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@secularmerlin
"Caused" not equate to determinism. Mental causation.
What do you believe?
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@Fallaneze
Your mental causation is either subject to cause and effect or it is indistinguishable from random.
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@TwoMan
Yes it is. The state of the universe at a given point in time "A" causes me to consider options by reasoning with my subjective human mind "B" which causes me me to take an action "C". Cause and effect intact, a choice was made as per the definition of free will.
No it is not Twoman, your just taking in circular loops now that meangingless mind games.
Cause and effect are not free choice nor do they lead to free will choice.
I'm certain just as Einstein was certain God does not play dice. Heisenberg uncertainty principle is just our lack of;
1} quantising of utlra-micro gravity ( ), and, dark energy )(,
2} never having an accounting of the ultra-high number of complex set of relationships that, are all related ---irrespective of how indirectly--- to any single event, or seeming choice, phenomena { illusion of choice }.
An ultra { extremely } good illusion, is still an illusion.
Uncertainty of mind does not necessitate chaos. Knowing that an order exists is similar to those religious people who say, you just just have faith.
We have faith that there does exist an eternal order { integrity }, that, is eternally inviolate.
Structural and systemic integrity rules our finite, occupied space Uni-V-erse of eternal transformations.
Overall, within a finite occupied space Uni-V-erse, naught is lost or created, and that is a cosmic integrity.
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@secularmerlin
What evidence do you have to support that claim?
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@secularmerlin
Is there a way that an arrangement of ordinary matter could have a desire? Can a computer be progrmmed to want to win, and feel disappointmrnt when it loses? It's trivia to mock up something that gives the outward signs, but to get a machine to have subjective states.. no one knows how to do that.A desire is a physical thing in that it is a brainstate and brainstate would seem to be achieved through chemical and electrical means. Since electricity and chemical compounds are both physical things desires must also be considered so. The question remains irrelevant.
Until someone does, 'a desire is a physical thing' is an unproven conjecture.
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@Fallaneze
If you have a reason for doing something then the reason is the cause so in order for your 'choices' to be causeless (at any step in the causal chain) there can be no reason for them and I cannot distinguish between a causeless event and a random one indeed I cannot distinguish between a causeless event and one whose cause is simply not apparent to me.
Unless we disagree on the definitions being used this is all definitionaly true.
Do you have a method for distinguishing between a causeless event a random eventbamd an event which has a cause which is not evident?
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@keithprosser
I don't know is often the answer but I have never observed anything with desires that was not at least partly physical. We can therefore surmise that desire has a physical component. Anything beyond this would have to be demonstrated before we could accept it our ability to disprove a nul hypothesis aside.
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@secularmerlin
We can therefore surmise that desire has a physical component.
But without any idea how to get a physical system to manifest things like desire, can't we surmise a non-physical component is involved?
We may disgree on what 'counts' as free will. You seem to favour an interpretation that free will must be causeless,which I agree is incoherent. But I think that makes it a very uninteresting interpretion! I prefer to think of free will in terms of there being a 'self' which is operating alongside ordinary physical cause and effect precisely because it is harder to dismiss.
It does involve having to think about what a 'self' is. I think that if free will is an illusion, so is the self. We talk about 'you having an illusion of free will', but what is this 'you'? 'Free will' is, maybe, as real as 'you' are - is that real enough?
can't we surmise a non-physical component is involved?
We could but it would be an untestable (nul) hypothesis.
I prefer to think
What we prefer to think is immaterial to what can be supported through the evidence.
operating alongside ordinary physical cause and effect
This side by side force is either subject to cause and effect (deyerminism) or is not subject to any reason or purpose (both would be causes and so cause and effect) in which case we have indeterminism which is indistinguishable from random chance.
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@keithprosser
It does involve having to think about what a 'self' is.
Access to metaphysical-1, mind/intellect/concept and ego.
Spirit-of-intent is the illusion of free will being manifest as the steering our ego or vice-versa.
Access to metaphysical-1 mind/intellect/concepts are a resultant of occupied space interactions{ interference } not the other way around.
Nothing,--- whether as metaphysical-2, macro-infinite non-occupied space or metaphysical-1, mind/intellect/concepts and ego, creating something{ occupied space } is irrational, illogical lack of common sense { non-sense }.
........."The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education"....A Einstein....
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@secularmerlin
I get your point - are you getting mine?
Why do we think we have free will? In other words, what is the freewill we think we have? What is free will an illusion of?
I suggest we have the notion that we have - or is it are? - a self, an immaterial, ethereal 'thing' I won't try to define yet - and that self has desires and goals and hopes and fears. Free will exists when we can act as our self directs - when we are not like leaves blowing in the wind.
Would a conscious leaf think it chooses each twist and turn it takes as it is blown aloft? If it did, then that would be the illusion of free will. A leaf might blow from London to Birmingham, but it wouldn't have Birmingham as its goal. If I do the same journey, presumably I do have the goal of going to birmingham. I have free will, a leaf in the wind doesn't.
There is a difference between a human choosing to go to Birmingham than a leaf being blown bu the wind to Birmingham - a boring definition of free will makes it hard to explore the difference by denying there is a difference.
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@secularmerlin
What make you believe "reasons" are deterministic? You're conflating immaterial causes with material causes and concluding that all causes have material explanations.
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@Fallaneze
What make you believe "reasons" are deterministic? You're conflating immaterial causes with material causes and concluding that all causes have material explanations.
It actually does not matter whether the cause is material or immaterial ANY cause makes the subject under discussion subject to cause and effect. Suggesting a nonmaterial cause does not resolve this issue but it does require you shoulder a burden of proof for your claim that there are immaterial causes.
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@keithprosser
Without a rigorous agreed upon definition we cannot be certain we are even having the same conversation. I'm afraid the definition must come first. Also I am no more claiming that a leaf does not have a self than I am claiming that you do. I am only saying that there is no particular reason to suspect that either you or a leaf has freewill.a self, an immaterial, ethereal 'thing' I won't try to define yet
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@secularmerlin
There is every reason to suspect it! Prima facie, we have free will. It is only when we get some 'education' that we start to have any doubt about it.
What do we trust? Our naive intuition that we (ie our 'selves') are the authors of our choices or our acquired scepticism that dismisses free will because it conflicts with our physicalist assumptions?
Monistic physicalist determinism is a good philosophy - it's what science and technology are based on and has given us the modern world. But it hasn't explained the 'mental' - conciousness is as inexplicable today as it was for Socrates and Plato.
I'm certainly not saying physicalism is not true - it is what I suscribe to. But it has unsolved problems and i don't think they should be swept under the carpet.
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@keithprosser
Intuition can lead equally to true or false conclusions which makes it a poor pathway to truth. Your "intuition" that there must be a self leaves us still not knowing the truth.
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@keithprosser
Also the question of whether we have a self is immaterial to the question of whether or not we possess freewill since the self is either subject to cause and effect or its actiins/decisions are indistinguishable from random.
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@secularmerlin
An even worse way to truth is to never question assumptions! Of course one needs a reason to question them, but I think the difficulty of bringing the mental into the fold is such a reason.
I don't think that applies to the origin of life or the universe because at least we seem to making progress, but mental phenomena are just as mysterious as they ever were. I have heard it described as with the origin puzzles weare looking for the right answers, for consciousness we are still looking for the right questions. That's more an epigram than a hard fact, but it makes the point fairly well.
I very much disaree about the need for prior definition. I think we are so from understanding the mental any rigid defintion wouldbe wrong, and we won't improve without debting and discussing it. Do people still use the term 'brainstorming'? It's a pity that internet forums end up being bad-tempered adversarial competitions rather than collaborations.
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@keithprosser
I am engaged in questioning my assumptions right now (or rather I am employing the help of others on the site to question them for me) and I would very much like to believe in freewill. So if you have a (logically coherent) method of determining whether freewill exists and indeed what it even is please let me know.
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@secularmerlin
Let's start here.
It seems like we have free will. Agree or disagree?
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@Fallaneze
Without an example of the feeling of both having and the feeling of not having freewill to compare we cannot say that it does seem this way but even if we could my fingernail seems to be all one contigious surface while in reality it is a collection of particles held together by elctromagnetic fields. The way things seem does not inform what things actually are.
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@secularmerlin
So you can't answer whether it feels like we have free will or not?
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@secularmerlin
@Fallaneze
I think we might have to start with what it feels like when we make choices.
Actually what it usually feels like is a) a brief noment of indecision ('um...') and b) the decision ('the chicken, please').
Often during the 'um...' period I am not sure what I am doing. On a long flight I try to decide 'chicken or beef' well in adance because i know I'd dither like Buridan's donkey otherwise.
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@Fallaneze
So you can't answer whether it feels like we have free will or not?
I don't see how without having knowingly experienced both states and whether freewill exists and whether or not I possess it I have only ever experienced one of these states.
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@secularmerlin
Do you observe any difference in decision-making between yourself and a computer or robot?
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@Fallaneze
I assume you mean between the way I feel and the way a computer feels? Or are we no longer discussing the feeling of freewill/nonfreewill?
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@keithprosser
Often during the 'um...' period I am not sure what I am doing
Do you ever know what you are doing durring this period that you can recall?
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@secularmerlin
Yeah.. I'm dithering!
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@keithprosser
Or loading.
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@secularmerlin
I certainly don't know I'm 'loading', whever that is!