Question to free will skeptics

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

My definition of free will

The ability to make a choice that influences the porbable outcome of a physical system or systems, including those systems, which may or may not, influence or determine how that choice is made.

You've just pushed the definition into "make a choice." I still don't know what you mean.

~~ Paul

 

[JetLeg]

To the OP :

As far as I understand free-will skepticism, when free will is discussed in its context, the meaning of it is something like

"The ability of humans to influence the physical world by ways that contradict the laws of nature."

Robin, do you think it is a meaningful definition?


And by the way, Robin : are you a free-will skeptic

 

[Robin]

Robin, do you think it is a meaningful definition?


And by the way, Robin : are you a free-will skeptic

Sorry for missing this one.

Yes, I think it is a meaningful definition, but I don't think that is what most people mean by free will. I think that most people have an intuition about how their minds work, but this intuition does not include the ability of alter the laws of nature.

I am a free-will skeptic for any definition that insists that freedom is incompatible with determinism. But I also believe (like Dennett) that a common sense view of freedom is incompatible with determinism.

I believe, as Dennett puts is, in the only type of free will worth having.

 

[Robin]

Ah, well, if you agree that the definition is tautological then we're good to go.

If I'm driving along thinking about something and I suddenly realize I've driven 10 miles without paying conscious attention to the road, was I driving consciously?

That is an ambiguous question. You are conscious and you are driving. It is just that the details of driving are not being done by your conscious mind. Some believe that this phenomenom is responsible for a great number of highway accidents.

As I pointed out earlier I can drive all the way to work without being conscious of the process at all.

Am I conscious when I'm dreaming?

Yes, why not?

Is a person with blindsight conscious of events to which he reacts?

I am no expert on the phenomenom, but my understanding is, no, the whole point is that they are not conscious of those events.

OK, I have answered your questions, how about answering mine. Do you know what I am referring to by a "deliberate conscious decision"? Even if you don't know the neurological machinery behind it, do you at least understand what phenomenom I am talking about?

 

[Robin]

Given current understanding and technology, yes, it is impossible.

But 'tis a thought experiment, don'cha know.

And a valid one I think. I often frame this one by supposing that reality splits in two at this point with the split itself having no effect on the causal chain of events. It is an approach that also has problems but at least it ensures that the before conditions really were exactly the same.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Not glib, just accurate. Tautological even. Everything that you are conscious of is consciousness. What is it that you experience that is not part of your consciousness?

Practically everything. I'm not conscious of the word that's on the tip of my tongue. I'm not conscious of my blood pressure, of what muscles I use to stand up , of the parasites on my scalp; of the n million bits of sensory data my brain processes, categorises as unimportant and discards every second, of the state of any internal organ except my stomach. I'm not conscious (until I actually think about it) of what my name or address are. I'm not conscious of how I empty my bladder, or ride a bike or sing. I just do it. Yet the experience of all these things and a thousand others forms my reality.

It's often falsely claimed that we use only 10% of our brains.
Hogwash. A wild overestimate. WE use about 0.01%. The other 99+ is using US.

 

[The Man]

You've just pushed the definition into "make a choice." I still don't know what you mean.

~~ Paul

Free will is the basses of the ability to make a choice, until someone can determine how the human mind functions. They would need to determine precisely how thoughts and sentience occur as well as the factors and mechanisms involved in making a choice, in a repeatable experimentally verifiable fashion. Until that day arrives, at least for me, free will is the best explanation we have going. I would also fear the arrival of that day because we would then truly become biological robots with our source code out there for anyone to manipulate.

 

[Robin]

Here is a quote from Dennett's Freedom Evolves which kind I thought might be relevant:

The issue of free will is like this. If you are one of those who think that free will is only really free will if it springs from an immaterial soul that hovers happily in your brain, shooting arrows of decision into your motor cortex, then, given what you mean by free will, my view is that there is no free will at all. If, on the other hand, you think free will might be morally important without being supernatural, then my view is that free will is indeed real, but just not quite what you probably thought it was.

Daniel Dennett - Freedom Evolves

I would only add that even if there was an immaterial soul hovering happily in our brains, I still don't see how it could be non-deterministic and non-random at the same time.

 

[Robin]

Correct, I think.

As for the rest, i.e. "non-libertarian free will" the "free" is pretty much redundant. If you do sth that you want (in accordance with your will) you act by definition voluntarily (free). If on the other hand you act against your will, you act involuntarily (either by being forced or by being incompetent).

I didn't see it at first, but yes, you have a point. The "free" is redundant given that the stuff that is the result of the unconscious mind or the environment would not be voluntary at all.

 

[Robin]

Practically everything. I'm not conscious of the word that's on the tip of my tongue.

Then on what basis do you claim you are "experiencing" the word on the tip of your tongue?

I'm not conscious of my blood pressure

Do you "experience" your blood pressure? How? Do you mean you experience some result of your blood pressure? In that case you are also conscious of it.

..of the parasites on my scalp;

If you are "experiencing" these then you are conscious of them

of the n million bits of sensory data my brain processes, categorises as unimportant and discards every second, of the state of any internal organ except my stomach.

And again, on what basis do you say you are "experiencing" these things?

I'm not conscious (until I actually think about it) of what my name or address are. I'm not conscious of how I empty my bladder, or ride a bike or sing. I just do it. Yet the experience of all these things and a thousand others forms my reality.

No, you are not "experiencing" your name and address when you are not thinking about them. You are not "experiencing" how you empty your bladder, you are only experiencing emptying your bladder, and you are also conscious of the same. You are not experiencing how you sing (unless you are consciously studying technique), you are only experiencing singing and you are also conscious of the same.

It's often falsely claimed that we use only 10% of our brains.
Hogwash. A wild overestimate. WE use about 0.01%. The other 99+ is using US.

And that 0.01% is the the conscious mind. But you don't "experience" the other 99+ %.

 

[cyborg]

Free will is the basses of the ability to make a choice, until someone can determine how the human mind functions. They would need to determine precisely how thoughts and sentience occur as well as the factors and mechanisms involved in making a choice, in a repeatable experimentally verifiable fashion. Until that day arrives, at least for me, free will is the best explanation we have going.

You don't need to explain how a specific choice was made in order to reason about all choices.

Do you think it is valid to reason about all possible choices and then apply that reasoning to human choice - which MUST be some specific instance of the general properties of choice?

I would also fear the arrival of that day because we would then truly become biological robots with our source code out there for anyone to manipulate.

Your emotional reactions to certain terminology is irrelevant as to whether or not your self-understanding is accurate.

Calling yourself a 'robot' or a 'man' does not change what you are - just how you feel about the prospect of your existence.

 

[JetLeg]

I believe, as Dennett puts is, in the only type of free will worth having.

What do you mean by that?

 

[Belz...]

I should have stated meaningful definition. But I don't see how yours is meaningful.

You are saying that a free choice is a choice free even from the very thing that makes choice possible in the first place.

Even the supernatural, if there were such a thing, would not achieve that, it is simply a logical impossibility.

[edit]Or else you may be saying that freedom is the ability to do more than we are able to do[/edit]

There is no free will. If you define free will to reflect reality, then it's no longer free or willed.

I don't see why this is such a hot subject. Who cares if we have free will or not ? Why should it matter. From out point of view there are unknown variables, so the universe isn't different one way or another. We still make decions...

 

[The Man]

Do you think it is valid to reason about all possible choices and then apply that reasoning to human choice - which MUST be some specific instance of the general properties of choice?

I would certainly consider that valid.

Your emotional reactions to certain terminology is irrelevant as to whether or not your self-understanding is accurate.

Calling yourself a 'robot' or a 'man' does not change what you are - just how you feel about the prospect of your existence.

My reaction was not to the terminology, but to the misuse of the technology that would certainly ensue.

 

[The Man]

There is no free will. If you define free will to reflect reality, then it's no longer free or willed

Only if free will is not an essential aspect of reality

I don't see why this is such a hot subject. Who cares if we have free will or not ? Why should it matter. From out point of view there are unknown variables, so the universe isn't different one way or another. We still make decions...

If there is no free will then we only appear to make decisions, the actual determination being made by variables or systems involved.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

I would only add that even if there was an immaterial soul hovering happily in our brains, I still don't see how it could be non-deterministic and non-random at the same time.

Well, someone who believes in libertarian free will has to 'splain it to us.

Interesting Ian, Undercover Elephant, and a host of others couldn't do it. But maybe there's someone out there ...

~~ Paul

 

[Robin]

There is no free will. If you define free will to reflect reality, then it's no longer free or willed.

I think that needs more explanation. In explaining what I mean by free will I have defined "will" and said what I think it is free from.

Now you say that it cannot be "will". Why not? Can an action never be the result of a conscious intention?

You say it cannot be "free". Do you mean that a conscious intention cannot be free from anything? That it is restrained, controlled and burdened by everything?

 

[Robin]

What do you mean by that?

Think about the varieties of free will. Supernatural free will means that our choices are ultimately made by some incomprehensible, mysterious force. That does not sound like I made the choice, does it?

Or libertarian free will, in which case the choice is made by some mysterious agent operating under a principle that nobody has yet been able to even describe.

It still does not sound like I made the choice.

But with compatibilist free will a choice is made by processes in my brain which are at least sometimes accessible to and possibly sometimes controlled by my consciousness.

Of all three, that sounds most like me making a choice.

 

[cyborg]

I would certainly consider that valid.

Then you are, by your understanding, either a robot as far as decisions are concerned or you might be lucky enough to have impulses that are entirely without control and therefore random.

My reaction was not to the terminology, but to the misuse of the technology that would certainly ensue.

Misuse follows words?

 

[JetLeg]

But with compatibilist free will a choice is made by processes in my brain which are at least sometimes accessible to and possibly sometimes controlled by my consciousness.

Hm... Do you think that processes in your brain are possibly controlled by your consciousness?

And what does "being accessible to" mean on a practical level? What is the type of process that being accessible to describes?