What is Free Will?

@kennethamy,

Laplace's demon
"We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."

How does a hard determinist, a soft determinist, a compatibilist and a libertarian free will advocate feel about Laplace's demon?

Is the future theoretically predictable in every detail including human action?
or is there some degree of freedom (uncertainty, stochastic probablity) inherent in the very nature of the universe?

@prothero,

prothero;114040 wrote:

Laplace's demon
"We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes."

How does a hard determinist, a soft determinist, a compatibilist and a libertarian free will advocate feel about Laplace's demon?

Is the future theoretically predictable in every detail including human action?
or is there some degree of freedom (uncertainty, stochastic probablity) inherent in the very nature of the universe?

all face the same end: incoherency, but some deal with it.

@memester,

memester;114037 wrote:

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

I wasn't asking for a cause. I was asking for a reason (a good one, if possible). The cause might also be drinking too much wine. Of course, a reason can also be a cause, and it is nice if a reason is a cause (especially if it is a good reason).

@Zetherin,

Zetherin 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.

Yes, there is certainly a mental process of choice. When you consciously think things through and take an action. If you hear a loud noise and jump, you didn't choose to jump. But if you read a few movie reviews, think about it for a bit, remember past movies you've been to and then decide to see sherlock holmes there was a mental process involved, like in the daniel dennet bit you quoted. It's a more complicated process then the "jump when you hear a loud noise" one, but just as much cause and effect.

Did you pick the movie of your own free will? It depends on how you define free will.

I wouldn't say that determinists are needlessly convoluting things though. I posted an example earlier (I think) of people claiming they made a choice for certain reasons when they had actually done it for completely different reasons. I think it's hard to remind yourself of how much influence the unconscious has on you if you don't accept some sort of determinism.

It's a tough subject I think.

prothero wrote:

Is the future theoretically predictable in every detail including human action?
or is there some degree of freedom (uncertainty, stochastic probablity) inherent in the very nature of the universe?

I don't see how the existence of randomness is relevant to free will.

@Zetherin,

Zetherin;114019 wrote:

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

Good point. But can't we further divide this we up? Is not the self a useful fiction that ties together contradictory urges and beliefs? And to what degree is this self shaped by genetics and environment? Or should I say to what degree is this self not shaped by genetics and environment?

---------- Post added 12-29-2009 at 04:29 AM ----------

Jebediah;115234 wrote:

It's a tough subject I think.

Well said. It certainly is.

---------- Post added 12-29-2009 at 04:31 AM ----------

Jebediah;115234 wrote:

Did you pick the movie of your own free will? It depends on how you define free will.

Exactly! It's all a matter of what we mean by the terms we use.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115237 wrote:

Exactly! It's all a matter of what we mean by the terms we use.

Exactly not.
I think you must mean it depends (partly) on what the terms we use mean. Not, "what we mean by the terms we use". And, I have already told you what the terms, "soft determinism" and "hard determinism" mean. What you (or anyone else) happens to mean by them is irrelevant to the issue. Would you say to a physicist when he tells you that the Earth's mass is greater than that of the Moon, that it depends on what we mean by the term, "mass"? What difference does it make what you, or anyone else, happens to mean by "mass"? None. It does, of course, depend (partly) on what "mass" means. And, of course, partly on the Earth and the Moon.

@Zetherin,

[QUOTE=Zetherin;114035]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![/quote]

If I scanned and replicated your brain inside a digital system, then you would still be a person and not a machine. The problem is that the word, "machine" is being used broader than how it is ordinarily used. We are not machines. The word is not a rubber band. Some think it is and try to stretch it so far that they even think the universe is a machine.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115290 wrote:

Exactly not.
I think you must mean it depends (partly) on what the terms we use mean. Not, "what we mean by the terms we use". And, I have already told you what the terms, "soft determinism" and "hard determinism" mean. What you (or anyone else) happens to mean by them is irrelevant to the issue. Would you say to a physicist when he tells you that the Earth's mass is greater than that of the Moon, that it depends on what we mean by the term, "mass"? What difference does it make what you, or anyone else, happens to mean by "mass"? None. It does, of course, depend (partly) on what "mass" means. And, of course, partly on the Earth and the Moon.

There is an agreed upon definition of mass, but people don't agree on the definition of free will.

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;115312 wrote:

There is an agreed upon definition of mass, but people don't agree on the definition of free will.

They all agree, I think, that to have free will is to have the ability to do otherwise than you did do. But why should agreement make any difference? All philosophers agree about what "soft determinism" and "hard determinism" mean, yet some still insist it depends on what "we" mean by those terms. And, lastly, even if there were disagreement on what "free will" means, would that mean that anyone can mean what he likes by "free will"?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115314 wrote:

...even if there were disagreement on what "free will" means, would that mean that anyone can mean what he likes by "free will"?

Well, yes, and to change that meaning without notice, too. Though they may do so at their whim, it makes their end of conversation not demanding of any reply.

I still don't "get" why there is a need to apply "Free" to "Will".

The question of "Will" is enough to handle. What does adding "Free", do - that helps understanding ?

@memester,

memester;115315 wrote:

Well, yes, and to change that meaning without notice, too. Though they are free to do so at their whim, it makes their end of conversation not demanding of any reply.

I don't think I was really asking whether they can do it. Rather, I was asking (rhetorically) whether whether it made any rational sense to do it. It is not up to an individual what a word means unless he coins the word himself, and then stipulates the meaning.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115318 wrote:

I don't think I was really asking whether they can do it. Rather, I was asking (rhetorically) whether whether it made any rational sense to do it. It is not up to an individual what a word means unless he coins the word himself, and then stipulates the meaning.

I am more concerned with changing of meaning during the dialogue.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115314 wrote:

They all agree, I think, that to have free will is to have the ability to do otherwise than you did do. But why should agreement make any difference? All philosophers agree about what "soft determinism" and "hard determinism" mean, yet some still insist it depends on what "we" mean by those terms. And, lastly, even if there were disagreement on what "free will" means, would that mean that anyone can mean what he likes by "free will"?

But there are lots of arguments about what concepts, ideas, and words mean.

I don't think everyone can just come up with their own definition, but you can reasonably disagree over how to define it.

Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Has lots of different ways people have looked at the idea of what free will is.

You could say:

Yes we have free will, if I have a desire and another, lesser desire, I can choose the greater desire. For example, if I want to lose weight, but want to eat a cookie I can choose not to eat the cookie.

Or you can say we don't have free will, you didn't choose to have the desire to lose weight or the desire to eat a cookie, it's all just cause and effect with some randomness.

I think we are steered by our unconscious more than we like to admit. The analogy of a man riding on the back of an elephant is apt. But we do have some capacity to move beyond mere instinct.

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;115349 wrote:

But there are lots of arguments about what concepts, ideas, and words mean.

I don't think everyone can just come up with their own definition, but you can reasonably disagree over how to define it.

Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Has lots of different ways people have looked at the idea of what free will is.

You could say:

Yes we have free will, if I have a desire and another, lesser desire, I can choose the greater desire. For example, if I want to lose weight, but want to eat a cookie I can choose not to eat the cookie.

Or you can say we don't have free will, you didn't choose to have the desire to lose weight or the desire to eat a cookie, it's all just cause and effect with some randomness.

I think we are steered by our unconscious more than we like to admit. The analogy of a man riding on the back of an elephant is apt. But we do have some capacity to move beyond mere instinct.

Forget, for a minute, whether we have free will. Isn't having free will the ability to do otherwise than you did do? So, when someone says, "I did that of my own free will" , isn't he, at least, saying, I could have done something else; I was not forced to do what I did"?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115352 wrote:

Forget, for a minute, whether we have free will. Isn't having free will the ability to do otherwise than you did do? So, when someone says, "I did that of my own free will" , isn't he, at least, saying, I could have done something else; I was not forced to do what I did"?

but first....how could one reasonably ever claim that no forces were working ?

@memester,

memester;115357 wrote:

but first....how could one reasonably ever claim that no forces were working ?

But that was not my question. That's maybe the next question. We were talking, I thought, about the definition of "free will", not whether that definition is applicable to anything, or whether we could know whether it was applicable to anything (your question).

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115360 wrote:

But that was not my question. That's maybe the next question. We were talking, I thought, about the definition of "free will", not whether that definition is applicable to anything, or whether we could know whether it was applicable to anything (your question).

I know it's not your question..but it is my question about your question.

My question, about your question, needs an answer - in order to answer your question logically.

Quote:

isn't he, at least, saying, I could have done something else; I was not forced to do what I did"?

and I'm saying that putting this on your question forces us to answer with regard to what is perhaps meant by "not forced".

It's back to distinguishing "overwhelming force" from "force".

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;115352 wrote:

Forget, for a minute, whether we have free will. Isn't having free will the ability to do otherwise than you did do? So, when someone says, "I did that of my own free will" , isn't he, at least, saying, I could have done something else; I was not forced to do what I did"?

It depends. Some people may mean that they were not forced by something external to them, but that they did what they did because of their desire, and that was not something that they chose. So, someone might say, an action done by "free will" means that one is not externally compelled, not that one was not compelled internally to act in the manner that one acted.

What I have found in discussions of "free will" is that, generally, people do not precisely define what they mean, and then get into arguments with others who likewise do not precisely define what they mean by the expression "free will". They then typically see each other as idiots, who cannot see what is obvious about the expression that they are using, neglecting the fact that they may simply be using different definitions of the terms. In my opinion, this is precisely the problem that occurs with compatibilists versus incompatibilists (with determinism), where each is simply using a different idea of what is meant by "free will".

In other words, I think you are right to start with, "Forget, for a minute, whether we have free will." The first thing to do is to state what, precisely, "free will" is. It is only after one knows what one is talking about that one will be in a proper position to say whether or not people have such a thing.

But even the above is rather optimistic and flattering to people. By not defining a term precisely, it allows for much equivocation, which leads to all sorts of problems. I think, for some people, the problem is not simply that they are using a different definition from others, but that they do not have a precise definition that they adhere to, and so they flounder about, saying all sorts of nonsense.

@Pyrrho,

I think there is a way out though.

Once we have established the term "force" as legit, in the discussion, we have a distinction between "Me" and "It". From there there is no "going back" to claim that we cannot distinguish causes to the proper level.

If we also use the idea that overwhelming force is always the cause of an event, we can then see that sometimes the overwhelming force was made up of smaller forces, none of which are readily seen as an overwhelming force in themselves.

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;115349 wrote:

But there are lots of arguments about what concepts, ideas, and words mean.

I don't think everyone can just come up with their own definition, but you can reasonably disagree over how to define it.

Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Has lots of different ways people have looked at the idea of what free will is.

You could say:

Yes we have free will, if I have a desire and another, lesser desire, I can choose the greater desire. For example, if I want to lose weight, but want to eat a cookie I can choose not to eat the cookie.

Or you can say we don't have free will, you didn't choose to have the desire to lose weight or the desire to eat a cookie, it's all just cause and effect with some randomness.

I think we are steered by our unconscious more than we like to admit. The analogy of a man riding on the back of an elephant is apt. But we do have some capacity to move beyond mere instinct.

Yes, there is more than one way to define "free will", and that obviously is going to impact the statements that one will be apt to make about it. This explains why there are both compatibilists and incompatibilists regarding "free will" and "determinism"; they are, in many cases, simply using different definitions of the terms, rather than expressing contradictory ideas. The failure to realize this leads many people to imagine that their "opponents" are idiots who fail to recognize the obvious inferences that follow from their chosen definition.

And, of course, there are many who do not even have a precise definition in mind, who end up saying all sorts of nonsense. It is rare for there to be a good thread about "free will" in any forum anywhere on the internet, due to the fact that people fail to give precise definitions of their chosen usage of the expression, and argue with others who likewise fail to precisely define the expression. They then talk past each other, post after post, accomplishing nothing but aggravation for all concerned.

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