Jon Curry

A first cause can be caused to exist. But a first cause is not necessarily caused to produce a particular effect. Even though I was created, this creation did not cause me to decide to do one thing and not another. I could have decided to do something else.

God created me and gave me the power or the ability to choose, but this itself does not cause me to choose. God caused me to have this power. But in so doing he does not cause me to make a particular choice. In this way the link between the cause of my existence and the cause of the decision is broken and the responsibility for a choice becomes mine.

rainbow walking

Once: Hello Rainbow. Let me be sure that I understand you correctly. You say that:

a. The concept 'cause' is an illusion.
b. This concept 'cause' was created by humans.

Do you agree that predicating 'created by humans' to 'cause' in some way implies that humans were the cause of the concept (supposedly illusory) 'cause'? You seem to be trying to use the concept 'cause' to destroy itself. I fear that this sort of practice leads to self-refutation of your claim.


rw: Rainbow also said: how do you distinguish between cause and effect? Every "event" that you label as a cause, upon closer examination, turns out to be nothing more than a sequential effect stemming from a previous cause. Are thoughts actually the cause of an event or merely one element in a sequence of previous events? Certainly you can isolate any event and arbitrarily label it as the cause of the succeeding effect but does that arbitrariness actually make it true that the event is the actual cause?

rw: Thus, you have omitted a number of postulates from my argument and created a straw man. I merely point out that describing any event as a cause is an arbitrary assignment.

Once: Also, you hold that:

c. Gods are not the cause of existence but only the effect of humanities desire to exist.

I'm not sure that you can hold to both (a) & (c). By claiming that 'Gods' are the *effect* of 'humanities desire', aren't you implying that the *cause* of the 'Gods' (effect) is 'humanities desire'?

Its difficult (at best) to claim that 'cause' is an invalid concept while simultaneously explaining matters (implicitly) in terms of causal relationships.

rw: I can, based on my description of the arbitrariness of assigning “cause” to any single event. Establishing “causal relationships” is arbitrary but necessary to isolate these events in order to define history. Causality is our way of keeping ourselves in the loop. I can arbitrarily say that gods are the effect of human desire and you can say “ah ha! You’ve just demonstrated causal relationship.” But when I point out a biological function as the cause of human desire your “ah ha” is diffused.

Invoking cause is humanities way of avoiding infinite regress and is an arbitrary assignment in relation to truth. For instance, if someone asks,

“ Why does the sun appear to rise?”

You respond with an answer directly related to the appearance of the sun rising. Let’s call this:

Cause A

Then they respond, “Well, why does the earth orbit the sun?”

You respond with an answer related to gravitational effects. Let’s call this

Cause B

They respond with, “O’kay, why does gravity have this effect?”

You respond with an answer related to gravitational effects. Let’s call this

Cause C

Now, this could go on ad infinitum or until you run out of answers and simply say, “I don’t know.”

So, what is the true answer to the first question concerning why the sun appears to rise?


Is it Cause A, B, C, or, “I don’t know?”


Assigning causal effects provide us an immediate answer that avoids infinite regress and the final truth: We do not know.

And this applies equally to the question of freewill.

There is a definite connection between all phenomena but the assignment of cause is an illusory arbitrary assignment that freezes the question in space/time for our own good.

Maybe one day, should we become omniscient, cause and effect will not matter.

I will add that your ability to choose between A, B, C, or “I don’t know” is evidence of self determination and will ultimately determine your virtues. Ah…the paradox of human existence.

the_cave

Free will is a very knotty problem for _any_ philosopher, and in fact no coherent account of it has yet been developed. To my lights, there are two options:

a) Free Will does not exist. This is a surprisingly attractive option.
b) Free Will refers to events without a cause--aka random events. It's unclear whether conscious acts could be random, but we know there are random events on the quantum level, so it's not impossible in principle. On the other hand, the mind may be too large a system for quantum events to have an effect. Still, there may be other kinds of randomness at work in the world.

Alright, there may be a third option as well:

c) Some other heretofore undeveloped theory of cognition which somehow accounts for our perception of our thoughts as self-caused.

I don't think c) is impossible; I just haven't figured out a way to do it (and neither has anyone else. There are a small branch of philosophers of mind who call themselves Mysterians; Colin McGinn is one of them. They claim that the mind is simply too complicated for itself to understand.)

I think that the way to achieve c) is to somehow claim that our selves are causes--that we are always a cause, at any moment in time. Whether this is because we are something that is temporally changeless, or whether this is because our selves are always changing through time, I can't say.

At any rate, the point is that only a) poses any trouble for theists. For if everything is determined, without free will, but with an orthodox God as the first cause, PoE puts God in a pretty bad light.

But b) isn't a problem for the theist. If there are random events, they _do_ need prior events to be made _possible_, but not to be made _actual_. Hence, we could modify "first cause" arguements to claim that everything requires a cause to be made possible, but not acutal.

c) is problematic. If we ourselves are causes, and the cosmos causes us, we're back in the same situation as a). However, if we are the kind of causes that make events possible, but not actual, then we're in the same situation as b). The way I see it, at least.

So, what's the difference between possible events, and actual ones? It would be difficult to explain, but Heisenberg, at least, thought there was something to it. I guess an actual event would be analagous to the collapse of a wave-function in quantum physics (in fact, that _is_ an actual event in quantum physics, I would argue.) A possible event would be a prior state of that system, which we know has different consequences, for no apparent reason.

This is all merely to show that the theist is only wrong if everyone is wrong about free will.

rainbow walking

Hi the-cave,

Defining free will as the ability to examine options, internally hypothesize possible consequences, and select from among those options that which attains to the desired consequence, I don’t see freewill as that complicated a phenomenon. Man basically has only the freedom to do two things when it comes to choices. ACCEPT OR REJECT. That is all. Every option that comes within his mind for consideration passes through one of two gates ACCEPTANCE OR REJECTION on its way to becoming an event. Every choice he makes comes as an acceptance of something to the exclusion or rejection of all other related somethings. Although this is not how he views it due to the sophistication of the rational processes employed in examining the options, that’s what it basically boils down to in the final analysis.

As to the sensation of autonomy, I would explore something along the lines of isolationism. The mind being separated and isolated within a brain, having the experience of being alone within itself, might develop a sense of being a disconnected observer of events thus engendering the experience of autonomy of will. I think this would also explain the development of that “inner voice” discussed in another thread.

We can’t say that man is a brain in a vacuum so there is an element of determinism, maybe even entirely so, but man definitely experiences his existence as facilitating the belief that he has some willful control over or influence on deterministic factors. Indeed our history supports this belief. If it’s an illusion, it works. And, as they say, if it ain’t broke…


I would also speculate that the more we learn about those determining factors the more control we’ll gain.

Clutch

cave,

(d) Having free will means acting according to your desires, given your beliefs, and this is consistent with your beliefs and your desires fitting into the natural order of events.

bagong

But here you get into the regression problem: do we have any choice in what desires and beliefs we hold? If not, how can decisions based on those desires and beliefs be considered "free"?

I'm going to make a seperate thread about this, please reply there.

Clutch

Okay. But I'll reply here, too: the phenomenon to be explained as genuine -- our sense of volition -- is silent on questions like where our desire to desire to desire X comes from. What matters is that I do X because I desire to do it; no other agent forces me or prevents me; I act freely.

the_cave

But I don't think this is the free will that everyone talks about. I agree it's a candidate--and I agree that as long as your will isn't overwhelmingly influenced by another force, you could consider it free. So we could call it Weak Free Will. But I think most people, and the justice system, believe in Strong Free Will; we are not automatons. We have desires, but we also are believed to have some sort of intellectual controlling force--a will--that can give the yea or nay to those desires. People who can controll their desires are considered virtuous, as are people who have "good" desires. But the people who have "bad" desires aren't somehow accepted for who they are; they are punished for failing to un-will their bad desires! It's the will that's at stake here. And I confess I have no idea what this will could really be, besides just another desire.

I admit I appear to be a person with a desire to get up in the morning. That's just who I am. As long as no one's holding me down, I'm basically free. But how did I get to be that kind of person? It appears I was born that way, or conditioned by nature and society. I'm a robot, controlled by the universe, and that does _not_ make me feel free.

And in fact robots are not what we think we are. Yet questioning the assumption that we are not robots also questions widely-held (even by atheists) notions of good and evil. I'm not saying this questioning is invalid; I'm saying it's a problem for everyone here.

Clutch

I suppose you'd have to show me where I said we are automatons. We are certainly not automatons, since automatons have no free will, whereas we do. Specifically, we do what we do because we want to.Yes, we have higher-order desires: there are kinds of desires that we want to have, and others that we don't. Sometimes we have (first-order) desires that we don't (second-order) want to have. When the 2nd-order is stronger, we call it continence; when not, we call it weakness of will. But as long as you do what you do because of your desires, you do it freely. Well, exactly. Higher-order desires.

the_cave

Sorry for the confusion; I didn't mean to imply you said we are automatons. I was merely illustrating what most people think we are not. Though I confess I can't distinguish your position from the position that we are automatons. See below:

I accept your definition; but I'm arguing that most people wouldn't. They believe their will is radically free, in that it does not desire any one specific thing--it's pure will; it only desires to do something. After that, it's a war of your appetites and your intellect--and your intellect doesn't in fact desire anything; it merely knows right from wrong. And it's assumed that good people reason that they should do good; bad people don't reason, and therefore get into trouble. This probably descends from Aristotle or something, I don't really know. But it's different from merely having a bundle of desires. If that's the case, we're slaves to our desires (hence "automatons"), and our knowing selves are not in fact controlling anything. (Note that this presupposes that our intellect and our passions are separate--not everyone agrees.) I'm not saying one model is more accurate than another, I'm just saying they're different models. I have a feeling this debate belongs on the philosophy boards.