How do you exactly define 'free will'?

[Thief]

That just makes "something you do" part of the state of the universe... so deterministic.

Skwim seems to have actually just addressed this.

Not matter what...you do....it's part of this universe.
That does nothing about whether it is your will or not.

I say....your hand is your responsibility.

 

[Willamena]

That just makes "something you do" part of the state of the universe... so deterministic.

Skwim seems to have actually just addressed this.

Most people believe that people are more than a set of conditions. But I'd be curious to hear the argument that has them nothing more.

 

[JerryL]

I say....your hand is your responsibility.

Responsibility is an entirely different discussion; and on the one hand I don't want to tangent off into it but...

Let's say I spike a few drugs in your coffee. Some LSD to break you from reality. Some PCP to get you good and paranoid. And you attack someone because the giant pink dog told you that you needed to or the carrots would destroy world.

Your hand. Your responsibility?

 

[JerryL]

Most people believe that people are more than a set of conditions. But I'd be curious to hear the argument that has them nothing more.

What else could you possibly be?

 

[Willamena]

...there had to be something that caused you to do X rather than Y. What was it?

This belief begs the question.

 

[Willamena]

What else could you possibly be?

Everything else.

 

[Thief]

Responsibility is an entirely different discussion; and on the one hand I don't want to tangent off into it but...

Let's say I spike a few drugs in your coffee. Some LSD to break you from reality. Some PCP to get you good and paranoid. And you attack someone because the giant pink dog told you that you needed to or the carrots would destroy world.

Your hand. Your responsibility?

yeah.

 

[Willamena]

What is the argument for that we are nothing more than a set of conditions?

 

[Willamena]

Responsibility is an entirely different discussion; and on the one hand I don't want to tangent off into it but...

Let's say I spike a few drugs in your coffee. Some LSD to break you from reality. Some PCP to get you good and paranoid. And you attack someone because the giant pink dog told you that you needed to or the carrots would destroy world.

Your hand. Your responsibility?

Depends on how you rationalize it. If the pink dog made you do it, then you waive responsibility

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Did that make sense in your head? Cause it doesn't make sense in text.

I'm using your various quotes together. If they don't make sense, it's because you have confused various uses of "determined" & "random". Let’s compare 4 cases of your use:
Case #1

OK. Determined by random. That' works as well.

Case #2

It's possible "not determinism", in which case the non-deterministic part is effectively random

Case #3

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

Case#4

I have not said that there is no choice. I said that, if the determining factor was randomness then there was no choice. If the determining factor was not random then choice was not free.

In #1, you claim something can be “determined by random”. An outcome cannot be determined by red, by large, by hungry, or other adjectives. How can it be determined by random? More importantly, if we say “randomness” (or some other nominal construction), then the easiest reading of “by” is as agentive (what in the languages whence comes our own would be the dative of agent or at least instrument).
Thus you are saying that the cause of the determined outcome is randomness. Random is antithetical to determined. It’s oxymoronic.

In #2, you contrast that which is “not determinism”, and in particular the “non-deterministic part”, with “random”. Here, what isn’t deterministic is random. So before we could have something determined by random, here something is “effectively random” if it is “not determinism.”

In case #3, you again contrast “random” with “determined”. But now you add that there can be a combination. Of course, “determined by random” isn’t a combination of “random” and “determined”, it is just “determined.” It’s nonsensical, of course (how can “random” make anything happen in any way, deterministic or no?), and doesn’t get much better if we use a noun. But it still isn’t a combination, as the “random” part is the cause, and “determined” the description of the type of cause.

If I say an outcome is determined, I refer not to what caused the outcome but to the nature of the outcome. You use it this way yourself:

Something not determined by biochemistry / bioarcitecture?

Given the state of everything, the next thing to happen is inevitable or it is not. If it is, then it's determined by the initial conditions. If it's not then there's a factor that isn't a condition, so must be random (if it weren't it would be a condition).

So if it is “determined by random” it is not a combination of “determined” and “random” but “determined”, and “random” just serves as the cause like “biochemistry” or “initial conditions”.

Thus, according to one way you use random, EVERYTHING can be determined because something that is determined can be “determined by random”.

Then there’s #4. Here we have “determining factors” that can be “random.” This I take to mean a more comprehensible version of “determined by random”. But it is again an equivocation.

In #2 & #3, random is an adjective. Something is “random” the way that something can be “red” or “large”. In #1 it is a noun. In #4, it is an adjective but it doesn’t describe the outcome as in #2 or #3, it is defined as a “determining factor. So if this following were true:

Other than your false framing of clarification as "equivocation".

every use of random is the same, and as you define “random” to be a determining factor in #4, I should be able to replace any use of random with “determining factor.”

So for outcomes we now have several possibilities: an outcome can be deterministic. Fine. Or it can be random, can be determined (caused) by random, or random can be a causal/determining factor. Finally, it can be a combination of random and determined.
In essence, “random” for you can describe an outcome or describe what determines it, an equivocation fallacy. More importantly, the conflation of “random” as opposite/contrary to “determined” with “random” as something that can cause an outcome to be determined, be combined with determined to describe an outcome, and describe an outcome itself has rendered the term as you use it utterly meaningless, and as you have both defined it in contrast to “determined” as well as to what can make something “determined’, so too is “determined” meaningless in your usage.

Funny thing. Usually, when there's a space between two words, it indicates that they are two words.

A funnier thing is that you think this means they can necessarily be understood in terms of the two words. If I “give up posting on RF”, does this mean the direction in which I am giving is upwards? If a friend at work “pulls strings” to get you promoted, what has she grabbed so that she can pull? If I post here “once in a while”, can I also post “once upon a time”?

Turning it around, I ask again if they are two words and should be analyzed as such, does that mean the following examples are sensical:
“I had freer will yesterday than today”
“You may want to have more free will than he does, but he has the freest will.”
“I used to think I had free will, but now I realize I have mostly free will.”
“As you have me on retainer, the first draft of your will will be a free will.”

That's your quote. Not mine. It sounds like the same thing, but it really isn't.

It’s the logical equivalent. You assume an outcome (hence the particle “if’), and then given that outcome there’s an outcome. All you’ve done is put words that you don’t even properly distinguish to break your argument (given an outcome, that outcome happened) into 2 parts. The fact that you happen to say that given an outcome it can either be determined or random just means you are assuming an outcome to begin with and it couldn’t matter less if it were determined, random, pink, reductionist, free, willed, free willed, etc. You’ve assumed the outcome merely by using “if”, and thus your conclusion is your premise.

 

[Skwim]

...there had to be something that caused you to do X rather than Y. What was it?

This belief begs the question.

Please explain how.

 

[Skwim]

Someone made an interesting argument once that decision happens before we become aware of it.

Science has found that brain activity preceded awareness. See Benjamin Libet.

Decision, as such, cannot be said to be described by determinism, which depends upon observation.

It's not that determinism cannot describe decisions, but that determinism doesn't recognize decisions. Decisions (another term for choices) are mere illusions.

 

[Thief]

Depends on how you rationalize it. If the pink dog made you do it, then you waive responsibility

I'd like to see the pink dog that can twist my arm.

Do we need an argument to demonstrate coercion?

Someone puts a gun to your head and hands you a bottle of poison.
Choose.

I would not call that coercion an act resulting in freewill.

Now how about division between those worthy of heaven and those who are not?
Angels carry swords.

 

[Nakosis]

Maybe. Maybe not. I make no claim about order.
Except that my decisions are either the result of conditions, the result of randomness, or a combination of both.

Of course, this is necessary for freewill. You have to evaluate conditions past, present and possible future conditions in order to make a decision. However you seem to ignore yourself as the agent which sets some of these conditions.

A single example being?

The other two popular views are indeterminism and compatibilism.
Indeterminism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Compatibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'd suggest you not worry about the semantics too much. What I have claimed is impossible is impossible. If you have some other definition you personally use for "free will" (I notice you conjoined that to "freewill"), feel free to discuss it. I'm perfectly happy to have a discussion about your ideas about your definition of "freewill"; but don't imagine it has an effect on the way *I* was using it.

Sure, you've accepted a definition for free will that makes it impossible. That's the topic right how do you define free will. As an agent which possesses free will I can choose to accept a definition which makes more sense at least in the manner that humans operate.

Conjoined or not conjoined, I don't see it making a difference. However I agree, You use the term in a manner which makes what you are defining impossible to occur.

 

[Nakosis]

Perhaps I mislead you with "the point of doing." What I meant to convey was the point at which you seemingly "decided" to do X rather than Y, you could not have "decided" to do differently. Even the event of seemingly "deciding" to do something was predetermined by the cause/effect events leading up to that moment.

But it was. Consider: if what you do was not caused then the only other way it could arise is utterly randomly, and I don't believe you want to claim that what you do is utterly ransom in nature. So, going back to the moment of "deciding"---where one would say one's will kicks into action---- there had to be something that caused you to do X rather than Y. What was it? Propose whatever engine of conception you wish: mind, judgement, instinct, intellect, thinking, mentality, etc.,

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

What I see missing from your explanation and illustration is feedback, recursion and new input.

So we have a set of starting conditions and we have an agent which will be making the decision and one or more choices which can be made.

You have set A of conditions. You have set B of choices. You also have an agent which contains an unique set of processes(tools) to use to make a decision.

The neat part of this is that given the same A set of conditions and the same set of B choices a different agent can make a different choice. So the "will" of the agent is what determines the decision not A or B.

While you want to make it all a chain of events, this ignores the tools at the disposal of the agent during the process of making a decision.

Tools like logic, or randomness, dreams, imagination, beliefs. moral codes, experience. All these internal process to the agent can be used, fed back into any or all of these internal processes numerous times. The agent can be very conscious of this process. Using tools like logic, or sometimes not so conscious of this process.

What is also neat is that through training and practice other tools are developed, like discipline, self control more tools can be added to the decision making capability of an individual agent.

So the point here is that set A does not lead to one choice of set B. A agent has the conscious free will to use any, all or none of the tools at their disposal to make their decision.

In my view the conscious brain possesses amazing capabilities which cannot be defined or understood by a simple decision tree. The brain has independent causality in that each individual, unique brain can chose between alternate futures through numerous internal tools/processes at it's disposal.

 

[Desert Snake]

There isn't freewill, and I'm not entitled to it.

And do you think that we're entitled for such privilege (whatever)?

 

[Nakosis]

And do you think that we're entitled for such privilege (whatever)?

I never responded to the OP.

Free will is possessed by an agent who can make a conscious choice to use any variety of tools available to that agent, like logical notation for example, in order to make a decision between two or more possible choices.

It's not that we are entitled to it. The brain has developed the ability to have conscious control over the decision process.

Conscious control is not necessary for the agent to act. Like driving the route to work which has been done so many times no decision is necessary.

Free will is when the brain takes conscious control over the process. Even the choice to make a random decision is a free will choice which can be made by the conscious brain.

 

[Thief]

I never responded to the OP.

Free will is possessed by an agent who can make a conscious choice to use any variety of tools available to that agent, like logical notation for example, in order to make a decision between two or more possible choices.

It's not that we are entitled to it. The brain has developed the ability to have conscious control over the decision process.

Conscious control is not necessary for the agent to act. Like driving the route to work which has been done so many times no decision is necessary.

Free will is when the brain takes conscious control over the process. Even the choice to make a random decision is a free will choice which can be made by the conscious brain.

I think you're bordering the line between choice and routine.
Choosing to go to work everyday is a freewill act.
Repeating the drive there is more to trained response.

And again....some action does not require any 'frontal' thought.
(heartbeat and breathing, etc)

 

[Skwim]

Thank you for the detailed explanation.

What I see missing from your explanation and illustration is feedback, recursion and new input.

I didn't bother to mention this component so as to keep my explanation simple. Like other causes that go into determining an effect, feedback can also be in the mix. It's nature determined just like all the other effects are.

So we have a set of starting conditions and we have an agent which will be making the decision and one or more choices which can be made.

Inserting an agent as a separate element begs the question of how this agent arose. The agent is nothing other than a compilation of the result of the same process of cause/effect that gave rise to the end event. In fact, this last process was part of the nature of the agent. It resided in the agent just as the many other events that go into constructing the individual agent. The agent itself is nothing more than an accumulation of cause/effect processes, with the particular event in question being no more than one of these. The agent is no more than the sum total of all the impinging causes and effects.

 

[Nakosis]

I didn't bother to mention this component so as to keep my explanation simple. Like other causes that go into determining an effect, feedback can also be in the mix. It's nature determined just like all the other effects are.

Inserting an agent as a separate element begs the question of how this agent arose. The agent is nothing other than a compilation of the result of the same process of cause/effect that gave rise to the end event. In fact, this last process was part of the nature of the agent. It resided in the agent just as the many other events that go into constructing the individual agent. The agent itself is nothing more than an accumulation of cause/effect processes, with the particular event in question being no more than one of these. The agent is no more than the sum total of all the impinging causes and effects.

That would be fine if this were able to explain consciousness.

I think this fails to consider the the ability of the conscious brain to act independently of the set of A circumstances to arrive at one of the choices available in set B.

You see it as a long chain of events. I see it as an agent independent of that chain with can interact in ways that are unique to that individual agent. The agent can choose to interact with that chain, ignore it partially or completely or interact with a completely unrelated chain of events.

So free will is the brains ability to independently decide how to interact with this chain of events.

You can say what the mind does is also a chain of events but so what? That is the way time works. One thing happens then the next and the next....

The only thing necessary for free will is that the mind can act independent of the chain of events which first brought about the need to make a choice.