You don’t use words the way I use them. If my actions have no connection to my thoughts and desires, they’re the outcome of forces other than my thoughts and desires, and that’s what, in my vocabulary, is determinism. Or, more precisely, external determinism, that the outcome is prompted by outside forces.
When my actions are the result of my thoughts and desires, I suppose you could dub it “internal determinism” but that’s what I thought was generally referred to as free will.
I’ve stuck my under-educated nose in these threads before.
IMO … About half the posters are using philosophical terminology greatly at odds with colloquial usage. The other half are using colloquial terminology.
The result is 4 factions politely talking past one another.
ETA: As neatly demonstrated by the 2 posts just above while I was eating & yakking IRL.
No; “free will” is undefined incoherent nonsense that is just a way of rejecting determinism without actually explaining how that could even work. People who actually try to define it either double down on the incoherency, or end up talking about determinism with different words.
I don’t know your reasons for being interested in the topic, but for me the experience of being a conscious maker of determining choices is as real as the input of the classical five senses. I’m open to a lot of query and question about my understanding and interpretation, but not to the claim that that experience itself isn’t real.
What are your reasons for conversing with someone who, from your vantage point, is expressing undefined incoherent nonsense?
I didn’t say that it wasn’t real, just that it isn’t “free will” because the concept off free will is nonsensical. And mainly just an ego-gratifying attempt to pretend humans are somehow above determinism, because people have this brainbug that determinism is bad somehow.
I don’t think humans are somehow above determinism. I think determinism is not an accurate and comprehensive description of how things occur.
Or almost politely.
I believe “free will” is the experience of making active choices. It is “free” in the sense that I’m not a puppet executing what the hand up my butt tells me, but actively assessing and choosing.
That doesn’t mean I’m free from inputs or constraints. I can’t choose to fly away by flapping my arms. I live in a world with other people and my actions have effects on that world. I have emotions that I don’t fully control and motives I don’t fully understand.
So maybe that is what the hand up my butt feels like. I don’t know.
“Determinism” is a label I don’t fully understand, either. It’s like people are arguing that everything is dictated all the way down to the smallest subatomic interactions. QM interactions dictate what my choice for breakfast will be tomorrow, or next Tuesday, or five years from now - based solely on my current state today.
That seems nonsensical to me, too.
People talk about “free will” as if that is something special only humans have, but I dispute that. Animals have conscious volition. They make choices. That their choices are filtered through instincts and moods doesn’t make them any less volitional.
I think “free will vs. determinism” is a red herring. We have the experience of making choices. The outcomes are our responsibility to the extent the choice directly affects the outcome. Other factors affect outcomes, factors we can’t foresee, including other people’s choices.