Definition of free will

[Kevin Beal]

Red can be classified as a specific hue on the color spectrum.

Alright, it's done! My challenge has been risen to, and vanquished for the mythical dragon that it is. Determinism is proved, let's all go home.

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

You understand that consicousness emerges from neuronal interaction and not the other way round?  That consciousness does not control neurons but that physical neurons determine the conscious experience?

 

How can you say that your consciousness is in control if this is true?

 

it's like saying the computer screen determines what the processor is doing.

Okay then. So none of my neurons fired when you interacted with me, right? 

Consciousness is a one way street? The neurons and synapses do things and consciousness is a final cause? The consciousness that is you can have no effect on the neurons, etc. Is that right?

[Rainbow Dash]

You understand that consicousness emerges from neuronal interaction and not the other way round?  That consciousness does not control neurons but that physical neurons determine the conscious experience?

Do you have evidence of this?

[Mike Fleming]

Okay then. So none of my neurons fired when you interacted with me, right? 

Consciousness is a one way street? The neurons and synapses do things and consciousness is a final cause? The consciousness that is you can have no effect on the neurons, etc. Is that right?

 

What I'm saying is your consciousness does not choose to fire them.  In fact, it has no knowledge, no awareness of them at all.  That's why choices happen in your brain and you then later become aware of them.   The physical process happens first, consciousness later.

 

This is just another piece of evidence in the determinism argument.  I'm not making it as if it's the only one.  It's just adding to the weight of evidence.

Do you have evidence of this?

 

There have been experiments done on it.  It is generally regarded that consciousness is an emergent property in neuroscience.  I don't have any links on hand sorry.

 

Sam Harris, a neuroscientist, talks about it here.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf9eGUWGtyo

 

I think it means that I'm an idiot.

 

 

Obviously you're not an idiot, far from it.  I have enjoyed many of your posts on the forum.  I just wanted to apologise for the snarky comment.  It wasn't warranted.  I'm sure it didn't do too much damage  , but I apologise regardless.  It's obviously an issue of mine and not about you.  I look forward to continuing the discussion of something I am quite passionate about with the rest of you.

[greekredemption]

Kevin Beal has made a couple of very erudite posts, but I feel we're at cross-purposes here. There is not, I think, any controversy in suggesting that free will is an emergent property of causality. We can indeed reduce all things in the universe to interactions between energy and matter, and human beings are no exception to this. The bottom line is the universe cares not for our thoughts and feelings, and, yes, a human being is ultimately subject to causality and other things in the same way as a spoon. The fact that humans - or life generally, however you define it - are essentially slow-burning and almost self-perpetuating chemical reactions doesn't really make them special in the universe.

 

I'd also take issue with this idea:

 

But then we learn many many more forms of causality that aren't push / pull, that aren't atoms bouncing off of each other, because surely the world would be pretty ridiculously simple if that's the only causality there were. A soup of non-descript particles like an aether never amounting to anything we know is real about the world.

 

(emphasis mine)

 

Evidently this is not the case. Simple interactions can produce complex results. Take the double pendulum, for example, where the inputs are very easily understood but the results are chaotic.

 

Free will is an example of this. Basic interactions between particles can create very complex results (as the universe we see today), but all these interactions follow the same rules. The crude version of free will - that humans really do have the ability to circumvent causality in favour of their whims - is totally unsupported by evidence. The more nuanced version of free will - that free will is a property of the complex results of simple interactions - simply describes, as you call it, quale, the mad idea that we seem to perceive stuff. Where a lot of free will proponents then get confused is to suggest that these qualia somehow define how the universe actually works, which is where we get bogged down in the sophistry of the performative contradiction, as if petty human perceptions define the universe. In short, it is highly likely, in order to be conversant with the laws of the universe as we know them, that we are merely cogs in a huge machine and free will is an illusion - or a quale - in the same way the colour red is an illusion.

[Josh -Lel-]

Do you choose to continue to believe in free will?  Not really.  You know the truth and so any attempts at denying it are just going to lead to cognitive dissonance which leads to further consequences.

What's an "attempt"? Deterministically, "consequences" is just another word for "effects" so saying that it will lead to "consequences" is kind of irrelevant, since it was determined to happen either way.

 

 

Were you depressed before you realised there was no free will?   We're all in the same boat together still.  It's not like free will has been removed from you.  It's not like anyone else has it either.  It's a meaningless concept in the same way that God is.

 

Yes, I was depressed before I had thought about it. Now I'm just more depressed. Are you suggesting I shouldn't be depressed?

 

 

The reason I like determinism is because it means there is an order to the universe.  That things can be explained, even human behaviour.  That it's not just all randomness and people going round doing the the things they want, but there are clear reasons behind dysfunction.  That I can see the general trend towards more freedom and why it's happening and that we can see a huge reduction in violence in this world.

 

I still feel like I have free will.  The illusion is a powerful one and I don't go round thinking that I don't.  

 

Yeah, sounds like you're giving into your free will delusions again. If there were a huge reduction of violence in the world, it would be predetermined and all past and present violence would be necessary in causal chain of events. 

EDIT: PFFT HAHA I ALMSOT FORGOT! There is no such thing as "illusions" in a deterministic universe. That would imply possible alternate states. I guess your next big illusion to overcome is illusio-- wait...

 

What is it about determinism that depresses you?

Well... it's the fact that I don't really control anything. No choices, no actions, no good or evil, no true or false, no better or worse, NO alternate states or preferences... just a train on a preset path with no possibilities in going in any other direction. No "me," and all my thoughts and everyone else's are just meaningless.

 

That's not depressing to you?

[michaelfcp]

I don´t know if we have free will or not. For me a useful definition of free will is, in a nutshell " We were free to behave differently than we did in the past" 

 

Do you agree with this definition? 

 

For me the place to find if free will is real or not is science, empirical evidence. And as far as I know (correct me if I´m wrong please) the evidence seems to favor determinism over free will( Benjamin Libet experiments being the most famous).

 

As a footnote, I want to believe in free will, Maybe because determinism seems to take something away from us, but I can´t find a rational explanation in which the statement:" We were free to behave differently than we did in the past"  makes sense. Maybe I´m wrong.

 

What do you guys think?

[Kevin Beal]

Evidently this is not the case. Simple interactions can produce complex results. Take the double pendulum, for example, where the inputs are very easily understood but the results are chaotic.

You've misunderstood. I'm talking solely about push-pull causality. This precludes emergent phenomena. That's a second kind of causality.

Kevin Beal has made a couple of very erudite posts, but I feel we're at cross-purposes here. There is not, I think, any controversy in suggesting that free will is an emergent property of causality. 

Actually I do take issue with this, at least in the way it is phrased. Causality causes nothing. Causality isn't a thing to cause or be caused. It's deceptive in noun form, but it just means that effects have causes. I don't know how many times I need to repeat that...

 

 

 

Free will is an example of this. Basic interactions between particles can create very complex results (as the universe we see today), but all these interactions follow the same rules. The crude version of free will - that humans really do have the ability to circumvent causality in favour of their whims - is totally unsupported by evidence.

What evidence? I bow to evidence and if you present it, that's of enormous value. But to pretend that there is no evidence for the free will side is dishonest for one obvious reason: we experience it for most of the day.

 

And if your evidence is "causality is a thing" then you are going to have to actually try a little harder than that. Demonstrate how the fact that effects have causes necessitates a determinist worldview. Determinists suggest this til the cows come home but never actually demonstrate it. I suspect it's because when it's actually laid out for all to see, it's not so convincing anymore.

 

And you say that red is an illusion, but you've missed the point. Saying it's illusory doesn't actually escape the problem presented. This is because the experience of seeing it is itself what the red is (as far as consciousness is concerned anyway). If you see red, then you see red. A rose is a rose is a rose.

 

The challenge is still out there: demonstrate how you give a third person account of a first person mode of existence. I dare you, double dog dare even!

 

And it's really amazing to me how people can completely disregard the performative contradiction like it's trivial or (as you said) sophistic. I can only imagine that you haven't actually considered it fully. The craziness of your position can only logically be continued to be held if you reject the idea that you reasoned it through and that the prefered state of having this correct conclusion is illusory. The logical consequence is that you are insane. "I'm right and you should believe me, but there is no prefered state of having correct conclusions" or "here, you throw this away".

I thought causality meant that effects were determined by their causes, and that the causes were the past state of the universe, and that effects were the future state of the universe. When you say "effects have causes", is that different from effects being determined by causes?

There are two things wrong with saying that the definition you provide here necessitates determinism.

 

1. This is perfectly consistent with free will in that I chose to lift my arm and the damn thing goes up. My arm lifting was caused by my choice to have it go up.

2. This is not what causality means actually, no. It's one way in which we describe things causally, but molecules getting together in a lattice structure causes solidity is another. This doesn't even require time at all.

[greekredemption]

You've misunderstood. I'm talking solely about push-pull causality. This precludes emergent phenomena. That's a second kind of causality.

 

Emergent properties are completely dependent on the simplest reductions; a lattice is dependent on the interactions of particles, in the same way my typing this post is dependent on the interactions of particles.

 

These 'kinds' of causality do not actually add anything to the phenomenon of cause and effect. A leads to B. That B may lead to C, and C to X, does not imply a different kind of causality. 

 

Being honest, I'm not sure what your point is with these different kinds. I mean, you say later in your post:

 

There are two things wrong with saying that the definition you provide here necessitates determinism.1. This is perfectly consistent with free will in that I chose to lift my arm and the damn thing goes up. My arm lifting was caused by my choice to have it go up.2. This is not what causality means actually, no. It's one way in which we describe things causally, but molecules getting together in a lattice structure causes solidity is another. This doesn't even require time at all.

 

Yes, at a higher level it is practical to see it as your choice for your arm to go up. But ultimately particle interactions determined that your arm would go up. Your 'choice' is merely an emergent property of these particle interactions - according to these interactions, if you ran that sequence again and again either the same 'choice' would be reached every time OR your choice would be random each time.

 

Actually I do take issue with this, at least in the way it is phrased. Causality causes nothing. Causality isn't a thing to cause or be caused. It's deceptive in noun form, but it just means that effects have causes. I don't know how many times I need to repeat that...

 

You're right. In hindsight, my point was badly phrased. How about, "There is not, I think, any controversy in suggesting that free will is an emergent property of the interactions of particles."

 

What evidence? I bow to evidence and if you present it, that's of enormous value. But to pretend that there is no evidence for the free will side is dishonest for one obvious reason: we experience it for most of the day.And if your evidence is "causality is a thing" then you are going to have to actually try a little harder than that. Demonstrate how the fact that effects have causes necessitates a determinist worldview. Determinists suggest this til the cows come home but never actually demonstrate it. I suspect it's because when it's actually laid out for all to see, it's not so convincing anymore.

 

Ah, well, we've now run into the problem of induction. You know as well as I do that I cannot justify that an effect will always link to a given cause, except to say that it has happened in the past and seems to work.

 

Notwithstanding that.... Using induction, we can show that given causes have given effects. And that if the given cause is the same the given effect is the same. A rock falls down a hill, and its trajectory, speed, the way it bounces, where it lands, are determined by the inputs, whatever they were. So, if we take your arm moving, you say it was caused by your choice to lift your arm. What caused your choice? You may say various environmental inputs. Or perhaps genes get involved. Or memories. Is this the sum total of your choice to lift your arm? If so, whence the free will? if not, what is this literal uncaused cause that would allow free will? It seems to me the 'choice' step is unnecessary. The fact remains that given inputs lead to given outputs (causality if you will), and each of those apparently discrete inputs can be described in terms of the interactions of particles in precisely the same way as a rock falling down a hill.

 

And it's really amazing to me how people can completely disregard the performative contradiction like it's trivial or (as you said) sophistic. I can only imagine that you haven't actually considered it fully. The craziness of your position can only logically be continued to be held if you reject the idea that you reasoned it through and that the prefered state of having this correct conclusion is illusory. The logical consequence is that you are insane. "I'm right and you should believe me, but there is no prefered state of having correct conclusions" or "here, you throw this away".

 

It doesn't confer enough rigour in the argument. A performative contradiction may show a person's beliefs to be incorrect, but it does not necessarily say anything about how the universe functions. That I act as if I have free will does not actually mean I have free will. If it looks like a horse and sounds like a horse, it may not actually be a horse!

 

Perhaps you could define 'free will' as you understand it?

[june]

Perhaps you could define 'free will' as you understand it?

i think that's a good idea

[Kevin Beal]

Perhaps you could define 'free will' as you understand it?

I cover all of that in previous posts (in some cases multiple times) and don't feel like repeating myself, but I don't mind restating the definition I'm operating from since it is a major source of confusion:

 

Free will is the acceptance that the way that we experience ourselves acting causally on the world according to our own goals and preferences is causal in the way we experience it. In other words that me choosing to lift my arm and having it go up is a valid causal description of events as they actually occurred. It's the insane belief that we aren't insane, haha.

 

This is opposed to the belief (determinism) that this description (I have causal powers) is necessarily illusory because... causality and rocks don't have free will, so we don't either and the standard determinist lines you are familiar with.

[Rainbow Dash]

I thought causality meant that effects were determined by their causes, and that the causes were the past state of the universe, and that effects were the future state of the universe. When you say "effects have causes", is that different from effects being determined by causes?

Can someone please answer this.

Free will is the acceptance that the way that we experience ourselves acting causally on the world according to our own goals and preferences is causal in the way we experience it. In other words that me choosing to lift my arm and having it go up is a valid causal description of events as they actually occurred. It's the insane belief that we aren't insane, haha.

Christians sometimes give similar reasons for believing in God. They say that they feel the presence of God in their lives, and that this experience is evidence for God. I don't see how saying we are the cause of our actions because we experience it that way any different then the argument for God. If there is a difference please explain.

[Josh -Lel-]

Christians sometimes give similar reasons for believing in God. They say that they feel the presence of God in their lives, and that this experience is evidence for God. I don't see how saying we are the cause of our actions because we experience it that way any different then the argument for God. If there is a difference please explain.

Obviously "I feel it" is not an argument for anything that self-contradicts. You can't say you "feel God" and therefore God exists, just like you couldn't say you "feel" a square circle and therefore it exists. And I would say free will is another one of those "square circle" cases... (or at least seems like it; matter acting independently from cause and effect). That's just the test of logical consistency that needs to be passed before you get to the empiricism. It's really quite confusing, but I think the evidence for free will might be in the fact that you must assume free will is true to make any argument about reality. If every argument had the logically necessity of presuming God's existence, it would be necessary to say God exists to make an argument.I'm pointing this out because this is the problem that anyone runs into making an argument against free will. To say that there is criteria for "truth" that free will does not meet is to assume free will (alternate states and preferences) is true. Does that prove free will? I really don't know, but it's breaking my mind trying to comprehend it...What are anybody's thoughts on this so that I don't have to think about it anymore?EDIT: I really hope I'm not deterring to far from the original subject. These are just my own thoughts and my personal dilemma with the subject...

[Kevin Beal]

Christians sometimes give similar reasons for believing in God. They say that they feel the presence of God in their lives, and that this experience is evidence for God. I don't see how saying we are the cause of our actions because we experience it that way any different then the argument for God. If there is a difference please explain.

Maybe it's a failure of my imagination, but I don't see this connection. I experience things as unpleasant too, is that mystical?

 

If you are going to suggest mysticism on my part, please be thorough in your explanation. Vague implications are just irritating. Determinists do this a lot: they make vague implications that free willers must be mystical and they are anti-scientific and all of this without ever demonstrating how it's the case. The irony is that the basis for their criticism is that it seems that way to them, haha.

 

It used to frustrate me, but now I just roll my eyes. Come on, this is just lazy.

 

And the reason I make the distinction between different "causalities" is because determinism results from an equivocation between multiple senses of the word. Cause A produces effect B can take place over time (like push-pull), or it can be a snap-shot (like emergent phenomena). These two senses of the word are different.

 

The equivocation occurs when you say that a push pull description fully accounts for a subjective first person emergent phenomena. But if the only form of causal description were push-pull, it wouldn't even account for physics, much less biology, neurology, consciousness etc.

 

This point must forever be ignored or denied by the determinist, and this is completely apparent to anyone who looks for it. To me it's completely transparent. That's why I will keep reminding you

[Rainbow Dash]

Maybe it's a failure of my imagination, but I don't see this connection. I experience things as unpleasant too, is that mystical?

Experiencing unpleasant feelings is not mystical. Making claims about the universe based purely on unpleasant feelings is. I don't think that an illusion of free will is in any way mystical; It's the claim based purely off of it I think might be.

 

Edit: unpleasant feelings are by definition what you experience so experiencing something unpleasant means your unpleasant experience exists. The same can't be said for free will because free will describes the behavior of the universe.

 

And the reason I make the distinction between different "causalities" is because determinism results from an equivocation between multiple senses of the word. Cause A produces effect B can take place over time (like push-pull), or it can be a snap-shot (like emergent phenomena). These two senses of the word are different.

I thought a cause and effect that takes place over time is equivalent to a continuous series of snap-shot causation, making the difference between the 2 unimportant since one relies on the other. What is your alternative explanation to causation that occurs over time if it is not what I described?

[june]

Free will is the acceptance that the way that we experience ourselves acting causally on the world according to our own goals and preferences is causal in the way we experience it. In other words that me choosing to lift my arm and having it go up is a valid causal description of events as they actually occurred.

but aren't there previous causal reasons of why you lifted your arm? for instance, you may have been sitting in an uncomfortable position and your body feels a certain way, and thus the arm gets lifted; or you thinking about this discussion on free will makes you want to prove free will, and so you do a random act to try and prove your free will (like lifting your arm). 

or are you implying that you thinking about lifting your arm is the absolute causal starting point of your arm being lifted? 

[cynicist]

What do you mean by "choose"? If I flip a coin and it lands on heads, did the coin choose to land on heads? How can I determine if an object's actions were determined by choice?

When you say everything else in the universe is driven by physics, impulse and instinct, are you implying that choosing between truth and falsehood is not driven by physics, impulse and instinct?

 

Are you trolling? Decision-making is a cognitive process which requires things like sensory input and I dunno... a BRAIN. There's also the problem of coins not being able to act, like flipping themselves without our intervention...

 

I was going to take this thread seriously and add my thoughts about the definition of free will but if you are asking questions like this in a serious manner it would probably take me 100 pages to explain everything so out of practical consideration for my poor brain I think I will refrain from doing so.

[Rainbow Dash]

Are you trolling? Decision-making is a cognitive process which requires things like sensory input and I dunno... a BRAIN. There's also the problem of coins not being able to act, like flipping themselves without our intervention...

 

I was going to take this thread seriously and add my thoughts about the definition of free will but if you are asking questions like this in a serious manner it would probably take me 100 pages to explain everything so out of practical consideration for my poor brain I think I will refrain from doing so.

No I was not trolling. I think it is important to define our terms so we don't  refer to different things. For example, if I am playing chess against a computer, I may say something like, "oh look, the computer chose to play knight to C3" which is a reasonable use of the word chose in normal conversation, but I don't think this definition of chose is what you mean by chose in this forum. It is important we distinguish between these definitions. You imply that a coin would need to be able to flip itself to be able to have choice, but that would imply that a coin with a built in robotic arm that could flip itself without intervention could choose, which I don't think is what you mean by choose. People give over simplified explanations of key words and it makes it hard to have a conversation on these topics when we don't have agreed upon definitions.

 

Edit: people keep accusing others of misinterpreting their viewpoints, and I just want to bring clarity to both sides, and this process starts with defining the most basic terms to remove as much ambiguity as possible.

[cynicist]

No I was not trolling. I think it is important to define our terms so we don't  refer to different things. For example, if I am playing chess against a computer, I may say something like, "oh look, the computer chose to play knight to C3" which is a reasonable use of the word chose in normal conversation, but I don't think this definition of chose is what you mean by chose in this forum. It is important we distinguish between these definitions. You imply that a coin would need to be able to flip itself to be able to have choice, but that would imply that a coin with a built in robotic arm that could flip itself without intervention could choose, which I don't think is what you mean by choose. People give over simplified explanations of key words and it makes it hard to have a conversation on these topics when we don't have agreed upon definitions.

 

Edit: people keep accusing others of misinterpreting their viewpoints, and I just want to bring clarity to both sides, and this process starts with defining the most basic terms to remove as much ambiguity as possible.

 

Oh come on. If you are talking about choice in the context of free will there is no need to differentiate between the "choice" of a computer and a person. Btw that particular example is anthropomorphism, which is ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things, not a difference of definitions. Also I wasn't implying that a coin would have to flip itself to have choice, I was merely stating that a coin has no way to perform an action, in response to your question, "How can I determine if an object's actions were determined by choice?". I don't think anyone should have to explain that coins require human intervention in order to be flipped, or even exist.

 

Anyway I agree with you that not having agreed upon definitions can make conversations challenging, but equally true is that having to caveat or explain the most basic of details can make any discussion functionally impossible. I mean take for example the quote below.

 

 

I still don't fully understand is what you mean by "making choices", but by now it seems that the concept just doesn't make sense to me and we may have to agree to disagree.

 

You made the choice to create this topic and respond to it, but are now claiming that you don't understand what he means by "making choices", as if somehow the two are distinctly different.

 

 

This thread is also littered with logical errors such as the following:

 

Hypothetically, if physical reality causes me to choose to lift my arm and choosing to lift my arm causes my arm to go up, would this be an example of free will or determinism?

 

Physical reality can't "cause you to choose" to lift your arm. If reality caused it then it wasn't a choice and if you chose it then you can't say it was caused by reality, they are mutually exclusive. What you're saying is the equivalent of, "My mental illness caused me to choose to kill that guy" as opposed to "My mental illness caused me to kill that guy" or "I chose to kill that guy". 

[ProfessionalTeabagger]

What I'm saying is your consciousness does not choose to fire them.  In fact, it has no knowledge, no awareness of them at all.  That's why choices happen in your brain and you then later become aware of them.   The physical process happens first, consciousness later.

 

This is just another piece of evidence in the determinism argument.  I'm not making it as if it's the only one.  It's just adding to the weight of evidence.

 

There have been experiments done on it.  It is generally regarded that consciousness is an emergent property in neuroscience.  I don't have any links on hand sorry.

 

 

Yes I get it. It's like an epiphenomenalism position. The physical neurons fire and cause the mental (consciousness) but the mental cannot cause the physical. So would it be correct to say you believe the neurons in your brain are causing the neurons in my brain to fire and that out consciousnesses play no causal role?

[Rainbow Dash]

If reality caused it then it wasn't a choice and if you chose it then you can't say it was caused by reality, they are mutually exclusive.

This would mean that reality and I are mutually exclusive. That would also mean that I can't be considered part of reality.

Yes I get it. It's like an epiphenomenalism position. The physical neurons fire and cause the mental (consciousness) but the mental cannot cause the physical. So would it be correct to say you believe the neurons in your brain are causing the neurons in my brain to fire and that out consciousnesses play no causal role?

I believe that this is a likely possibility, but even if this was not the case, I don't see how that would imply free will. Even if your actions were determined by a combination of neurons firing and previous consciousness, I don't see how this would imply free will. If your actions occur with no explanation, I don't see how this would imply free will. I am not sure under what scenario free will could be a reasonable explanation.

[Kevin Beal]

If epiphenomenalism is true, then why have consciousness at all? Why make it illusory?

 

It's a fantastically expensive phenotype in terms of resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

 

If that doesn't give you pause, then I don't think you get the implication.

[michaelfcp]

If epiphenomenalism is true, then why have consciousness at all? Why make it illusory?

 

 

We don´t know yet...sure we can extrapolate, but we don´t have a final handle on that question

[Rainbow Dash]

If epiphenomenalism is true, then why have consciousness at all? Why make it illusory?

 

It's a fantastically expensive phenotype in terms of resources that could be better spent elsewhere.

 

If that doesn't give you pause, then I don't think you get the implication.

I don't understand what you mean by the second line.

I also don't understand the implications.

You may need to spell it out for me.

[Kevin Beal]

My point is that the body is using a lot of resources to maintain what is ostensibly meaningless, and even more than that illusory. That makes no sense biologically. There is nothing else in nature that I'm aware of that is like that, not even vestigial phenotypes, and we kinda have to accept that consciousness is not vestigial since it's the most pronounced in humans.

 

Not that this constitutes proof, but come on!

[Rainbow Dash]

My point is that the body is using a lot of resources to maintain what is ostensibly meaningless, and even more than that illusory. That makes no sense biologically. There is nothing else in nature that I'm aware of that is like that, not even vestigial phenotypes, and we kinda have to accept that consciousness is not vestigial since it's the most pronounced in humans.

 

Not that this constitutes proof, but come on!

Consciousness is not meaningless. It was considered a meaningful feature to the aliens who engineered us, even though I am aware that most people reject this. I believe that this is getting away from the topic though.

[Wesley]

Consciousness is not meaningless. It was considered a meaningful feature to the aliens who engineered us, even though I am aware that most people reject this. I believe that this is getting away from the topic though.

Couldn't resist:

 

[greekredemption]

I cover all of that in previous posts (in some cases multiple times) and don't feel like repeating myself, but I don't mind restating the definition I'm operating from since it is a major source of confusion:

 

Free will is the acceptance that the way that we experience ourselves acting causally on the world according to our own goals and preferences is causal in the way we experience it. In other words that me choosing to lift my arm and having it go up is a valid causal description of events as they actually occurred. It's the insane belief that we aren't insane, haha.

 

This is opposed to the belief (determinism) that this description (I have causal powers) is necessarily illusory because... causality and rocks don't have free will, so we don't either and the standard determinist lines you are familiar with.

Nobody's saying 'causality...[doesn't] have free will', but instead something more like 'causality precludes free will'. Despite your having more than one definition of causality, it still seems to me as if causality still precludes free will.

 

Of course, your definition of free will still allows for determinism, and is probably not even that far away from the determinist position, insofar as no determinist is going to disagree that you experience the world as causal and that your apparent choices in the world appear to you to be causes in themselves. 

 

What I (and others, perhaps) am saying is that while this may be a valid way to look at the world (as you point out, to look at the world in any other way would probably result in insanity), from the point of view of the universe it is unsound and very probably incorrect. This is because, unfortunately, it has yet to be demonstrated that free will, where a thing can be the genesis of a chain of causality, actually exists in the universe. Defining free will, as you have done, as an emergent property of biology does not tell the whole story and definitely doesn't contradict deterministic propositions.

[Kevin Beal]

Defining free will, as you have done, as an emergent property of biology does not tell the whole story and definitely doesn't contradict deterministic propositions.

Of course it doesn't tell the whole story. I have no idea how consciousness and free will work. Cognitive science is still in it's infancy and I suspect I won't learn how it works in my lifetime.

 

And yes, absolutely it does preclude determinism unless you make determinism mean anything that you want. Determinism necessarily makes our experience of ourselves being intentional causal agents illusory. I'm saying it's not illusory and we actually in fact are not crazy. There's a big difference between these two things. I feel a bit silly having to say "no, actually, I'm not insane".

[cynicist]

free will, where a thing can be the genesis of a chain of causality, actually exists in the universe. Defining free will, as you have done, as an emergent property of biology does not tell the whole story and definitely doesn't contradict deterministic propositions.

 

Why does it have to be the genesis of a causal chain? This is a thing that determinists often seem to think that I just cannot understand, and which I guess leads them to claim that free will is some mystical property. Causality is not linear for human beings like it is for inanimate objects, it's reciprocal. We don't just react to things, we can have an impact on the environment as well. For us, causality is not limited to the present, it also exists as a factor in the past (memories/experience) and in the future (anticipation/planning). To me, free will is something that emerges from the combination of these causal factors and the resulting feedback in our minds. Our awareness of time and our intelligence allows us to anticipate causality and respond to it in a way that is unique relative to every other organism on the planet, much less inanimate matter.

 

When you take causality as linear like it is in physics and apply it to human beings then of course decision-making becomes an illusion. If you say that we interact with causality in the same way that rocks do, then obviously we would be just as limited.

 

One thing I don't understand is how free will is invalid and yet intelligence/reason is spared under hard determinism. How can you reason without making decisions? If decision-making is just an illusion (simply an effect of prior causes) then what is intelligence? I think at the very least this should give hard determinists pause.

[Rainbow Dash]

Determinism necessarily makes our experience of ourselves being intentional causal agents illusory. I'm saying it's not illusory and we actually in fact are not crazy.

Speak for yourself. I don't experience myself as an intentional causal agent. Thoughts just pop up in my mind and I have a tendency to act in congruence with those thoughts.

[Pepin]

I am incredibly confused.

[Kevin Beal]

Speak for yourself. I don't experience myself as an intentional causal agent. Thoughts just pop up in my mind and I have a tendency to act in congruence with those thoughts.

Then you have to extend me the same right and not correct me since I'm not intentionally making the arguments and statements that I am. I would then have no choice but to speak for you and everyone else. You cannot hold me responsible for anything.

[greekredemption]

I'd just like to say at this point I'm very much enjoying this little debate. It's a lot more insightful and civilised than usual, which pleases me.

[michaelfcp]

Then you have to extend me the same right and not correct me since I'm not intentionally making the arguments and statements that I am.

 

Sure, but if determinism is true, he "has" to correct you. Intentions are a part of the causal chain of events. If they are deterministic doesn't mean they are not real. If determinism is true we should ban criminals from participating in society, the same way we should run from a bear in the woods.

 

As a side note i´m not a determinist,If anything I want to believe that free will is real. But the truth for me comes first, and, until now the only argument that conforms with the evidence available is determinism (Libet experiments being the most famous. Again, please correct me if i´m wrong about the evidence.) 

 

I think the majority of the people in this thread are interested in the truth also. There are brilliant people here, and I appreciate very much your input.