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Free Will?

I think its a matter of perspective. Everything is cause and effect. True will is not the same thing as deciding to do something. Its not the power of decision. True will is understanding your nature or your "way". Its about going with the flow rather than fighting against it. Being who you really are and what you were "meant" to be rather than contriving to be something you are not.

The way of one thing is the way of all things.....at least according to Japanese esoteric philosophy.
 
Sentience said:
Everything is cause and effect.
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So you're a determinist? Me too (I don't believe in Free Will - I haven't yet come across a clear definition of what is meant by the term).

I can't say that I understand the rest of what you said :\
 
once a ball is rolling, it may gain momentum or lose it. it does not start/stop just like that. yet this is not Free Will, this is our own egoic will. but that (the consequences) determines our ability to surrender to Free Will. True Free Will is total surrender to Necessity. so, Free Will exists, but relative to the consequences of our own actions/will.

this is not a determinist position mind you. the dichotomy determinate/free collapses here. the dichotomy stems from the separation of the synthesis that is the mind and the body. Free Will is at One with Gods. it is us finding ourselfs 100% in agreement with our actions, without any guilt or shame. without guilt and/or shame, the self does not have any reason to consciously control and thus impede its true desire. its desire is to be given what it desires. it finds itself doing as it wants to do, without doing it. it is the True Will of the Hearts True Desire. Desire for the Other.

edit: Free Will is not our own will that is free, in opposition to; overriding the will of others. rather, it is the Freedom of Will itself within our selves.
 
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Sorry azzazza - none of that made any sense to me:( (but then I will always find any explanation that makes recourse to the "The Gods" problematic ;))

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The only clear definition of free will that I have come across defines it as "agency that is neither deterministic nor random".

Firstly, that is a negative definition - one that defines something by qualities that it does not have, rather than those qualities that it does.

And anyway, it just doesn't make sense. I have an idea what deterministic agency is - cause and effect - there may well also be uncaused - random - effects (the radioactive decay of an atomic nuclei appears to fulfil some criteria for a random effect), but I can't see how there can be a third class of agency:

1. Caused, 2. Uncaused/random, 3.?

It seems to me that all classes of agency belong in either 1. or 2.
 
As a determinist I believe that our actions are determined by our desires, our desires are an emergent property of deterministic brain states.
 
^oh but you can perfectly leave my reference to God out of my explanation though. it is just an allegorical manner of expression.

and these brain states are determined by? the consequences of our desires? i agree a large part of ourselves is determined by a deterministic circle, but that is what i referred to as "relative to the consequences of our actions". yet there seems to be something in there that can investigate the workings of these desires, moving about freely through the system/machine... what is desire really?
 
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azzazza do you agree with the definition of free will that I gave (agency that is neither deterministic nor random)? If not, do you have an alternative definition?
what is desire really?
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Like I said, a deterministic brain state :)
 
your definition sounds fine to me (albeit it seems to miss something, yet i can't really put my linguistic finger on it as of now. something along the lines of 'the playfullness of a child')

do you agree that your definition of desire as a deterministic brain state is circular?
 
azzazza !? said:
do you agree that your definition of desire as a deterministic brain state is circular?
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Sorry, no :) (I don't understand your argument there)

You think that Free Will is agency that is neither deterministic nor random? It seems to me that deterministic vs. random (caused vs. uncaused) are binary opposites and, for this reason, I really can't see how agency can not be either one or the other.

If free will is neither the result of deterministic (caused) nor random (uncaused) processes then that just leaves what... magic? the supernatural?
 
If you're in the UK (within BBC iplayer land) then this program is quite interesting - esp. from about 50 mins. onwards.

They demonstrate that using brain imaging techniques it is possible to predict the decision a person will make 6 seconds before that person becomes consciously aware of making a decision.
 
well, given that desire is the driving force behind our actions in the world, the 'response' of the world (call it respons-ability) is determined by the world. our body is the way through which this 'response' is registered. and as such our desires are determined by the brain states resulting from this registered response.
which has the consequence that if hard determinism were true, we would never see something new developing. in fact, we wouldn't really 'see' anything (for ourselves) our seeing would be the seeing of sensors on a robot.

the fact that one can predict ones decision from processes in the body doesn't seems strange to me. but you will never see a 100% succes rate at that. the majority of our actions are sytematically determined. there was a thread here on that subject not so long ago called "are we philosophical zombies most of the time?"

it is true that the definition is paradoxal. such paradoxes are a way of defining mental categories such as determined/free, or identity/difference (such as the spin-off discussion in this thread) both sides of the duality are dependant on each other, neither side 'really' exists. if hard determinism is true, we are just robots that are not self aware. self-awareness is a freedom, an escaped from being identical with the systematic processes. so your ability to investigate these process, to see them in action, requires something to be free from the gurning of the weels, and move about observing this system in action.
 
Okay, looking up hard determinism on Wiki I discover that that is pretty much my viewpoint, and I'm an Incompatibilist too!

It seems to me that, because people experience their conscious selves directing their actions, they start from a viewpoint that Free Will must exist, almost as an a priori fact, and then look for evidence, or some logical argument to back up this strong belief.

When I first came across hard determinist and incompatibilist arguments against free will I too instinctively felt that surely I was able to exercise free will, but the more that I thought about it I recognised the problems and contradictions within such a belief.

Accepting that free will is an illusion does profoundly alter one's view of one's personal identity, and it is hard to get your head around, but I'm quite happy now believing that my conscious experience of self is the culmination of a very complex sequence of patterns within a wholly deterministic biological computer.
 
Here's a thought experiment:

Imagine an experiment in which a person was given some arbitrary free choice. Suppose that it were possible to run this experiment with the same person over and over and each time every aspect of the initial conditions is perfectly reproduced, including the subjects exact brain state*. Now if this were the case, and assuming that random causation (e.g. quantum effects) does not affect the outcome (and free will is not random anyway), surely each time the experiment is run the subject will make the same choice? The outcome each time is, therefore, pre-determined as is choice that the subject makes, thus free will plays no part in their decision.




*in effect, to ensure identical initial conditions, one would have to have multiple identical universes starting from the same point and one would somehow have to be able to observe the experiment without affecting it, but this is a thought experiment so we're allowed to stretch the possibilities somewhat!
 
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i used to be a determinist during my first years as a philosophy student at university. i never really developed it though. i had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of free will personally :p it primarily involved overcoming the subject-object category.

hard determinism and incompatibilist? you are coming very close, if not identical, to solipsism. the position means you have a self-awareness that is completely seperate from the world (eg. the determined process) causally speaking. so you say self-awareness is a simple byproduct of these processes. you'd have a difficult time arguing why a strictly deterministic system would evolve a completely passive (useless) by-product. nature doesn't have a habit of evolving completely useless things.
furthermore there are a lot of consequences to face with this position as well. for starters, morality would be a complete farce. so would justice be. why would people even want to frustrate any of their base desires out of consideration of others?
 
azzazza !? said:
hard determinism and incompatibilist? you are coming very close, if not identical, to solipsism.
the position means you have a self-awareness that is completely seperate from the world (eg. the determined process) causally speaking. so you say self-awareness is a simple byproduct of these processes.
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Hmmm, I don't think so: "Solipsism is the philosophical idea that one's own mind is all that exists". I'm not saying that only my own mind exists and neither am I taking a dualist viewpoint - that the self exists separate from the material body - either. Rather, I'm saying that the universe is essentially a deterministic process and that determinism is fundamentaly incompatible with the notion of free will.
you'd have a difficult time arguing why a strictly deterministic system would evolve a completely passive (useless) by-product. nature doesn't have a habit of evolving completely useless things.
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I would argue that a sense of self is not passive or useless (biologically speaking), on the contrary, it has lead to our considerable success as a species. (N.B. Self awareness and free will are different concepts and neither is contingent upon the other.)

furthermore there are a lot of consequence to face with this position as well. for starters, morality would be a complete farce. so would justice be.
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Haha! Yes, I know - guilt certainly goes out of the window - but it does not necessarily mean that our deterministic actions can not still be good or bad (in so much as they increase or decrease pleasure/pain, happiness/suffering etc.). Yes I have utilitarian leanings too.:)
 
Oh, and I do think that where a system of justice uses punishment for punishment's sake (because the offender deserves it, rather than as deterrent to others) well, yes, that is a farce!

And an argument that says 'there must be a free will because our system of justice is predicated upon it' is pretty much arse-about-tit if you pardon my French - kind of like saying 'there must be a tooth fairy otherwise putting teeth under the pillow wouldn't make sense'!
 
given that you are an incompatibilist, your self-awareness is completely seperate from the deterministic process. self-awareness is a freedom. to be aware of something, one must be able to escape that something of which it is aware. whatever it contemplates, the awareness contemplating it is not that thing (subject-object). and here lies the main problem with determinism; how can someone identify something as determinite without its counterpoint; an idea of freedom? in a determinite universe, where does this idea of freedom come from? self-awareness is freedom. it is something that is not what it is aware of (ie. Sartres 'Néant' (lit.: "non-being")

the incompatibilist saves his position by way of one-way causality. it just passes through this self-awareness and its notions of freedom, it floats completely passively above this material, deterministic universe. it cannot have a truly active position from within self-awareness. for that is its (free) will! given that there is no free will, there is no way to actually seperate this awareness as such from the body, ie. the universe could actually perfectly go without. one can only be aware of his own self-awareness. there is no real way to tell if another human being is self-aware, for if there was, it would have to play an active role. it cannot react as a self-awareness, for that would entice bringing in elements of its fundamental freedom. its recorded reaction can only be resulting from and come trough the deterministic processes. in that case we cannot distinguish self-awareness from them. thus we have no way of knowing there actually is one there. you see, you need a closed system to seperate your self awareness (=freedom) from the deterministic world; to prevent there from being a free will, and maintain only the 'will' (if you can call it that) or laws of the deterministic system. as such, you can only have an influx into this self-awareness, but no outgoing connections. any actions of a 'self' cannot be, for this would mean a 'free will' ( the will of a self as opposed to the deterministic laws of the universe) going from that 'self'. Thus, you cannot trace any of the determinist processes entering your self-awareness back to another self-awareness, since this self-awareness cannot have any influence on the deterministic processes. as such there is no way of discerning the existence of another self. you can only 'believe there are' by virtue of their similary to you. the self has to be completely passive in your position.

as for morality, your self-awareness may be able to judge determined processes happening to it as good or bad. but it would be a degenerate subjectivism. you can only judge pertaining your own relative position. you can only say this is good or bad, insofar as what is happens to do to me alone. you see, a deterministic event is not good or bad by itself, intrinsically. it just is. when a certain building collapses in such a way due to causal laws that it crushes someone, you cannot say "that is one mean, bad building" Given that you do not have acces to others' self-awareness, your ethical judgement of their actions becomes meaningless. they have no personal influence on their actions, therefor no intention, and as such, their actions remain morally neutral causal consequences. furthermore, given that the self has no willful action whatsoever, how can you hold anyone responsable for his deeds? is it ethically responsable to punish some presumably there awareness for a deed that is not his own, but rather a consequence of the determinism of the universe? you would punish him just for being born in the wrong place? can you blame yourself for any action the deterministic universe undertakes through yourself when you do not have any say whatsoever over it?
 
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