Free will and things I dont see anyone has noticed

[Atla]

"The first one is more likely"

Why?

Because there's no known example of free will happening.

"Genuine free will is supernatural; you can rearrange nature at will."

First, not understanding a principle doesn't make it magic.

Second, how does "the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion" equate with "rearrang(ing) nature at will"?

Free will isn't a principle, it's the ability to not be bound by determinism.

[henry quirk]

"Because there's no known example of free will happening."

So, you're own on-going experience of self-directing, of choosing, of sussing out your own reasons for doin' 'this instead of 'that' carries no weight with you? Or do you not experience yourself as self-directing?

#

"Free will isn't a principle"

No, it's the expression of a principle, and just cuz we don't understand the principle doesn't make it magical. But, I don't wanna bog down dickerin' about the word. Replace principle with mechanism or means or process. Simply: not understanding how sumthin' works just means we're ignorant, not that the mysterious sumthin' is magical and therefore a fiction.

#

"it's the ability to not be bound by determinism."

Yes. I see your problem: Reality seems to be deterministic but your experience of self sez you aren't, at least some of the time, determined. You opt to deny self. Not the right choice, but it's your choice to make.

About determinism: I think it's way premature to declare the current definition as settled. It a WIP, just like our current model for Reality. We have to, for example, make up 'dark matter/dark energy' to make the math work for our models of Reality to work and, in the same way, we have to ignore 'free will' to make our model of determinism work.

At the very least: whatever model of Reality or determinism we cobble together should provide an account of why the illusion of free will persists. Hell, it would be nice if our models coukd credibly explain why the human brain lends itself naturally to self-consciousness/awareness/I-ness.

But they don't. So, I see no reason to toss out my on-going experience of myself as a free will just be aligned with an incomplete, essentially fudged model of 'what is'.

#

And: I'm still wondering about this...

You: "Genuine free will is supernatural; you can rearrange nature at will."

Me: How does "the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion" equate with "rearrang(ing) nature at will"?

[Atla]

"Because there's no known example of free will happening."

So, you're own on-going experience of self-directing, of choosing, of sussing out your own reasons for doin' 'this instead of 'that' carries no weight with you? Or do you not experience yourself as self-directing?

#

"Free will isn't a principle"

No, it's the expression of a principle, and just cuz we don't understand the principle doesn't make it magical. But, I don't wanna bog down dickerin' about the word. Replace principle with mechanism or means or process. Simply: not understanding how sumthin' works just means we're ignorant, not that the mysterious sumthin' is magical and therefore a fiction.

#

"it's the ability to not be bound by determinism."

Yes. I see your problem: Reality seems to be deterministic but your experience of self sez you aren't, at least some of the time, determined. You opt to deny self. Not the right choice, but it's your choice to make.

About determinism: I think it's way premature to declare the current definition as settled. It a WIP, just like our current model for Reality. We have to, for example, make up 'dark matter/dark energy' to make the math work for our models of Reality to work and, in the same way, we have to ignore 'free will' to make our model of determinism work.

At the very least: whatever model of Reality or determinism we cobble together should provide an account of why the illusion of free will persists. Hell, it would be nice if our models coukd credibly explain why the human brain lends itself naturally to self-consciousness/awareness/I-ness.

But they don't. So, I see no reason to toss out my on-going experience of myself as a free will just be aligned with an incomplete, essentially fudged model of 'what is'.

#

And: I'm still wondering about this...

You: "Genuine free will is supernatural; you can rearrange nature at will."

Me: How does "the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion" equate with "rearrang(ing) nature at will"?

Your experience of being a self-directing you, all the choices you make, all the ways you alter the world: these are probably all predetermined happenings.
You can believe in free will to the most fantastic degree, and live your life accordingly, and that too will be predetermined.

[henry quirk]

Now, how much can be said for that thought process, that introspection to be 'free', as opposed to also be determined by your identity, your DNA in a sense? Do you really choose your thoughts? Or they just appear in your head already chosen by your identity, your other self who also does all the rest in your body, like pumping your heart, breathing for you, growing your nails... why would you mind if this guy is also making your choices for you? He is you after all, isn't he?

Let's break it down...

"Now, how much can be said for that thought process, that introspection to be 'free', as opposed to also be determined by your identity, your DNA in a sense?"

The thought process, the thinking, is 'me', not sumthin' happening to me.

DNA is the foundation and none of us have direct access or control over it. But the house (the self) we each build on our foundation, while bound by the foundation, is ours to fiddle with. How can it not be? An awareness, conscious not only of world, but of itself, naturally can choose (to eat less, to move more, to read a book instead of watch porn, and on and on). We're the executive function, prodded by appetite (which is autonomic) but not enslaved to appetite (gotta eat, sure, but I decide what and when).

#

"Do you really choose your thoughts?"

A great deal of what a person does in the day to day is habitual. It has to be. No person can progress if every aspect of living is novel all the time. Habit (muscle memory, bein' on automatic) frees up thinking (the exercise of intent, assessment, etc.). So, yeah, some of the time 'thoughts' just come to us. But other times, as we exercise ourselves in the world, our Minskian 'society of mind' is fully engaged and we choose our thoughts (which is us, again, fully engaging with the world, self-directing and choosing).

#

"Or they just appear in your head already chosen by your identity, your other self who also does all the rest in your body, like pumping your heart, breathing for you, growing your nails..."

If Minsky is right, or on the right track, then the 'other self' is ' you' (cuz a society of mind, while always coordinated, isn't always in concert).

And, as I say elsewhere (another in-forum thread on free will), innumerable processes comprise me, from intercellular activities, to the coordinations between like cells, to the synchronization between differing cell systems (organs), to higher functions directing organs (slaving them to the organism they comprise), etc., all the autonomic activity, the on-going interplay of biological machinery, gives rise to 'me'. I, as action, as verb, emerge from, rise above, act upon, direct. 'I' is recursive, both flesh and the action of flesh caught in perpetual dance of continual emergence from process and gross direction of process to preserve that emergence.

#

"why would you mind if this guy is also making your choices for you? He is you after all, isn't he?"

Yes, he is. More accurately: 'He' is one of the semi-conscious processes that comprise you, that you emerge from and largely enslave to yourself (your 'self', 'you').

[henry quirk]

Your experience of being a self-directing you, all the choices you make, all the ways you alter the world: these are probably all predetermined happenings.

You can believe in free will to the most fantastic degree, and live your life accordingly, and that too will be predetermined.

And: if it is predetermined, then I don't really believe anything. I can't cuz I'm just a Roomba runnin' a program.

So: follow your program and support your assertions (or be the free will you are and support your assertions).

[Atla]

Your experience of being a self-directing you, all the choices you make, all the ways you alter the world: these are probably all predetermined happenings.

You can believe in free will to the most fantastic degree, and live your life accordingly, and that too will be predetermined.

And: if it is predetermined, then I don't really believe anything. I can't cuz I'm just a Roomba runnin' a program.

So: follow your program and support your assertions (or be the free will you are and support your assertions).

There isn't anything bold about it; what you are saying is bold.
There is no known example for non-determinism (except quantum behaviour in a sense, but that too is predictably random).

[henry quirk]

No known example of sumthin' in a Reality we don't really understand.

Okay.

By the way: free will (agent causation) is not non-deterministic in the way you mean any more than a nondeterministic algorithm is non-deterministic in the way you mean.

#

"what you are saying is bold."

Not really. Denying one's experience of self, that's bold.

[Atla]

No known example of sumthin' in a Reality we don't really understand.

Okay.

That's the 'argument' people use to justify anything they imagine. Like God.

By the way: free will (agent causation) is not non-deterministic in the way you mean any more than a nondeterministic algorithm is non-deterministic in the way you mean.

I don't know what this sentence is supposed to mean, anyway a non-deterministic algorithm ultimately gives predetermined results.

"what you are saying is bold."

Not really. Denying one's experience of self, that's bold.

Why? Taking the self to be a truly real agent is the hallucination that Western philosophy is built on. In the East they've known better for thousands of years, they aren't idiots like us.
There is an experience of self, it's just illusory and doesn't have Special Supernatural Powers.

[bahman]

"Our decisions are either because of a reason or not. We are free in the second case and not in the first case."

So, when confronted by a problem, and as I assess the problem, deliberate over the problem, arrive at a solution, then attempt to enact the solution, I'm not acting freely? Because I act with reason (that I sussed out for myself)?

We can make rational and free decisions. Rational decision by definition is for reason, therefore, they are not free. Free decision by definition is not for a reason, therefore, it is free. Do you want examples?

And: if I just fling myself at the problem without a thought about the problem, I'm free?

If this is what you mean: I can't disagree more.

That is a sort of free decision.

[henry quirk]

"That's the 'argument' people use to justify anything they imagine. Like God."

Sometimes. In my case: I bring it up cuz it's true. we really don't much about how Reality works.

As for 'god' (you brought him up, not me): folks usually bring up 'god' as a denigration cuz they ain't got no argument...like you, for example.

#

"I don't know what this sentence is supposed to mean, anyway a non-deterministic algorithm ultimately gives predetermined results.

Yeah, you do, and no, it doesn't.

#

"Taking the self to be a truly real agent is the hallucination that Western philosophy is built on."

Nope. Taking the self as it is (an agent) is what the West is built on.

#

"In the East they've known better for thousands of years, they aren't idiots like us."

Yeah, that's why they've adopted, in part, state-capitalism (a product of the West).

#

"There is an experience of self, it's just illusory and doesn't have Special Supernatural Powers."

Nope. There is the self (seven billion and counting 'selves' actually) and it has real, natural, causal efficacy.

Anyway: nice sparrin' with ya.

[henry quirk]

"Our decisions are either because of a reason or not. We are free in the second case and not in the first case."

So, when confronted by a problem, and as I assess the problem, deliberate over the problem, arrive at a solution, then attempt to enact the solution, I'm not acting freely? Because I act with reason (that I sussed out for myself)?

We can make rational and free decisions. Rational decision by definition is for reason, therefore, they are not free. Free decision by definition is not for a reason, therefore, it is free. Do you want examples?

And: if I just fling myself at the problem without a thought about the problem, I'm free?

If this is what you mean: I can't disagree more.

That is a sort of free decision.

If, by reason, I move from not knowing what to do to, to knowing what to do, I have deliberated (de-liberated myself). This is not the same as sayin' I'm not free. I'm the one doin' the deliberatin' after all, the one choosing a path.

And: your free decision is just whimsy to me.

[Atla]

"That's the 'argument' people use to justify anything they imagine. Like God."

Sometimes. In my case: I bring it up cuz it's true. we really don't much about how Reality works.

As for 'god' (you brought him up, not me): folks usually bring up 'god' as a denigration cuz they ain't got no argument...like you, for example.

We do know a lot about the world and it all supports the deterministic view.
Guess you say that I have no argument because you know little about science.

"I don't know what this sentence is supposed to mean, anyway a non-deterministic algorithm ultimately gives predetermined results.

Yeah, you do, and no, it doesn't.

If the world is deterministic, then it does.

"Taking the self to be a truly real agent is the hallucination that Western philosophy is built on."

Nope. Taking the self as it is (an agent) is what the West is built on.

Including Western philosophy, and it's a hallucination.

"In the East they've known better for thousands of years, they aren't idiots like us."

Yeah, that's why they've adopted, in part, state-capitalism (a product of the West).

What does that have to do with it. In the East, few people get to really understand their own philosophy too.

"There is an experience of self, it's just illusory and doesn't have Special Supernatural Powers."

Nope. There is the self (seven billion and counting 'selves' actually) and it has real, natural, causal efficacy.

Anyway: nice sparrin' with ya.

And all that causality is predetermined like everything else.

[henry quirk]

"We do know a lot about the world and it all supports the deterministic view."

We know something of the world, and we have to ignore some of what we know to make determinism 'hard'.

#

If the world is deterministic, then it does.

Nope.

#

"What does that have to do with it. In the East, few people get to really understand their own philosophy too."

Then they're more idiots (like us) than you originally claimed.

#

And all that causality is predetermined like everything else.

Nope.

Anyway: we've reached the end of productiveness, you and me. We've pled our cases (or, I have) and neither of us is moved by the other. So: unless you sumthin' new to add (I don't) mebbe we ought to call it a day?

[Atla]

"We do know a lot about the world and it all supports the deterministic view."

We know something of the world, and we have to ignore some of what we know to make determinism 'hard'.

For the 4th time: there is no known example for nondeterminism. You're just ignorant about this.

If the world is deterministic, then it does.

Nope.

Then you don't understand what a 'real' algorithm is, running on a 'real' computer.

"What does that have to do with it. In the East, few people get to really understand their own philosophy too."

Then they're more idiots (like us) than you originally claimed.

I was talking about their philosophy, philosophers.
But such views are inherently hard to understand for the common folk. Nor is it necessarily a good idea to make them understand it.

And all that causality is predetermined like everything else.

Nope.

Yep

Anyway: we've reached the end of productiveness, you and me. We've pled our cases (or, I have) and neither of us is moved by the other. So: unless you sumthin' new to add (I don't) mebbe we ought to call it a day?

Umm you don't really have a case from where I'm standing. Sorry..

[henry quirk]

And from where i stand: you're the one who is caseless.

Neither of us is budgin': so, we can move on to other things, yeah? You go your way, i go mine?

Or: are you one of those last word types (always gotta have it)? If so: have at it.