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The debate between "no free will" and "magical supernatural free will" is silly and pointless, and yes, it should have been settled long time ago. But it bugs

The debate between "no free will" and "magical supernatural free will" is silly and pointless, and yes, it should have been settled long time ago. But it bugs me that so many people are eager so claim that because magical free will doesn't exist, that means no free will can exist. Compatibilism is not a new idea either. The usual argument is that compatibilists are moving the goal posts, but I simply don't understand that argument. Suppose an argument between two sided: "Bigfoot exists" versus "no non-human apes exists". Is it moving the goalposts to point to gorillas? Or suppose we're in the 1700's, and people are discussing vitalism: The force that separates dead things from living. The two sides debate whether the "vital spark" exists, or whether life is an illusion and it's meaningless to talk about living things at all. Is it moving the goal posts to try to find a non-magical definition of life? To me it's pretty clear that we have free will, and that has nothing to do with determinism.

loopz 5y ago
It's like saying higher frames of references can't exist, so they don't exist. The logic fails to prove or disprove unknowns. Virus don't contemplate their hosts. Mature minds handle unknowns properly.
- AstralStorm 5y ago
  However, is properly exactly the same as deterministically? Injecting non-determinism makes the question of free will rather funny, in that the standard argument "you would not choose differently" does not work as the act of traveling back in time injects further nondeterministic results... Under non-determinism, free will would be something like changing location of probability wells for actions. Our brains do that structurally and chemically all the time, and not particularly deterministically either. (Chemistry is involved.) On the other hand, posing free will as decision theoretic choice, you're facing an outcome of statistical masses of decisions a lot of which are not observable. Philosophically simplifying it to binary choice ends up with absurd results.
  - loopz 5y ago
    Philosophy is one way to try to grok the world. It is deceiving when it claims the universe is finite, bounded and fully quantifiable, without proof. Determinism in an infinite interconnected quantum universe ceases to have pragmatic meaning. There is order, but we can't measure everything exactly. It's playing out right here with us, but we fail to grasp it all. The possibility of higher frames of references invalidates absolutism to mind-games. Which is what hypotheticals are, until new actions are made.
danbruc 5y ago
The usual argument is that compatibilists are moving the goal posts, but I simply don't understand that argument. It is moving the goal post because it just changes the definition of free will into some triviality. I had a choice between apples and oranges and I picked the apple because I like apples more. Sure, you can call this free will if you want to but what is the point? The max function had a choice between 1 and 2 and picked 2 because it likes bigger numbers more. Maybe you want to contrast the above situation with a situation where the apples are sold out or someone forces you at gunpoint to pick the orange. But this is now an entirely different thing, now we are talking about external constraints. And you can move into all kinds of directions and define free will to be this or that but the result will always be kind of trivial.
- usgroup 5y ago
  I think decisions presupposing self-consciousness posit an input into the decision making process that doesn’t come from the outside. Surely correlated with the world but not determined by it.
- jakobnissen 5y ago
  Do you really think the difference between someone coerced and someone free is "trivial"? Or between someone who is free to make a choice because they are informed versus one who can't make it because they don't know of it? Or between someone who is capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and someone who is not? These differences are - obviously, I might add - very important. And they have nothing to do with magical free will. By the way, the difference between internal and external factors is not the critical thing. There are several ways to restrict people's free will with internal factors - like for example, a person who doesn't know X exists cannot make a free choice to do X.
  - dlkf 5y ago
    > These differences are - obviously, I might add - very important. And they have nothing to do with magical free will. So why continue to use an unrelated term that has so much baggage? Why not just tackle these issues individually, on their own terms, in language that isn't laundering outmoded intuitions about some magic grounds for responsibility?
dlkf 5y ago
The point of disagreement here probably boils down to the perceived significance of what you're calling "free will" in your final sentence (as opposed to "magical supernatural free will"). On my view it is literally nothing. It's the tautological observation that agents with desires, uninhibited, can and will seek to satisfy those desires. It gives us no grounds for responsibility, punishment, etc etc. (Those are all good things, but their justification has to come from elsewhere.) But by continuing to call it "free will," you're invoking the intuitions that many people have regarding the magical bullshit variety, and laundering those intuitions/feelings into the new discussion.
- jakobnissen 5y ago
  That's interesting! In my view, nothing important hinges on magical free will. How could it, when people can't even articulate what it is? In my view, everything we associate with free will: Responsibility, punishment, "do better next time" et cetera, are not only recovered when you reach for a serious answer to what free will is. It's actually better recovered than with magical free will! For example, everyone agrees that children are not as morally responsible as adults. Even though children supposedly are as magically free as adults. How can that be? That _only_ makes sense in the compatibilist view. Suppose someone invents a completely deterministically programmed robot that has general intelligence and understands the world, and people well. Would you sign a contract with it? Would you punish it if it broke it? Would you hold it responsible? Would you be outraged if it decided to lie to you? I definitely would.
  - dlkf 5y ago
    > Responsibility, punishment, "do better next time" et cetera, are not only recovered when you reach for a serious answer to what free will is. It's actually better recovered than with magical free will! And we've found the point of disagreement. I simply think they're not. I believe they have to be justified independently, in terms of the degree to which they tend our lives and our society in a desired direction.
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Free will isn’t binary, there are gradations.

loopz 5y ago

It's like saying higher frames of references can't exist, so they don't exist. The logic fails to prove or disprove unknowns. Virus don't contemplate their hosts. Mature minds handle unknowns properly.

AstralStorm 5y ago
However, is properly exactly the same as deterministically? Injecting non-determinism makes the question of free will rather funny, in that the standard argument "you would not choose differently" does not work as the act of traveling back in time injects further nondeterministic results... Under non-determinism, free will would be something like changing location of probability wells for actions. Our brains do that structurally and chemically all the time, and not particularly deterministically either. (Chemistry is involved.) On the other hand, posing free will as decision theoretic choice, you're facing an outcome of statistical masses of decisions a lot of which are not observable. Philosophically simplifying it to binary choice ends up with absurd results.
- loopz 5y ago
  Philosophy is one way to try to grok the world. It is deceiving when it claims the universe is finite, bounded and fully quantifiable, without proof. Determinism in an infinite interconnected quantum universe ceases to have pragmatic meaning. There is order, but we can't measure everything exactly. It's playing out right here with us, but we fail to grasp it all. The possibility of higher frames of references invalidates absolutism to mind-games. Which is what hypotheticals are, until new actions are made.

danbruc 5y ago

The usual argument is that compatibilists are moving the goal posts, but I simply don't understand that argument. It is moving the goal post because it just changes the definition of free will into some triviality. I had a choice between apples and oranges and I picked the apple because I like apples more. Sure, you can call this free will if you want to but what is the point? The max function had a choice between 1 and 2 and picked 2 because it likes bigger numbers more. Maybe you want to contrast the above situation with a situation where the apples are sold out or someone forces you at gunpoint to pick the orange. But this is now an entirely different thing, now we are talking about external constraints. And you can move into all kinds of directions and define free will to be this or that but the result will always be kind of trivial.

usgroup 5y ago
I think decisions presupposing self-consciousness posit an input into the decision making process that doesn’t come from the outside. Surely correlated with the world but not determined by it.
jakobnissen 5y ago
Do you really think the difference between someone coerced and someone free is "trivial"? Or between someone who is free to make a choice because they are informed versus one who can't make it because they don't know of it? Or between someone who is capable of understanding the consequences of their actions and someone who is not? These differences are - obviously, I might add - very important. And they have nothing to do with magical free will. By the way, the difference between internal and external factors is not the critical thing. There are several ways to restrict people's free will with internal factors - like for example, a person who doesn't know X exists cannot make a free choice to do X.
- dlkf 5y ago
  > These differences are - obviously, I might add - very important. And they have nothing to do with magical free will. So why continue to use an unrelated term that has so much baggage? Why not just tackle these issues individually, on their own terms, in language that isn't laundering outmoded intuitions about some magic grounds for responsibility?

dlkf 5y ago

The point of disagreement here probably boils down to the perceived significance of what you're calling "free will" in your final sentence (as opposed to "magical supernatural free will"). On my view it is literally nothing. It's the tautological observation that agents with desires, uninhibited, can and will seek to satisfy those desires. It gives us no grounds for responsibility, punishment, etc etc. (Those are all good things, but their justification has to come from elsewhere.) But by continuing to call it "free will," you're invoking the intuitions that many people have regarding the magical bullshit variety, and laundering those intuitions/feelings into the new discussion.

jakobnissen 5y ago
That's interesting! In my view, nothing important hinges on magical free will. How could it, when people can't even articulate what it is? In my view, everything we associate with free will: Responsibility, punishment, "do better next time" et cetera, are not only recovered when you reach for a serious answer to what free will is. It's actually better recovered than with magical free will! For example, everyone agrees that children are not as morally responsible as adults. Even though children supposedly are as magically free as adults. How can that be? That _only_ makes sense in the compatibilist view. Suppose someone invents a completely deterministically programmed robot that has general intelligence and understands the world, and people well. Would you sign a contract with it? Would you punish it if it broke it? Would you hold it responsible? Would you be outraged if it decided to lie to you? I definitely would.
- dlkf 5y ago
  > Responsibility, punishment, "do better next time" et cetera, are not only recovered when you reach for a serious answer to what free will is. It's actually better recovered than with magical free will! And we've found the point of disagreement. I simply think they're not. I believe they have to be justified independently, in terms of the degree to which they tend our lives and our society in a desired direction.
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Free will isn’t binary, there are gradations.