Such a therapy would weird me out, to be honest. I LIKE believing that I’m who I am despite how my brain is constructed, not because of it. It skeeves me out to know that with the flick of a scapel or a dose of a chemical, I could become a different person.
In the IMHO forum, there’s a thread going on about our stupid moments. I posted how stupid I get whenever I’m experiencing PMS. In the book I just finished reading, the author posits that women who experience PMS tend to assume they are “who they really are” outside of those few days of the month. Only when they go through PMS, in their minds, do they become a different person. But this seems like another “just so” story–a way to explain what we can’t really know. It sounds like what Dr. Jekyll might say defensively, or the guy who turns into a werewolf every full moon. If who you are is that sensitive to your hormone swings, how do you know who you are? You can pretend that you know just so you won’t go insane. But at some point, we have to admit that we don’t know the answer to questions like this. And that’s it’s perfectly okay.
So it’s stuff like this that gets me thinking. A world with free will isn’t nearly as interesting as one without it.
I don’t understand a model like that. I could understand it if we were debating whether “constrained will” exists. But “free will” is like “fully retired”. If you’re still working at the office part-time, you aren’t “fully retired.” You’re “semi-retired”. You may think it’s nitpickery, but it’s not. If a financial expert says that I have enough money in my bank account to be fully retired, but really they mean I only have enough if I keep working part-time, then following their dumb advice is going to ruin me. Just like people are ruined by thinking they are at fault for not freeing themselves from addiction, mental illness, sexual deviancy, or any other personal problem that people routinely blame individuals for.
So yes, I have a very black-and-white definition of the word “free”. If I have to pay five dollars for it, it’s cheap. But it ain’t free. If I’m shackled to the wall, I’m not free, even if I can move around enough to go to the toilet. If free will is really “constrained will”, then there’s no sense even talking about it, because it’s simply not that special. However, true free will is supposed to be very special. It’s supposed to be the thing that separates humans from animals.
If someone tells you they hold down a full-time job instead of a part-time one, but they of course take breaks – all those hours wasted on sleep! – you could maybe insist there’s no such thing as a full-time job, there’s only part-time jobs.
That’d be a pretty weird way of talking about it, which is why it’s a gag straight out of SNL, but I guess it’d still separate us from those who hold down no job at all.
This is a very common sensation when people go on anti-depressants. They feel as if the thoughts they are having aren’t their “real” thoughts. It is a weird sensation, I can vouch.
I suffer from the “Santa Ana” condition; the hot, dry, desert winds, all sticky and sparky with nasty ions. I get absolutely creepy in my thoughts. Depressed and suicidal, but also bitter and nasty and angry. I always try to take a moment to remind myself, “This isn’t real!.”
Which reminds me to apologize for not knowing your sex. My associative/connotative brain thinks of “monstro” as a very masculine name. If, in future, I forget again and refer to you as “he,” please believe it is forgetfulness and stupidity, not a deliberate slight.
I often use the “loss of temper” experience as an argument in Free Will discussions. Even when you know, fully well, that it’s wrong, a sudden fury can come upon us, and we say horrible things to people we love. Sometimes, I even have a sense of sitting “outside” myself when this happens, as if I’m watching a train wreck.
(Obvious joke here about how men don’t need PMS: we can lose control of ourselves any old damn time.)
I’m not sure. I honestly don’t know how to make such an assessment. There are several different styles and modes of a world without free will. There’s the “robot” world, and the “animal” world and the “plant” model and even the “insect” model. Not to mention the world of the addict or the obsessive/compulsive.
I happen to be one of those who believes that my depression is (in part) key to my creativity, and that if a true anti-depressant medication were given me, I would lose much (not all) of my creative drive. It really does feel, sometimes, as if I am compelled to be creative.
I don’t think it’s nitpickery. I do happen to disagree with it, but that’s not a criticism of your debate. I think you’re wrong, you think I’m wrong… What the hell. It makes a nice kind of opera!
The point isn’t the predictability - although I guess strict application of my analogy might imply that - it is the inevitability that an action will follow because of all of those things that are too vast to analyze.
Of course you’re compelled to be creative. Why wouldn’t you be? Do you think you’re creative just because you want to be creative? Do you have crazy, wacky thoughts because you plan ahead of time to have crazy, wacky thoughts? Or are you like me and you wake up with lots of ideas already in your mind, as if by magic?
If someone told you to not worry about drugs dulling your sense of creativity and they insisted that if you really want to be creative, you’ll find a way regardless of what’s in your bloodstream, what would you tell them? What do you reckon their position is on “free will”?
I don’t understand why we’re in disagreement. You seem to agree with everything I’m saying, except for the most salient point. It doesn’t make sense to me.
I believe in a smooth gradation of cases, from white, though many shades of gray, to black. You believe in pure white or black, leaving out the shades of gray.
I believe there are holes in Free Will. Shortcomings. Failings. But I still believe it exists.
It’s like the difference between “Justice” and “A Justice System.” The former is perfect; the latter just has to be good enough. I believe our freedom is…good enough.
Take human conscious awareness. You might define it as openness and awareness to sensory stimuli. But suppose I show you a photograph of a bunch of pebbles on a tabletop. 45 to 55 pebbles. I ask, “How many pebbles are there?” You wouldn’t be able to tell, without going through the process of counting them. Even though you are conscious of, and aware of, every pebble in the photo, you can’t “grok” their number.
A viewpoint which is too strongly absolutist would say, “You are therefore not conscious of those pebbles.” I, instead, say: the brain’s ability to perceive and absorb sensory input is not absolute. Our brains see “a bunch” of rocks, but not “Exactly fifty two rocks.”
I see your dismissal of free will as being akin to someone dismissing consciousness, on that basis. I hold that we have mucky, murky, sticky, viscous, clumpy free will, but that it is, still, qualitatively distinct from psychological determinism.
So there we have it. Disagreement in a philosophical discussion! When’d that ever happen?
Again, I think it is necessaary to be very certain what e are saying and how we are using words.
I am not denying consciousness
nor conscious belief that our thoughts have any causative effect on our actions. I am not denying that most people find the concept of ‘free will’ as usueful (even Hard in/determinists like me.
What I am saying is that no-one has shown a causative connection between a thought and an action. Recent Neuro-science is supporting this lack of causative connection- Libet has shown by an ingenious experiment that the body has decided to move before the thought becomes apparent to the mover- at the very least, whatever the actual brain cause of an action is, it is spearate from and prior to our consciousness of that action.
Someone making an extreme claim- that a thought with no material presence somehow causes matter to change direction- is really required to suggest some sort of mechanism that allows this. The three possibilities seem to be some yet to be understood scientific fact that connects them according to some unknown law, or the necessity for a God either setting everything in perfect harmony so thought and action are causally connected, or a God intervening at every moment a thought needs to cause an action. No one has tried to justify this method of causation- which is very telling. The answer is ‘It doesn’t matter’ or it is just ignored.
Similar processes occurred with other false theories in Science- Motion, Space, organisms, combustion, creation of species etc all had their myths about mysterious forces that were beyond measure- the force that kept objects in motion (prior to Newton’s Laws), the Aether, Vital Essence, Phlogiston, individual creation of species by God. All of these myths were widely held by prime thinkers of the day as well as the hoi polloi, yet they all yielded eventually to a acientific empirical explanation. I believe we are just at that point now with Free Will and currently all save a few experts in the field deny Free Will as a causative matter in the real world, with some denying it completely and others allowing it as a metaphor only. I suspect that within a gneration the current concept of Free Will as a real cause will have gone the way of all the other non-empirical myths above; none of them went without a fight by their supporters but leave they did.
I again challenge Free Will supporters to explain exactly how it works- substantiate your claim.
In your model, is the conscious thought the cause of action or is it a mere epiphenomenon?
I have no problem with advanced evolved orgnaism being complex decision making entities. What I question is the role of consciousness in the causative chain. I see the belief in control as a learnt mechanism- mislearnt and that consciousness is a sort of sandbox for decision making, but is outwith the causative chain. Elsewhere I liken the role of consciousness to the role of a valued and wise friend.
As part of my decision making process, I go to my wise friend and say “I want to kill this man, talk to me of such killing” and he might say to me
“Killing is a sin and you will end up in prison with no reputation and maybe even be killed in the act or later by the state. Have you considered better options- argument, sue the bastard, walk away and turn the other cheek etc.”
or he might say:
“Killing is perfectly justified where these are the circumstances…”
I listen to my friend who is like an external conscience, and my body and brain using these as inputs then computes by kill/not kill decision and I carry it out.
Now I would argue that in neither case is my friend a causative item in the chain leading to my action- it is part of the background information, but no more a cause than any other information or mechanism, internal or external, on my decision. My friend is not responsible.
I would argue there is little difference between counsel from a friend and counsel from your internal conscious and unconscious store of previous experience- neither are causative, just information grist to the mill. The decision is made by atoms following an unchangeable course but it is experienced as Free Will.
Further, I have no problem with people being held ACCOUNTABLE (required to explain and excuse to others) for their actions- I just do not see how there is anything other than Physical stuff that is RESPONSIBLE (Causative).
By seeing consciousness, model making, sand pits and test rigs as the basis for decision making on information received (and placing them in the same category of information received), does not enter them into the causal chain in the way that Libertarians wish. They are no more causative than counsel from a friend; the decision is in the biochemistry, the experience is a chimera and not part of the physical world.
I am not conscious of every pebble in that photo. I’m conscious of the gestalt. I’m aware that I’m looking at pebbles instead of baby hippos. But I’m not conscious of every anything, not any more that I’m conscious of my feet as I’m writing this.
And if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to come up with a number, you know what? I’m betting I could come up with a “WAG” that was pretty dang close to the actual number. It wouldn’t be because of my consciousness, but my subconscious. The subconscious sees what the consciousness doesn’t. Law enforcement takes advantage of this by using hypnosis on witnesses. They aren’t conscious of the license plate number of the getaway car. But something in them was paying attention.
I would say our brains see fifty two rocks. The part of our brains that we are cognizant of doesn’t see this, because it’s useless trivia. We need to reserve our awareness for something more important, like noticing that we are late for work. People who are aware of fifty two rocks tend to have many difficulties navigating the world (see Rain Man) because they are unable to screen out trivial information.
I don’t dismiss consciousness, but I do downplay its significance as “control center”. Our consciousness doesn’t appear to do very much. It doesn’t generate thoughts. It doesn’t generate feelings. It just makes us aware of thoughts and feelings (and it doesn’t even do this that well, or else psychotherapists would be out of a job). I don’t do my best thinking when I’m conscious that I’m thinking. I do my best thinking when I’m on automatic. When I’m walking, when I’m immersed in my artwork, when I’m taking a shower. I’m compelled by forces that don’t dwell in my consciousness, because maybe then I’d know enough about them to “argue” myself out of them. No, the forces come from that area behind the curtain.
All of what I’m saying is not conjecture or opinion or just my WAG’s. It’s documented by a huge body of scientific research. It’s not my personal philosophy, in other words. It’s science. As a scientist, I can’t just ignore it just because it’s “weird”. I guess I don’t understand on what basis your beliefs are based on. If it’s not science and it’s just your personal opinion, that’s fine. But would you not agree that science is more compelling than opinion?
Like I said, I’m not a philosopher, so for me this isn’t just a philosophical discussion. It’s a scientific one. “Free will” is premised on the belief in God and our ability to be like him. It makes us “outside” nature. If all of our problems are “natural”, however, then it doesn’t do us well to keep insisting that this is true. You perpetuate this insane idea when you argue that we have “free will”, even if this isn’t the position you truly hold.
If one truly had free will, thee would be no conditions, It i,s like a child asking a parent if he can do something the parent says" you can do that but, if you do I will kill you; It’s freewill wouldn’t amount to a grain of salt.
Again, just to make clear in this latest context that there’s nothing new under the sun: you’re saying a person without “free will” can seek out a wise friend for counsel, and listen well before factoring that in when consulting his internal store of previous experience, at which point he’d engage in a decision-making process within an internal moral structure – after which he’d act accordingly, at which point he can be “held ACCOUNTABLE (required to explain and excuse to others)”.
And someone with “free will” can – seek out a wise friend, listen to counsel, factor it in, consult an internal store of previous experience, engage in a decision-making process within a moral structure; he’d then act accordingly, and would then be “held ACCOUNTABLE (required to explain and excuse to others)”.
So they’d both offer up a strikingly similar explanation – which is going to sound exactly like the words of someone who can reason and be reasoned with, whether it comes from the guy who lacks free will or the guy who has it – after which, they’d both be held ACCOUNTABLE: both the guy who experienced it one way, and the guy who, as you say, experienced it the same way.
::shrugs::
So I’ll still be accountable in either case, and will offer up the same explanation after reaching the same decision via the same experience; you’d hold me accountable (excuse me; ACCOUNTABLE) while saying it’s not free will, and someone else would hold me accountable – ACCOUNTABLE! – while saying it is.
As I keep on saying, you need to use worlds with their proper meaning and try to get some idea of what is being debated, rather than just throw your own ideas into the pot without any backing.
I agree that people are ACCOUNTABLE. What I deny is that they are RESPONSIBLE. Free Will exists as an experience but has not been shown to be the cause of human behaviour.
If free will were part of the causal chain from impulse to commission, then Free Will would be causative. All that has ever been shown empirically is that a gfeeling of free will often accompanies a human behaviour. No-one has ever shown any mechanism that links behaviour to will.
That’s a totally valid response, and I might say something similar if I came across it for the first time.
But my question was: Would you say that I have defined this term?
I’m trying to figure out how you use the word “define” so that I can understand your previous post better.
Because a logically indistinguishable distinction might make a demonstrable difference in people’s behavior.
An idea can make no difference logically and yet still make an enormous difference psychologically.
This is well documented. Researchers have given groups of people information that’s totally irrelevant to a question that they’ve asked, but the new info acts as a mental trigger and significantly alters the group’s average answers compared to the control. Irrelevant nonsense should have no logical effect on conclusions, but it does all the time.
Good point, but there’s a big difference between those things that exist by themselves and those things that exist only because there is such a thing as subjectivity. Qualia are examples of the latter. What I’m calling “free will” is also an example.
What delusion? My delusion that I make choices?
Good point. I may be arguing semantics rather than philosophy, though there is a philosophical point I’d like you to be able to see.
I grant that there is a lot of validity to the “free will is an illusion” statement. I’m not trying to debunk it, just give an additional viewpoint that sheds an interesting light, in which the statement isn’t quite as true, but only from a certain viewpoint: the viewpoint that the subject we’re discussing exists ONLY because of subjectivity, and from the subjective point of view, we make the decisions we make because we make them, and it’s not trivially reducible to chemistry and physics even if it utterly depends on (and does not violate any laws of) chemistry and physics. It’s a subtle point.
Of course they are, but I’m talking about what they should be, which is based on our best answers as to what works and why. Of course, they’ll still be manifestations of our belief systems. That’s inescapable, unless we intentionally make social programs based on what we do NOT believe.
No argument, and that doesn’t contradict anything I said. I won’t fall into the fallacy I mentioned above of argumentum ad consequentium: concluding what’s right or wrong based on the results it would produce. However, I do believe that if I were to follow that line of thinking, I’d fall the other way: everyone is better off if we act as though we have power over our decisions and act accordingly.
Again, you’re falling for the fallacy of excluded middle.
I think we can all agree that there are some aspects of our behavior that are not free, not even from a subjective point of view. I do not think it’s true that just because some aspects are free, then necessarily no aspects are free. Regardless, I do agree with you that we’re biological machines, and operate according to physical laws, and if we could understand the laws and capture the initial conditions sufficiently (and ignore or rule out randomness for argument’s sake), that we could predict the results. You say this means we have no free will, and that makes sense; I’m not disputing it.
Well, that’s a semantic argument (and I disagree with your semantics) but I think your point has validity.
I take “responsibility” to mean that if I’m responsible, then it’s up to me to do something about it. I think the word you really mean here is “blame” or “culpability” – you’re saying that from a philosophical viewpoint, the word makes no sense, since it’s all clockwork and we can’t change it so it doesn’t make sense to cast blame. (Admittedly, all these words come with baggage that’s related to the assumption of free will, so no matter what words you use, there will be semantic issues. Not your fault! [chuckle].)
I think it’s a very difficult issue. I believe that if society adopted the attitude that “it’s not your fault: you have no power over your decisions!” a lot of people would use that as an excuse to fail (or worse, to be evil). As I say above, we have to be clear whether we’re talking about “the truth” versus “what we should do”. The truth is not beholden to consequences: it’s true or not regardless of whether it’s good for us or bad for us.
I strongly suspect that teaching people that they can decide to do the right thing helps them decide to do the right thing. It would be interesting to see any good research on that. Of course, that’s tangential to your claim.
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Why ought “free will” to have fuckall to do with a belief in God?
::: pauses to think on it :::
Are you being abstract about God, i.e., “If there is a reality that is or coud be described by the word ‘God’ it has to do with free will in the following ways”, that sort of thing?
Or are you referring to the ordinary oversimplified babytalk Jehovah-in-the-Sky God that is typically ridiculed on this board?
I dont’ think I ever before realized how much of the philosophical “debate” over “free will” is actually a stand-in for a bunch of other ideas.
X means that event 1 directly causes event 2 where causing requires that 2 only happens if 1 occurs first and there is some justifiable connection between 1 and 2.
Justifiable is normative- one ball striking another is a connection, an electromagnetic field is another. Pink fairies dancing on a distant planet is not.
Y means that event 1 occurs prior to event 2 and event 2 happens if and only if 1 happens first, but there is no causative connection between 1 and 2.
Socially one may be held to account for an action under Y (this is the compatibilist argument) but if 1 has not caused 2, then one cannot be said to have caused or been responsible for the result.
The question is- does thought actually cause an action or is it just an accidental or coincidental or second hand event that sits apart from the causative process.
No-one has proved such a connection between intention and action. It is a matter of faith.
An example- it used to be thought that lightning caused thunder. Thunder was always preceded by lightning and so one was assumed to cause the other.
Once we realised that sound travels slower than light we then knew that another event (an electrical discharge. caused both.
My argument is essentially that consciousness awareness of free will is akin to lightning and action is akin to thunder, but in reality both are the result of physical processes in a brain.
1/ Feeling of Free Will equals Lightning
2/ Action equals Thunder
3/ Brain event equals Electrical Discharge.
Free Will a “matter of faith”. Pjen asks for evidence that this is not so. All I can offer is that I can’t think of any. It seems too “apparent” that we possess free will. I know that statement appears incoherent. I guess all I can say is I have a counter-intuitive hunch that our will is not nearly so free as we, prima facia, experience it. Our senses, and sometimes our equations too, can be wrong. It seems to me, on occasion, that I’m taking my dog on a walk; other times I could swear it’s the other way around. I’m pretty sure he lets me know what he wants and transmits that notion to me. I know, I’m sounding like Son-of-Sam, here. Few would accept that my dog possesses free will. Then why is he “deciding” when I should walk him ? Naturally, I don’t have to take him on a walk. I could ignore his hints forever. But the idea often is his, it seems, and I merely comply (or chose not to, I’ll, incongruently, confess)
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