How do you exactly define 'free will'?

[allfoak]

It's watching the film "Free Willy" but turning off before the ending

God also has free will.
He can turn us off before the end as well.

 

[McBell]

God also has free will.
He can turn us off before the end as well.

Some of us are already turned off from the idea of god.
Though I do not speak for anyone other than myself, it is those who claim a god that are fault.

 

[allfoak]

i understand Mestemia.
What i said was not meant to offend.

 

[McBell]

i understand Mestemia.
What i said was not meant to offend.

No worries mate.
I am not offended.

 

[Glaurung]

So if preexisting conditions are responsible for a particular consequence, how could the exact same conditions produce a different consequence?

By rejecting of the notion that the world is purely mechanical with no randomness. It's not that my decisions aren't products of preconditions, but that my decisions were not the only inevitable consequence of those preconditions. I had the real ability to chose otherwise in those preconditions.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Independent of what?

So if preexisting conditions are responsible for a particular consequence, how could the exact same conditions produce a different consequence?

1) This is so well-known and so fundamental it makes up most of modern physics.
2) Linguistic formulations aren't arguments. I can define free-will as my mind's capacity to wholly determine all of my actions and even if that could be true, I can still describe this as completely deterministic simply because I take as a function the "mind' and outcomes/states the "determined result". Such simplistic arguments against free will are as utterly bereft of substance as they are relevant.
3) That the exact same conditions produce different outcomes is required for QM, QFT, particle physics, QED, QCD, and so on. Your little simplistic formulations of informal logic in which cause and effect are both ill-defined and forced to be linear aren't just naïve and over a century outdated- they're simply ridiculous.

 

[LuisDantas]

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

I do not use the concept of free will. Far as I know, no one has managed to define it in an useful way.

The closest I come to using it at all is proposing that it was created as self-contradictory concept that attempts to counter and compensate another self-contradictory idea, that of an all-powerful and supremely good God that somehow also allows existence to be so patently imperfect.

Apparently the idea (not one that I support) is that it is ultimately humans who pressure or blackmail God into failing to make existence perfect because we are so darned demanding and blind to perfection. Or something along those lines.

All in all, neither a realistic nor a healthy concept, if I understood it at all correctly.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I do not use the concept of free will.

If it exists, you do. You don't use relativistic physics or metabolic repair consciously, yet you absolutely "use" these. Whether the notion makes sense to you is somewhat irrelevant.

Far as I know, no one has managed to define it in an useful way.

There are at least two formulations in which it explains fundamental problems in physics. A far more widely applicable theory (or theorem) developed mostly by Conway is even more wide-reaching and is actually called the "free will theorem". It is formally defined and formally applied and thus the only way it couldn't be useful is for it to be wrong. Prove it to be so, and you have a leg to stand on.

 

[Koldo]

That the exact same conditions produce different outcomes is required for QM, QFT, particle physics, QED, QCD, and so on. Your little simplistic formulations of informal logic in which cause and effect are both ill-defined and forced to be linear aren't just naïve and over a century outdated- they're simply ridiculous.

However, indeterminacy doesn't generate free will. It doesn't even support the notion of free will.

 

[LuisDantas]

I can't decide whether you are disagreeing with my point or rather illlustrating it.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

However, indeterminacy doesn't generate free will. It doesn't even support the notion of free will.

It clearly supports it, as determinacy eliminates it. This should be trivially obvious. The real question is whether or not indeterminacy as it exists can enable a formulation of free will. The answer to this is unknown, and yet positive answers actually solve problems in quantum physics.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

I can't decide whether you are disagreeing with my point or rather illlustrating it.

Points. As for the answer, on the one hand if you have free will you use it whether you believe it or not, so the fact that you don't "use free will" seems pretty meaningless. As for whether it is useful, there are several resolutions to problems in modern physics which depend upon this and then there are theories such as "the free will theorem" which are even more wide-ranging.

 

[Koldo]

It clearly supports it, as determinacy eliminates it. This should be trivially obvious.

Wrong. Free will requires determinism, which is why it is a contradictory notion.
If the agent is not under complete control of its own choices, effectively causing them according to his will then free will doesn't exist.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Wrong. Free will requires determinism

Right. So the capacity for one to do that which isn't determined requires that everything be determined. How on earth does any basic definition of "free will" somehow "require" determinism, the notion so antithetical to freewill that it is often understood as the contrary notion (even compared to fatalism)?

If the agent is not under complete control of its own choices, effectively causing them according to his will then free will doesn't exist.

1) If we defined free will as such, then you are simply utterly & completely misunderstanding determinism.
2) No formulations of free will that is at least half-baked uses such a definition.

 

[Koldo]

Right. So the capacity for one to do that which isn't determined requires that everything be determined. How on earth does any basic definition of "free will" somehow "require" determinism, the notion so antithetical to freewill that it is often understood as the contrary notion (even compared to fatalism)?

I will quote myself: "If the agent is not under complete control of its own choices, effectively causing them according to his will then free will doesn't exist.".

1) If we defined free will as such, then you are simply utterly & completely misunderstanding determinism.
2) No formulations of free will that is at least half-baked uses such a definition.

Since no rationale has been offered there is nothing to debate.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

/

I will quote myself: "If the agent is not under complete control of its own choices, effectively causing them according to his will then free will doesn't exist.".

1) You conflate choice and cause. That is, consider the choice to respond to my post. Were you under complete control of your choice to do so, then you wouldn't be as I would have to make the post for you to be capable to respond. Also, it is just simply ridiculous to define free will such that the capacity to self-determine (which is the basic, essential, foundational definition of free will) to refute free will.
2) You've defined free will such that even were this definition meaningful or useful it negates determinism.
3) The implicit reference to "choices" renders your entire argument illogical.
4) "causing..according to...free will" is free will. That you define the ability to exercise free will deterministically doesn't make your position correct, just irrelevant.

Since no rationale has been offered there is nothing to debate.

Sure. On the one hand, your definition is contrary to just about every definition of free will and determinism and offers less than nothing. On the other hand, we have those who take the matter seriously (Conway, Stapp, Penrose, Gisin, Ellis, etc.) and have some actual arguments rather than defining determinism as indeterministic.

 

[LuisDantas]

Points. As for the answer, on the one hand if you have free will you use it whether you believe it or not, so the fact that you don't "use free will" seems pretty meaningless.

Sure, in that I can't use something that does not exist, can not exist and can't even be meaningfully defined in the first place.

However, I don't get the vibe that this is what you mean.

As for whether it is useful, there are several resolutions to problems in modern physics which depend upon this and then there are theories such as "the free will theorem" which are even more wide-ranging.

So you adopt a concept of free will that somehow connects with physics?

 

[Koldo]

1) You conflate choice and cause. That is, consider the choice to respond to my post. Were you under complete control of your choice to do so, then you wouldn't be as I would have to make the post for you to be capable to respond. Also, it is just simply ridiculous to define free will such that the capacity to self-determine (which is the basic, essential, foundational definition of free will) to refute free will.

I am not conflating choice and cause. What I am saying is that free will requires choice and causation.

2) You've defined free will such that even were this definition meaningful or useful it negates determinism.

I have no idea on what you mean by 'negates'.

3) The implicit reference to "choices" renders your entire argument illogical.

How so?

4) "causing..according to...free will" is free will. That you define the ability to exercise free will deterministically doesn't make your position correct, just irrelevant.

I don't remember saying "causing..according to...free will". So I don't even know how to reply to this.

Sure. On the one hand, your definition is contrary to just about every definition of free will and determinism and offers less than nothing. On the other hand, we have those who take the matter seriously (Conway, Stapp, Penrose, Gisin, Ellis, etc.) and have some actual arguments rather than defining determinism as indeterministic.

I am beggining to think you have made a lot of conclusions based on just a few sentences I have written so far.
Most of what you are saying appears to be a complete misunderstanding on your part. But, since you don't elaborate on your points, it becomes a quite task for me to figure out what you are thinking on. A task that I am, honestly, not particularly interested into.

 

[Estro Felino]

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

you decided to start this thread. You used your own free will. so you have it as we all do.
if someone prevents you from using your own freewill, they are automatically using their own freewill...and so on.

so...responsibility will be discharged to all the people who used their own free will. (I always say that it is better not to use it at all)

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Sure, in that I can't use something that does not exist

Do you use Hilbert space?