Whatever I do is deterministic, right?  Fine, so I will enjoy the illusion I'm choosing to do interesting, exciting, and profitable things, and I will enjoy the illusion that I'm not hiding under the covers because "fuck it, free will is an illusion anyway."  Isn't that cool?  Whatever I choose, I was predetermined to choose it-- so I will choose whatever I want, and while I'm sipping my iced tea in the Bahamas, you guys can tell me that my choice to go there was only trivially free.  But I'll bet my satisfaction in watching pretty girls frolic on the beach will be infinitely more satisfying than the satisfaction of thinking your philosophical position is more than words on a screen.

And that's the paradox of the no-free-will position.  We still get to ACT as though we have free will.  And so long as my fakery ends up with me enjoying myself, I couldn't care less what words people will / won't use qualitatively to describe my decisions.  I'll just keep on ignorantly calling it "free will," sipping that iced tea, and re-focusing those binoculars.

Compatabilist free will isn't an illusion because it's merely the will labeled as free will.

Incompatabilist free will isn't an illusion either because people don't actually experience that kind of freedom even when they think they do. That kind of freedom is logically incoherent. It's a delusion not an illusion.

With or without free will we still have choices and still have a will. Determinism doesn't equate to fatalism.

There is no paradox of free will.

Free will is simply false or a relabelling of normal human willpower merely because our wills are often uncoerced.

Compatabilist free will is trivally true and incompatabilist free will is completely erroneous.

(August 20, 2016 at 6:27 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Compatabilist free will isn't an illusion because it's merely the will labeled as free will.

No, it's not.  It's will which is free from external compulsion or obstruction.  That's what "free" means.

(August 20, 2016 at 3:10 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote:

(August 18, 2016 at 4:44 pm)Gemini Wrote: Phenomenology[...]

Rawr! I love it when you go all phenomenological on me

I can geek out over phenomenal consciousness all day with the right turtle

(August 20, 2016 at 3:15 am)Alasdair Ham Wrote: No kudos required, I'd happily kudos myself for this one... this post was too pontificantingly pretentiously verbosely pedantically awesome to be arrogant

I'll kudos it anyway, because I love pontificatingly pretentious verbose pedantic awesomeness.  

Quote:I've discussed this subject so many times over the years I know it to death. Most of the time I can't be arsed to say anything other than "Compatabilism is trivally true and labelling "will" as "free will" whereas contra-causal free will is a bunch of silly magic most people believe in" or something to that effect.

We're not very far apart on this. I think the reason I'm a compatibilist is because I think when people refer to "free will," they're referencing the phenomenology of decision making, and not the metaphysical model of contra-causal free. And I think people tend to err in looking at the neural processes that correlate to the decision as something outside of their identity, acting on them as an external, constraining force, instead of properly understanding the neural processes to be what their decision is made out of--the physical instrument that gives them the ability to consciously will things in the first place.

Now I'm going to say "phenomenology" again and eat more chocolate cake while drinking a dark Italian roast with lots of cream and sugar. OM NOM NOM!

(August 20, 2016 at 2:49 am)bennyboy Wrote: Free will is the capacity to express oneself in a given situation, Rhythm.  The self includes brain, body, senses, memories,  all of that.  So unless you demand that the self must be able to free itself FROM itself, then what's left?  The ability of the agent to interact according to its own nature in any given situation is the only sensible definition of free will.  What that nature is composed of is irrelevant.

Again, if you want to argue against free will, you have to argue against the entire concept of agency.  Are you willing to do that?

The capacity to express ones self...is the capacity to express one's self.   

-and no, no one has to argue against agency, or anything else, to argue against free will.  One only has to argue against free will......to argue against free wil.  You have the ability to act, regardless of whether or not that ability is free.   

(August 20, 2016 at 3:44 am)bennyboy Wrote: Whatever I do is deterministic, right?  Fine, so I will enjoy the illusion I'm choosing to do interesting, exciting, and profitable things, and I will enjoy the illusion that I'm not hiding under the covers because "fuck it, free will is an illusion anyway."  Isn't that cool?  Whatever I choose, I was predetermined to choose it-- so I will choose whatever I want, and while I'm sipping my iced tea in the Bahamas, you guys can tell me that my choice to go there was only trivially free.  But I'll bet my satisfaction in watching pretty girls frolic on the beach will be infinitely more satisfying than the satisfaction of thinking your philosophical position is more than words on a screen.

You make choices regardless of whether or not you have free will.  I;m not sure what illusion is supposed to be involved in hiding under the covers.  It;s not a matter of what is or isn.t cool.  Lacking free will is not being, therefore, predetermined...and it's -you- and others who tell -me- that the choice is trivially free. I'm just commenting on your descriptions of it, after all.  Your level of satisfaction is irrelevant...as it always seems to be, with regards to the truth of the proposition

Quote:And that's the paradox of the no-free-will position.  We still get to ACT as though we have free will.  And so long as my fakery ends up with me enjoying myself, I couldn't care less what words people will / won't use qualitatively to describe my decisions.  I'll just keep on ignorantly calling it "free will," sipping that iced tea, and re-focusing those binoculars.

It's not a paradox to say that you don't care whether or not you're right or wrong about this...it's just indifference. I don't know that we do act like we have -free- will (or what that would even look like) - do you?

(August 20, 2016 at 8:18 am)Rhythm Wrote: You make choices regardless of whether or not you have free will.  I;m not sure what illusion is supposed to be involved in hiding under the covers.  It;s not a matter of what is or isn.t cool.  Lacking free will is not being, therefore, predetermined...and it's -you- and others who tell -me- that the choice is trivially free.

The ability to form intent and act on it without external obstruction or compulsion can be called "trivial," but I'm pretty sure if this privilege were taken away from you, you'd decide that wasn't the right word after all.

Quote:It's not a paradox to say that you don't care whether or not you're right or wrong about this...it's just indifference.  I don;t know that we do act like we have free will (or what that would even look like) - do you?

The paradox is that those who claim we don't have free will are easily seen exercising their free will 24/7. You, for example, almost certainly exercised it in choosing to respond to my posts in this thread.

(August 20, 2016 at 7:54 am)Gemini Wrote: I think people tend to err in looking at the neural processes that correlate to the decision as something outside of their identity, acting on them as an external, constraining force, instead of properly understanding the neural processes to be what their decision is made out of--the physical instrument that gives them the ability to consciously will things in the first place.

On the subject of error...location is not freedom. Identity is not freedom. You're describing a local will, -your- will.....but why is it a free will, again?

Go and get that cake you dirty junkie.  

(August 20, 2016 at 8:31 am)bennyboy Wrote: The ability to form intent and act on it without external obstruction or compulsion can be called "trivial," but I'm pretty sure if this privilege were taken away from you, you'd decide that wasn't the right word after all.

The ability form intent, is intentionality - there's no requirement that this ability be free, or the product of some freedom.  The ability to act on it is agency, there's no requirement that this be free or a product of some freedom.   The lack of -external- obstruction or compulsion (and gl with that btw) is not the lack of obstruction, or compulsion.  While I agree that none of these things are trivial, I don't know what they have to do with any free will?

Quote:The paradox is that those who claim we don't have free will are easily seen exercising their free will 24/7.  You, for example, almost certainly exercised it in choosing to respond to my posts in this thread.

I can be seen exercising my will, for sure.  Whether or not I exercise a free will is the question.  Begging that question, is not a paradox..it;s just sloppy thinking.

Did I use a free will, do you think?  Is it not at least plausible, to you...that I'm the kind of person who sees a post like this and just can't help but respond to it?  That the Rhythm Algorithm has a heavily weighted parameter for engaging in discussions like these, in the way that I discuss them?

You are trying to equivocate between agent and not-agent. The Rhythm algorithm IS YOU, and it is free to respond however it wants to the environment. That you now call it the "Rhythm algorithm" and not just "me, doing stuff I like to do," is never ever going to happen outside the confines of this kind of debate, methinks.