(March 14, 2012 at 7:26 pm)NoMoreFaith Wrote: Apologies, but its because its incomprehensible. It appears to be non-theological compatibilism. I.e. Not supernatural, but the future is not set, and our choices can change it.
This is the position you represented, and I discussed my position contrary to that. Simply because I don't believe compatibilism is defensible. So from my point of view, it appeared to be trying to have the compatibilist cake, but avoiding the problems it causes.
Once again, I'm sure you don't see this as your view, I simply can't get my head around what position you are actually taking. Which is fine, so I think you're right, its time to move the discussion forward, and I'm glad you're part of it, as it really has challenged my noodle, and I love that.
I'm hard determinist as stated, and its not the illusion of free will that frightens me, but the illusion of morality which frightens me more as a direct implication.
At the risk of repeating the discussion all over again, I'd like to clarify my position once again. This time I'll go through the questions I asked myself while considering the issue.
The overall question before me was "Does free-will exist"?
The first question that came to me mind was "What is free-will"?
A simple search gave me the answer "It is the capacity of an agent to make a choice free from alternative choices free from certain kinds of constraints". I accepted it this definition and chose to work on it because it did not seem to imply any particular philosophical position on the matter.
The next question was "What kinds of constraints"?
The nature of the agent - who he is - could be considered to determine his choices and therefore it would be a constraint. The environment he is in could be a constraint. His very desires or "will" would determine his choices and could be a constraint. So, is free-will supposed to be free from itself? That would be just nonsensical and I discarded that line of thought.
The conclusion I came to here was "external or environmental constraints". The will - which is a consequence of the agent's nature - cannot be free from it and would not be required to be.
The next question was "what constitutes an agent"?
Here I struggled with the idea of self-hood. If I looked at it reductionally - taking away pieces of agent's brain, his thoughts, his motivations, his experiences etc. and discarding them if I did not find the "self" within them, I'd be left with nothing in the end and would have no choice but to invoke the supernatural. The logical course in this case was to look at it holistically and determine that the agent would have to be the sum of it all. The "self" of the agent is an emergent entity that is the combination of all these.
I measured this answer against the constraints I'd accepted and found them to be consistent. I had specified which constraints would be included or excluded and determined how they exist with respect to the agent - all without invoking anything supernatural. Therefore, if any version of free-will could be true, this would be it.
Now, having determined what free-will means, the next question was "does it negate causality in any way"?
I saw that both the agent and his environment were a part of the causal chain. I also noticed that the exercise of free-will requires the agent to be the cause of the choice and therefore securing his position in that chain. So, my answer was "no, it does not".
The next question was "what are its implications on the idea that the future is set"?
The chain of causality determines the future (to the extent we ignore any competing randomness or quantum indeterminacy). Free-will, if it exists, would not be separate from the chain of causality, it would be one of the factors used to determine the future.
Is the future already determined? This question is different from the statement "causality determining the future". The former statement suggests a past event and that fore-knowledge of the future is possible. But as soon as that knowledge comes into existence, it becomes one of the causal factors that could affect the future - thus making it indeterminate again. So, while causality (with its subset of free-will) are in a continuous process of determining the future, it is not actually fully determined until it comes to pass, i.e. becomes present.
I'll admit that I find this point a little confusing as well and need to sort it out a bit more.
The next part was "how is this free-will different from the illusion of free-will"?
The answer I found was that it was fundamentally different, even if they seem functionally similar. Those who argue about the illusion of free-will accept the premise that free-will, if it exists, would be free of causation. My argument explicitly rejects that premise.
For example, one atheist may disbelieve in god because he doesn't want god's existence to be true. He fears going to hell and therefore convinces himself that there is no god. Another may disbelieve in god based on evidence (or lack thereof). Now, functionally, both beliefs are similar, fundamentally they could not be more different. The former belief would not hold in a rational argument, while the latter would. Your beliefs should not just be functionally similar to the right beliefs, they should be held with the right justifications as well.
Finally, I asked "if causality, free-will and determinism are all compatible, what is all the fuss about"?
For this I noticed a very common trend among the arguments to not clearly what is meant by an "agent". Understandable, since the notion of self-hood of an agent is still not clearly spelled out. But any progress on the subject without such a definition invariably leads to specifying the constraints which would be a part of the will as apart from the will. This, in turn, leads to the notion of the agent as either non-existent or some supernatural entity independent of causality. Which then leads to the automatic interpretation of free-will as something non-existent or free from causality or illusory.
Some questions I'm still considering
Specifically what would constitute the "internal constraints" of an agent, since not all processes taking place within the body could be classified as such?
I believe the answer lies in greater understanding of how human consciousness, awareness, cognition etc actually work.
How much of the agent's internal constraints dependent or determined by the external constraints?
Depending upon the answer to this, even free-will, as I've specified, would not exist. But absent any specific answer, we cannot preclude the possibility of its existence.
