only you could find a way to quote exactly what i would quote to prove my point...to prove your point. There is no agency in the bolded statement. Act as a rock acts in a causal chain (as I say in parentheses). STFU till u find something new to b#tch about.

Is that meant to answer my question? It doesn't. How do you distinguish from how a rock acts so as to bring about some event, but does not have intent, while a person can act so as to bring about some event (as a part of a causal chain) but does have intent?

Who's the one lashing out and attacking?

Both of you, to be honest. The whole discussion would go a lot quicker and more smoothly if you would each stop trying to imply the other is stupid.

This thread is terrible.

As for the topic, I'm on the fence.

But I would really like to see a simple, one sentence, non-jargoned, explanation from durka of his position on how free will could be possible.

The determinist position is easy to state and easy to understand, whether one agrees with it or not.

hundreds of millions of years of evolution?

I take its truth as given.

That was one sentence, jargon free. Squaring away our empirical observations requires many pages and jargon. My own personal argument that I put forward in my work is that we may find freedom in our irrationality (rather than rationality, as most would suspect).

Look, this thread consists mostly of two things: people like me, who have no formal grounding in logic or philosophy, virtually begging you to make your position clearer, and people who do have such a grounding vehemently disagreeing with you. I'd just really appreciate it if you would make clear, not just your positions on this subject, but the reasons for those positions - with particular regard to this "extremely important but I'm not getting why" thing with beauty, etc - I'm not really interested in a big brawling row. I'm unable to picture libertarian free will in my mind, it makes no sense, but I couldn't care less if you believe in it, frankly; I just want to know what it is you do believe and why you believe it.

Libertarian free will only requires that there exists at least one instance of a choice or act which is not able to be determined by perfect knowledge of initial conditions and laws of nature and that it isn't merely "random." However, I think that there is more than one instance - they happen all the time. But, as I've indicated repeatedly, it's impossible to prove this (but it's equally impossible to prove the determinist's position).

I take the existence of free will, value (beauty, morals, etc), and responsibility as given: their truth is apprehended without need for proof. So, my project is merely to make coherent their existence with our other observations such as empirical observations that seem to suggest that 1) the universe is physicalistic and 2) there are determinate physical processes. So, I don't seat the free will in a dualistic sense of mind supervening on physical reality. Mind must be seated physicalistically. Compatibilists (and I'm convinced that OP is a compatibilist now) aren't able to see how one can have a physicalistic libertarian free will: mind is physical, physical things are determined by initial conditions and laws of nature (or the outcomes are random), therefore libertarian free will is impossible.

But, this is no argument (though it is their argument). I take free will as given: so, I take it as a reductio of their argument: there must be a way for the to explain agency and free will physicalistically...which is my project. This is the uphill battle of libertarianism that I referred to early ITT.

Personally, in my work, I add to the debate by arguing that our freedom exists not in our rational behavior, but in our ability to act irrationally. Is it an existence proof for libertarian free will? No, of course not, and I'm explicit about this. Does it show how free will can exist physicalistically? No, of course not, and I'm explicit about this. IMO, I don't think this "debate" will ever be settled: it's certainly not an empirical question. I also doubt that it can be resolved a priori. But, I take the truth of the existence of free will as given and go from there. If I'm trying to debate w/ someone holding an alternative position, then I have to find common ground and go from there. OP doesn't seem to have common ground, so the debate is fruitless...all I can do there is point out the inconsistencies in his argument.

The inconsistencies in his argument include his attempts to use concepts such as: act, deliberate, preference, value, and counterfactuals. A hard determinist can't use these things the way that he is (a compatibilist might, but a determinist certainly can't). I'm convinced that OP is really a compatibilist because he wants to use these concepts...yet he denies that he's a compatibilist (though I'm confident that he doesn't know what he's talking about: he either isn't aware of this position, or he's unaware how he's putting forward an incoherent position). Now, it's not the case that determinism is an incoherent position, merely OP's version of it.

Libertarian free will is a robust sense of an agent influencing a causal chain. I argue that a libertarian is not committed to sui generis action whereby their 'free act' is wholly outside of a causal chain. I want to allow for past events (initial conditions, etc.) to influence one's decision, but not determine it and for this non-determination to not merely be random, but to be the purposeful act of the agent. Spelling out these concepts is the hard part. A libertarian does not deny that at least some (maybe nearly all) acts of agents are wholly determined by initial conditions and laws of nature (such that they are wholly predictable given perfect information). So, the existence of deterministic behavior is not a problem for a libertarian: they need merely have at least one behavior that isn't determined (and yet not random). Once again, no existence proof is possible, so don't ask for one.

Oh, and not a single person ITT has demonstrated a grounding in the topic and has "vehemently" disagreed w/ me. OP and Madnak think that they have been doing this, but they haven't. No one has successfully engaged my argument that counterfactuals are out in a deterministic system. I'm not saying that it can't be done (because this is a controversial claim), but it's one that I think can be defended and no one has demonstrated that there is clearly both a non-empty set of possible worlds AND an appropriate R relation from our actual world to these possible worlds. (It is NOT sufficient to merely 'imagine' possible worlds and/or to express this in language, as I've shown. We're talking about possible world semantics, not syntax of language.)

But not a sentence that answers my question.

Rationality and irrationality are value judgments and are irrelevant to the determinist position.

The question is, where does it come from? I'm having a hard time grasping something that is neither deterministic or random.

That's good, because it would be a pretty vacuous kind of free will if something like "scratching my nose last Tuesday when it didn't itch" was the only thing I ever did in my life that wasn't deterministic.

This is a non-starter, since your feelings of truth as a given of free will, value, and responsibility may all be the result of deterministic processes.

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Agreed.

I don't see how yet either, but I am not willing to proceed to the conclusion that because I don't see how something it possible, it must be impossible.

I'm also not willing to start from a conclusion and work backward, at least not without having some flexibility in my conclusion.

This is what I'm having a hard time with. As an engineer I think of a black box with inputs, internal states, and outputs, and if there are two or more instances where the inputs and internal states are the same, yet the outputs differ, how can this be the result anything other than randomness?

Agreed, and I'm not asking for proof, how about just some speculation as to how it might occur?

praise the lord, something worth reading. Good work sir, being dead serious.

Both of you continue to demonstrate that you're not really aware of what's at stake. You continue to demand that I demonstrate something that we've already agreed cannot be done.

Tim: I know that sentence won't satisfy you, but you have to understand that nothing will. There cannot be what you're looking to have satisfied. "The question is, where does it come from?" Maybe you should read my post(s) more carefully. I was quite explicit that I don't have an answer for you. I already told you that nothing I can say to a determinist will satisfy them since we have NO common ground. Please do not pass over that comment: it's critical. I can talk to a compatibilist since they believe that there is value (you're rejecting my talk of rationality/irrationality). But, I've already been so explicit that I can't do so w/ a determinist.

You two are worse than talking to a wall. I give you exactly what is sufficient, but you demand more, or don't understand what's going on. I'm speaking of comments like "This is a non-starter, since your feelings of truth as a given of free will, value, and responsibility may all be the result of deterministic processes." You aren't understanding what I'm talking about if you come back with a comment like this.

Still waiting for a response to this.

oh sorry missed this the first time, too busy trying to figure out how you found yourself on the uncommon ground you stand on. I guess since your arguments all take place on unfamiliar ground, this is the only question I have left to ask. Why are you there? When there is a completely viable option that you yourself have admitted makes sense. That's like passing up the ferrari f-450, to get the honda civic for the same price so you can "pimp it out" with fancy rims and exhaust (your philosophical masturbation).

The difference, as I stated previously, is only in complexity. A rock acts upon the ground in the same way that external stimuli act upon ones eyes that act upon ones brain and a number of steps in between before and after. Intent is derived from the evolution of the need for genetic replication. There are so many steps that brought about the concept of intent, but this is the super basic gist of it. Nowhere, however, did we evolve into being able to choose. This is a nonexistent property in the universe, and to assume that we are alone in having it is arrogant to the point of peril.

Have you read Chomsky on Reducibility? What do you think about Tangled Hierarchies involving Circular Causality? Van Veen recently gave a Wiki link to a concept something like this whose name I can't remember now.

Up to now we've been very successful analyzing nature by breaking it apart into smaller and smaller pieces and seeing how large effects result from the accumulated effects of the smaller pieces. We've come to think the causative chain must proceed from the small to the large. But as Chomsky for one observes, our theoretical models do not always readily reduce. Neither may physicality for all we know. Just because bottom up causality is easier on our intuition does not make it a fact of physicality.

Prior to 20th century physics it was nearly impossible for us to imagine any kind of uncaused causes within physicality. Even after the success of quantum theory a mind as great as Albert Einstein found the concept unacceptable saying, "God does not play dice with the universe". The clockwork universe was so much easier on our intuition. But those of us who have grown up with quantum theory now find it not so difficult. Of course, as long as the uncaused cause is of the Random Nature we've grown accustomed to in quantum theory. But a Top-Down uncaused cause of a non-random nature? Surely, that is impossible.

I understand your reluctance to evoke random quantum flucuations as part of an explanation. But consider an immensly complex system sensitive to intitial conditions, with innumerable feedback loops within a tangled hierarchy of circular causation, swimming in a sea of random quantum flucuations which it feeds on as uncaused causes at levels of initial conditions. From this comes a physicalistic emergent consciousness and a physicalistic emergent mind acting with intent and apparent purpose. Is it such a great reach to posit the acts of such a mind as high level uncaused causes where the uncaused causes of quantum fluctuations are transformed by emergent properties of the system rather than just stochasically summed and washed out as when normally passing to classical levels? Is it such a great reach to posit those emergent and transformative properties of the mind to be intent and purpose? So that the acts are examples of Top-Down uncaused causes of a non random nature within physicality.


Unfortunately, I'm afraid you won't have much luck in your project convincing those who respond to a physicalistically emergent consciousness by escaping into the lately fashionable explanation for it as an "illusion".


PairTheBoard

I'm a hard determinist but I don't think it matters at all. It's best, imo, to forget about it. I'm sure we went through the same thing before when we realized that everything in the heavens doesn't revolve around us, and that we are simply a tiny planet in an insignificant galaxy. Sure, a lot of people were upset about it and didn't want to believe it but in the end it's true and it doesn't matter--life goes on the same as it did before we knew this.

I'm sympathetic to what you're saying. There's a current attempt to seat libertarian free will in "microtubules" in the brain where quantum phenomena can have macro-level effects.

But, nothing you've said goes against the physicalist thesis. Remember that physicalism is merely the claim that all there is are physical things (or, at least, that all things can be explained physically). This doesn't preclude emergent properties. The very simple way to seat libertarian free will is to go for dualism or some sort of supervenience relation between mind and brain. But, I'm trying to play the game on level footing w/ the compatibilist and attempt to share the physicalist intuition.

Physicalism holds that all effects are reducible to physical events; but, it does not follow that this is a good way to describe things (this is Dennett's work on the 3 stances).

Remember that it's extremely important for the libertarian that free decisions aren't random. So, merely pointing to quantum effects is insufficient. Randomness won't get you intent. So, what we need is a non-determined but non-random process which is still physically reducible (so that we avoid the mind/body problem). Do I have one? No...but so what? At least we know what to look for. The determinist, IMO, gives up the project and won't pursue this line of inquiry. Instead, I take the libertarian position as given and then find ways to make it cohere w/ our observations (the determinist takes our observations as given and says "the consequences be damned").

You are presupposing that a person does have intent existing outside of cause/effect.

You're apparently trying to take the pragmatist position...but the pragmatist would heavily disagree w/ you on the discovery that geocentrism was false. It made a HUGE difference. Life did not go on as if nothing changed: the scientific revolution burst forth from this finding.

Do you want a cookie for repeating something that I've been explicit about?

Look, the metaphysical question of the truth of free will is UNANSWERABLE...so why is it any worse for me to assume the existence of libertarian free will than to assume the truth that there is only deterministic processes?

That's some pretty cool stuff you are describing. Good work, this is an approach I hadn't anticipated, and have never heard before (save in the book "I am a Strange Loop".

I'd love for you to expound on the part about our theoretical models not reducing. Specifically, the types of theoretical models that don't reduce. I'd also like to know what circular causation is, or what it means to be swimming in a sea of uncaused causes at levels of initial conditions.

The concept 'free will' refers to the heuristics we've evolved to predict our behavior in stable environments, on long time scales. (In a sensory deprivation tank on LSD, there is nothing "free" or "willed" about your thoughts. And we haven't "willed" anything when we reflexively dodge a brick.)

This is what 'free will' means. If you wish to refer to something other than these heuristics, you need to clarify what; and probably choose different words, to avoid confusion.

I agree with Durkadurka on this one. The question should not be avoided. The delusion is used daily in atrocities so great! Can you imagine a world where what matters is not what you did, but instead what you were likely to do in an uncertain future. A world with short emotional memories, and long pragmatic ones. A law system based not on revenge and punishment, but on rehabilitation and causal restriction.

Nancy Cartwright How the Laws of Physics Lie

It's not a simple book since it's a professional-level philosophy book on phil of science and on the non-reducibility of theories. The truth of that thesis doesn't do what you think it does for this debate, though.

Umm, free will would more likely be unpredictable, DUCY?