Volitional Non-contingent Reality?

[EduChris]

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?

[Identity Crisis]

Mithrae said:

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:
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.

I am not just assuming we can dig deeper, I'm making the claim that we can dig deeper in this situation. I say we can understand why a person acts a certain way and that these actions are a result of desires and values. I'll expand on this throughout the post.

Your logical construction above is true if there is an infinite number of explanations I guess, otherwise I suppose it's possible to reach an X that required no further explanation. Anyway, I don't think we have to know the answer to that question to call the concept of free will incoherent. When a person acts, and it isn't random, there is always a desire/value that is the reason for one action over another. Again, I will expand on this in the post and try to show why this is sufficent to explain a person acting/choosing/deciding one way instead of another.

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.

Let me know if there's any falsification conditions I've missed there, or if one of them has been met that I'm not yet aware of. 'til then I've enjoyed questioning and refining my understanding of how I make choices, but the position that we should be able to fully explain and understand something before our experience of it is to be considered valid seems ridiculous to me, and would have me dismissing time and mass as incoherent also.

My position of value/desire determining actions does not require me to reject my experience of not wholly constrained choice. I do experience the freedom to choose what I value/desire without constraint. If you mean not wholy constrained as in being able to act in opposition to my values/desires, I would ask why anyone would do such a thing. (This would be a good time for me to clarify that when I refer to values and desires I am referring to our most important values and strongest desires. This will clear up the misunderstanding of when someone seems to go against their values or a desire, it is surely because of more important values or a stronger desire. I think with some reflection, most people would realize that this is the case. I could provide some examples if necessary.)

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.

I think this is where we have some disagreements or misunderstandings. You agree that non random decisons are based on desires and values, but then you seem to say that you think in order to shape your values. So I have a couple of questions for clarification:

1) You say that our values are shaped by our thinking. Are you saying that you willfully shape your values by your thinking?

2) You say we can halt, postpone, focus, and redirect our thinking. Why would you halt, postpone, focus, or redirect your thinking?

With your answers to these questions, maybe I'll be able to understand what you mean here.

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.

I haven't suggested that reasoning and thinking aren't genuine. I do both everyday also. And as far as something being determined from conception, I don't have to be a hard determinist to reject free will.

You say you experience genuine thinking and reasoning, and that the validity of these would be eliminated without genuine choice. Why is this so?

You also say that your thinking (and I would also assume reasoning) was flawed in 2006. If this is so, would it be fair to say that your thinking and reasoning suffers from the same problem as one who claims that thinking and reasoning might be determined? You seem to be as much of a victim of circumstance as the determinist when it comes to your thinking and reasoning.

What I mean by this is that when your thinking and reasoning were flawed in 2006, they were flawed not because of your own will or choice, but by your factors outside of your control. So how do you escape the skepticism of the validity of your thinking and reasoning when you made such a mistake in 2006. Having "genuine" choices doesn't seem related or helpful. You could be making the same mistake now.

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:

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.

The last group of experiences are the cases which most clearly illustrate that we could have done otherwise - the best experiential counter-examples to determinism. The first and second groups of experience are the cases which most strongly suggest that what we experience of choice is not merely an illusion or self-delusion, because we have these examples of non-volitional function by which to contrast and better understand our ability to choose. Group C are probably those cases in which we'd most feel like we own the decision, that it was a genuine choice on our part rather than some inner coin-toss.

I agree that we have the physical possibility of choosing otherwise. Only that if choices aren't identical, there will be some reason we chose one over another, as trivial as the reason may seem to us. In your (D) above is where you seem to think free will is so apparent and hard to deny. But either you reach in the fridge without looking or caring and grab decaf or non decaf (random), or you look and pick one over the other (value).

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.

Are you suggesting here that a truly random action for no reason at all would fit your criteria for free will?

Your use of the word constrained makes me picture a person wanting to do a certain thing but not being able to, but this is not what I mean by the absence of free will. My idea is not a constraint on actions, but an explanation of actions. This is an important distinction.

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

Thanks for the detailed response Mithrae. I think your conclusion is a summary that hopefully I responded to sufficiently earlier in the post so I won't repeat myself. I look forward to your response and hopefully a clearer understanding of your position.

[Mithrae]

Mithrae said:

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:
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.

I am not just assuming we can dig deeper, I'm making the claim that we can dig deeper in this situation. I say we can understand why a person acts a certain way and that these actions are a result of desires and values. I'll expand on this throughout the post.

Your logical construction above is true if there is an infinite number of explanations I guess, otherwise I suppose it's possible to reach an X that required no further explanation.

For example? The most fundamental question of all would probably be "Why is there anything, rather than nothing?" I'm not really up to speed on onotological arguments and the like, but nevertheless I suspect that there is no good answer to that question. If that is so, then there is at least one X which we can never properly explain or understand. Moreover I know of no reason (except, possibly, some notion of God) why there should be only one such X. As we dig deeper, we either come to prior explanations or we don't: But whether there's many unexplained explanations or just one, far as I can tell my comment above is a logical truism.

Let me know if there's any falsification conditions I've missed there, or if one of them has been met that I'm not yet aware of. 'til then I've enjoyed questioning and refining my understanding of how I make choices, but the position that we should be able to fully explain and understand something before our experience of it is to be considered valid seems ridiculous to me, and would have me dismissing time and mass as incoherent also.

My position of value/desire determining actions does not require me to reject my experience of not wholly constrained choice. I do experience the freedom to choose what I value/desire without constraint.

To avoid confusion, are you saying that you are free to choose without (full) constraint what values/desires you have? If so, then what is the difference between that and some notion of 'free will'? If not - if you're merely agreeing that you experience the feeling/process of free choice - then you apparently are not accepting the accuracy or validity of your experience that it is not constrained (though perhaps not rejecting it either).

If you mean not wholy constrained as in being able to act in opposition to my values/desires, I would ask why anyone would do such a thing. (This would be a good time for me to clarify that when I refer to values and desires I am referring to our most important values and strongest desires. This will clear up the misunderstanding of when someone seems to go against their values or a desire, it is surely because of more important values or a stronger desire. I think with some reflection, most people would realize that this is the case. I could provide some examples if necessary.)

We could certainly discuss a finite number of examples in which strong desires and/or values are over-ruled by what we might presume to be even stronger desires and/or values. There would no doubt be merit in that discussion for expanding our concept and understanding of our minds, but would you say that it has any real value as evidence, demonstration or proof? On what basis could you consistently show (or even introspect) one desire or value to be stronger than another, besides a presumption which could as easily be matched by the presumption of an act of 'will'?

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.

I think this is where we have some disagreements or misunderstandings. You agree that non random decisons are based on desires and values, but then you seem to say that you think in order to shape your values. So I have a couple of questions for clarification:

1) You say that our values are shaped by our thinking. Are you saying that you willfully shape your values by your thinking?

2) You say we can halt, postpone, focus, and redirect our thinking. Why would you halt, postpone, focus, or redirect your thinking?

If I've agreed to go out of an evening, I will probably halt any train of thought I might be embarked on in order to do so (then again, I might not). If someone speaks to me and requires an answer, I'll probably postpone my thoughts to reply (or not). If in my thoughts I'm reminded of something else which bears on the matter, I might focus my thinking on that point (if I'm inclined to do so). Then again if some entirely different train of thought occurs to me, I might switch to that instead of the original (unless I consider it only briefly).

Thought, it seems, is a process subject in no small part to my conscious direction as well as external stimuli. Since thinking has a significant influence on my values (and I believe some directing and restraining influence even over my bodily desires), saying that I wilfully shape my values by thinking would be a crude but vaguely accurate description, yes.

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.

I haven't suggested that reasoning and thinking aren't genuine. I do both everyday also. And as far as something being determined from conception, I don't have to be a hard determinist to reject free will.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that you view (non-random) choice purely as a resolution of desires and values, and therefore consider the notion of a distinct or 'free' will to be incoherent or fuzzy thinking.

I view any event/action/behaviour as logically either belonging to a prior causal chain, or being uncaused (probably equivalent to random and/or meaningless), or being caused by factors inherent to the thing which acts. Therefore I believe it's fuzzy thinking to reject the freedom of our choices without accepting the alternative of determinism/prior causation (or, of course, throwing in some element of randomness). Of course pending your answer to the blue question above, this difference may be primarily semantic - and I'd agree that there are areas of confusion and possible difficulty when it comes to talking about 'free will,' which is why I more commonly talk about choice (and probably why EduChris uses 'volition').

You say you experience genuine thinking and reasoning, and that the validity of these would be eliminated without genuine choice. Why is this so?

For the reason I said; because in the absense of genuine choice, what I 'think' today would apparently be nothing more than the result of causal chains which extend in my bodily/neural regions back to my conception and perhaps even further back for the various external stimuli which have contributed. Without genuine choice, there can be nothing which is not either random or part of an indefinite prior causal chain. My 'thinking,' like the positions of the stars and planets, would ultimately be the result of processes to which truth, validity or meaning are... well, meaningless. EduChris earlier put it quite graphically:
if some statement is made by a recording--and if there are only recordings in the universe, with no agents recording the statements--then that statement is meaningless (as are all statements in that scenario).

You also say that your thinking (and I would also assume reasoning) was flawed in 2006. If this is so, would it be fair to say that your thinking and reasoning suffers from the same problem as one who claims that thinking and reasoning might be determined? You seem to be as much of a victim of circumstance as the determinist when it comes to your thinking and reasoning.

What I mean by this is that when your thinking and reasoning were flawed in 2006, they were flawed not because of your own will or choice, but by your factors outside of your control. So how do you escape the skepticism of the validity of your thinking and reasoning when you made such a mistake in 2006. Having "genuine" choices doesn't seem related or helpful. You could be making the same mistake now.

Actually given that both Brettra and yourself are both raising precisely the same arguments I made to my aunt in 2006 (yes, I raised almost this very point also, after where I cut off my quote in #131), it seems to somewhat confirm that my reasoning was quite sound. The problem, I would say, was that my reasoning was limited; I reasoned through A, B, C, D and E, but stopped before I got to F and G. Randomness and predispositions (what you're calling desires and values) do not exhaust all causal possibilities.

Should this shortcoming in my thinking be attributed to my choice, or to factors beyond my control? I would say it was indeed primarily my choice: I was continuing in correspondance with my aunt, so I wrote down my thoughts at the time, my reasoning through A, B, C, D and E. (And having argued it against a free-willian, it was to some extent my choice to commit myself somewhat to that view.) The really interesting question is would I, if I'd waited a few weeks or months before replying, have made it to F and G? I really don't know. Thinking and reasoning are certainly influenced by and somewhat dependant on our surroundings, and as I earlier said to Bretta learning about and discussing physicalism and the elementary particles earlier this year made significant contributions to my thoughts in this area.

I don't claim that genuine choice necessarily implies valid thinking; on the contrary, our thinking can be valid or invalid, meaningful or absurd only because we have genuine choice. How could we have those concepts - how could we have any concepts - in any scenario which excludes choice?

The last group of experiences are the cases which most clearly illustrate that we could have done otherwise - the best experiential counter-examples to determinism. The first and second groups of experience are the cases which most strongly suggest that what we experience of choice is not merely an illusion or self-delusion, because we have these examples of non-volitional function by which to contrast and better understand our ability to choose. Group C are probably those cases in which we'd most feel like we own the decision, that it was a genuine choice on our part rather than some inner coin-toss.

I agree that we have the physical possibility of choosing otherwise. Only that if choices aren't identical, there will be some reason we chose one over another, as trivial as the reason may seem to us. In your (D) above is where you seem to think free will is so apparent and hard to deny. But either you reach in the fridge without looking or caring and grab decaf or non decaf (random), or you look and pick one over the other (value).

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.

Are you suggesting here that a truly random action for no reason at all would fit your criteria for free will?

Your use of the word constrained makes me picture a person wanting to do a certain thing but not being able to, but this is not what I mean by the absence of free will. My idea is not a constraint on actions, but an explanation of actions. This is an important distinction.

I commented to Bretta in post 129:
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
Regarding 'random' actions (if they truly occur), I suppose we might quibble over whether they could be considered "My own active decision/choice/intention" - and unless I'm getting the wrong vibe from your posts, I suspect that may be a key part of your disagreement with the 'free will' concept. For my part, I agree that it's a point to be cautious on.

However neither experience nor logic permits me to completely exclude 'randomness' as a possible element in the decisions which I carry out (not sure about the scientific side of things). Who knows, maybe randomness is precisely and wholly what accounts for my experience of genuine choice and I should somewhat identify my 'self' with that randomness, as determinists do with their determinism. That isn't an answer which I have now, nor probably ever will: But naturally I'm inclined by semantics, my self-conception and above all the relative consistency of my thoughts and actions to think that it can't all or even mostly be random.

Thus it seems I'm left with the primary options of either denying (or not accepting) my overwhelming experience of genuine, not-wholly-constrained choice, or of acknowledging 'til further notice that third possibility of causal processes inherent to the nature of the thing - to whit, my mind, 'self' or consciousness.

[Identity Crisis]

Mithrae said:

For example? The most fundamental question of all would probably be "Why is there anything, rather than nothing?" I'm not really up to speed on onotological arguments and the like, but nevertheless I suspect that there is no good answer to that question. If that is so, then there is at least one X which we can never properly explain or understand. Moreover I know of no reason (except, possibly, some notion of God) why there should be only one such X. As we dig deeper, we either come to prior explanations or we don't: But whether there's many unexplained explanations or just one, far as I can tell my comment above is a logical truism.

Ok I understand this now, as in there is no answer that we couldn't legitimately ask "but why is this the case?" to.

To avoid confusion, are you saying that you are free to choose without (full) constraint what values/desires you have? If so, then what is the difference between that and some notion of 'free will'? If not - if you're merely agreeing that you experience the feeling/process of free choice - then you apparently are not accepting the accuracy or validity of your experience that it is not constrained (though perhaps not rejecting it either).

Wow I apologize, the statement I made was very unclear. Thank you for pointing that out.

I meant that I do feel free to choose X, which I desire/value most. I do NOT believe I choose my desires/values, but that I make my choices based on my strongest desires/most important values.

I don't ever mean to imply COULDN'T choose differently, but that a person WOULDN'T choose differently. WOULDN'T doesn't have the CONSTRAINT that COULDN'T does. So I'm not diminishing the experience that we both have at all. Im not fighting myself. I am free to do that which I desire/value. Do you still have a problem with this?

We could certainly discuss a finite number of examples in which strong desires and/or values are over-ruled by what we might presume to be even stronger desires and/or values. There would no doubt be merit in that discussion for expanding our concept and understanding of our minds, but would you say that it has any real value as evidence, demonstration or proof? On what basis could you consistently show (or even introspect) one desire or value to be stronger than another, besides a presumption which could as easily be matched by the presumption of an act of 'will'?

I'm not sure if it would be evidence, demonstration, or proof, but seems necessarily true when we are talking about someone consciously acting. Let me try an example, and you can tell me what you think about it:

Suppose I tell you that I value afternoon Church service over Sunday night football. However, you never see me on Sunday nights at Church, but when you talk to me later in the week, you find out that I skipped Church for Sunday night football. Would you say that I valued what I told you I valued, or that my true values matched my actions? I would say that values are only made clear through actions. Do you agree with this?

What I do is based on what I value most, and this is always the case. Any counter example would appeal to some stronger value.

If I've agreed to go out of an evening, I will probably halt any train of thought I might be embarked on in order to do so (then again, I might not). If someone speaks to me and requires an answer, I'll probably postpone my thoughts to reply (or not). If in my thoughts I'm reminded of something else which bears on the matter, I might focus my thinking on that point (if I'm inclined to do so). Then again if some entirely different train of thought occurs to me, I might switch to that instead of the original (unless I consider it only briefly).

Thought, it seems, is a process subject in no small part to my conscious direction as well as external stimuli. Since thinking has a significant influence on my values (and I believe some directing and restraining influence even over my bodily desires), saying that I wilfully shape my values by thinking would be a crude but vaguely accurate description, yes.

I would consider thinking an action, as well as the manipulation of thinking. So I think what I said above would apply.

Could you give an example of a value you have shaped and tell me why you used your thinking to shape it? When you were thinking about this value, why did you feel it needed shaping? What was wrong with it to begin with?

I think you will have to appeal to another value here or say "just because". You will have to find a value at the bottom of this I think. To say the "will" comes before the value is to move the will from a causal chain to random. I don't think either one could be considered free will. And I think this is why you introduced "causation by factors inherent to the thing", because you would understand why causal chain and random wouldn't be free will.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that you view (non-random) choice purely as a resolution of desires and values, and therefore consider the notion of a distinct or 'free' will to be incoherent or fuzzy thinking.

I view any event/action/behaviour as logically either belonging to a prior causal chain, or being uncaused (probably equivalent to random and/or meaningless), or being caused by factors inherent to the thing which acts. Therefore I believe it's fuzzy thinking to reject the freedom of our choices without accepting the alternative of determinism/prior causation (or, of course, throwing in some element of randomness). Of course pending your answer to the blue question above, this difference may be primarily semantic - and I'd agree that there are areas of confusion and possible difficulty when it comes to talking about 'free will,' which is why I more commonly talk about choice (and probably why EduChris uses 'volition').

I would call it a misunderstanding or incoherent rather than fuzzy thinking.

Your third option of "being caused by factors inherent to the thing which acts" is what I am talking about. When people act, no one asks why someone did the action only to be answered with "because of their free will"/"because it was their choice"/"because of their volition". They don't ask the question for it to be answered like this because the answer doesn't tell us anything, or rather they don't answer the question being asked. Yes it was their will/choice/volition, but why was it? That's what is being asked.

People do conscious actions because they desire or value the outcome of the action. People do different things from one another because different people desire and value different things at different times in different situations.

For the reason I said; because in the absense of genuine choice, what I 'think' today would apparently be nothing more than the result of causal chains which extend in my bodily/neural regions back to my conception and perhaps even further back for the various external stimuli which have contributed. Without genuine choice, there can be nothing which is not either random or part of an indefinite prior causal chain. My 'thinking,' like the positions of the stars and planets, would ultimately be the result of processes to which truth, validity or meaning are... well, meaningless. EduChris earlier put it quite graphically:
if some statement is made by a recording--and if there are only recordings in the universe, with no agents recording the statements--then that statement is meaningless (as are all statements in that scenario).

Actually given that both Brettra and yourself are both raising precisely the same arguments I made to my aunt in 2006 (yes, I raised almost this very point also, after where I cut off my quote in #131), it seems to somewhat confirm that my reasoning was quite sound. The problem, I would say, was that my reasoning was limited; I reasoned through A, B, C, D and E, but stopped before I got to F and G. Randomness and predispositions (what you're calling desires and values) do not exhaust all causal possibilities.

Should this shortcoming in my thinking be attributed to my choice, or to factors beyond my control? I would say it was indeed primarily my choice: I was continuing in correspondance with my aunt, so I wrote down my thoughts at the time, my reasoning through A, B, C, D and E. (And having argued it against a free-willian, it was to some extent my choice to commit myself somewhat to that view.) The really interesting question is would I, if I'd waited a few weeks or months before replying, have made it to F and G? I really don't know. Thinking and reasoning are certainly influenced by and somewhat dependant on our surroundings, and as I earlier said to Bretta learning about and discussing physicalism and the elementary particles earlier this year made significant contributions to my thoughts in this area.

I don't claim that genuine choice necessarily implies valid thinking; on the contrary, our thinking can be valid or invalid, meaningful or absurd only because we have genuine choice. How could we have those concepts - how could we have any concepts - in any scenario which excludes choice?

I'm sorry I'll try to think on this some more. I'm trying to relate choice to the process of reasoning.

*If I don't turn around, then I'm going to keep running into this wall.* This is reasoning. Consciousness seems necessary for this but I don't understand why choice would be.

I commented to Bretta in post 129:
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
Regarding 'random' actions (if they truly occur), I suppose we might quibble over whether they could be considered "My own active decision/choice/intention" - and unless I'm getting the wrong vibe from your posts, I suspect that may be a key part of your disagreement with the 'free will' concept. For my part, I agree that it's a point to be cautious on.

However neither experience nor logic permits me to completely exclude 'randomness' as a possible element in the decisions which I carry out (not sure about the scientific side of things). Who knows, maybe randomness is precisely and wholly what accounts for my experience of genuine choice and I should somewhat identify my 'self' with that randomness, as determinists do with their determinism. That isn't an answer which I have now, nor probably ever will: But naturally I'm inclined by semantics, my self-conception and above all the relative consistency of my thoughts and actions to think that it can't all or even mostly be random.

Thus it seems I'm left with the primary options of either denying (or not accepting) my overwhelming experience of genuine, not-wholly-constrained choice, or of acknowledging 'til further notice that third possibility of causal processes inherent to the nature of the thing - to whit, my mind, 'self' or consciousness.

I think I have addressed the problem of constraint. We don't experience constraint because there is no physical constraint. The physical possibility is there. But someone would not go against their greatest desires and values, unless you can provide an example. And if people choose their desires and values, this make the choosing purely random, based on nothing, just a random selection. If you say purely random acts and choices are free will, then I guess I have no problem with that because I have never encountered such a position. Probably because free will is often used for a type of accountability that wouldn't be there if free will was random.

[Mithrae]

Howdy again Griffin

I meant that I do feel free to choose X, which I desire/value most. I do NOT believe I choose my desires/values, but that I make my choices based on my strongest desires/most important values.

I don't ever mean to imply COULDN'T choose differently, but that a person WOULDN'T choose differently. WOULDN'T doesn't have the CONSTRAINT that COULDN'T does. So I'm not diminishing the experience that we both have at all. Im not fighting myself. I am free to do that which I desire/value. Do you still have a problem with this?

But if you have no choice over your desires and values, and if you will never act contrary to your strongest desires and values, then it would be true to say that you could not have acted otherwise, wouldn't it? The only way in which you could have acted otherwise is by allowing the possibility of acting contrary to your strongest desires and values. The distinction between 'would not' and 'could not' is not apparent to me here, except by imparting some power to 'choice' which doesn't seem compatible with the above. So as I said, it seems to be fuzzy thinking to reject the freedom of our choices without accepting the alternative of determinism/prior causation.

I'm not sure if it would be evidence, demonstration, or proof, but seems necessarily true when we are talking about someone consciously acting. Let me try an example, and you can tell me what you think about it:

Suppose I tell you that I value afternoon Church service over Sunday night football. However, you never see me on Sunday nights at Church, but when you talk to me later in the week, you find out that I skipped Church for Sunday night football. Would you say that I valued what I told you I valued, or that my true values matched my actions? I would say that values are only made clear through actions. Do you agree with this?

What I do is based on what I value most, and this is always the case. Any counter example would appeal to some stronger value.

I may be wrong, but I don't think you've adequately explained examples like picking Coke off a shelf in order to claim that all your actions are based on desires or values. You might say that we 'value' the bottle that's closest to us, or that we 'value' the one on the right because we're right-handed, but that would be reducing your position circularity by redefining values into "what we choose."

Your example treads dangerously close to that ground also: We can see that people act according to their strongest desires, and we know their desires because of how they act? That's not what you're saying, I'm sure, but it does kind of look like it. Your friend might indeed prefer church to football, but loathe getting ready to go out. You'd correctly point out that this is still an appeal to desires, but my point is simply (as I initially commented) that you cannot provide any basis to consistently show one desire or value to be stronger than another, besides a presumption which could as easily be matched by the presumption of an act of 'will.'

Rather than presuming that your friend was not telling the truth and actually prefers football, or presuming that that there was some other strong desire which stopped him going to church, we could just as validly presume that he just chose not to go out of sheer whimsy.

I would consider thinking an action, as well as the manipulation of thinking. So I think what I said above would apply.

Could you give an example of a value you have shaped and tell me why you used your thinking to shape it? When you were thinking about this value, why did you feel it needed shaping? What was wrong with it to begin with?

I think you will have to appeal to another value here or say "just because". You will have to find a value at the bottom of this I think.

I wonder whether you'd consider the principles of logic to be 'values'? Or language, the way we use it, and the way in which it shapes our thinking?

I ask because while it's useful and necessary to try to simplify and categorise what goes into our decision making processes in general terms, we should be careful not to carry that over into analysis of specific decisions with a view to those categories themselves. There are evolutionary desires/predispositions at the bottom of everything we do and are: Primarily to survive, to interact and prosper socially, and to leave a (usually genetic) legacy. Things like 'happiness,' 'beauty' or 'ambition' are more abstract and might be termed (alongside morals) as values. But between the basic evolutionary/genetic predispositions & ongoing bodily desires and our more abstract values, it seems likely to me that at the very least there must always be a certain amount of interpretation and integration of other people's values through our social settings. If so, could that interpretive and integrative process itself be called a 'value' or desire? I suspect not; and even less so when it comes to those who thoughtfully analyse and reasses the values which they've grown up with.

That said, it's an interesting question you ask and the first example which occurred to me was from a list I made last year of nine guidelines for living which I've developed over the years. I've chosen a different one of the nine, because I can document this one better from a journal of sorts I keep; several months after that letter to my aunt, when I obviously still considered myself a determinist but didn't think about it much (what denier of free choice could?):

• Sunday, 14 January 2007
  I feel I should make a brief mention of this evening, so I can later remember the principle that I control my own mood. Happiness isn't a set of circumstances, it's a state of mind; and I can choose whether or not to embrace it.
  
  My life at the moment isn't exactly glamorous. (I think I spelled that wrong.) I'm still working at Maccas, and by the usual standards, I'm going nowhere fast. More to the point, I've been living alone for nearly six months now, which is never good for me psychologically. Lately I've been going through one of my down periods, and tonight it pretty much hit bottom. It'd been a lazy weekend, and come this evening I simply didn't feel like doing anything. Thought about going to get some dinner, didn't want to. Didn't want to watch a DVD, or play a game or anything. I considered going for a walk, knowing that that would cheer me up. But I didn't feel like it. And that's the point, really; it was my choice as to whether to stay down or to get back up. I ended up putting on a Mozart CD, a positive step, and drifting off to sleep. Got woken up by a call from A, spoke to her for a bit and then... decided to feel better. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik came on, which is always good, and I decided to go get some munchies and eat them while listening to Rammstein and reading American Hoax. Not exactly a thrilling evening, but after I'd got dressed and headed out, I felt fine. In fact I felt better than fine. Knowing the power I have over my own mood is a very positive feeling. My life is still the same as it was before; I'm still just as tired of work. But really it wasn't my circumstances which had me feeling down. It was the feeling that I was trapped. And even that hasn't changed. I've just stopped playing the victim. I've chosen to be happy, and no circumstances can alter that decision nor its effects.

To answer your questions, the change in values here was in my approach to happiness. While I'd never believed that wealth or career was pre-requisite to happiness, the considerable influence of that view in society also weighed heavily on my own views. The problem with that is that it's counter-productive, doing nothing but postponing happiness rather than achieving it. To my mind that is a concern based in logic rather than other values. The updated value of choosing happiness rather than striving for it was, according to my journal, based on my experience of that very choice. Again, not easy to reduce experience to values.

As I mentioned earlier to Bretta, thoughts like these (most notably those nine of course) have often provided major influence over future decisions, which suggests to me that choice cannot be reduced solely to strongest desires/values unless thought is also. This appears to be what you are claiming in the bold above; but again, I point out that you cannot support the assertion that thought is simply the product of desires and values - and in this case we have far better examples than Coke on a shelf. How are maths or logic the product of desires and values?

To say the "will" comes before the value is to move the will from a causal chain to random. I don't think either one could be considered free will. And I think this is why you introduced "causation by factors inherent to the thing", because you would understand why causal chain and random wouldn't be free will.

I've already said several times that I don't exclude the possibility of randomness in our decisions. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you appear to be implying that I am attached to this notion of 'free will' and introducing novel concepts to accomodate it. Whereas, quite to the contrary, I've mentioned that it's only been in the past few months that I've begun to think this way, and I've explained precisely why this is so:

• But over the past few months it's begun to come home to me how much the way we think about stuff can colour our conclusions. . . . Even so, in our engagement with the non-biological world we cannot help but find that the notions of 'physical' and 'determined' still serve us very well. 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...

This is another point to which I believe you have not adequately responded: You've correctly pointed out that there might be even more basic types of stuff than quarks, leptons and bosons, but the fact still remains that certainly in our knowledge and almost certainly in reality, there are things whose behaviour can't be said to come from prior causes - and I assume that you don't think it's all random. So I think you aren't being very fair in your comments about causation by factors inherent to the thing.

I would call it a misunderstanding or incoherent rather than fuzzy thinking.

Your third option of "being caused by factors inherent to the thing which acts" is what I am talking about. When people act, no one asks why someone did the action only to be answered with "because of their free will"/"because it was their choice"/"because of their volition". They don't ask the question for it to be answered like this because the answer doesn't tell us anything, or rather they don't answer the question being asked. Yes it was their will/choice/volition, but why was it? That's what is being asked.

Would the answer "because I desired the outcome" answer the question any better?

Most of the time we could name some specific desires or values which influenced the decision. But sometimes (Coke) we cannot, and thus we have counter-examples to your generalisation. Moreover here, as with the church/football example, you're appealing to social interactions as a primary reference point for understanding decisions - a frame of reference in which others people's entire minds are just as inscrutable as their decisions, choices or will - and thus restricting and simplifying the possible results. But even then, I'm sure we've all had people simply say "because I chose to" or "because I felt like it" when asked why they did something, so really what you're pointing out is that people can't always describe their decisions in terms of strongest desire or value.

I don't claim that genuine choice necessarily implies valid thinking; on the contrary, our thinking can be valid or invalid, meaningful or absurd only because we have genuine choice. How could we have those concepts - how could we have any concepts - in any scenario which excludes choice?

I'm sorry I'll try to think on this some more. I'm trying to relate choice to the process of reasoning.

*If I don't turn around, then I'm going to keep running into this wall.* This is reasoning. Consciousness seems necessary for this but I don't understand why choice would be.

Is it reasoning, or observation?

I am running. That's an action and an observation.
There's a wall ahead of me. That's an observation.
Whenever I've been running, I've reached what's ahead of me. That's an observation.
This time I'm running, I will:
A> Not reach what's ahead of me
B> Reach what's ahead of me

We might say that B is merely an observation, and it's not my opinion that observation requires choice. But if the example you gave constitutes reasoning, then are you not choosing B as truth rather than A? Of course, in more complex examples the option of observation is eliminated entirely. Would you say that you are merely the recipient of 'reasoning,' or do you choose between valid and invalid, useful and absurd lines of thinking?

I think I have addressed the problem of constraint. We don't experience constraint because there is no physical constraint. The physical possibility is there. But someone would not go against their greatest desires and values, unless you can provide an example. And if people choose their desires and values, this make the choosing purely random, based on nothing, just a random selection. If you say purely random acts and choices are free will, then I guess I have no problem with that because I have never encountered such a position. Probably because free will is often used for a type of accountability that wouldn't be there if free will was random.

Surely you've experienced occasions on which, a second or two after speaking or acting, you've thought "Why the hell did I do THAT?" As I commented to Bretta:

• 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.

I suspect that the obvious response from your perspective would be that a person makes a decision based on their strongest desires in that second. But quite aside from even further begging the question, that would cast doubt on the very notion that our experience of non-constrained choice is because we choose according to desires or values. Would you say that all hurtful comments or social faux pas were chosen because of the person's desires or values, even in that very second? I think not.

As for randomness, would you say that evolution is "based on nothing"? To my knowledge primate development over the past million years, contrary to Creationist arguments, could not accurately be described as blind, meaningless or even entirely random. With genetic predispositions, bodily desires and social values in place of the various factors of natural selection, to what extent might the analogy hold in the case of randomness in decisions?

I certainly don't believe that what we experience of free choice is from something entirely random, and I'm not even convinced that it's partly random. But it's a possibility that I can't rule out, from experience, or from logic, or even from a (semi)meaningful conception of my 'self' and my decisions. However it appears to be a possibility which you have left no room for in the generalisations about desire and value upon which you dismiss 'free will' as incoherent.



Once again, thanks for the reply The thoughts on the interpretive/integrative process between genetic predispositions/bodily desires and the values which we develop from social settings was new to me, so if they hold true I've again learned something more.

Edit:
If you happen to be curious about my value-shaping example from 2007 (and I admit that the references to choosing seem suspiciously better placed in this context than that), I posted a link to my list of nine guidelines in this post.

[Identity Crisis]

Hello Mithrae. I’ve been a spectator on this site for over a year and have just now started posting some, and I appreciate your thoughtful responses.

But if you have no choice over your desires and values, and if you will never act contrary to your strongest desires and values, then it would be true to say that you could not have acted otherwise, wouldn't it? The only way in which you could have acted otherwise is by allowing the possibility of acting contrary to your strongest desires and values. The distinction between 'would not' and 'could not' is not apparent to me here, except by imparting some power to 'choice' which doesn't seem compatible with the above. So as I said, it seems to be fuzzy thinking to reject the freedom of our choices without accepting the alternative of determinism/prior causation.

First, I do accept determinism with the possibility of randomness. This is why I don’t accept free will. Sorry, your last sentence confused me, as it seems to suggest I said otherwise.

Anyway, you are correct that one COULD NOT act otherwise in a free will sense. However, I was referring to COULD in a physically possible sense in my statement above. So the distinction of WOULD and COULD is not apparent when we use COULD in the free will sense as you said, but it should be apparent to you when we use COULD in the physically possible sense. For example:

1) Mithrae COULD do A, B, or C.
2) Mithrae COULD only do A.

If these statements look like a contradiction to you, then you haven’t understood what I meant. (1) is using COULD in a physically possible sense, while (2) is using it in a free will sense. So again, I do not reject my experience of choosing, only that my choice will be based on my strongest desire/value, which I do not choose. Is that any more clear? I feel like we are both repeating ourselves…

I may be wrong, but I don't think you've adequately explained examples like picking Coke off a shelf in order to claim that all your actions are based on desires or values. You might say that we 'value' the bottle that's closest to us, or that we 'value' the one on the right because we're right-handed, but that would be reducing your position circularity by redefining values into "what we choose."

Your example treads dangerously close to that ground also: We can see that people act according to their strongest desires, and we know their desires because of how they act? That's not what you're saying, I'm sure, but it does kind of look like it. Your friend might indeed prefer church to football, but loathe getting ready to go out. You'd correctly point out that this is still an appeal to desires, but my point is simply (as I initially commented) that you cannot provide any basis to consistently show one desire or value to be stronger than another, besides a presumption which could as easily be matched by the presumption of an act of 'will.'

Rather than presuming that your friend was not telling the truth and actually prefers football, or presuming that that there was some other strong desire which stopped him going to church, we could just as validly presume that he just chose not to go out of sheer whimsy.

Yes, I understand the circularity that you’re referring to, as it was brought up in an earlier debate. If we are talking about KNOWING what someone desires, then it is circular, just as it would be if we were trying to KNOW what someone wills:

How do you know what Mithrae desires/wills? By what Mithrae does.

What does Mithrae do? What Mithrae desires/wills.

But we are not trying to KNOW what someone desires or wills, we want to know why people act/decide/choose the way that they do. This is why I used myself in the example above, as to avoid any kind of speculation on another’s desires/values. I have first-hand knowledge of what I value and desire, which I can honestly say is the basis of what I “will�. If I desire/value afternoon Church over all other options on Sunday night, then I will be going to Church. However, as I said, I valued Sunday night football over church, which is why I stayed home for football. You are correct to say that I may have stayed home because I didn’t like getting ready to go out. I accept this, and if it were my strongest desire or what I valued most, my choice of staying home would have been based on this. Is this controversial?

I will try to address your coke example:

Imagine 3 coke bottles sitting on the shelf in front of you. Either,

1) You grab C1, C2, or C3 without any preference of one over another.

This I would call random. 33.3% chance of either of the 3 being chosen.

2) You grab C1, C2, or C3 with a preference of one over another.

The preference of one over another, would be a value, and therefore determined.
If you disagree that a value choice can be made as in (2), how would this not be reduced to a random choice (1)?

Determined and random seem to be the only two options. If something is not determined, isn’t it random by definition? If something is not random, isn’t it determined by definition?

I wonder whether you'd consider the principles of logic to be 'values'? Or language, the way we use it, and the way in which it shapes our thinking?

I ask because while it's useful and necessary to try to simplify and categorise what goes into our decision making processes in general terms, we should be careful not to carry that over into analysis of specific decisions with a view to those categories themselves. There are evolutionary desires/predispositions at the bottom of everything we do and are: Primarily to survive, to interact and prosper socially, and to leave a (usually genetic) legacy. Things like 'happiness,' 'beauty' or 'ambition' are more abstract and might be termed (alongside morals) as values. But between the basic evolutionary/genetic predispositions & ongoing bodily desires and our more abstract values, it seems likely to me that at the very least there must always be a certain amount of interpretation and integration of other people's values through our social settings. If so, could that interpretive and integrative process itself be called a 'value' or desire? I suspect not; and even less so when it comes to those who thoughtfully analyse and reasses the values which they've grown up with.

That said, it's an interesting question you ask and the first example which occurred to me was from a list I made last year of nine guidelines for living which I've developed over the years. I've chosen a different one of the nine, because I can document this one better from a journal of sorts I keep; several months after that letter to my aunt, when I obviously still considered myself a determinist but didn't think about it much (what denier of free choice could?):
Sunday, 14 January 2007
I feel I should make a brief mention of this evening, so I can later remember the principle that I control my own mood. Happiness isn't a set of circumstances, it's a state of mind; and I can choose whether or not to embrace it.

My life at the moment isn't exactly glamorous. (I think I spelled that wrong.) I'm still working at Maccas, and by the usual standards, I'm going nowhere fast. More to the point, I've been living alone for nearly six months now, which is never good for me psychologically. Lately I've been going through one of my down periods, and tonight it pretty much hit bottom. It'd been a lazy weekend, and come this evening I simply didn't feel like doing anything. Thought about going to get some dinner, didn't want to. Didn't want to watch a DVD, or play a game or anything. I considered going for a walk, knowing that that would cheer me up. But I didn't feel like it. And that's the point, really; it was my choice as to whether to stay down or to get back up. I ended up putting on a Mozart CD, a positive step, and drifting off to sleep. Got woken up by a call from A, spoke to her for a bit and then... decided to feel better. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik came on, which is always good, and I decided to go get some munchies and eat them while listening to Rammstein and reading American Hoax. Not exactly a thrilling evening, but after I'd got dressed and headed out, I felt fine. In fact I felt better than fine. Knowing the power I have over my own mood is a very positive feeling. My life is still the same as it was before; I'm still just as tired of work. But really it wasn't my circumstances which had me feeling down. It was the feeling that I was trapped. And even that hasn't changed. I've just stopped playing the victim. I've chosen to be happy, and no circumstances can alter that decision nor its effects.

To answer your questions, the change in values here was in my approach to happiness. While I'd never believed that wealth or career was pre-requisite to happiness, the considerable influence of that view in society also weighed heavily on my own views. The problem with that is that it's counter-productive, doing nothing but postponing happiness rather than achieving it. To my mind that is a concern based in logic rather than other values. The updated value of choosing happiness rather than striving for it was, according to my journal, based on my experience of that very choice. Again, not easy to reduce experience to values.

As I mentioned earlier to Bretta, thoughts like these (most notably those nine of course) have often provided major influence over future decisions, which suggests to me that choice cannot be reduced solely to strongest desires/values unless thought is also. This appears to be what you are claiming in the bold above; but again, I point out that you cannot support the assertion that thought is simply the product of desires and values - and in this case we have far better examples than Coke on a shelf. How are maths or logic the product of desires and values?

As I have said, I believe acts/decisions/choices are based on desires/values, but yes of course these desires and values are shaped by all types of things. I don’t disagree with this, nor do I think it is a problem for my position in any way. Knowledge, genetics, culture, upbringing, experiences, situations, mood, social pressures, and all kinds of things would shape our desires and values. This is all apparent to me. This is exactly why I say we don’t choose our values/desires, as they are shaped by all these things.

I appreciate your example but are you not saying that you desired/valued happiness, and that you found an effective way to achieve this? I don’t see where you changed a value, only where you changed the way you reached an end according to this value that you already had. You changing your desire to be happy to a desire to be sad would be a willful change of values.

You asking me how math and logic is the product of desires and values really makes me feel as if I have been unclear. Math and logic are what they are. They are not acts, so no desire or value is necessary. However, I would USE math and logic as a means to achieve an intended end. Math and logic are not the product of desires and values. The ACT of USING math and logic to achieve whatever end would be the result of a desire or value though.

I've already said several times that I don't exclude the possibility of randomness in our decisions. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but you appear to be implying that I am attached to this notion of 'free will' and introducing novel concepts to accomodate it. Whereas, quite to the contrary, I've mentioned that it's only been in the past few months that I've begun to think this way, and I've explained precisely why this is so:
But over the past few months it's begun to come home to me how much the way we think about stuff can colour our conclusions. . . . Even so, in our engagement with the non-biological world we cannot help but find that the notions of 'physical' and 'determined' still serve us very well. 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...

This is another point to which I believe you have not adequately responded: You've correctly pointed out that there might be even more basic types of stuff than quarks, leptons and bosons, but the fact still remains that certainly in our knowledge and almost certainly in reality, there are things whose behaviour can't be said to come from prior causes - and I assume that you don't think it's all random. So I think you aren't being very fair in your comments about causation by factors inherent to the thing.

You said “there are things whose behavior can’t be said to come from prior causes – and I assume that you don’t think it’s all random.�

See my response above on how something is either determined or random, there is no other option that I’m aware of.

So if there is causation by factors inherent to thing, then these factors inherent to the thing are either on the causal chain of something else, or random.

Would the answer "because I desired the outcome" answer the question any better?

Most of the time we could name some specific desires or values which influenced the decision. But sometimes (Coke) we cannot, and thus we have counter-examples to your generalisation. Moreover here, as with the church/football example, you're appealing to social interactions as a primary reference point for understanding decisions - a frame of reference in which others people's entire minds are just as inscrutable as their decisions, choices or will - and thus restricting and simplifying the possible results. But even then, I'm sure we've all had people simply say "because I chose to" or "because I felt like it" when asked why they did something, so really what you're pointing out is that people can't always describe their decisions in terms of strongest desire or value.

I think so because it goes one step deeper. Your will/choice/volition is based on your desires/values. As I said above, of course these desires/values are shaped by many things (Knowledge, genetics, culture, upbringing, experiences, situations, mood, social pressures, etc.).

Your counter example of the Coke experiment is either a random choice or a conscious (desire/value based) choice.

Again, my argument is supported by my first-hand experience. I don’t need to speculate on the choices made by someone else. When I make a conscious choice, no matter how much time I have to make this choice, my choosing is based on the ends that I value and desire most.

I’ll give an example of why I would have trouble even trying to convince myself I have free will: Imagine if I said, that I desired and valued X more than Y, but I chose Y to show that I had free will. So it appears I have refuted my premise that we always choose based on our strongest desire/value. However, my choosing Y over X wasn’t based on the stronger desire/value between only X and Y, but my desire to demonstrate my free will.

Is it reasoning, or observation?

I am running. That's an action and an observation.
There's a wall ahead of me. That's an observation.
Whenever I've been running, I've reached what's ahead of me. That's an observation.
This time I'm running, I will:
A> Not reach what's ahead of me
B> Reach what's ahead of me

We might say that B is merely an observation, and it's not my opinion that observation requires choice. But if the example you gave constitutes reasoning, then are you not choosing B as truth rather than A? Of course, in more complex examples the option of observation is eliminated entirely. Would you say that you are merely the recipient of 'reasoning,' or do you choose between valid and invalid, useful and absurd lines of thinking?

I would say it is reasoning from observation. But to answer your questions below, I would say no. When I am evaluating my reasoning or someone else’s, I do not choose whether it is valid/invalid or useful/absurd. I will discern the validity/invalidity or usefulness/absurdness of the reasoning but I don’t choose it. It will either appear valid/invalid or useful/absurd to me. Sometimes my evaluation is right and sometimes I’m wrong. Hopefully if my reasoning in our argument is bad, then you will help me come to understand why I have free will. If I’m simply choosing which of us is correct, then why are we even trying to be reasonable, we could just choose.

Surely you've experienced occasions on which, a second or two after speaking or acting, you've thought "Why the hell did I do THAT?" As I commented to Bretta:
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.

I suspect that the obvious response from your perspective would be that a person makes a decision based on their strongest desires in that second. But quite aside from even further begging the question, that would cast doubt on the very notion that our experience of non-constrained choice is because we choose according to desires or values. Would you say that all hurtful comments or social faux pas were chosen because of the person's desires or values, even in that very second? I think not.

As for randomness, would you say that evolution is "based on nothing"? To my knowledge primate development over the past million years, contrary to Creationist arguments, could not accurately be described as blind, meaningless or even entirely random. With genetic predispositions, bodily desires and social values in place of the various factors of natural selection, to what extent might the analogy hold in the case of randomness in decisions?

I certainly don't believe that what we experience of free choice is from something entirely random, and I'm not even convinced that it's partly random. But it's a possibility that I can't rule out, from experience, or from logic, or even from a (semi)meaningful conception of my 'self' and my decisions. However it appears to be a possibility which you have left no room for in the generalisations about desire and value upon which you dismiss 'free will' as incoherent.

Again, your example is perfectly consistent with my view. Split second doesn’t make it more freely-willed. Did you not value your chance to provoke more than the consequences that the provoking would bring? Sure if you could go back in time with the knowledge you have now you would act differently, but if everything was the same as the first time, why would you have done different this time?

I would say evolution is determined by an organism’s ability to reproduce, along with the occasional random mutation, but I’m no biologist. I don’t understand your question.

Conscious acts are what I would consider to be determined by desires and values. If an act is random then I wouldn’t say it was determined by desires or values obviously. It is random, or an act for no reason. I’m saying that determined and random acts wouldn’t be free will because neither provide the accountability or responsibility that we associate with free will.

Once again, thanks for the reply The thoughts on the interpretive/integrative process between genetic predispositions/bodily desires and the values which we develop from social settings was new to me, so if they hold true I've again learned something more.

Edit:
If you happen to be curious about my value-shaping example from 2007 (and I admit that the references to choosing seem suspiciously better placed in this context than that), I posted a link to my list of nine guidelines in this post.

These responses (mine and yours) are getting a little long, broad and repetitive for my liking. Maybe we could narrow our discussion a little to see if we could come to some sort of agreement, even if it is an agreement to disagree.

Do you feel that I have sufficiently answered any of your objections to my position?

[Mithrae]

These responses (mine and yours) are getting a little long, broad and repetitive for my liking. Maybe we could narrow our discussion a little to see if we could come to some sort of agreement, even if it is an agreement to disagree.

Thanks for the response. I admit I didn't quite understand your views before, but now I agree that we may be circling around old ground a little I think we can break the discussion down into three key points, which I'll try to keep brief:
A> 'Causal' possibilities (uncaused/random, externally caused, inherently caused)
B> Analysing decisions vis a vis desires and values
C> The nature of thought and reasoning



A> 'Causal' possibilities (uncaused/random, externally caused, inherently caused)
This is key to the discussion because without the third possibility, our decisions obviously could consist only of deterministic and random elements as you (and I, in the past) have proposed.

This is another point to which I believe you have not adequately responded: You've correctly pointed out that there might be even more basic types of stuff than quarks, leptons and bosons, but the fact still remains that certainly in our knowledge and almost certainly in reality, there are things whose behaviour can't be said to come from prior causes - and I assume that you don't think it's all random. So I think you aren't being very fair in your comments about causation by factors inherent to the thing.

You said “there are things whose behavior can’t be said to come from prior causes – and I assume that you don’t think it’s all random.�

See my response above on how something is either determined or random, there is no other option that I’m aware of.

So if there is causation by factors inherent to thing, then these factors inherent to the thing are either on the causal chain of something else, or random.

Applied in the broader or more fundamental context by which I've tried to explain this, your views appear to be mere assertion, requiring either an infinite regress of prior causation for the universe (or the 'big bang' singularity) or a 'random' origin (which I suppose would have to mean it just popped into existence). I don't know enough to quibble over whether either of these is plausible, though I gather that some folk do question them quite vehemently; for my part, I'll simply point out that you have not provided any justification for your elimination of the third option, that some things (their existence or more commonly, as perhaps with quarks etc, their behaviour) might be explained in terms of their own nature.


B> Analysing decisions vis a vis desires and values
This is key to the discussion because it is your reconciliation between our experience of choice and the constraints of (partial) determinism.

To answer your questions, the change in values here was in my approach to happiness. While I'd never believed that wealth or career was pre-requisite to happiness, the considerable influence of that view in society also weighed heavily on my own views. The problem with that is that it's counter-productive, doing nothing but postponing happiness rather than achieving it. To my mind that is a concern based in logic rather than other values. The updated value of choosing happiness rather than striving for it was, according to my journal, based on my experience of that very choice. Again, not easy to reduce experience to values.

As I mentioned earlier to Bretta, thoughts like these (most notably those nine of course) have often provided major influence over future decisions, which suggests to me that choice cannot be reduced solely to strongest desires/values unless thought is also. This appears to be what you are claiming in the bold above; but again, I point out that you cannot support the assertion that thought is simply the product of desires and values - and in this case we have far better examples than Coke on a shelf. How are maths or logic the product of desires and values?

As I have said, I believe acts/decisions/choices are based on desires/values, but yes of course these desires and values are shaped by all types of things. I don’t disagree with this, nor do I think it is a problem for my position in any way. Knowledge, genetics, culture, upbringing, experiences, situations, mood, social pressures, and all kinds of things would shape our desires and values. This is all apparent to me. This is exactly why I say we don’t choose our values/desires, as they are shaped by all these things.

I appreciate your example but are you not saying that you desired/valued happiness, and that you found an effective way to achieve this? I don’t see where you changed a value, only where you changed the way you reached an end according to this value that you already had. You changing your desire to be happy to a desire to be sad would be a willful change of values.

On numerous occasions since those 2007 thoughts I've been at work, not having a great day, and in a bad mood - and then I've decided to be positive and happy, which has often had a considerable effect on my mood. A huge contributing factor in these decisions has been those thoughts which I recorded for future reference. If you say that those thoughts are not a change in my desires and values, then you're merely putting the counter-example to your views one step closer to ground zero; my decisions were heavily influenced by prior thoughts which are not desires and values and not reducible to them (unless logic and experience are).

As I've mentioned a few times, you cannot provide any basis to consistently show one desire or value to be stronger than another. Therefore, it seems that this most crucial aspect of your views is a rather simplistic or reductionistic approach to experience. This may follow from the presumption above that there can be only two possible categories in which causes for our behaviour can fall. Alternatively it may come from imprecise use of words; it could be considered tautologous that when we choose it will always be what we most desire, but rather than trying to analyse desire (or values) as causal factors for possible comparison or contrast with other choice-related faculties, that simply defines them as the factors which determine choice. The fact that, in your last sentence above, you're equating a change in desires with a change in values does suggest some imprecision.

Either way, it seems that you have not yet substantiated this point; and unless you have some precise introspective manner of knowing the relative strength of desires/values (and for that matter, 'randomness' so as to confirm or exclude its influence), it seems quite unlikely that you ever could substantiate this point even to yourself; and inasmuch as my own experience constitutes valid contribution to the debate, you appear to have confirmed it as a counter-example to this point.


C> The nature of thought and reasoning
This is key to the discussion because, as illustrated by the example above, I contend that decisions are not simple or discrete resolutions of desire/value comparisons (and/or random influence), but to a significant extent reflect a person's character as developed by experience, genetics, circumstances and - crucially - thoughts.

You asking me how math and logic is the product of desires and values really makes me feel as if I have been unclear. Math and logic are what they are. They are not acts, so no desire or value is necessary. However, I would USE math and logic as a means to achieve an intended end. Math and logic are not the product of desires and values. The ACT of USING math and logic to achieve whatever end would be the result of a desire or value though.

This does seem very unclear. In your last post you said that "I would consider thinking an action, as well as the manipulation of thinking. So I think what I said above ["What I do is based on what I value most, and this is always the case"] would apply." Now you say that maths and logic are not acts and not the product of desire/value, implying that maths and logic are not thought. If I might provide another example from my experience, the top-most of the envelopes on my desk is (not unusually) covered in scribbles, part of which involves adding 574.4 to 907.2, the result of which I divided by 2. Obviously I desired to find the average of the two numbers (part of trying to figure out weapon damage for Diablo 3); but the process by which I did so... how could you imply it was not mental activity? Or alternatively how could you say that this process was based on desire or value? As implied above, your reductionist approach is apparently leading to self-contradiction and/or absurdity when applied to thought.

We might say that B is merely an observation, and it's not my opinion that observation requires choice. But if the example you gave constitutes reasoning, then are you not choosing B as truth rather than A? Of course, in more complex examples the option of observation is eliminated entirely. Would you say that you are merely the recipient of 'reasoning,' or do you choose between valid and invalid, useful and absurd lines of thinking?

I would say it is reasoning from observation. But to answer your questions below, I would say no. When I am evaluating my reasoning or someone else’s, I do not choose whether it is valid/invalid or useful/absurd. I will discern the validity/invalidity or usefulness/absurdness of the reasoning but I don’t choose it. It will either appear valid/invalid or useful/absurd to me. Sometimes my evaluation is right and sometimes I’m wrong. Hopefully if my reasoning in our argument is bad, then you will help me come to understand why I have free will. If I’m simply choosing which of us is correct, then why are we even trying to be reasonable, we could just choose.

How do you evaluate your reasoning or someone else's? What you're describing - that you 'discern' its validity or it will 'appear' valid or invalid - does not look like evaluation at all; more like intuition or pseudo-observation. Personally, I seek through habit and direct application to follow the principles of logic and recognise logical fallacies, and I seek (consciously, though it probably occurs sub-consciously also) points of comparison and contrast for the point in question in order to provide a frame of reference - both in logical and evidentiary terms, and in terms of consistency, consequences and my worldview. It seems to me that these are primarily conscious, active processes in my thinking, and while habit may to some extent put them below the conscious radar, frequently they still remain largely conscious, active processes. As a result of these processes I select from amongst various options which one/s seem most viable to me. If you simply 'discern' what's most viable, I suppose I'd have to either envy your talent or pity your naivete.



I was going to make some comments on how 'randomness' (largely by analogy with the process of evolution) might be a meaningful, self-reinforcing element of character-building, personhood and volition; but I think this is long enough to be going on with for now, and since randomness is merely a potential and certainly not major element of my views I don't think it's crucial in any case.

Thanks again for the response - I hope my simplification and analysis doesn't come across as too inaccurate or offensive.

[Identity Crisis]

Mithrae said:

Thanks for the response. I admit I didn't quite understand your views before, but now I agree that we may be circling around old ground a little  I think we can break the discussion down into three key points, which I'll try to keep brief: 
A> 'Causal' possibilities (uncaused/random, externally caused, inherently caused) 
B> Analysing decisions vis a vis desires and values 
C> The nature of thought and reasoning 

A> 'Causal' possibilities (uncaused/random, externally caused, inherently caused) 
This is key to the discussion because without the third possibility, our decisions obviously could consist only of deterministic and random elements as you (and I, in the past) have proposed. 

Applied in the broader or more fundamental context by which I've tried to explain this, your views appear to be mere assertion, requiring either an infinite regress of prior causation for the universe (or the 'big bang' singularity) or a 'random' origin (which I suppose would have to mean it just popped into existence). I don't know enough to quibble over whether either of these is plausible, though I gather that some folk do question them quite vehemently; for my part, I'll simply point out that you have not provided any justification for your elimination of the third option, that some things (their existence or more commonly, as perhaps with quarks etc, their behaviour) might be explained in terms of their own nature. 

Your 3 options above are:
1) uncaused/random
2) externally caused
3) inherently caused

My elimination of the third option is because it seems that the three above can all be reduced to caused externally or uncaused, or categories 1 and 2.

The example you offered me to fit the 3rd category, the quark, seems to be selected simply because it is at the depths of our scientific knowledge at this point. You admitted there may be something more fundamental, which would make it category 2, not 3, if this were the case.

But let's suppose it is the most fundamental level of explanation, as it could be, to see where this leads us. So it wouldn't be category 2 in this case. But why would we say this behavior is inherently caused rather than uncaused? At what point would it cause it's own behavior, and what was it like beforehand to have initiated this causality? Doesn't something have to already BE, in order to cause? 

If there was no beforehand or point in which it caused its own behavior, could we say it was always this way and therefore uncaused (1)?

Or

If there was a beforehand or a point when it hadn't caused its behavior yet, aren't we back to a different and more fundamental cause, which would not be the thing itself, but a part of that thing, and therefore a more fundamental cause (2)?

B> Analysing decisions vis a vis desires and values 
This is key to the discussion because it is your reconciliation between our experience of choice and the constraints of (partial) determinism.

On numerous occasions since those 2007 thoughts I've been at work, not having a great day, and in a bad mood - and then I've decided to be positive and happy, which has often had a considerable effect on my mood. A huge contributing factor in these decisions has been those thoughts which I recorded for future reference. If you say that those thoughts are not a change in my desires and values, then you're merely putting the counter-example to your views one step closer to ground zero; my decisions were heavily influenced by prior thoughts which are not desires and values and not reducible to them (unless logic and experience are).

First of all, your header (B) made me want to repeat myself on what I think about non-constrained choice. I think our  "experience of not wholly constrained choice" that you refer to as support for your position seems to presuppose that if our choices were determined by our strongest desires, that we would feel constrained. I don't see any reason why we would feel constrained if our choices were determined by our strongest desires, so I don't think this is a good objection. Again, we would be aware of available options while still choosing what we desire/value most.

Anyway, yes your prior thoughts influence your decision. It's not that your decisions are only based on your desires and values, but that your decisions will be made to reach the intended ends that you desire/value most. As in your example, your prior thoughts that you kept record of helped you reach your intended end which you desired. Your decisions will also be based on your situation and options, but your decision will still be what you desire most. Decisions being determined by your strongest desires and values doesn't mean that we ignore the context in which these decisions are being made.

As I've mentioned a few times, you cannot provide any basis to consistently show one desire or value to be stronger than another. Therefore, it seems that this most crucial aspect of your views is a rather simplistic or reductionistic approach to experience. This may follow from the presumption above that there can be only two possible categories in which causes for our behaviour can fall. Alternatively it may come from imprecise use of words; it could be considered tautologous that when we choose it will always be what we most desire, but rather than trying to analyse desire (or values) as causal factors for possible comparison or contrast with other choice-related faculties, that simply defines them as the factors which determine choice. The fact that, in your last sentence above, you're equating a change in desires with a change in values does suggest some imprecision. 

Yes I have no way of showing a person having one desire/value stronger than another without begging the question, which you and others have pointed out. This is why I have used myself in my example and have asked you to reflect on your own actions/decisions/choices.
Like the time you got your ass whooped as you say, sure in hindsight this wouldn't be your intended end, but when you were provoked, did you desire anything more than to return the favor? Perhaps if you had a job interview the next day your desire to restrain would've been stronger, maybe even strong enough to overcome your desire to say whatever it was that you said.

Either way, it seems that you have not yet substantiated this point; and unless you have some precise introspective manner of knowing the relative strength of desires/values (and for that matter, 'randomness' so as to confirm or exclude its influence), it seems quite unlikely that you ever could substantiate this point even to yourself; and inasmuch as my own experience constitutes valid contribution to the debate, you appear to have confirmed it as a counter-example to this point. 

We may never KNOW the state of another person's mind. This being the a philosophical discussion on the choices one makes, what better tool to use than my own experience. Along with your experience, maybe we can figure out why people make choices the way that they do.

It is my experience that my conscious choices are based on my strongest desires and values. If I can know what I desire and value most, and that because of these I make the choices that I do, and I can convince you that you are no different, wouldn't this be closer to substantiating my point?

C> The nature of thought and reasoning 
This is key to the discussion because, as illustrated by the example above, I contend that decisions are not simple or discrete resolutions of desire/value comparisons (and/or random influence), but to a significant extent reflect a person's character as developed by experience, genetics, circumstances and - crucially - thoughts.

This does seem very unclear. In your last post you said that "I would consider thinking an action, as well as the manipulation of thinking. So I think what I said above ["What I do is based on what I value most, and this is always the case"] would apply." Now you say that maths and logic are not acts and not the product of desire/value, implying that maths and logic are not thought. If I might provide another example from my experience, the top-most of the envelopes on my desk is (not unusually) covered in scribbles, part of which involves adding 574.4 to 907.2, the result of which I divided by 2. Obviously I desired to find the average of the two numbers (part of trying to figure out weapon damage for Diablo 3); but the process by which I did so... how could you imply it was not mental activity? Or alternatively how could you say that this process was based on desire or value? As implied above, your reductionist approach is apparently leading to self-contradiction and/or absurdity when applied to thought.

But math and logic, the concepts, are not thought. To DO math and to DO logic is the thinking, which I say is an action. As you said you desired to figure out the weapon damage for Diablo 3. You did math (the action of thinking) to achieve your intended end. I have no problem saying that each step of addition and division that you were actively thinking out, was done to reach what you desired.

How do you evaluate your reasoning or someone else's? What you're describing - that you 'discern' its validity or it will 'appear' valid or invalid - does not look like evaluation at all; more like intuition or pseudo-observation. Personally, I seek through habit and direct application to follow the principles of logic and recognise logical fallacies, and I seek (consciously, though it probably occurs sub-consciously also) points of comparison and contrast for the point in question in order to provide a frame of reference - both in logical and evidentiary terms, and in terms of consistency, consequences and my worldview. It seems to me that these are primarily conscious, active processes in my thinking, and while habit may to some extent put them below the conscious radar, frequently they still remain largely conscious, active processes. As a result of these processes I select from amongst various options which one/s seem most viable to me. If you simply 'discern' what's most viable, I suppose I'd have to either envy your talent or pity your naivete.

I think I evaluate reasoning just as you do. You said you "select from amongst various options which one/s seem most viable to me". This is basically the definition of discern so I don't see the problem. I feel like you are defending consciousness when you don't need to. I reject the idea that consciousness requires free will.

[Mithrae]

A> 'Causal' possibilities (uncaused/random, externally caused, inherently caused)

But let's suppose it is the most fundamental level of explanation, as it could be, to see where this leads us. So it wouldn't be category 2 in this case. But why would we say this behavior is inherently caused rather than uncaused? At what point would it cause it's own behavior, and what was it like beforehand to have initiated this causality? Doesn't something have to already BE, in order to cause? 

If there was no beforehand or point in which it caused its own behavior, could we say it was always this way and therefore uncaused (1)?

Or

If there was a beforehand or a point when it hadn't caused its behavior yet, aren't we back to a different and more fundamental cause, which would not be the thing itself, but a part of that thing, and therefore a more fundamental cause (2)?

You're suggesting that for something to be the cause of something else it has to precede it in time, but I don't think that's true; the two things (in this case, the inherent 'nature' of a thing and consequently the way it behaves) could be simultaneous. Indeed if you had a couple of blocks on top of each other and removed the bottom block by sliding another into its place, you'd actually have the position of the top block now being caused by a block which came later!

I also think that both of your options are examples of (2); prior, external or (as you've suggested) more fundamental causation. If something "was always this way" then its existence and nature at point B is surely dependant on its existence and nature at point A, so B is obviously not uncaused. Alternatively if you considered an infinite regress of time to be uncaused (1), it would follow that a potentially infinite regress of magnitude or parts of the thing would be considered uncaused also; but I think it's even more obvious that the latter isn't uncaused than the former. Either way, you appear to be cutting our types of causal possibility down to just one.

I think the reason is that you seem not to be differentiating between things' existence (or in my block example, their presence) and their properties. You've presented regresses in time and magnitude, but you've avoided uncaused as randomness, which we've discussed in relation to people's behaviour and which I specifically mentioned here. Things just randomly existing, without any cause, is a little problematic; but perhaps the biggest reason to avoid mentioning this possibility is its consequences. If things' existence were not caused, were genuinely random, then either their behaviour would have to be also (and yet our observation rarely implies randomness in things' behaviour)... or their behaviour would be the result of their properties. Therefore in denying the 3rd option I suggested, that things might behave because of their inherent nature, it seems that you are also compelled to deny the possibility that things could BE without cause.

Far from providing justification for why that third possibility should be disregarded, you appear to be narrowing the field still further, suggesting a possibility only of infinite regresses. Again, I don't think you've sufficiently made your case; the logical possibilities, it seems, are precisely as I stated them.

---

B> Analysing decisions vis a vis desires and values

First of all, your header (B) made me want to repeat myself on what I think about non-constrained choice. I think our  "experience of not wholly constrained choice" that you refer to as support for your position seems to presuppose that if our choices were determined by our strongest desires, that we would feel constrained. I don't see any reason why we would feel constrained if our choices were determined by our strongest desires, so I don't think this is a good objection. Again, we would be aware of available options while still choosing what we desire/value most.

Anyway, yes your prior thoughts influence your decision. It's not that your decisions are only based on your desires and values, but that your decisions will be made to reach the intended ends that you desire/value most. As in your example, your prior thoughts that you kept record of helped you reach your intended end which you desired. Your decisions will also be based on your situation and options, but your decision will still be what you desire most. Decisions being determined by your strongest desires and values doesn't mean that we ignore the context in which these decisions are being made.

I don't think we should feel constrained if your theory of choice and determinism were true; as I said, this is the approach by which you're reconciling the two. But I think we're going to have to disagree here. I so far find myself unable understand your position as anything other than defining desires as the determiners of choice. Conceiving them in any more specific way I don't think that you could sufficiently confirm this universal principle you propose even in your own experience, and I think that examples like social faux pas and so on amply contradict the notion that decisions are always based on desire. You now even seem to acknowledge that things other than desires or values can play major roles in decision-making, but continue to simply assert that ultimately it comes down to desire/value. It doesn't make sense, except as a tautology based on definition.

---

C> The nature of thought and reasoning

This does seem very unclear. In your last post you said that "I would consider thinking an action, as well as the manipulation of thinking. So I think what I said above ["What I do is based on what I value most, and this is always the case"] would apply." Now you say that maths and logic are not acts and not the product of desire/value, implying that maths and logic are not thought. If I might provide another example from my experience, the top-most of the envelopes on my desk is (not unusually) covered in scribbles, part of which involves adding 574.4 to 907.2, the result of which I divided by 2. Obviously I desired to find the average of the two numbers (part of trying to figure out weapon damage for Diablo 3); but the process by which I did so... how could you imply it was not mental activity? Or alternatively how could you say that this process was based on desire or value? As implied above, your reductionist approach is apparently leading to self-contradiction and/or absurdity when applied to thought.

But math and logic, the concepts, are not thought. To DO math and to DO logic is the thinking, which I say is an action. As you said you desired to figure out the weapon damage for Diablo 3. You did math (the action of thinking) to achieve your intended end. I have no problem saying that each step of addition and division that you were actively thinking out, was done to reach what you desired.

The mental action of adding 574.4 to 907.2 does not involve desire. It's simply an application of rules to concepts. Yes, it's part of a larger process which to an extent involved desire. But from what began as rather sweeping generalisations about all actions being based on desire or values, you're now saying that this applies only to the bigger-picture "intended end" of the process. How do we identify the 'intended end' though? I'll readily admit that I have very strong desires to remain alive and to enjoy life. So are those are my 'intended ends' based on strongest desire, and what I do on a day-to-day basis towards those ends need not be based primarily on desires and values? I may be wrong, but you appear to be heading here towards arbitrary distinctions in order to preserve your initial theory.

How do you evaluate your reasoning or someone else's? What you're describing - that you 'discern' its validity or it will 'appear' valid or invalid - does not look like evaluation at all; more like intuition or pseudo-observation. Personally, I seek through habit and direct application to follow the principles of logic and recognise logical fallacies, and I seek (consciously, though it probably occurs sub-consciously also) points of comparison and contrast for the point in question in order to provide a frame of reference - both in logical and evidentiary terms, and in terms of consistency, consequences and my worldview. It seems to me that these are primarily conscious, active processes in my thinking, and while habit may to some extent put them below the conscious radar, frequently they still remain largely conscious, active processes. As a result of these processes I select from amongst various options which one/s seem most viable to me. If you simply 'discern' what's most viable, I suppose I'd have to either envy your talent or pity your naivete.

I think I evaluate reasoning just as you do. You said you "select from amongst various options which one/s seem most viable to me". This is basically the definition of discern so I don't see the problem. I feel like you are defending consciousness when you don't need to. I reject the idea that consciousness requires free will.

You seem to be agreeing that reasoning is a (largely) conscious, active process requiring the selection of certain propositions, premises and arguments as more viable than others. I don't know what your definition of 'choice' is, but a conscious active process of selection pretty much nails it to my mind. So I think that's an answer to your comment in post 139 that "This is reasoning. Consciousness seems necessary for this but I don't understand why choice would be. "

But reasoning generally is not based on desires or values.

[Identity Crisis]

Hey Mithrae,
Sorry for the delayed response, it was a busy week and weekend of moving..

Mithrae said:

You're suggesting that for something to be the cause of something else it has to precede it in time, but I don't think that's true; the two things (in this case, the inherent 'nature' of a thing and consequently the way it behaves) could be simultaneous. Indeed if you had a couple of blocks on top of each other and removed the bottom block by sliding another into its place, you'd actually have the position of the top block now being caused by a block which came later!

Ok, that's fine with me if a cause and effect happen simultaneously in a temporal sense but I have a couple questions for clarification. Would you agree that our concept of causality presupposes a causal sequence, not in a temporal sense, as you pointed out, but in which for every cause there is an effect, and for every effect there is a cause that brought about this effect, and that we can differentiate the cause from the effect? And do you agree that for a cause to stand alone with no effect would no longer be a cause, and an effect with no cause is uncaused, and therefore not an effect? I just want to make sure we are on the same page here.

You say that the thing's nature is the cause of its behavior, so now we are looking at the thing's nature. Since the behavior is an effect of the thing's nature, is the nature of the thing caused by another more fundamental thing(2) or uncaused(1)? Or do you say the thing's nature causes its nature?

I also think that both of your options are examples of (2); prior, external or (as you've suggested) more fundamental causation. If something "was always this way" then its existence and nature at point B is surely dependant on its existence and nature at point A, so B is obviously not uncaused. Alternatively if you considered an infinite regress of time to be uncaused (1), it would follow that a potentially infinite regress of magnitude or parts of the thing would be considered uncaused also; but I think it's even more obvious that the latter isn't uncaused than the former. Either way, you appear to be cutting our types of causal possibility down to just one.

Yes I see what you are saying here, if something "was always this way" I suppose it wouldn't be uncaused. Fair enough. However, my bad example doesn't mean I don't hold uncaused as a possibility. Seeing as we both have (1) and (2) as possibilities, I won't dwell on this too much. Thank you for pointing out that flaw.

I think the reason is that you seem not to be differentiating between things' existence (or in my block example, their presence) and their properties. You've presented regresses in time and magnitude, but you've avoided uncaused as randomness, which we've discussed in relation to people's behaviour and which I specifically mentioned here. Things just randomly existing, without any cause, is a little problematic; but perhaps the biggest reason to avoid mentioning this possibility is its consequences. If things' existence were not caused, were genuinely random, then either their behaviour would have to be also (and yet our observation rarely implies randomness in things' behaviour)... or their behaviour would be the result of their properties. Therefore in denying the 3rd option I suggested, that things might behave because of their inherent nature, it seems that you are also compelled to deny the possibility that things could BE without cause.

I agree that behavior rarely or never seems to be uncaused/random, I think we have just recognized it as a possibility.

Besides that, I don't follow. Are you saying that a thing behaving according to its properties is not (2)? You said if an uncaused thing existed then its behavior would be either uncaused/random or determined by its properties. This leads me right into what I have been arguing. You have behavior caused by properties and these properties are caused by....? Either nothing (uncaused)(1), something else (2), or properties causing properties.

I have apparently misunderstood, please clarify.

Far from providing justification for why that third possibility should be disregarded, you appear to be narrowing the field still further, suggesting a possibility only of infinite regresses. Again, I don't think you've sufficiently made your case; the logical possibilities, it seems, are precisely as I stated them.

Again, I still hold that uncaused/random is a live possibility, though it doesn't seem to be the case in what we normally observe.

It should be disregarded because if we follow a chain of causes in reverse and we reach a point on this chain, we ask the question: is this caused or uncaused? If it is uncaused/random, then that's the end of it. If it is caused, we can ask by what. This answer will be something that is not this thing itself as a whole. Like you said above, behavior is a consequence of a thing's nature. So what is the cause of this thing's nature? Either it is uncaused or caused by something else (prior, external, something more fundamental). The other option is that its nature is caused by its nature, which seems absurd to me.

I don't think we should feel constrained if your theory of choice and determinism were true; as I said, this is the approach by which you're reconciling the two. But I think we're going to have to disagree here. I so far find myself unable understand your position as anything other than defining desires as the determiners of choice. Conceiving them in any more specific way I don't think that you could sufficiently confirm this universal principle you propose even in your own experience, and I think that examples like social faux pas and so on amply contradict the notion that decisions are always based on desire. You now even seem to acknowledge that things other than desires or values can play major roles in decision-making, but continue to simply assert that ultimately it comes down to desire/value. It doesn't make sense, except as a tautology based on definition.

I think you mistake my stance as defining any action that takes place to be determined by desire. We are talking about free will correct? Free will is supposedly exercised during conscious acts. Conscious acts being determined by our strongest desire is my position.

Faux pas are accidental, therefore not the intentional, conscious act of a person. You wouldn't hold the act of free will as an accident would you? So why employ an accident like it's a conscious decision to try to contradict my position?

I have never said that decisions were in a vacuum and that only desires were involved. If I have please show me where and I will retract it. My position is that you will consciously act to reach the intended end which you desire most, and that you could not choose your desires, and that because of this, free will doesn't exist.

Conscious acts are acts that are made to reach an intended end.

Intended ends are desired and valued most over the other available options.

Yes, I would say these are tautologies. They are not arguments but premises in my argument against free will.

The mental action of adding 574.4 to 907.2 does not involve desire. It's simply an application of rules to concepts. Yes, it's part of a larger process which to an extent involved desire. But from what began as rather sweeping generalisations about all actions being based on desire or values, you're now saying that this applies only to the bigger-picture "intended end" of the process. How do we identify the 'intended end' though? I'll readily admit that I have very strong desires to remain alive and to enjoy life. So are those are my 'intended ends' based on strongest desire, and what I do on a day-to-day basis towards those ends need not be based primarily on desires and values? I may be wrong, but you appear to be heading here towards arbitrary distinctions in order to preserve your initial theory.

Yes the mental action of adding does not involve desire, but it is an action done because of the desire to reach your end, which is to find the sum of the numbers for weapon damage in D3.

Again, I apologize, I should have been more clear to begin with if I wasn't.

As far as knowing our intended ends, we each know our own, you may not know all of mine, nor do I know all of yours. But our knowledge of each other's intended ends is irrelevant. What matters here is that we know our own.

Yes what you do on a day to day basis will be acting to achieve your desire to remain alive and be happy. Though I’m sure these aren’t always your strongest desires among options, even though they may be a lot of the time. For example, maybe you have someone in your life, whose life and happiness you value more than your own. In this case you would act in accordance with this stronger value. No doubt we have large webs of competing desires and values.

You seem to be agreeing that reasoning is a (largely) conscious, active process requiring the selection of certain propositions, premises and arguments as more viable than others. I don't know what your definition of 'choice' is, but a conscious active process of selection pretty much nails it to my mind. So I think that's an answer to your comment in post 139 that "This is reasoning. Consciousness seems necessary for this but I don't understand why choice would be. "

But reasoning generally is not based on desires or values.

To this I give the same answer as I did for your math problem. That is that we reason to reach an intended end.

Reasoning is similar to math. In fact, you don't even need to know what is being talked about to determine the validity of reasoning. I can tell you if reasoning is valid simply from the structure of the premises and conclusion.

Can you lay out an example of reasoning and show me at what point you think that free will is necessary, and that the reasoning could not be carried out from this point on without a free will?

[Mithrae]

Hey Griffin, hope the moving went well.

You're suggesting that for something to be the cause of something else it has to precede it in time, but I don't think that's true; the two things (in this case, the inherent 'nature' of a thing and consequently the way it behaves) could be simultaneous. Indeed if you had a couple of blocks on top of each other and removed the bottom block by sliding another into its place, you'd actually have the position of the top block now being caused by a block which came later!

Ok, that's fine with me if a cause and effect happen simultaneously in a temporal sense but I have a couple questions for clarification. Would you agree that our concept of causality presupposes a causal sequence, not in a temporal sense, as you pointed out, but in which for every cause there is an effect, and for every effect there is a cause that brought about this effect, and that we can differentiate the cause from the effect? And do you agree that for a cause to stand alone with no effect would no longer be a cause, and an effect with no cause is uncaused, and therefore not an effect? I just want to make sure we are on the same page here.

That sounds about right.

You say that the thing's nature is the cause of its behavior, so now we are looking at the thing's nature. Since the behavior is an effect of the thing's nature, is the nature of the thing caused by another more fundamental thing(2) or uncaused(1)? Or do you say the thing's nature causes its nature? . . . .


Besides that, I don't follow. Are you saying that a thing behaving according to its properties is not (2)? You said if an uncaused thing existed then its behavior would be either uncaused/random or determined by its properties. This leads me right into what I have been arguing. You have behavior caused by properties and these properties are caused by....? Either nothing (uncaused)(1), something else (2), or properties causing properties. . . .


It should be disregarded because if we follow a chain of causes in reverse and we reach a point on this chain, we ask the question: is this caused or uncaused? If it is uncaused/random, then that's the end of it. If it is caused, we can ask by what. This answer will be something that is not this thing itself as a whole. Like you said above, behavior is a consequence of a thing's nature. So what is the cause of this thing's nature? Either it is uncaused or caused by something else (prior, external, something more fundamental). The other option is that its nature is caused by its nature, which seems absurd to me.

In a weird way you seem to be agreeing with me here. If we were to reach a point on a causal chain where the nature/properties of a thing could not be said to have a prior cause, then its nature/properties are not an effect per your definition above. Our causal chain begins with that thing's behaviour, which is caused primarily (and perhaps wholly) by its nature/properties. That's (3), not (2) or (1) - a definite logical possibility and, barring an infinite regress, obviously an actual part of reality also.

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I don't think we should feel constrained if your theory of choice and determinism were true; as I said, this is the approach by which you're reconciling the two. But I think we're going to have to disagree here. I so far find myself unable understand your position as anything other than defining desires as the determiners of choice. Conceiving them in any more specific way I don't think that you could sufficiently confirm this universal principle you propose even in your own experience, and I think that examples like social faux pas and so on amply contradict the notion that decisions are always based on desire. You now even seem to acknowledge that things other than desires or values can play major roles in decision-making, but continue to simply assert that ultimately it comes down to desire/value. It doesn't make sense, except as a tautology based on definition.

I think you mistake my stance as defining any action that takes place to be determined by desire. We are talking about free will correct? Free will is supposedly exercised during conscious acts. Conscious acts being determined by our strongest desire is my position.

Faux pas are accidental, therefore not the intentional, conscious act of a person. You wouldn't hold the act of free will as an accident would you? So why employ an accident like it's a conscious decision to try to contradict my position?

I have never said that decisions were in a vacuum and that only desires were involved. If I have please show me where and I will retract it. My position is that you will consciously act to reach the intended end which you desire most, and that you could not choose your desires, and that because of this, free will doesn't exist.

Faux pas are non-random conscious behaviour. As we've discussed, I myself don't even think that we can validly exclude 'random' scenarios from our consideration of choice and decision-making. But if your theory requires us to exclude certain non-random conscious actions also, I think the problem lies with your theory rather than the actual processes which produce our behaviour.

Now you could say in the case of faux pas that our 'intended end' is to carry on the conversation - with the desire of appearing pleasant, urbane or whatever - but that simply highlights my point from the last post. You're not proposing a theory which accounts for specific actions and the decisions which produce them, you're saying that these individual actions (social, mathematical, logical and so on) occur within a framework which is governed by desires or values. I'm not persuaded even by that - except perhaps at the month-to-month or even year-to-year level of 'intended ends' - but the crucial point is that such a theory, even if valid, does not exclude genuinely free choice in how to attain those desired ends: How to live, how to be happy, how to be respected, how to be healthy, how to be wealthy etc. etc.

I acknowledge that in the big picture our lives are governed by desires - to live and to enjoy life above all else, with differing approaches to the latter (love, wealth, pleasure etc). You seem to acknowledge that in the small picture (maths, reasoning, faux pas etc.) our mental activity and consequent behaviour often are not based on desire or values. It would certainly be interesting to speculate further on how far down we can validly infer that our decisions are determined by desire. It'd be even more interesting to speculate on how much our macro-level desires and intentions can be shaped or focused by simple reasoning or conscious interpretation and integration from experience (an example of which I posted earlier). I don't think this gives us a basis on which to say that our choices are always determined by desires or values, but if I've made a fair assessment here perhaps we have at least found some grounds for agreement?