Lets solve Free will once and for all!!

[Nimos]

Brains create complex webs of associations formed from past experiences.

And how did these experiences come about? If they caused, then we could essentially track them all the way back to the first experience that started the whole web?

For example, what happens if a walking robot trips? How does it get up? If you design a walking robot, you have to program it to address that unforeseen circumstance, since you don't know if or when it will trip.

I understand that, but I think there is a very long way from calling that free will, compared to simply being able to analyze one's environment and react accordingly.

Actually, free will is a hot topic for research in robotics. If we end up sending robots out to celestial bodies in our solar system, they cannot be teleoperated from Earth because the distances create a time lapse that makes it impossible for them to respond to immediate circumstances. Hence, their degree of autonomy has to be very high--closer to animal or human autonomy. So free will in the human sense becomes necessary for advanced autonomous intelligent machines.

This is already a requirement even for the rover on Mars as far as I know. Yet, I don't think anyone would argue that it has free will. From my understanding, it is an advantage robotic vacuum cleaner It also has to navigate the lawn or floor, using less sophisticated means.

Whether we can reach a conclusion about robots having free will, we first need to know if even humans have it. And if we conclude that we do, we can compare the conditions that apply to us, to the robots and see they live up to them as well.

 

[Nimos]

I think it's more nebulous than that like everything else in the universe. I think we choose things, yes, but ultimately what we choose is continually predetermined.

It is an option for sure

 

[Nimos]

Without the supernatural, what we are left with is a mental exercise in irrelevance.

With it we are robbed of the option to even figure it out, we can just conclude that we have it and leave it at that. There is no reason to bother investigating it further, if the scriptures say we have it, then that should be good enough. Fortunately, most people demand a bit more

 

[Copernicus]

And how did these experiences come about? If they caused, then we could essentially track them all the way back to the first experience that started the whole web?

I suggest that you study fetal development in the womb. However, it would be difficult to define what you mean by "experience". The entire nervous system--peripheral and central--forms a network. When do our first memories begin to take shape? I can't answer such questions, of course, since I don't have any expertise in neuropsychology.

I understand that, but I think there is a very long way from calling that free will, compared to simply being able to analyze one's environment and react accordingly.

I'm not suggesting that robots have free will in the same sense that humans do, and we do have a long way to go before we can build machines with central nervous systems anything like that found in animals. Right now, we are just at the stage of simulating certain types of behaviors and rudimentary learning strategies that allow limited self-programming. For example, walking robots have to have some awareness of their own bodies, because they have to watch where they step and learn to avoid obstacles. When they trip, they have strategies for getting up and back on their feet. What they can't do very well is learn cumulatively from experiences. They don't form and retrieve memories in the same way that animals do--via associative episodic memory.

This is already a requirement even for the rover on Mars as far as I know. Yet, I don't think anyone would argue that it has free will. From my understanding, it is an advantage robotic vacuum cleaner It also has to navigate the lawn or floor, using less sophisticated means.

It's interesting that you should use the Mars rover as an example, because they do have a fair bit of autonomy built into them, and I have had a small encounter with one in the past. I was once invited to watch a demonstration of a voice interface in which an astronaut gave commands to examine and retrieve rock samples. At one point, the robot was issued a command to approach a rock, and it just sat there, not responding to repeated commands. It took the team about half an hour to discover what the problem was--a sensor had become blocked with dirt. It wasn't able to see the rock, but it had no way to diagnose its problem and report it to the astronaut. IOW, the team need to build greater self-awareness into the rover to make it function properly in such cases. People, of course, have a much greater sense of self-awareness, self-diagnosis, and strategies for overcoming problems. More importantly, their lengthy childhoods give them ample opportunity to develop their own "programs". Biological brains are analog computers, so they don't actually have anything analogous to programs in digital computers. They continuously rewire themselves physically as they learn.

Whether we can reach a conclusion about robots having free will, we first need to know if even humans have it. And if we conclude that we do, we can compare the conditions that apply to us, to the robots and see they live up to them as well.

We already know that humans have it, because we can never know the future. A choice is free or unobstructed if we have control over our actions. A kneejerk reflex is behavior that occurs outside of our control, so we don't consider it an act of free will, even though our nervous system actually triggers a movement. However, a kick is something that we normally think of as a movement under our control, because we have a choice over whether to make that movement or not.

But control is a scalar concept--a matter of degree. We more or less control our movements, so it is not a question of whether we do or don't have free will, but how much control is necessary before we judge it to be free will. So, if I kick a soccer ball and it hits someone in the head, was that an act of free will? The part where I kicked the ball intentionally, yes. The part where it hit someone in the head, not necessarily. It could have been aimed deliberately or just an accident.

We don't blame robots for their actions, because, unlike people and animals with sophisticated brains, they aren't capable of altering their behavior. They can't step outside of their programming. They do make choices, make guesses about future outcomes, and choose the optimal path to achieve a desired outcome, but they are not yet capable of altering their future behavior to the same extent that biological machines with brains are.

 

[Nimos]

I suggest that you study fetal development in the womb. However, it would be difficult to define what you mean by "experience". The entire nervous system--peripheral and central--forms a network. When do our first memories begin to take shape? I can't answer such questions, of course, since I don't have any expertise in neuropsychology.

I can't answer it either, I don't even know if it is even known. But let's take a simple example and say that a baby is introduced to a ball, then it is exposed to its functionality it. A ball can jump, if it hits an object it bounces off it. If the baby accidentally makes the ball hit an object so it breaks, it might get told that it is a bad thing.

All these are what I refer to as experiences, these will influence the behavior of the baby later on. It will know that smashing things with a ball is not good. Obviously, at this point, these are extremely simple. But as the baby grows, it can understand the connection that breaking things is bad, even if it is not done with a ball.

So if these are so strong influences on the baby that it shapes how it does things later on, then it isn't really using free will in that sense, it is behaving based on these.

That is a key issue with compatibilism how do you explain the first influence as not having a cause?

I'm not suggesting that robots have free will in the same sense that humans do, and we do have a long way to go before we can build machines with central nervous systems anything like that found in animals. Right now, we are just at the stage of simulating certain types of behaviors and rudimentary learning strategies that allow limited self-programming. For example, walking robots have to have some awareness of their own bodies, because they have to watch where they step and learn to avoid obstacles. When they trip, they have strategies for getting up and back on their feet. What they can't do very well is learn cumulatively from experiences. They don't form and retrieve memories in the same way that animals do--via associative episodic memory.

Agree, that it is a huge issue they are working on, the world we operate in is extremely complex, yet all life learns how to navigate in it fast. Humans are pretty slow at it, but most animals can walk or at least crawl around exceptionally fast.

And clearly, robots lack this, because we are trying to "recreate it" for them, probably because we don't really know how life forms do it. Think about the insane amount of energy that goes into a robot and still it can't even outperform a "simple" life form, that might only be minutes old.

But surely at some point we will crack the code for how to do it, it is already much better than it used to be.

It's interesting that you should use the Mars rover as an example, because they do have a fair bit of autonomy built into them, and I have had a small encounter with one in the past. I was once invited to watch a demonstration of a voice interface in which an astronaut gave commands to examine and retrieve rock samples. At one point, the robot was issued a command to approach a rock, and it just sat there, not responding to repeated commands. It took the team about half an hour to discover what the problem was--a sensor had become blocked with dirt. It wasn't able to see the rock, but it had no way to diagnose its problem and report it to the astronaut. IOW, the team need to build greater self-awareness into the rover to make it function properly in such cases. People, of course, have a much greater sense of self-awareness, self-diagnosis, and strategies for overcoming problems. More importantly, their lengthy childhoods give them ample opportunity to develop their own "programs". Biological brains are analog computers, so they don't actually have anything analogous to programs in digital computers. They continuously rewire themselves physically as they learn.

Agree, but I was thinking that it takes about 5-20 minutes, to send a signal to Mars, which is far too long it the rover is about to run into a hole, so it needs to be able to navigate on its own.

In regards to biological brains, we take a whole lot of shortcuts, we don't really need the exact details, and we can run over a rocky area mostly unharmed, despite not knowing the exact positions of each rock. But we know enough about the rocks to do it effectively most of the time.

We already know that humans have it, because we can never know the future. A choice is free or unobstructed if we have control over our actions.

Even if our future is unknown, if you are convinced by former influences that the possible future that awaits you is the best, even if it is wrong, then you didn't make a free will choice, you could even adjust your choice as you get more and more information, but again these would be influences. And if you are not in control of these influences then it is a valid argument that you don't have free will.

But control is a scalar concept--a matter of degree. We more or less control our movements, so it is not a question of whether we do or don't have free will, but how much control is necessary before we judge it to be free will.

Again it depends on how you look at it. If I throw a rock at you and you dodge it, then the rock is the reason for your movement. If you go get water it's probably because you are thirsty. You don't get thirsty because you go to drink water.

The part where I kicked the ball intentionally, yes. The part where it hit someone in the head, not necessarily. It could have been aimed deliberately or just an accident.

This is where the issue of tracking it all the way back becomes an issue in the deterministic world view, there wasn't an option for you to not hit the person in the head.

Again I don't say I agree, simply that this is their argument.

They do make choices, make guesses about future outcomes, and choose the optimal path to achieve a desired outcome, but they are not yet capable of altering their future behavior to the same extent that biological machines with brains are.

Not yet at least, it depends on whether we get to a point where AI (AGI) can reason just like humans. That is what they are trying to achieve.

 

[Copernicus]

I can't answer it either, I don't even know if it is even known. But let's take a simple example and say that a baby is introduced to a ball, then it is exposed to its functionality it. A ball can jump, if it hits an object it bounces off it. If the baby accidentally makes the ball hit an object so it breaks, it might get told that it is a bad thing.

All these are what I refer to as experiences, these will influence the behavior of the baby later on. It will know that smashing things with a ball is not good. Obviously, at this point, these are extremely simple. But as the baby grows, it can understand the connection that breaking things is bad, even if it is not done with a ball.

So if these are so strong influences on the baby that it shapes how it does things later on, then it isn't really using free will in that sense, it is behaving based on these.

That is a key issue with compatibilism how do you explain the first influence as not having a cause?

Nimos, think about what compatibilism is. It is the position that free will is compatible with determinism. Now, why are you assuming that a compatibilist would say that anything at all has no cause? The problem is that you keep going back to the assumption that free will is somehow about freedom from causal influences, which is the exact opposite of what compatibilism is about.

Agree, that it is a huge issue they are working on, the world we operate in is extremely complex, yet all life learns how to navigate in it fast. Humans are pretty slow at it, but most animals can walk or at least crawl around exceptionally fast.

And clearly, robots lack this, because we are trying to "recreate it" for them, probably because we don't really know how life forms do it. Think about the insane amount of energy that goes into a robot and still it can't even outperform a "simple" life form, that might only be minutes old.

But surely at some point we will crack the code for how to do it, it is already much better than it used to be.

If you believe that, then why do you keep appearing to conclude the opposite? I have not claimed that robots have free will in the sense that animals do. What I have claimed is that we can understand the nature of free will by explaining how the behavior of engineered autonomous machines differs from the behavior of evolved biological machines. What is missing in robotic behavior that is present in animal behavior? Both are products of a deterministic environment, so what is the freedom that robots lack and humans possess?

Agree, but I was thinking that it takes about 5-20 minutes, to send a signal to Mars, which is far too long it the rover is about to run into a hole, so it needs to be able to navigate on its own.

In regards to biological brains, we take a whole lot of shortcuts, we don't really need the exact details, and we can run over a rocky area mostly unharmed, despite not knowing the exact positions of each rock. But we know enough about the rocks to do it effectively most of the time.

Yes, the time lag in communication with autonomous vehicles on other planets is much greater than the time lag in communication on Earth. But the issues are still the same. And, yes, humans are able to navigate their environments much better than their autonomous vehicles do. That's why I think it is way too early to start deploying self-driving robotic vehicles on the same streets that human drivers drive on. The technology is not ready, although it is useful in augmenting the performance of human drivers.

Even if our future is unknown, if you are convinced by former influences that the possible future that awaits you is the best, even if it is wrong, then you didn't make a free will choice, you could even adjust your choice as you get more and more information, but again these would be influences. And if you are not in control of these influences then it is a valid argument that you don't have free will.

Let's get this straight once and for all. The future is unknown. Not "if it is unknown". It is unknown to every human being who makes any decision about anything. So we are always confronted with choices, and we calculate the optimal path to achieve the most desirable outcome. Always. Choice is a fully determined process, but we always make those choices without actually knowing that the optimal path will achieve the results we desire. We observe the actual results of our choices and then decide whether to repeat that behavior or modify our decisions when similar choices confront us in the future. We are free to change the future, not the past.

Again it depends on how you look at it. If I throw a rock at you and you dodge it, then the rock is the reason for your movement. If you go get water it's probably because you are thirsty. You don't get thirsty because you go to drink water.

But the rock is not the sole reason for my movement. It is just part of a set of antecedent events that are the reason for my movement. Past experiences have prepared me to duck flying rocks. That's part of what happens when we go through childhood. We figure out how to avoid flying rocks, among other things that try to hit us. You keep returning to this idea that determinism is somehow incompatible with making free choices, but our freedom is in having unimpeded control of our behavior and in the ability to modify future behavior. It is not freedom from causal determinacy. Contemporary robots also have control over their own behavior, but in a far more limited sense.

...The part where I kicked the ball intentionally, yes. The part where it hit someone in the head, not necessarily. It could have been aimed deliberately or just an accident.

This is where the issue of tracking it all the way back becomes an issue in the deterministic world view, there wasn't an option for you to not hit the person in the head.

Again I don't say I agree, simply that this is their argument.

Whose argument? Not mine. In my view, there was an option not to hit the person in the head, if it was my intention to aim the ball at his head. I chose the option to hit him in the head. I may regret that in retrospect and modify my choices in the future under similar circumstances. But I am still fully responsible for the choice I made and have to live with the consequences. Why would you ever believe that I didn't have a choice? When called out for my bad decision, I can always say "Mistakes were made", but everyone knows, including myself, who made the mistake. The only choice I don't have is to go back and change the past. We are not free to do that, but we only ever exercise free will in the moment where we face an uncertain future.

...They do make choices, make guesses about future outcomes, and choose the optimal path to achieve a desired outcome, but they are not yet capable of altering their future behavior to the same extent that biological machines with brains are.

Not yet at least, it depends on whether we get to a point where AI (AGI) can reason just like humans. That is what they are trying to achieve.

Exactly. There is no reason to believe that truly intelligent machines are impossible, especially since we are actually truly intelligent machines. We just need to figure out how to create them without self-replicating ourselves the natural way. Maybe someday we will discover that there is some magic ingredient that prevents us from creating machines that have free will in the sense that humans do, but we have not yet discovered one.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I am watching this now. Who here remembers Desertphile?

 

[Nimos]

The problem is that you keep going back to the assumption that free will is somehow about freedom from causal influences, which is the exact opposite of what compatibilism is about.

The problem is that compatibilism runs into issues with determinism. And the question is if those two are compatible at all.

What is missing in robotic behavior that is present in animal behavior? Both are products of a deterministic environment, so what is the freedom that robots lack and humans possess?

And this is the question, do humans possess this?

But the issues are still the same. And, yes, humans are able to navigate their environments much better than their autonomous vehicles do. That's why I think it is way too early to start deploying self-driving robotic vehicles on the same streets that human drivers drive on. The technology is not ready, although it is useful in augmenting the performance of human drivers.

Maybe

This means that over the 7.1 million miles Waymo drove, there were an estimated 17 fewer injuries and 20 fewer police-reported crashes compared to if human drivers with the benchmark crash rate would have driven the same distance in the areas we operate.

This is from Waymo, so obviously have to take that into account. But still, there are some arguments to be made that autonomous vehicles might be better. They don't suffer from fatigue, having to do a million other things while driving, anger issues, intentionally reckless driving etc.

And obviously, the technology will improve over time, but in general self-driving cars just make a lot of sense, especially in a world with a climate issue as it could greatly reduce the amount of cars needed if these were used on demand instead.

But anyway that is another issue

Let's get this straight once and for all. The future is unknown. Not "if it is unknown". It is unknown to every human being who makes any decision about anything. So we are always confronted with choices, and we calculate the optimal path to achieve the most desirable outcome. Always. Choice is a fully determined process, but we always make those choices without actually knowing that the optimal path will achieve the results we desire. We observe the actual results of our choices and then decide whether to repeat that behavior or modify our decisions when similar choices confront us in the future. We are free to change the future, not the past.

I understand what you are saying. But I don't think your argument is very strong, meaning that it doesn't naturally follow that simply because the future is unknown, we are free to change it, if very former influence is what determines what the desired result is we are after, then that is not free, it is just an illusion.

You keep returning to this idea that determinism is somehow incompatible with making free choices, but our freedom is in having unimpeded control of our behavior and in the ability to modify future behavior.

The reason for this is because of the idea of cause and effect.

I think we talk about the same thing, but our conclusion is different.

If I got you right, you see it as we are gathering experiences and based on these we have the freedom to make choices, obviously somewhat influenced by them.

My argument is that these gathered experiences are what drive our choices, and we have very little if any influence over them, which means that we are simply following these rather than actually making free choices.

Whether the future is known or not, doesn't seem particularly relevant, as this would be taken into account when we are influenced.

Whose argument? Not mine.

It's the deterministic argument, not yours.

But I am still fully responsible for the choice I made and have to live with the consequences. Why would you ever believe that I didn't have a choice?

Obviously, you wouldn't since you are not in support of the deterministic worldview, but they would make the argument that you had no choice.

If you watch this, the guy raises the issue with com compatibility:

And that is what I'm trying to explain to you (probably not doing a good job at it )

 

[muhammad_isa]

..if very former influence is what determines what the desired result is we are after, then that is not free, it is just an illusion..

What is an illusion?
I presume you refer to how free our choice is..

i.e. we might think that we have made a choice freely, but in reality we didn't

If a person believes that, then whatever they say is not them saying it, so who is?

 

[PureX]

The moment any two or more options become equally determined, pre-determination fails. and chance or free will prevails.

And in the real world, this condition of relative equilibrium happens quite often.

 

[Copernicus]

The problem is that compatibilism runs into issues with determinism. And the question is if those two are compatible at all.

Of course. That's why the concept is called "compatibilism". It is the claim that what we normally mean by "free will" is fully compatible with causal determinism. IOW, "free will" is not properly defined as willful acts that are undetermined. It is defined as having freedom in the sense of unimpeded control. So our freedom is always more or less free in that we have more or less control over our choices.

Maybe

This means that over the 7.1 million miles Waymo drove, there were an estimated 17 fewer injuries and 20 fewer police-reported crashes compared to if human drivers with the benchmark crash rate would have driven the same distance in the areas we operate.

This is from Waymo, so obviously have to take that into account. But still, there are some arguments to be made that autonomous vehicles might be better. They don't suffer from fatigue, having to do a million other things while driving, anger issues, intentionally reckless driving etc.

And obviously, the technology will improve over time, but in general self-driving cars just make a lot of sense, especially in a world with a climate issue as it could greatly reduce the amount of cars needed if these were used on demand instead.

But anyway that is another issue

It is a bit of a side issue, but the fact remains that drivers normally rely on their ability to anticipate the behavior of other drivers. Waymo is obviously biased in terms of the reliability of its technology, and Waymo cars have been involved in a number of accidents. (You can look this up.) Fully autonomous vehicles cannot be programmed to behave in a way that will always make sense to human drivers, and they certainly cannot judge the behavior of other vehicles in terms of what humans are likely to do in novel circumstances. If I see what looks like a drunk driver or a car out of control, I take steps to avoid it. An autonomous vehicle, given today's technology, simply does not have that level of sophistication.

I understand what you are saying. But I don't think your argument is very strong, meaning that it doesn't naturally follow that simply because the future is unknown, we are free to change it, if very former influence is what determines what the desired result is we are after, then that is not free, it is just an illusion.

I did not say that we were free to change the future, just the opposite. If the future does not yet exist, there is nothing there to change. The freedom to exercise will is not an illusion. The existence of the future, however, is an illusion--an imaginary construct. We never live in the past or the future, only the present. Even memories can be considered illusions, because we can have false memories. We experience events in the present, but we perceive experiences as past events. That's why linguistic expressions are always marked for tense and time reference. Our thoughts are arranged and packaged that way.

...

If you watch this, the guy raises the issue with com compatibility:

And that is what I'm trying to explain to you (probably not doing a good job at it )

I wish that you would watch that video again, paying particular attention to the last few minutes where the speaker talks about Patricial Churchland's concept of control. In the video, he gives the impression that she is critical of compatibilism, but that is misleading. She is a compatibilist, but she is critical of what some compatibilists have said about free will. That is, she is critical of what some philosophers would describe "classical compatibilism". I fully agree with much of what she says about the correct question being not whether we have control over our actions, but how much control we have over our actions. The point is that we are morally responsible for our actions to the extent that we do have control over them.

Anyway, you may have noticed that I myself have been talking about control in previous posts, so you should not see a lot of difference between her so-called revisionist compatibilism and what I have simply been calling compatibilism.

 

[Nimos]

What is an illusion?
I presume you refer to how free our choice is..

i.e. we might think that we have made a choice freely, but in reality we didn't

If a person believes that, then whatever they say is not them saying it, so who is?

It is still them saying it, one you just not consider it free

 

[Nimos]

I did not say that we were free to change the future, just the opposite. If the future does not yet exist, there is nothing there to change.

I think that is a misunderstanding of what the future means in this context.

Imagine a meteor is heading for Earth and will hit us in 100 years, that would be considered a future event. Surely if we spot it in time, we might deal with it. Nonetheless, it is the future.

One can ask if it matters whether it is a meteor or an atom? Whereever or whatever a specific atom is going do in 100 years, that is the future of that atom.

We never live in the past or the future, only the present.

We only live in the past, if we are to be specific

There is a delay from when we see or hear things until we perceive them and our brain processes it. Even the light from the sun we experience is 8 minutes old and the light from stars is millions or billions of years old, etc.

I wish that you would watch that video again, paying particular attention to the last few minutes where the speaker talks about Patricial Churchland's concept of control. In the video, he gives the impression that she is critical of compatibilism, but that is misleading. She is a compatibilist, but she is critical of what some compatibilists have said about free will. That is, she is critical of what some philosophers would describe "classical compatibilism". I fully agree with much of what she says about the correct question being not whether we have control over our actions, but how much control we have over our actions. The point is that we are morally responsible for our actions to the extent that we do have control over them.

Anyway, you may have noticed that I myself have been talking about control in previous posts, so you should not see a lot of difference between her so-called revisionist compatibilism and what I have simply been calling compatibilism.

I did pay attention to that.

And he does give the example of the guy sneezing and saying that you might not be able to control when you sneeze, however, you do have control over the direction you sneeze. This does make sense and seems rather obvious, however, I do think one could make the argument that this is also not as free as one would think. Because most people will have been taught as children that you don't do stuff like this because it is disgusting and it will make people around you react to you negatively, however, children will do this not caring where they sneeze etc.

To me the argument of compatibilism, even though they accept determinism at its core doesn't seem to make a particularly strong case for free will and how exactly this differs from what determinists are saying. Because they agree that we appear to have free will and we behave as if we do, but ultimately this is an illusion. Whereas the compatibilists seem to just say that we do have subjective experiences and we can affect them but doesn't really demonstrate why it isn't just an illusion.

 

[muhammad_isa]

It is still them saying it..

No .. not if they are not the one who decided what to say.
..and that is what's implied by "determinist" philosophy.

 

[muhammad_isa]

To me the argument of compatibilism, even though they accept determinism at its core doesn't seem to make a particularly strong case for free will and how exactly this differs from what determinists are saying. Because they agree that we appear to have free will and we behave as if we do, but ultimately this is an illusion. Whereas the compatibilists seem to just say that we do have subjective experiences and we can affect them but doesn't really demonstrate why it isn't just an illusion.

Like I said, anybody who claims that free-will is an illusion, might as well be ignored..
..because all they say is likewise "an illusion".

i.e. It's all hogwash.

 

[Nimos]

No .. not if they are not the one who decided what to say.
..and that is what's implied by "determinist" philosophy.

No, it isn't, it is about free will. Not whether you exist or not.

 

[Copernicus]

...I did not say that we were free to change the future, just the opposite. If the future does not yet exist, there is nothing there to change.

I think that is a misunderstanding of what the future means in this context.

Imagine a meteor is heading for Earth and will hit us in 100 years, that would be considered a future event. Surely if we spot it in time, we might deal with it. Nonetheless, it is the future.

One can ask if it matters whether it is a meteor or an atom? Whereever or whatever a specific atom is going do in 100 years, that is the future of that atom.

Regardless, the fact remains that, at the point a choice is made, the future is always indeterminate to the agent. It exists only in the agent's imagination. In fact, languages commonly conflate future tense with conditional and counterfactual expressions. English itself treats future tense with a modal auxiliary verb, but past tense with a suffix (usually -ed tacked onto English verbs). The modal auxiliaries in standard English are will, would, shall, should, can, could, must, may, might. What actually happens in the future may or may not be affected by our choice of action, but we make a choice that exists while the future is indeterminate from our limited perspective. It is never the case that we know the future. We can only make estimates of what seems likely to happen, given what we do know and believe.

We only live in the past, if we are to be specific

There is a delay from when we see or hear things until we perceive them and our brain processes it. Even the light from the sun we experience is 8 minutes old and the light from stars is millions or billions of years old, etc.

I would say that the delay falls within the scope of present tense reference. Our sensorium defines it for us, even if there is a delay in the time it takes information from the peripheral nervous system to get processed and interpreted in the central nervous system. The light from the sun and stars is experienced in the present, even if that light took a long time to register in our senses. Our experiences are defined by the present moment, not past events that preceded them.

I wish that you would watch that video again, paying particular attention to the last few minutes where the speaker talks about Patricial Churchland's concept of control. In the video, he gives the impression that she is critical of compatibilism, but that is misleading. She is a compatibilist, but she is critical of what some compatibilists have said about free will. That is, she is critical of what some philosophers would describe "classical compatibilism". I fully agree with much of what she says about the correct question being not whether we have control over our actions, but how much control we have over our actions. The point is that we are morally responsible for our actions to the extent that we do have control over them.

Anyway, you may have noticed that I myself have been talking about control in previous posts, so you should not see a lot of difference between her so-called revisionist compatibilism and what I have simply been calling compatibilism.

I did pay attention to that.

And he does give the example of the guy sneezing and saying that you might not be able to control when you sneeze, however, you do have control over the direction you sneeze. This does make sense and seems rather obvious, however, I do think one could make the argument that this is also not as free as one would think. Because most people will have been taught as children that you don't do stuff like this because it is disgusting and it will make people around you react to you negatively, however, children will do this not caring where they sneeze etc.

I still think that you are trying very hard, and perhaps not very successfully, to miss the point here. A sneeze is not voluntary and therefore not an act of free will. The sneezer has no control over it. Aiming the ejection of mucus and saliva caused by the sneeze is very much under the control of the sneezer, and therefore within the scope of free will. We don't blame people for sneezing, but we blame them for choosing to direct their sneeze might pose a hazard and inconvenience to others. Children are taught to be mindful of that, because that is part of becoming an adult. Parents have some measure of control over children, so they are responsible for teaching them proper etiquette in such situations. Churchland was pointing out how important the concept of control is to the concept of free will. Determinists tend to ignore that aspect of free will, and classic compatibilists often seem to take a similar myopic view of the concept. Note that Daniel Dennett does not. He talks a lot about the role of control and intention in defining free will. I only regret that Dennett appears not to have been aware of the grammatical role of agentive and instrumental noun phrases in simple clause structure, because those roles explain a lot the way humans phrase causal events. Grammatical agents are causers that have free will, and every language on Earth assigns special grammatical constructions to signal those roles. They are built in patterns in the structure of human cognition.

To me the argument of compatibilism, even though they accept determinism at its core doesn't seem to make a particularly strong case for free will and how exactly this differs from what determinists are saying. Because they agree that we appear to have free will and we behave as if we do, but ultimately this is an illusion. Whereas the compatibilists seem to just say that we do have subjective experiences and we can affect them but doesn't really demonstrate why it isn't just an illusion.

Bear in mind that illusions are real perceptual phenomena. For example, rainbows do not exist objectively. They only appear from the perspective of a subjective visual observer. Two people standing next to each other and looking at the same rainbow do not see exactly the same rainbow, because the angle of refraction is very slightly different for the two observers. But you can take a picture of a rainbow, because cameras record refracted light from a specific location, just as human eyes do. So it would be silly to insist that rainbows don't exist, because they are optical illusions. They are concrete physical phenomena. To say that free will doesn't exist because it is an illusion--i.e. depends on the perspective of an observer--is similarly wrong. It is very real from the perspective of the experiencer, and those who undergo the experience of making a choice do have valid choices to make regarding an array of imagined futures. In a sense, everything we experience is an illusion when you reduce it to the physical processes that cause the experiences to appear in our minds, but does that mean that nothing is real? Or does it mean that what we consider real is defined by the way our bodies interact with it?

 

[Tomef]

The brain is a part of us, we are in control of everything our brains do.

Your brain does all kinds of stuff you have no control over.

 

[Brickjectivity]

1. Where does free will come from?
2. Do we have it?

Think about circumstances in which no decision is better. In those circumstances what causes a decision to be made at all? I think in those cases it can't be free will. How does free will fit into it when there is no better way to go? You cannot have free will if all of your decisions seem to make no difference. You are simply compelled to do something, and that outcome can be presumed deterministic.

For that reason you have to define what is potentially a free will decision and what isn't. I think any time people talk about free will they have to say what kind of free will it is. What makes the decision significant?

 

[muhammad_isa]

No, it isn't, it is about free will. Not whether you exist or not.

Yes .. it's about free-will.
..and if free-will is "an illusion", then you are saying that we can't make any decisions freely.

It follows from that, that the decision to say the above statement was not made freely.
..which in effect means, that it is not us that are the ones saying anything .. it's all an illusion.