If free will was not real

[bennyboy]

IDK if I'd go so far as to say it -is-....particularly since the acknowledgement that it's possible, and that we have good evidentiary reason to suspect that it may be, is a sufficient response.

It's an evidenced plausibility (and possibility) that must be excluded, in any rigorous description of a non-trivially "free" will.

Now, it -could be- equally plausible and it -is- equally possible that the will is not deterministic in it's effect (which is what we give shits about), even if it is deterministic in composition and operation...it's just not in evidence at present, which is where the one proposition falls down relative to the other.

Hmmmm. . . and what would that demonstration look like?  You don't think forming intent and then acting on it however you want is free?

[Gemini]

I think they're conflating the two like laypeople do (like that rhyme? )

They are indeed referencing the phenomenology of their decision making but they also simultaneously believe they can do otherwise when they cannot.

So many times in life I have said "Oh sorry it didn't occur to me" when  I had a brain fart about something important and they said "Well it should have occured to you." Silly buggers I can't contra-causally force that thought to occur into my phenomology.

*breathy voice*

You like phenomenology...how's about we get modal, you sapiosexual beast.

Maybe "could have done otherwise" means there's a possible world in which the divergent course of action occurred, and by taking note of it we modify our motivational framework to initiate values relevant to the divergent course of action in the actual world.

(Okay, laypeople obviously don't mean this. I just wanted an excuse to involve modal logic in the discussion. And maybe an informed compatibilist could mean this).

Many many people think their wills are absolutely free whenever their wills are not not constrained. They believe in constrained compatabilist free will/unconstrained contra-causal free will. They mistakingly think that when their wills are not constrained or coeerced that they have full freedom. They do not and they only think they do because they haven't thought it through enough.

I agree with Spinoza on the matter: Spinoza believed that people believe they have free will simply because they do not know the causes of their own actions so they assume it is themselves.

Sure...but the causal chain regresses back some 14 billion years at least. We can stop at salient links in the chain and talk about them as causes. In that sense, agents are the cause of their actions. They just aren't monads originating actions independent of the rest of the universe.

Their thoughts pop into their phenomenology and because they do not know the ultimate sources (which are unconscious and ultimately completely outside of themselves because they live in an environment and universe which they are not remotely separate from) they mistakingly take credit for them. "I am thinking this" they say... but there is no separation from that thinking and the 'them' that is supposedly thinking it. It's not something they are doing it's who they are. They can't think the thought before they think it, they cannot force they thoughts into their head when their conscious self that they identify with is not remotely separate from those very thoughts and in the present moment (which is the only tense of time we are ever actually living in) is our conscious self and identity.

Agree 100%. And that kind of thinking is not only false but pernicious. It leads people to take their own fortunate circumstances for granted and blame less fortunate people for their circumstances; or less fortunate people blame themselves, and just make things worse.

Tasty. And I'm not even talking about the cake. Yum. Phenomenology.

I'm cooking some tasty burgers for lunch. Got any mayonnaise?

[The Grand Nudger]

@BB
I don't know, it's not for me to describe, I'm only leaving the door open for those who have that description and hold that position.  

As to the second question, no...and that's ignoring the fact that you can't actually establish that you even -do- that....and have assumed what you hope to establish in the argument for it. 

If your mind is an algorithm (or a collection of them), then it's intent, it's actions..even what it wants...are the products of mathematic calculations played out on a suitable substrate.  They are no more or less "free"..again, than a thermostat.  I don't know that our will -is- such a thing, but since it could be, and would present identical observations....it needs to be excluded.  Or not...oif you could just bring yourself to be comfortable with the implications and conclusions that are inescapeably arrived at by your description of a free will...and give it to the thermostat, then you wouldn't have an issue.  I still wouldn't be impressed.....but I'd have no room to criticize the proposition on it's own terms.

[RozKek]

It's nature and the way it responds is also determined.

It doesn't matter if the self is determined.  What matters is that it can form intent and act on it freely.

Why doesn't it matter? It can't act on its intent freely, it's intent and its act on its intent is also determined. In other words, it's not free.

[The Grand Nudger]

That is the compatibilist position in a nutshell...that the self is not free would not matter...that someone can call the will free, regardless, does.  

It's just the maintenance of a traditional cultural idiom, a preferred term..not an accurate or consistent description of the phenomena or process.

[Gemini]

Well...the only comment I made about moral desert is how it -couldn't- be maintained...so I don't know who you're disagreeing with, here.  

Just throwing it out there in case anybody wants to dispute it. I'm in a feisty mood lately.

It's not, it just sounds shitty when I phrase it that way, and so you don't like it.  

It's a structurally different position. Bob can coerce me, but I cannot coerce myself.

Explain how you do..or it's an empty objection/question.

I'm gonna give a short, lazy explanation of that. Neuroscience.

That's true, but his mere existence makes the whole "frontal lobe" business moot point (in addition to being a shifting of goal posts) even if he's the only example.  Obviously...it isn't necessary.

Here's just one reason why it doesn't invalidate our understanding of the role the frontal lobes play in impulse control and decision making--the guy had so little brain that he had almost no impulses to control. He had an IQ of 75 and wasn't functioning at a very high level.

I don't say that, though..because I can't identify any instance n which someone is free from the duress of external agents.  I can see times when they are under -less-..or more duress.....but meh.  You;re taking issue to the term trivial as though I were calling our -will- trivial..rather than your description of it as free trivial.

Remember, I'm using "duress" to mean acts or threat of violence by an agent, such as would considered a violation of a person's autonomy in a court of law. That's how I'm defining free will. What a mentally healthy person with legal autonomy has. You acknowledge free will in the social and legal context is coherent and compatible with determinism, you just insist that "free will" should mean something different.

Except that you can;t justify even -that- use of the term, thusfar...you can only play with the idea if we count the hits and ignore the misses...if we draw arbitrary lines...and we;re now talking about frontal lobes..so agian...not a free wil...just a "human will".  Ofc it's a "real referant"...but is it an accurate one..is the human will, your will, that comes from your frontal lobes........ free?

In the sense in which you acknowledge it's free, yes. But not in the sense in which we both believe it isn't free.

[Gemini]

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.  

You know what I'm gonna say, but I'll say it anyway. 

My will is free if it isn't under coercion from other agents. And the deterministic causal process which constitute my will don't qualify as other agents. 

And that cake was good. Soooo good. Mmmmm.

[Edwardo Piet]

*breathy voice*

You like phenomenology...how's about we get modal, you sapiosexual beast.

Fuck yeah!

Maybe "could have done otherwise" means there's a possible world in which the divergent course of action occurred, and by taking note of it we modify our motivational framework to initiate values relevant to the divergent course of action in the actual world.

It certainly could mean that... that's the sense Dan Dennett uses...

However people don't mean this. That would mean when people tell me "Well it should have occured to you!" their point is "Hey! If you lived in a different universe you would live in a different universe!" -- but this is not their point! They actually think I can force myself into a particular possible world, they're not merely saying "Hey! Another possible world is possible!" they're saying "You chose the wrong possible world!"

(Okay, laypeople obviously don't mean this. I just wanted an excuse to involve modal logic in the discussion. And maybe an informed compatibilist could mean this).

Yummy. That works. It was sexy. It reminds me of me but I think you're more intelligent than I. Which again, feels good in my balls.

Sure...but the causal chain regresses back some 14 billion years at least.

Indeed it does.

We can stop at salient links in the chain and talk about them as causes. In that sense, agents are the cause of their actions.

We could but the buck never stops. We can stop their if we want to call normal human willpower "free will" sure. That version of free will certainly exits if we want to call that free will... but the free will most people believe in goes beyond that so if we tell people free will is real we also have to take care to let them know what it is. I find it less confusing to them if we just say it isn't real. That has more emotional impact I think. And emotional impact means they've learned something.

They just aren't monads originating actions independent of the rest of the universe.

Rawr! You said monads! Gottfried would be proud.

Agree 100%. And that kind of thinking is not only false but pernicious. It leads people to take their own fortunate circumstances for granted and blame less fortunate people for their circumstances; or less fortunate people blame themselves, and just make things worse.

This is the most interesting thing you've said to me because this not only further confirms to me that our disagreement is indeed nothing but semantics and a different approach... but we both feel the same way about the damage that the incorrect belief of free will that most people believe in does.

Our approach is different, you take the Dennett approach: "Free will is real but it just isn't what you think it is." Since I take the approach "Free will isn't real but you don''t need free will and you don't have to lapse into fatalism. There is no reason to do that. You have free agency. You are a free agent with normal human willpower and although you are not philosophically responsible for your actions you ought to hold yourself to be a responsible human adult and discarding free will will give you a greater understanding of yourself (and your self) and paradoxically give you more freedom therefore."

The risk for me is that I find even after I have defined compatabilist free will to someone they still very easily start thinking that although they have free will in a deterministic world because compatabilist free will is completely different -- they very easily also start thinking and behaving as if this freedom extends to the illogical contra-causal sense of 'could have done otherwise' provided their will is not under coeertion. People conflate definitions all the time and this is a problem I think. Rather than separate out different definitions and analyse them people are generally more intuitive than myself but less analytical (generally) so in my experience most people are master equivocators. Rather than analysing different senses of a concept they synthesise them. They have strong common sense but they lapse into equivocation.

I am a slow learner. Most people quickly grasp the 'gist' but then they conflate things. I'm slow but deep. Yes in that sense also [emoji6]

Of course there are many people more anaytical than I. But I am certainly an analyser and I consider myself somewhat a specialist when it comes to spotting the equivocation fallacy.

I'm cooking some tasty burgers for lunch. Got any mayonnaise?

Always. You know I'd love to provide [emoji6]

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not, it just sounds shitty when I phrase it that way, and so you don't like it.  

It's a structurally different position. Bob can coerce me, but I cannot coerce myself.

Heroin, cake...either of these two things (and a mountain of others) would like to have a talk with you regarding that assertion.  You might, mistakenly, think that this is not a normal function..or that if you aren't addicted to heroin..you aren't under the same coercion - which does...point of fact, arise from your own locality, your own identity.  These aren;t abberations of the -process-...they are the normal functions of the process subjected to abhorrent substances.  

I mean cmon...cake is a terrible drug....look at those obesity rates!  

Here's just one reason why it doesn't invalidate our understanding of the role the frontal lobes play in impulse control and decision making--the guy had so little brain that he had almost no impulses to control. He had an IQ of 75 and wasn't functioning at a very high level.

So, you think that maybe...he didn't have free will...as you describe it? Probably not, right (as in you probably don't think that)?  Here again we see a quantitative distinction rather than a qualitative distinction.  His brain was damaged and so he had less of, but not none of, whatever that x is.  Regardless, we cannot even demonstrate the accuracy of that -quantitative- distinction, can we, we just sweep it under the rug. Yes, we know that he had a low iq, that he was not a "highly functioning" person, but did he have free will, and do you need a big frontal lobe to possess it, in any measure, if he had it? I;m, not invalidating our undrstanding of the role the frontal lobe plays, I;m invalidating your use of the frontal lobe as a goal post shifting requirement for free will when your previous criteria didn't -fail- per se...but led to a conclusion that you did not like...that a thermostat has your description of free will just as surely as we do.

As I said, a frontal lobe may be a requirement for a human will (or maybe not - by the example we discussed) but we're not talking about a human will...we're talking about a free will.

Remember, I'm using "duress" to mean acts or threat of violence by an agent, such as would considered a violation of a person's autonomy in a court of law. That's how I'm defining free will. What a mentally healthy person with legal autonomy has. You acknowledge free will in the social and legal context is coherent and compatible with determinism, you just insist that "free will" should mean something different.

If the impetus for your using the term in such a way is merely to make the assertions work, then it;s a poor reason to use the term in such a way.  Is heroin addiction not duress?  Can you maintain your convenient use of the term..with a straight face, in response to -that- question.  Because if you can;t...that;s probably a hint that something has gone awry in your propositional structure and use of terms.  

In the sense in which you acknowledge it's free, yes. But not in the sense in which we both believe it isn't free.

I don;t acknowledge it;s freedom, in any sense, or in any situation you have heretofore described.  If I did, we wouldn;t be having this wonderful disagreement. I don't think we possess even what -you- describe as free will.
-or did I misread that?

[Edwardo Piet]

I like Rhythm a lot.