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How do you define Free Will?

Compatibilism

From http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism

"Compatibilism, also known as "soft determinism" and most famously championed by Hume, is a theory which holds that free will and determinism are compatible. Properly understood, according to Hume, freedom is not an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires. Alternately, Hume maintains that free acts are not uncaused (or mysteriously self-caused as Kant would have it) but caused in the right way, i.e., by our choices as determined by our our beliefs and desires, by our characters."

I would add my own to this: That our choices are caused as well by our genetics and other determining causes throughout our lives.
 
Loki said:
Yahweh,

Allow me to clarify Ian's quesiton for you. It should be "Do you believe in illogical libertarian free will, or the rational type of free will implied by compatibilism?"

Determinism and predetermination are not (necesarily) the same.
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Well in that case (along with what the Wikipedia article Jesse2 referenced), I would go with the crappy "soft determinism" (or compatibilism). If I were to go back to where I could have had a burrito and or a bowl of chili from Taco Bell, given the same inner and outer circumstances, I still would have made the same choice. Its still a choice I made freely, but I agree with Hume and his definition of compatibilism.
 
Yahweh said:
(along with what the Wikipedia article Jesse2 referenced
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Thanks. And please call me Jesse, ok? It's my real name. Hal made me become Jesse2.
 
Please, dont try to twist my words into something I didnt say.

Sorry not trying to do that at all. I'm just trying to make sure I'm understanding what you're trying to say. This is an interesting thread, but it's hard to keep the different voices straight sometimes. I suspect we're doing a lot of stating the same thing using different language. I see consciousness and the resulting free will as a product of various processes happening in the brain, what you call a higher level. The sum is greater than the parts, and has qualities that don't exist in the parts. When intelligence became able to overrule instinct, I believe consciousness and free will came into being.

Saying free will might only be an illusion of our minds does seem absurd on the surface, but that's irrelivant. Even consciousness is an illusion when looked at a certain way. To someone who believes in God, the idea that the universe could come into being without a God seems absurd. Fortunately, there's no way we'll ever be able to tell the difference between a predetermined universe and one we can change at will.
 
What does "within you" mean? I'm not saying my decisions are made by someone else. I'm asking what the sources of my decisions are, other than prior states of my brain and randomness. Where's the free part?
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Hey Paul, this is just a hit and run mission for me right here.

"Within you" means you. You, and only you. Surely you can accept the concept of "you". You are Paul Alonglastname, I am Elliot Clonglastname. The source of your decisions is you. It has everything to do with you. That includes prior states of brain, and it also includes randomness.

As for the free part, you can make different decisions. Paul, take a break from reading this. Stand up. Do a jumping jack.

Now, you either did a jumping jack, or you didn't do a jumping jack. That is free will. You can explain it however you want. If you want to base it on brain states and randomness, that's fine by me. All I know is that you either did a jumping jack, or you didn't do a jumping jack.

The source of your decision, whatever it was, was you. As a Christian, I believe that I am the source of my decisions. We can disagree about what goes into, and what doesn't go into, those decisions. But it is indisputable that you had the freedom to make the decision to do a jumping jack or not to do a jumping jack. If that isn't freedom I don't know what is. If that isn't free will than I don't know what is.

If we can just stick with what we both agree, perhaps we can share the above as an acceptable conception of free will.

People seem to imagine some ethereal *I* making decisions, nonrandomly, without the weight of prior experience. I don't understand what that means. Either you base a decision on previous experiences, or you choose at random, or some of both. What other choice is there?
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Right. There is no ethereal *I*. We are all concrete people, and to think that our concreteness is irrelevant to decision making is silly.

Free will is not some nebulous motive force. Free will is intrinsic to our state of being. We are created, we have creative ability, and we do with that ability as we will. I can theorize how that would work outside of human experience, but I can see how that works in human experience, and am content with that.

As for the dogma of free will, it only exists to explain the human condition. The implication is that humanity is responsible for its disconnect with God. With Adam and Eve, their free will was completely based on their experience. There was nothing nebulous about the Fall.

Of course Paul I don't expect you to accept the above paragraph, but perhaps you can see that the conception of free will, even in a religious mindset, is not too far off from your own conception of free will.

Unless, to you, free will is synonymous with soul, or conscience. I've never thought of free will that way, and I don't think Catholic dogma would define it that way, but I'm sure there are many who would use free will and soul interchangeably. Some people probably think of "free will" or "soul" as a slice of, as you would say, an ethereal God. That isn't how I see it. As for conscience, to me that is the Holy Spirit at work, and that is not free will or soul but something different. I'm obviously now getting away from free will, but I'm not sure if perhaps ideas are getting mixed up with each other.

-Elliot
 
Jesse2 said:
What am I apart from my body and the consciousness that is generated by my brain?
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Why, a lost soul of course.

That's a tough question. Since I can only think as a physical person I can't really fathom what it's like to be separate. There are these near-death testimonies, and the astral-projection stuff. Who knows.

-Elliot
 
My point in asking this question is simply to bring us back to the point I keep hammering on, which is that while free will means we have choices, each choice is determined by factors both genetic and environmental; what we are born with, and what we learn.
 
Jesse2 said:
My point in asking this question is simply to bring us back to the point I keep hammering on, which is that while free will means we have choices, each choice is determined by factors both genetic and environmental; what we are born with, and what we learn.
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Agreed.

To speculate that free will may exist outside the human experience is mere speculation.

I am perfectly content with your conception of free will and the human experience.

-Elliot
 
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