Nowhere357

I really dislike calling will "illusion", but I understand your point. Will is no more real than pain and love. But I don't think it's helpful to call pain and love "illusion".

I'm not sure if this is correct. Using the analogy of pain: besides the subjective awareness of pain, we have the fact that the subjective awareness of pain affects the behavior of creatures - and those effects can be seen and measured. Why is will any different? Iow, things like pain and love, and even beauty, actually do affect reality. Perhaps will actually affects reality also?

paul30

Dear Nowhere:

Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

I do not mean to suggest that because something is subjective it is not real.

Love and beauty are real, but they are individual or idiosyncratic.

Subjective appraisals are simply another way of organizing or understanding experience--usually ones that cannot command very wide agreement. Nearly everyone will agree a certain painting has an amount of red there and blue here and so on; but not everyone will agree it is beautiful. This does not make the judgment of beauty wrong, simply different.

Hallucinations also affect behavior in quantifiable ways. This does not mean that the content of the hallucination corresponds to reality; what it means is the the PERCEPTION of that content is important.

Similarly, the perception of having free will is very important; just as the perception of beauty and love are important.

Our subjective impression of free will rests on the difficulty or impossibility of knowing the complete chain of causality in every case.

js_africanus

Does our perception of free will imply that we actually have it? (I'm not sure how to state this.) Suppose that something in my brain/personality gives me the feeling of personal agency when I act. You can imagine a person with turrets syndrome: she moves her arm involunarily or shouts an obscenity without any sense of personal agency. She has no perception of free will, yet her brain (i.e. she) is just as responsible for that as when she deliberately picks up the phone or replies to a question. Does she have free will in one case and not the other?

Pyrrho

One of the relevant issues regarding "free will" involves considering why we desire what we desire. I may be "free" to do as I wish (within certain parameters), but why do I want what I want? That is not a matter of choice at all, as I observed in another thread:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...24#post1091724

CJD

Pyrrho, I think your defintion of "free will" falls under the "libertarian" strain. To repeat, libertarian free will is "the belief that the human will has an inherent power to choose with equal ease between alternatives. . . . This belief does not claim that there are no influences that might affect the will, but it does insist that normally the will can overcome these factors and choose in spite of them. Ultimately, the will is free from any necessary causation."

I think this belief is unwarranted and absurd. For example, consider the following: " . . . we are not free to want what we don't want." Now, that's absurd. Of course, that's like saying I want a and non-a at the same time and in the same sense. Thus, the only alternative IMHO is summed up as follows: "our will is free to do what we want to do." This, of course, is not "free will" (it seems) according to your definition. Is it because what we "want" (or "desire") is influenced/shaped, etc., by culture that you surmise we are not fully free?

Regards,

CJD

Pyrrho

That is not what I meant at all, and which is why I included a couple of examples. I can do as I want, within some limitations (I cannot, for example, fly without the aid of any devices, etc.). However, I cannot choose to do what I do not want to do (though something may be forced on me, as I may be overpowered and carried off by force, but then my leaving is not properly described as "choosing" to leave). One always does what one wants to do at the moment, given the situation one is in and one believes one is in (as a belief may impact which options one sees as possible). And what I want is determined by nature and nurture.

Going back to my corkscrew example, I cannot screw the corkscrew into my leg because I cannot want to do it. I could do it if I wanted to do it, but I cannot want to do it. We say, of course, that I choose which thing to do. That is true enough, but what I choose is determined by what I want (and what is possible and what I believe is possible), and what I want is not something that is selected, but is imposed upon me by what I am. I am not crazy enough to want to screw a corkscrew into my leg, nor can I choose to want such a thing. And, in any case, one does not obtain desires by wanting to have a desire. One either has a desire or not, and whether one has a particular desire or not is a result of nature and nurture.



I am suggesting that the notion of "free will" (aside from a 'compatibilist' version of it) is nonsensical. People often believe they can act other than they do because they could if they wanted to. The trouble is, they can't want to, and consequently cannot act otherwise.

xorbie

Phyrro, perhaps you and I disagree on what it means to want or desire to do something. Why exactly would you eat dog shit if you didn't want to? Yes, your physical senses are telling you not to (it smells bad, tastes bad). But for some raeson, you are doing this. Now barring some sort sort of manic controlling you externally, you are eating this excrement because you have a compelling reason to do so. Perhaps you want to prove that free will does not exist, maybe you want to win one of those crazy reality tv shows. I did not say we could will ourselves to desire anything, I said we are free to desire what we desire.

I think this all boils down to a methaphysical analysis of what "I" am. My DNA, my subconsious, my reflexes, my natural instincts, all compose "me." Thus, the mrere existence of the dog exremement will not either make me want to eat or it not want to eat it, and this is why I say it is free will. I did not say that the part of the brain/mind you can control is able to control the senses, however it CAN over ride them. If you wanted to piss off your senses, you could go eat that dogshit. Once again, this is about the will to desire what you want, not to be confused with the will to make dogshit appealing to you.

I hope this makes sense.

Quantum Ninja

The style I've primarily studied for the past eleven years is called American Kempo Karate, which has roots from Shaolin Chuan-Fa (Kempo) and Okinawan Shotokan. I've also dabbled a little bit in Muay Thai kickboxing, Wing Chun, and Tai Chi but hardly enough to count. How about you?

Quantum Ninja

Sorry, I've been working a lot the past few days and haven't had much time to post anything real serious.

But yes, I think "decision" is an important part of free will that I did not touch upon with my original post. So let's try to formulate an acceptable definition of decision, since it is vital for free will. I propose this:

Individual X makes a decision D to perform action Y.

D is a decision if and only if:
1. It is a thought exclusive to X, made by X.
2. It is a thought pertaining to Y, where Y is an action that involves the manipulation of X's self.
3. D is the cause of Y.
4. Y will happen as long as D exists, unless outside forces interfere.
5. Y may or may not happen if D no longer exists.


Suppose that:
X = Bob
D = The decision to raise Bob's arm
Y = Bob's arm rises

Explanation of each of the above parts of the definition:

1. What I mean by this is that only Bob makes the decision to raise Bob's arm. Jim can't make the decision to directly raise Bob's arm (but Jim can make the decision to raise Jim's arm to indirectly raise Bob's arm, assumingly Jim is holding Bob's arm).

2. Bob can't decide that the sky will be green tomorrow. Bob can only make decisions about what he has control over (namely, his body). He can have thoughts that the sky will be green tomorrow, but they are not decisions.

3. Suppose Bob has a nervous twitch that causes him to involuntarily raise his arm. In this case, Bob does not decide to raise his arm, it just happens automatically. For Bob to decide to raise his arm, his thought about raising his arm must be the cause for this action.

4. As long as Bob has made the decision to raise his arm, his arm will rise, unless, for instance, he is handcuffed and is not able to physically overcome this restraint.

5. If Bob doesn't decide to raise his arm, or no longer decides to raise his arm, it's not likely that his arm will rise, but it could still happen. For instance, a strong gust of wind could push it upward.

So, could we then say that X has free will if X has the ability to make decisions? Do you agree or disagree with what I've proposed? I just made it up as I went along, so it's likely to be filled with loopholes.

haverbob

Generally I like it. You do alot more of the secret "why's" than most people do. Most people stop too soon on the logic train.
X has free will to desire something {make decisions) but not always free will to be able to carry it out. Free will is about wanting something that is your choice but free will does not necessarily mean you're going to get it. How's that work for you?? Now if you want to raise your arm and can't. you still have the free will to decide that you want to raise your arm. If a gust of wind comes across and raises your arm, obviously that's not free will. Free will is to decide to "will" something. Just because you "will" it so, doesn't mean it's going to happen. So the air blowing your arm up has nothing to do with it. In fact. if you "will" your arm to move, but it can't, it still doesn't mean you aren't practicing "free will", it just means you can't get the results that you desired from free will. Hence the distinction between "will" and "results". Does this work ???