If you believe in free will, respond to these two objections

[Thief]

Why can't you be sure? Given an near-infinite amount of information about your past experiences, memories, and personality, it seems a simple matter of deduction.

And the scenario at hand is predictable to it's end?
But I don't know the end...even though it's a scenario I made for you.
So what DID you do?...half a steak...no fish....rob the Dollar General?

And your freewill would have none of this?

 

[PolyHedral]

And the scenario at hand is predictable to it's end?

Yes.

But I don't know the end...even though it's a scenario I made for you.

Of course you don't; you only have a sliver of the information you'd need. That doesn't make a difference about it being entirely predictable.

 

[1137]

Once you take into account the chain of priorities, weighing of influences, etc, there isn't a choice anymore; only a mechanical decision.

In principle, I can predict exactly what will happen if I put a gun to your head and tell you to rob a bank.

I highly doubt it, seeing as you do not know me at all.

 

[PolyHedral]

I highly doubt it, seeing as you do not know me at all.

I assume you saw the two key words, "in principle?"

 

[cablescavenger]

Well, without free will, everything can logically be reduced to "because the laws of physics say so."


Why can't you be sure? Given an near-infinite amount of information about your past experiences, memories, and personality, it seems a simple matter of deduction.

I am arguing that free will exists.

 

[cablescavenger]

Nobody has free will until they can acknowledge why they don't have free will.

We don't have to do anything

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

If there is non-random laws, then the situation in the "next" moment is decided just by the laws, and the current situation. By induction, all future moments are decided just by the current situation, and the laws of physics. Thus, the system is deterministic.


But then the choosing must be done according to some process. That process is either deterministic or quantum-random. Either way, it's not free.

There is a difference between "free" and "completely determined and or caused by prior conditions." According to some dynamical systems theories, the ascription of causality fails: "Another instance in which causality in its classical interpretation appears to be challenged is the presence of feedback loops, in connection with the issue of self-reference. If acting alone a feedback loop appears to entrain not only effects fed on the causes, but also causes fed on the effects."
Foundations of Complex Systems : Nonlinear Dynamics, Statistical Physics, Information and Prediction.

One can, in principle, still speak of causility in such systems, but only by redefining it, because self-organizing emergent systems are "causal" only in the sense that causation is "the outcome of an interacting set of mechanisms or powers. These causal mechanisms arise from the extra organization that appears at each level of structure of laminated entities. Therefore, actual laminated events are to be explained as the outcome of an interacting set of level-abstracted real causal powers. Where the higher-lvel entity has genuinely emergent causal powers, these cannot be sufficiently eliminated from causal explanations by any reductionist strategy. Causal Power of Social Structures: Emergence, Structure, and Agency.
Most dynamical systems, even those whose trajectories cannot be determined and are inherently nondeterministic, can still be considered causal, because (as you noted earlier), the indeterminacy is epistemic, rather than ontological. However, it is unclear if this is true for dynamical systems with complex, heirarchichal feedback mechanism. Additionally, for some systems types little is known concerning their nature. Take, for example, the so-called "Fuzzy Blue Sky Catastrophe." Dynamical systems which involve bifurcations resulting in qualitative, nondeterministic changes are complex enough. However, fuzzy nonlinear systems of this type are even more challenging to assess, and current studies have only scratched the surface (there was a paper on the subject published in the proceedings of a conference on nonlinear science and complexity).
So how can causality apply to the type of systems I'm referring to? In other words, if a system can't be broken down into component parts, and the initial conditions only act on the component parts (the locality principle in physics), then what causes the emergent behavior of the system?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

All of the causal factors that produce an effect, together, can be called the cause of the effect. The agent is one of the causal factors, along with the environment or whatever other causal factors there may be. Together they are the cause of the effect. The effect is the choice. The cause produces the effect. That is synonymous with saying the cause determines the effect.

The reason you keep saying the cause doesn't determine the choice is that you continue to exclude the agent as part of the cause, even after I've pointed it out to you, twice.

That isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying that your definition of the agent is too simplistic. Let me return to two examples I used:
"The stretching and folding operation of a chaotic attractor systematically removes the initial information and replaces it with new information: the stretch makes small-scale uncertainties larger, the fold brings widely separated trajectories together and erases large-scale information. Thus chaotic attractors act as a kind of pump bringing microscopic fluctuations up to a macroscopic expression. In this light it is clear that no exact solution, no short cut to tell the future, can exist. After a brief time interval the uncertainty specified by the initial measurement covers the entire attractor and all predictive power is lost: there is simply no causal connection between past and future."
James P. Crutchfield, J. Doyne Farmer, Norman H. Packard, and Robert S. Shaw

The mechanisms described here are not merely epistimically undeterministic in that state transitions are stochastic and probabilistic but are nonetheless caused by initial conditions. The system itself shifts from states so chaotically that neither the system itself nor the starting conditions can be said to cause future states.

"A more dramatic example of mind– brain causation comes from the world of neurophysiology. Recent work by Max Bennett (Bennett and Barden, 2001) in Australia has determined that neurons continually put out little tendrils that can link up with others and effectively rewire the brain on a time scale of twenty minutes! This seems to serve the function of adapting the neuro-circuitry to operate more effectively in the light of various mental experiences (e.g. learning to play a video game). To the physicist this looks deeply puzzling. How can a higher-level phenomenon like ‘experience’, which is also a global concept, have causal control over microscopic regions at the sub-neuronal level? The tendrils will be pushed and pulled by local forces (presumably good old electromagnetic ones). So how does a force at a point in space (the end of a tendril) ‘know about’, say, the thrill of a game?"
Paul Davies

In other words, causality is a matter of the laws of physics, which act locally. Yet the changes in the neurons are not the result of local forces. Rather, they are part of a nonreducible network. As a result, it is impossible to point to causal connections between the state space at time Tsub0 and time TsubN. What is causing the rewiring of the network? Yes, the network itself, but that doesn't in and of itself allow one to claim causation. It isn't just a matter of predictability. There is just no way to point to causes because these causes act locally on components which exhibit emergent properties that do not depend on any given set of events. Self-organization can be causal if the the causal mechanisms which act on the components of the system can at least be identified. That isn't the case here.

 

[idav]

We don't have to do anything

Just saying it helps to see through the smoke and mirrors.

 

[Thief]

Of course you don't; you only have a sliver of the information you'd need. That doesn't make a difference about it being entirely predictable.

So you have no freewill?

That means you will sit at my table....fail to choose?

In frustration and lack of will, you might do what with your gun?

Do you really think you have no will of your own?
If you say yes....
Is it your will...or Someone else's?

 

[cablescavenger]

Just saying it helps to see through the smoke and mirrors.

I was getting along the lines of free will by saying we don't have to do anything we don't want to

 

[CarlinKnew]

If there was no free will why would you look to explain something in hindsight? Since prediction would be a formality.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that if our choices are the result of causality, then they should be easy to predict. As a simplified counterexample, consider disease for a moment. We now know what factors cause some diseases to spread. The fact that our ancestors did not understand those factors and therefore could not predict the spread of disease did not change the fact that it was the result of causality.

So what makes choices unpredictable for us? Is it that we humans can't possibly take into consideration every single causal factor, just like our ancestors regarding the spread of disease? If so then causality still applies.

If causality does not apply, then some aspect of the choice must not be caused. If it is uncaused, then how can we be responsible for it? for we did not cause it.

 

[CarlinKnew]

That's rather simple. I haven't read the whole thread, so apologies for repitition.

Causality: everthing is influenced, yes. But caused? No. Even if I hold a gun to your head and tell you to rob a bank, you still have a choice. I'm not FORCING you to rob the bank, just highly influencing you. There are things that take one's free will away, such as rape and murder. This, in my opinion, is the greatest supporter of natural absolute moral laws. But I digress....

Responsibility: this is just a reach. We are reaponsible only if we have free will. Influence is still a cause.

If I understand you correctly, you say that everything is influenced but not necessarily caused. This is probably the most common stance of free will advocates. Do you influence or cause your decisions? If you influence them and perhaps there's an uncaused element involved, then the second objection applies. If you cause them then the first objection applies.

 

[CarlinKnew]

And you actually 'think' you can contain freewill by having such 'objection'?

If self denial is unacceptable as an example of freewill....
And choices 'freely' made for self satisfaction are simply cause and effect...

Then you cannot answer this post.....free minded.
I can then manipulate your next response as you are now confined to responding one way or the other....like Pavlov's dog.
And regardless of your 'clever wit'....
you had no will of your own...doing so.

Unless of cause you choose not to respond.
But then again, am I twisting your arm?
Can't help yourself?....no self denial?
Gonna do it anyway.....aren't you?

Your little monologue simply addresss the red herring in the original post.

 

[CarlinKnew]

... there is simply no causal connection between past and future ...

Then the second objection applies.

What is causing the rewiring of the network? Yes, the network itself, but that doesn't in and of itself allow one to claim causation.

I know there's more to your argument, but what you just said is an example of causality. The network is causing itself to rewire.

Self-organization can be causal if the the causal mechanisms which act on the components of the system can at least be identified. That isn't the case here.

If the causal mechanisms exist and we just can't identify them, then the first objection applies. If the causal mechanisms do not exist, then the second objection applies.

 

[cablescavenger]

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that if our choices are the result of causality, then they should be easy to predict. As a simplified counterexample, consider disease for a moment. We now know what factors cause some diseases to spread. The fact that our ancestors did not understand those factors and therefore could not predict the spread of disease did not change the fact that it was the result of causality.

So what makes choices unpredictable for us? Is it that we humans can't possibly take into consideration every single causal factor, just like our ancestors regarding the spread of disease? If so then causality still applies.

If causality does not apply, then some aspect of the choice must not be caused. If it is uncaused, then how can we be responsible for it? for we did not cause it.

Nope. I am saying that if we did not have free will you could predict every decision.

You are implying there is no free will by studying the decision in hindsight, looking at the influencing factors and calling them causes, when clearly free will is being exercised, and they are just influencing factors.

I remember someone teaching children how to play sleeping lions, and a child took it upon themselves to jump in the air and land on her arm, thus breaking it.
There was no cause. The child just got an idea in their head and out of curiosity followed it through. Free will. Trial and error, call it what you will, it exists.

 

[PolyHedral]

Nope. I am saying that if we did not have free will you could predict every decision

You can, given sufficient information and intelligence. Unfortunately, this is hard to demonstrate, because even computer-assisted humans don't.

 

[1137]

If I understand you correctly, you say that everything is influenced but not necessarily caused. This is probably the most common stance of free will advocates. Do you influence or cause your decisions? If you influence them and perhaps there's an uncaused element involved, then the second objection applies. If you cause them then the first objection applies.

I cause MY decisions and only mine. What I do influences others. I have free will to do anything have the ability to do, so does everyone else.

 

[CarlinKnew]

Nope. I am saying that if we did not have free will you could predict every decision.

You are implying there is no free will by studying the decision in hindsight, looking at the influencing factors and calling them causes, when clearly free will is being exercised, and they are just influencing factors.

I remember someone teaching children how to play sleeping lions, and a child took it upon themselves to jump in the air and land on her arm, thus breaking it.
There was no cause. The child just got an idea in their head and out of curiosity followed it through. Free will. Trial and error, call it what you will, it exists.

So either the child caused the idea to pop into her brain, in which case the causality argument applies, or it just randomly popped in there, in which case she is not responsible for it.

 

[CarlinKnew]

I cause MY decisions and only mine. What I do influences others. I have free will to do anything have the ability to do, so does everyone else.

So objection 1 applies.