Freewill

[Wootah]

Is free will demonstrated in eating the cake or not eating the cake?

Eating the cake seems to demonstrate action and so demonstrate free will but not eating the cake demonstrates free will more so because you are overcoming something you want to do.

Always doing what you want demonstrates less freewill than not doing what you want. IMO...

[Purple Knight]

Eating the cake seems to demonstrate action and so demonstrate free will but not eating the cake demonstrates free will more so because you are overcoming something you want to do.

This lines up with my idea of what free will is, yes.

Why I say I don't believe in free will is that when we overcome one desire, we're just moved by another one.

If you consider a fat woman who wishes to be thin so she can mate, she may overpower her desire to eat the cake only to be moved by her desire to mate which isn't any better. She may then leave her mate in order to pursue "higher" things like art, but even the beauty of art is a mere desire to be fulfilled. She'll never be free of her own desires. I don't even think she can choose which desire to be moved by and she'll just give in to whichever one is stronger.

[Wootah]

Miles wrote: ↑Tue Mar 21, 2023 4:29 pm
If their behavior is not absolutely random then it has to be deterministic. Do atoms behave utterly at random?

That's a false dichotomy as I'd already showed above, in that we can readily conceive at least three other alternatives to absolute randomness and absolute determinism; probability distribution, choice and erratic behaviour..

I think my use of 'systems' can be understood as you saying 'a chain of cause ---> effects'.
I don't think they run forever but I do think they run until they run out of energy. Friction slows the billiard ball, there is no more wood for a fire to burn, etc.


My point is that the flame, the chemical reaction, goes to completion. It can't not go to completion. The visible everyday act of not eating is a mystery to determinism because it violates the rules of determinism.

Sorry people, but I don't believe I have the time it would take to bring you up to speed on determinism. Perhaps re-watching the video in post 15 will help.


Have a good day, and good luck.

.

That's OK. Forum is free to post or not post. You however are not free to post or not post (obvious joke is obvious). I watched the video and posted a comment there. Who knows maybe they will respond as well.
You do you.

[Wootah]

Eating the cake seems to demonstrate action and so demonstrate free will but not eating the cake demonstrates free will more so because you are overcoming something you want to do.

This lines up with my idea of what free will is, yes.

Why I say I don't believe in free will is that when we overcome one desire, we're just moved by another one.

If you consider a fat woman who wishes to be thin so she can mate, she may overpower her desire to eat the cake only to be moved by her desire to mate which isn't any better. She may then leave her mate in order to pursue "higher" things like art, but even the beauty of art is a mere desire to be fulfilled. She'll never be free of her own desires. I don't even think she can choose which desire to be moved by and she'll just give in to whichever one is stronger.

Yes, the passions enslave as well. The passions enslave because they have no head ruling them. Might I suggest Christ (seriously) as the answer to that?

[Purple Knight]

Yes, the passions enslave as well. The passions enslave because they have no head ruling them. Might I suggest Christ (seriously) as the answer to that?

The problem with any pursuit assumed to be highest, beyond all passions, beyond personal wants, is that someone is ultimately doing it because they value free will and they want it.

As an atheist I can choose to pursue goodness. Righteousness, as religious people say. But... I'm doing that because on some level, I want to. I have not escaped anything.

[Mithrae]

Eating the cake seems to demonstrate action and so demonstrate free will but not eating the cake demonstrates free will more so because you are overcoming something you want to do.

This lines up with my idea of what free will is, yes.

Why I say I don't believe in free will is that when we overcome one desire, we're just moved by another one.

If you consider a fat woman who wishes to be thin so she can mate, she may overpower her desire to eat the cake only to be moved by her desire to mate which isn't any better. She may then leave her mate in order to pursue "higher" things like art, but even the beauty of art is a mere desire to be fulfilled. She'll never be free of her own desires. I don't even think she can choose which desire to be moved by and she'll just give in to whichever one is stronger.

I think the idea of second- or higher-order desires is relevant here: We could suppose that volitional actions are always decided by desire, but that still wouldn't answer the question of which desires are prioritized and why.

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher-order_volition
  
  Higher-order volitions (or higher-order desire), as opposed to action-determining volitions, are volitions about volitions. Higher-order volitions are potentially more often guided by long-term beliefs and reasoning.
  
  A first-order volition is a desire about anything else, such as to own a new car, to meet the pope, or to drink alcohol. Second-order volition are desires about desires, or to desire to change the process, the how, of desiring. Examples would be desires to want to own a new car; to want to meet the Pope; or to want to quit drinking alcohol permanently. A higher-order volition can go unfulfilled due to uncontrolled lower-order volitions.
  
  An example for a failure to follow higher-order volitions is the drug addict who takes drugs even though they would like to quit taking drugs. According to Harry Frankfurt the drug addict has established free will when their higher-order volition to stop wanting drugs determines the precedence of their changing, action-determining desires either to take drugs or not to take drugs.[1]

The implication of that line of thinking would be that free will isn't binary, something we either have or don't have; it's something we develop through a life of thoughtful decision-making (or alternatively fail to develop much, through a life of impulsiveness, following the herd or the like).

[Bubuche87]

We can make robots that eat and refrain from eating. Easy.
Does that mean that they have free will ?

Your comparison fall flat because you use an analogy to explain how it doesn't work.

With the same reasoning I can compare a train to an alarm clock and say that a clock needs to be winded manually to work. A train cannot be manually wined, therefore a train cannot work.
"It always has been a mystery how train work they defy the laws of physics".

Like it has been said the brain is very complex. It makes it very hard (impossible with our current technology) to know why something happened.
But it doesn't mean that there is no reason.

[Purple Knight]

The implication of that line of thinking would be that free will isn't binary, something we either have or don't have; it's something we develop through a life of thoughtful decision-making (or alternatively fail to develop much, through a life of impulsiveness, following the herd or the like).

I agree that it's a good way to think of it. And though I don't believe in free will, I would challenge anyone else who doesn't to better distinct the drunk from the alcoholic who successfully controls himself - better than, "That one guy has developed free will, and the other has not."

I have an answer but I want to see if anyone else does.

[Wootah]

We can make robots that eat and refrain from eating. Easy.
Does that mean that they have free will ?

Your comparison fall flat because you use an analogy to explain how it doesn't work.

With the same reasoning I can compare a train to an alarm clock and say that a clock needs to be winded manually to work. A train cannot be manually wined, therefore a train cannot work.
"It always has been a mystery how train work they defy the laws of physics".

Like it has been said the brain is very complex. It makes it very hard (impossible with our current technology) to know why something happened.
But it doesn't mean that there is no reason.

Well on the one hand, no robots don't have free will, we could see the eat or not eat command.

On the other, chatgpt is freaking me out and I think the future of AI seems pretty bright/

Like it has been said the brain is very complex. It makes it very hard (impossible with our current technology) to know why something happened.
But it doesn't mean that there is no reason.

God of the gaps reasoning?

[Bubuche87]

[Replying to Wootah in post #28]

The fact that we cannot see it doesn't mean it's not there.

Your position is indeed close to a "god of the gap" but I would say it's an argument from ignorance or incredulity ( they are not the same but depending on the formulation of your position one or the other would apply).

You cannot say that because we don't the cause there is no cause.
As you cannot say that because we cannot prove free will there is no free will.

If we don't know the correct answer is we don't know, and anything deviating from that has a burden of proof.

Which brings us back to epistemology. It's always possible to make an infinity of explanations for any given set of fact. Trying to argue for an explanation with a bunch of words have been shown to be unreliable. Same thing for feelings (how much one is confident in something has no bearing on it being true)

This bothers apologists because it's the only thing they have: words.
On the other hand popper and the science (the modern science) has brought us great tools to do that.
It appears that how the model is elegant or seems to make sense to us is irrelevant to its truth value.

Novel (=we don't already know or expect it) testable repeatable predictions seem to be a fairly sturdy tool.
Accounting for things we already know has ZERO value.

[Wootah]

[Replying to Bubuche87 in post #29]

Yeah words. You had to spin a few just now.

I'm surprised how strong my argument is as well. It can't be right. Determinism seemed so certain for me as well.

Determinism can't explain basic phenomena.

I wonder if a fire can not burn wood.