Do you believe in free will?

[genkaus]

How does having a sense of self make something free from external stimuli btw? Sounds like an assumption to me, and a fuzzy one at that.

By providing a greater level of awareness and generation of internal stimuli.

To be clear - if the actions of an organism are only dependent upon external factors, i.e. its awareness of things external to it - then it cannot have free-will.

With the sense of self comes the awareness of one's own actions, thoughts etc. This additional awareness makes those actions dependent on more than simply external stimuli - thus making them relatively free from them

Also, if internal stimuli are similarly bound by causality/determinism (such as neurological activity and biochemistry)...then what is the difference as far as free will is concerned between external and internal stimuli, other than the obvious? Why does it deserve "special consideration"?

None, other than the obvious. But the question of free-will is usually asked while determining responsibility of one's actions and the role of one's "will" in those actions. For that determination, it must be defined what constitutes a "will".

[The Grand Nudger]

LOL, always happy to oblige Whateverist. We have provided no such thing. Further, we don't have to provide evidence against something just because alot of people believe it or experience it, que Christ. Effects aren't good enough to establish that something "is", or the worm and the plant have free will as well. Again, everything about our consciousness seems very much to be an effect of that big lump of nerves between our ears. We do create useful illusions, the universe we live in does appear to be a deterministic one. These aren't assumptions, this is not an argument. It is an observation made from available evidence. To me, it would seem reasonable to explain something like "free will" by way of the known, and not by way of the unknown, or by fuzzy definitions.

@ Genk Again, are you generating internal stimuli, or are you one of those things that has been generated? Am I being unclear here?

It is tricky btw, as far as our laws and social conventions are concerned. Of course, everytime we've discovered something like this about ourselves there have been those that worried that something important or integral to us would collapse if we simply accepted the evidence we had. Thankfully, we're still here, still plugging away. We don't defer to god for justice, for example, but somehow we still manage to operate systems of law. It may be that these criminal things that we do are on shaky ground with regards to responsibility, but that won't change the notion of compensation (in all of it's forms) for the victim one bit, will it? It might change how we handle punishment, what we feel is acceptable to do or leverage against the convicted for any given crime..but I'm willing to bet we'll still do something about it.

[genkaus]

Are you in control of your internal stimuli, or is it in control of you (to put it more precisely, would it be fair to say that the sum of external and internal stimuli produce an effect which you call "I", and if so, precisely how could you be said to have control of this "I")?

Do you have a will, or are you a will?

These considerations apply only if you separate the internal stimuli from "you". Which, as I have been arguing, I do not.

[The Grand Nudger]

Then how have you escaped determinism, precisely, as I've already asked. How have you even dented it? You seem to be entrenching yourself within it. You have exactly as much free will as a worm, just a more "complicated" amount of it, capable of expressing a larger number of deterministic things. If this is simply a case of free will being all the things we can't predict due to complexity, what happens if we learn to predict this or that thing. Does free will vanish in a puff of disappointment, and if it exists, just how would it vanish? In with a bang, out with a whimper?

[NoMoreFaith]

Incorrect. You must show causation can be superseded in order to show free-will that is free from causation. Since that has never been my argument, I must show nothing of the sort.

Surely you must realise that if you argue freewill, then the you refers to the position of free will rather than individual.
We agree on that point, fine, but you are arguing for free will, hence why I asked for your alternative definitions you seem to withhold.

Otherwise,
I have. It is just not free-will as you understand it.

More to the point, its not free will as you redefine it.

I dislike compatibilism since it fails to address the assumed supernatural component to free-will and in the process, assumes it as well.

By free-will, I mean the capacity of an agent to choose from a set of alternatives free from some constraints (external to himself).

The problem you have is in this "free from some constraints" business. You define constraints only in terms of the external, but define free will as the expression of alternative choice. As was stated many times, that if you define it as free will if you ignore the internal constraints. Its merely the illusion of free will when you factor in the internal ones.
To demand otherwise, is still demanding a "3rd" agent of change beyond external and internal factors, otherwise your definition is illusion of free will and nothing more.
If we talk of the same thing, fair enough, its just a disagreement about what to call it. I say Illusion of Free Will, you say that expression IS free will.

I have. You haven't addressed them.

Please cite example that I have missed. I do try to address each point which is raised. Not to do so WOULD be intellectually dishonest if intentionally so.

Now, as to the assumptions you made - I do not contest them as factual, because I accept them as facts as well. But any proponent of free-will free of causality would not presume that the "future is predetermined" to be factual and therefore would consider your question to be loaded.

They may, but that does remove the obligation to show that the initial presumptions as stated and described as pre-assumptions when I made them are either lacking, or false.
If they can do neither, then their argument has problems. As has not been addressed, because its not your position, they would still be in the position to prove magic is possible before you factor it into any assumptive statements.

Let's not make the mistake of thinking we are having an argument, I answered the points you raised, and you are now stating that "a proponent of free will" would say this, and say that. I can only answer the person making the counter-argument.

At this juncture I would like to say I appreciate your efforts to do so.

[The Grand Nudger]

As for the neurological complexity part, I think we've had this discussion somewhere. I cannot point to a specific level or find a line of demarcation. Here's a list according to my current understanding.

Humans - Yes.
Other great apes - Yes.
Dolphins - Yes.
Octopuses -Yes.
Elephants - Yes.
Dogs - Maybe yes.
Cats - Maybe yes.
Birds - Dunno.
Fish - Dunno.
Bears - Dunno.
Rats - Maybe No.
Ants - No.
Snakes - No.

and so on. As you may notice, most of the animals would come under "dunno".

You can't point to specifics, nor can you demonstrate it's existence except by reference to brain size, effect, or complexity(which for some reason or another are sometimes not good enough in some cases, but I would give it to you that considering all of these things together definitely has merit) and yet somehow you are confident in the statement that this thing exists. That doesn't worry you in the least? No worries, lets take a look at the list. Keeping it pretty close to our comfort zone aren't we? Very little on that list that is not very closely related to us has a definite yes. Troubling, bias. Some of these "dunnos" are pretty damned smart... It seems that this list is very much a list of things with big brains, big, deterministic, electrochemical machines....called brains.

[NoMoreFaith]

It is a problem only if you are entering the discussion about existence of free-will with that premise.

Its also a problem if you redefine free will as determined from external causes, but refuse to name any internal causes that it is "free" from. What is "Free" about the free will you consider.

Faith has been trying to show that I'm not arguing according to his understanding of free-will - to which I've been replying "Ofcourse not."

Actually, what I've also been arguing is that your nebulous version of free will, has the equal onus of proof as any other definition. Plenty of neurologial evidence behind the changes in the brain upon making decisions, and the electrical activity leading up to it.

Is it any wonder we're confused. You're a determinst who believes in free will, but doesn't agree with compatibilism.. wtf is that. Nor have you adequately explained how on earth that can possibly work.

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You only need to show free will exists if you reject the evidence of your own experience. Magic always seems to come down to sleight of hand and misdirection. You say our apparent experience of free will is an illusion. Perhaps you like to explain how that is done exactly.

Bob is a minister, and has complete faith in his self-authenticating private evidence of God. Jesus walks with him daily, guiding him to moral choices.

How do we know Bob suffers from a delusion? Because he has no evidence for God or Jesus.
I know you have a delusion of free will because you have no evidence that you do so.
If you think that making a decision is evidence then the voices in Bobs head is evidence of God guiding him.

Don't get me wrong, you EXPERIENCE free will, you simply never had the option to act differently.

Every physical system EVER examined, or studied in depth, has always shown to be.. determined.
The brain, as the most complex organ has resisted our efforts but I would assume arrogance to declare it an exception to the rule.

How about in the 1970s, Dr Libet put his subects under a electroencephalogram and recorded the results of random motions initiated by the subjects.
What he found is that the subconscious made the decision before the conscious brain had figured out what the hell was going on (about a half second or so).
The active decision to act was a complete illusion, decided by the subconscious before the brain had time to rationalise it. In short, neuroscience has consistently shown indications that much of what the conscious brain does, is rationalise what the subconcious already told the body to do.

If we really have free will, I've got BAD news for you.

The free will is making its mind up and letting you know what you are doing AFTERWARDS.

The experiments have been repeated many times, and have shown the same thing over and over again.

I'm always struck when proponents of determinism ask for a display of free will that they have just given it themselves or else what they claim to have reasoned to is in some sense just a hardwired belief.

See above, and please read deeper into it than a forum post, theres plenty of complimentary studies which support determinism, not just the soft version of genkaus, but damnable, scary, horrible, idea of hard determinism. I hate the idea. It just seems the most plausible.

Accuse the determinist of not providing evidence, yet neuroscience, electrobiology is all about the determinism, and google will take you a ton of it. I've given one for the road.

What you'll fail to find, is a study that proves an element of conscious decision making that was free from, internal, external, or, damn it, free from ANYTHING.

[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*")

[The Grand Nudger]

@ Apo-Except that in this case, when I say "it's under the hood", it's because it is, and we've opened the hood to check. Now, if we were to open the hood, and there was no distributer (yet it still ran), I'd be left with two possible scenarios (and this is assuming that I am not merely mistaken about there being no distributor). One, this car doesn't require a distributor, two, it is located somewhere else. Well, show me the somewhere else and I'll give 2 more consideration than 1. Or, as I've been mentioning all along, someone could just point to the fucking distributor. Why ask me to provide more information than we have? I wish I could explain how our minds work in every particular, but I can't. That doesn't mean that anything you have to offer has value. You must make that case yourself.

I do understand what you'rte trying to express Genkaus, I just fail to see how your definition of free will is different from there being no such thing as free will, btw. We need it and so must redefine it to allow for responsibility just doesn't cut it for me. Either it's there or it isn't, and the cards fall where they may.

[genkaus]

Then how have you escaped determinism, precisely, as I've already asked. How have you even dented it? You seem to be entrenching yourself within it. You have exactly as much free will as a worm, just a more "complicated" amount of it, capable of expressing a larger number of deterministic things. If this is simply a case of free will being all the things we can't predict due to complexity, what happens if we learn to predict this or that thing. Does free will vanish in a puff of disappointment, and if it exists, just how would it vanish? In with a bang, out with a whimper?

I haven't - nor do I need to since I don't consider it incompatible.

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Surely you must realise that if you argue freewill, then the you refers to the position of free will rather than individual.
We agree on that point, fine, but you are arguing for free will, hence why I asked for your alternative definitions you seem to withhold.

As I have.

More to the point, its not free will as you redefine it.

No, the definition is still "capacity of an agent to make a choice free from certain constraints". You assume I'm redefining it because you do not accept the meaning of the agent of the constraints I consider.

The problem you have is in this "free from some constraints" business. You define constraints only in terms of the external, but define free will as the expression of alternative choice. As was stated many times, that if you define it as free will if you ignore the internal constraints. Its merely the illusion of free will when you factor in the internal ones.
To demand otherwise, is still demanding a "3rd" agent of change beyond external and internal factors, otherwise your definition is illusion of free will and nothing more.
If we talk of the same thing, fair enough, its just a disagreement about what to call it. I say Illusion of Free Will, you say that expression IS free will.

As I've been trying to explain, the internal constraints must be discarded while considering the free-will and no third agent is necessary.

The internal constraints are what an agent is. To say that free-will must be free of internal constraints is to say that it must be free of the agent and his will. Free-will cannot be free of the person doing the wiling and to ask it to be is to ask for a contradiction that cannot be resolved.

Please cite example that I have missed. I do try to address each point which is raised. Not to do so WOULD be intellectually dishonest if intentionally so.

I think I've repeated my argument just above. I'd rather not go back looking for the answer to that.

They may, but that does remove the obligation to show that the initial presumptions as stated and described as pre-assumptions when I made them are either lacking, or false.
If they can do neither, then their argument has problems. As has not been addressed, because its not your position, they would still be in the position to prove magic is possible before you factor it into any assumptive statements.

Let's not make the mistake of thinking we are having an argument, I answered the points you raised, and you are now stating that "a proponent of free will" would say this, and say that. I can only answer the person making the counter-argument.

At this juncture I would like to say I appreciate your efforts to do so.

I think it would be best to drop this line of argument altogether, since I can only go as far as point out places where they might consider your arguments to be lacking, but cannot give their reasons for considering them lacking.

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@ Genk Again, are you generating internal stimuli, or are you one of those things that has been generated? Am I being unclear here?

No, simply asking the wrong question. For either possibility, whether you causing the internal stimuli or vice versa, the implied assumption is that both are separate entities. Since I've maintained that you are your internal stimuli, the question is inapplicable.

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You can't point to specifics, nor can you demonstrate it's existence except by reference to brain size, effect, or complexity(which for some reason or another are sometimes not good enough in some cases, but I would give it to you that considering all of these things together definitely has merit) and yet somehow you are confident in the statement that this thing exists. That doesn't worry you in the least? No worries, lets take a look at the list. Keeping it pretty close to our comfort zone aren't we? Very little on that list that is not very closely related to us has a definite yes. Troubling, bias. Some of these "dunnos" are pretty damned smart... It seems that this list is very much a list of things with big brains, big, deterministic, electrochemical machines....called brains.

I explained how and why more complex brains can give rise to free-will, by developing the higher states of awareness and cognition without which there can be no such thing as a will - free or otherwise.
The thing is, since we have seen that level of awareness and cognition only in things with bigger brains, it is expected that they'd be on my list of things that have free-will.

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Its also a problem if you redefine free will as determined from external causes, but refuse to name any internal causes that it is "free" from. What is "Free" about the free will you consider.

Quite the reverse. It is free from external causes and etermined by internal ones.

Actually, what I've also been arguing is that your nebulous version of free will, has the equal onus of proof as any other definition. Plenty of neurologial evidence behind the changes in the brain upon making decisions, and the electrical activity leading up to it.

Which would be an issue if "I" existed independently of my neurological activity. As I've said, I consider human mind to be the physical representation of the agent and the internal neurological changes taking place as the exercise of free-will.

Is it any wonder we're confused. You're a determinst who believes in free will, but doesn't agree with compatibilism.. wtf is that. Nor have you adequately explained how on earth that can possibly work.

I'm a determinist who believes in free-will because I don't consider them incompatible. I have little knowledge of compatibilism, but as far as I understand, it relies on the idea of a supernatural soul to explain co-existence of determinism and free-will while accepting that they are fundamentally incompatible - but I could be wrong about them.

And once we agree on basic premises, we can start discussing how it might work. Until now, we've only been arguing about my definition of free-will.