The difference between formal and psychological freedom of will

[RogerSH]

If somebody puts a gun to my head and I hand over my wallet, then this is still the exercise of my “Free Will” in a formal sense: the threat is simply one of the factors that I integrate in forming my Will. My will to live happens to exceed my will not to hand over my wallet! However, this Formal sense is certainly not what is normally meant in the expression “of my own free will”, and the reason why not is fairly obvious. The Will is an expression of the Self, and the Self is a matter of experienced identification, so what we ordinarily mean by Free Will is reaching a decision that we identify with. We can call this the “Psychological” sense of Free Will. Note that this sense is actually a strengthening of the formal sense, since identification is an additional criterion to be met. It is a refinement of the sense of “Will”, not of “Free”.

This distinction is a very important one, and the failure to examine it closely enough in the past may be the cause of quite a lot of the confusion about the philosophy of Free Will. Formal Free Will is what matters in the debate about the significance of determinism. Free Will Sceptics deny that even the choice between living and not handing over my wallet is actually available to my will. Psychological Free Will, on the other hand, is what matters in every-day life. Thus when Compatibilists turn their attention to Psychological Free Will, they are not so much “changing the question”(as is often charged) as asking a supplementary question. Psychological Free Will is only meaningfully possible if Formal Free Will is possible, so the original question about the possibility of Formal Free Will has to be by implication answered in the affirmative before we can turn to the very serious questions about Psychological Free Will. (I have argued that it can be answered in the affirmative, because Free Will only requires underdetermination of the world excluding my mind, not of the entire world, in my “Meccano model” posts in this forum, viewtopic.php?f=10&t=33013).

The distinction between the Will I act upon and the Will I identify with is part of the wider issue of lack of unity of Will. Other examples include the distinction between my “Settled Will” which I identify with in advance, and my “Transient Will” that I identify with at the moment of choice – not to mention my “Hindsight Will”, which may differ again.

As well as unity of Will, psychological freedom of will depends on the competence to choose, in the circumstances concerned. An infant lacks freedom of will, not through any lack of metaphysical freedom of choice, but through not having the competence to recognize even that choices exist. On the other hand an adult’s freedom of choice may be meaningless if he is denied the information necessary to choose in a certain way. Many further examples could be cited.

Another distinction that causes confusion in the same context is between two distinct senses of “self-determination”. On the one hand there is a sort of metaphysical miracle that is equivalent to an algorithm that determines its own input data (a sure recipe for an infinite loop). (I describe this as the second fallacy in my discussion of the Meccano model). On the other hand there is the sense of self-determination that matters in psychological contexts: the construction of an evolving Self by a lifetime of ordinary choices that affect the future mental state of the chooser.

[Terrapin Station]

What __I__ mean when I use "free will" is pretty simple, as I set out in the other thread:

First, I define ontological freedom as obtaining when there are at least two possible, mutually exclusive subsequent states immediate following some antecedent state (and for reasons I explained in that other thread, the antecedent and subsequent states logically can't be identical).

So there's some state of affairs, A. From A, if either B or C, where B and C are mutually exclusive, are possible immediately following A, with no other intervening states of affairs, etc., then we're talking about a scenario where there is ontological freedom.

Ontological freedom is necessary for choices or decisions to obtain.

Second, "will" just refers to the mental phenomenon of intentional influence and/or goal-directedness.

So free will obtains when we have ontologically free phenomena in the context of will, so that it's possible to make a choice/decision.

That one is strong-armed, threatened, coerced, etc. into a choice is irrelevant to the ontological issue regarding whether it's possible to make a choice via will. As long as at least two immediately consequent options are possible, other circumstances don't matter for the free will question.

I see all of those other issues as another topic, really, and they all hinge on how someone is choosing to formulate their concepts, which I don't see as very interesting aside from some sort of psychological/anthropological survey about how people frame things. To me, the interesting question is the ontological one--simply whether (ontological) freedom obtains or not, and then whether it obtains in the context of will phenomena, so that it can be exploited by will and we can make a choice rather than just having the illusion of making a choice.

[RogerSH]

What __I__ mean when I use "free will" is pretty simple, as I set out in the other thread:

First, I define ontological freedom as obtaining when there are at least two possible, mutually exclusive subsequent states immediate following some antecedent state (and for reasons I explained in that other thread, the antecedent and subsequent states logically can't be identical).

So there's some state of affairs, A. From A, if either B or C, where B and C are mutually exclusive, are possible immediately following A, with no other intervening states of affairs, etc., then we're talking about a scenario where there is ontological freedom.

Ontological freedom is necessary for choices or decisions to obtain.

Second, "will" just refers to the mental phenomenon of intentional influence and/or goal-directedness.

So free will obtains when we have ontologically free phenomena in the context of will, so that it's possible to make a choice/decision.

That one is strong-armed, threatened, coerced, etc. into a choice is irrelevant to the ontological issue regarding whether it's possible to make a choice via will. As long as at least two immediately consequent options are possible, other circumstances don't matter for the free will question.

I see all of those other issues as another topic, really, and they all hinge on how someone is choosing to formulate their concepts, which I don't see as very interesting aside from some sort of psychological/anthropological survey about how people frame things. To me, the interesting question is the ontological one--simply whether (ontological) freedom obtains or not, and then whether it obtains in the context of will phenomena, so that it can be exploited by will and we can make a choice rather than just having the illusion of making a choice.

I don’t want to confuse matters by continuing here the debate in the “Meccano model” topic.

I don’t find the question of formal freedom in a deterministic universe very interesting so much as a necessary clearing of the undergrowth before gardening! Our universe is not actually deterministic (though Everitt’s multiverse is, but let’s not go there now…and a digital simulation would be, if you think that’s what our world is…) – although it often behaves as though it is. What I find more interesting is the actual behaviour of the real world, with its interplay of quantum uncertainty, chaotic divergence, self-organizing structures and the like. And even more interesting is how consciousness works – which I think is extremely poorly modelled by structurally shallow concepts like “intentional influence and/or goal-directedness” (though of course they can play a part). The mind (like the inanimate world) is capable of generating novelties, including (in the case of the mind) things like freshly coined similes that can affect the formation of a will with regard to a particular choice. Read my (free) book for more details! [http://www.rshaines.myzen.co.uk] Or read Daniel Dennett’s “Freedom Evolves” with an open mind…

[Skepdick]

Our universe is not actually deterministic....

Nobody knows whether the universe is deterministic or non-deterministic. Nobody has any clue how to epistemically determine which one is the ontological case.

It is but a philosophical confusion which projects deterministic and non-deterministic reasoning and mistakes it for an ontological property.

If free will means anything, it certainly means the freedom to choose between reasoning deterministically and reasoning non-deterministically.
The freedom to model one's own mind as a deterministic Turing Machine; or a non-deterministic Turing Machine.

[Age]

If somebody puts a gun to my head and I hand over my wallet, then this is still the exercise of my “Free Will” in a formal sense: the threat is simply one of the factors that I integrate in forming my Will. My will to live happens to exceed my will not to hand over my wallet! However, this Formal sense is certainly not what is normally meant in the expression “of my own free will”, and the reason why not is fairly obvious. The Will is an expression of the Self, and the Self is a matter of experienced identification, so what we ordinarily mean by Free Will is reaching a decision that we identify with. We can call this the “Psychological” sense of Free Will. Note that this sense is actually a strengthening of the formal sense, since identification is an additional criterion to be met. It is a refinement of the sense of “Will”, not of “Free”.

This distinction is a very important one, and the failure to examine it closely enough in the past may be the cause of quite a lot of the confusion about the philosophy of Free Will. Formal Free Will is what matters in the debate about the significance of determinism. Free Will Sceptics deny that even the choice between living and not handing over my wallet is actually available to my will. Psychological Free Will, on the other hand, is what matters in every-day life. Thus when Compatibilists turn their attention to Psychological Free Will, they are not so much “changing the question”(as is often charged) as asking a supplementary question. Psychological Free Will is only meaningfully possible if Formal Free Will is possible, so the original question about the possibility of Formal Free Will has to be by implication answered in the affirmative before we can turn to the very serious questions about Psychological Free Will. (I have argued that it can be answered in the affirmative, because Free Will only requires underdetermination of the world excluding my mind, not of the entire world, in my “Meccano model” posts in this forum, viewtopic.php?f=10&t=33013).

The distinction between the Will I act upon and the Will I identify with is part of the wider issue of lack of unity of Will. Other examples include the distinction between my “Settled Will” which I identify with in advance, and my “Transient Will” that I identify with at the moment of choice – not to mention my “Hindsight Will”, which may differ again.

As well as unity of Will, psychological freedom of will depends on the competence to choose, in the circumstances concerned. An infant lacks freedom of will, not through any lack of metaphysical freedom of choice, but through not having the competence to recognize even that choices exist.

This applies to 'you', adult human beings. That is; only up to a certain extent do 'you' have the competence to recognize some choices exist, but, in the days when this was written, 'you' did NOT YET have FULL competence to recognize ALL the choices that exist.

On the other hand an adult’s freedom of choice may be meaningless if he is denied the information necessary to choose in a certain way. Many further examples could be cited.

Actually, although an adult's ability to FREELY CHOOSE is UNLIMITED, so, in that sense, they do have 'free will', the choices that they can CHOOSE FROM is LIMITED, which have been previously PREDETERMINED, and therefore, in that sense, they are 'deterministic', EQUALLY.

Another distinction that causes confusion in the same context is between two distinct senses of “self-determination”. On the one hand there is a sort of metaphysical miracle that is equivalent to an algorithm that determines its own input data (a sure recipe for an infinite loop). (I describe this as the second fallacy in my discussion of the Meccano model). On the other hand there is the sense of self-determination that matters in psychological contexts: the construction of an evolving Self by a lifetime of ordinary choices that affect the future mental state of the chooser.

[Age]

What __I__ mean when I use "free will" is pretty simple, as I set out in the other thread:

First, I define ontological freedom as obtaining when there are at least two possible, mutually exclusive subsequent states immediate following some antecedent state (and for reasons I explained in that other thread, the antecedent and subsequent states logically can't be identical).

So there's some state of affairs, A. From A, if either B or C, where B and C are mutually exclusive, are possible immediately following A, with no other intervening states of affairs, etc., then we're talking about a scenario where there is ontological freedom.

Ontological freedom is necessary for choices or decisions to obtain.

Second, "will" just refers to the mental phenomenon of intentional influence and/or goal-directedness.

So free will obtains when we have ontologically free phenomena in the context of will, so that it's possible to make a choice/decision.

That one is strong-armed, threatened, coerced, etc. into a choice is irrelevant to the ontological issue regarding whether it's possible to make a choice via will. As long as at least two immediately consequent options are possible, other circumstances don't matter for the free will question.

I see all of those other issues as another topic, really, and they all hinge on how someone is choosing to formulate their concepts, which I don't see as very interesting aside from some sort of psychological/anthropological survey about how people frame things. To me, the interesting question is the ontological one--simply whether (ontological) freedom obtains or not, and then whether it obtains in the context of will phenomena, so that it can be exploited by will and we can make a choice rather than just having the illusion of making a choice.

To KNOW if 'we' can make a choice, or not, 'free willingly', then one has to first learn and KNOW who and what 'we' ARE, EXACTLY?

[Age]

Our universe is not actually deterministic....

Nobody knows whether the universe is deterministic or non-deterministic.

How do 'you' KNOW this?

Some might ALREADY KNOW.

Nobody has any clue how to epistemically determine which one is the ontological case.

Some might?

It is but a philosophical confusion which projects deterministic and non-deterministic reasoning and mistakes it for an ontological property.

If free will means anything, it certainly means the freedom to choose between reasoning deterministically and reasoning non-deterministically.
The freedom to model one's own mind as a deterministic Turing Machine; or a non-deterministic Turing Machine.

[Terrapin Station]

And even more interesting is how consciousness works – which I think is extremely poorly modelled by structurally shallow concepts like “intentional influence and/or goal-directedness” (though of course they can play a part).

That's what will is characterized by. Not consciousness overall. "Will" isn't the same thing as "consciousness."

Or read Daniel Dennett’s “Freedom Evolves” with an open mind…

I'm very familiar with Dennett, and I've even interacted with him a number of times at conferences. I'm not much of a fan of his philosophy, especially because I think he has a tendency to ramble in an easily distracted way and murkily never quite get to a point, but he's a nice guy.

[Terrapin Station]

By the way, given this:

Our universe is not actually deterministic . . . although it often behaves as though it is.

You're not actually a compatibilist . . . and I'm still waiting for someone to try to make sense out of the idea of compatibilism.

[RogerSH]

Our universe is not actually deterministic....

Nobody knows whether the universe is deterministic or non-deterministic.

How do 'you' KNOW this?

Some might ALREADY KNOW.

Nobody has any clue how to epistemically determine which one is the ontological case.

Some might?

It is but a philosophical confusion which projects deterministic and non-deterministic reasoning and mistakes it for an ontological property.

If free will means anything, it certainly means the freedom to choose between reasoning deterministically and reasoning non-deterministically.
The freedom to model one's own mind as a deterministic Turing Machine; or a non-deterministic Turing Machine.

Who are these quotes from? I only recognize the first. I should have said that the universe is not deterministic according to current scientific orthodoxy, of course.

[RogerSH]

By the way, given this:

Our universe is not actually deterministic . . . although it often behaves as though it is.

That's a scientific working hypothesis rather than a philosophical position.

You're not actually a compatibilist . . . and I'm still waiting for someone to try to make sense out of the idea of compatibilism.

No, I'm a compatibilist because I think that free will would be compatible with a determinist universe if it turned out that we lived in one. That's what the Meccano model thread is all about. It more or less follows that free will is compatible with the universe described by current scientific orthodoxy.

[Terrapin Station]

By the way, given this:

Our universe is not actually deterministic . . . although it often behaves as though it is.

That's a scientific working hypothesis rather than a philosophical position.

You're not actually a compatibilist . . . and I'm still waiting for someone to try to make sense out of the idea of compatibilism.

No, I'm a compatibilist because I think that free will would be compatible with a determinist universe if it turned out that we lived in one. That's what the Meccano model thread is all about. It more or less follows that free will is compatible with the universe described by current scientific orthodoxy.

You wouldn't just be saying that everything is deterministic in that case except insofar as our free will goes, would you?

[Age]

Nobody knows whether the universe is deterministic or non-deterministic.

How do 'you' KNOW this?

Some might ALREADY KNOW.

Nobody has any clue how to epistemically determine which one is the ontological case.

Some might?

It is but a philosophical confusion which projects deterministic and non-deterministic reasoning and mistakes it for an ontological property.

If free will means anything, it certainly means the freedom to choose between reasoning deterministically and reasoning non-deterministically.
The freedom to model one's own mind as a deterministic Turing Machine; or a non-deterministic Turing Machine.

Who are these quotes from? I only recognize the first.

Someone else. That was my mistake.

I should have said that the universe is not deterministic according to current scientific orthodoxy, of course.

[Age]

By the way, given this:

Our universe is not actually deterministic . . . although it often behaves as though it is.

That's a scientific working hypothesis rather than a philosophical position.

You're not actually a compatibilist . . . and I'm still waiting for someone to try to make sense out of the idea of compatibilism.

No, I'm a compatibilist because I think that free will would be compatible with a determinist universe if it turned out that we lived in one. That's what the Meccano model thread is all about. It more or less follows that free will is compatible with the universe described by current scientific orthodoxy.

Free will does exist equally with the determinist Universe.

[RogerSH]

By the way, given this:


That's a scientific working hypothesis rather than a philosophical position.

You're not actually a compatibilist . . . and I'm still waiting for someone to try to make sense out of the idea of compatibilism.

No, I'm a compatibilist because I think that free will would be compatible with a determinist universe if it turned out that we lived in one. That's what the Meccano model thread is all about. It more or less follows that free will is compatible with the universe described by current scientific orthodoxy.

You wouldn't just be saying that everything is deterministic in that case except insofar as our free will goes, would you?

Not at all! But I'd rather answer such questions under "Meccano". This thread is about how formal free will relates to other issues.