How do you exactly define 'free will'?

[Willamena]

I say...we are defined by our self denials.
Others know me best in that way.
They report.....he won't do that.
You can trust him.

What are self-denials? What can self deny?

 

[Thief]

What are self-denials? What can self deny?

I can....I have....
I walk away from opportunity that anyone else would have jumped right on.

Some people would then say...he was foolish.
What he spared was later lost anyway.......

But at least I am not the fault for the loss.

 

[Willamena]

I can....I have....
I walk away from opportunity that anyone else would have jumped right on.

Some people would then say...he was foolish.
What he spared was later lost anyway.......

But at least I am not the fault for the loss.

Not I can't... I haven't...?

Why are we defined by what we walk away from any more than what we walk towards?

(Self is neither.)

 

[hayman]

Free will is the ability to surprise an omniscient god with a decision it didn't know you were going to make.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Free will is the ability to surprise an omniscient god with a decision it didn't know you were going to make.

Under that interpretation, relativity rules out free will.

 

[Thief]

Not I can't... I haven't...?

Why are we defined by what we walk away from any more than what we walk towards?

(Self is neither.)

If you are given to your impulses....you cannot be trusted.

Anyone can walk toward heaven.
Many will say ...Lord!....Lord!.....and heaven knows them not.

 

[FollowTheWay]

Only The Truth can set you free and thereby give you free will. No non re-generated man or woman has free will. The lost and unsaved do The Devil's will.

 

[Willamena]

Only The Truth can set you free and thereby give you free will. No non re-generated man or woman has free will. The lost and unsaved do The Devil's will.

What is a re-generated person?

 

[FollowTheWay]

What is a re-generated person?

Someone who is Born of God - a new creation residing in a dead body of sin, not a living body of sin.

 

[Willamena]

Someone who is Born of God - a new creation residing in a dead body of sin, not a living body of sin.

Only dead people have free will?

 

[FollowTheWay]

Only dead people have free will?

No, not dead people, people who die in the watery grave of Baptism and are Born Anew when they are given The Holy Spirit as they arise from the water - they are now new Spiritual creations and have free will. Prior to that event they are lost and can only do the Devil's will.

 

[Thief]

Only dead people have free will?

I suspect a greater discipline and grace is required to walk among the angelic.
This life is a precursor.

Freewill in heaven?....some say the angels obey.
But I have a story of rebellion.

 

[JerryL]

Fine as long as you agree decisions are made. No point in pursuing it.

Sure.

How so?

By responding to my analogy as though it were not an analogy

Feel free to bring whatever precision to your claim you feel necessary.

I was not vague. You equivocated.

You've yet to explain what possibilities the rock made a choice between.

The same choices a calculator makes. The same choices you make.

Generally there is nothing with prevents me getting some ice cream to what restraint do you refer?

If you didn't do it, then the conditions of everything prevented it.

I would personally assert that the state of your brain did it; but I'm not prepared to prove it wasn't your soul or an invisible person in the sky working a keyboard.

Fine, if true then determinism fails.

Yes and no.
Yes: Your choices are no longer determined by the state of everything from the beginning.
No: Your choices are now determined by a random event (and presumably also the state of everything)

Sure but then it is also not determinism.

Meh. My actual claim is that you cannot have "free will"... that is to say either you cannot make choices (randomness does it for you), or your choices are not free, being determined by the state of everything.

I don't want to bog that down with semantics.

I've always defined freewill as being able to do what I want to do, within the realm of physical possibility of course. Nothing more.

And you may be able to meet that standard.

What it does it move the goalpost. Under that definition I would assert that you cannot control what you want to do. What you want is determined by the state of everything (or has a random element).

Because you made a choice to drink alcohol. It both inhibits stimulus and increases the amount of dopamine. You chose to introduce a chemical which affects your desires which consequentially alters your will.

So my will is not free. It is determined by the state of my brain.

That's rather my point.

You can obviously affect your desires through use of chemicals. You made a choice which affected your desires and altered your will. Congratulations.

If I don't drink alcohol; my brain is still full of chemicals. Can you prove I'm not "under the influence of sober"?

Is there a "true will", or is it all just the deterministic result of biochemistry / bioarcitecture?

 

[JerryL]

“The brain is not a computer”
Louie, A. H. (2005). Any material realization of the (M, R)-systems must have noncomputable models. Journal of integrative neuroscience, 4(04), 423-436.

Ignoring that that study has been refuted:

I didn't say the brain was a computer. In fact, in what you quoted I didn't mention a brain at all.

What I have said is that a brain makes choices like (IOW: under the same definition of "choice") a calculator.

 

[JerryL]

Certainly, I don't think we know enough about the brain to argue that it is evidence for or against determinism, although there's something to be said for the experience of agency. However, the questions is do we know enough about the brain and other physical systems (especially those which process information, like computers or calculators) to give us reason to believe particular things about our capacity to choose/decide, our ability to encode, represent, and retrieve conceptual/semantic information and the implications of doing so, and other relevant questions.
For example, even before computers were actually built Turing's paper was enough to inspire ideas about artificial intelligence, and with the first computers it was thought by many that AI was a few years away. After all, all we had to do was figure out the algorithms. Then we realized how hard it is to get a computer to do anything. Computers are physical instantiations of Boolean algebra, using logic gates that can manipulate input syntactically. In order to program a computer to do anything, it is necessary to boil it down to instructions so precise and specific they do not depend on any meaning whatsoever and cannot.

So you've never heard of fuzzy logic nor looked at an artificial neural net.

Indeed: you've never looked at failure-tolerant insect AI.

But more to the point: your post says nothing about free will. What is says is that the methods of making decisions are different between CPUs and brains.

I don't think anyone has said otherwise.

 

[Nakosis]

If you are given to your impulses....you cannot be trusted.

Anyone can walk toward heaven.
Many will say ...Lord!....Lord!.....and heaven knows them not.

Then no one can be trusted.
I've had people I barely know tell me they trust me, just by looking at me. I'll politely nod my head while thinking to myself they are idiots. Not because I would intend them harm but because they have no good reason for that trust.

 

[Nakosis]

By responding to my analogy as though it were not an analogy

The point being if you don't understand the subject well enough to make a correct analysis then the analogy fails.

I was not vague. You equivocated.

And I was providing an opportunity to correct the equivocation, however I suppose that's past now. I'm trying to give you a chance to make a point but you just throw up distractions.

The same choices a calculator makes. The same choices you make.

Repeating your beliefs does nothing to explain or defend them.

If you didn't do it, then the conditions of everything prevented it.

Then it is only your belief that is offered. People can believe as they choose.

I would personally assert that the state of your brain did it; but I'm not prepared to prove it wasn't your soul or an invisible person in the sky working a keyboard.

I've said nothing about a soul, why do you keep bringing it up?

Yes and no.
Yes: Your choices are no longer determined by the state of everything from the beginning.
No: Your choices are now determined by a random event (and presumably also the state of everything)

So then you are not arguing that everything is determined, only my will.

So I arrive at a crossroad, never been there before and have no knowledge of what is end any of the three possible directions I can continue to travel. Having no preference I do nothing other then decide to pick a random direct to travel in.

What determines my choice?

Meh. My actual claim is that you cannot have "free will"... that is to say either you cannot make choices (randomness does it for you), or your choices are not free, being determined by the state of everything.

And my claim is that to have free will I need only the ability to do what I choose to do. There is nothing else required for freewill.

I don't want to bog that down with semantics.


And you may be able to meet that standard.

What it does it move the goalpost. Under that definition I would assert that you cannot control what you want to do. What you want is determined by the state of everything (or has a random element).

Of course you make a decision based on the current state of everything you know. Freewill is whether you can freely act according to your will or not.

So my will is not free. It is determined by the state of my brain.

Obviously, if it wasn't determine by you then it is not your will.

If I don't drink alcohol; my brain is still full of chemicals. Can you prove I'm not "under the influence of sober"?

Not the point. You made a choice which affected those chemicals. You altered your will.

Is there a "true will", or is it all just the deterministic result of biochemistry / bioarcitecture?

What's "true will"?
My will is determined by many things. My desires, goals, personal morals, likes, dislikes. Knowledge, lack of knowledge. A lot of internal system interacting along with external input. It is all very recursive as well.

By the time a decision is made any or all of these internal systems may have altered. By what can't necessarily be fathomed. You want to believe you understand this myriad of inner workings. I don't think you do. You want to see it as the input and output of a calculator of computer. I believe the complexity is well beyond that.

For me it's simply. Freewill is the ability to do what I want to do. You claim knowledge of the causality of my will. I'm so far unconvinced of that knowledge.

 

[JerryL]

The point being if you don't understand the subject well enough to make a correct analysis then the analogy fails.

No. Your claim being that I don't understand the subject well enough and so made a false analogy. A claim you are incorrect in regards to.

And I was providing an opportunity to correct the equivocation, however I suppose that's past now. I'm trying to give you a chance to make a point but you just throw up distractions.

Repeating your beliefs does nothing to explain or defend them.

Then it is only your belief that is offered. People can believe as they choose.

These are not-interactive.

I've said nothing about a soul, why do you keep bringing it up?

Because the actual mechanism is irrelevant.

So then you are not arguing that everything is determined, only my will.

Everything, including your will, is either determined, random, or a combination of both.

Though the topic is specifically about choice/will

So I arrive at a crossroad, never been there before and have no knowledge of what is end any of the three possible directions I can continue to travel. Having no preference I do nothing other then decide to pick a random direct to travel in.

What determines my choice?

For the sake of the argument: I don't know. It doesn't matter. If your decision was truly random, then it was not choice (as you did not *chose* a random result, or it wouldn't be random by definition). If your decision was not random, then it was deterministic.

If I could literally reset time to the point right before you made your decision: would you make the same decision every time or would it be "random"?

And my claim is that to have free will I need only the ability to do what I choose to do. There is nothing else required for freewill.

Then in responding to me you are committing an equivocation fallacy.

Also, by your definition "calculators have freewill"

Of course you make a decision based on the current state of everything you know. Freewill is whether you can freely act according to your will or not.

But your will itself isn't free. Turtles all the way down.

Obviously, if it wasn't determine by you then it is not your will.

What is "me" in this context?

Not the point. You made a choice which affected those chemicals. You altered your will.

It most certainly is the point. If my will is controlled by chemicals (which it is whether I am drunk or not); then how is it free.

It's just as "free" when I'm drunk as it is when I'm sober.

What's "true will"?

Something not determined by biochemistry / bioarcitecture?

My will is determined by many things. My desires, goals, personal morals, likes, dislikes. Knowledge, lack of knowledge. A lot of internal system interacting along with external input. It is all very recursive as well.

And every one of those is either the result of the state of everything, or random, or a mix of both.

Turtles all the way down.

By the time a decision is made any or all of these internal systems may have altered. By what can't necessarily be fathomed. You want to believe you understand this myriad of inner workings. I don't think you do. You want to see it as the input and output of a calculator of computer. I believe the complexity is well beyond that.

I really don't. You are hacking a straw man by applying to my analogy something I've never claimed.

For me it's simply. Freewill is the ability to do what I want to do. You claim knowledge of the causality of my will. I'm so far unconvinced of that knowledge.

Then. In the language you are using. There's no such thing as free want.

 

[Nakosis]

No. Your claim being that I don't understand the subject well enough and so made a false analogy. A claim you are incorrect in regards to.

Ok, well I'm still waiting for some reason to believe otherwise/

These are not-interactive.

Which is why I can't do much about how someone chooses to believe. But I suppose the question being you can do something about what you choose to believe. You say no so no sense in trying to change you mind there.

Because the actual mechanism is irrelevant.

As far as freewill goes, I agree. So maybe we shouldn't discuss the mechanism?

Everything, including your will, is either determined, random, or a combination of both.

Being that you declare the mechanism unimportant this can only remain an unsupported belief.

Though the topic is specifically about choice/will

The topic is asking about how one defines freewill.

For the sake of the argument: I don't know. It doesn't matter. If your decision was truly random, then it was not choice (as you did not *chose* a random result, or it wouldn't be random by definition). If your decision was not random, then it was deterministic.

But I did choose a random result. One not determine by anything. The act of my will was in choosing to accept a random result. Not the random result itself.

If I could literally reset time to the point right before you made your decision: would you make the same decision every time or would it be "random"?

Since we can't then I suppose neither one of us can prove a point. However since I'm not supporting determinism I don't need to prove anything. You are the one claiming I can't control my will. However in your own example you can choose to drink which does affect your will. You obviously have some control over your will even if it is through chemical means.

Then in responding to me you are committing an equivocation fallacy.

As you choose to believe.

Also, by your definition "calculators have freewill"

Simplifying the complexity of the brain still does not help your position.

But your will itself isn't free. Turtles all the way down.

It doesn't need to be. What is necessary is the ability to control/alter the internal process which affects a person's will. Which is not important to how I define freewill. You claim it is not important for your point either however to know my will is determine you would need to understand the mechanism of how my will came about.

So... I don't know where you can go with your argument other then it is something you believe to be true,

What is "me" in this context?

Brain, I said you/me to make sure you didn't see these as separate.

It most certainly is the point. If my will is controlled by chemicals (which it is whether I am drunk or not); then how is it free.

It's just as "free" when I'm drunk as it is when I'm sober.

It depends on whether you have any control over the process which affect your will. Since you see this as unimportant I suppose you cannot say.

Something not determined by biochemistry / bioarcitecture?

Not that I'm an expert but from what I've read it's an electro/chemical process. Not that we are talking about the mechanism/process of what affect will.

And every one of those is either the result of the state of everything, or random, or a mix of both.

Turtles all the way down.

Again without understanding the process through which will is developed it is only a belief.

I really don't. You are hacking a straw man by applying to my analogy something I've never claimed.

You claim is that our will is determined. A claim reached without understanding of the process which creates will.

Then. In the language you are using. There's no such thing as free want.

Sorry had to fix some things if you've already responded.

I have simply explained my position on freewill. That being the ability to do what I want. Which let us accept you are not arguing against. It not a strawman against your position. It is my position.

For the most part I think there is little disagreement on my position. So going forward I will allow you to defend this claim without trying to argue my position on freewill. I think doing so just confuses the argument.

Your claim, freewill means being able to choose/decide your will?

 

[Nakosis]

That is a straw man.

What we are saying is that what you want to do is, in turn, chosen by "not you". Either the conditions of the universe (your brain mostly), or randomness, or both.

In that case: there's a good analogy that a Calculator "wants" to give the correct answer and chooses to do so.

Let us go back to the beginning of our discussion.

I accept not everything I do is a matter of choice. Some things occur as a reaction. Like a calculator. You push keys and get a result. Now noting the mind can work in this fashion doesn't mean it only works in this fashion.

There are times I do make a choice between alternate paths. This is much different then something a simple reaction process where no choice was made.

There is a reaction process and there is a choice process. There is no way I'm going to agree these are the same process unless you can prove it to be the case.

The second issue I have is with how the philosophy of determinism defines freewill.

Well please provide the definition you wish to work with before I complain about it.

Freewill means what?