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Science and free will

Beth said:
Er, yes, I think. IF the porcess is deterministic, we cannot predict it. Further, we cannot state with certainty that it IS deterministic.
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This doesn't matter so much. The problem is a logical one; it is in principle impossible to have "real" (or libertarian, if you wish) free will, or to even just define or describe it in a somewhat meaningful way. No matter what exactly.

Furthermore, whether a process is deterministic or not does not depend on whether we can actually predict the outcome, or whether we can only go so far as to assign probabilities. For example, if I mix a bunch of chemicals without knowing what exactly I am mixing I can also not predict what I will end up with. I could guess of course, but all this matter little and does not detract from whether chemistry is deterministic or not.

Beth said:
It may be random at the subatomic level, but at the macroscopic level we make choices.
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I'd say that I agree. At the subatomic level there is randomness, but at the macroscopic level behaves sufficiently deterministic to treat is so, and at this macroscopic level we make what could be called compatibilist choices.

Or were you thinking of a different 'type' of choice?

Beth said:
We choose to whether we wish to drink coffee or tea or pan-galactic gargle blasters. We can plan to have the various options available (or not) to us beforehand. We can thus set precursors for our future actions.
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I am not sure what you want to say here at all.


Beth said:
also agree with what LinusRichard said
Free will is experienced every waking moment, [...]​
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I can't say I agree or disagree. What is "free will," and is it experienced every waking moment? And is it any different from compatibilist free will, and if so how?
 
yy2bggggs said:
If it's acausal, what links you to the particular decision? I.e., in what sense did you make the particular decision?
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I don't see it as a decision at all. It was an originatory act, not a decision. A decision can only be the determined result of a complex process. You don't "decide" to take a free will action. You just act. But it's still YOU who is acting, and your action is not random, because it was intentional.

Perhaps I can describe it in terms of a real life situation. Imagine a man has been standing at the top of a tall building for several hours, contemplating whether or not he wants to go on living. After several hours deliberation he comes to a decision: he's going to jump. But he doesn't jump immediately after he has made that decision. He waits for a while, taking one last look at the cruel world around him. Then he jumps. Why did he "decide" to jump at the particular moment? He didn't. It was an act of free will.

What I am trying to say is that coming to a conclusion about some sort of problem ("making a decision") and actually acting on that decision are not the same thing. Not just not the same thing in terms of time and physical processes but not the same metaphysical thing either. A non-conscious entity can't do this. Once it has made the decision then there is nothing else for it to do apart from act on it, and the "act" in this case is just another part of its computational process. There is no metaphysical component to it.
 
Beth said:
But the 'event' we are discussing is an internal experience. While I agree that it could be in error, it seems rather silly to assume that all the reports of those experiences, which are universal and consistent from one person to another, is an error. This is not to say that is couldn't be a generally mistaken impression, only that there is no reason to assume so and in the absense of any compelling reason to assume we are all mistaken about it, why do so?
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We're talking specifically about a willful decision. I'm not swayed by the fact that most people think that some of their decisions appear to be free in the libertarian sense. In particular, the average person doesn't even know what libertarian free will is. So if you ask him "Is your decision free?" you will obtain an answer that might very well mean one thing from one person and something else from another person. If you ask me, I will answer "no," because I don't think libertarian free will makes sense. But if you ask me if the decisions feels free, I'd say yes.

Okay. We agree. Why is that an issue in discussing free will? Why does having many components, some of which are random, some determined, and many of them unknown, negate the concept of free will. The sum total of all those components is the act of making a conscious choice between various alternatives. Why isn't that considered free will?
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It's a question of whether it's considered libertarian free will. Certainly it's considered free will in some sense. Libertarian free will requires that at least some components of a decision be made using a "method" that is neither determined nor random.

~~ Paul
 
UndercoverElephant said:
I don't see it as a decision at all. It was an originatory act, not a decision. A decision can only be the determined result of a complex process. You don't "decide" to take a free will action. You just act. But it's still YOU who is acting, and your action is not random, because it was intentional.

Perhaps I can describe it in terms of a real life situation. Imagine a man has been standing at the top of a tall building for several hours, contemplating whether or not he wants to go on living. After several hours deliberation he comes to a decision: he's going to jump. But he doesn't jump immediately after he has made that decision. He waits for a while, taking one last look at the cruel world around him. Then he jumps. Why did he "decide" to jump at the particular moment? He didn't. It was an act of free will.

What I am trying to say is that coming to a conclusion about some sort of problem ("making a decision") and actually acting on that decision are not the same thing. Not just not the same thing in terms of time and physical processes but not the same metaphysical thing either. A non-conscious entity can't do this. Once it has made the decision then there is nothing else for it to do apart from act on it, and the "act" in this case is just another part of its computational process. There is no metaphysical component to it.
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How is your suicidal jumper different from a cat remaining stock still, watching its prey for some time, obviously with the intention of attacking it, and then suddenly pouncing?
 
Lord Emsworth said:
I can't say I agree or disagree. What is "free will," and is it experienced every waking moment? And is it any different from compatibilist free will, and if so how?
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Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
If you ask me, I will answer "no," because I don't think libertarian free will makes sense. But if you ask me if the decisions feels free, I'd say yes.


It's a question of whether it's considered libertarian free will. Certainly it's considered free will in some sense. Libertarian free will requires that at least some components of a decision be made using a "method" that is neither determined nor random.

~~ Paul
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I can't argue about that. I don't understand libertarian free will at all. Nor do I understand the why you choose to make a distinction between having some components of a decision be made using a "method" that is neither determined nor random versus having some components random, some determined, and some undeterminable. It seems to me that is a description of a method that is neither determined nor random.
 
Rodolfo Llinás has a wonderful story about testing his own so called free will, hence as a consequence defines it as "those activities that happen that the brain know are about to happen."

The whole interview, conducted by Roger Bingham, can be found here [Enter the "i of the vortex"]. A pdf transcript is also available. The relevant part for the video is between 34:45 – 41:50 whereas the same conversation is outlined on pages 9 – 11 in the transcript.


In short, the test went something like this: He managed to find a good spot on his head where he attached a coil (generating a magnetic field which activates the brain directly) and when switched on it would always stimulate the brain in the same way. In this case it always moved his foot inwards. So he intentionally tried to move his foot outwards every time there was a stimulation. The result was of course that the foot always moved inwards.

The interesting thing was that even though his intention was to the contrary, it felt as if he volitionally moved the foot inwards. He just said he changed his mind. He could not distinguish between the external stimulus and the feeling of volitionally moving the foot inwards – as in free will – although the original intention was to move it outwards. Thus, talking about the feeling of having free will seems rather irrelevant. When the system does something, it feels like you made a choice about it, but in reality you just recognize that it is about to happen/happening as if you willed it (but you really didn't).
 
lupus_in_fabula said:
Rodolfo Llinás has a wonderful story about testing his own so called free will, hence as a consequence defines it as "those activities that happen that the brain know are about to happen."

The whole interview, conducted by Roger Bingham, can be found here [Enter the "i of the vortex"]. A pdf transcript is also available. The relevant part for the video is between 34:45 – 41:50 whereas the same conversation is outlined on pages 9 – 11 in the transcript.


In short, the test went something like this: He managed to find a good spot on his head where he attached a coil (generating a magnetic field which activates the brain directly) and when switched on it would always stimulate the brain in the same way. In this case it always moved his foot inwards. So he intentionally tried to move his foot outwards every time there was a stimulation. The result was of course that the foot always moved inwards.

The interesting thing was that even though his intention was to the contrary, it felt as if he volitionally moved the foot inwards. He just said he changed his mind. He could not distinguish between the external stimulus and the feeling of volitionally moving the foot inwards – as in free will – although the original intention was to move it outwards. Thus, talking about the feeling of having free will seems rather irrelevant. When the system does something, it feels like you made a choice about it, but in reality you just recognize that it is about to happen/happening as if you willed it (but you really didn't).
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Interesting story.

As an aside: does this count as science? Can you do "subjective science"?
 
Prometheus said:
How is your suicidal jumper different from a cat remaining stock still, watching its prey for some time, obviously with the intention of attacking it, and then suddenly pouncing?
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The cat's free will is a prisoner of it's cognitive processes. Cats don't "make decisions" like the suicidal jumper did. They can't, because they don't have language. We don't just use language to communicate - we also use it to think - to make decisions. The cat is just following instinct, utilising some ancient cognitive circuit which determines exactly which is the correct moment to pounce. The difference is that the exact moment "chosen" by the cat, in the wild, is crucial to its chance of survival, and therefore it has been honed by generations of cats which starved to death because they were bad at choosing the right moment to pounce. Suicide, on the other hand, is a prime example of something which has no evolutionary benefit. It is also something a cat is totally incapable of.
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
We're talking specifically about a willful decision. I'm not swayed by the fact that most people think that some of their decisions appear to be free in the libertarian sense. In particular, the average person doesn't even know what libertarian free will is. So if you ask him "Is your decision free?" you will obtain an answer that might very well mean one thing from one person and something else from another person. If you ask me, I will answer "no," because I don't think libertarian free will makes sense. But if you ask me if the decisions feels free, I'd say yes.


It's a question of whether it's considered libertarian free will. Certainly it's considered free will in some sense. Libertarian free will requires that at least some components of a decision be made using a "method" that is neither determined nor random.

~~ Paul
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There's no method. The only "method" which is relevant are the methods used by religious devotees in order to shut down their ego: things like meditation, living in caves and wearing hair shirts. The purpose of doing this is to free the unfree will. It is to train the ego and cognitive processes to be subservient to the will, rather than the other way around.
 
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UndercoverElephant said:
No evidence is possible in principle.
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How utterly convenient for you. Now you get to claim that "will" is something that couldn't possibly ever be tested for.

It's exactly the same as the situation with idealism/materialism. People say things like "of course materialism is true, because if I throw a cat out of the window, it doesn't hover in mid-air."
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I believe we call this a strawman, only in this case it's a straw-Galactus. Nobody says that.

What we know is that something exists. That much is certain. Now the assumption of materialism is that under the same conditions, the same thing will always behave in the same way for everyone. So far, that has also always been true. Since there is no need for "spirits" or any way to test for them, we can safely dismiss their existence.

Now, in what way is that possibly analogous to your unfalsifiable, illogical nonsense ?

Science doesn't provide evidence which can falsify or support metaphysical beliefs like this.
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For a very clear reason: something that can't be tested for, even in principle, cannot possibly interact with reality and, therefore, can be safely ignored.

Free will could exist and science would never know anything about it.
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Which raises the question: why do YOU posit its existence ?
 
UndercoverElephant said:
No it isn't. I said it was informed, but acausal. The will is aware of the ego/belief-system, but not constrained by it.
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That is clearly illogical. If it makes decisions partly based on known factors, then it is partly deterministic. The only remaining factors are, therefore, arbitrary i.e. random. So, basically, you define it as exactly how we define practical free will. Your OWN definition denies libertarian free will because you can't define it any other way.

Of course, that might have something to do with the fact that there ISN'T a third possibility.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
I don't see it as a decision at all. It was an originatory act, not a decision. A decision can only be the determined result of a complex process. You don't "decide" to take a free will action. You just act. But it's still YOU who is acting, and your action is not random, because it was intentional.
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An intentional non-decision ?

UE, perhaps it's time that you think about why you want to believe in such a thing, because it seems obvious to me that you are incapable of even describing this "will" without resorting to what makes it superfluous in the first place. Sounds like religious dogma, to me.

But there's no need for free will.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
The cat's free will is a prisoner of it's cognitive processes. Cats don't "make decisions" like the suicidal jumper did. They can't, because they don't have language. We don't just use language to communicate - we also use it to think - to make decisions. The cat is just following instinct, utilising some ancient cognitive circuit which determines exactly which is the correct moment to pounce. The difference is that the exact moment "chosen" by the cat, in the wild, is crucial to its chance of survival, and therefore it has been honed by generations of cats which starved to death because they were bad at choosing the right moment to pounce. Suicide, on the other hand, is a prime example of something which has no evolutionary benefit. It is also something a cat is totally incapable of.
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The distinction you are making is entirely unjustified. Nobody seems to be seeing a difference except you. All your examples so far prove exactly the opposite of what you're trying to claim.
 
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UndercoverElephant said:
The cat's free will is a prisoner of it's cognitive processes. Cats don't "make decisions" like the suicidal jumper did. They can't, because they don't have language. We don't just use language to communicate - we also use it to think - to make decisions. The cat is just following instinct, utilising some ancient cognitive circuit which determines exactly which is the correct moment to pounce. The difference is that the exact moment "chosen" by the cat, in the wild, is crucial to its chance of survival, and therefore it has been honed by generations of cats which starved to death because they were bad at choosing the right moment to pounce. Suicide, on the other hand, is a prime example of something which has no evolutionary benefit. It is also something a cat is totally incapable of.
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I am doing a disservice to cats. There is a reason why witches keep cats.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
There's no method. The only "method" which is relevant are the methods used by religious devotees in order to shut down their ego: things like meditation, living in caves and wearing hair shirts. The purpose of doing this is to free the unfree will. It is to train the ego and cognitive processes to be subservient to the will, rather than the other way around.
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Come on Geoff, I quoted "method." I always quote the word that I use to specify the thing that libertarians think they can use to make a free decision, because no matter what word I use, they always say it's not that thing. It's something, because otherwise there is nothing at all going on. So if you have a word for it, great, let me know. Otherwise you don't need to tell me that you don't like the word I choose. I know you don't.

The more people tell me it's not the word I choose, the more I'm convinced they're tilting at windmills.

~~ Paul
 
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Belz... said:
You are yet to explain how a decision not completely based on known factors is anything but arbitrary (random).
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I've repeatedly explained it, but the skeptics/materialists do not appear to understand that explanation. The man standing at the top of the building has finished thinking. He's already made the decision that he is going to jump. He doesnt' jump immediately. He gazes around at the world for one last time. Then he jumps. The exact moment he jumps is not arbitrary or random, because it is an intentional act of will.

The reason the skeptics/materialists do not understand this explanation is that they are trying to reduce "will" to something else - something physical like a cognitive process. They are thinking about the problem by "looking in" on the suicidal jumper from outside. If you look at it like this, then it doesn't make sense. You can only make sense of it from the subjective perspective of the entity which is exercising its will - from the POV of the jumper himself.

WILL is an originatory entity in its own right. It's not like anything else. It can't be reduced to anything else. When I exercise my will it anything but random. It is informed by everything else I know, but not caused by it, because it isn't caused by anything.

There is your explanation.

You are setting up a dichotomy between "completely based on known factors" and "arbitrary/random". It is a false dichotomy precisely because you aren't taking into account the possibility of originatory free will. There can be no further explanation than that. That there is originatory free will *IS* the explanation.

Q) How can a decision not completely based on known factors be anything but arbitrary (random)?
A) We aren't talking about a decision at all. We are talking about an originatory act of free will.
Q) How can an act not completely based on known factors be anything but arbitrary?
A) Because it can be an originatory act of free will.

Why isn't that an answer? I suspect that you will respond to this by re-asking the same the question rather than explaining what is wrong with the answer I have already given to it.
 
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