muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Well, whoever is controlling you must be a good driver
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Do you Think we have Free Will
- Thread starter leroy
- Start date
Your intentional ignorance of science could not remotely understand the evolved self-protecting mechanisms of instinct of deterministic limitations that protect the survival of the species. It is obvious that with youth they are not fully developed mentally in the ability to make constrained judgments and some others have a limited development, but that is how the selective nature of evolution works. Some do not make the cut.Well, whoever is controlling you must be a good driver
Again, I do not believe in hard determinism in completely limiting our freedom of choices, but you continuingly intentionally ignore the many obvious documented deterministic factors that directly limit our freedom of choice, or is it unintentionally conditioned influence of being limited by your freedom of choice to reject science, because you are anchored in the ancient tribal beliefs of Islam. In my view you have a limited ability to break out of the mold if you choose to do so.
All you can apparently do is make silly foolish remarks and not address the issues of the nature of human will.
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muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Not at all .. either you have reasonable control over what you do ( the free-will to make decisions ),
or you don't.
You mixing "either or" with "what is reasonable control?" First I have never said we do not have any freedom of choice. You most likely believe in Libertarian Free Will.
The problem remains you have failed to acknowledge and respond to the facts that have been documented to limit human freedom of choice,
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Right .. so you DO have reasonable control over your actions .. got it.
No, not citing my posts in an unbiased manner, No, you do not . . . got it. Actually. I seriously question what you 'consider as 'reasonable control' until you acknowledge the many natural, cultural and instinct limitations on our freedom of choice.Right .. so you DO have reasonable control over your actions .. got it.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
MelancholicPotatoChip
Member
I agree
Instinct of self preservation rules. You have not responded to the main issues involved.I think I do..
You have enough control over your actions, to be a good driver.
Again . . .
You have not acknowledge the many natural, cultural and instinct limitations on our freedom of choice.
Still waiting . . .
Inability to respond is admitting the problem with your 'belief.'
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Well, yes .. but that is not the only decisions that need to be made when driving.
eg. would you decide to drive carefully, or aggressively
No .. and you will be waiting forever .. unless you want to define "free-will" in a suitable manner.
The problem is not with my belief, but with your understanding, as has already been demonstrated.
You don't understand what compatibilists believe, and confuse their belief as denial of factors that affect our decisions.
I don't know how many times I have to say it .. I am aware that there are factors (internal & external) that
affect our decisions.
You want to see this in terms of "loss of free-will" .. so we end up arguing about the definition.
You can assume whatever definition you like .. but you need to specify it precisely, in order to have
a meaningful debate.
Responded already and your refusal to acknowledge.
Simply limited freedom of choice by the above limitations
Again, your failure to respond indicates the weakness and problems for your claims based on ancient tribal text,
Yes it is a problem of your belief, because this is what your view of Free Will is based on. This the same problem with your view of the sciences of evolution it is based on your beliefs, NOT SCIENCE.
You have failed to address these factors in your responses.
The definitions of the past in this thread are for Libertarian Free Will. Do you define Free Will differently?
I defined the 'Limited Free Will, based on the freedom of making choices limited by the factors outlined in this thread.
Defined as above and previously in this and other threads.
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muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
..that is no definition!
That is the definition I use and you have failed to respond.
The definitions of the past in this thread are for Libertarian Free Will. Do you define Free Will differently?
I defined the 'Limited Free Will, based on the freedom of making choices limited by the factors outlined in this thread.
muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
This is the OP:-
* In this context Free Will is defined as the ability to make choices that are not fully determined by past events nor fully random
I know this is a hard question and that nobody claims to have 100% certanity..... but in your opinion what is more likely to be true?... do you think humans have the aility to make choices ?
..and so I answer with a definite "yes" .. as I assume you do too?
Oh .. and in what post #numbers did YOU define it?
I have defined in the last few posts as I have always in the past.
Being in the OP does not make it an adequate definition. I rejected this definition early on, because of problems. I have made it very clear that we have limited ability to make freedom of choice, NOT Hard Determinism with No Freedom of Choice.
First there is nothing in nature and our decision making process that is random. All of our decisions have an underlying cause and effect regardless of whether they are made freely, they are NOT random. We make decisions based on reasons and not random without reasons, I have repeatedly in many threads documented the problem of randomness,
Second problem is what is 'not fully determined.' This needs clarification If there are factors that limit our freedom of choice that are of course are fully determined we have only limited freedom of choice or we are headed for hard determinism, or if by degree we are back to the concept of "Limited freedom of choice based on limiting factors that I have described, and apparently.you propose limited by being 'fully determined.'
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muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
I don't see it..
It's not really a definition, but it DOES mention "the ability to make choices that are not fully determined by past events nor fully random"
So, as far as the OP is concerned, they want to know if we have said ability.
Right .. so why don't you just leave it at that !?
That makes no sense .. "not fully determined" is what it 'says on the tin' i.e. do we have ability to make choices that are not determined by something other than our choices .. fully determined by something other than ourselves
Put you glasses on or bring your seeing dog.
. . . because your supposed definition is not a definition, It is a vague descriptive of what you believe with problems with:
{1} Failure to describe what you mean by "fully determined."
(2) Vague use of randomness, which does not apply to the
nature of our choices free or not.
Still not clear unless you are acknowledging "Limited Free Will." Human instincts does limit our freedom of choice and it is not "other than ourselves." Our culture and religion are "other than ourselves, and to a degree limit our freedom of choice. This incomplete concerning the list of limiting factors that limit our freedom of choice.
My definition does not necessarily define 'limiting factors as fully determine the limit of our choices.
Your explanation remains inadequate, flawed and vague as described..
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muhammad_isa
Veteran Member
Which definition would that be?
I said in post #669 :-
"Compatibilism is the belief that free will and determinism are mutually compatible and that it is possible to believe in both without being logically inconsistent."
..and in post #670, you reply with:-
"Compatibilism considers the appearance of freedom of choice from the human perspective is in reality an illusion, and our choices are in reality determined as defined by my previous references, The concept of Potential Free Will actually does acknowledge that humans do potentially have a limited freedom of choices, but in a limited constrained perspective.
...
The basis for developing Compatibilism is to answer the question of Moral Responsibility."
..which only shows that you have your own version of what free-will, determinist and compatibilist
actually mean.
It's no way to have a debate .. insisting that a person won't acknowledge your opinions,
as they "don't believe in science", or they are "uneducated", or they "blinded by their religion" etc.
If you wish to have a debate you need to CLEARLY define what you are actually talking about.
For example .. define what you mean by free-will, in a few concise, sentences..
..rather than claiming that you have already done so, without reference to a previous post.
I did not write the OP .. take it up with them.
However, I don't have any problem with understanding what it is they were asking..
To me, that is just "double-talk" .. we either make decisions of our own free-will or we don't.
..such as in the case of a driver who makes decisions, as I've already explained.
The psychology of WHY we might make a decision is another matter.
Only in exceptional cases, is somebody excused of making a bad decision(not held responsible) .. we are held responsible for what we do .. it's no illusion .. it is REAL !
Ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law .. nor is it in the eyes of the Lord.
Is it philosophy or psychology that you describe?
Free Will is simplistically and incompletely defined as freedom of choice. I define my view as limited free will
I do not accept either Compatibilism, Hard Determinism nor Libertarian Free Will. My view is not only my own
As far as the variations in the views of Free Will I refer to"
In terms of different views of Limited Free WilI refer to the following:
First source: What is “limited free will”?
Theistic view of Limited Free Will
Limited free will does not require the agent to have full and complete power over their actions. It just requires "the power to be the ultimate creator and sustainer of some of one's own ends or purposes."
Practical example
One might properly call this unlimited free will. (I offer no opinion as to its existence.)
In contrast, limited free will would take constraining factors into account in this sort of way :
At time t1, X could have chosen otherwise, C2, if X's desires and character had been different.
This leave's the agent's choice as the vital element but constrains that choice by the state of the agent's character and desires. One might in this case say that the agent had limited free will.
Philip Zimbardo in his book The Lucifer Effect (2007) proposes his view on social conformity and lack of free will 'It should be clear that not even the best psychology can predict how each and every individual will behave in a given situation; some degree of individual variance always exists that cannot be accounted for.'.
More to follow . . .
It's no way to have a debate .. insisting that a person won't acknowledge your opinions,
. . . but it is true your ancient tribal religious agenda determines your view of Free Will, and the sciences of evolution. Uneducated is not the issue here, because I do not know your education. Nonetheless your view toward the sciences of evolution reflect an intentional ignorance of science.
Yes the rejection of the sciences of evolution represents the rejection of science, because it rejects the science of every major academic institution and university in the world and 95%+ of all scienientis in fields related to evolution, physics and cosmology;
YES! You reject contemporary science.
I am talking about the question of different views of Free will and my view Limited Free Will, which as above and future posts
Free Will simply means the Freedom to choose. Limited Free Will means our freedom of choice is limited by factors we do not control.
In terms of the question of Free Will it is NOT a question of "ignorance of the Law."The psychology of WHY we might make a decision is another matter.
Only in exceptional cases, is somebody excused of making a bad decision(not held responsible) .. we are held responsible for what we do .. it's no illusion .. it is REAL !
Ignorance is no excuse in the eyes of the law .. nor is it in the eyes of the Lord.
Your view here of the Law is too archaic
Sources that address the question of Free Will may be from Philosophy, Psychology and Neurobiology, which I may cite in the future,
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An even better reference that describes Limited Free will from the perspective of research in neurobiology.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
The stochastic models and the models of evidence accumulation consider decision as the crossing of a threshold of activity in specific brain regions. They do not restore the idea of conscious control but turn away from the previous paradigm. These studies cannot yet fully explain how the intention to perform an action arises in the brain, but they better account for the complexity of the process. In particular, they recognize the role of the spontaneous activity of the brain, of external cues and other factors—including those that might be called “will” and “reasons” (which, however, do not currently have precisely identified neural correlates)—in reaching the critical threshold. Studies that show how we can consciously block movements whose preparation has already begun unconsciously, then, indicate how the subject is able to exercise a form of control, whose genesis however is still unclear.
One could state that free “decision-making draws upon a rich history of accumulated information, manifested in preferences, attitudes and motivations, and is related to the current internal and external environment in which we act. Complete absence of context is impossible” (Bode et al., 2014). In this framework, I have here proposed to integrate neuroscientific research on free will by connecting higher-level concepts with their neural correlates through a psychological operationalization in terms of skills and cognitive functions that do not necessarily imply a continuous conscious control over the decision-making and action process. This may also allow one to create a quantitative index, albeit still quite rudimentary, of the degree of freedom of each subject. This freedom would be specifically defined and therefore may not perfectly coincide with the intuitive concept of free will. Starting from these functional indicators, which psychology has well clarified, one could then move on to investigate the precise neural correlates for a different and (possibly) more fundamental level of explanation in terms of brain processes that enable the executive functions.
According to Craver (2007), a mechanistic explanation is able to lead to an inter-field integration. There are two relevant aspects to this approach. The functional knowledge that can be drawn from psychological research is a tool to identify neural mechanisms; the knowledge of the brain structure can guide the construction of far more sophisticated psychological models (Bechtel and Mundale, 1999). The index of free will that I am proposing (Lavazza and Inglese, 2015)—despite surely needing further refinement—might be useful to explore the brain mechanisms that underlie what appears in behavior as “free will”, which no longer seems to be an illusion, not even for neuroscientific research.
Free Will and Neuroscience: From Explaining Freedom Away to New Ways of Operationalizing and Measuring It - PMC
The concept of free will is hard to define, but crucial to both individual and social life. For centuries people have wondered how freedom is possible in a world ruled by physical determinism; however, reflections on free will have been confined to ...
Free Will and Neuroscience: From Explaining Freedom Away to New Ways of Operationalizing and Measuring It
Andrea Lavazza*Conclusion
Free will is an elusive but crucial concept. For many years we have known that the functioning of our brain has to do not only with the belief that we have free will but also with the existence of free will itself. Evidence of the unconscious start of movement, highlighted by the RP signal, has led to believe that we had reached an experimental proof of the non-existence of free will—which many already claimed at a theoretical level based on the argument of the incompatibility between determinism and freedom. Along with other evidence provided by experimental psychology, the branch of studies inaugurated by Libet has contributed to seeing free will as an illusion: this view seemed to be reliably supported by science, and in particular by neuroscience. Recent studies, however, seem to question this paradigm, which sees the initiation and conscious control of the action as the first requirement of free will, allegedly proving that there are no such things.The stochastic models and the models of evidence accumulation consider decision as the crossing of a threshold of activity in specific brain regions. They do not restore the idea of conscious control but turn away from the previous paradigm. These studies cannot yet fully explain how the intention to perform an action arises in the brain, but they better account for the complexity of the process. In particular, they recognize the role of the spontaneous activity of the brain, of external cues and other factors—including those that might be called “will” and “reasons” (which, however, do not currently have precisely identified neural correlates)—in reaching the critical threshold. Studies that show how we can consciously block movements whose preparation has already begun unconsciously, then, indicate how the subject is able to exercise a form of control, whose genesis however is still unclear.
One could state that free “decision-making draws upon a rich history of accumulated information, manifested in preferences, attitudes and motivations, and is related to the current internal and external environment in which we act. Complete absence of context is impossible” (Bode et al., 2014). In this framework, I have here proposed to integrate neuroscientific research on free will by connecting higher-level concepts with their neural correlates through a psychological operationalization in terms of skills and cognitive functions that do not necessarily imply a continuous conscious control over the decision-making and action process. This may also allow one to create a quantitative index, albeit still quite rudimentary, of the degree of freedom of each subject. This freedom would be specifically defined and therefore may not perfectly coincide with the intuitive concept of free will. Starting from these functional indicators, which psychology has well clarified, one could then move on to investigate the precise neural correlates for a different and (possibly) more fundamental level of explanation in terms of brain processes that enable the executive functions.
According to Craver (2007), a mechanistic explanation is able to lead to an inter-field integration. There are two relevant aspects to this approach. The functional knowledge that can be drawn from psychological research is a tool to identify neural mechanisms; the knowledge of the brain structure can guide the construction of far more sophisticated psychological models (Bechtel and Mundale, 1999). The index of free will that I am proposing (Lavazza and Inglese, 2015)—despite surely needing further refinement—might be useful to explore the brain mechanisms that underlie what appears in behavior as “free will”, which no longer seems to be an illusion, not even for neuroscientific research.