(March 13, 2012 at 11:02 am)whateverist Wrote: Anyone who thinks the ultimate outcome is absolutely predestined down to the last detail has got a faith based belief, not a reasoned position. Unless it was inevitable that I write these exact words in response to the last several posts which you gentlemen too were compelled to write just as you did. (Bullshit.)

Holy Non-Sequitor Batman!

Its no different to saying the weather system is predestined, or more accurately subject to cause and effect in such complexity that prediction is extremely difficult despite the best attempts of meteorologists.
Meteorology is not considered a faith, so why consider determinism as such?
That assertion confuses me.

From my point of view, the assertion that there is a 3rd agent for change in the universe beyond the previous state, and the fundamental laws which change one state to another is more hocus pocus than determinism, but I'm sure its just a relativity of views.

So, sure, its inevitable, the inevitable conclusion to the first moments of the universe, to the creation of galaxies and our planet, the abiogenesis leading to life, to the evolution of intelligence, the creation of language, to reason, the firing of neurons upon specific natural causes in a long line of causation.

Also, in order to be a belief I have to assert it without reason, and ALL I've done is stated reasons, not assertions. You mistake arguments for the position of determinism in the same vein of theism, which is inaccurate. I don't claim to be definitely right, I simply put forward my reasons for my position, and in the absence of deconstructing any errors in that position, I cannot change my mind as of yet. But I can, and will if I an issue is presented which causes my hypothesis to be demonstrably incorrect. Scientific Method ftw.

I agree, and stated earlier however, that the concept of free will borders on the unfalsifiable (I'm not convinced its true, but very possibly), however I will commit the fallacy of burden of proof, freely, and admittedly, that free will requires evidence that the fundamental laws of the universe are not absolute and the course of causation can be changed through a medium disconnected with your biology.
I don't call it faith, and I don't see how you can, simply an opinion on the hows and whys the world work, where science is unlikely to be able to penetrate. In which case, all philosophy is faith, and equally dismissible and I think philosophers around the world would have great issue with that

Thankfully I have the get out of jail free card in that I am not a trained philosopher

To me, the claim to experience free will is like the claim of experiencing love. We know love exists because we all have experienced enough of it to know what the other person is talking about, we can correlate their behavior with memories of our own internal states. Free will is something we perceive ourselves exercising. Dissecting it into its component parts can make it seem as though it is only an illusion, but the same can be said for love. Does knowing the hormonal and neural states involved in love make it only a biological process and not an emotion, or is it a biological process AND an emotion? The alternative to free will is complete lack of autonomy (if free will is an illusion, so are a lot of other things that depend on it). I have to wonder if disbelieving in something it's impossible to act as if I disbelieve in makes sense.

(March 13, 2012 at 2:33 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: We know love exists because we all have experienced enough of it to know what the other person is talking about, we can correlate their behavior with memories of our own internal states. Free will is something we perceive ourselves exercising. Dissecting it into its component parts can make it seem as though it is only an illusion, but the same can be said for love. Does knowing the hormonal and neural states involved in love make it only a biological process and not an emotion, or is it a biological process AND an emotion?

Self Authenticating Private Evidence etc etc

I don't LIKE my point of view, and to a certain extent I sympathise with the theist who KNOWS god exists. If you hate the idea of no god, no free will, no love, at least beyond self-authenticating private delusions, then for the sake of personal sanity we would rather buy into the delicious and comforting illusion of free will, love and depending on your personality, god. Its an expression of delusion, some we can't live comfortably without, and for some of us, some you can.

Oddly enough, determinism is indicated by the mere fact we have personality. Enough of our biological and electrochemical memory is static enough to give predictable responses and body language to stimuli. In many respects, its an indication that there are strong imperatives to how we act. It becomes very difficult to not be "You".
If free will existed, I would theorise that our concept of personality would be vastly more indistinct. Just a hypothesis of course.

Does love, free will seem real to you, of course, in fact, even thou I type this, I type it with the "feeling" of free will, and I type it "knowing" I love my wife. But if we remove our personal preferences, which potentially keep us sane, we buy into these comforting illusions.

Quote: The alternative to free will is complete lack of autonomy (if free will is an illusion, so are a lot of other things that depend on it). I have to wonder if disbelieving in something it's impossible to act as if I disbelieve in makes sense.

Its certainly impossible for me to act as if I don't have free will, or act as if I don't love and adore my wife and children. However, this proves nothing but our preference for how we want the universe to be.

Like atheism, the truth is not particularly comforting. I suspect that the only real difference is that god we can imagine dealing without, but we cannot conceive of dealing without love or free will, and those that do, are sociopathic or psychotic.

Is it true? Who knows, I'm theorising, and explaining my own viewpoint. I express my opinion with no view on its certainty as it remains, despite supporting evidence, that the final conclusion is very much into the air.
I hope I'm wrong, but I'm "agnostic" enough about it to not worry about it beyond an exercise in thought.

I believe free will is limited, for instance you can turn left or right but there is no effect on life or anything as somehow both lead to where you want to go. It seems the decision is up to you completely and if you wanna go left go and vice versa you can, however I believe you are given a choice but God knew which one you were going to choose and that was the only way you were going to do it. You went left as you were meant to but in technicality you could have gone right but the whole point was you were always going to go left, God controls your choices and if he wants it to happen it does. It's a difficult thing to understand as it seems I think there is no choice but there was it was just that the choice was controlled by God however you still consciously choose to make the decision. God wants you to go left but you originally wanted to right, it happens to be though that earlier that day some teenagers decided to meet up at the right turning and now you do not want to go right. You end up going left, the choice was there and you chose consciously but the way God wanted it is the way it happened. You thought you had the choice but did you really? When someone does something bad, that is God allowing something not condoning it but saying "The world is now the way you made it, deal with it. Sometimes when I want something to happen I will make it happen but otherwise you can clean up this mess." Everything is sustained by God but not necessarily a direct consequence.

(March 13, 2012 at 9:49 am)genkaus Wrote:

(March 13, 2012 at 8:06 am)NoMoreFaith Wrote: So the question is thus; At what point were you able to exert a force upon the universe that changes the future. Was it at conception? The sensory development in the womb? The formation of the ego?

I think there is a critical error in this statement which gives it a form of a loaded question. You use the term "changing the future", which means that the future is in some sense predetermined - that there is a set course from which it may or may not deviate. In a question regarding free-will vs determinism, you are already presupposing determinism.

This I think is a fundamental error. Neither determinists nor free will theorists are proposing that determinism is in error. Both accept determinism fully. Where free will comes in is assuming that decisions and choices are determined by a law or laws that are not in the currently accepted set of natural laws. A free will is every bit a part of determinism, it's just that these specific choices are determined by something whose behavior and laws, for lack of a better term, are "free" — meaning certain departures from the other natural laws, whose behaviors seem not to possess this trait. The problem for the free will theorist is not to refute determinism — determinism is necessary for both — the problem is to demonstrate the existence of these heretofore unknown laws, and the entities which are ruled by them. (Pineal gland?)

If something is not determined, either by current natural laws, or whatever additions are required to understand our will as free, then its behavior is essentially random, as nothing, free or not, determines its course. And this, as noted, is not free will. (As Rhythm hinted and I agree, compatibilism, the notion that determinism as defined by current natural laws does not preclude free will, usually by changing the definition of free will, is attempting to solve the problem by defining away the hard bits. But the hard bits are the part we find interesting. If a used car salesman offered you a tired old but truly free will, or a shiny new compatibilist free will, most of us would opt for real free will.)

---

A stickier question, at least for the compatibilist, is what is meant by "I". It's a shortcut to say that whatever is in the brain is the I, because it's not — there are many things in the brain that are not the I, and some, Buddhists, contend there isn't even an I. Equating the brain with the I is largely handwaving, albeit handwaving which many materialists have fought hard to sell.

There are a number of peculiarities which stick out as anomalies, urging us to go deeper. For example, other people, particularly spouses, seem to know us better than we know ourselves; they have palpable facts about our "I" that we do not, even though under conventional analysis, their knowledge should be a subset of ours; we have first person knowledge, and more of it — and yet when they predict what we'll do in spite of ourselves, it's like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Other things like the introspection illusion, wherein we think of other people using different evidence than we do in reasoning about ourselves, but yet our concept of what a "self" is, is not correspondingly adjusted. Bias blindspot is another. There was an experiment in which people were retrospectively assessed on how happy they had been over a period of time. During that time, they had also been intermittently queried. It was found that the retrospective assessment of their happiness systematically deviated in the positive direction. Are you the you that is happy now, or the you that will remember having been happier in the future? Simply leaving the "I" an undefined part of the brain is simply insufficient. Certainly the brain "causes" the I, but the brain is not the "I". The "I" is an idea in the brain.

Sorry Apo, the brain being "I" isn't handwaving, nor is it selling anything, it's the determination we make after weighing demonstrable evidence. If you, or buddhism has some demonstrable evidence to weigh against this, I'm sure somebody somewhere is dying to see it.

(March 13, 2012 at 5:24 pm)Rhythm Wrote: Sorry Apo, the brain being "I" isn't handwaving, nor is it selling anything, it's the determination we make after weighing demonstrable evidence. If you, or buddhism has some demonstrable evidence to weigh against this, I'm sure somebody somewhere is dying to see it.

I think you're misunderstanding my point. I'm not saying the brain doesn't host the self, but saying the brain is the self is as wrongheaded as saying the refrigerator is beer because it contains beer, or that the car engine is combustion or vice versa.

Moreover, I think that the very language itself is wrong. If we could harness Maxwell's demons to take every molecule in the brain and basically make them orbit in circles so they never get to their destination, the "I" would cease to exist. If the "I" were a thing instead of a process, this wouldn't occur. That it does occur (or would occur) is, I think, persuasive evidence that the self is not a thing, simpliciter. The brain, however, is a thing simpliciter.

Materialists who say that the self is the brain are simply attempting to hide their ignorance. Yes, some self thing or process is going on inside the brain that is the self, but it's only one of many things going on in there. I at this moment depend on the food, warmth, and air in this room, it is as intricately a part of the causal chain as what is happening inside my skull, yet it would be a clear error to say "I" am this room (or this planet, or galaxy). And the reason both your usage and that usage are nonsensical is because the statement makes no meaningful distinction between what is and is not a part of the object or process. It's handwaving, as I said. It's almost a variant of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy, only in that you've drawn your bullseye so large that you can't help but hit the target. But this is at the expense of what you are saying having any real significant meaning. You've cheapened the term self, robbing it of substance, if not outright equivocated on the term. Consider this, the nature of our eyes are a critical neurological component in our visual perception — are they not then a part of the "I"? What if I lose them, do I have less of an "I" then? What if I lose some squamous cells in the shower? Are we daily losing a part of the "I"? According to your interpretation, we are. And that would be equivocation.

(For what it's worth, I think the Buddha was wrong. I personally have my own theory about how the brain gives rise to the self. But your answer, "Well... 'stuff' gives rise to the self." is a non-answer.)

You may assume there is more than meets the eye, but why not make any other assumption while you're at it. "You" are actually "hosted" in a jar of peanut butter on the discount shelf at the walmart, via psychic relay, in another dimension. The question (for those who do not deeply wish to believe something else) is not "if", but "how".

But, just for shits ands giggles, I'm going to explain to you why this is a can of worms that even you don't want to open. Let's say tomorrow we have a massive breakthrough, and we learn that the brain somehow "hosts" the self, but it is located elsewhere, arises from something else. Let's say this thing that it arises from aligns exactly with your beliefs. Seems like a good day right? Wrong. I'll be there to claim that you are handwaving, attempting to hide your ignorance. You see, the self is hosted by the brain, arises from "your favorite place"...but...is caused and operated from somewhere else, somewhere undemonstrated and unknown, somewhere greater than whatever this new thing you like very much is. Down the rabbit hole we go.

(you're not seriously about to go off on tangents about eyes, or how I've somehow "cheapened" this or that are you? What's the deal Apo, it just seems cheap the way I say it, you don't like it, so it can't be true?)

You haven't understood a word I've said.

(March 13, 2012 at 10:29 am)Rhythm Wrote: I also consider that position to be non-sensical, that's why I consider free will to be non-sensical.

Thereby proving that the only meaning of "free-will" you are willing to accept is the supernatural interpretation.

(March 13, 2012 at 10:29 am)Rhythm Wrote: I'm asking if anyone can demonstrate control over their selves, or differentiate themselves from that which is under control. In short, I'm asking for a demonstration of free will, not a redefinition of the words free or will. If we're redefining these things to be more in accordance with what can be demonstrated, do we not run the risk of redefining them so drastically that they no longer have any bearing on the original concept. IOW, if we drastically redefine free will, we're essentially removing free will from consideration and instead considering something else under an assumed name.

I disagree. I think that in light of modern knowledge, re-evaluation of the concept is in order.

The basic definition of free will remains the same. It is "the capacity of an agent to make a choice from alternatives free from certain constraints". This definition very much relies on the meaning of an agent and the constraints under consideration.

If the only definition of an agent you are willing to accept is a supernatural entity such as a soul or a spirit and the only constraint you consider is causality, then the term free-will does not make any sense. And in a context where an agent could only mean a soul or a spirit possessing a body and people believed in a supernatural realm free from causality - that was the only interpretation that made sense. The term was coined by theologians who believed in such things, but that is not the case here.

Given that we do not believe in existence of a supernatural soul or spirit, nor do we equate all constraints to causality, why should we continue using the interpretations of free-will that rely on those very definitions. If the term "agent" and "constraint" means something very different to us - so should the term "free-will". Otherwise, we are not being intellectually consistent.

(March 13, 2012 at 10:29 am)Rhythm Wrote: So, if you are not free from causality, and your free will only requires that it be independent of external factors and dependent on you, then your free will would be dependent on causality, would it not?

Correct.

(March 13, 2012 at 10:29 am)Rhythm Wrote: Again, how is this "free"?

Like you said - it is free from external factors and dependent on me.

(March 13, 2012 at 10:29 am)Rhythm Wrote: How is this different, btw, from simply stating, "My free will is not dependent on causality (external, specifically, in your case), it is dependent on my free will (which is internal, but still not free from causality, as per your own remarks on the subject)"?

Its not. But I would state it as "My free will is not completely dependent on external causality, but it is dependent on me."

By the way, in your interpretation, is an agent's free-will required to be free of the agent as well?

(March 13, 2012 at 10:29 am)Rhythm Wrote: Are we forming a non-cognitive statement?

I don't think so.

(March 13, 2012 at 10:29 am)Rhythm Wrote: If your "free will" is an expression or effect of biochemistry, and if we can coerce or alter this expression by leveraging biochemistry (which we can) how free is your will?

My biochemistry is a part of me. By coercing or altering my biochemistry, you are coercing and altering me. Since my will is only as free as I am, it would be constrained to the extent I'm being coerced.

But my biochemistry is not all of me and to the extent that the other parts are not being coerced or altered, it would remain free from the said coercion or alteration.