Free Will vs Determinism

[henry quirk]

Eye of the beholder, I think.

Mannie has never made me feel small and he and me disagree profoundly on certain things.

Also: I've never noted an instance where Mannie overtly, purposefully, denigrated any one in-forum (I have noted, however, a great deal of abuse flung his way, for no discernable reason [beyond simple prejudice]).

[Harbal]

Also: I've never noted an instance where Mannie overtly, purposefully, denigrated any one in-forum (I have noted, however, a great deal of abuse flung his way,

"Mannie's" preferred method is passive aggression, which is arguably worse than overt abuse. It's certainly more dishonest. If you don't see this in him I think you are in a minority.

for no discernable reason [beyond simple prejudice]).

The reason is very discernable: he's a slime bag.

[henry quirk]

[Harbal]

Am I mistaken, henry, or have you just quirked me?

[Dave Mangnall]

I just think the book is worth a look, and I was hoping to remind you gently of an alternative. If I came across as sarcastic, then culpa mea.

I’ve just discovered that Cheshire East Libraries don’t have a single copy of Mind and Cosmos between them. Philistines! Still, where there’s a will there’s a way. (I shouldn’t say that, should I?)

[Immanuel Can]

I’ve just discovered that Cheshire East Libraries don’t have a single copy of Mind and Cosmos between them. Philistines! Still, where there’s a will there’s a way. (I shouldn’t say that, should I?)

Funny man.

I suppose I should say you were determined to be.

[Dave Mangnall]

Then, Dave, we're stymied, stalemated, and stuck (in the place where the whole debate, no matter the forum, no matter the participants, has been for god knows how long).

I think the degree to which we’re stuck depends on where we’re trying to go. I agree with you that persuasion, either way, seems unlikely. One can hope though, for a greater understanding of the otherness of the other. In pursuit of this I have described for you my deterministic experience of “self-direction”, how the foreknowledge of what I’m about to do reveals itself before my consciousness. It pops into my mind, if you like. This experience, outside the context we’re discussing, will be familiar to anyone who has struggled with any sort of mental problem and then found that, somehow, he suddenly knows the answer. To me, all the choices and decisions I “make” happen in this way.

Now, Henry, if I understand you, the consciousness has some causal force in your free will model, rather than being merely a means of perception, as it is for me. So can you describe for me your own experience of decision-making?

[SpheresOfBalance]

Hi, Rick.

I note that 47% of your voters suffer from the Compatibilist confusion between "having free will" and "feeling free", which allows them to believe in determinism (sort of) without having to worry about the consequences for moral responsibility...

The reason you see things this way is because you can only see through your eyes.

No, actually. Dave's dead right.

"Feeling free" would not be the same as "having free will," anymore than "feeling elated" tells you for certain whether or not there's anything on hand that's worth the elation. It might, but it might not. People do get inexplicably elated sometimes.

Now, this much I can grant you: that "I feel free" is an existential reason to doubt Determinism, and I would say the same. But "I feel free" is not a refutation of Determinism. After all, Determinists can always just say that the "feeling" itself is nothing but an illusion created by the predetermined causes.

Like Dave, I find Compatibilism illogical, and my experience with Compatibilists is that they are mostly people who want to believe in Determinism as a theory, but are fearful of its logical implications in practice.

Really, they are like the man who jumps of a cliff and hopes to stop half way down.

Sorry IC, I didn't mean that 'feeling free' and 'having free will' meant the same thing. I meant that he's biased based upon his limited understanding of it all; that his ego then based upon that limited understanding poses conclusions that only his limited understanding allows. Limited knowledge does indeed limit an understanding of free will, and free will itself! Actually, for that matter, everything!

Self bias is a folly of the human animal. We make conclusions based upon incomplete knowledge, and since we don't know what it is that we don't know, many of us then assert that there can be nothing more, as surely they would know it, right? Wrong!

Isn't the earth flat?
Don't the stars revolve around planet earth?
It's impossible for us to land on the moon, right?
We don't know some of the reasons humans sneeze?

It's nonsense to say that because we were determined by the universe that we have no free will. There is a big difference between being free from the universe, and being 'relatively free' within it's bounds. And that's as free as 'free will' gets. Those that believe in an all or nothing viewpoint are absurdists! They frame it such, so they can boost their self image! It simply is what it is. It is that, which the universe created! It is limited free will, within a deterministic framework. It's quite the crowning achievement, animated animals in a universe of supposedly inanimate objects. And that is the crux of the matter! Nothing more, nothing less.

Still each of us, have an ever variable 'free will,' depending upon a plethora of reasons, most of it being knowledge, but human laws, unfortunately, are also very much a part of it. It's our fear, front and center! There are in fact, good and bad laws, fear being the drivers in both cases!

Fear is our biggest problem of all! That of our death, being the primary driver of all that fear, it's the base of that mountain, it's such a strong foundation that it's then easy to add relatively little bits of dirt, such that it's become humongous; even mightier than Everest, as nukes attest.

[SpheresOfBalance]

"I'm genuinely asking for help in accessing a detailed account of free will."

Why not begin with the best resource and reference you have: you and your own experience of choosing and self-directing?

Hi, Henry. Nice to hear from you again.

"Choosing" proves nothing.
Sure it does! Now pay attention!

Free Will
noun
1. free and independent choice; voluntary decision: You took on the responsibility of your own free will.
2. Philosophy. the doctrine that the conduct of human beings expresses personal choice and is not simply determined by physical or divine forces.

We choose, but we do not choose how we choose.
Incorrect, as knowledge informs all choices!

We choose, but we do not “make choices”.
Incorrect as variable knowledge can 'make' choices either available or not.

The choices come to us, appear before our consciousness,
Sorry but no, it's not necessarily love and miracles out of nowhere. No abracadabra! It's memory banks of knowledge!

during the course of the unfolding of events,
Yet you've just shot your limited knowledge in the foot! Not very smart, but then a clone often has no other recourse.

the rolling revelation to ourselves of our personal script.
Which is in fact, informed by knowledge, or not!

Similarly with "self-direction".
Not at all!

When you think of yourself as making a decision,
Your accessing your memory banks of knowledge!

what you're really doing is finding out what it is that you're going to find yourself doing.
You are surely starting to sound like a mindless drone, a parrot, a puppet, but the people that wrote what it is that you're choosing to, 'quote/paraphrase,' i.e., so called knowledge, wasn't. Where they? As they coined that particular vein of reason, not that it's necessarily reasonable, right? Sure, it's their chosen opinion! And sure you've chosen to parrot it! Right?

Can you only find your strength in the words of others? I guess that's your CHOICE! I mean the argument is still ongoing right? There has been no necessarily correct victor declared by any so called authority, such that it's deemed absolutely in fact knowledge, right? Only in your own mind have you, thanks to your particular interpretation of the words that other minds have written, chosen, to declare a victor, right?


Try a bit of introspection at the moment of choice or decision and then tell me I'm wrong!
Already been there and done that, and "you're wrong!" Unlike you I can course my entire life and see very clearly my growth, and in all cases my choosing was informed by knowledge, or not. Of course it was contained within the framework of the universe and mans violence (laws). But make no mistake, I can choose from any variables that a deterministic universe makes available to me, in any moment I choose!

And then tell me, in detail, of your experience of "choosing".
Please take note of the 'fact' that whether I choose to inform such a bonehead or not, doesn't necessarily prove or disprove you're parroted assertions. Though I'm sure you'll choose to 'believe' otherwise!

[Immanuel Can]

It's nonsense to say that because we were determined by the universe that we have no free will.

Yeah, I'm with you there.

If Determinism were true, it is the last philosophy anyone would have to argue for. After all, what people believe would be inevitable, right? But no Determinist lives and acts as if that were true, so we've got a right to question that duplicity, if nothing else.

[thedoc]

You are surely starting to sound like a mindless drone, a parrot, a puppet, but the people that wrote what it is that you're choosing to, 'quote/paraphrase,' i.e., so called knowledge, wasn't. Where they? As they coined that particular vein of reason, not that it's necessarily reasonable, right? Sure, it's their chosen opinion! And sure you've chosen to parrot it! Right?

Can you only find your strength in the words of others? I guess that's your CHOICE! I mean the argument is still ongoing right? There has been no necessarily correct victor declared by any so called authority, such that it's deemed absolutely in fact knowledge, right? Only in your own mind have you, thanks to your particular interpretation of the words that other minds have written, chosen, to declare a victor, right?

You constantly use the term "right?", with a question mark. Who are you trying to convince, and what are you trying to convince them of? If it's short for "Am I right?" then I would have to say that you are wrong.

[Hobbes' Choice]

It's nonsense to say that because we were determined by the universe that we have no free will.

Yeah, I'm with you there.

If Determinism were true, it is the last philosophy anyone would have to argue for. After all, what people believe would be inevitable, right? But no Determinist lives and acts as if that were true, so we've got a right to question that duplicity, if nothing else.

non sequitur

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

If Determinism were true, it is the last philosophy anyone would have to argue for. After all, what people believe would be inevitable, right? But no Determinist lives and acts as if that were true, so we've got a right to question that duplicity, if nothing else.

The alternative, that what humans want has no cause, is even worse.

There is one way which humans can escape from being entirely caused by circumstances. That is the way of reason. Reason gives insight into one's own wants . For instance reason provides insight into the common reaction of road rage and less frequently of murderous jealousy. The insight gives more power of choice about whether or not to give in to some thoughtless emotion.

[henry quirk]

"Now, Henry, if I understand you, the consciousness has some causal force in your free will model, rather than being merely a means of perception, as it is for me. So can you describe for me your own experience of decision-making?"

Honestly, Dave, I'm not seein'' much profit, for me, in describing how I go about things when we can't even agree on sumthin' as basic as consciousness. See, I don't think consciousness has a causal force. Instead, I think 'I' am a causal force.

By your reckoning, there's no fundamental difference between me and lightning as both me and the sky spark are just products or links in a chain.

In my view: there's the biggest difference possible between me and lightning, a difference that's obvious and indisputable.

Thing is: no matter how cleanly, directly, I lay out this difference for you, I don't think you'll get it...you'll dismiss it, or reframe it and we'll have not moved an inch from where we are now.

Read this thread and show me the progress...read any similar thread and show me the progress.

meh

We're all mules on this matter, tugging away...if it's all the same to you: I'm slippin' out of the harness for awhile.

[Dave Mangnall]

Like Spinoza, I believe that without ever being 'originators' we can be more free the more we understand nature including our own human natures.

Hi, Belinda. I apologise for taking so long to get back.

I can see that if one uses one’s reason (if it so happens that one finds oneself using one’s reason) that there can be an enhanced sense of freedom in sense of an enhanced ability to choose. But do you not think that this sense of freedom is as illusory as free will itself? As I see it, without origination, both the use of reason and the use of the “freedom” are determined.

I'm saying that moral responsibility is inseparable from freedom; not the non-existent 'freedom' of so-called Free Will , but the freedom conferred by knowledge and reason.

I cannot reconcile what I think of as moral responsibility with my model of determinism. Let me explain.

There are mistakes and there is responsibility in the limited sense of identification. So if, for example, in clumsily parking my car I damage the car next to me, I can seek out the owner and say, “I’m sorry, but I’m responsible for damaging your car.” I can say that without compromising my determinism. But suppose the owner turns irate and says “You didn’t have to do that! You should have been more careful!” Then the honest answer (which, in practice, I would not give) is “Well, actually, I did have to do that!”

So, for me, to be morally responsible would mean not only that I did what I did but that I could have done otherwise. And that is incompatible with lack of origination.