4 ms·

Free will has been settled though, hasn't it? The best case for it these days seem to be a language game called "compatibilism" where you redefine free will to

Free will has been settled though, hasn't it? The best case for it these days seem to be a language game called "compatibilism" where you redefine free will to mean something vague about acting according to motivations, and when someone accepts that definition you turn around and say "Aha! We do have free will after all!"

Symmetry 8y ago
A more charitable way of putting it is that naive understandings of free will are incoherent but if we're going to have to make up a definition of free will we might as well do so while maintaining as much of traditional distinctions between free will and non-free will as possible. For instance if I decide hit someone and do so that might be considered blameworthy. If someone else decides to pick me up and throw me at that person then that wouldn't be blameworthy of me. Traditionally you'd distinguish between these by invoking free will and I think that's a useful distinction to make.
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  Well, since we are motivated by self preservation it might make sense to talk about blameworthiness when we figure out whether to lock you up or the person who threw you, or to cut out the brain tumor that caused you to suddenly become aggressive. Invoking free will still does not make any sense though, because you cannot choose your past, and I don't think you can argue that the past doesn't have any causal influence over you.
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    The notion that something is only free will if it uncaused is not at all the compatibalist position. The general compatibilist position is that an action is done with free will of a person if the causal chain it is part of runs through that person's intent for the action to occur, or conventionally that person's 'will'. If you choose to define an action as representing free will only if it is uncaused then first, you've made up a definition entirely at odds with the normal English usages and, second, your definition is useless because it only cuts actions into those actions that exist and those that don't and we already have a perfectly good word for that so the new one is redundant.
    - MikkoFinell 8y ago
      Okay I accept your compatibilist definition that actions are done with free will despite being part of a causal chain. Congratulations, you won the language game, and can proceed to claim we agreed free will is real. You now have as much free will as a rock rolling down a hill. > If you choose to define an action as representing free will only if it is uncaused then first, you've made up a definition entirely at odds with the normal English usages I was trying to be precise, and assumed you agree that something that's part of a causal chain cannot be reasonably be called "free" by any common sense definition. You can't change the past after all, can you? If not then you're a product of circumstance just like everything else in the universe.
      - Symmetry 8y ago
        I think that if I'm walking down the road on a hot day and get thirsty and then I decide to buy a soda then my purchase is of my free will despite being cause by the heat, cause by society teaching me about buying things, etc. And I insist that if you told a non-philospher I bought it of my own free will they would agree. So I think you're entirely wrong to say that something that is part of a causal chain cannot be called free. Now, if you told a normal person that someone in that circumstance couldn't have done anything except buy the soda they would agree that would mean I didn't have free will but they wouldn't see why. To them the "My decisionness" and "Could have been differentness" are the same thing. But philosophically we have to choose one or the other and it's both more useful, in terms of carving reality at the joints, and in greater accordance with common usage to pick "My decisionness" as what we interpret "free will" to mean. I'm sorry I'm not directly addressing your point about changing the past, but that's because I'm still rather confused by how it relates to free will. Certainly I'd say that nobody can change the past.
        MikkoFinell 8y ago
        > So I think you're entirely wrong to say that something that is part of a causal chain cannot be called free. Yes you can call it free since you have defined free to mean acting according to your motivations, just like I predicted in my original comment. But since your behavior is caused by your motivations, and your motivations have it's own causes, and so on, I really don't see what you actually win (except the language game) by describing the process as free. It's about as free as the last cogwheel in a machine. > I'm sorry I'm not directly addressing your point about changing the past, but that's because I'm still rather confused by how it relates to free will. Suppose your will is a function of your brain, and suppose that your brain is a function of gene expression and environmental stimuli. Suppose you are unable to choose your genes, and suppose that you are unable to alter the history of environmental stimuli. It follows that the causes of your will are outside your control. If you don't control your will, then your will is not free.
- whytaka 8y ago
  > if we're going to have to make up a definition of free will we might as well So we've begged the question. To me, the way this is worded, it lays bare that compatibilism is about the ethics of 'free-will' and not its ontology. It's a completely different discussion and somewhat counterproductive.
slphil 8y ago
Compatibilism isn't simply a language game. The "free will" question has centuries of ethical baggage attached to it that are critical to a functioning justice system, among other concerns. Compatibilists basically say that although basic scientific reasoning would assert that there is no Ghost in the Machine, and that true libertarian free will is a delusional fantasy, that anything that comes from the brain of a single individual is that individual's free will, by definition. If I hold a gun to your head and force you to do something, that isn't your free will, but if you choose to do something without my influence, that is your free will. Whether you actually had the option to make another choice (whether any specific moment in time has multiple different future paths based on some magical internal rational agent) is irrelevant. You are "simply" along for the ride, but it is still you making your decisions, as opposed to someone or something else.
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  > The "free will" question has centuries of ethical baggage attached to it that are critical to a functioning justice system, among other concerns. In that case the concept is detrimental to our justice system. Take away free will and it still makes sense to protect society from dangerous agents, the only thing that changes is the notion of justice being somehow predicated on retribution and punishment instead of rehabilitation and restoration. > that anything that comes from the brain of a single individual is that individual's free will, by definition. In that case free will is the effect of your past causal history molding the neuronal structure in your brain, your brain's current chemical composition combined with electrical signal processing. Describe where there is something "free" in that. > If I hold a gun to your head and force you to do something, that isn't your free will, but if you choose to do something without my influence, that is your free will. That does not make any sense. It's not like I can choose to ignore my self preservation instinct when I'm on top of a tall building, but suddenly can't ignore it when being threatened by you. You seem to claim that we are influenced by our environment only in some subset of circumstances. How can you tell when that switch is turned on or off? > Whether you actually had the option to make another choice (whether any specific moment in time has multiple different future paths based on some magical internal rational agent) is irrelevant. How are you defining free will if the ability to make choices is irrelevant? Also it seems to contradict your previous sentence that I have the ability to make a choice unless you are influencing me.
nsxwolf 8y ago
Free will has been settled? What?
- MikkoFinell 8y ago
  In order to author your decisions, you'd first have to author the decision to author your decision, and so on. So you would need to decide what your next thought is going to be before your think it, as well as deciding what that thought was going to be. Clearly, that's nothing like how our minds work. If you remain unconvinced, try meditating for like 5 minutes. That is, focus on nothing but your breath for as long as possible. You could not avoid having other thoughts pop into your head even if your life depended on it.
  - majewsky 8y ago
    I don't think that one follows from the other: I sometimes have violent thoughts when I'm angry at someone, but I'm never actually violent. (Another example would be the popular quip that average men think of sex N times per unit of time, with N being much larger than how often they actually have sex.) This suggests that there is at least one more step between having a thought and acting on it, that your argument is not considering.
    - MikkoFinell 8y ago
      My argument wasn't considering the difference between having a thought and acting on it because I did not think it was an important distinction. Whatever mechanism there is that makes you act on some thoughts but not on others, that mechanism is itself subject to the same mystery as thoughts are. What I mean is, you would have to make the decision to make the decision to act, but not before having made the decision to make that decision, and so on. What we in fact experience is no such regression of decisions, but instead merely the sensation of the thought, possibly followed by the sensation of acting. That you identify yourself as the voluntary thinker of your thoughts and actor of your actions is a beneficial psychological feature surely, it's the difference between someone suffering from schizophrenia and someone not, but that feeling is necessarily an illusion because of the reasons I have explained.

Symmetry 8y ago

A more charitable way of putting it is that naive understandings of free will are incoherent but if we're going to have to make up a definition of free will we might as well do so while maintaining as much of traditional distinctions between free will and non-free will as possible. For instance if I decide hit someone and do so that might be considered blameworthy. If someone else decides to pick me up and throw me at that person then that wouldn't be blameworthy of me. Traditionally you'd distinguish between these by invoking free will and I think that's a useful distinction to make.

MikkoFinell 8y ago
Well, since we are motivated by self preservation it might make sense to talk about blameworthiness when we figure out whether to lock you up or the person who threw you, or to cut out the brain tumor that caused you to suddenly become aggressive. Invoking free will still does not make any sense though, because you cannot choose your past, and I don't think you can argue that the past doesn't have any causal influence over you.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  The notion that something is only free will if it uncaused is not at all the compatibalist position. The general compatibilist position is that an action is done with free will of a person if the causal chain it is part of runs through that person's intent for the action to occur, or conventionally that person's 'will'. If you choose to define an action as representing free will only if it is uncaused then first, you've made up a definition entirely at odds with the normal English usages and, second, your definition is useless because it only cuts actions into those actions that exist and those that don't and we already have a perfectly good word for that so the new one is redundant.
  - MikkoFinell 8y ago
    Okay I accept your compatibilist definition that actions are done with free will despite being part of a causal chain. Congratulations, you won the language game, and can proceed to claim we agreed free will is real. You now have as much free will as a rock rolling down a hill. > If you choose to define an action as representing free will only if it is uncaused then first, you've made up a definition entirely at odds with the normal English usages I was trying to be precise, and assumed you agree that something that's part of a causal chain cannot be reasonably be called "free" by any common sense definition. You can't change the past after all, can you? If not then you're a product of circumstance just like everything else in the universe.
    - Symmetry 8y ago
      I think that if I'm walking down the road on a hot day and get thirsty and then I decide to buy a soda then my purchase is of my free will despite being cause by the heat, cause by society teaching me about buying things, etc. And I insist that if you told a non-philospher I bought it of my own free will they would agree. So I think you're entirely wrong to say that something that is part of a causal chain cannot be called free. Now, if you told a normal person that someone in that circumstance couldn't have done anything except buy the soda they would agree that would mean I didn't have free will but they wouldn't see why. To them the "My decisionness" and "Could have been differentness" are the same thing. But philosophically we have to choose one or the other and it's both more useful, in terms of carving reality at the joints, and in greater accordance with common usage to pick "My decisionness" as what we interpret "free will" to mean. I'm sorry I'm not directly addressing your point about changing the past, but that's because I'm still rather confused by how it relates to free will. Certainly I'd say that nobody can change the past.
      - MikkoFinell 8y ago
        > So I think you're entirely wrong to say that something that is part of a causal chain cannot be called free. Yes you can call it free since you have defined free to mean acting according to your motivations, just like I predicted in my original comment. But since your behavior is caused by your motivations, and your motivations have it's own causes, and so on, I really don't see what you actually win (except the language game) by describing the process as free. It's about as free as the last cogwheel in a machine. > I'm sorry I'm not directly addressing your point about changing the past, but that's because I'm still rather confused by how it relates to free will. Suppose your will is a function of your brain, and suppose that your brain is a function of gene expression and environmental stimuli. Suppose you are unable to choose your genes, and suppose that you are unable to alter the history of environmental stimuli. It follows that the causes of your will are outside your control. If you don't control your will, then your will is not free.
whytaka 8y ago
> if we're going to have to make up a definition of free will we might as well So we've begged the question. To me, the way this is worded, it lays bare that compatibilism is about the ethics of 'free-will' and not its ontology. It's a completely different discussion and somewhat counterproductive.

slphil 8y ago

Compatibilism isn't simply a language game. The "free will" question has centuries of ethical baggage attached to it that are critical to a functioning justice system, among other concerns. Compatibilists basically say that although basic scientific reasoning would assert that there is no Ghost in the Machine, and that true libertarian free will is a delusional fantasy, that anything that comes from the brain of a single individual is that individual's free will, by definition. If I hold a gun to your head and force you to do something, that isn't your free will, but if you choose to do something without my influence, that is your free will. Whether you actually had the option to make another choice (whether any specific moment in time has multiple different future paths based on some magical internal rational agent) is irrelevant. You are "simply" along for the ride, but it is still you making your decisions, as opposed to someone or something else.

MikkoFinell 8y ago
> The "free will" question has centuries of ethical baggage attached to it that are critical to a functioning justice system, among other concerns. In that case the concept is detrimental to our justice system. Take away free will and it still makes sense to protect society from dangerous agents, the only thing that changes is the notion of justice being somehow predicated on retribution and punishment instead of rehabilitation and restoration. > that anything that comes from the brain of a single individual is that individual's free will, by definition. In that case free will is the effect of your past causal history molding the neuronal structure in your brain, your brain's current chemical composition combined with electrical signal processing. Describe where there is something "free" in that. > If I hold a gun to your head and force you to do something, that isn't your free will, but if you choose to do something without my influence, that is your free will. That does not make any sense. It's not like I can choose to ignore my self preservation instinct when I'm on top of a tall building, but suddenly can't ignore it when being threatened by you. You seem to claim that we are influenced by our environment only in some subset of circumstances. How can you tell when that switch is turned on or off? > Whether you actually had the option to make another choice (whether any specific moment in time has multiple different future paths based on some magical internal rational agent) is irrelevant. How are you defining free will if the ability to make choices is irrelevant? Also it seems to contradict your previous sentence that I have the ability to make a choice unless you are influencing me.

nsxwolf 8y ago

Free will has been settled? What?

MikkoFinell 8y ago
In order to author your decisions, you'd first have to author the decision to author your decision, and so on. So you would need to decide what your next thought is going to be before your think it, as well as deciding what that thought was going to be. Clearly, that's nothing like how our minds work. If you remain unconvinced, try meditating for like 5 minutes. That is, focus on nothing but your breath for as long as possible. You could not avoid having other thoughts pop into your head even if your life depended on it.
- majewsky 8y ago
  I don't think that one follows from the other: I sometimes have violent thoughts when I'm angry at someone, but I'm never actually violent. (Another example would be the popular quip that average men think of sex N times per unit of time, with N being much larger than how often they actually have sex.) This suggests that there is at least one more step between having a thought and acting on it, that your argument is not considering.
  - MikkoFinell 8y ago
    My argument wasn't considering the difference between having a thought and acting on it because I did not think it was an important distinction. Whatever mechanism there is that makes you act on some thoughts but not on others, that mechanism is itself subject to the same mystery as thoughts are. What I mean is, you would have to make the decision to make the decision to act, but not before having made the decision to make that decision, and so on. What we in fact experience is no such regression of decisions, but instead merely the sensation of the thought, possibly followed by the sensation of acting. That you identify yourself as the voluntary thinker of your thoughts and actor of your actions is a beneficial psychological feature surely, it's the difference between someone suffering from schizophrenia and someone not, but that feeling is necessarily an illusion because of the reasons I have explained.