions can be reconciled. I base this on our knowledge of the paradoxical nature of reality itself. I hold that we are both limitedly free and not free.

To illustrate my point here is an example. Suppose you are on a bus that jerks to a stop. The momentum will drag you forward and cause you to fall, but you will not to fall and put your hand on the rail to stop yourself. Thus, I believe our will is free but we are still subject to deterministic laws.

As to the question of god, I have not yet run into a case for god that stood up to rational inquiry, therefore I think it is best to act as if it is likely that there is no god.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Hi, Episteme, and welcome to RevLeft.

This is, as you know, a very ancient problem, and one that has remained unsolved now for thousands of years. Moreover, we seem to be no nearer the solution than St Augustine was.

Hence, I have advocated a completely new approach to this topic -- which involves questioning its entire basis.

There have been many threads in which I have tried to do this, but check these out:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=62845

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=51313

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=57667

[Episteme]

Originally posted by Rosa [email protected] 27, 2007 10:17 pm
Hi, Episteme, and welcome to RevLeft.

This is, as you know, a very ancient problem, and one that has remained unsolved now for thousands of years. Moreover, we seem to be no nearer the solution than St Augustine was.

Hence, I have advocated a completely new approach to this topic -- which involves questioning its entire basis.

There have been many threads in which I have tried to do this, but check these out:

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=62845

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=51313

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=57667
Yeah I have a buddy who specializes in eastern philosophy (my fields are ethics, political philosophy, and either aesthetics or logic, I have not decided) and he says the whole problem of free will and determinism is just a false dichotomy. I do not know enough about the eastern philosophical paradigm to have an informed opinion about that though.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Thankyou for that, Episteme, but my difficulty with this 'problem' goes much deeper than that.

[syndicat]

well, human beings are merely very complex physical systems. It's therefore mysterious why humans should have causal agency and other physical systems not. Of course it's true we explain human behavior by assuming that people have beliefs and desires and that this explains their actions. Perhaps by "agent" Rosa means a being whose behavior we explain by appeal to desires and beliefs of that thing, which is appropriate for humans. But for materialists, beliefs and desires have to be explained in purely physical terms, especially since this feature of humans is presumably explained through the processes of biological evolution.

But causal determinism doesn't require any notion of "agency" in this peculiar sense. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good section on causal determinism:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/determinism-causal/

Very often the idea of causal determinism is explained by reference to some idea of "scientific laws", "causal laws" or "laws of nature". The idea is that the "laws of naure" will explain why there is a necessary connection between some set of conditions C and some event E that resulted from C.

If one assumes that "laws" -- or whatever it is in reality that laws refer to -- are a component in the explanation of every event, then this leads to the idea that each event is rendered necessary or "inevitable" given the total set of conditions that went before. This could be explained sort of like this:

If there is some total set of conditions C in the world at time T1, then it isn't possible that event E not occur at time T2, given the existence of the laws of nature that actually exist.

But the "necessity" here is only relative to what went went before. It doesn't imply that event E was itself "necessary" or "inevitable." The necessity is in the connection between the earlier state of things and event E, not in event E itself. There may be no necessity in the particular course of events, even if that course of events has certain inevitable consequences.

This idea of necessary connection between events across time is rejected by the theory of "laws of nature" put forward by the extreme empiricists, whose ideas derive from David Hume. They hold that "laws" are just the patterns of regularity in the unfolding world of events and do not necessitate anything. The book that Rosa recommended, which is at:

http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/physical-law/

advocates this empiricist theory of laws. The idea is that a law is an exceptionless regularity.

A problem with this theory of laws is that it seems to be inconsistent with how scientists view "laws of nature." Scientists tend to view "laws of nature" as always having an explicit or implied "ceteribus paribus" clause, that is, a clause that says "other things being equal." The idea is that all "laws" allow in principle for the possibility of exceptions perhaps because of the action of intervening forces or exceptional conditions or because behavior of things in some set of conditions is merely probable, not necessitated by what went before.

The Humean view of laws treats them as mere descriptions of what happens. But that is not the same thing as giving an explanation, which is what "laws" contribute to. For example,

All gold spheres are less than a mile in diameter

is an exceptionless regularity but isn't regarded as a "law of nature." The idea is that what we know of the physical world suggests it is at least physically possible for there to be a gold sphere a mile in diameter, even if none in fact exist.

There is a good discussion of "laws of nature" at:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laws-of-nature/

If there aren't exceptionless "laws of nature" applying to all events, then the world is not deterministic. Among philosophers of science it is controversial whether in fact the world is deterministic in this sense.

But even if the world is deterministic, it doesn't follow that you could not have done something other than what you did do. That's because the existence of events that would explain why you followed a course of action (such as some process in your brain etc) do not destroy your ability to do something else, they merely explain why you didn't exercise that ability.

Processes unfolding in the world don't exert "force" in the social or human sense. That's why causal determinism, if it exists, is not inconsistent with what we undertand as "human freedom." "Freedom" is a social concept that has to do with social constraints on your ability to self-manage your activities and pursue your own course. It isn't a metaphysical concept about ultimate physical causality.

[Hit The North]

well, human beings are merely very complex physical systems. It's therefore mysterious why humans should have causal agency and other physical systems not.


Take a look around. We're qualitatively different to other physical systems. It's a combination of opposable thumbs and higher levels of consciousness which allows us to act on our environment and reflect on our practice. There's no mystery.


Perhaps by "agent" Rosa means a being whose behavior we explain by appeal to desires and beliefs of that thing, which is appropriate for humans. But for materialists, beliefs and desires have to be explained in purely physical terms, especially since this feature of humans is presumably explained through the processes of biological evolution.

For crude mechanical materialist who reify nature as the agent, perhaps. For dialectical materialists, the beliefs and desires of individuals are determined by the ensemble of their social relations. Human behavior is not explained according to biological evolution but according to history.

The advance of historical materialism is that we no longer see nature as something external to human agency but as something which interacts with it.

[syndicat]

For crude mechanical materialist who reify nature as the agent, perhaps. For dialectical materialists, the beliefs and desires of individuals are determined by the ensemble of their social relations. Human behavior is not explained according to biological evolution but according to history.

The social relations are also relations among material beings, who live through their interaction with nature, as Marx insisted. Very basic psychological traits like the having of a belief/desire psychology are actually biological traits, and thus their explanation lies in evolutionary biology. There is no inconsistency here. The sociality of humans must have a biological basis. Humans have larger brains, especially frontal lobes with their feedback loops, compared to other primates. Social relations are built on the biological capacities of humans.

Humans have both a social nature -- created by us through our social relations -- and a biological nature. The biological nature is flexible as shown by the variety of social arrangements that humans lived in.

One of the human biological capacities is the capacity to plan in advance our activities and what we will be doing, such as things that we make. This is a human trait emphasized by both Marx and Aristotle. We can imagine ahead of time a course of action to realize our desires, we can develop our abilities to carry this out, build tools, and cooperate with each other in both plans of action and the work of carrying them out. This is our capacity for self-management, for self-determination. Alienation is trampling or supressing of this capacity. Alienated labor, in particular, is the denial of self-management in work. This denial of self-management is oppression.

The capacity for self-management is a biological trait but whether we have the opportunity to develop and fulfill this capacity depends on the social relations.

It isn't necessary to be an advocate of historical materialism to see that humans interact with nature. But humans not only act on nature, nature also acts on us. Right now i am being warmed by the sun. This simply means that processes going on in the sun have effects, and among those effects are the warming of earth's atmosphere.

[Hit The North]

Humans have both a social nature -- created by us through our social relations -- and a biological nature. The biological nature is flexible as shown by the variety of social arrangements that humans lived in.

Where is the evidence for this biological nature? Humans who have survived outside of society, feral children, etc. do not display any particular biological nature, except in their ability to mimic and conform to the behavior of the animals which they interact with.


Social relations are built on the biological capacities of humans.

There is also evidence to suggest the opposite: That our biological capacities are built up by our social relations.

[syndicat]

Where is the evidence for this biological nature? Humans who have survived outside of society, feral children, etc. do not display any particular biological nature,

Biological traits are explained in relation to those circumstances in which their ancestors' having those traits ended up helping their survival. Since humans have always lived in groups, families, tribes, clans, the conditions of human evolution are such that capacities for social interaction were adaptive. Hence the language facility is explained as a biological trait. The capacity to convey information about states of affairs in the world to each other and coordinate activity accordingly was hugely adaptive.

Because living in social groups was a condition of evolution of humans, humans don't fully develop their biological nature outside of society. Human children suck up a vast amount of language in a period of only a couple years. This cannot be explained except on the assumption of an innate language capacity. The larynx of humans, which is different than other primates, facilitates speech.

This is in addition to features of humans carried forward from species humans are descended from. For example, the color vision system of humans is identical to that of other primates (and different from other mammals).

Humans also have various homeostatic systems that sustain life, such as the system that keeps your body temperature at around 96 degrees Fahrenheit. No human lacks this feature.

Humans have needs for food and water, and because we don't have fur, we need clothes.

But biology doesn't determine all that we are. We're also shaped and influenced by social structures in which we live and grow up, and social conflicts and mass upheavals and movements from time to time alter these social structures. It is thru our agency in such mass events that we can make our own history, and change the way people develop.

[luxemburg89]

I challenge someone to answer my questions, only then will I understand vaguely your initial question. And if you can't answer my questions, you certainly can't answer the question "do we have free will?".

Rather you won't understand the answers. I mean you asked the question so that you would understand - the rest of us seemed pretty comfortable in understanding the topic.

[KurtFF8]

Well with the Judo-Christian-Islamic notion of God, I believe that free will is compatible with divine foreknowledge (which is a necessary attribute of an all powerful, temporal God) And with and atemporal God, this problem still exists in a different way.

[anomee]

"Will" is the internal drive to act, to do things, to go places and to exist first and foremost.

"Will" is the natural outgrowth of being a physical human being.

"Free Will" is the lack of constraints and the liberty to chose what to do or not do and how to do it and to decide why to do it or not do it, and where to go or not go and how and why to go or not to go, what to act on and how to act or not and why act of not act, etc, etc, ad infinitum and nauseam.

"Free Will" is the unlimited menu of choices for which the internal drives of human beings may be used.

And even though it is "free" in that it may be used anyway the human possessor chooses, Free Will is not without consequences, natural or artificially imposed, some of those consequences good and pleasant, some of them not.

"Free Will" in a religious context is also a test, in fact it's THE test:

A human being is free to chose any and all the things on the menu, any way he or she wishes, for good or evil, better or worse, apart from circumstance, but -- as my father always said: One must want the consequences of what one wants -- be prepared for the consequences,because they will always be there.

Oh, and another thing about the test is that it will in the end -- God or no-god -- determine who or what a person was in his or her entire life.

A waste of protein that left nothing t a hole in the resources, totally interchangeable with any other blob of protein that sucked up consumables and resources, or a savior who ameliorated conditions for as many human beings as possible present and future, a leader, a beggar, a soldier, a lover, a sage, a fool, or a combination of those things and others.

Oh, BTW & FYI, there IS a God, but that Creator & Prime-Mover does not get involved in the affairs of human beings, because if that deity DID get involved, it would totally negate or obviate Free Will and replace it with an endless dependence on God to intervene here and change things there.

Free Will is a gift along with the earth, there it is do what you will with it.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by Question [email protected] 22, 2007 02:03 am
here is my question, could free will exist, if there is an all knowing, all powerful God (an idea rejected by most of you) there is no such thing as free will. If you don't believe in the Soul, then isn't will simply nature and nurture? simply hormones and complex impluse? (sorry if there is already a thread on this)
On the contrary, theists believe in the concept of 'free agency' which means mankinds independent capacity to choose to 'sin' or 'do good' in order for post mortal 'justice' to function. Obviously it depends on your spirituality system, wether this is bollocks or not.

[anomee]

On the contrary, theists believe in the concept of 'free agency' which means mankinds independent capacity to choose to 'sin' or 'do good' in order for post mortal 'justice' to function. Obviously it depends on your spirituality system, wether this is bollocks or not.

On the contrary to your contrary, Ulster Soc., this particular Theistic Existential Deist -- that would be me -- believes in "mankinds independent capacity to choose to 'sin' or 'do good'" for my own sake and the sake of the world -- "post mortal" justice has no appeal or sway for me.

It is the most beautiful feeling to choose to be and do good, without a single expectation or thought or reward in this life or the next life -- which could be an eternal rest in the cool velvet dark of black soil, or some silent place where essence goes in the universe or some heavenly place of gold or just a step into the light and on into the next life.

The trick is not to mind it, whatever it is.

And virtue is its own reward if for no other reason than it has to be, if one expects more, then surely he or she will be disappointed, if one expects nothing, then he or she will never be disappointed, only surprised perhaps. :)