What is Free Will?

@prothero,

prothero;113885 wrote:

Well actually it is not so obvious. Your assumption is determinism and so that the same causes can not yield different events is only obvious to you. It is precisely hard determinism that is in question.

I'm not sure what you mean.

All hard determinists are determinists, but not all determinists are hard determinists. I'm a soft determinist, so I hold that determinism is true, but I do not hold that hard determinism is true.

@fast,

fast;113898 wrote:

All hard determinists are determinists, but not all determinists are hard determinists. I'm a soft determinist, so I hold that determinism is true, but I do not hold that hard determinism is true.

What do you mean by "soft determinism"? versus "hard determinism"?
The difference between no freedom and a little freedom is all the difference in the world when it comes to creativity and free will.

---------- Post added 12-23-2009 at 06:05 PM ----------

[QUOTE=memester;113895] knowing them is quite a different matter than what we were discussing. [/QUOTE] Postulating or assuming them is quite a different matter than demonstrating them or just asserting them. In fact the scientific and logical status of free will versus hard determinism remains to be seen but modern conceptions in science do not exclude the realm of ordered possibilities which opens the door to meaningful interpretations of free will.

[QUOTE=memester;113895] Not just same conditions. Same conditions and causes. If the causes and conditions were actually same, they would not have been able to tell which was which....eh ? [/QUOTE] Under conditions that appear identical different results are obtained which although not random (stochastic and quantitized) are not in keeping with the metaphysical assumption of "hard determinism".
I am not asserting that "free will" and alternative possible outcomes has been proven only that "hard determinism" likewise is not proven. There is a choice between assuming the world is "completely deterministic, predictable and without alternatives" and assuming the world is one of some degree of freedom, unpredictability and ordered possibilities.
Neither science, logic nor experience would lead one inexorably to "hard determinism".

[QUOTE=memester;113895] there would have been only one event. [/QUOTE] Well, some serious scientists are engaging in multiverse interpretations of quantum events. We only observe one event. What are you saying? Are you saying because there was only one event it was the only possible event or outcome? Other than your inherent metaphysical assumption of "determinism" what proof do you have for that assertion?

[QUOTE=memester;113895] Perhaps you're confusing prediction with history. [/QUOTE] What did occur becomes history. The fact that only one of the possible events occurred and that it becomes history is not the same as asserting that only that event could have occurred or given sufficient information that event was predictable.

Do you think the entire course of history, human and galactic are predictable by LaPlace's demon? What proof do you have for that notion? What about chaos, fractals, probability wave equations, incompleteness theorems, information loss in black holes? and what about your everyday experience and the assumptions you actually utilize in ordering your life.

@prothero,

[QUOTE=prothero;113935]What do you mean by "soft determinism"? versus "hard determinism"?
The difference between no freedom and a little freedom is all the difference in the world when it comes to creativity and free will.
[/quote]
If you are a determinist, then you're either a soft determinist or a hard determinist. A soft determinist is also called a compatibilist.

A soft determinist is a determinist that believes in free will. A hard determinist is a determinist that doesn't believe in free will.

A determinist is one that believes all events have antecedent causes, so both soft determinists and hard determinists believe that all events have antecedent causes.

A hard determinist also believes something that the soft determinists don't. A hard determinists believes that all events that do happen must happen.

A hard determinist is also called an incompatibilist. An incompatibilist doesn't believe that free will and determinism can both be true.

You seem to be confusing determinism with hard determinism.

Another incompatibilist is the libertarian. A libertarian believes in free will just like the compatibilist does, but a libertarian isn't a determinist.

A libertarian is an indeterminist. An indeterminist is one that doesn't believe all events have antecedent causes.

@fast,

fast;114004 wrote:

You seem to be confusing determinism with hard determinism.

.

I think he must mean something like, "strict determinism". Maybe not even leaving room for quantum jumps. But, of course, I don't know what is in his mind. Maybe he means only that he is a convinced determinist. Anyway, we ought to get the jargon straight. The point of jargon is to communicate more easily. Not to confuse. Anyway, your are right. Hard Determinism is the view that Determinism is incompatible with free will. Soft determinism, that determinism is compatible with free will. Both are determinists.

@fast,

fast wrote:

A soft determinist is a determinist that believes in free will. A hard determinist is a determinist that doesn't believe in free will.

What exactly does the hard determinist not believe in? He doesn't believe that we can make choices? That seems incredibly odd to me.

@Zetherin,

it's just that the hard determinist believes your "choice" was determined, even though you do have that "feeling" of making a choice.

@memester,

memester;114015 wrote:

it's just that the hard determinist believes your "choice" was determined, even though you do have that "feeling" of making a choice.

The feeling of making the choice, seems to me to be what making a choice is. What more could it be? Maybe it's really not any deeper than that, and hard determinists are applying some sort of absolutism to human cognition. I mean, how would you ever even evaluate if you were "truly" making a choice, as opposed to just "feeling as though" you were making a choice? People tend to convolute things all the time by applying mystical or otherwise absolute natures. :Glasses:

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;114016 wrote:

The feeling of making the choice, seems to me to be what making a choice is. What more could it be? Maybe it's really not any deeper than that, and hard determinists are applying some sort of absolutism to human cognition. I mean, how would you ever even evaluate if you were "truly" making a choice, as opposed to just "feeling as though" you were making a choice? People tend to convolute things all the time by applying mystical or otherwise absolute natures. :Glasses:

If one believes in Cause and Effect, how could one not believe that choices are caused, just as is everything else ?

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;114012 wrote:

What exactly does the hard determinist not believe in? He doesn't believe that we can make choices? That seems incredibly odd to me.

What he believes is that (a) Determinism is true, and (b) that, therefore, free will is false. What he means by (b) is obscure. People obviously make choices (or appear to, anyway). So you would have to ask the hard determinist. Maybe he just means that nothing can happen except what does happen. But that seems to confuse hard determinism with fatalism. And that is always a danger in this matter.

@memester,

memester;114017 wrote:

If one believes in Cause and Effect, how could one not believe that choices are caused, just as is everything else ?

But because choices are caused, does not mean that we don't make choices. We're the cause!

@memester,

memester;114017 wrote:

If one believes in Cause and Effect, how could one not believe that choices are caused, just as is everything else ?

Well, sure they are caused. But how does that imply that free will is false?

@Zetherin,

[QUOTE=Zetherin;114012]What exactly does the hard determinist not believe in? He doesn't believe that we can make choices? That seems incredibly odd to me.[/quote]
The best I can tell, a hard determinist believes that all events that do happen must happen. So, if you 'choose' vanilla over chocolate, that is not only true but a necessary truth. In other words, it's something that must be done. All truths are necessary truths to the hard determinist.

Now, why did I say, 'choose' instead of choose? I believe that a choice is a choice between alternatives. If everything I do is something I must do, then what appears to be a choice is not really a choice at all since no alternatives are real possibilities. I think this is what drives people to say that free will is an illusion.

@fast,

fast;114022 wrote:

The best I can tell, a hard determinist believes that all events that do happen must happen. So, if you 'choose' vanilla over chocolate, that is not only true but a necessary truth. In other words, it's something that must be done. All truths are necessary truths to the hard determinist.

Now, why did I say, 'choose' instead of choose? I believe that a choice is a choice between alternatives. If everything I do is something I must do, then what appears to be a choice is not really a choice at all since no alternatives are real possibilities. I think this is what drives people to say that free will is an illusion.

That all truths are logically necessary truths was Spinoza's brand of determinism (although, interestingly enough, the entire last part of his Ethics is called, "Of Human Freedom". But Spinoza held that free will was false). But I don't think that all hard determinists hold that all truths are logically necessary truths. Just nomologically necessary i.e. that it is contingently impossible for anything else to happen than did happen. So, there is that complication too.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;114019 wrote:

But because choices are caused, does not mean that we don't make choices. We're the cause!

It depends on where you want to stop the regression. Some would say that you had no choice, no free will, on which way you would decide...that you had as much choice as a machine does, in responding. You may call it a choice, but your decision was determined before you existed.

@memester,

memester;114027 wrote:

It depends on where you want to stop the regression. Some would say that you had no choice, nio free will, on which way you would decide. so you had as much choice as a machine does, in responding.

You mean that what I did, I had to do, and could not have done otherwise? Not even if I had chosen to do otherwise? What would make them think such a thing, I wonder.

@memester,

memester;114027 wrote:

It depends on where you want to stop the regression. Some would say that you had no choice, no free will, on which way you would decide...that you had as much choice as a machine does, in responding. You may call it a choice, but your decision was determined before you existed.

That person would seem be denying intentionality altogether. I think most agree that machines cannot bear intentionality.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;114029 wrote:

That person would seem be denying intentionality altogether. I think most agree that machines cannot bear intentionality.

But, why would anyone think people are machines?

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;114029 wrote:

That person would seem be denying intentionality altogether. I think most agree that machines cannot bear intentionality.

Well, they deny Free Will, so it would follow that they deny True Intentionality. However, it seems they usually are driven to apply modifiers such as "Ultimate", or "True", or "Free", when they go to excess regression.

To me, once the terms of "you" or "I" or "they" are accepted, one can no longer regress as far as one might wish to.

Signaling that one accepts "you", means then "you" is no longer a part of the background of the universe, "you" being a distinct entity. Even a machine can be a cause, though.
---------- Post added 12-24-2009 at 10:45 AM ----------

kennethamy;114030 wrote:

But, why would anyone think people are machines?

lack of insight ?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;114030 wrote:

But, why would anyone think people are machines?

A modern reason is because of the brain imaging and replication softwares currently being developed. Many believe that if we are able to one day take a full, detailed, image of the brain and all correlates, we would be able to recreate the consciousness in a digital system. And if we were able to recreate the consciousness in a digital system, our "humanness", then, would be stripped; we were just machines after all! Dun, dun, dun!

I'm content with how Dennett explains thought process:

"The model of decision making I am proposing has the following feature: when we are faced with an important decision, a consideration-generator whose output is to some degree undetermined produces a series of considerations, some of which may of course be immediately rejected as irrelevant by the agent (consciously or unconsciously). Those considerations that are selected by the agent as having a more than negligible bearing on the decision then figure in a reasoning process, and if the agent is in the main reasonable, those considerations ultimately serve as predictors and explicators of the agent's final decision"

He's also a compatibilist with free will.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;114030 wrote:

But, why would anyone think people are machines?

another hypothesis is that it's caused by being in second year of college.

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