Do you believe in free will?

[Angrboda]

@Whateverist

"Experience" is one of the lousiest kinds of evidence possible. We only use it when we don't have anything better at hand. And for telling us about what is happening inside us, it's notoriously untrustworthy.

@genkaus

You seem to be asserting that you disagree with compatibilists (e.g. Dennett), yet your argument seems explicitly compatibilist. How is your internal vs. external split any different than say, locus of control concepts which assert that while we aren't totally independent of the overall causal chain, the bulk of possibilities flowers internally because of the complexity of the algorithms that brains use to choose?

I see a real problem in one respect which is related to what I was attempting to explain to Rhythm. Actually, two problems.

What do you use as a criterion for separating external from internal. I just read that the changes which result from weightlessness include psychological symptoms which create definite alterations in our subjective experience. Since our subjective experience (and control) depends on the planet existing in close proximity, why is the planet not considered a part of us, and thus an internal factor. What specifically divides internal from external so that regardless of where I look, there will be a clear separation between internal and external, and all those separations will map to your concept of free will depending on these parts, neurons, molecules or atoms being either internal or external.

It's unwise, but I'll give it one more go. I have a Nook Color. Natively it runs a modified version of android. I can stick a specially loaded memory card in it and it will run a generic copy of android. Many smart phones and tablets also run android. It would be a mistake to say that the tablet "is" android. Android is a function that is implemented on the hardware that is the tablet or smartphone (and in fact, that function isn't localized to the tablet, as without human minds to interpret that functional behavior, there is no "android" - only colored lights). The problem isn't so much that we don't have any idea where the function is primarily being manifested (though there are mereological concerns there as well), or how it is being manifested (natural law works fine). We might be coming closer by saying that the mind is the brain, as more of the brain is used up in creating the mind (though autonomous systems that control temperature and such are probably not properly a part of mind). The self is a specific function, and just as we can postulate a thermostat with a bimetallic strip as a mind and a self, we can't separate the causal importance of the one strip bending against the other from the causal effect of the heat in the air in contact with it. The chains of causality extend infinitely in both directions, and you have to give some justification for why the causal chain this side of the line should be treated differently from that side of the line. Neither you nor Rhythm has done that. It's as if I asked Rhythm where the distributor in my car is, and he replied, "It's under the hood." That response covers a range of possible underlying knowledges from, "I can tell you the history of the theory and manufacture of distributors from the start" all the way to "I don't really know what a distributor is, but since most parts in a car are in the engine, that's my guess." And from a semi-positivist stance, if your statement can't be differentiated from ignorance, then your statement contains no information that the ignorance doesn't have. Yes, there is a distributor under there, yes it operates by the known laws of physics, but it isn't clear that he actually knows what, where, how or why.


(One more example, throwing good money after bad. A response to Searle's argument has been to suggest replacing the neurons of the brain with micro chips, one at a time, each chip duplicating the function of the neuron it replaces. At what point do you stop being you (the "I", the self). A strict interpretation of the brain "is" the self means that the first neuron you replace extinguishes the self (unless you start playing games with the meaning of words). That is obviously an absurd result. Does the self ever disappear or even change slightly at any point. I say no; Searle says yes. A related illustration. We normally think of blood circulation as a necessary function of our bodies. If the blood stops flowing, the brain dies, and we are extinguished. So if the heart dies, we die. But what exactly is the heart? Is it a specific glob of matter in our chest? Or is it the function it performs? It's a little harder to see with the heart [or perhaps less persuasive] but if the actual matter itself constituted the heart, then artificial hearts would be useless, because they simply perform the function the organic heart used to perform; they in no sense replace it, and they operate on radically different principles. Same with the blood pumps used in heart surgery. Nobody would mistake them for an organic heart, but we don't define the heart by what it is so much as by what it does. And with that understanding, we can replace the heart, not from stem cell cultures, but by duplicating the function through other means.)


ETA: One last thing. Traditional free will theorists assert freedom for, among other reasons, moral grounds. Ergo, if our will isn't free, how can we be truly culpable? That's one of the main reasons they are trying to save it. Your external versus internal distinction is all well and good, but I don't see that it rescues moral responsibility. If both external and internal forces are both causally determined, the ultimate Twinky defense arises: I didn't do it, it was my internal forces what made me do it. I can't see any way around that with your ideas. And if it isn't useful for that, in what sense is your distinction useful? What is it good for? Okay, so some forces are external to me, and my internal forces are only loosely linked to them, well, and...? What's the point in making the distinction (other than perhaps providing us with a comforting notion that, "While it may look like we're not free, we really are. *wink* *wink*")