Free will

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VictorianoOchoa
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Re: Free will

Post by VictorianoOchoa »

Londoner wrote: April 24th, 2018, 5:10 am
VictorianoOchoa wrote: April 23rd, 2018, 11:45 pm
In fact, I would argue that no argument for free will, thus far, has been convincing, given the consequence argument, which relies on the causality of all physical things, given materialist premises. I would venture to state that no argument of free will is sufficient unless it argues for supra-causality, the ability to supersede the causal laws of nature, which may necessarily incur an argument for an ideal mind (under idealist premises) or an emergent mind, which may thus have emergent causal powers, that can grant free will (under materialist premises).
Isn't a person a physical thing? Then why shouldn't that person have an effect on other physical things? It would be odd to describe the entire
universe in terms of the causal laws of nature - with the sole exception of people. Certainly we can describe the universe in such a way that it excludes humans as a 'cause', but we can do that for anything. That would be an argument against all notions of causality.

But assuming we do think of the universe in terms of particular things, including people, that have an effect on other things, 'free will' has got to be somebody's free will. (I assume we are not saying 'Free Will' is some sort of disembodied force in its own right.)

I would suggest that the problem is with the 'free' bit in 'free will', which is vaguely understood to mean something like 'cause-less' or 'for no reason'. But then it makes no sense to couple it with 'will' because 'that I will something' is a cause and a reason. It is saying that a decision to make a cup of coffee cannot be an exercise of free will - because I wanted the cup of coffee so it wasn't 'free'. In that case, in order to be 'free', an act would have to be independent of will, something like a nervous twitch.

So where is the problem? I find myself in the world. I am aware that things can be other than they are, that there are alternative futures. I try to make things go the way I want. I can only create a problem out of that if I deny my own existence as a subject that stands in relation to the world. But since this situation is prior to everything else, then to reject my own existence is to reject everything.
Hi Londoner. You raise a few valid points. Whatever controls the person's body (i.e. the mind) must either have some nonphysical component, given how the laws of thermodynamics both induce and limit causality, even under quantum variability, or it must follow that the theory of emergentism, which allows for novel causal powers beyond the bases of what cause it, must be true.

As per the cause bit, this is why I stated that free will must, in my opinion, be supra-causal, as opposed to contra-causal. Contra-causality is without a cause, whereas supra-causality would be causality with a dimension that supersedes the causal laws of nature (the ability to will against the causality of natural laws).

In other words, as you stated, the mind must be somehow unique for any amount of will to exist. Otherwise, our understanding of math would suggest that any amount of will is impossible.
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Re: Free will

Post by Thinking critical »

You are correct in your analysis of the "free will" paradox. I wrote an extensive post on this a few years back. You can't have both.
will is essentialy directed effort, therefore we can always ask why. If their is a reason there also comes a cause, it is just a conscious decision or reaction/response to a situation. One might argue that they didn't have to make that choice they had the freedom to change there mind.......this also leads to another infinite regress of why questions resulting in reasons/causes.
If the argument finally reaches a point when they say "no reason I just did it, it was completely spontaneous". We can then say "so you had no choice that Means free will doesn't exist".
The entire argument turns into a game of word play and wits.

Of course when most of us talk about free will outside of philosophy forums we are simply referring to our ability to make desicions and choices which will some how impact the future. To a certain degree we can accomplish reaching a desired outcome by choosing to go down a desired path (will) and because our choices may not be limited to a ensure a predetermined undesirable outcome (free) in hindsight we would say X was done at your own free will.
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SimpleGuy
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Re: Free will

Post by SimpleGuy »

The ojective free will is certainly not available, due to the deterministic Hamiltonian of the whole universe and the state (if both do exist) in the hilbert space prescribed as well in quantum mechanics or mechanics (at least if we describe the "whole system" with it and no outer measurement is possible). But how about free will for all human beeings as a criterion, is this a paradox ? Certainly not , it's a pertubative theorem that free will for all human beeings could exist, in the sense that the neural system seems to be independent of other neural systems !!
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Re: Free will

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VictorianoOchoa wrote: April 24th, 2018, 9:18 am
Hi Londoner. You raise a few valid points. Whatever controls the person's body (i.e. the mind) must either have some nonphysical component, given how the laws of thermodynamics both induce and limit causality, even under quantum variability, or it must follow that the theory of emergentism, which allows for novel causal powers beyond the bases of what cause it, must be true.

As per the cause bit, this is why I stated that free will must, in my opinion, be supra-causal, as opposed to contra-causal. Contra-causality is without a cause, whereas supra-causality would be causality with a dimension that supersedes the causal laws of nature (the ability to will against the causality of natural laws).

In other words, as you stated, the mind must be somehow unique for any amount of will to exist. Otherwise, our understanding of math would suggest that any amount of will is impossible.
My point was more on the lines of what 'Thinking critical' writes.

If we describe the world in physicals terms, including causality, then we are necessarily excluding the sort of language that refers to consciousness. For example, if we were describing gravity we would not say 'the apple wants to go towards the earth' because a scientific description deliberately excludes that kind of an explanation. Similarly, if we describe humans in terms of laws of thermodynamics or whatever, then there is going to be no place for 'will', free or otherwise.

But that is not the only way to describe things. My own experience of the world is not one in which I am just an example of general scientific laws. When talking of myself, it makes no sense to use language that ignores the consciousness that goes with being alive. For example, when I observe 'I see a cat in the garden' to translate that into a scientific description of space-time would be as misconceived as the example of the apple in the paragraph above.

I do not think there is any need to invoke mind as some special sort of stuff to try to reinsert it into a scientific description of the universe. I think it is simply about language. We create a problem when we try to fit words meant to be understood in one context into an inappropriate one.

I'll bet you three miles of the happiest gravity I'm right!
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VictorianoOchoa
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Re: Free will

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Londoner wrote: April 24th, 2018, 1:30 pm
VictorianoOchoa wrote: April 24th, 2018, 9:18 am
Hi Londoner. You raise a few valid points. Whatever controls the person's body (i.e. the mind) must either have some nonphysical component, given how the laws of thermodynamics both induce and limit causality, even under quantum variability, or it must follow that the theory of emergentism, which allows for novel causal powers beyond the bases of what cause it, must be true.

As per the cause bit, this is why I stated that free will must, in my opinion, be supra-causal, as opposed to contra-causal. Contra-causality is without a cause, whereas supra-causality would be causality with a dimension that supersedes the causal laws of nature (the ability to will against the causality of natural laws).

In other words, as you stated, the mind must be somehow unique for any amount of will to exist. Otherwise, our understanding of math would suggest that any amount of will is impossible.
My point was more on the lines of what 'Thinking critical' writes.

If we describe the world in physicals terms, including causality, then we are necessarily excluding the sort of language that refers to consciousness. For example, if we were describing gravity we would not say 'the apple wants to go towards the earth' because a scientific description deliberately excludes that kind of an explanation. Similarly, if we describe humans in terms of laws of thermodynamics or whatever, then there is going to be no place for 'will', free or otherwise.

But that is not the only way to describe things. My own experience of the world is not one in which I am just an example of general scientific laws. When talking of myself, it makes no sense to use language that ignores the consciousness that goes with being alive. For example, when I observe 'I see a cat in the garden' to translate that into a scientific description of space-time would be as misconceived as the example of the apple in the paragraph above.

I do not think there is any need to invoke mind as some special sort of stuff to try to reinsert it into a scientific description of the universe. I think it is simply about language. We create a problem when we try to fit words meant to be understood in one context into an inappropriate one.

I'll bet you three miles of the happiest gravity I'm right!
We know that physical entities create actions that follow physical laws. What if it was the case that an entity created an action that did not physical laws?

This may not be a sufficient argument for freedom of will. What if it were the case that the cause of what causes an entity's action does not follow physical laws? In the case of the human, if it is supposed that the nervous system causes all actions, then this cause of causality may be the nervous system structure. If the cause of what causes a human action (before it is initiated via the brain and sent down the spine) supersedes physical laws (not something that is paranormal, like levitation, but is instead purposed towards an end in a manner that supersedes physical causality) then could it not negate the causality of our physical understanding? And if this purposed action was not random, that is, it appeared to have a causal direction, could it not be, perhaps, an act of supra-causality?
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Re: Free will

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VictorianoOchoa wrote: April 24th, 2018, 10:36 pm We know that physical entities create actions that follow physical laws. What if it was the case that an entity created an action that did not physical laws?
Physical laws do not describe individual entities. In order to create a law, something that can be expressed in a formula, you have to abstract out everything that is particular to that entity. For example (rather crudely); 'Water boils at 100C'. All water? No; it would have to be absolutely pure, and at exactly sea level. In fact there may be no actual example of water that meets those conditions, so we could say that no real water follows that rule. The rule is purely theoretical, it only describes theoretical water, not any actual entity.

Similarly, no individual human corresponds to a scientific abstraction; 'Human'. The operation of the human body can be said to conform to scientific laws, but that does not tell us what is happening in a particular human body. For example, we can say of humans generally 'their eyes are sensitive to some light' but that does not tell us what any individual human is seeing. Or if 'brains are connected to thoughts' it doesn't follow that because all humans have brains they also have the same thoughts.

My free will would be an expression of my distinctiveness, my particularity. Since to describe humans as scientific abstractions is ignore particularity then necessarily it rules out free will. But science in that respect provides a deliberately restricted picture of the world, it does not deny that you (and I) are different from every other human in the universe, but it does not deal with what is different, only with what is common.

So I do not think 'free will' is contradictory to science. It is just not something science deals with.
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VictorianoOchoa
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Re: Free will

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Londoner wrote: April 25th, 2018, 5:29 am
VictorianoOchoa wrote: April 24th, 2018, 10:36 pm We know that physical entities create actions that follow physical laws. What if it was the case that an entity created an action that did not physical laws?
Physical laws do not describe individual entities. In order to create a law, something that can be expressed in a formula, you have to abstract out everything that is particular to that entity. For example (rather crudely); 'Water boils at 100C'. All water? No; it would have to be absolutely pure, and at exactly sea level. In fact there may be no actual example of water that meets those conditions, so we could say that no real water follows that rule. The rule is purely theoretical, it only describes theoretical water, not any actual entity.

Similarly, no individual human corresponds to a scientific abstraction; 'Human'. The operation of the human body can be said to conform to scientific laws, but that does not tell us what is happening in a particular human body. For example, we can say of humans generally 'their eyes are sensitive to some light' but that does not tell us what any individual human is seeing. Or if 'brains are connected to thoughts' it doesn't follow that because all humans have brains they also have the same thoughts.

My free will would be an expression of my distinctiveness, my particularity. Since to describe humans as scientific abstractions is ignore particularity then necessarily it rules out free will. But science in that respect provides a deliberately restricted picture of the world, it does not deny that you (and I) are different from every other human in the universe, but it does not deal with what is different, only with what is common.

So I do not think 'free will' is contradictory to science. It is just not something science deals with.
I hear your reasoning. It may also be true, however, that although things may be different in a relative sense, certain laws remain unchanged in how they apply to these different things, beyond relative adjustment. To take from your example, although different forms of water may require different temperatures to reach boiling point, the manner in which this boiling occurs, after all extrinsically disparate factors are considered, may remain the same. That is, the most abstract and subtle truths of reality may supersede relative factors, because they may not necessarily pertain to observable causes, but instead to the causes of these observable causes.

I am arguing that freedom of will, if true, would be such a subtle truth of reality. After all, physical things cause physical effects, in a, unstoppable chain of causality that pertains to physical laws. Freedom of will, on the other hand, is often regarded as the ability to "do otherwise." This ability, in itself, is not related to any relative factors, because it must necessarily manifest in different ways in different relative circumstances.

So although many philosophers have argued that freedom of will is self expression, I am arguing that if it is thought to be the capacity to do otherwise, as it is often conceived as, then it is necessarily contingent on scientific laws and limitations, via which causes of causality must manifest objectively.
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Re: Free will

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All the different descriptions I've seen on this forum are valid as well. I find that a lot. To go from, is it this, or is it that—to this AND that. It has multidimensional aspects.

I have many ideas and solutions that the law of free will is a very big part of. I hope it has some validity. My understanding of it is, for example-Let's take a figure like Lucifer wanting to snake talk a victim into a bad deal. He could bypass the law of non-interference and claim that the law of free will is in place. This is because the said victim, planet, has fallen for it. The victim made a well thought out decision while being deceived perhaps, nevertheless, it still counts as a free will choice. Lucifer, in the mean time is running around in circles scott free at the victim's expense. If this is the case, we could turn things around very quickly. It is a divine law, it is there for anyone to use. Do we know how?
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Re: Free will

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To have free will, is to choose to do otherwise. For example, we breath mostly without thought, however, we may choose to hold our breath, thereby exercising free will. We are not compelled to hold our breath, so being free to do so at anytime we wish, is proof of our ability to exercise free will, IMO.
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Re: Free will

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Present awareness wrote: July 1st, 2018, 2:24 pm To have free will, is to choose to do otherwise. For example, we breath mostly without thought, however, we may choose to hold our breath, thereby exercising free will. We are not compelled to hold our breath, so being free to do so at anytime we wish, is proof of our ability to exercise free will, IMO.
I do not agree that this a clear demonstration of free will, you have presented two choices and shown that you have the ability to direct your will towards one of them.
The act of not breathing is consequential of a decision, therefore determined. We can then ask why you made that decision, if there is an answer - the desicion not to breathe is also determined, if you answer I don't know - then you have shown that you are not in control of your will.
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Re: Free will

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Thinking critical wrote: July 2nd, 2018, 8:14 am
Present awareness wrote: July 1st, 2018, 2:24 pm To have free will, is to choose to do otherwise. For example, we breath mostly without thought, however, we may choose to hold our breath, thereby exercising free will. We are not compelled to hold our breath, so being free to do so at anytime we wish, is proof of our ability to exercise free will, IMO.
I do not agree that this a clear demonstration of free will, you have presented two choices and shown that you have the ability to direct your will towards one of them.
The act of not breathing is consequential of a decision, therefore determined. We can then ask why you made that decision, if there is an answer - the desicion not to breathe is also determined, if you answer I don't know - then you have shown that you are not in control of your will.
To ask, “why you made that decision” is to ask why the past is the way that it is and not something else. Since the past can’t be changed, some will claim it was determined or destined to be that way. However, free will happens in the moment, not in the past. Any choice made at any given moment, becomes the past as soon as it is made and clearly may not be changed.

That fact that you make a decision, means there is a choice. If there is no choice, only then do you not have free will.
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Re: Free will

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The problem with free will, is that the existence of it is dependendent of the person who whants to perceive it , respectively to measure it within it's own scope of validity. Which can change due to the own horizon of the experimenter called the game master.
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Re: Free will

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Thinking critical wrote: July 2nd, 2018, 8:14 am
Present awareness wrote: July 1st, 2018, 2:24 pm To have free will, is to choose to do otherwise. For example, we breath mostly without thought, however, we may choose to hold our breath, thereby exercising free will. We are not compelled to hold our breath, so being free to do so at anytime we wish, is proof of our ability to exercise free will, IMO.
I do not agree that this a clear demonstration of free will, you have presented two choices and shown that you have the ability to direct your will towards one of them.
The act of not breathing is consequential of a decision, therefore determined. We can then ask why you made that decision, if there is an answer - the desicion not to breathe is also determined, if you answer I don't know - then you have shown that you are not in control of your will.
You've constructed a convenient but false dichotomy to support your desired conclusion. Either all my choices are fully caused or completely random, and therefore because I have no free will, then I must conclude that I have no free will. At least one other option is that my subjective experience matches reality, and I am in fact making a free choice. I may be able to give you reasons for my choice, and I may not. There may be reasons unknown to me, or there may be no reason but my arbitrary choice; I may be an ass, but I never met Buridan.

You've assumed as true facts not in evidence to reach an answer which conflicts with your perceptions. Not only do I not believe you, but I don't believe that you believe it. Isn't the right answer is to at least withhold judgment; if we don't know, we don't know, right? What appeals to people about tossing their humanity in the trash bin? Assuming rational people could hold either view, or make no judgment, why do you want to hold onto that one? I can only assume you enjoy feeling smart for holding it, or want to absolve yourself of the accountability that goes with freedom. But, deep down, I still think you know you have choices, just as the alcoholic knows he can quit.
"If determinism holds, then past events have conspired to cause me to hold this view--it is out of my control. Either I am right about free will, or it is not my fault that I am wrong."
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Re: Free will

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SimpleGuy wrote: July 2nd, 2018, 9:46 am The problem with free will, is that the existence of it is dependendent of the person who whants to perceive it , respectively to measure it within it's own scope of validity. Which can change due to the own horizon of the experimenter called the game master.
I agree with you here, that it all comes down to perception and how a person chooses to look at things. It seems that our perceptions always come after the fact and that we perceive our thoughts after we think them, feel the pain after the finger is already burned etc.

Since everything happens in the present moment, that is where one should look if free will exists. Trouble is the present is both here and gone at the same time. As soon as we say “it is now” it is in the past.
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Re: Free will

Post by LuckyR »

Free will is obvious to the casual observer. Predetermination is a very plausible theory for those who ponder causality. Either is ultimately possible, but unfortunately for the predeterminists, even if it could be proven, it would continue to appear to be free will to the casual observer.
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