Questions for those who believe in free will

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Rational Atheist
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Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #1

Post by Rational Atheist »

I'm trying to understand the belief in free will. For those who believe in free will, do you believe that your actions are determined by a chain of prior causes or not? If you do, you're a determinist and do not believe in free choice, since you can't control the causes that took place before you were born. If you don't believe your actions are determined by a chain of prior causes, or don't believe that that causal chain extends to before your birth, then you believe that at some point before your action, an event occurred for no reason whatsoever (purely random). How could this possibly get you free will either? No combination of determinism nor indeterminism (randomness) gives you "free will" in the sense of authorship of and responsibility for your actions. How can you believe anyone is ultimately responsible for what they do?

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #31

Post by Mrs.Badham »

My problem occurs at the “moment of consequence”.

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #32

Post by Miles »

Mrs.Badham wrote: Sun Mar 14, 2021 9:42 pm My problem occurs at the “moment of consequence”.
Curious as to what your problem is. Care to share?


.

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #33

Post by John Bauer »

[Replying to Mrs.Badham in post #26]
Mrs.Badham wrote: Fri Mar 12, 2021 4:11 pm
I can’t think of what a consciousness would do without freewill? Would it simply observe what happens to it? I can’t help but feel that consciousness and freewill are somehow the same thing. Perhaps one is a consequence of the other.
For me, at least, most of these kinds of problems are resolved by ditching the notion of free will altogether. Consider the term itself: "free will." What is said to be free? The will. But that is a human faculty, the conative domain (in addition to the cognitive and affective). Why should we predicate freedom of a faculty? Do not conative phenomena derive from states of affairs intrinsic to the agent himself? Rather, it is the agent that is free, not his will. The will is determined by the nature of the agent himself, that is, his desires and aversions. As John Locke argued, freedom is not to be predicated of volition "but to the person having the power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the mind shall choose or direct," this freedom being found in "the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent."[1] Accordingly, it's not the will that is free so much as the agent himself. Thus we should speak of free agency, not free will.

The will is determined by that which the agent prefers, his desires or aversions. An agent has the freedom to do otherwise if, and only if, he prefers or wills to do otherwise.[2] "The freedom to do otherwise does not require that you are able to act contrary to your strongest motivation but simply that your action be dependent on your strongest motivation in the sense that, had you desired something else more strongly, then you would have pursued that alternative end. [...] Given these analyses, determinism seems innocuous to freedom."[3]

Consider the example provided by Purple Knight (Post #30). He introduced a character named Two-Face who would make decisions based on a coin-toss. "He chooses to flip the coin," he said, "but he doesn't choose the result." But even here, Two-Face's actions are dependent upon his strongest motivation, to choose whatever is the result of the coin-toss (which happened to be 7-11). "Instead of basing his choice on thoughts," Purple Knight said—but he is mistaken, for Two-Face did base his choice on thoughts, namely, a deliberate desire to follow the result of the coin-toss. "I didn't really want to go to 7-11," Two-Face said, and that may be true but his desire to follow the results of the coin-toss was stronger than his desire for going to Kum & Go (or his desire to follow the results of the coin-toss was stronger than his aversion to going to 7-11).

It is interesting to consider that the agent is free with respect to his capacity to act according to his will, but he is not free to determine his own will. "Man can act according to his will, but it is not in his own power to determine ‘freely’ whether he will ‘will’ or will not ‘will’, nor what will be the object of his will." The will is determined by antecedent factors, flowing through a causal chain; being antecedents, these causes are extrinsic to the will itself.[4]

Footnotes:

[1] John Locke, An Essay Concerning the Human Understanding (1690), Book 2, Chapter 21.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. "Free Will" (2002; rev. August 21, 2018).

[4] Hugo Van den Enden, "Thomas Hobbes and the Debate on Free Will — His Present-Day Significance for Ethical Theory," Philosophica, vol. 24, no. 2 (1979), pp. 187-188.

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #34

Post by The Tanager »

Rational Atheist wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 7:33 pmI'm trying to understand the belief in free will. For those who believe in free will, do you believe that your actions are determined by a chain of prior causes or not? If you do, you're a determinist and do not believe in free choice, since you can't control the causes that took place before you were born. If you don't believe your actions are determined by a chain of prior causes, or don't believe that that causal chain extends to before your birth, then you believe that at some point before your action, an event occurred for no reason whatsoever (purely random). How could this possibly get you free will either? No combination of determinism nor indeterminism (randomness) gives you "free will" in the sense of authorship of and responsibility for your actions. How can you believe anyone is ultimately responsible for what they do?
I believe in free will. A prior cause to my action is my personal agency, my will. If that fits what you mean by "a chain of prior causes," then I'm neither a determinist nor an indeterminist; I'm a free-willer. If that doesn't fit what you mean, then you have possibly created a false dilemma, where personal agency is a third option to being determined by a chain of prior causes or complete randomness. Why think that is not a valid third option?

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #35

Post by Mrs.Badham »

[Replying to John Bauer in post #34]

So you said that “ The will of the agent is determined by his preferences and aversions...” but you also said “he has no power over the object of his will.”

I have many preferences, some of which are contradictory to one another.

I want to get home quickly, but I really want a beer.
I want to save my money, but I really want a beer.
I want to get up early, but I really want a beer.

To say that I have no power over the object of my will, simply because I had thoughts before those thoughts seems strange. I have thousands of thoughts a day. Maybe even about one single subject in a day. (I don’t know, that might be an exaggeration.) I can’t possibly act on them all. I must choose.

Saying that the choices are illusions, because I have experiences that I draw on to make those decisions, makes less and less sense the more I think about it.

The fact that I have thoughts related to other thoughts does not mean I can’t pick and choose between which thoughts I will act on. I don’t think there’s a finite number of thoughts that can be thought.

My thoughts, my actions, my environment, my experience and my consciousness are all mine. Just because they come together at this particular place at this particular time doesn’t mean they’re not.

Think of it this way; a tire is not a car. A gas tank is not a car. A steering wheel is not a car.
You wouldn’t point at a car, and say it isn’t a car because it’s made up of a tire and gas tank and steering wheel. That’s what makes it a car.

You shouldn’t say that I didn’t make a decision because it’s made up of thoughts. That’s what a decision is.

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #36

Post by Purple Knight »

John Bauer wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 2:43 amthis freedom being found in "the absence of all the impediments to action that are not contained in the nature and intrinsical quality of the agent."
The fat girl who wants to be anorexic doesn't see a difference in what's part of her and what's not, nor should she. She's the closest to perfect understanding of the matter. (So is anyone who wants to kill themselves by simply refusing to breathe and finds that they cannot.)

She'll exert her will and starve herself until she can't, and she'll go back to food despite the fact that her truest desire is not to do so. She wants to be loved, purely, for her hot body and nothing else. She doesn't want that food but she eats it anyway because she is merely an animal, programmed to do whatever it will do. When she goes back to food she has learned this, and despairs, as we all should, because it is true of every one of us. She would be happier if there was someone outside of her, starving her, preventing her from eating.

When she exercises until she can't anymore, she knows what most people don't know: Their will is worth nothing. They are animals, acting according to their programming. They are no better for having a complex brain than an amoeba is for not having one. She wishes for the programming of another, but it is still just programming, since some anorexics don't even want to be anorexic.

This is what I mean when I say we have no free will. Our better brain is a better engine but we're still just a car; just a machine. There's essentially nothing in the driver's seat. This goes back to what Bedlam said: There is no my free will because there is no me. Most of us think we have a mind and a body, unlike the amoeba that just has a body and is more like a lump of coal agency-wise than it is like us. I don't think the lump of coal, the amoeba, or the human even really has agency. None of these things have control over their own bodies, because none of these things exist as separate things from their bodies. All of these things are simply parts of the universe that act according to the laws of physics.
John Bauer wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 2:43 amIt is interesting to consider that the agent is free with respect to his capacity to act according to his will, but he is not free to determine his own will. "Man can act according to his will, but it is not in his own power to determine ‘freely’ whether he will ‘will’ or will not ‘will’, nor what will be the object of his will."
Exactly. The will is just another part of the body. Neurons firing in the brain.
John Bauer wrote: Mon Mar 15, 2021 2:43 amConsider the example provided by Purple Knight (Post #30). He introduced a character named Two-Face who would make decisions based on a coin-toss. "He chooses to flip the coin," he said, "but he doesn't choose the result." But even here, Two-Face's actions are dependent upon his strongest motivation, to choose whatever is the result of the coin-toss (which happened to be 7-11). "Instead of basing his choice on thoughts," Purple Knight said—but he is mistaken, for Two-Face did base his choice on thoughts, namely, a deliberate desire to follow the result of the coin-toss. "I didn't really want to go to 7-11," Two-Face said, and that may be true but his desire to follow the results of the coin-toss was stronger than his desire for going to Kum & Go (or his desire to follow the results of the coin-toss was stronger than his aversion to going to 7-11).
Maybe my point got lost in terminology (because I'm using free will and choice in a particular way, and admittedly you're selecting what is probably better terminology) but my point was simply that Two-Face has a reasonable claim to his actions not being deterministic that the rest of us lack, but that most of us don't really want what he has. Instead of acting upon his strongest desire, he has made a commitment to go by the coin instead, and by doing so he generates a result of apparently randomly acting against his better judgment. Like the fat girl, he might want to go against the coin but he doesn't, because he has a compulsion. This compulsion gives him a claim to his actions being random, as in, if there really are multiple universes he might be the only one acting differently in otherwise identical ones. But this randomness is bought by abandoning what you call his agency; he is now slave to the coin. (I use the term abandoning as if it is him doing it and he does have free will for the purposes of clarity.)

Most people are happy with free agency; most people are happy that there's not a coin (or someone else) forcing them to do the opposite of what they want to do and get an objectively inferior product from 7-11 instead of the good drink from Kum & Go that they wanted.

Only the fat girl knows the truth: We have no free will, and that's pure misery. It's horrid to have to act on your strongest desire and be unable to change or reorder it. It is a more restrictive cage than being slave to the coin. It is a worse cage than being a slave to a human master. We're all imprisoned in our own bodies in what is the cruelest imprisonment imaginable, we just don't see it that way because we aren't, for the most part, programmed to.

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #37

Post by Purple Knight »

Mrs.Badham wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 9:59 pmTo say that I have no power over the object of my will, simply because I had thoughts before those thoughts seems strange. I have thousands of thoughts a day. Maybe even about one single subject in a day. (I don’t know, that might be an exaggeration.) I can’t possibly act on them all. I must choose.

Saying that the choices are illusions, because I have experiences that I draw on to make those decisions, makes less and less sense the more I think about it.

The fact that I have thoughts related to other thoughts does not mean I can’t pick and choose between which thoughts I will act on. I don’t think there’s a finite number of thoughts that can be thought.

My thoughts, my actions, my environment, my experience and my consciousness are all mine. Just because they come together at this particular place at this particular time doesn’t mean they’re not.

Think of it this way; a tire is not a car. A gas tank is not a car. A steering wheel is not a car.
You wouldn’t point at a car, and say it isn’t a car because it’s made up of a tire and gas tank and steering wheel. That’s what makes it a car.

You shouldn’t say that I didn’t make a decision because it’s made up of thoughts. That’s what a decision is.
The whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Nothing invalid in this. But I've emphasised pick. What do you think your picker is, exactly? I want to know. You think something is picking. Something is making that choice.

Now, if you were just a computer with a line of code that says, "pick the greater delayed gratification over the instant gratification" then there would be your picker, you would select not to have the beer, and I think we would both say you never had free will.

So. The question is: What is your picker that's better than that computer's picker, and how is it better?

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #38

Post by Mrs.Badham »

My picker would be what I refer to as “myself”. I think it’s the part of me that a Christian would believe gets judged by god.

Myself is me. I’m the one who must live with the consequences of my actions. Like, when I go to work hung over, I have no one else to blame, but myself.

Yes, I’m an alcoholic. No, my alcoholism is not separate from myself. It is me.

Let me explain a little. I consider every aspect of myself to be “me”.
My liver is me, my foot is me, my alcoholism is me, my thirst and hunger (wherever they reside), my anger, my hockey skills (or lack of) are all me. They’re mine. We all live inside my self.

I’m a huge fan of Jordan Peterson. He says, “Meaning is derived from responsibility”. The more responsibility we take on, the more our lives will mean. I agree with this.
Last year I travelled to China for work. I was embarrassed at the quality of the tool we sent.
I assumed all responsibility, and created a quality control system to avoid a similar problem in the future. I took full control of the program, and in the following year, we’ve avoided all the problems that embarrassed me the year before.

I know you could say it was determined. You could say it was unavoidable. But I could have easily pointed fingers. I totally wanted to. The other managers did.

So, I’m not actually sure if you’re saying that I have no control, or if you’re saying that the control I feel I have, is an illusion. Either one seems strange to me.

If responsibility is illusion, or not, It would seem that taking it and believing you have it, is the same thing.

It’s that old saying, “whether you believe you can or can’t, you’re right.”

Believing that responsibility does not exist feels dark. It feels lonely. It feels desperate. To be determinist is to be Nihilistic. If all is determined, no matter what happens, it could have happened no other way.

I have a friend who’s a prison guard. She says none of the prisoners take any responsibility for their lives. None of it is their fault.

It would seem that no matter which way you look at it, believing you have control, or not, will turn out correct.

As for your question about the computer with a line of code about delayed gratification; Why would picking the later delayed gratification be better than picking the immediate gratification?

I really enjoy talking with sexy waitresses and drinking cold beer while watching sports replays. I do!!! But I can’t say I’m better than a computer at picking outcomes.

I think your mistake, if I could be so bold, is that you believe one thought follows another.
I don’t believe it works that way. I believe dozens of thoughts follow one another, and dozens of thoughts follow that one, all of them modifying each other, contradicting each other, and working with each other. The mind is a mess.

Its only in retrospect that a causal chain exists.

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #39

Post by Purple Knight »

Mrs.Badham wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 10:28 pmYes, I’m an alcoholic. No, my alcoholism is not separate from myself. It is me.
Well, I don't hate you. I do hate every other alcoholic and I say some pretty nasty things about alcoholics on this forum, so from here on out, please read "present company excepted" ...unless there's another alcoholic reading who's shameless about it. I will ring his neck with a cord of displeased vipers until the "present company excepted" that he ate up when he was not to have it pops back up out of his throat.
Mrs.Badham wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 10:28 pmLet me explain a little. I consider every aspect of myself to be “me”.
My liver is me, my foot is me, my alcoholism is me, my thirst and hunger (wherever they reside), my anger, my hockey skills (or lack of) are all me. They’re mine. We all live inside my self.

I’m a huge fan of Jordan Peterson. He says, “Meaning is derived from responsibility”. The more responsibility we take on, the more our lives will mean. I agree with this.
Last year I travelled to China for work. I was embarrassed at the quality of the tool we sent.
I assumed all responsibility, and created a quality control system to avoid a similar problem in the future. I took full control of the program, and in the following year, we’ve avoided all the problems that embarrassed me the year before.
So I have the same question... if your desire to just point fingers is you, and your better work ethic is also you, where is the picker? Where is the part that chooses between these desires if there is such a thing? Now, if, having been born (or shaped by experience) into having a good work ethic simply made that desire stronger, then there is no picker at all and the strongest desire simply won out, as it always does.

Now, that doesn't mean I think taking responsibility is a bad idea; I think it's great when universalised, and it ought to be universalised. (When not universalised it often leads to disaster for the person doing it who is better than the rest that don't do it and that just worsens matters all round but that's sort of a tangent.)

What I'm saying is that you uniquely have a good work ethic because you were either born with it or developed it. I may be sacrificing my reputation here by admitting I listen to Jordan Peterson as well. Now, some of what he says I absolutely disagree with, and he's often held up as the trademark example of alt-rightism and its racism, and I believe that is true. That doesn't mean he never makes point or two I like; he sometimes does. He's phenomenally logical. Sometimes he says something that resonates with me, and that's because I was hardwired to like that particular point. Even if it's a purely logical point, I'm just hardwired to like what is logical and dislike what is contradictory or hypocritical. In fact, people with double standards and hypocrites make me very angry. This is just what I am; what I am hardwired to be. I can perhaps change (and I bloody hope I can) but then I need some reason to do so.
Mrs.Badham wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 10:28 pmIf responsibility is illusion, or not, It would seem that taking it and believing you have it, is the same thing.
We do have to behave as if we have free will, even if we don't. The result of doing otherwise is ruinous. Those prisoners you mention are being punished for things they did because the result is a society with less people who do those things. I think we would both agree that for some of them, it might not be their fault. Perhaps one was abused since birth and finally snapped and slaughtered their abusive parent. I don't really consider such an act to be blameworthy (though I also don't think murder should ever go unpunished simply because of the precedent it sets).

I think we would both see that person as I see all people: A prisoner in its own mind that couldn't have been expected to act otherwise. There is a limit to how much abuse one person can take without lashing out, and when your own parent is the one doing the abusing, especially when that parent is charismatic and/or connected, cries for help are often ignored or sidelined. There may not be a way out. We both probably understand that.

Now, another inmate killed out of greed. They killed and mugged an elderly old woman for booze money. This we will say is avoidable. This we will say is something we darn well expect people not to do. This is unacceptable. But the truth is we don't know the strength of the desire in this inmate's head, and they may have been just as compelled and helpless as the abused child. So we will put a compulsion on the other side that pushes Greedy McDrinky in the other direction: If you do this behaviour, you will go to jail (or, if I had my way, the electric chair). Now, if they can find another way, they have every incentive to do so. This is why I think punishment is necessary despite not believing in free will, though I admit it's a tenuous position since I don't really believe the person is, strictly speaking, at fault. The best I can do is say that I'm not at fault for wanting what I want either (a society that doesn't kill its members randomly for booze money) and that I can't help that you and I outvote people like Greedy McDrinky, and I can't help that I use that to get what I want too. The notable difference is that what I want is better for more people.
Mrs.Badham wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 10:28 pmBelieving that responsibility does not exist feels dark. It feels lonely. It feels desperate. To be determinist is to be Nihilistic. If all is determined, no matter what happens, it could have happened no other way.
I don't think it's all that terrible. It just means that when all is said and done, and I've done everything I possibly could, I get to let it go. I'm also naturally inclined to take responsibility, but seeing people who don't get rewarded I've had to revise my view, and then revise it again. Yes, I have a moral obligation to take responsibility for what is my fault. If I get fired for it, well then, that's just what happens. It's what has happened, will happen, and will always have happened. It's much better than thinking I'd be wrong no matter what I did and I should have always chosen the other option.

I don't think I've ever chosen one right thing in my life, actually. I'm constantly revising and picking the other thing only for that to turn out to be wrong too. But I've done the best I can. All I can do is act on the best information I have.
Mrs.Badham wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 10:28 pmI think your mistake, if I could be so bold, is that you believe one thought follows another.
I don’t believe it works that way. I believe dozens of thoughts follow one another, and dozens of thoughts follow that one, all of them modifying each other, contradicting each other, and working with each other. The mind is a mess.

Its only in retrospect that a causal chain exists.
Some people think the future modifies the past. This seems to me like a part of the same thread.



Now, even if this is true this doesn't mean things don't reach equilibrium settle into the specific grooves they were meant to.

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Re: Questions for those who believe in free will

Post #40

Post by Mrs.Badham »

So, after much deliberation, I’ve come up with this;
My picker is my conscious self.
My brain is not a single organ. It’s like 30 organs. Each one is responsible for a different aspect of my self. Each one makes requests and demands of my consciousness.
It’s my consciousness that is responsible for the prioritization of those demands and requests. I think consciousness is proof of free will, because there are aspects of ourselves that don’t require consciousness. My beating heart, my immune system and my lungs. Perhaps they have a form of consciousness all their own. Sperm would seem to.
Anyway, my consciousness is what ties me together. It’s what makes my many parts a singular person.
So, for instance, my bowels might be telling me it’s time to go, but there’s another part of me that wants to see what happens in this TV show. My experience with TV tells me it’s only a few more minutes until the show ends, so I decide to wait, and my bowels put up with it. That’s an example of free will, because my decision was not automatic. I didn’t go to the washroom as soon as the feeling hit me, but I didn’t soil myself either.

I was thinking more about the idea of one thought following another. It occurred to me that I actually think very few thoughts, relative to the amount of possible things there are to think about. Most of what our brain experiences would actually be feelings or senses. When I look around at the place I work, at all the things I have to do, I don’t actively label and think about everything I see. It’s more like an understanding or general assessment.

Do I have a choice about how I feel? I would say yes. But that is because I think feeling are not a thing in themselves, but rather a consequence. I know how to feel good about a project. If I do my best and take full responsibility for my work, I will feel better about what I do. If I don’t do my best, if I procrastinate and blame everyone else, I will not feel good about what I do.

I don’t understand your definition of responsibility.
I don’t understand how you hate someone for being an alcoholic, if you don’t believe it’s their choice.

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