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A challenge to show me wrong

Koldo

Outstanding Member
According to determinism, everything has a cause. Free will does not contradict that. It just tells us that we are free to choose to carry our out will. "Free will" does not mean that our "will" is undetermined. It means that nothing impedes our freedom of action--what we will to do. If you tried to move your arm, and it failed to move, then your free choice would be impeded. Free will is about having control over one's actions. In most cases, people think of free will in terms of a conflict of desire, where they ultimately achieve their greatest desire unobstructed.

It depends on how we define 'free will'.

Free will is usually understood as the ability to choose between two or more options, in such a manner that it would be impossible to previously determine the result of our actions. When people think of 'free will', they think of past situations where they could have choosen otherwise.

This means that if we could perform time travels, we would see an individual picking different answers every time we go back in time in a given moment.

Robots actually have freedom of choice, although we don't conventionally acknowledge that. Nondeterministic programming techniques provide robots with an array of goals, and circumstances provide them with decisions to make. What a robot ultimately decides is often not predictable in advance, because it calculates its actions on the basis of a large number of conflicting goals. Programmers do not necessarily know in advance what set of circumstances will trigger what behavior, although they can hazard guesses, just as we humans can hazard guesses as to how other humans will behave.

Freedom of choice? How?
A robot is determined to behave according to how it was programmed. Just because its programmer fails to graps how the whole code will interact in every possible circumstance it doesn't mean the robot is free.

Before you make such a bold claim, you should think long and hard about what it means to be a "moral agent". Morality is a causal factor in what determines behavior.

A moral agent is, among other things, someone who bears moral responsability.
If determinism is true, then moral responsability is not.
If determinism is true, then we just act like programmed robots.
Is a moral agent still a moral agent without moral responsability?
Perhaps we should come up with another term?
 

PolyHedral

Superabacus Mystic
A moral agent is, among other things, someone who bears moral responsability.
If determinism is true, then moral responsability is not.
If determinism is true, then we just act like programmed robots.
Is a moral agent still a moral agent without moral responsability?
Perhaps we should come up with another term?
He means that the various heuristics and other constructs that constitute "morals" are in themselves influences on our decision making. Morals matter because they influence our decisions, even if that decision is only a sum of various influences.

Besides, how do you do demonstrate that we aren't robots? :shrug:
 

Copernicus

Industrial Strength Linguist
So having a medical situation that impedes the movement of my arm is a restriction to my Free Will?
People have taken the expression "free will" to mean slightly different things, and it is not uncommon for the same person to use more than one sense of it in a discussion. If you are paralyzed or someone holds a gun to your head, then you have choices of action removed. Our choices are always limited in that respect.

Another popular conception of "free will" is that it is a decision that is somehow "uncaused". Since people quite often try to explain the considerations that caused them to do what they did, this concept of free will strikes me as barely coherent. It seems to be a view that there can be a middle ground between events that are caused and those that are purely random.

How is that any different from the thousands of other constraints to my options that exist anyway?
As I tried to point out earlier, most discussions of free will involve conflicting goals or desires. There is a theological position that God making his presence unambiguous to humans would rob them of their free will. I take that to mean that people would feel constrained not to make decisions freely and that such unencumbered decisions would somehow be more honest or truer. I suppose that they think people might be able to deceive God if he didn't make arrangements to observe them in situ so to speak.

Seems to me that a far more accurate name for Free Will would be Breach From External Pressures.
How is that different from removal of one of the "thousands of other constraints to my options that exist anyway"?

And by that point we are lost in so many premises that are either dubious or in dire need of better exploration already...

For one, how often do people even have a stable, greater desire? For another, is it even healthy to settle such conflicts?
People are always a mass of conflicting desires. The way we handle those is through prioritization. That, in fact, is how we program robots to do things like play soccer or navigate an obstacle course. We assign priorities to goals and let the robot calculate the best course of action autonomously. There are also times when conflicting desires are equally strong--when you don't "have your priorities straight" so to speak. Someone who may wish to stop smoking in order to live longer may find it equally hard to ignore the short term hit of nicotine in order to steady his nerves enough to accomplish an immediate task.

Is it healthy to settle such conflicts? That is what much of life is all about--finding the right path through our moral mazes. We are programmed to settle such conflicts.

Well. I've been reading all these responses and it seems to me that this idea of the absence of free will, and the concept that we are all simply microorganisms preprogrammed to react to certain stimuli in such certain ways that no other way is possible, sounds to me, frankly, like...
Kathryn, that strikes me as a straw man. Nobody here has argued that we are "pre-programmed microorganisms". Microorganisms don't even have brains. This discussion has been about the complexity of how humans make choices and what it means to say that we have "free will".

This concept, taken to it's natural conclusion, would strip anyone of any responsibility for their actions. I don't buy that for a minute.
That is a common misconception of what determinists claim. What they actually say is that the notion of "responsibility" is part of the causal chain that makes it all work. Having a conscience is a necessary part of decision-making for human beings. Those who seem to lack a conscience tend to be isolated from the community at large. A church might "excommunicate" a member that fails to accept established doctrine on the grounds that such a person lacks the right "moral compass". When you consult a compass, that compass is part of the causal chain that informs you about an action you will take.

People CAN be motivated, encouraged, and even scared into actions and patterns which go against their natural inclinations. And since our natural inclinations are often less than noble, I think that's a good thing.
Maybe. They can also be motivated, encouraged, and even scared into actions and patterns that cause great harm. That is not always such a good thing. But you are very much talking about events that are part of complex chains of causation. Nothing you say here in any way suggests that determinism is wrong.
 
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idav

Being
Premium Member
One example of something random is choosing a sequence of numbers in our heads. Like for example 37297118. Is that truly random or did those numbers come from my subconscious like some birthdays or an answer to some long lost equation? Anyone would be hard pressed to convince me those numbers aren't random. There are only 10 choices in numbers (0-9)but infinite possibilities as to the sequence. Most everything is certainly a result of some cause and very few things give us the freedom of determining as my example but it does exist. There isn't a program that can produce that better than the human brain. If the brain is able to truly choose randomly then it would give support that what we think and do isn't already predetermined.
 

Koldo

Outstanding Member
He means that the various heuristics and other constructs that constitute "morals" are in themselves influences on our decision making. Morals matter because they influence our decisions, even if that decision is only a sum of various influences.

Yes, i understand and agree.

Besides, how do you do demonstrate that we aren't robots? :shrug:

If you are using the word 'robot' in a very broad sense then we can not. :p
 

PolyHedral

Superabacus Mystic
One example of something random is choosing a sequence of numbers in our heads. Like for example 37297118. Is that truly random or did those numbers come from my subconscious like some birthdays or an answer to some long lost equation? Anyone would be hard pressed to convince me those numbers aren't random. There are only 10 choices in numbers (0-9)but infinite possibilities as to the sequence. Most everything is certainly a result of some cause and very few things give us the freedom of determining as my example but it does exist. There isn't a program that can produce that better than the human brain. If the brain is able to truly choose randomly then it would give support that what we think and do isn't already predetermined.
That's actually relatively easy to test. Can you give me a longer random string? Say, 50 or more digits?
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
One example of something random is choosing a sequence of numbers in our heads. Like for example 37297118. Is that truly random or did those numbers come from my subconscious like some birthdays or an answer to some long lost equation?
I was just about to do that until I saw
Anyone would be hard pressed to convince me those numbers aren't random.
So I won't bother.
 

idav

Being
Premium Member
That's actually relatively easy to test. Can you give me a longer random string? Say, 50 or more digits?
Maybe possible but I'd probably have to have someone type it for me as I spit out the numbers.

I was just about to do that until I saw
So I won't bother.
What I mean is that It is pretty difficult to show how the brain works on the quantum level though we do know some about what parts of our brain the numbers come from. What we produce would statistically be random by definition but the way the brain spits out the numbers would determine if it were truly random.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
You suggested that biological and sociological forces have shaped us in a particular way such that we operate under a delusion that we make a "choice." I'm saying what you've described isn't a delusion. I'm saying as long as it's "us" making the choice --as long as there's "you" and "me" in the picture, and there always will be as long as we're employing verbs that speak directly to mental actions --it is no less "choice." No less than it always was.

Which for all I know may well be "none at all". And still falls way short from justifying the very existence of a concept of free will.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
Could it be that people who do not believe in free will just don't want to take responsibility for their lot in life?

Could it be that these folks just cannot see that if they took risks and pushed themselves beyond their comfort zone that they do indeed have free will?

I doubt so. It is far too obvious an excuse to be actually useful, regardless of anyone's moral character or intentions.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
People have taken the expression "free will" to mean slightly different things, and it is not uncommon for the same person to use more than one sense of it in a discussion. If you are paralyzed or someone holds a gun to your head, then you have choices of action removed. Our choices are always limited in that respect.

Another popular conception of "free will" is that it is a decision that is somehow "uncaused". Since people quite often try to explain the considerations that caused them to do what they did, this concept of free will strikes me as barely coherent. It seems to be a view that there can be a middle ground between events that are caused and those that are purely random.

As I tried to point out earlier, most discussions of free will involve conflicting goals or desires. There is a theological position that God making his presence unambiguous to humans would rob them of their free will. I take that to mean that people would feel constrained not to make decisions freely and that such unencumbered decisions would somehow be more honest or truer. I suppose that they think people might be able to deceive God if he didn't make arrangements to observe them in situ so to speak.

That is my point. The concept of free will does not seem to have any use or meaning until and unless one finds himself trapped by the contradictions of certain conceptions of God.

Being an Atheist, I have no more use for it than for the concept of God itself. In fact, I have less, because I can at least imagine a world with God.

If it is dealing with conflicting desires that we are talking about, then we might as well let go of the concept of free will in the first place. Far better to call conflicting desires by what they are instead of by the misleading label of free will.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
What I mean is that It is pretty difficult to show how the brain works on the quantum level though we do know some about what parts of our brain the numbers come from. What we produce would statistically be random by definition but the way the brain spits out the numbers would determine if it were truly random.
I won't try to talk you out of your notion, but simply consider the following.

If the mind worked in a random fashion it would no more support the idea of free will than determinism does, in fact it would make quite a mess of us. You'd be saying things like "ubberlatus hiriknick balnoleet" instead of "My name is idav." But your contention here is that the mind does sometimes shift into a pure random function mode. When does it do this? Evidently when it takes up the task of putting together lists of unrelated notions. But why should it? If it does then one has to suppose some cause is at work that necessarily makes this shift in thinking. A cause that waits in the wings to press the "random mode button" when the brain is faced with coming up with random lists. Think such an operative is sitting in the dark recesses of the mind waiting to come to life? I don't. What I think is that the mind continues functioning in its cause/effect mode and produces the specific digits it does because . . . . it is caused to. Perhaps it associates the next digit with the last or the last few digits. Perhaps it recognizes that the digit hasn't been presented yet and deserves to be slipped into the sequence. Who knows what exactly caused the mind to arrange the digits in the order it does, but in any case I fail see any basis for thinking the mind turns the job over to some random number brainieac generator waiting its turn to go to work.
 

idav

Being
Premium Member
I won't try to talk you out of your notion, but simply consider the following.

If the mind worked in a random fashion it would no more support the idea of free will than determinism does, in fact it would make quite a mess of us. You'd be saying things like "ubberlatus hiriknick balnoleet" instead of "My name is idav." But your contention here is that the mind does sometimes shift into a pure random function mode. When does it do this? Evidently when it takes up the task of putting together lists of unrelated notions. But why should it? If it does then one has to suppose some cause is at work that necessarily makes this shift in thinking. A cause that waits in the wings to press the "random mode button" when the brain is faced with coming up with random lists. Think such an operative is sitting in the dark recesses of the mind waiting to come to life? I don't. What I think is that the mind continues functioning in its cause/effect mode and produces the specific digits it does because . . . . it is caused to. Perhaps it associates the next digit with the last or the last few digits. Perhaps it recognizes that the digit hasn't been presented yet and deserves to be slipped into the sequence. Who knows what exactly caused the mind to arrange the digits in the order it does, but in any case I fail see any basis for thinking the mind turns the job over to some random number brainieac generator waiting its turn to go to work.
Yes random is not free will and points to the same problem of having no control though in a way that is undeterministic. The notion that it might be able to have a thought without an initial cause would be interesting. If we can produce a thought without an initial cause it opens up the possibility of actually making our own choice when given a few choices. I have seen some researchers saying that we are able to control the output of random generators minutely.

Your OP brought up the thought of either random or deterministic and you wanted to leave out the word choice. However what would be the cause of randomly choosing a direction to go with multiple options. Your saying it couldn't be random and that the direction would be chosen subconsciously. Even if it is true it is further away from a direct cause like going west because I prefer it or to follow the sun. I get the idea that free will is in relation to the amount of separation an action has from an initial cause. So a rock has less free will than a fish and a fish has less free will than a human.
 

Kathryn

It was on fire when I laid down on it.
Don't you mean some of our actions? If all of our actions are predictable then it necessarily means that their causes are knowable, which, in turn, implies that all our actions are caused, even our thoughts and "choices." ;)

No, I mean what I said. You left off the second part of the paragraph - the part starting in "But..."

Are our actions, as humans, predictable? Yes, of course they are - if they weren't, no one could make a living in marketing. But we can also delightfully, or woefully, surprise, not only others around us, but even ourselves, when it comes to altering our thought patterns, our behavior, and therefore our lives and the lives of those around us.

But that's OK - I'm sure you couldn't help yourself. ;)
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
No, I mean what I said. You left off the second part of the paragraph - the part starting in "But..."
You said,
"Are our actions, as humans, predictable? Yes, of course they are - if they weren't, no one could make a living in marketing.
and then said.
But we can also delightfully, or woefully, surprise, not only others around us, but even ourselves, when it comes to altering our thought patterns, our behavior, and therefore our lives and the lives of those around us."
If you can surprise by altering your thought patterns, essentially making one unpredictable, then it totally negates your first remark; however, I'll take your second remark as qualifying the first.

But that's OK - I'm sure you couldn't help yourself. ;)
True. Oh so true.
icon14.gif
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
idav said:
Your OP brought up the thought of either random or deterministic and you wanted to leave out the word choice. However what would be the cause of randomly choosing a direction to go with multiple options.
Unless utter and absolutely randomness was the operant, the "choosing" would have to have been caused. That you think one's brain turns the job over (causes) to a brainiac random generator is a bit weird. Is this how you truly see the mind working? As for why the mind would "choose" one option over another, I have no idea, but I assume someone making such a "choice" could give you the reason (cause).


Your saying it couldn't be random and that the direction would be chosen subconsciously. Even if it is true it is further away from a direct cause like going west because I prefer it or to follow the sun.
It doesn't matter what cause stands next to the ultimate point of action, a cause, is a cause, is a cause.

I get the idea that free will is in relation to the amount of separation an action has from an initial cause. So a rock has less free will than a fish and a fish has less free will than a human.
Okay.
 

Copernicus

Industrial Strength Linguist
Freedom of choice? How?
A robot is determined to behave according to how it was programmed. Just because its programmer fails to graps how the whole code will interact in every possible circumstance it doesn't mean the robot is free.
People really don't understand robots. They do not have brains, but it is theoretically possible to replicate an associative-memory brain algorithmically. They are also not totally "pre-programmed". It is possible to create machines that learn from experience in the same way that humans do. Robot "brains" are very simple devices compared even to an insect brain, but they can perform some very complex tasks. "Non-deterministic programming" in artificial intelligence is a technique that separates the programmer from the details of how choices are made. A complex set of programs that drive a robot will often produce behavior that is not predictable even to the programmer. That is because the choices are made on an ad hoc basis under conditions that the programmer cannot predict.

A moral agent is, among other things, someone who bears moral responsability.
If determinism is true, then moral responsability is not.
Not true. Polyhedral was correct in pointing out that moral agency is part of the causal chain. It is rule-governed, not random.

If determinism is true, then we just act like programmed robots.
That's not totally inaccurate, but it would be true that the type of "programmed robots" you are talking about are of a completely different sort than what we are capable of producing today. For one thing, we do not have a comprehensive grasp of how the brain works. We do not understand all of its structures or functions. So we can't very well produce machines that replicate its behavior. We can simulate some types of human behavior precisely because human behavior is causally tractable.

Is a moral agent still a moral agent without moral responsability?
Perhaps we should come up with another term?
I have no trouble with the word "responsibility". It makes sense when one is talking about autonomous entities. I have seen robot teams in which the individual units assign different responsibilities to different members of the team. Individual members can look at a task and bargain with each other over which team member is most likely to be able to accomplish a goal.
 

blackout

Violet.
I am free to Will--
intend, desire, wish
and initiate--
in my own way/s
any'thing I can concieve of.

Obviously the things I "can concieve of",
the artistry of my I'Mage'in'ation
and my creativity in initiation
are all dependent on "me".
Who I Am. Who I have Become.
Who I Am Becoming.
(All un'I'Mage'in'ative causes considered)

My Will, is the ongoing process
of the continual Becoming
"that is Me".
(formed in my Own I'Mage) ;)
 
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The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
As I see it, free will is important to many because without it would mean each of is nothing more than Robbie the Robot, which is anathema to the notion personal freedom.

If I have no freedom of choice how can I be blamed for what I do? For Christians this has the added consequence of robbing the concept of sin/salvation of any meaning. So most people are loath to even entertain the idea of no free will. Free will is almost always regarded as a given.

I never blame people that don't have a choice.

Any exception to free will is seen as temporary constraint. "I am free to to do this or that unless someone/thing comes and prevents it. Of course this isn't at all what the issue of free will is about. Free will is about the idea that, aside from any external constraints, "I could have chosen to do differently if I wished." So I think a decent working definition of "free will" is just that: the ability to do differently if one wished.

But because everyone has freewill, it can be a paradox, except one conclusion; our freewill will contradict each other and the stronger will will cancel the other one out or ruin it... Kind of like in basketball, if you make a plan to shoot and miss the ball and have someone on your same team rebound, that plan would not be accurate with the other team's plan to rebound it themselves. Think of the plans as freewill.

Those who most disagree with this are the hard determinists, people claiming that everything we do has a cause. And because everything we do is caused then we could not have done differently

How did you conclude this?

therefore it's absurd to place blame or praise. A pretty drastic notion, and one rejected by almost everyone. So whatever else is said about the issue of free will ultimately it must come down to this very basic level: Are we free to do other than what we chose or not?

We're not free to the affect but sometimes free to the cause. The affect is the sum of not just your freewill, but others' as well.

The cause is you typing this, that was your choice. The affect was me replying, that was my choice PLUS your choice.

Here's how I see it.
There are only two ways actions take place; completely randomly, or caused.

Or designed to happen without your choice.

So, because what we do obviously has a cause,

Does it? Don't things sometimes happen at random?

could we have done differently?

Yes, because there is more than one choice usually.

Not unless the causes had been different.

We also have a part in the cause by just doing our style of doing it. If I do a funky walk but do as ordered, there is a cause that will make me look silly.

If I end up at home after going for a walk it would be impossible to end up at my neighbor's house if I took the exact same route. Of course I could take a different route and still wind up at home, but I would still be in the same position of not ending up at my neighbor's.

It's your choice to not end up at your neighbors house, unless you have no route of getting to his house.

To do that there would have had to be a different set of circumstances (causes) at work.

And those set of circumstances are based on others' freewill.

But there weren't so I had no option but to wind up at home. The previous chain of cause/effects inexorably determined where I ended up. So to is it with our decisions. We do what we do because all the relevant preceding cause/effect events inexorably led up to that very act and no other. We HAD to do what we did. There was no freedom to do any differently.

But there could have been.

We do what we do because it is relevant but sometimes random, sometimes just for fun.

What does this all mean then? It means that we cannot do any any differently than what we do. Our actions are caused (determined) by previous events and nothing else. Even our wishing to think we could have done otherwise is a mental event that was determined by all the cause/effect events that led to it. We think as we do because. . . . And that "because" can never be any different than what it was. We have no will to do anything other than what we're caused to do. In effect then, the will does not exist, nor does choice, etc..

Yes we have a reason behind our doings, but sometimes it is completely random.


Comments?

I think you need to note that it is not only you that has freewill, it is everything and everyone.
 
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