Free Will

[Darkstar]

I have always treated free will as pertaining to whether or not your will is free (hence the name). If your will is not free, then you don't have a free will.

What do you mean by "your will is free"?

But I am more interested in your question about whether it is possible to do other than what you will.  Why does that matter?  Would there be an advantage to being able to do what you do not want to do?  Would it not be better if you cannot fail to do what you want to do?

However, that seems to be getting into the question of whether determinism is true or not.  I do not care about that for what I mean by "free will."

I suppose I really need an answer to my first question in this post to be sure how to react to the rest of what you are saying.

When I say that a will is free, I mean that said will is not controlled by forces over which the person having that will has no jurisdiction. You said in your first post:

As for why you will what you will, that is not something you control (generally), and it is absurd to say that you do.

Hence, if you always do that which is your will, and you have no control over your will, then by extension you indirectly have no control over your actions. Sort of... What you are getting at with your definition is something I personally would refer to as free agency, rather than free will.

I guess the importance of resisting one's own will depends entirely on the definition of will. If your 'will' simply refers to something that you have a strong desire to do, then the ability to resist, say, punching an extremely annoying person in the face could be very important. On the other hand, if your will is that which you, when all things are said and done, most strongly want (such as not getting arrested for assault), then it would probably be not only impossible but nonsensical to resist that by its very definition (i.e. if you punch the guy anyway then you must have, at least in the moment, had a greater will to hit him than avoid assault charges).

[Pyrrho]

I think a true understanding of the nature of our will will eventually come from neuroscience.  Different regions are responsible for different parts of decision making, but I'm guessing the answer will be somewhere in the cerebral cortex, which is a part of the brain that is a recent evolutionary step only seen in mammals.  

The problem I see with saying that we do have free will, even in the sense of the OP, is that we have no way of knowing if our will isn't beholden to our physical brain structure like other traits.  We feel like we make decisions when presented with choices, but we have no way to prove that we could have made a different decision.  We choose to drink that scotch, but unless we could exactly replicate that moment in time, we don't know that you could have chosen not to drink that scotch.  We have no way of knowing that the parts of our brain that are responsible for making that decision weren't structured physically in a manner that would require us to make a certain choice given certain circumstances.

I feel that at this point it's speculative to say either way on the issue, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the more we learn, the less likely it will appear that we are making any choices at all.

I am saying that an action is "free" if it is in accordance with what one wills.  Whether what was wills is causally determined by a rigid chain of events going back to the beginning of time (or going back infinitely in time if there was no beginning to time), or not, makes absolutely no difference for this.  It makes no difference if our will is completely determined by our brains.  An action is free if it is in accordance with what one wills.  That is what I mean by a "free action," and that is what free will is about, acting in accordance with what one wills.

This accords well with the ordinary definition of "free" quoted in the opening post.  It requires no metaphysical nonsense.

[Pyrrho]

What do you mean by "your will is free"?

But I am more interested in your question about whether it is possible to do other than what you will.  Why does that matter?  Would there be an advantage to being able to do what you do not want to do?  Would it not be better if you cannot fail to do what you want to do?

However, that seems to be getting into the question of whether determinism is true or not.  I do not care about that for what I mean by "free will."

I suppose I really need an answer to my first question in this post to be sure how to react to the rest of what you are saying.

When I say that a will is free, I mean that said will is not controlled by forces over which the person having that will has no jurisdiction.

If I understand you, that would mean that it would be totally impossible for a will to be free, according to your ideas of what it means for "a will to be free."  You did not choose to come into existence, and your will, what you desire, came into existence without you choosing it.  You did not choose to be born with hands (or born at all), and you did not choose to have nerves in your hand that lead to your brain, or to have a brain, or to have these such that sticking your hand in a fire would cause pain.  Yet that is likely very relevant to what you want, whether you want to stick your hand in a fire or not.

Notice, it makes no difference whether you were caused to be this way through eons of mindless evolution, or if you are the result of a set of random quantum events such that you spontaneously poofed into existence, or sprang fully grown from Zeus' head.  You did not choose your starting structure, nor did you choose the beginning of your willing.

Indeed, it is logically impossible for one to will oneself into existence.  Before you exist, there is no "you" to will anything, and after you exist, it is too late to bring you into existence.

You said in your first post:

As for why you will what you will, that is not something you control (generally), and it is absurd to say that you do.

Hence, if you always do that which is your will, and you have no control over your will, then by extension you indirectly have no control over your actions. Sort of... What you are getting at with your definition is something I personally would refer to as free agency, rather than free will.

I guess the importance of resisting one's own will depends entirely on the definition of will. If your 'will' simply refers to something that you have a strong desire to do, then the ability to resist, say, punching an extremely annoying person in the face could be very important. On the other hand, if your will is that which you, when all things are said and done, most strongly want (such as not getting arrested for assault), then it would probably be not only impossible but nonsensical to resist that by its very definition (i.e. if you punch the guy anyway then you must have, at least in the moment, had a greater will to hit him than avoid assault charges).

People very often have conflicting desires.  For example, the desire to eat a large plate of brownies every day, conjoined with the desire to not become nauseous and the desire to not become fat.  As long as one acts in accordance with the strongest bit of one's will, one may be said to be acting in accordance with one's will.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I have yet to see a theist make a coherent case that free will can exist under the aegis of an omnimax god.

If a god created everything, then that god created human actions and the outcomes of those actions. From which hand I stir my coffee with, to whom I marry, to which university I attend - ALL of these actions are part and parcel of the universe. If there are things which a god did not create, then the case must be addressed as to whether gods create anything at all.

The case is particularly rough for the Abrahamic God. This god is teetotal fucknuts crazy when it comes to punishing people who commit evil acts. But, since there is nothing this god did not create (it says so right here in the manual), then God created the 'choices' and actions that lead to the punishment. Since there is nothing that cannot be part of God's plan, then the man who rapes and murders a child is doing 'God's will' every bit as much as the man who spends his fortune to bring food and medicine to sick, starving children - the sinner and the saint are merely performing the acts that God created at the instantiation of the universe. EVERY act, from the minute to the magnificent, is pre-planned and pre-ordained by God.

Where then is free will?

Boru

[vorlon13]

I have a very simple idea of "free will."  Basically, one is free if one can do as one wills.  Thus, if you will to keep your hand out of a fire, and you keep your hand out of a fire, that is free.  If you will to drink scotch and you drink scotch, you are free.  It is only insofar as you cannot do what you will that you are not free.  As for why you will what you will, that is not something you control (generally), and it is absurd to say that you do.  You do not generally will for your hand to be in a fire due to the nerves in your hand and the signals that are sent to your brain, etc.  Or in other words, due to the structure of your body.  You did not choose to have a hand in the first place, or nerves, or a brain, etc.  That is all due to things prior to your existence.  Whether that is due to "determinism" or random chance or whatever, clearly, you did not choose it.  Everyone of sense knows that, so why is it that people pretend it is not the case?*  I think people who insist on some sort of magical free will are silly.  Both to wish for it and to believe it makes any sense.


For those who like technical terms, I am taking a compatibilist position on free will (regardless of whether determinism is right or not; that would be more properly the subject of another thread, though one will need to deal with Hume's analysis of causation as well as modern physics if one argues for determinism).  It is also in keeping with ordinary definitions of "free":

free

1Able to act or be done as one wishes; not under the control of another: 
'I have no ambitions other than to have a happy life and be free' 
'a free choice'

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/defini...ctCode=all

Anyone who wishes to use a different idea of "free will" should precisely define their meaning.  Then afterwards we can examine the question of whether it would make sense to say that people have that sort of thing or not.


Naturally, I expect the thread to degenerate into acrimony and to involve people making assertions about "free will" in which they reject the idea presented in this post, but fail to properly and fully explain their meaning.  Isn't that what always happens in online threads about "free will?"


_________________________________________________________________
*As is often the case, the answer to the question resides in the question itself.  It is not everyone, but everyone "of sense" that was specified, and it is those who are lacking in sense who fail to realize such obvious facts.

I knew you were going to post that.

[Mudhammam]

Or in other words, due to the structure of your body.  You did not choose to have a hand in the first place, or nerves, or a brain, etc.  That is all due to things prior to your existence. Whether that is due to "determinism" or random chance or whatever, clearly, you did not choose it.  Everyone of sense knows that, so why is it that people pretend it is not the case?*  

_________________________________________________________________
*As is often the case, the answer to the question resides in the question itself.  It is not everyone, but everyone "of sense" that was specified, and it is those who are lacking in sense who fail to realize such obvious facts.

I suppose one reason people may doubt that is the case is that they're not materialists, and how one defines being or self - whether or not mind emerges as something distinct from a given sum of physical parts, or is itself a physical process, or if there is something above and beyond the objects of sense that is inextricable from reality or the experience thereof - probably has implications for their view of the will i.e. what it consists of and how it is exercised.

[The Grand Nudger]

It's unlikely that such a belief actually -has- implications for free will, or is even remotely related.  Not that this will stop people from referencing their beliefs when considering the issue, of course. If there were fairies working an ethereal treadmill inside of our heads, that might be a problem fro materialism....but that wouldn't tell us whether or not we had any free will.

[MTL]

This discussion calls to mind a good passage from the novel "The Sea Wolf" by Jack London:

he had engaged Maud in animated discussion.  Temptation was the topic they
had hit upon, and from the few words I heard I made out that he was
contending that temptation was temptation only when a man was seduced by
it and fell.

"For look you," he was saying, "as I see it, a man does things because of
desire.  He has many desires.  He may desire to escape pain, or to enjoy
pleasure.  But whatever he does, he does because he desires to do it."

"But suppose he desires to do two opposite things, neither of which will
permit him to do the other?" Maud interrupted.

"The very thing I was coming to," he said.

"And between these two desires is just where the soul of the man is
manifest," she went on.  "If it is a good soul, it will desire and do the
good action, and the contrary if it is a bad soul.  It is the soul that
decides."

"Bosh and nonsense!" he exclaimed impatiently.  "It is the desire that
decides.  Here is a man who wants to, say, get drunk.  Also, he doesn't
want to get drunk.  What does he do?  How does he do it?  He is a puppet.
He is the creature of his desires, and of the two desires he obeys the
strongest one, that is all.  His soul hasn't anything to do with it.  How
can he be tempted to get drunk and refuse to get drunk?  If the desire to
remain sober prevails, it is because it is the strongest desire.
Temptation plays no part, unless--" he paused while grasping the new
thought which had come into his mind--"unless he is tempted to remain
sober.

"Ha! ha!" he laughed.  "What do you think of that, Mr. Van Weyden?"

"That both of you are hair-splitting," I said.  "The man's soul is his
desires.  Or, if you will, the sum of his desires is his soul.  Therein
you are both wrong.  You lay the stress upon the desire apart from the
soul, Miss Brewster lays the stress on the soul apart from the desire,
and in point of fact soul and desire are the same thing.

"However," I continued, "Miss Brewster is right in contending that
temptation is temptation whether the man yield or overcome.  Fire is
fanned by the wind until it leaps up fiercely.  So is desire like fire.
It is fanned, as by a wind, by sight of the thing desired, or by a new
and luring description or comprehension of the thing desired.  There lies
the temptation.  It is the wind that fans the desire until it leaps up to
mastery.  That's temptation.  It may not fan sufficiently to make the
desire overmastering, but in so far as it fans at all, that far is it
temptation.  And, as you say, it may tempt for good as well as for evil."

(Bold is mine)

[Kingpin]

Or in other words, due to the structure of your body.  You did not choose to have a hand in the first place, or nerves, or a brain, etc.  That is all due to things prior to your existence. Whether that is due to "determinism" or random chance or whatever, clearly, you did not choose it.  Everyone of sense knows that, so why is it that people pretend it is not the case?*  

_________________________________________________________________
*As is often the case, the answer to the question resides in the question itself.  It is not everyone, but everyone "of sense" that was specified, and it is those who are lacking in sense who fail to realize such obvious facts.

I suppose one reason people may doubt that is the case is that they're not materialists, and how one defines being or self - whether or not mind emerges as something distinct from a given sum of physical parts, or is itself a physical process, or if there is something above and beyond the objects of sense that is inextricable from reality or the experience thereof - probably has implications for their view of the will i.e. what it consists of and how it is exercised.

I agree with this 100%.  Our presuppositions to the definitions of 'self' and 'mind' certainly influence our extrapolations on such topics.

[Pyrrho]

I have yet to see a theist make a coherent case that free will can exist under the aegis of an omnimax god.

If a god created everything, then that god created human actions and the outcomes of those actions.  From which hand I stir my coffee with, to whom I marry, to which university I attend - ALL of these actions are part and parcel of the universe.  If there are things which a god did not create, then the case must be addressed as to whether gods create anything at all.

The case is particularly rough for the Abrahamic God.  This god is teetotal fucknuts crazy when it comes to punishing people who commit evil acts.  But, since there is nothing this god did not create (it says so right here in the manual), then God created the 'choices' and actions that lead to the punishment.  Since there is nothing that cannot be part of God's plan, then the man who rapes and murders a child is doing 'God's will' every bit as much as the man who spends his fortune to bring food and medicine to sick, starving children - the sinner and the saint are merely performing the acts that God created at the instantiation of the universe.  EVERY act, from the minute to the magnificent, is pre-planned and pre-ordained by God.

Where then is free will?

Boru

There are a couple of different ideas in your post, such as when punishment is justified, but the most relevant one for this thread is going to be a question about what, exactly, do you mean by "free will?"  Determinism is compatible with the version of free will discussed in the opening post.  Evidently, you mean something else, though you have not specified precisely what you do mean.

I do agree that if determinism is correct, and if an omnipotent being created everything, then everything that happens is due to that being.  But I am interested in primarily having a coherent concept of "free will," and am not concerned about an imaginary god.  Nor am I even concerned with whether determinism is correct or not, though, again, the concept of free will discussed in the opening thread is perfectly compatible with determinism.