Free Will

Is the mind the same as the body? What is consciousness? Can machines have it?

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RCSaunders
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Re: Free Will

Post by RCSaunders »

jayjacobus wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:23 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 8:27 pm
jayjacobus wrote: Sun Aug 01, 2021 6:38 pm The mind interprets the images and reacts in (hopefully) appropriate ways but different minds can react differently to similar images. This seems to be the exception to determinism and the basis for free will.
You've just described the, "psychology," of an earthworm or bat, perhaps, but certainly not a human mind. Consciousness is not a mind. Only human beings have that volitional, rational, intellectual, conscious which is a mind.

Animals without minds (instinctive animals) might react directly to perception, but the human mind precludes that. To act at all (except for that behavior which is not consciously controlled--reflexes, the autonomic nervous system, etc.) a human being must consciously choose to act (or not act). Before a human being can do anything it must identify what can be done, what one wants to do, and usually how to do it. Very few choices are about what one is immediately perceiving. Most are about what one is thinking about, and most are about things they cannot perceived at all, because they are about the future, like, "later today," "tomorrow," and maybe, "next year."

When you decide you are thirsty and want a drink you think about what there is to drink, remember you have some soda in the frig, and choose to go get one without perceiving any of those things.
You have written a post which merges with my post when you end with "choose",
I'm afraid I do not understand that. Perhaps you can explain what you mean by "images" when you write: "The mind interprets the images and reacts in (hopefully) appropriate ways but different minds can react differently to similar images." That sounds very much like you are saying one's mind just reacts to direct perception, or, a primitive idea of concepts, like Hume's ridiculous epistemology witch equated concepts with fuzzy mental images.

What I was attempting to say is that human minds do not just, "react," to what one is conscious of, which is what I thought you were implying, but perhaps that's not what you intended.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Free Will

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 3:00 pm But "materials," as Locke pointed out, have material properties. They are divisible, have weight or mass or density, are tactile or produce waves, and so on. But you can't give me a wave life, a half of consciousness, or the specific gravity of a mind. You can't put any of them in a beaker, or on a scale, or in Vernier calipers, or even get them to displace a cloud of vapour.
Locke was no scientist.
Not relevant. That which is essentially not physical is not a subject of any legitimate scientist's inquiry.
Oh I agree. You are the one that used Locke as an authority to demonstrate why life was not amenable to explanation as a physical science.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm I do not equate the two concepts, "physical," and, "material,"
Everybody else does.
Yes. Everybody else believe everything their teachers tell them and never have an original thought. I'm explaining what is wrong with what everyone else believes. I'm sure I would have had the same problem when everyone else believed the world was flat, when I knew it wasn't. I would have been told by all the ICs of the day, it's not what everyone else believes or means.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm Since material existence is everything that exists as it exists,

This is actually the definition of "universe," not "the material."
There is only the, "material," universe. I'm not explaining what you think, I''m explaining what's wrong with what you think.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm ..the attribute of life does not exist except as an attribute of physical entities.
So far as you know. But let's assume ...
That's your problem, IC. I only go by what I know. You begin with, "assumptions." I do not make any assumptions. If there is no evidence, there is no reason to even consider it.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm Life is not a substance, a mystical 'force,' a spirit, or anything separate from or added to a physical entity which is an organism. It is an attribute that differentiates those physical entities called organisms from those without that attribute and are merely physical.
If the second sentence is true, then the first is necessarily false. It's either a differentiator, or it's not.
You think the only differences in things are some kind of stuff or substances things have or don't have? You think, "size," is something added to or taken away from something? You think, "jumping," is kind of stuff or spirit added to something? You think a, "jumping spider," is different from other spiders because it has some thing called, "jumping," added to it? Life is not any kind of thing, it is an attribute, and like all attributes (qualities, properties, characteristics) they are what differentiate entities from each other. A physical entity is not physical because it has mass or momentum or size added to it. It is physical be it is an entity that has the attributes we call mass and momentum. They are only the names of those aspects of physical behavior we observe, not things.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free Will

Post by Immanuel Can »

RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 6:26 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm
Locke was no scientist.
Not relevant. That which is essentially not physical is not a subject of any legitimate scientist's inquiry.
You are the one that used Locke as an authority to demonstrate why life was not amenable to explanation as a physical science.
Locke was pointing to the impossibility of using physical dimensions to account for the "self." That's not something you need to be a scientist to do: you just need to be logical and observant.

Indeed, scientists are often not the best philosophers. Some are, but many are not. Some are mere technicians. So there's no guarantee that being a "scientist" would make one qualified at all for speaking about things like identity, morality, the soul, consciouosness, mind, and so on.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm I do not equate the two concepts, "physical," and, "material,"
Everybody else does.
Yes. Everybody else believe everything their teachers tell them and never have an original thought.
Language is a common property of all. Communication, not "originality" is its virtue. An entirely "original" word, like "pllbt" is a word that means nothing to anybody -- perhaps not even to the person who speaks it.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm Since material existence is everything that exists as it exists,

This is actually the definition of "universe," not "the material."
There is only the, "material," universe.
That's purely presuppositional. But in any case, it denies any special status to your "life" concept.
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 5:46 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 4:44 pm ..the attribute of life does not exist except as an attribute of physical entities.
So far as you know. But let's assume ...
That's your problem, IC. I only go by what I know. You begin with, "assumptions."
:D See above.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Free Will

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Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:29 pm Language is a common property of all. Communication, not "originality" is its virtue. An entirely "original" word, like "pllbt" is a word that means nothing to anybody -- perhaps not even to the person who speaks it.
For someone who has a background in linguistics, you seem to know very little about language.

The first and primary purpose of language is not communication. The primary purpose of language is knowledge. All knowledge is in the form of propositions which are formed of concepts which are rhe building blocks of all language. No knowledge is possible without language. The second purpose of language is to make reason (thinking possible). Knowledge is all there is to think with or think about, and knowledge is not possible without language.

Only after one knows something do they have anything to communicate, and only when they know enough can think and make the choice to communicate it.

Every word ever used had to be invented by someone. Every new discovery requires new words to represent the concepts for those new discoveries. If that were no so, no new knowledge would be possible. That is why there are always new words being added.

Every new idea, every invention, and every new discovery requires additions to the lexicon of human language. Just consider all the ideas that would never be known without the new terms in this from Michael Crichton:
In his brilliant, "Aliens Cause Global Warming," lecture to the California Institute of Technology, though his purpose was to demonstrate the impossibility of predicting even the near future, Michael Crichton demonstrates the radical changes that have occurred since 1900 that can only be described as a revolution. For example, the main means of transportation in 1900 was horses, but in a few years, nobody was riding horses. In 1900 no one had ever heard of atomic energy. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet, interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, [or] AIDS....
I'm sorry if you do not like my using terms in a new way, but there are no extant terms for the ideas I am explaining. Just as the words, "therepy," and, "surgery," had to be modified to identify the new procedures of, "gene therapy," and, "laser surgery," I had to modify the meaning of "material" to include all of ontological existence, including life, consciousness, and the human mind.

You can stamp your foot and refuse to learn how I am using that term, insisting, "it's not how most people use it," but it would be tantamount to refusing to use any of the terms Mr. Crichton listed when they were first introduced, "because they aren't terms anyone else is using or in ways anyone else is using them."
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free Will

Post by Immanuel Can »

RCSaunders wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 1:40 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:29 pm Language is a common property of all. Communication, not "originality" is its virtue. An entirely "original" word, like "pllbt" is a word that means nothing to anybody -- perhaps not even to the person who speaks it.
For someone who has a background in linguistics, you seem to know very little about language.
Insulting, of course...but not concommitantly accurate.
Belinda
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Re: Free Will

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Immanuel Can wrote:
Well "life" is not a material property. A corpse has all the material properties of the person alive 10 seconds ago, but none of the "life."
Actually a corpse lacks all life processes such as brain activity, metabolism, respiration, nervous reflexes, etc..These life processes are material qualities some of which are experienced in full awareness and some rather less than full awareness. What a corpse does not do is experience in a very full sense of 'experience' that a living, conscious man or other animal can experience.

A state of life pertains to matter, just as a state of death pertains to matter. Experiences of life however pertain to mind in the same way that every experiences pertains to mind. Some philosophers (panpsychism) think a corpse may have mind (i.e. of the same primitive and choiceless sort that a stone may 'experience').



Where I differ from RCSaunders in his materialism(physicalism) is that as a materialist he thinks mind is subsumed under matter. If this were the case there would be no qualities of terror, joy, beauty, goodness, or truth except as we were duped by our brains to feel those qualities.

Where I agree with RCSaunders, I think, is that materialism is perfectly adequate for daily living, science and so forth. However when we are trying to look more deeply into the nature of things (metaphysics) materialism is inadequate.
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Re: Free Will

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Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 3:42 am
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 1:35 am My point is, if there can be no conscious phenomena without a corresponding cerebral action it makes that conscious phenomena dependent on the physical brain.
Actually, it doesn't. It may rather mean that the physical brain's activity is dependent on what consciousness is flowing through it. Or it may mean that there is a third thing that is causing both.

So no, that's not Determinism. If the cognition or something conscious is either exactly contemporaneous with or prior to the physical manifestation of chemicals in the brain, then the physical is not the cause of the cognition.
Well, "cause" is notoriously ambiguous. The relationship that you both seem to me to be leaving out is when some A is the same thing as some B but described/detected in a totally different way. There is then no order in time, they are simultaneous, (though if B is a more coarse-grained description than A, it is still an asymmetric relationship). Some would describe as logical causation, though I wouldn't say that was a very helpful usage. In my view consciousness is a manifestation of certain brain processes, those processes projected onto the brain's own model of the world (to put it extremely crudely).
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Re: Free Will

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RogerSH wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 12:36 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 3:42 am
RCSaunders wrote: Sat Jul 31, 2021 1:35 am My point is, if there can be no conscious phenomena without a corresponding cerebral action it makes that conscious phenomena dependent on the physical brain.
Actually, it doesn't. It may rather mean that the physical brain's activity is dependent on what consciousness is flowing through it. Or it may mean that there is a third thing that is causing both.

So no, that's not Determinism. If the cognition or something conscious is either exactly contemporaneous with or prior to the physical manifestation of chemicals in the brain, then the physical is not the cause of the cognition.
Well, "cause" is notoriously ambiguous. The relationship that you both seem to me to be leaving out is when some A is the same thing as some B but described/detected in a totally different way. There is then no order in time, they are simultaneous, (though if B is a more coarse-grained description than A, it is still an asymmetric relationship). Some would describe as logical causation, though I wouldn't say that was a very helpful usage. In my view consciousness is a manifestation of certain brain processes, those processes projected onto the brain's own model of the world (to put it extremely crudely).
Why would you say "consciousness is a manifestation of certain brain processes, those processes projected onto the brain's own model of the world ---"; but not "consciousness is a manifestation of certain mind processes, those processes projected onto the mind's own model of the world---" ?

You seem to be a materialist(physicalist) like RCSaunders is.

I suspect IC thinks "the third thing" (IC) pertains only to Free Will, but it also pertains to determinism. Please see 'nomic connection'.

Causation is infinite, and existence itself, nature, or God is the unique uncaused being.
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Re: Free Will

Post by RogerSH »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 2:56 pm
RogerSH wrote: Thu Jul 29, 2021 12:53 pm If that "I" has continuity with the I at previous moments, then that is another way of saying that the I at the instant in question is the product of prior mental states.
No, it isn't. "Continuity" there is vague, and is misleading. You're confusing "continuity of identity" (which remains) with "continuity of cause."

But "cause" and "identity" are different...
Identity through time is a special case of causation: something is as it is at a later time because that it is how it was at earlier times.

Most of the rest of your post, it seems to me, is an argument for dualism rather than for incompatibilism as such.
Well, Dualism IS incompatible with Physicalism. Physicalism is Monist.
That's true of "normal" dualism, but you can imagine a separate mental world that is unable to intervene in the physical world.
Maybe you didn't notice my PS: I agree that the combination of determinism of the physical world, dualism and free will is contradictory. I am mainly arguing that determinism and free will in a coherent sense are compatible on monist assumptions.

I did see your admission, but it puzzled me. For Determinism is not compatible with free will. It's exclusive of it, and is, indeed a denial of the very possiblity of any meaningful attribution of action to the will. For a Determinist, "the will" has to be no more than a very odd way we describe a physical step in an inevitably physical chain of causes-and-effects -- not any kind of agency in its own right....

That statement makes "free will" nothing but a "handmaid" to physical explanations, just an odd description of what is, in truth, nothing but a physical system...
So let us make no reference to the brain but only to the mental state of somebody making a choice.

Among the things that might influence the choice are: personal preferences; knowledge of the situation in hand and of the likely consequences of each possible choice; lessons gained from experience; some new insight gained by combining past observations; previous mental commitments (e.g. on moral grounds) to make such a choice in a particular way; and so on. You may not have been aware of some of these things, but nevertheless they enter your conscious state when you turn your mind to the matter in hand. These are all things that make up the resources of your personal consciousness, that make it YOUR choice in particular. They at least potentially contribute to the expression of your will. Because all these things come from previous experiences they depend on causal links from the past to the present. Typically, none of these causes would be determining of your decision on their own, but only combined in your consciousness with all the other contributory causes to construct a new state of mind that comes to a decision. What could “agency” be but this?

(So when you say that to a determinist '"the will" has to be no more than a very odd way we describe a physical step in an inevitably physical chain of causes-and-effects', the answer is that what is so utterly different from other combinations of causes is that it takes place in the conscious mind. If you use language that fails to make this distinction, of course it sounds odd.)

*Conversely, consider some choice that simply comes into your mind at whim (in circumstances where there is no need to mentally question the choice using the resources noted above), for no reason at all to do with the fact that it is you and not some generic person. Since it happened for no reason, you could not have chosen the fact that it came into your mind, as that would be a reason. How can this be described as being an expression of will? It is free, but just free whim. If there is “agency” is such a choice, then the “agent” certainly isn’t you! In William James' words: "If a 'free' act be a sheer novelty, that comes not from me, the previous me, but ex nihilo, and simply tacks itself onto me, how can I, the previous I, be responsible?"*

Now, let us for the sake of argument [1] assume dualism of the usual kind, with a mental world that is able to affect the material world in some way, as well as being affected by it. Now suppose [2] it was the case that uncaused events don’t occur in the mental world. This in itself would not make the mental world per se deterministic, since mental events can be caused by material events; but if [3] we also assume away quantum uncertainty, we would be able to conclude that the entire world, that is the combination of the material world and the mental world, would be deterministic – nothing is left to be uncaused – and yet this determinism of the entire world does not seem to rule out agency for the mental world: the only loss from the mental world would be the loss of the cases described in the asterisked paragraph above, those unconnected with the will.

By contrast, suppose we amend assumption [1] and suppose that although there is a separate mental world which is affected by the material world, it can have no affect on the material world in its turn. Then the material world on its own would be deterministic – nothing would have no cause. In this case, free will clearly would be ruled out by such determinism. The difference is that in the former case, the mental world is a part of the causally closed system (the entire world), but in the latter it is outside the causally closed system (the material world). (The latter case is obviously not the case that pertains, of course, since in that case there would not be even the illusion of free will. It would be like the relation of the reader’s mind to an author’s fictional world, in which the reader is knowingly helpless to intervene.)

So I repeat: determinism (causal closure) of a system only denies freedom to an agent that is not part of the causally-closed system.
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Re: Free Will

Post by Immanuel Can »

RogerSH wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 12:36 pm The relationship that you both seem to me to be leaving out is when some A is the same thing as some B but described/detected in a totally different way.
Perhaps. But then, that's not a causal relationship at all, but a simple case of mistaken identity. So if "will" is actually "material causality" detected in a totally different way, then the former term is redundant, especially because it suggests a distinction where, according to Materialism, none exists at all.

"Will" simply IS nothing but a seeming, and it is a totally misleading way of describing things, according to Physicalist Determinism, since it seems to suggest that some new initiative is coming from the volition of the "willer," whereas no such thing is the case.
In my view consciousness is a manifestation of certain brain processes...
And if that's the truth, the accurate speaking would be simply to call them "brain activities," and drop terms like "consciousness" and "mind," since the latter terms have the unfortunate and misleading tendency of making people think that volition, rather than prior material causation, is being implicated.

If there's no such unique thing as mind, and the truth is that only brain exists, we can do the world a huge favour by clarifying language that has been clouded over with the detritus of misspeaking and incorrect understanding.

Can we safely do the world that "favour"?
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Re: Free Will

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Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:08 am
RCSaunders wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 1:40 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Mon Aug 02, 2021 8:29 pm Language is a common property of all. Communication, not "originality" is its virtue. An entirely "original" word, like "pllbt" is a word that means nothing to anybody -- perhaps not even to the person who speaks it.
For someone who has a background in linguistics, you seem to know very little about language.
Insulting, of course...but not concommitantly accurate.
I don't suppose it will matter, but it was not meant as an insult. I meant it as an honest evaluation of what you wrote. Your statement about language, 'Communication,' not 'originality' is its virtue," is not only wrong, it is backward.

It is ability to form concepts to identify what exists in order to be able to think about them and make choices that is the primary purpose of language. If one never communicated anything to anyone else, language would still be necessary for one to have any knowledge or to be able to think.

Every new thing discovered requires a new concept to identify. The creation of concepts is where all language comes from and precedes any other possible use or purpose of language.

One derivative use of language is communication, but there must first be knowledge to have anything to communicate.

The most important use of language is the ability to record and preserve knowledge. From personal notes and records to the most advanced science and literature, the preservation of knowledge depends on literacy, the abilities to record and understand recorded knowledge (usually called writing and reading).
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Re: Free Will

Post by Belinda »

RCSaunders wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:02 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:08 am
RCSaunders wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 1:40 am
For someone who has a background in linguistics, you seem to know very little about language.
Insulting, of course...but not concommitantly accurate.
I don't suppose it will matter, but it was not meant as an insult. I meant it as an honest evaluation of what you wrote. Your statement about language, 'Communication,' not 'originality' is its virtue," is not only wrong, it is backward.

It is ability to form concepts to identify what exists in order to be able to think about them and make choices that is the primary purpose of language. If one never communicated anything to anyone else, language would still be necessary for one to have any knowledge or to be able to think.

Every new thing discovered requires a new concept to identify. The creation of concepts is where all language comes from and precedes any other possible use or purpose of language.

One derivative use of language is communication, but there must first be knowledge to have anything to communicate.

The most important use of language is the ability to record and preserve knowledge. From personal notes and records to the most advanced science and literature, the preservation of knowledge depends on literacy, the abilities to record and understand recorded knowledge (usually called writing and reading).
I agree with RCSaunders. I'd say that language as we know it is a symbolic system. Symbols are stand-ins for a view of reality. We have to have symbols because no brain-mind is connected to other brain minds except by way of coonly understood symbols.

I also agree that we need symbols to stand for ideas when we are talking to ourselves (inner language) in our efforts to deal with reality. Some ideas are better expressed as maps, dances, graphics , mime, or sculptures but language is the most important symbolic system for general purposes.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free Will

Post by Immanuel Can »

RogerSH wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 1:37 pm Identity through time is a special case of causation: something is as it is at a later time because that it is how it was at earlier times.

It's actually not. Identity (using the word to refer to sameness, not human "identity") does not cause anything. It's simply a recognition that an item at this chronological time is the same one as at a prior chronological time.

But nothing in that relationship has been "caused." It's purely descriptive.
you can imagine a separate mental world that is unable to intervene in the physical world.
Two problems with that hypothesis: one, it's ontologically Dualist. There's no stipulation in a dualistic view that says how the two "realms" must relate to each other, simply that there are two realms. Two, it's evidently the case that the mental and the physical DO appear to interact or "intervene," and every single person alive is mysteriously inclined to act as if they do -- as you are acting right now, by discussing this.
Among the things that might influence the choice are: personal preferences; knowledge of the situation in hand and of the likely consequences of each possible choice; lessons gained from experience; some new insight gained by combining past observations; previous mental commitments (e.g. on moral grounds) to make such a choice in a particular way; and so on. You may not have been aware of some of these things, but nevertheless they enter your conscious state when you turn your mind to the matter in hand. These are all things that make up the resources of your personal consciousness, that make it YOUR choice in particular.
But it's not an exhaustive list that you have given here.

We must include such things as, "intuition," or "creativity," or "acting on an intention to produce something new." And what about "fear of possibilities," or "curiosity"? There are lots more mental states that those you've listed.
They at least potentially contribute to the expression of your will.
Of course.
Because all these things come from previous experiences they depend on causal links from the past to the present.
Well, thought, the truth is that that claim is merely presumptive, not demonstrable. In point of fact, many of them, like the ones I've listed, appear to project new realities, not simply achingly play out old lines of cause. It looks very much like creative mind-states project into reality things that have not yet existed, and then are somehow capable of creating them in reality, in the physical world.

Are you familiar with Jaegwon Kim's ideas on this? It's called the "downward causality problem" pointed out by him and by various other philosophers of mind. The problem goes like this:

Take an ordinary sentence like, "When I am ready to shop, I'll go to the store."

Deterministic thinking has to say that the operation it describes goes this way:

Action

Mind

Brain (and prior chain of material causes that produce the brain state)


In words, this reads, "The brain (along with the prior chains of material cause it implicates) causes the mind state of 'readiness,' which in turn causes the mobilizing of the body to go to the store." This is necessary, because Materialism says "The mind is caused by the brain." So it has to be the case that the brain is causing the mind to have the required thought, and the mind is responding to, or being produced by, the brain, and then the individual acts.

This is what's called "upward causality." Things are caused from the lower bases to the higher manifestations. Brain is basic, mind is a consequence of brain, and action is a consequence of mind. The whole thing moves upward.

But ordinary experience has us understanding the chain quite differently. The ordinary meaning of this sentence goes like this:

Action

Brain (and then body)

Mind


This is also "upward causality," but with brain and mind reversed in order of basicness.

Common sense, and common usage, says something like, "When my mind state is made up ('readiness'), I will tell my brain to mobilize my body to go to the store." The initiative seems to be coming from the mind, not from the physical brain. The physical brain is, so to speak, merely the housing of the mind or the connective step between mind and action, and the lower physiology is the servant of both.

But if we start from the assumption that brain "causes" mind to be what it is, we get a rather awkward, counterintuitive diagram. It looks like this:

Action
space
Mind ⇧

Brain ⇧


In other words, the mind -- which is supposed to be produced by the brain -- is somehow speaking "downward" to the brain, and making it produce the action.

"Downward causality."

But here's the problem: IF the "mind" is merely a projection of "brain," and is "caused by" brain states, then how is it even possible for the causal chain to reverse, such that "mind" looks as if it comes to "cause" things in the material realm? :shock: But it does; and it does so routinely. We all seem to feel and think and act as if that is what is happening. We all act as if the mind is the basic source of the action, not as if the brain is.

So that problem needs a solution: and so far, I see none has come about in the Philosophy of Mind generally, save to pretend the problem does not exist. What most try to do is say that the "mind" is a mere "epiphenomenon": that it doesn't really exist, but is a seeming of what the brain is doing. So the causal chain they opt for looks like this:

Action

(Mind?)

Brain

The "mind" isn't even really a thing anymore. It's a weird side-effect, and the whole process is actually strictly Materialistic.

Is that your view? I think not: but I should ask, not tell, of course. If it were, what role would be left for the "mind"?
Typically, none of these causes would be determining of your decision on their own, but only combined in your consciousness with all the other contributory causes to construct a new state of mind that comes to a decision. What could “agency” be but this?
It could be quite a few other things, actually.

I don't deny that the past may furnish some of the elments that are combined into innovation, invention and creativity. But the combinations and permutations that ensue actually bring about totally new things.
(So when you say that to a determinist '"the will" has to be no more than a very odd way we describe a physical step in an inevitably physical chain of causes-and-effects', the answer is that what is so utterly different from other combinations of causes is that it takes place in the conscious mind. If you use language that fails to make this distinction, of course it sounds odd.)
It doesn't merely "sound" odd: you can see, above, it creates the most implausible, counterintuitive, awkward kind of causal description. The brain doesn't even really need the mind to exist. And in truth, it doesn't.

Hence, Determinism.
*Conversely, consider some choice that simply comes into your mind at whim (in circumstances where there is no need to mentally question the choice using the resources noted above), for no reason at all to do with the fact that it is you and not some generic person. Since it happened for no reason...
There's the flaw. What does it mean to say something happened "for no reason"? The Determinist has to say that such a thing is impossible: "for no reason" would mean "without prior physical-causal chain." But the free will advocate would say the same: there's no such thing as "for no reason," but "reasons" include the initiatives of a personal mind.

The free will advocate says that Picasso's "Guernica" or "Blue Guitar"were produced in accordance with the physical laws of paint and canvas. But physical laws of paint and canvas are in nowise capable of producing "Guernica" or "Blue Guitar." "Guernica" and "Blue Guitar" were conceived in the mind of Pablo Picasso before he employed the physical laws of paint and canvas, and he produced unique results because he was Picasso, and not Braques or Cezanne or Joe Blow. :shock: Without Picasso, there would be no "Guernica" or "Blue Guitar."

And that description looks exactly right. It's how we see the world. But it does not fit well with the sort of description required by Physicalist Determinism: "A long chain of prior causes, stretching back infinitely in history, eventually created a brain, and the brain created both "Guernica" and "Blue Guitar," because it had to."

Really? :shock:
"If a 'free' act be a sheer novelty, that comes not from me, the previous me, but ex nihilo, and simply tacks itself onto me, how can I, the previous I, be responsible?"
The problem with this objection is in its construction of the problem. Nobody thinks a will happens "ex nihilo." Nobody thinks there's such a thing as "for no reason." It's just that the free will side includes personal causes in its more general account of causality, and Determinism excludes them from even being a possibility.

But the objection then reverses savagely. For if I am nothing but the sum of prior physical forces, THEN what is the basis of my alleged "responsibility"? There is no "me," no "I" to be responsible for anything. A long chain of prior causes forced to be done what was done. There is no personal agency in there for us to blame, and none to praise if "good" things happen, either. :shock:
Now, let us for the sake of argument [1] assume dualism of the usual kind, with a mental world that is able to affect the material world in some way, as well as being affected by it. Now suppose [2] it was the case that uncaused events don’t occur in the mental world. This in itself would not make the mental world per se deterministic, since mental events can be caused by material events;
No: it wouldn't.

Because free willians have "personal causes" in their account of causality. So to say "uncaused events don't occur in the mental world" is only to say, "no event happens without either a prior physical reason OR a personal decision." But it does not imply "uncaused" events.
but if [3] we also assume away quantum uncertainty,
We don't need to: it's actually irrelevant to the question. Quantum uncertainty does not tell us anything about how the will operates. It just suggests that physical causality may itself be less easy to understand than we (and Determinists) have previously thought.
By contrast, suppose we amend assumption [1] and suppose that although there is a separate mental world which is affected by the material world, it can have no affect on the material world in its turn. Then the material world on its own would be deterministic – nothing would have no cause.
Yes, that would be true: but it would take us back to the downward causality problem. We could only keep that worldview by dismissing the mind from the realm of the real.
So I repeat: determinism (causal closure) of a system only denies freedom to an agent that is not part of the causally-closed system.
This doesn't follow. If the system is Deterministic, then there is no "agent" and no "freedom"...especially not in a "causally-closed" system.

Thanks for your thoughts. Let us continue.
Last edited by Immanuel Can on Tue Aug 03, 2021 4:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Free Will

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Belinda wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 12:57 pm You seem to be a materialist(physicalist) like RCSaunders is.
Just for the record, I am not physicalist. Life, consciousness, and human minds cannot be described or explained in terms of merely physical properties as all merely physical entities can.

Nevertheless, life, consciousness, and minds do not exist independently of the physical organisms they are the properties of. Life, consciousness and mind are not supernatural or mystical, but perfectly natural attributes in addition to the physical attributes.
jayjacobus
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Re: Free Will

Post by jayjacobus »

RCSaunders wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 3:53 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Aug 03, 2021 12:57 pm You seem to be a materialist(physicalist) like RCSaunders is.
Just for the record, I am not physicalist. Life, consciousness, and human minds cannot be described or explained in terms of merely physical properties as all merely physical entities can.

Nevertheless, life, consciousness, and minds do not exist independently of the physical organisms they are the properties of. Life, consciousness and mind are not supernatural or mystical, but perfectly natural attributes in addition to the physical attributes.
You could be wrong. There is no scientific evidence to support your opinion.

Minds are attributes that are mystical so far.

Exposing one's head in no way explains the mind.
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