Amos

Ave Laurentius

You are correct in that philosophy is not a study of dictionaries and also in that Free Will and Determinism go hand in hand.

I would take this one step further and argue that the two are opposite and cannot be conceived to exist without the other. They are philosophical concepts known only to the Freeman who is truly free while the free man is determined to be free and act according to his own will.

The difference is that the Freeman does not rationally choose his action while the free man rationally responds to mental influences and so directs his will to perform an act. In this difference the free agent is always torn by decisions while the Freeman acts intuitively.

Amos

Thanks crocodile deathroll.

<strong>An influential series of experiments by Libet has suggested that conscious intentions arise as a result of brain activity. This contrasts with traditional concepts of free will, in which the mind controls the body.</strong>

So here we are divided in our own mind between prior non-rational "brain activity" and "conscious intentions." As rational human beings we can over-rule and redirect our non-rational will to make choices as free agents.

In my argument for the existence of Free Will the non-rational brain and the rational brain have united and are one and the same. In this sense we see with the eye of our soul and act according to the will of our soul. In the argument of the Freeman this is possible.

Kent Stevens

This turns into a semantic argument about what free will means. People can interpret a word in different ways especially when it comes to philosophy. Refering to dictionaries usually minimises semantic disputes.

One consequence of using the above definition of free will is that some people would not have free will. A baby, someone who is mentally retarded, or senile would then not be said to have free will, even if they are not coerced or restrained by something. For with the above examples the people concerned do not identify themselves as having a reasoning "I" and responsibly assuming their own purposes.

With the above definition of free will maybe it possible that a chimpanzee has free will. But I suppose it's identification of a reasoning "I" and responsibly assuming it's own purposes is supposed to be insufficient. But an adult chimpanzee would be closer to what would be required, than a new born baby would.

To single out a single species as having free will while others do not goes against evolutionary and developmental thinking. Humans are the most intelligent species on the planet but this does not mean that other animals do not display lesser degrees of intelligence. If free will arises in evolution at what stage does it arise? In terms of developing babies which is the free will stage where a baby develops free will? Or is the complexity of choice something that gradually develops or evolves in all animals?

Infinity Lover

Is it just me, or does that simply say, that there's a distinction between concious choice, and reflex?

What else is new. They had to study this?
<img src="confused.gif" border="0">

Laurentius

AVE

Indeed. This has been my sentiment lately as well, which I have already given a hint at when I mentioned that the phrase "free will" had been coined with the very purpose of designating Man as a moral agent and thus implying his liability.

I couldn't agree more. Socrates allegedly faced the same problem of the terms not being unitarily defined, but I guess looking up philosophical key words in common dictionaries is only a method of trivializing them. According to any dictionary, "tragedy" (for instance) can mean merely "misfortune", but this significance is far from what any philosopher will think of "tragedy".

Exactly. As I have pointed out before, free will does not reside in either the freedom or complexity of the agent, i.e. the lack of free will is by no means a consequence of the agent being in a state of coercion or simplicity. Free will is moral discernment. Minors and insane people are not held responsible for their deeds for the very reason that they cannot discern right from wrong.

Wrong. At least, that is what I feel. I for one only know humans to satisfy the quality of moral agents (i.e. endowed with free will) because they:
(a) form within cultures to grow the sense of right and wrong according to precise moral codes,
(b) have the capacity to project their acts in time and analyze their consequences before they are actually performed, and
(c) are able to objectively identify themselves as the agents of their own deeds, which are consciously assumed.

No other animal can (fully) live up to these requirments and thus exhibit (real) free will.

No, it does not. The theory of evolution no longer accepts only discreet development; confronted with a wide range of facts, recently scientist have often been forced to swallow the possibility of the occurance of evolutionary leaps.

When in the evolution of species or of a baby free will arises is not the issue here. The issue is whether free will is bunk (bunkum, nonsense) or not.

Well, free will is not bunk.
Free will is a social and cultural product manifesting at the level of the individual in that he acts as a moral agent. The moral agent discerns right from wrong as a result of a long educative process. Education is the effect of many causes among which the self itself plays an important role. The human self is unique in the respect that he can tell the right from wrong, can mentally project acts in the future and analyze their consequences, and can consciously educate himself to be the person that, when challenged, will quite automatically know the right thing to do.

AVE

[ September 03, 2002: Message edited by: Laurentius ]</p>

Kent Stevens

It all depends how free will is defined on whether it is bunk or not. If free will is the ability to choose things without the influence of an all powerful being it is bunk. If free will means the same as freedom it is not bunk, as freedom is not bunk. If free will means human choice then it is not bunk, just as human choice is not bunk.

If free will is to be used at all, I would use as a synonym for freedom. It is identical to freedom, in the sense of a system not being overly coerced or restrained by external influences.

My disagreement with your statements Laurentius are largely semantical. As each individual can use words differently this could be a hard issue to resolve. Where you say free will I would prefer to use the term human choice, as it is more precise. Where you say moral agents I would refer to human moral agents.

I think that different animals are capable of morality though it is not as complex as human morality. I believe that animals have freedom unless they are coerced or restrained otherwise.

If we go back to the original post that started this thread, the question is how as a physical system do we have choice. For the weather, the earth, and the sun are physical systems but they do not have choice. We are a physical system as well so does this mean that we have no choice.

Perhaps the way to resolve this is to say that there are two different ways of looking at a system. These two different ways are both valid ways of looking at systems. One way looks at a system physically, while the other way looks at it decisionally. The physical way just describes a system doing this or that and it can be applied to any system. The decisional way describes a system as choosing to do this or that. The type of system that you would want to say choose to do things, would constitute a smaller proportion of all systems.

1sec

Do you feel like raining, Kent? Cause if you did you'd have no choice, would you?

Kent Stevens

No, I do not rain. We would only be analogous to other systems in certain ways. The Sun does not rain either because it is different from Earth weather.

We say that we could have done alternatives to what we actually did do. But this could also be said of the weather. It did not have to be fine today, it could have been wet.

We look at us doing things from a decisional perspective and this is a reasonable way of looking at things. That is we say that we choose or decide to do certain things. But you can also say from a physical perspective we just do certain things and we can omit words such as choice and decision in our describing our actions. Perhaps we "really" just physically do certain things, but we also accept a decisional viewpoint to how we do things.

Kent Stevens

Free will is bunk. We do not claim that complex robots such as you see in movies have free will. We do not claim that computer games have free will when they play games against us. We do not normally claim that animals such as cats have free will. Yet it is claimed that people have free will.

To be consistent in the usage of terms I believe that people do not have free will. If Data from Star Trek or the Terminator, do not have free will, then neither do I. If a cat does not have free will, then neither do I.

We do have freedom and this is something that applies to a number of systems. Freedom here refering to the condition where a system is neither coerced nor restrained. The only valid usage of free will would be if it meant the same as freedom. The problem of using free will in this way is that it breeds confusion and misunderstanding.

Free will is the equivalent of mental fog. It can assume a number of different shapes and as such is hard to either fully accept as a concept, or fully disregard as a valid idea. Free will can easily give rise to confusion and incorrect reasoning, as it can be stretched to mean a number of different things.

So to be consistent neither complex robots, complex programs, people, nor other animals have free will.

Mark_Chid

I've NEVER met anyone who believes that humans have free will but cats do not. Where do you get the idea that this is generally accepted?