Who and what are we as human beings? Specifically, do we possess any measure of genuine volition—some causal mechanism which is not strictly reducible to the causal mechanisms of chance and necessity—whereby we can, in certain cases and in some degree, take ownership and responsibility for our thoughts and behaviors by intentionally using our volition to alter some causal chain?
If we do have some measure of genuine volition, as rational beings we will attempt to find some epistemologically justified explanation for it. What is the best epistemically justified explanation for volition? I believe theism is the best and only epistemically justified explanation.
For this debate, I will define theism as the claim that the explanation for all contingencies (including our universe and our selves) ultimately derive from some non-contingent reality which involves at least some volition. Since we cannot subject this non-contingent reality to empirical testing, and since we cannot know precisely what it is, we will wrap this non-contingent reality up inside a tool of logic known as a black box. There could be anything inside this black box, but for simplicity’s sake we will start with the following minimal definition of the contents of the black box:
1) It undergirds all contingent existence
2) It is not arbitrarily limited by any physical or spatio-temporal dimensions
3) It is not arbitrarily limited in the capacity to handle or process information
4) It is not arbitrarily limited in causal efficacy
I believe the above definition is both simple and capable of producing any possible world. If I am correct, then there is no need (and no epistemological warrant) to postulate additional entities inside the black box.
Question for debate: if some genuine volition exists within our universe, does theism—volitional non-contingent reality as defined above—provide the best epistemically justified explanation?
Volitional Non-contingent Reality?
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- Mithrae
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Post #131
Before you argued that you'd need to explain what you mean by wants and desires. In other words, would you be referring only to bodily urges (hunger, lust etc), or bodily urges plus the social interactions/aspirations derived from evolution (eg conformism, submission to authority), or those two plus less easily classified emotions (resentment, jealousy), or some/all of those three plus idiosyncratic responses we've habitualised through our lives, or some/all of those four plus ethical codes we've integrated...? Would you be using "wants and desires" simply as a stand-in for every possible compulsion and inclination we have, or with some more specific meaning in mind?brettra wrote:You seem to be recognizing certain restrictions while ignoring a huge one: the choice maker. What do you base your conscious choices on? Do they have a basis? Are they directed by you? If so, according to what?
The point is, our conscious choices are indeed made for reasons. If no reason existed to make a choice, a choice wouldn't be made. The restrictions lie in the reasons. What if I were to argue that your conscious choices were made according to your strongest wants or desires? Do you object to this? If so, could you give a scenario where this wouldn't be the case? If one could make a conscious choice against a want or desire, what would that look like and why would it be done?
Even if the former, I don't think you could show that we always choose according to our strongest 'desire.' If someone viciously insulted and humiliated me my strongest immediate desire might be to punch them in the face; but if I considered that an ultimately unethical response, and if I were by habit a temperate and non-violent person, and if he had four mates with him, and if I had a job interview the next day, my choice would probably not be determined by the strongest desire. In a similar vein there's plenty of mundane occasions on which a couple of small desires pull one way or another, so in the end the choice one way or the other is simply "what the hell?" and arguably not ultimately based on reasons at all.
Based on the above if I were to start formulating a theory of free will I'd note the following with respect to the 'desires' which inform our choices:
Basic desires and integrated 'desires': Biological drives, some basic social interaction patterns and (possibly) emotions are basic desires common to all people by virtue of being human beings. But while most men have the basic desire to make love to attractive women, we also have the capacity to develop that into a desire for a particular woman above all others, call it love or obsession as you will. I would suggest that (in my experience at least) there's no love at first sight, but rather an active process of imagination turns that woman into a superior or even perfect fulfillment of various desires. Similarly we have certain basic desires in a social setting - to fit in, to be popular and so on - but over the years we develop these into our personal social character/s - sense of humour, flirtation, intimidation or the like - which can even vary from setting to setting. Moral codes are an even more remarkable case, generally not based on desires at all but often acting in restraint of them.
Evaluation of desires: We often spend a lot of time weighing up the pros and cons involved with any particular decision - and some people think more quickly and/or more deeply than others. It would probably be the case, for example, that some people often make their choices in accordance with their immediate basic desires, with little control of temper, libido and so on. The fact that there exists such a wide range of contrasts with the one extreme, right up to folk we might characterise as never impulsive and usually quite rational, would give basic empirical credibility to the notion that choices are not determined by desires in any sense which contradicts our personal exercise of will.
Spontaneity and unreasoned choices: Pretty self-explanatory, suggested in the examples where we have no strong desires (or balance of desires) towards any particular choice, so we simply choose anything. I'm not sure if, where or how well this observation would fit into a theory of free will - is it really a meaningful 'choice' if as far as our conscious mind is concerned it's for all intents and purposes random? - but it should be noted nonetheless. A very simplistic (in my case teenaged) concept of free will is of stacking up all the various factors on one side or another of a decision, and then given those weighted options the self just 'chooses' without obvious reason or methodology which option to take. While that may or may not satisfy the basic requirements of 'free will' in some cases (eg the decision whether I should finish this post before relieving my bladder), I think the longer-term process of self-development nuances that simplicity a lot, as well as conforming better to our observations.
As far as I can tell, it's not true that choices are always made according to our strongest wants and desires, and we often do either actively restrain or actively develop on our basic desires.brettra wrote:If it is true that conscious choices are always made according to our strongest wants and desires, then I could say our strongest wants and desires determine our conscious choices.Â
Now if we do not choose our wants and desires, could we not say that our choices are determined?
Post #132
Mithrae,
It seems to me that when we talk about free will, we usually discuss it in terms of what EduChris has called "thoughtful, mindful decisions." I should've clarified but when I was speaking of conscious decisions, I had these thoughtful, mindful decisions in mind. We do make split second decisions where instinct may take over. We also make decisions that really don't seem to matter to us. To simplify and focus the discussion, I have chosen to address our thoughtful and mindful choices only because I believe these types of choices are most put forth in the free will debate. In your example where you were insulted and humiliated, you seemed to carefully consider your urges and desires while also considering the consequences. It's these types of choices that people most see free will coming into play. They see all the ways one could possibly act in that given situation. So I'll continue to talk in terms of these types of choices.
Now for what I mean by desires and specifically our strongest desires. I am using desires in the broad sense. As you have noted, our desires come in varying forms such as biological, subjective value, emotional, etc.. You gave an example of having the urge to use the restroom while also having the urge to finish your post. This shows that we have competing desires all the time. This is why I said our strongest desires determine our choices. When making these thoughtful and mindful choices, we are considering our wants, consequences, and possibly other things relevant to the choice. So let's use your example of being insulted and humiliated. You seem to be saying that your strongest desire is to punch him in the face but I'd say it's a competing desire. If it's a thoughtful, mindful decision then we are not speaking of an impulse decision. Is there a desire to restrain? We may have the desire for revenge and the desire to restrain. We will ultimately do that which is most important to us at the time of the choice. If it's a thoughtful, mindful choice, why wouldn't we do that which we desire most? Our desires can include the desire to punch and the desire to restrain.
Maybe one can agree with the above and still believe in free will but if so, what is meant by free will? I firmly believe we don't choose our desires and values. On what basis could I choose these values and desires without first having desires and values?Â
If I don't choose them but they simply are as they are apart from anything I do (in a sense, dealt to me like my eye color), am I not determined by them if they determine my choices?
It seems to me that when we talk about free will, we usually discuss it in terms of what EduChris has called "thoughtful, mindful decisions." I should've clarified but when I was speaking of conscious decisions, I had these thoughtful, mindful decisions in mind. We do make split second decisions where instinct may take over. We also make decisions that really don't seem to matter to us. To simplify and focus the discussion, I have chosen to address our thoughtful and mindful choices only because I believe these types of choices are most put forth in the free will debate. In your example where you were insulted and humiliated, you seemed to carefully consider your urges and desires while also considering the consequences. It's these types of choices that people most see free will coming into play. They see all the ways one could possibly act in that given situation. So I'll continue to talk in terms of these types of choices.
Now for what I mean by desires and specifically our strongest desires. I am using desires in the broad sense. As you have noted, our desires come in varying forms such as biological, subjective value, emotional, etc.. You gave an example of having the urge to use the restroom while also having the urge to finish your post. This shows that we have competing desires all the time. This is why I said our strongest desires determine our choices. When making these thoughtful and mindful choices, we are considering our wants, consequences, and possibly other things relevant to the choice. So let's use your example of being insulted and humiliated. You seem to be saying that your strongest desire is to punch him in the face but I'd say it's a competing desire. If it's a thoughtful, mindful decision then we are not speaking of an impulse decision. Is there a desire to restrain? We may have the desire for revenge and the desire to restrain. We will ultimately do that which is most important to us at the time of the choice. If it's a thoughtful, mindful choice, why wouldn't we do that which we desire most? Our desires can include the desire to punch and the desire to restrain.
Maybe one can agree with the above and still believe in free will but if so, what is meant by free will? I firmly believe we don't choose our desires and values. On what basis could I choose these values and desires without first having desires and values?Â
If I don't choose them but they simply are as they are apart from anything I do (in a sense, dealt to me like my eye color), am I not determined by them if they determine my choices?
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Post #133
I can't speak for EduChris' views, though it looks like he used that phrase to clarify your misunderstanding of his use of 'compelling.'brettra wrote:It seems to me that when we talk about free will, we usually discuss it in terms of what EduChris has called "thoughtful, mindful decisions." I should've clarified but when I was speaking of conscious decisions, I had these thoughtful, mindful decisions in mind. We do make split second decisions where instinct may take over. We also make decisions that really don't seem to matter to us. To simplify and focus the discussion, I have chosen to address our thoughtful and mindful choices only because I believe these types of choices are most put forth in the free will debate.
As far as I can tell, there's only two basic criteria which would be necessary to fit the general concept of 'free will':
- My own active decision/choice/intention directs my behaviour or thoughts
- The choice was not wholly constrained by prior or external factors
My decision whether or not to put my alarm on snooze for another ten minutes of a morning is rarely a thoughtful or mindful decision, yet it's still my decision and I can't claim that it's entirely ruled by my desire to keep sleeping. That said, on what basis do you propose that we should restrict our consideration only to these carefully pondered decisions you speak of? A fairly obvious reason why that would be an intellectually dubious approach is that unlike consciously-controlled simple movements, I suspect thoughtful decision-making is not likely to be subject to neurological experimentation for several decades (if ever).
Actually on the three situations I've encountered which broadly fit that mould, it was a decision of a second or two, and considering I got my ass kicked the time I did let fly it's questionable how well I considered the consequencesbrettra wrote: In your example where you were insulted and humiliated, you seemed to carefully consider your urges and desires while also considering the consequences. It's these types of choices that people most see free will coming into play. They see all the ways one could possibly act in that given situation. So I'll continue to talk in terms of these types of choices.

In fact some cases of split-second decisions would probably serve as among the best examples of exercising the will or volition which we most closely identify with our 'self,' since they fill in the biggest gaps where reason or desires can't be weighed. Similarly decisions (which can be thoughtful and mindful, though usually aren't) where ultimately the answer doesn't matter to us can serve as the best experiential examples of not having been constrained by other factors, where we know we easily could have chosen otherwise.
Who said there needs to be a basis on which I indulge an obsession for one woman rather than another?brettra wrote:I firmly believe we don't choose our desires and values. On what basis could I choose these values and desires without first having desires and values?Â
As far as values go - moral values being a good example - many people put their reason to the task of deciding which ones are sensible and which are not. You almost seem to be denying the effectualness of that faculty...
Post #134
Ok, we can work with this. You say your behavior and thoughts are directed by your decision/choice/intention. I am trying to get at what directs your decision/choice/intention. I know the directing is not aimless. Your decision/choice/intention must be serving something of you. What provides the direction of your decision/choice/intention? What are they based on?Mithrae wrote: As far as I can tell, there's only two basic criteria which would be necessary to fit the general concept of 'free will':
- My own active decision/choice/intention directs my behaviour or thoughts
- The choice was not wholly constrained by prior or external factors
I don't believe in the concept of free will but I'd agree that the choice is not wholly constrained by prior or external factors. It is the current, internal factors that provide the rest of the constraint. I believe these internal factors are what directs our decision/choice/intention. These internal factors include everything from our strongest desires, down to our most instinctual and automated processes, and everything in between.
Yes, thoughtful and mindful, split-second, or meaningless decisions are all your decisions. Naturally, thoughtful and mindful decisions (where to eat supper) will have more easily identifiable explanations than meaningless decisions (selecting b/w two identical products side by side on a store's shelf).Mithrae wrote: My decision whether or not to put my alarm on snooze for another ten minutes of a morning is rarely a thoughtful or mindful decision, yet it's still my decision and I can't claim that it's entirely ruled by my desire to keep sleeping. That said, on what basis do you propose that we should restrict our consideration only to these carefully pondered decisions you speak of? A fairly obvious reason why that would be an intellectually dubious approach is that unlike consciously-controlled simple movements, I suspect thoughtful decision-making is not likely to be subject to neurological experimentation for several decades (if ever).
I don't think the free will debate should necessarily be restricted to thoughtful and mindful decisions, but from my experience, that's usually where it ends up. The careful decisions seem to be appealed to most often. I figure it's due to the way humans can carefully consider their decisions. Plenty of animals make decisions but we are on another level in most people's opinion.
The degree of thought given to a decision does widely vary. I just made some assumptions about your situation that were apparently not accurate. I'll try to use a more all-encompassing approach.Mithrae wrote: Actually on the three situations I've encountered which broadly fit that mould, it was a decision of a second or two, and considering I got my ass kicked the time I did let fly it's questionable how well I considered the consequences We often don't have the time, knowledge, inclination or mental capacity to properly analyze and evaluate situations, and often don't come up with a 'winner' when we do. Separating the occasions on which we can and do make "thoughtful, mindful decisions" as though they were qualitatively different to split-second decisions doesn't seem like a valid approach to me.
In fact some cases of split-second decisions would probably serve as among the best examples of exercising the will or volition which we most closely identify with our 'self,' since they fill in the biggest gaps where reason or desires can't be weighed. Similarly decisions (which can be thoughtful and mindful, though usually aren't) where ultimately the answer doesn't matter to us can serve as the best experiential examples of not having been constrained by other factors, where we know we easily could have chosen otherwise.
Split-second decisions and meaningless decisions can be more difficult to offer explanations for, for sure. However, I do believe explanations exist. **Reading my last sentence is strange because I believe that you believe explanations exist as well, but I spoke and meant as if you didn't believe an explanation existed. This is probably where some miscommunication or disagreement lies. Would your explanation for the decision be that you exercised your will? My explanation would be more along the lines of the decision being directed by our internal factors.
I think that this is where we can try to get on the same page as far as understanding goes. Much like at the beginning of the post, I see our will as directed by internal factors. What is your will directed by? Is it directed at all? If it is directed by "us", what does that mean? This seems to get at my whole difficulty with the free will concept. I can't understand an undetermined, undirected will. How could it be? How could one direct the will? On what basis? How would it not be aimless?
I'm going to leave this alone for now to see what you think of the above responses. Maybe it will clear some things up.Mithrae wrote: Who said there needs to be a basis on which I indulge an obsession for one woman rather than another?
As far as values go - moral values being a good example - many people put their reason to the task of deciding which ones are sensible and which are not. You almost seem to be denying the effectualness of that faculty...
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Post #135
This is where we get back to my initial comment to you, I think. No matter how much we observe, analyze and theorize of reality, I believe that it is logically impossible for us to comprehensively explain or understand everything; at each point X to which we've expanded our knowledge, there'll always be questions about how and why X to which, obviously, we won't have a good answer. Who created God? Where did these 11 dimensions and 1-dimensional strings come from? Why do they behave as they do?brettra wrote:Ok, we can work with this. You say your behavior and thoughts are directed by your decision/choice/intention. I am trying to get at what directs your decision/choice/intention. I know the directing is not aimless. Your decision/choice/intention must be serving something of you. What provides the direction of your decision/choice/intention? What are they based on?
As far as my own knowledge goes I don't even need to go that far out on the speculative edge to reach more or less imponderable questions. There are things which are so integral to our experience that we take them for granted, and doubting the reality of the phenomena would be absurd; but if we're inclined to ask "What is time?" or "Why is there mass?" we start running into difficulties producing coherent answers. To be fair scientists may be discovering the most widely theorized particle responsible for mass in other particles this year, the Higgs Boson, but I suspect that won't answer why there's such a thing as mass at all. Similarly time, one of four dimensions, is apparently not simply a substrate for things to happen but is itself distorted by things which happen and was supposedly begun with something that happened. Is it a merely descriptive/relative phenomenon? Would there be time without events? If not, how could anything have happened at all, ever?
As I noted earlier, there's certainly people brighter than me who've put a lot more thought and research into their theories of time, mass, volition and so on. Are those theories completely comprehensive and comprehensible? Can we truly think outside the boxes in which we spend every moment of our existence? I'd be surprised if we can do much more than speculate, though that's no reason not to try: The discussion so far has certainly expanded and refined my views somewhat.
But if I've understood your posts correctly, it's your view that all aspects of these current internal factors are determined by prior or external factors. So ultimately prior and external factors do wholly constrain each choice by determining those current internal factors.brettra wrote:I don't believe in the concept of free will but I'd agree that the choice is not wholly constrained by prior or external factors. It is the current, internal factors that provide the rest of the constraint. I believe these internal factors are what directs our decision/choice/intention. These internal factors include everything from our strongest desires, down to our most instinctual and automated processes, and everything in between.
I agree that our application of reason is important to the discussion. In the end, I'm inclined to agree with EduChris and AquinasD that without genuine choice - if we are entirely and only playing out various causal chains which extend back to our conception or beyond - then our human 'reason' should be no more valid for understanding things than are the positions of stars and planets. In fact the notion that the same physical stuff which makes up stars and planets could, in a special configuration, produce even the illusions of choice, reason and understanding at all seems to face the same conundrum as mind-body dualism; the inter-relatedness of fundamentally different things.brettra wrote:Yes, thoughtful and mindful, split-second, or meaningless decisions are all your decisions. Naturally, thoughtful and mindful decisions (where to eat supper) will have more easily identifiable explanations than meaningless decisions (selecting b/w two identical products side by side on a store's shelf).
I don't think the free will debate should necessarily be restricted to thoughtful and mindful decisions, but from my experience, that's usually where it ends up. The careful decisions seem to be appealed to most often. I figure it's due to the way humans can carefully consider their decisions. Plenty of animals make decisions but we are on another level in most people's opinion.
Those broader concerns aside, I agree that reason is important to understanding choice itself. But on the other hand as I've noted, the freedom of our choices is best recognised (from experience and observation) in the little decisions, since we so intimately know that we could have done otherwise and it's so hard to speculate that I picked this Coke bottle rather than that Coke bottle because of... what? Air molecules pushing my hand? The position of my feet and body relative to the shelf? I suppose I'm just repeating myself, so I won't rehash the contribution to our theories which I see in split-second decisions

I know exactly where you're coming from with these questions. I've still got on file some correspondance with my Christian aunt back in 2006, spending some two thousand odd words (the first third of the letterbrettra wrote:I think that this is where we can try to get on the same page as far as understanding goes. Much like at the beginning of the post, I see our will as directed by internal factors. What is your will directed by? Is it directed at all? If it is directed by "us", what does that mean? This seems to get at my whole difficulty with the free will concept. I can't understand an undetermined, undirected will. How could it be? How could one direct the will? On what basis? How would it not be aimless?

- While I was a Christian (and for a while afterwards) I simply imagined that once all the predispositions had been piled up on either side, there was this core part of our being known as our will which chose a course to pursue, influenced but not controlled by the predispositions. But then, on what basis does our 'will' decide? If it's influenced by our predispositions, what else is involved? How can the decision of this 'will' be anything other than reasoned - based on prior dispositions, including worldview and preferences - or random? . . . .
But then, if we can't invoke some mystical 'will' which chooses between our predispositions, what are we left with? Predispositions and the flip of a coin; decisions which are largely determined by prior factors - which themselves have prior factors of their own - and partly just a matter of chance. We could of course suppose that this flip of the coin is part of us in some meaningful way, in which case it really is us making the decisions. But it's still hard to call such a model a theory of free will. When all the predetermined factors are lined up, it's left to a roll of the die, not an act of will. I therefore believe that it is impossible to construct a coherent theory of free will; certainly I have never seen one. . . .
These, as I see them, are the simple facts, reached after much thought and with considerable reluctance. Prior dispositions obviously have a poweful influence on our decisions, acting as contributary causes to the outcome, and it is impossible to conceive of any further factor in a decision which is not ultimately either predetermined or simply random. The implications are secondary to the facts themselves. As you've noted, they do indeed call into question rational thought along with free will. Just as we can't meaningfully decide which road to take on our way to work, so we can't meaningfully decide which lines of reasoning to take in our enquiries. . . .
But as I mentioned to Scourge, it seems to me that for the behaviour of any thing there are three logical possibilities:
- That it was not caused at all (this may or may not be a 'physical' or real possibility)
- That it was caused by factors external to the thing (this would include long causal chains)
- That it was caused by factors inherent to the thing (there may be external contributary causes)
We find that in order to account for the consistency we observe in the world, the behaviour of the most fundamental level of stuff almost certainly falls into the third category rather than the first (obviously it can't be the second). Thus from what I know of the science, the elementary particles quarks, leptons and bosons have properties like mass, charge, spin and so on which (after building up into protons and neutrons, atoms and finally molecules) ultimately account for what we experience with our bodily senses. Those are describable or quantitative properties, to my way of thinking.
But when it comes to what we experience of the workings of our mind, I wonder why it is that we shouldn't recognise the possibility of similarly elementary stuff with inherent properties of thinking and choice - experiencable, qualitative properties. Far as I can tell, the only reason we might exclude that possibility is a prior commitment to physicalism - indeed, only of a type of physical stuff which is currently observable with instruments - or, of course, some kind of argument from incredulity.
There's probably more I could/should say, but today is my second attempt at finishing the post and with my brother home it's taken hours already

Edit:
I ought to add a final comment building on the above, that the notion of a not-previously-determined/directed will making, in isolation, a series of discrete decisions may be quite misleading.
I suspect that most of us who spend a lot of our idle time thinking will agree that what we experience is more akin to a stream of thought than a series of discrete thoughts; a stream which we can halt, postpone, focus, redirect and so on (or which can be interrupted or redirected by external events), but which cannot be reduced to competing 'desires' or predispositions. These thoughts can be about morals, social habits and interactions, means to achieve happiness and so on... in short, the foundations of what I earlier called integrated 'desires' which, at the time of a specific discrete decision, may play a central role. I might not have the words to describe it properly, but as far as analysing my experience goes it seems to me that my important decisions have often been heavily influenced by the non-discrete, non-desire-oriented, choice-influenced thoughts which have preceded it - call it an ongoing process of character building, if you will.
Of course this again raises more questions - am I implying that some people have a more developed 'will' or whatever than others, for example? - to which I can't pretend I have answers. But I think it illustrates (to me at least) that the reductionist questioning/characterization I employed in 2006 doesn't reflect the full reality of what I've experienced in all the hours I've spent standing my thinking arch and various other times

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Post #137
All this talk about human "volition" seems to me to be nothing more than a futile rehash of the old question of human free will, and evades and ignores the real essence of the question, as was clearly stated in the 12th century by Maimonides:
Think about this! If you are destined for Hell, God knew that when he created lyou, and created you that way anyway. There is nothing you can do to avoid God's perfect knowledge of your future.
Have a good day, all you Theists who believe in an omniscient God.
John
If God is omniscient, as most theists claim, then He must know in advance any choice a human may make, and has known it for all eternity. It doesn't matter whether you are mulling over which Coke bottle to pick from the shelf or whether or not to murder your mother to steal her Social Security check, God, with his perfect knowledge, knows what your choice will be. No matter how it may seem to you, you don't really have a choice because it is impossible for you to make any choice contrary to the one God already knows you will make! If you could, that would prove God is not omniscient, and we can't have that, can we?Moses Maimonides formulated an argument regarding a person's free will, in traditional terms of good and evil actions, as follows:
"Does God know or does He not know that a certain individual will be good or bad? If thou sayest 'He knows', then it necessarily follows that [that] man is compelled to act as God knew beforehand he would act, otherwise God's knowledge would be imperfect. "
Think about this! If you are destined for Hell, God knew that when he created lyou, and created you that way anyway. There is nothing you can do to avoid God's perfect knowledge of your future.
Have a good day, all you Theists who believe in an omniscient God.
John
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Post #138
Mithrae wrote:
Do you find free will more apparent in selecting between identical alternatives like coke bottles because the value of the choice has seemingly been eliminated? Would you say that since the possible choices are the same that you are free to exercise your will without desires and values coming into play like they would if the options were a coke, a beer, and a bottled water?
Say we grant this and you are free to choose one of the three coke bottles, and you choose one. If I asked you why you chose the one you did, as opposed to one of the other two possible options, what would your explanation be for choosing the one you did?
You may answer the question but I'm going to speculate to save some time and get to my point. Either you would say:
1)"I chose this bottle at random."
OR
2)"I chose this bottle because..."
Now in your last post you said:
I think your (A) fits my (1) above in that we could consider no cause and purely random to be practically the same thing, and I think your (B) fits my (2), but what about your (C)? As my emphasis above in bold shows, you have made a distinction between your (B) and (C), but I have a comment on this distinction. They are BOTH causal mechanisms, but you see them as different. You see (B) as an outside causal chain coming into contact with something and continuing on with that chain with one explanation before the other, but you see (C) as inherent in something, and therefore the end of the explanation. (If this misrepresents what you meant by (C) then what follows from this may not apply and I'll reconsider upon your reply.)
You then go on to say:
The quarks, leptons, and bosons that you referred to as the "fundamental level of stuff" would have never been found if we took your (C) as the end of all explanation, and we would have thought that atoms, or even molecules were just acting in a way "inherent" to themselves. I think this is a mistake that is often made with free will. So if we are going to just accept free will as an explanation that requires no explanation, while we attempt to break down the rest of the universe into some sort of coherence, I will need a good reason why this is so. So my question is why are we stopping the explanation of people's decisions with free will, while digging deeper in all other areas of reality?
You said:
You also said:
Those broader concerns aside, I agree that reason is important to understanding choice itself. But on the other hand as I've noted, the freedom of our choices is best recognised (from experience and observation) in the little decisions, since we so intimately know that we could have done otherwise and it's so hard to speculate that I picked this Coke bottle rather than that Coke bottle because of... what? Air molecules pushing my hand? The position of my feet and body relative to the shelf? I suppose I'm just repeating myself, so I won't rehash the contribution to our theories which I see in split-second decisions.
Do you find free will more apparent in selecting between identical alternatives like coke bottles because the value of the choice has seemingly been eliminated? Would you say that since the possible choices are the same that you are free to exercise your will without desires and values coming into play like they would if the options were a coke, a beer, and a bottled water?
Say we grant this and you are free to choose one of the three coke bottles, and you choose one. If I asked you why you chose the one you did, as opposed to one of the other two possible options, what would your explanation be for choosing the one you did?
You may answer the question but I'm going to speculate to save some time and get to my point. Either you would say:
1)"I chose this bottle at random."
OR
2)"I chose this bottle because..."
Now in your last post you said:
**I have labeled your options A, B, and C to simplify my response. And the bold was my emphasis.**But as I mentioned to Scourge, it seems to me that for the behaviour of any thing there are three logical possibilities:
A) That it was not caused at all (this may or may not be a 'physical' or real possibility)
B) That it was caused by factors external to the thing (this would include long causal chains)
C) That it was caused by factors inherent to the thing (there may be external contributary causes)
I think your (A) fits my (1) above in that we could consider no cause and purely random to be practically the same thing, and I think your (B) fits my (2), but what about your (C)? As my emphasis above in bold shows, you have made a distinction between your (B) and (C), but I have a comment on this distinction. They are BOTH causal mechanisms, but you see them as different. You see (B) as an outside causal chain coming into contact with something and continuing on with that chain with one explanation before the other, but you see (C) as inherent in something, and therefore the end of the explanation. (If this misrepresents what you meant by (C) then what follows from this may not apply and I'll reconsider upon your reply.)
You then go on to say:
At some point in time we knew nothing of the complexities of the observable world but we looked for explanations until one day someone found that our reality was made up of molecules that were made up of atoms, that were made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons, that were made up of quarks, leptons, and bosons, and the search continues... (unless we stop at quarks, leptons, and bosons after accepting them as fundamental or inherent, perhaps prematurely)We find that in order to account for the consistency we observe in the world, the behaviour of the most fundamental level of stuff almost certainly falls into the third category rather than the first (obviously it can't be the second). Thus from what I know of the science, the elementary particles quarks, leptons and bosons have properties like mass, charge, spin and so on which (after building up into protons and neutrons, atoms and finally molecules) ultimately account for what we experience with our bodily senses. Those are describable or quantitative properties, to my way of thinking.
The quarks, leptons, and bosons that you referred to as the "fundamental level of stuff" would have never been found if we took your (C) as the end of all explanation, and we would have thought that atoms, or even molecules were just acting in a way "inherent" to themselves. I think this is a mistake that is often made with free will. So if we are going to just accept free will as an explanation that requires no explanation, while we attempt to break down the rest of the universe into some sort of coherence, I will need a good reason why this is so. So my question is why are we stopping the explanation of people's decisions with free will, while digging deeper in all other areas of reality?
You said:
I agree that we should be open to this possibility. I would also like to add that those of us who don't believe free will is a coherent concept are not saying that what the humans perceive of reality is all that exists.But when it comes to what we experience of the workings of our mind, I wonder why it is that we shouldn't recognise the possibility of similarly elementary stuff with inherent properties of thinking and choice - experiencable, qualitative properties. Far as I can tell, the only reason we might exclude that possibility is a prior commitment to physicalism - indeed, only of a type of physical stuff which is
currently observable with instruments - or, of course, some kind of argument from incredulity.
You also said:
Could you provide an example of an important decision you have made that was non-desire-oriented? Hopefully with an example I could try to make my case that a non-random decision is inseparable from desires and values, and that if it were separated it would be random by definition.I ought to add a final comment building on the above, that the notion of a not-previously-determined/directed will making, in isolation, a series of discrete decisions may be quite misleading. I suspect that most of us who spend a lot of our idle time thinking will agree that what we experience is more akin to a stream of thought than a series of discrete thoughts; a stream which we can halt, postpone, focus, redirect and so on (or which can be interrupted or redirected by external events), but which cannot be reduced to competing 'desires' or predispositions. These thoughts can be about morals, social habits and interactions, means to achieve happiness and so on... in short, the foundations of what I earlier called integrated 'desires' which, at the time of a specific discrete decision, may play a central role. I might not have the words to describe it properly, but as far as analysing my experience goes it seems to me that my important decisions have often been heavily influenced by the non-discrete, non-desire-oriented, choice-influenced thoughts which have preceded it - call it an ongoing process of character building, if you will.
Post #139
There are "answers" to your question. One answer involves invoking the pseudo-scientific idea of a god "outside of time". Another answer is that god isn't 100% omniscient or he limits himself. Some are happy to avoid the problem altogether and leave it a "mystery".JohnPaul wrote: All this talk about human "volition" seems to me to be nothing more than a futile rehash of the old question of human free will, and evades and ignores the real essence of the question, as was clearly stated in the 12th century by Maimonides:
If God is omniscient, as most theists claim, then He must know in advance any choice a human may make, and has known it for all eternity. It doesn't matter whether you are mulling over which Coke bottle to pick from the shelf or whether or not to murder your mother to steal her Social Security check, God, with his perfect knowledge, knows what your choice will be. No matter how it may seem to you, you don't really have a choice because it is impossible for you to make any choice contrary to the one God already knows you will make! If you could, that would prove God is not omniscient, and we can't have that, can we?Moses Maimonides formulated an argument regarding a person's free will, in traditional terms of good and evil actions, as follows:
"Does God know or does He not know that a certain individual will be good or bad? If thou sayest 'He knows', then it necessarily follows that [that] man is compelled to act as God knew beforehand he would act, otherwise God's knowledge would be imperfect. "
Think about this! If you are destined for Hell, God knew that when he created lyou, and created you that way anyway. There is nothing you can do to avoid God's perfect knowledge of your future.
Have a good day, all you Theists who believe in an omniscient God.
John
Don't expect any real answers such as something you can verify or check. Its all speculation, imaginings, and just-so story telling that fill the gaps of the religion in question.
Religion remains the only mode of discourse that encourages grown men and women to pretend to know things they manifestly do not know.
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Post #140
Hi Griffin, sorry about the delayed reply - I don't visit the Philosophy forum nearly as much as I should
I'll mix up your post a bit in replying to hopefully put my views into a more coherent format.
No matter how much we observe, analyze and theorize of reality, I believe that it is logically impossible for us to comprehensively explain or understand everything; at each point X to which we've expanded our knowledge, there'll always be questions about how and why X to which, obviously, we won't have a good answer.
Would you agree with that? To say that the free will concept is incoherent seems equivalent to denying that simple logical truth. We certainly should keep questioning, analysing and experimenting, but to dismiss the not-wholly-constrained choice which we all experience hundreds of times each day simply on the basis that you think we should be able to 'dig deeper' and explain it better is absurd.
Again as I mentioned in an even earlier post, it seems to me that there are two ways to falsify the validity of this overwhelming evidence from experience:
I've previously suggested that a lack of genuine choice would eliminate the validity of reasoning, since that process which we feel that we're pursuing would be merely a script determined since our conception. However since (again) my experience suggests that I do engage in genuine reasoning and thinking, but that this is not a series of discrete, desire-oriented decisions, it follows that the values which are shaped by my thinking should not be reduced in our conception to the same type of influence on choice as we might consider lust, fear or the like to be. This was a serious flaw in my thinking back in 2006, which I expanded on a little in post 127 - that lumping together all desires, values or predispositions is far too simplistic an approach and contrary to what we experience. Even our basic bodily desires, if it comes to it, are shaped and developed by how we think about them; attraction to this woman more than that one, or hunger for that food more than this.
Truly random decisions, if they do indeed actually occur, would obviously have to be a group E, and would even more undeniably prove that we do not act entirely under prior constraints. There are difficulties in considering such a decision a meaningful act of will of course, but I don't think it's a possibility which I could rule out yet.
So to summarize my response:
- We all experience not-wholly-constrained choice hundreds of times each day, and until experimentation or philosophy show these to be invalid experiences, it is only rational to accept them. Since there will always, from simple logical necessity, be things which we can't fully understand or explain, it is irrational to dismiss overwhelming experience because of a real or imagined shortcoming in explanation.
- In considering the nature of choice, it is simplistic and misleading to think solely in terms of discrete, desire-oriented decisions. Just as the process of thinking requires choice to be meaningful, our choices are often heavily influenced by the thought processes which have long preceded them in developing or shaping over time our values and even to some extent desires. The process of thinking, of course, cannot be reduced to competing desires or predispositions without begging the question.
- In considering the experience of choice, we have a range of examples or categories by which we can compare and contrast those cases in which we do indeed make genuine decisions. Again it would be little more than begging the question to assume that our experience of not-wholly-constrained choice is (or even could be) wholly misleading given these points of contrast, both the wholly non-chosen functions of our mind and body and the evidently non-constrained cases.
That's certainly helped clarify my views to myself, so I hope it'll do the same for you

I agree that halting our examination of what causes people's conscious behaviour with merely saying "it's free will" is a premature conclusion which many people fall into. But on the other hand as I suggested in my above post, it's no less erroneous to assume that we can or should be able to dig deeper, that there must be more there that we should understand:Griffin wrote:Mithrae wrote:At some point in time we knew nothing of the complexities of the observable world but we looked for explanations until one day someone found that our reality was made up of molecules that were made up of atoms, that were made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons, that were made up of quarks, leptons, and bosons, and the search continues... (unless we stop at quarks, leptons, and bosons after accepting them as fundamental or inherent, perhaps prematurely)We find that in order to account for the consistency we observe in the world, the behaviour of the most fundamental level of stuff almost certainly falls into the third category rather than the first (obviously it can't be the second). Thus from what I know of the science, the elementary particles quarks, leptons and bosons have properties like mass, charge, spin and so on which (after building up into protons and neutrons, atoms and finally molecules) ultimately account for what we experience with our bodily senses. Those are describable or quantitative properties, to my way of thinking.
The quarks, leptons, and bosons that you referred to as the "fundamental level of stuff" would have never been found if we took your (C) as the end of all explanation, and we would have thought that atoms, or even molecules were just acting in a way "inherent" to themselves. I think this is a mistake that is often made with free will. So if we are going to just accept free will as an explanation that requires no explanation, while we attempt to break down the rest of the universe into some sort of coherence, I will need a good reason why this is so. So my question is why are we stopping the explanation of people's decisions with free will, while digging deeper in all other areas of reality?
You said:I agree that we should be open to this possibility. I would also like to add that those of us who don't believe free will is a coherent concept are not saying that what the humans perceive of reality is all that exists.But when it comes to what we experience of the workings of our mind, I wonder why it is that we shouldn't recognise the possibility of similarly elementary stuff with inherent properties of thinking and choice - experiencable, qualitative properties. Far as I can tell, the only reason we might exclude that possibility is a prior commitment to physicalism - indeed, only of a type of physical stuff which is
currently observable with instruments - or, of course, some kind of argument from incredulity.
No matter how much we observe, analyze and theorize of reality, I believe that it is logically impossible for us to comprehensively explain or understand everything; at each point X to which we've expanded our knowledge, there'll always be questions about how and why X to which, obviously, we won't have a good answer.
Would you agree with that? To say that the free will concept is incoherent seems equivalent to denying that simple logical truth. We certainly should keep questioning, analysing and experimenting, but to dismiss the not-wholly-constrained choice which we all experience hundreds of times each day simply on the basis that you think we should be able to 'dig deeper' and explain it better is absurd.
Again as I mentioned in an even earlier post, it seems to me that there are two ways to falsify the validity of this overwhelming evidence from experience:
- -- Firstly we could deny validity of our experience of choice by showing through experimentation that pre-intention brain activity is both a necessary and sufficient cause for behaviour. However as I commented to Scourge, the experiments I've seen so far suggest that pre-intention brain activity down at least to -1.6 seconds are not a sufficient cause for behaviour, and examples like fast-paced sports show often in time-frames under a second that prior brain activity is not necessary for behaviour.
-- Secondly, one could show that all macro-level activity of 'physical' stuff occurs deterministically from prior causation.
I think you're missing the point there. I agree that all non-random decisions are influenced by desires and values, but what I'm talking about above is the development of values. Our values (some folk moreso than others) are shaped by our thoughts, and thinking in my experience does not consist of a series of discrete desire-oriented moments; it's a process which we can halt, postpone, focus, redirect and so on.Griffin wrote:You also said:Could you provide an example of an important decision you have made that was non-desire-oriented? Hopefully with an example I could try to make my case that a non-random decision is inseparable from desires and values, and that if it were separated it would be random by definition.I ought to add a final comment building on the above, that the notion of a not-previously-determined/directed will making, in isolation, a series of discrete decisions may be quite misleading. I suspect that most of us who spend a lot of our idle time thinking will agree that what we experience is more akin to a stream of thought than a series of discrete thoughts; a stream which we can halt, postpone, focus, redirect and so on (or which can be interrupted or redirected by external events), but which cannot be reduced to competing 'desires' or predispositions. These thoughts can be about morals, social habits and interactions, means to achieve happiness and so on... in short, the foundations of what I earlier called integrated 'desires' which, at the time of a specific discrete decision, may play a central role. I might not have the words to describe it properly, but as far as analysing my experience goes it seems to me that my important decisions have often been heavily influenced by the non-discrete, non-desire-oriented, choice-influenced thoughts which have preceded it - call it an ongoing process of character building, if you will.
I've previously suggested that a lack of genuine choice would eliminate the validity of reasoning, since that process which we feel that we're pursuing would be merely a script determined since our conception. However since (again) my experience suggests that I do engage in genuine reasoning and thinking, but that this is not a series of discrete, desire-oriented decisions, it follows that the values which are shaped by my thinking should not be reduced in our conception to the same type of influence on choice as we might consider lust, fear or the like to be. This was a serious flaw in my thinking back in 2006, which I expanded on a little in post 127 - that lumping together all desires, values or predispositions is far too simplistic an approach and contrary to what we experience. Even our basic bodily desires, if it comes to it, are shaped and developed by how we think about them; attraction to this woman more than that one, or hunger for that food more than this.
It does seem to be the case that there are random elements involved in some of our decisions - whether insignificant choices, or bigger ones which we simply can't choose between based on reasoning or desire/values. If I were to break down what we know and experience of causal mechanisms in our minds and bodies I'd probably suggest the following:Griffin wrote:Mithrae wrote:Those broader concerns aside, I agree that reason is important to understanding choice itself. But on the other hand as I've noted, the freedom of our choices is best recognised (from experience and observation) in the little decisions, since we so intimately know that we could have done otherwise and it's so hard to speculate that I picked this Coke bottle rather than that Coke bottle because of... what? Air molecules pushing my hand? The position of my feet and body relative to the shelf? I suppose I'm just repeating myself, so I won't rehash the contribution to our theories which I see in split-second decisions.
Do you find free will more apparent in selecting between identical alternatives like coke bottles because the value of the choice has seemingly been eliminated? Would you say that since the possible choices are the same that you are free to exercise your will without desires and values coming into play like they would if the options were a coke, a beer, and a bottled water?
Say we grant this and you are free to choose one of the three coke bottles, and you choose one. If I asked you why you chose the one you did, as opposed to one of the other two possible options, what would your explanation be for choosing the one you did?
You may answer the question but I'm going to speculate to save some time and get to my point. Either you would say:
1)"I chose this bottle at random."
OR
2)"I chose this bottle because..."
Now in your last post you said:**I have labeled your options A, B, and C to simplify my response. And the bold was my emphasis.**But as I mentioned to Scourge, it seems to me that for the behaviour of any thing there are three logical possibilities:
A) That it was not caused at all (this may or may not be a 'physical' or real possibility)
B) That it was caused by factors external to the thing (this would include long causal chains)
C) That it was caused by factors inherent to the thing (there may be external contributary causes)
I think your (A) fits my (1) above in that we could consider no cause and purely random to be practically the same thing, and I think your (B) fits my (2), but what about your (C)? As my emphasis above in bold shows, you have made a distinction between your (B) and (C), but I have a comment on this distinction. They are BOTH causal mechanisms, but you see them as different. You see (B) as an outside causal chain coming into contact with something and continuing on with that chain with one explanation before the other, but you see (C) as inherent in something, and therefore the end of the explanation. (If this misrepresents what you meant by (C) then what follows from this may not apply and I'll reconsider upon your reply.)
- A> We have experience of both behaviours and thoughts which are caused entirely and unavoidably without our choice: Our heartbeat or knee-jerk nerve stimulation as behaviours, and our inability to not think of a canine when we see the letters DOG, for example.
B> We have experience of both behaviours and thoughts which are caused without our choice, but can be influenced by it: We can to some significant extent regulate or even halt our usually autonomous breathing, or we can often quell responses of lust or anger.
C> We also obviously have experience of both behaviours and thoughts which are caused by our choice, albeit noticeably influenced by desires or values: Putting on a jumper when it's cold, getting some food when hungry, or thinking of those things under those circumstances.
D> And we have experience of behaviours and thoughts which are caused by our choice with little or no influence from desires or values: Picking (in my case) either decaf diet Coke or diet Coke on different days, or the whimsical daydreaming we might engage in.
Truly random decisions, if they do indeed actually occur, would obviously have to be a group E, and would even more undeniably prove that we do not act entirely under prior constraints. There are difficulties in considering such a decision a meaningful act of will of course, but I don't think it's a possibility which I could rule out yet.
So to summarize my response:
- We all experience not-wholly-constrained choice hundreds of times each day, and until experimentation or philosophy show these to be invalid experiences, it is only rational to accept them. Since there will always, from simple logical necessity, be things which we can't fully understand or explain, it is irrational to dismiss overwhelming experience because of a real or imagined shortcoming in explanation.
- In considering the nature of choice, it is simplistic and misleading to think solely in terms of discrete, desire-oriented decisions. Just as the process of thinking requires choice to be meaningful, our choices are often heavily influenced by the thought processes which have long preceded them in developing or shaping over time our values and even to some extent desires. The process of thinking, of course, cannot be reduced to competing desires or predispositions without begging the question.
- In considering the experience of choice, we have a range of examples or categories by which we can compare and contrast those cases in which we do indeed make genuine decisions. Again it would be little more than begging the question to assume that our experience of not-wholly-constrained choice is (or even could be) wholly misleading given these points of contrast, both the wholly non-chosen functions of our mind and body and the evidently non-constrained cases.
That's certainly helped clarify my views to myself, so I hope it'll do the same for you
