free will...

[Rebelde]

hello comrades i would really appreciate it if someone could help me out. when debating a "god" beliver what is a good argument to use against the whole "free will" issue.

[Publius]

hello comrades i would really appreciate it if someone could help me out. when debating a "god" beliver what is a good argument to use against the whole "free will" issue.

That we don't have free will.

This is a huge, complex issue in philosophy, but I'll just cut to the chase: we don't have what most people call "free will", what religious people call "free will."

[NorthStarRepublicML]

let me just step in here and suggest that you read some Sartre ... after you get about five pages into his essay Existentialism is a Humanism you will throw the book out the window or over the side of a bridge and ask yourself why you were so foolish to believe that some French guy could give you answers concerning the nature of choice ...

you should also question your dependence on philosophers in general ... especially those that are not grounded in historical materialism ... even realists are okay sometimes

you should also at this point realize that debating people concerning their religious beliefs is unnecessary and gets you no where ...


This is a huge, complex issue in philosophy, but I'll just cut to the chase: we don't have what most people call "free will", what religious people call "free will."well historical materialism isn't 100% deterministic in terms of individual choice ... Marx would not have said that every decision you make is determined by the economic conditions ... although i am not sure if Publius is a Marxist ... but i am fairly confident that historical materialism accounts for a certain measure of free will ... mostly because it deals with both objective factors (like economic conditions) and subjective factors (like the presence of revolutionary organizations and leadership) when dealing with the question of revolution ...

but perhaps Publius would be willing to explain what he means when he states that: "we don't have what most people call "free will""

[Dean]

let me just step in here and suggest that you read some Sartre ... after you get about five pages into his essay Existentialism is a Humanism you will throw the book out the window or over the side of a bridge and ask yourself why you were so foolish to believe that some French guy could give you answers concerning the nature of choice ...

you should also question your dependence on philosophers in general ... especially those that are not grounded in historical materialism ... even realists are okay sometimes
Philosophy is an inherantly materialist phenomenon, as is religion. I strongly oppose attempts to disassociate the mind from reality in this sense especially.


you should also at this point realize that debating people concerning their religious beliefs is unnecessary and gets you no where ...
I disagree. Debating here seems useless, because it all seems to boil down to an attempt to say "I'm more atheist / antireligious than you" which is to me a very childish way of looking at a very complex issue.


hello comrades i would really appreciate it if someone could help me out. when debating a "god" beliver what is a good argument to use against the whole "free will" issue.
The fact that it is a philosophical point holds a lot of weight. In most cases the issue of free will is unimportant. But where it is, I think it's reasonable to say that, while no action is entirely free, there are some actions people take which are less guided by their own will.

There is the fact that we cannot divorce our brain from reality, that shows that truly free will is an illusion. Free will is an exclusory concept, that is that it implies an action free of coercion. If you can make a reasonable definition of coercion, it will apply to the conditions of every action that comes about. I think the issue of free will, especially in the religious sense, talks about an ability to choose. We do have this ability to some degree, and I think this needs to be recognized too. This ability is not free of coercion, however, and so is not fully free.

[ComradeRed]

"Free will vs. Determinism" is a false dichotomy I'm afraid. Publius is correct, there is no such thing as free will...not that "determinism" is the case either.

Just my two cents, I'm sure if you ask Rosa she will go more indepth on it...she has before somewhere.

[Colonello Buendia]

I argue with aot of religious people who throw in the free will argument, I always say "but shouldn't God even just occasionaly say what he thinks so that when something which could cause evil and suffering is about to happen they perpetrator can change their mind, or not

[Morpheus]

If god were truly all powerful he could ban evil without undermining our free will. Since evil exists, no god which is both benevolent and all-powerful can exist.

[Dean]

If god were truly all powerful he could ban evil without undermining our free will. Since evil exists, no god which is both benevolent and all-powerful can exist.

That's not true; a god would have to all-powerful and all-benevolent for that to be the case. Still, the whole concept of god makes no sense in the terms of a thinking entity; the image of a white-bearded man overseeing the world is a joke, but sums up the view of god that most christians seem to have.

[freakazoid]

If god were truly all powerful he could ban evil without undermining our free will. Since evil exists, no god which is both benevolent and all-powerful can exist.

Then we would be nothing but robots if we couldn't choose.

[RevMARKSman]

Then we would be nothing but robots if we couldn't choose.
I'd really like to be able to fly.

I can't choose to do so.

*beep beep* *click whirr*

[Kwisatz Haderach]

If god were truly all powerful he could ban evil without undermining our free will. Since evil exists, no god which is both benevolent and all-powerful can exist.
That depends. How do you define "all-powerful?" Does it include the ability to perform feats contrary to logic, such as creating a square circle? Does it include the ability to create a second, more powerful god? Most religious believers (or rather monotheists, since they are the ones we're talking about here) would answer "no." To say that God can do "anything" is vague.


hello comrades i would really appreciate it if someone could help me out. when debating a "god" beliver what is a good argument to use against the whole "free will" issue.
Posing the question in terms of "free will vs. determinism" is comitting the fallacy of the excluded middle. Even the most ardent advocate of free will cannot say that people are completely free to choose everything about themselves. You do not choose your personality and you do not choose your genes. Other people and events around you have an undeniable effect on your psyche.

On the other hand, determinism is a rather self-defeating philosophy, since even if it were true that all our thoughts and actions are pre-determined and our fate is fixed, the fact remains that we do not know what actions we will take in the future and we do not know our fate. We may not really have free will, but it sure feels like we do! Even if it were true that all our choices were pre-determined, we still feel like we are free to choose things. So we should act on the presumption that we are free to choose, within certain limits set by our genes and most of all by our life experiences and environment.

[Publius]

but perhaps Publius would be willing to explain what he means when he states that: "we don't have what most people call "free will""

We do not have what is termed libertarian free will, or "the ability to do otherwise given exactly the same physical circumstances."

[Publius]

Posing the question in terms of "free will vs. determinism" is comitting the fallacy of the excluded middle. Even the most ardent advocate of free will cannot say that people are completely free to choose everything about themselves. You do not choose your personality and you do not choose your genes. Other people and events around you have an undeniable effect on your psyche.

On the other hand, determinism is a rather self-defeating philosophy, since even if it were true that all our thoughts and actions are pre-determined and our fate is fixed, the fact remains that we do not know what actions we will take in the future and we do not know our fate. We may not really have free will, but it sure feels like we do! Even if it were true that all our choices were pre-determined, we still feel like we are free to choose things. So we should act on the presumption that we are free to choose, within certain limits set by our genes and most of all by our life experiences and environment.

Exactly right.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Pub:


We do not have what is termed libertarian free will, or "the ability to do otherwise given exactly the same physical circumstances."

How do you know?

[Publius]

Pub:


How do you know?

One, physics precludes it. Physical occurrences are either caused, or they are uncaused. If they are caused, they are caused by certain sufficient conditions, themselves either caused or uncaused. If they are uncaused, then nothing at all can be said to have caused them.

I think that this basic tautology and dichotomy can be accepted as valid.

Now, it follows from this that a human action, which is a physical occurrence (I hope you'll grant), results from either a causal or acausal process, in the same way.

If human action is based on causal action wholly, if its turtles all the way down, as it were, then nothing could have been otherwise, for everything was it was because of the rules and laws governing the order of the causal laws.

And if human action instead has an acuasal element (I truly don't know whether human action is purely causal, or whether acausal events can bubble up and influence it, but it doesn't matter which it is), then that means that human action is, in least some instances, random. At this point I should clarify what I originally said, because if human action were random than it seems as if it could have been otherwise, as indeed it could have been. What I meant is this: we couldn't have willed it to be otherwise. If our actions could have been otherwise, it's only because of the random swerve of a particle or something, that is, an event beyond our control.

So either way you have it, random or non-random, events beyond our control ultimately determine our actions. This is what I mean by determinism, and I accept its truth as following necessarily from the laws of physics. Humans are doubtlessly constrained by physical law. We can't fly, we can't create (or destroy) energy, and we can't avoid entropy. If we truly had some metaphysical power of will, physical laws would stand violate before us, because it follows in one set of circumstances, only one possible manner in which energy can be transferred (in the manner which conserves it.) Drop a ball, and the ball can only act so that the total amount of energy in the universe is constant. No eternal motion machines or anything of that sort. But human metaphysical (free) will would break this principal, as humans would be able to act in manners that broke from what WOULD be the case given causal closure, thus violating energy conservation, as well as innumerable other laws.

This, in short, is the case, without even going into the neuroscience, which I think solidifies the determinist position from the opposite direction.

[Dean]

So either way you have it, random or non-random, events beyond our control ultimately determine our actions. This is what I mean by determinism, and I accept its truth as following necessarily from the laws of physics. Humans are doubtlessly constrained by physical law. We can't fly, we can't create (or destroy) energy, and we can't avoid entropy. If we truly had some metaphysical power of will, physical laws would stand violate before us, because it follows in one set of circumstances, only one possible manner in which energy can be transferred (in the manner which conserves it.) Drop a ball, and the ball can only act so that the total amount of energy in the universe is constant. No eternal motion machines or anything of that sort. But human metaphysical (free) will would break this principal, as humans would be able to act in manners that broke from what WOULD be the case given causal closure, thus violating energy conservation, as well as innumerable other laws.

Do you factor the human mind into this equation as an active purveyor of will, or is it a passive observer? I've always found arguments like these very strange in their sterility, and refusal to muddy them with questions of the mind. If our minds reflect a form of will, wouldn't it be the laws of our psychology that then dictate our ability to have free will? Wouldn't the argument then be totally different?

I accept the concept that a given set of rules dictating the norms of the universe more or less proves determinism. But I don't see how determinism explicitly excludes free will - that is, I don't see how free will can't be a part of those rules. It is evident that we cannot take a result from nothing, so it follows that all of our actions are pre-determined in a sense. But if our minds are a part of this ruleset and a part that helps actuate those rules, I don't see how those minds are not free simply because they are governed by their own rules. That is, I don't equate "free will" with the ability to change a potentially set future. To me, it is more a question of mental freedom - the mind as self-actuating - and coercion of that ability. One could say, I guess, that since the mind has set rules, it is not free, but that divorces the mind from reality. Those rules are the mind's, yes, but they are created by the mind.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Publius:



One, physics precludes it.

Not so; physicists do not know anymore about in the movement of every atom in every head on the planet, past, present and future, than you do.

Sure they have 'laws', but these 'laws' can no more make things move, or stop them moving, than shouting at the moon can affect it.

Unless, of course, you think atoms are intelligent, understand the law, and can obey it.

You are in fact using 'science' as a lazy way of 'solving' a problem it is incapable of solving (mainly because the 'problem' itself is based on conceptual confusion).

[Kwisatz Haderach]

The laws of physics are not "laws" in the sense of "rules" that the universe is somehow compelled to follow; rather they are descriptions of what we observe in the universe. No, we do not know the movement of every atom, but the movement of all the atoms we do know about is described by the laws of physics, and it seems reasonable to expect that the atoms we do not observe behave in the same way as the atoms we do observe.

Now, the point is that every physical system ever observed seemed to behave in either a deterministic or random fashion. We do not observe free will or its effects anywhere in the universe. The argument against free will from physics can be summed up as "if all the atoms outside the human brain act in either a deterministic or random fashion, why should the atoms inside our brain be so strange and special as to give us free will?"

I do not know of any good scientific counter-argument to that, except perhaps to argue that the human brain is more than the sum of its parts, but that is very vague.

Of course, the fact remains that we cannot predict our own future behaviour and we feel as though we have free will. That's the problem. Physics says that human behaviour should, in principle, be predictable, but we do not know how to predict it. And if we did, could we then predict our own predictions, since the predictions themselves would be human behaviour? Ah, self-referential paradoxes...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Edric:


The laws of physics are not "laws" in the sense of "rules" that the universe is somehow compelled to follow; rather they are descriptions of what we observe in the universe. No, we do not know the movement of every atom, but the movement of all the atoms we do know about is described by the laws of physics, and it seems reasonable to expect that the atoms we do not observe behave in the same way as the atoms we do observe.

There are only two ways of viewing these laws, both of which fail.

Your approach is a variant of the 'regularity' theory, which cannot explain why event E makes even F happen and not event G.

All it can do is describe the events that do happen.

For all we know, G will follow E from today, even though, up to now, F has always followed E. [This in fact makes nature capricious, and attributes it, and not us, with a 'free will').

Now, the other theory, the 'necessitarian' approach, can 'explain' why F must always follow E -- it is 'necessitated'.

But, this solution has been won of the cheap, for it falls into the trap you noted -- it treats 'laws' as agents which make things happen in nature. [This alternative attributes nature, as oposed to us, with an iron will.]

Now, every attempt to solve this 'problem' (which, as I noted, is a spurious artefact of a set of misdescriptions of both nature and ourselves) oscillates between these two views of 'laws', neither of which explains a thing (except they both have to anthropomorphise nature).

And that is why this 'problem' has remained unsolved now for 2500 years.

More on this, here (which advocates a regularity theory, but explains the problems involved really well):

http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/lawofnat.htm

[apathy maybe]

Yay!

Anyway this has been discussed to death in the philosophy forum. Personally, my favourite thread on the matter of free will is http://www.revleft.com/vb/free-why-discussions-t50219/index.html?t=50219 mainly because I started it.

I also tend to agree with what Publius says, I don't really understand Rosa's objections so I just ignore them (ignorance is bliss).

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Apathy, I did not link to those discussions since restricted members cannot participate in them.


I don't really understand Rosa's objections so I just ignore them

What is there not to understand?

There are only two ways of viewing this 'problem' traditionally, both of which only work by attributing nature with a will --and iron will (necessitarianism), or a capricious will ('regularism').

Read the article I linked to; it will clarify things considerably.

[Publius]

Do you factor the human mind into this equation as an active purveyor of will, or is it a passive observer?

Active will.

My position is that human beings have will, just not free will (whatever that means.)

It'd make no sense to say a car isn't a car just because it's a collection of atoms, and so it makes no sense to say a human isn't a human, likewise.


I've always found arguments like these very strange in their sterility, and refusal to muddy them with questions of the mind. If our minds reflect a form of will, wouldn't it be the laws of our psychology that then dictate our ability to have free will? Wouldn't the argument then be totally different?

Yes, laws other than 'the laws of physics' dictate our will, but that doesn't mean these laws aren't also explicable in terms of the laws of physics.

I mean, they don't violate them, do they?



I accept the concept that a given set of rules dictating the norms of the universe more or less proves determinism. But I don't see how determinism explicitly excludes free will - that is, I don't see how free will can't be a part of those rules.

Well, it depends on what you mean by 'free will.' This is a sordid issue, though.

Some people call what I call "will" 'free will', hence confusion.


It is evident that we cannot take a result from nothing, so it follows that all of our actions are pre-determined in a sense. But if our minds are a part of this ruleset and a part that helps actuate those rules, I don't see how those minds are not free simply because they are governed by their own rules. That is, I don't equate "free will" with the ability to change a potentially set future. To me, it is more a question of mental freedom - the mind as self-actuating - and coercion of that ability. One could say, I guess, that since the mind has set rules, it is not free, but that divorces the mind from reality. Those rules are the mind's, yes, but they are created by the mind.

One can do as one wills, but one cannot will as one wills - Schopenhauer

That pretty much sums it up.

[Publius]

Publius:

Not so; physicists do not know anymore about in the movement of every atom in every head on the planet, past, present and future, than you do.

I'm not saying they do. My position isn't that everything is known in advance (that's absurdity), or even that it could be (improbability), merely that the logical consequence of these physical laws is this sort of knowledge. Actually, though, it isn't, because of quantum indeterminacy, and even indeterminacy in Newtonian physics, but those are exceptions true in only certain circumstances.



Sure they have 'laws', but these 'laws' can no more make things move, or stop them moving, than shouting at the moon can affect it.

:rolleyes:

The law isn't a causal agent (!?) it's a higher-level description of what the atoms actually do. The atoms do whatever it is that atoms do, and then we try to formulate a lawful description of that, successfully in the case particle physics, or at least tentatively successfully, and subject to revision.



Unless, of course, you think atoms are intelligent, understand the law, and can obey it.

Atoms ARE the law. What atoms in fact do exactly comprises what the law is. This attempt of yours to say "the law is this thing, the thing atoms do is another, howisit they match up?" is just pure and utter confusion.

There's no such thing, writ large on a book in the middle of the universe called The Law which ordains what atoms are to do.



You are in fact using 'science' as a lazy way of 'solving' a problem it is incapable of solving (mainly because the 'problem' itself is based on conceptual confusion).

Science is incapable of solving problems having to do with the properties of physical matter?

Somebody tell the physicists that they're out of a job, Rosa's disproven physics!

[Publius]

Since I made largely the same point (without reading Edric's response), I'll respond to this as well:



There are only two ways of viewing these laws, both of which fail.

Your approach is a variant of the 'regularity' theory, which cannot explain why event E makes even F happen and not event G.

All it can do is describe the events that do happen.

Yes; physics is descriptive, not proscriptive.

But one of the descriptions is, things tend to stay pretty much the same.

They COULD change, I guess, but they haven't -- they don't seem to.



For all we know, G will follow E from today, even though, up to now, F has always followed E. [This in fact makes nature capricious, and attributes it, and not us, with a 'free will').

No, it doesn't. That's anthropomorphization via equivocation. The laws of nature could change without "will" coming into to it at all. Maybe all the so-called laws of physics are subject to higher-order laws that we don't have any inclination of. Maybe these laws are such that they change at random. Who knows?

I very much doubt nature has a will, let alone a free one. It might, I guess, but I don't fret over the issue too much.



Now, the other theory, the 'necessitarian' approach, can 'explain' why F must always follow E -- it is 'necessitated'.

But, this solution has been won of the cheap, for it falls into the trap you noted -- it treats 'laws' as agents which make things happen in nature. [This alternative attributes nature, as oposed to us, with an iron will.]

Which is exactly why I don't use that description. I don't know what it's necessary for nature to do, or even if there is anything, so it'd be silly for me to comment.



Now, every attempt to solve this 'problem' (which, as I noted, is a spurious artefact of a set of misdescriptions of both nature and ourselves) oscillates between these two views of 'laws', neither of which explains a thing (except they both have to anthropomorphise nature).

The second one might have to, but the first one doesn't at all.

Just because YOU anthropomorphize nature doesn't mean I have to. In fact, you're implicit in this by even using words like 'nature' which can only confound.

How about we just say that physical things are as they are -- an atom is what it is and does. So when we observe atoms doing things, bouncing off each other, sticking together, etc., and we write down these observations, and notice similarities, we're able to construct descriptions that hold true in all known cases. We call these (somewhat problematically) laws.

But notice my (roughly accurate) summation doesn't anthropomorphize at all.



And that is why this 'problem' has remained unsolved now for 2500 years.

I think the problem is solved.



More on this, here (which advocates a regularity theory, but explains the problems involved really well):

http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/lawofnat.htm

I skimmed it, and it seemed like a pretty good article, but I don't see this gives me much difficulty. Their description of free will seemed quite apt to me.

The problem of free will isn't a problem at all. "Free will" is incoherent, and we unquestionably have will. We do as will because we will to do as well (and we don't do as will only when we will to not do as we will.)

[Publius]

What is there not to understand?

There are only two ways of viewing this 'problem' traditionally, both of which only work by attributing nature with a will --and iron will (necessitarianism), or a capricious will ('regularism').

Read the article I linked to; it will clarify things considerably.

You keep saying this, but you haven't demonstrated it.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Publius:



But one of the descriptions is, things tend to stay pretty much the same.



Well, we don't know this.

But even if it were so, this would make you a 'regularist' and thus susceptible to the points I made above.


That's anthropomorphization via equivocation.

Eh?


The laws of nature could change without "will" coming into to it at all. Maybe all the so-called laws of physics are subject to higher-order laws that we don't have any inclination of. Maybe these laws are such that they change at random. Who knows?

Well, you can appeal to 'laws' all day long, but as a regularist, those appeals will get you nowhere.


I very much doubt nature has a will, let alone a free one.

Me too, but your 'theory suggests it has one.


The second one might have to, but the first one doesn't at all.

In so far as it tries to explain why F follows E and not G following E, it has to anthropomorphise nature.

And if it does not do that, it cannot account for the succession of events, which, because they are not constrained by 'law', are 'free'. This would make nature capricious, and would project on to nature the 'free will' some see in us.


Just because YOU anthropomorphize nature doesn't mean I have to.

Well, I do not, since I have no theory (and I deny there could be one); but your account depends on there being a will in nature (in your case, nature would now have a 'free will).


How about we just say that physical things are as they are -- an atom is what it is and does. So when we observe atoms doing things, bouncing off each other, sticking together, etc., and we write down these observations, and notice similarities, we're able to construct descriptions that hold true in all known cases. We call these (somewhat problematically) laws.

In that case, we observe that we have a 'free will', and, because you are a regularist, you cannot argue against this (since, on your view, nature is free, too).


I think the problem is solved.

And so thinks everyone who has 'solved' this in the last 2500 years -- except, they have to transfer human capacities on to nature to do this -- in your case, while we have no 'free will', nature does.


The problem of free will isn't a problem at all. "Free will" is incoherent, and we unquestionably have will. We do as will because we will to do as well (and we don't do as will only when we will to not do as we will.)

You wrote the above of your own free will (no one forced you, I take it), so 'free will' cannot be incoherent.

[Publius]

Well, we don't know this.

But even if it were so, this would make you a 'regularist' and thus susceptible to the points I made above.

Yes we do. We know that for as long as we've been observing them, they've stayed roughly the same.

They could change tommorow, but they've been constant so far.



Eh?

You're not staying consistent in your word usage -- you're misrepresenting what I'm saying to make it fit with your preconceived idea of what I believe.



Well, you can appeal to 'laws' all day long, but as a regularist, those appeals will get you nowhere.


Those laws are descriptions of things as they are.

But since that's all they ever claim to be, they get us exactly where we want to be.



Me too, but your 'theory suggests it has one.


No, it doesn't. And you've never provided any evidence that is does, you've just asserted it. But I'm not interested in your assertion, I'm interested in your argument.



In so far as it tries to explain why F follows E and not G following E, it has to anthropomorphise nature.

No it doesn't. First of all, the laws don't describe "why." There's no WHY to f=ma, that's just a description.

Well, there actually is a 'why', but it's another description too. There's no teleology involved.

And sense there's no teleology involved, nothing has to be anthropomorphized.



And if it does not do that, it cannot account for the succession of events, which, because they are not constrained by 'law', are 'free'. This would make nature capricious, and would project on to nature the 'free will' some see in us.

No, it wouldn't. It MIGHT make nature "capricious", but it could also just make it RANDOM, which is the opposite of capricious, because random things can have no caprices.

Both options are possible, and one of them explicitly rejects anthropormophization.



Well, I do not, since I have no theory (and I deny there could be one); but your account depends on there being a will in nature (in your case, nature would now have a 'free will).


The fact that you can keep saying this does nothing to impress me -- I'd like you to demonstrate it.

How does my account (that our so-called laws of nature merely describe events as they are) ascribe free will to nature?

You are the only one here attributing anything to nature, and in fact I'm the one denying that "nature" (which you equivocate on -- you're treating an abstraction as a real thing) has any of these properties like will.



In that case, we observe that we have a 'free will', and, because you are a regularist, you cannot argue against this (since, on your view, nature is free, too).

But we don't have a 'free will', we have a 'will.' Our will is not 'free' in the sense usually meant, that is, unconstrained by causal factors. Just because someone claims they have 'free will' doesn't mean they do -- in fact they just have regular old will.

And no, my view isn't that nature is 'free'. My view is that nature is an abstraction that you're confusedly affixing properties to, as if its a real thing.

I don't think there is 'nature' in the sense which you mean it. I do think there is a natural world that can be described.



And so thinks everyone who has 'solved' this in the last 2500 years -- except, they have to transfer human capacities on to nature to do this -- in your case, while we have no 'free will', nature does.

No, it doesn't.

My EXPLICIT view is that NOTHING has free will. I deny that there is such a thing because it's an incoherent concept.

What would the will be free from? Everything? Not possible, because then it would be free from itself, which is nonsense. So it cannot be free from itself. But if that's the case then the will you have now is determined by the will you had previously, back and on back until there was no you, and thus no will.

Thus your will isn't free, it's determined.



You wrote the above of your own free will (no one forced you, I take it), so 'free will' cannot be incoherent.

No I didn't, I wrote it of my own will.

Again, you're equivocating on what is meant by free will. I CLEARLY defined the term, and you haven't taken issue with it.

I'm having a hard time believing you're anything more than a sophist. You continually ignore everything anyone else says, you never back up your statements, and you even refuse to stick to the given definitions.

When you used free will in the above statement, you just meant 'will'. You meant "None held a gun to your head." You didn't mean I have the magical, metaphysical ability to transcend causality to make my post.

But THAT is what many people mean when they say free will and THAT is what I'm arguing against.

So please, read what I write and at least try to understand before you lay into me again. If my view is incoherent, demonstrate it, don't just state it.

[pusher robot]

In so far as it tries to explain why F follows E and not G following E, it has to anthropomorphise nature.

And if it does not do that, it cannot account for the succession of events, which, because they are not constrained by 'law', are 'free'. This would make nature capricious, and would project on to nature the 'free will' some see in us.


http://1001resources.com/hosting/users/cinesecrets/images/SW/Yoda/YodaBackpack.jpg

No, no, there is no why. Nothing more will I teach you today.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Pusher R: if you have anything useful to say, don't bother.

[pusher robot]

Pusher R: if you have anything useful to say, don't bother.

Right, sorry, I forgot you are utterly incapable of being anything less than deadly serious at all times.

I'll try to remember that in the future.

P.S. If you want to silence me, then just go ahead and ban me. You have the power.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Publius:



We know that for as long as we've been observing them, they've stayed roughly the same.


Well, this too is based on the unproven assumption that the course of nature has remained steady, for if it hasn't then our capacity to process information will have changed as well. In that case, you will not be able to trust the information the senses allegedly send our way. They may tell us this one day, something else the next.





You're not staying consistent in your word usage -- you're misrepresenting what I'm saying to make it fit with your preconceived idea of what I believe.


Not so; I am taking you at your word, and drawing out the consequences. It is hardly my fault if you have not given this much thought up to now.


And you've never provided any evidence that is does, you've just asserted it. But I'm not interested in your assertion, I'm interested in your argument.


And, what will a categorical argument contain except asserted premisses.

Indeed, that is what mine contained.

And you have no room to talk, for all you have done so far is make assertions.



Those laws are descriptions of things as they are.


And that makes you a regularist. Hence, all you can do is say that up to now event F, say, has followed E. But, tomorrow G might follow E. Nature is thus free to do whatever happens. There is nothing in event E that forces F to occur rather than G.

In that case, your 'will' could be just like that: totally free of constraint.

Unless you can show there is some constraint in nature (and thus slip into the necessitarian wing -- which, as we will see, you do anyway), you cannot show that things might proceed anyway they like in the future. And, once more, if that is so, both the 'will' and nature will be free of constraint. And, since we are part of nature, and we are no different in this respect (on this view), all you will have achieved is to read our free will back into nature.


And sense there's no teleology involved, nothing has to be anthropomorphized.

Not so, as I have just argued.


The fact that you can keep saying this does nothing to impress me -- I'd like you to demonstrate it.

Done it several times; you just keep rejecting it without saying why.


You are the only one here attributing anything to nature, and in fact I'm the one denying that "nature" (which you equivocate on -- you're treating an abstraction as a real thing) has any of these properties like will.

Not so; I am merely drawing out the consequences of the regularist view.


But we don't have a 'free will', we have a 'will.' Our will is not 'free' in the sense usually meant, that is, unconstrained by causal factors. Just because someone claims they have 'free will' doesn't mean they do -- in fact they just have regular old will.

But, no regularist can argue this, unless he/she adopts a covert necessitarian viewpoint.

So, unless you can show that an act of 'will' W, say, had to take place the way it did (which you cannot do on a regularist view), W will be free of constraint. And if that is so, it will be a free will.


And no, my view isn't that nature is 'free'. My view is that nature is an abstraction that you're confusedly affixing properties to, as if its a real thing.

Nature cannot be an abstraction, otherwise physical reality would be mind. [Since only minds can produce abstractions, if nature were an abstraction it would be the product of mind, or a mind itself.]

Perhaps you mean that the noun 'nature' is an abstract noun?

But, even then, what does it signify? Nothing? Or...


No, it doesn't.

Once more, your ideas imply this, for no events in nature, given the regularist view, are constrained. Hence they are free of constraint. This applies to the human will too. In this respect natural events share salient features with our alleged 'free will'. Now you may choose not to call these natural events an exercise of 'free will', but in so far as they share such features they are no different from 'free will'. So, as I said, you will have surreptitiously used ideas drawn from 'free will' theory to depict the course of natural events.

In short, as I said before, the regularist view of natural events is a projection of a free will onto nature, but just re-labelled 'regularity'.

Indeed, the word 'regular' comes from 'rule', and implies a mind at the back of things. If this 'mind' is not constrained, it is free. On the other hand, if it is constrained, then we are back with necessitarianism, again. [So, same result but from a different direction.]

Whichever way you turn, you are caught between the rock of necessitarianism and the hard place of regularism with its 'free cosmic will' (but now re-christened 'unconstrained regularity').


What would the will be free from? Everything? Not possible, because then it would be free from itself, which is nonsense. So it cannot be free from itself. But if that's the case then the will you have now is determined by the will you had previously, back and on back until there was no you, and thus no will.


Thus your will isn't free, it's determined.

Ah, so you [I]are a closet necessitarian, after all.

I thought so.


No I didn't, I wrote it of my own will.

Yes, and now we know you are a necessitarian, we know that your will is determined by the cosmic will (for only minds can determine anything).

Now, I can work out the details of this too if you cannot figure them out for yourself; but I rather think I have helped you enough as it is.

You will just get mentally lazy if I coach you too much.


I'm having a hard time believing you're anything more than a sophist. You continually ignore everything anyone else says, you never back up your statements, and you even refuse to stick to the given definitions.

So do you.

And I am having a hard time believing you have thought your own 'theory' through, beyond its trivialities, that is. So, if I am a sophist, you are just confused, and my 'sophistry' has exposed this.


When you used free will in the above statement, you just meant 'will'. You meant "None held a gun to your head." You didn't mean I have the magical, metaphysical ability to transcend causality to make my post.


But THAT is what many people mean when they say free will and THAT is what I'm arguing against.


Not so; when I used the everyday example of you freely choosing to reply to me, I was not using the phrase 'free will' in its metaphysical sense, just its ordinary sense.

Now, your superficial attack on the metaphysical sense of this phrase has backfired, for under pressure you have slid from a regularist to a necessitarian view; that is the only way you can deny we have a metaphysical free will.

But in doing that, you project human characteristics on to natural events, for they now do what we normally do -- they 'determine' things.


My EXPLICIT view is that NOTHING has free will. I deny that there is such a thing because it's an incoherent concept.

Well, you can type all the capitals you like, but on a regularist view, the human will is not constrained, hence it is free.

Now, if your view implodes (because it implies an 'incoherent' concept), that should tell you to ditch it.

Of course, you are free to reject this piece of sound advice...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Pusher:


Right, sorry, I forgot you are utterly incapable of being anything less than deadly serious at all times.


Just as I forgot you were incapable of producing anything other than inanities.


If you want to silence me, then just go ahead and ban me. You have the power.

I don't; but even if I did, I would not.

We need a village idiot around here, and you are it.

[pusher robot]

And that makes you a regularist. Hence, all you can do is say that up to now event F, say, has followed E. But, tomorrow G might follow E. Nature is thus free to do whatever happens. There is nothing in event E that forces F to occur rather than G.

But here you are arguing the existence of free will by presupposing a free will, and giving it to an anthropomorphized "nature." If free will does not in fact exist, then "nature" cannot "decide" that G follows E instead of F. Thus nature is not "free to do whatever," double so since "nature" does not have will of any kind.


Unless you can show there is some constraint in nature (and thus slip into the necessitarian wing -- which, as we will see, you do anyway), you cannot show that things might proceed anyway they like in the future.

The constraint is simply the law of identity. A thing is what it is and is not something else. A table is a table and not a chair. A proton is a proton and not an electron. In describing physical laws, it is not necessary to probe why an electron is not a proton, or why electrons do not attract, only to observe that such is their state of existence. Furthermore, to allow that perhaps someday electrons could attract does not decrease the validity of the description of existing electrons not attracting.



And, once more, if that is so, both the 'will' and nature will be free of constraint. And, since we are part of nature, and we are no different in this respect (on this view), all you will have achieved is to read our free will back into nature.


But you only say so because you have presupposed it! If we accept that our will is the product of physical entities with specific properties, and furthermore that even if these properties could change that they are not now changing, then mustn't we conclude that our will is determined by the properties of those physical entities?

[Kwisatz Haderach]

What is there not to understand?

There are only two ways of viewing this 'problem' traditionally, both of which only work by attributing nature with a will --and iron will (necessitarianism), or a capricious will ('regularism').

Read the article I linked to; it will clarify things considerably.
Thank you! I did read it, and it did clarify things for me. I was particularly attracted by the way that regularism solves the problem of free will vs. determinism (or rather, argues that the whole "problem" is a result of a failure to understand the nature of the universe, and that in reality our choices determine the laws of nature and not the other way around, because the laws of nature are descriptive and not prescriptive).

I think I can identify myself as a regularist now. The article did mention several necessitarian objections to regularism, but none of them seem to hold any water. In essence, under the regularist view, nothing is really physically impossible - but some things are so statistically improbable that they will likely never happen in the entire lifespan of the universe. The main necessitarian objections seem to boil down to the claim that the regularist universe is far less orderly than they would like. Well, tough break. Regularism matches observed reality, and if that means the universe is less orderly and coherent than we used to think, I don't particularly care. There is no reason to believe that the universe must be orderly - it just so happens that we observe it to be orderly, for the most part.

Indeed, the only reason why we have the concept of "laws of nature" in the first place is because we have observed that some events happen with regularity under certain conditions. We do not know why the universe is the way it is, nor is science even remotely concerned with answering that question. Why do massy objects attract each other as described by the mathematical model known as "gravity?" I haven't the faintest clue. I only know that they do.

[Dean]

Active will.

My position is that human beings have will, just not free will (whatever that means.)

It'd make no sense to say a car isn't a car just because it's a collection of atoms, and so it makes no sense to say a human isn't a human, likewise.



Yes, laws other than 'the laws of physics' dictate our will, but that doesn't mean these laws aren't also explicable in terms of the laws of physics.

I mean, they don't violate them, do they?



Well, it depends on what you mean by 'free will.' This is a sordid issue, though.
It does. But I don't see how other definitions apply. My impression of free will is the mind's ability to make and actuate decisions ased on its own faculties. Of course there is always a degree of coercion in this, so no will is totally free, but I think that it is reasonable to say that some actions are more freely dictated than others.

What else could it mean to have free will? The only concept of the term that falls within your explanation of inviability[sic] is the capabiliy of the mind to transcend the deterministic nature of the universe. Unless you believe in the supernatural, this idea is quite unreasonable.

I don't think that, because minds follow patterns, we can rule out their potency. Just because a computer follows set parameters doesn't mean it has no ability to do what its code allows it to. Understanding these rules as devices of the computer, tools with which to make decisions, it is evident that it is the "will" of the computer to do what it does.

If the question is whether or not the mind can change a future which is set by the rules of the universe, of coruse it cannot; it is part of the universe. As human beings, we must think of our minds and bodies as portions of the universe, and only by disassociating ourselves from it do we come up with concepts of "free will" that are really supernatural.


Some people call what I call "will" 'free will', hence confusion.
Well, what do you call free will? Is it really an unattainable supernatural concept, or does it have a real, worldly expression?

[Publius]

Well, this too is based on the unproven assumption that the course of nature has remained steady, for if it hasn't then our capacity to process information will have changed as well. In that case, you will not be able to trust the information the senses allegedly send our way. They may tell us this one day, something else the next.




I don't think this is a meaningful objection. It's "possible" the whole universe started last Thursday, and all our previous memories with it.

But this "possibility" doesn't prove or disprove anything.



And that makes you a regularist. Hence, all you can do is say that up to now event F, say, has followed E. But, tomorrow G might follow E. Nature is thus free to do whatever happens. There is nothing in event E that forces F to occur rather than G.
[quote]
In that case, your 'will' could be just like that: totally free of constraint.

That it could be doesn't mean it is, and so this is no argument.

The universe could have started last week, yet that's no sensible objection to cosmology.

Without some evidence that it did, it's nothing but an assertion, and again, assertions aren't worth much on their own.



Unless you can show there is some constraint in nature (and thus slip into the necessitarian wing -- which, as we will see, you do anyway), you cannot show that things might proceed anyway they like in the future.

But they might.

Things just might happen to proceed exactly as I've laid it all out. Why should I doubt that, without good reason?



And, once more, if that is so, both the 'will' and nature will be free of constraint. And, since we are part of nature, and we are no different in this respect (on this view), all you will have achieved is to read our free will back into nature.


You misunderstand. If nature somehow changed, if gravity on earth no longer caused objects to fall at 9.81 ms/2, if it changed to 5.81 ms/2, that wouldn't imply a willful change.

It could have just happened randomly. Maybe the force of gravity just is such that it varies on a given day. So your contention this view ascribes free will, or will at all, to nature is just in error.

It allows it, I guess, but you seem to think that it requires it, when this just isn't. Following a regularist description, should laws change tomorrow, they would change for any NECESSARY reason, for that would itself be a form of necessitarianism, which is exactly the position opposite. It'd be a contradiction.

So if nature DID have a will, the 'rules' it produced would follow it necessarily, meaning that the rules would be necessitarian in nature, not regularist. So your argument doesn't just fail, it contradicts.



Done it several times; you just keep rejecting it without saying why.


Just now was the first real explanation you've given. And it didn't succeed.



But, no regularist can argue this, unless he/she adopts a covert necessitarian viewpoint.


Yes, one can, because regularist rules could just always stay the same. There's no reason they have to change (that'd be necessitarianism...), and so me assuming that they don't is perfectly in line with regularism. It might not be empirically validated it, but it is consistent with the regularist position, and so it provides me with no difficulty.



So, unless you can show that an act of 'will' W, say, had to take place the way it did (which you cannot do on a regularist view), W will be free of constraint. And if that is so, it will be a free will.

False. W might accord with the laws of physics, as we understand them in a regularist way. If W follows in this way (which it might), then it would be in accord with the other regularist "laws" which do preclude free will.

The fact that the will MIGHT be free isn't evidence at all that it is free. My position is that according to physics as we understand them, free will isn't possible. But of course physics might change, forcing me to re-examine the issue.

But that doesn't demonstrate that we do have free will, only that it's possible that the rules could change so that we might. Which, again, isn't worth a whole lot.



Nature cannot be an abstraction, otherwise physical reality would be mind. [Since only minds can produce abstractions, if nature were an abstraction it would be the product of mind, or a mind itself.]

Perhaps you mean that the noun 'nature' is an abstract noun?

But, even then, what does it signify? Nothing? Or...

You're attaching descriptions to "nature", treating it as an entity, when it's just a short-hand for "all that exists." You're covertly using nature in the sense of "mother nature", as a personification. I'm saying that nature is merely a term we use to describe what is.



Once more, your ideas imply this, for no events in nature, given the regularist view, are constrained. Hence they are free of constraint.

No. If something is free of constraint, then its also free to act AS IF it's constrained.

So say there are no inviolable laws of nature. But say that the atoms in the universe all move as if there are such laws, that the motions of atoms are explicable in Newtonian, Einsteinian, Quantum terms.

Then the fact that there is no constraint is of no consequence. It just is the case that atoms move a certain way, and that this is the way atoms move. They could move another way, possibly, but that's a debate for another world, or our world in the future, maybe.



This applies to the human will too. In this respect natural events share salient features with our alleged 'free will'. Now you may choose not to call these natural events an exercise of 'free will', but in so far as they share such features they are no different from 'free will'. So, as I said, you will have surreptitiously used ideas drawn from 'free will' theory to depict the course of natural events.

In short, as I said before, the regularist view of natural events is a projection of a free will onto nature, but just re-labelled 'regularity'.

It shares some things. Terminology, I guess. Atoms are said "act" or "behave" or "move", terms which are generally used to designate human action, behavior, or motion, which has a will.

But you're confused here. Using those terms in this context doesn't mean that we're subtly implying that atoms really do have wills, it's an extended metaphor. Atoms "act" in the sense they do things, like bounce off of each other. They don't "act" in the sense that the deliberate, or reflect, or think.

So you're taking some aspects of the word, and saying the use of it emplies all of them. That's equivocation.

Yes, we might say "atoms act in such a way that we can make up rules to describe their motion." But this doesn't mean we think the atom says to itself "I guess I'll obey Newtonian Mechanics today."

If we wanted, we could make a word that meant "act, only not in any human sense." Or I could just write that: Act is not used in the human sense, it's used in an inanimate sense.

Problem solved.



Indeed, the word 'regular' comes from 'rule', and implies a mind at the back of things. If this 'mind' is not constrained, it is free. On the other hand, if it is constrained, then we are back with necessitarianism, again. [So, same result but from a different direction.]

Whichever way you turn, you are caught between the rock of necessitarianism and the hard place of regularism with its 'free cosmic will' (but now re-christened 'unconstrained regularity').

It doesn't have to have will. Will is possible. Will is consistent with the idea of 'unconstrained regularity', but it isn't implied by it or required by it.

It might be the case, that is, it is possible that atoms just act (no...) a certain way. There's no will involved, just cold, mechanical bouncing. It's a metaphor, it's not literal.



Ah, so you [I]are a closet necessitarian, after all.

I thought so.


No, again. Your will is a consequence, a production of the motion of atoms. That is, you're composed of atoms. So how the atoms move DETERMINES you (since you're just a bunch of atoms.)

This isn't necessitarianism, though, because I think it's possible that atoms could move in entirely different way. But whichever way they would move in, they would determine "you", at those atoms that comprised you.

So nice try, but again, you're trying pin me into views I don't hold.



Yes, and now we know you are a necessitarian,

Which I'm not.


we know that your will is determined by the cosmic will

Which I don't think exists.


(for only minds can determine anything).

Which if false, or at least unproven.

Again, you're equivocating. Minds can only determine things in the sense that they can deliberate or judge them. But matter can determine things by its motion. A billiard ball bumping into another determines the path of the second ball depending on its speed, angle, friction, etc.

And no, this doesn't imply Free Will Billiard Balls.



Now, I can work out the details of this too if you cannot figure them out for yourself; but I rather think I have helped you enough as it is.

You will just get mentally lazy if I coach you too much.

No, I get what you're saying, I just don't find it compelling.



So do you.

And I am having a hard time believing you have thought your own 'theory' through, beyond its trivialities, that is. So, if I am a sophist, you are just confused, and my 'sophistry' has exposed this.

You haven't hit one out of the park yet, so I'd be a bit more humble.

You're right, though, I hadn't thought this particular issue through until this discussion, which makes it even worse that you can't seem to "expose me."



Not so; when I used the everyday example of you freely choosing to reply to me, I was not using the phrase 'free will' in its metaphysical sense, just its ordinary sense.

Then what are you even complaining about?

I made clear my definition of free will, and even said that I use 'will' to mean exactly what you used 'free will' to mean.

Either you can't understand this distinction, or you're intentionally conflating terms. Neither is anything to be proud of.

What is so hard to understand about the fact that I use "will" to mean "free will", in the sense that you provided above, so as to differentiate it from metaphysical free will, which I call "free will"?



Now, your superficial attack on the metaphysical sense of this phrase has backfired,

:laugh:


for under pressure you have slid from a regularist to a necessitarian view;

No, you've just grossly misunderstood everything that I've said.

It's as if you don't comprehend what I'm saying at all, but that can't be right -- you clearly have a brain, so you must just not be reading what I'm writing with sufficient care.



that is the only way you can deny we have a metaphysical free will.

WHICH IS THE ONLY THING I WAS EVER DENYING.

Are you being intentionally obtuse just to annoy me? "All your little tirade did was demonstrate exactly what you set out to demonstrate!"



But in doing that, you project human characteristics on to natural events, for they now do what we normally do -- they 'determine' things.


:rolleyes:

I could just as easily say that YOU'RE projecting natural events on to human things, for humans now do what objects normally do -- determine things, as the billiard ball determines the path of the other billiard ball.

Which is to say that BOTH uses of the word are valid.

Which means there's nothing distinctly human or anthropomorphic about the word.



Well, you can type all the capitals you like, but on a regularist view, the human will is not constrained, hence it is free.

Hence it might be free. It could be free, were the observe, regularist laws to change.



Now, if your view implodes (because it implies an 'incoherent' concept), that should tell you to ditch it.

Of course, you are free to reject this piece of sound advice...

If the advice you gave me were sound, I'd follow it. I assure you.

But nothing you've said so far has been compelling, and I'm becoming more convinced that you're just playing word games.

[Lynx]

See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system

No will and no purpose required.

[Publius]

Thanks for that AM, but fortunately I managed to put that confused traditionalist in his place.

You are one insufferably arrogant person. And what's worse, you don't even have cause for being arrogant.