Why free will is impossible- I can not do all the great and wonderful things I dream of.
Why free will is impossible
- Thread starter litewave
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Your kind of missing thew point Arf is getting at . If you know everything then there is one choice . Optimization is that choice . Course idiots might not make that choice and that would tell Me they didn't know everything , So in that free will don't exist , only the lack of knowledge gives you the illusion of choice, because your hindsight tells you you had another choice. I go at it about this all the time with my wife for she is a " What If Person " I try like hell to convince her there is no "what if's" there is now and what follows now. You can now optimize based on what you now know and that is it
You guys really are committed to the belief that if there is causation, there can't be free will, because free means unpredictable. You have bought into the deterministic trap hook, line and sinker. They have made you redefine your words. But that's what usually happens. That's why this topic is in all the intro courses. it's great for debate.
Before you took your philosophy class, you knew the difference between freedom and the lack of it. Do you really think you were just uneducated. Didn't the problem seem a little contrived?
Before you took your philosophy class, you knew the difference between freedom and the lack of it. Do you really think you were just uneducated. Didn't the problem seem a little contrived?
I am uneducated so I was not indoctrinated. I can't escape my own human conditioning is why I believe I have no free will . Plus people for the last 5000 years have been predicting how I was going to live my life . Them Shit holes are to blame big time for my lack of free will. It is called " The Pharaohs wish . You probably don't know anything about that though so probably sounds like gibberish to you . Don't feel bad cause lots of people think I am delusional . I wish I was then I might have a chance at free will or at least feel like I have free will . It is the shits when your life has already been mapped out . You been saying your a Genius sense you were 17 and I still don't know what you mean. Reached for the secret to soon . I know gibberish . Be Me for a day and you might change your mind . Try it for a month then see how you feel . Change your name to Me for a month . Listen to all things related to the word Me like someone is calling your name . See how that changes you ? I tell you those Sumerians were real smart asses when they came up with that bull of heaven
See this is brilliant! 1 The key point is Fixed Will . Not Free Will .
Are you perchance confusing causation with determinism?
And are you confusing freedom with random?
What intro course? What philosophy class? :shrug:
And do people really know what freedom is in this regard? Do you?
Most people think they know because they don't examine it in any detail whatsoever.
As for redefining words... if people do not fully understand the nuances of the words they use, and then when they think about it they have different ideas and definitions, why are you surprised when some redefine it, if not to help achieve a consistent understanding?
No I'm telling you that those mistakes are what I see you and others making and that is what this classical philosophical problem was designed to do. And it is tremendously effective.
Now I'm bummed.
That clearly isn't my problem. I'm analyzing the puzzle and discovering why it works so well.
I guess you are really talking about concepts. (not the noises we used to trigger them). The problem with "redefining" a word is that usually just adds a level of confusion because we pretty much already have verbal triggers for every concept you want to refer to. I mean, that's what 1984 was all about. The problem remains, with new labels.
Just for some light reading: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/
Freedom of will comes from awareness of will, experience of will, insight into what we would consider free will to look like. It can come from having experiences in reality showcasing the core most beliefs passed in the millennia of man's existence. And it can also come from believing yourself to hold all the apparent "truths" of reality. Freedom of will can lead you off a building when you assume to have built a bridge.
The most ridiculous of ideas are those carried out in large groups.
The most ridiculous of ideas are those carried out in large groups.
If you think that is what you see me doing then I suggest you reread the posts as I can only conclude from your statement that you have selective vision.
Why, exactly? Do you require us to wave some certificate around?
Why the puzzle works or why free-will works? And if the latter then which concept of free-will are you referring to?
When there already exist many concepts of "free-will" and what it entails, if you wish to discuss one, or another, you do generally need to make it known which you are referring to: for example one concept requires an action to be free from influence, another perhaps merely from conscious influence, and another might allow for all and any influence on the basis that consciousness can override them, thus making the choice "free".
If you insist on one view, then while you may not be redefining the term, you are effectively requiring everyone else to.
So, going back to the thread title: Certain definitions of free-will are impossible. Others are not. It therefore depends on the definition.
Why the puzzle works.
Classically, that's not what the puzzle/problem is about. It's the ontological question of how can there be real choices in a predictable causal nexus. Determinists conclude that there can't be based on predictability (total predetermination), so the question is how to get out of that trap.
Do does your menu of definitions get us out of that trap? Is everything predetermined in concrete (and forget the quantum leaps stuff) or can we change things as we go along?
Short version, does perfect causation imply complete predetermination?
The question has a simple answer. We can't predict everything, so that gives us 'real' choice, except it isn't real.Regularoldguy said:
We aren't in any trap because we can predict outcomes. We can do this because we think there are 'gaps' between events.
I can't understand why you keep missing this fairly obvious explanation. That's about the 4th time I've mentioned that we are incapable of complete knowledge, of anything, so we think we have the freedom to choose.
Choice is necessarily made in the face of incomplete knowledge; with complete knowledge there is no choice to be made. Can't you understand the argument?
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
The funny thing is that I've always found that compatibilists merely play games with the definition of "free will" to make it consistent with determinism. Like Schopenhauer's belief that we are "free" to act on our will but that what we will is exogenously caused by other factors outside of our control. It's rather like saying that, if I fire a rocket into space, it's "free" to follow a parabolic trajectory back to the Earth. It's true from a certain point of view (the factors that went into setting its initial velocity are not beyond anyone's control and its trajectory set), but I don't find it intuitively satisfying. I may believe an act is immoral, but because I have no control over my will, I still will myself to commit the act.
It's like blaming that missile if the missile happens to kill someone when it crashes back into the Earth. The only difference is, really, that the missile couldn't form a belief regarding the moral implications of the trajectory it was on.
That tends to push me back into incompatibilism (which, in my unscientific survey) is where most of the modern philosophers I've known seem to be. Given that I can't reject a certain weak form of determinism (by which I mean a universe that obeys determinism on a large scale, but is subject to truly random indeterminacy at the quantum level), and given that I've never seen a compatibilist argument that seemed correct, it's hard for me to defend free will.
It's like blaming that missile if the missile happens to kill someone when it crashes back into the Earth. The only difference is, really, that the missile couldn't form a belief regarding the moral implications of the trajectory it was on.
That tends to push me back into incompatibilism (which, in my unscientific survey) is where most of the modern philosophers I've known seem to be. Given that I can't reject a certain weak form of determinism (by which I mean a universe that obeys determinism on a large scale, but is subject to truly random indeterminacy at the quantum level), and given that I've never seen a compatibilist argument that seemed correct, it's hard for me to defend free will.
What trap?
If the universe is perfectly determined (same input leads to same input) then logically there is no free-will. There is no trap here, just the need to adjust one's mindset regarding what we perceive as free-will.
The "trap" in this scenario only exists if you feel it necessary to conclude that free-will exists, regardless of how the universe works.
If free-will is incompatible with a perfectly determined universe, then either free-will does not exist or the universe is not perfectly determined.
However, there is always the option that the universe is not perfectly determined and free-will still does not exist.
However, since the universe has been shown to be not perfectly determined (i.e. same inputs do not lead to same outputs... but seemingly to a random output that follows a probability function, as well as their being random uncaused events), the "determinism vs freewill" debate is somewhat redundant.
What trap?? I see no trap.
Are you paranoid?
And yes, the "menu of definitions" includes free-will as being "a pattern of activity that gives the appearance of self-determination"... i.e. free-will being an action at a perceived level that, due to the lack of conscious understanding of (or inability to understand) the totality of causation and the involvement of randomness that leads to a result, gives the appearance that we have made a choice... but this is just a trick of our consciousness in the absence of all that information at the conscious level.
The conscious action and subsconscious is almost like a marriage: The husband (consciousness) can choose to do whatever it wants, as long as it does what the wife (subconscious) does. The wife allows the husband to think it made the choice, but it was always going to do what the wife wanted.
Because we (the conscious) are not aware of the subconscious (else it would be the conscious) we are left with the perception of there being a choice / free-will.
Voila.
Would you care for a dessert?
If by perfect causation you mean that everything is caused (i.e. nothing uncaused), then no, one does not imply the other.
Determination (as I understand it) is "same input = same output".
Causation allows for "same input = random output within a probability function".
E.g. roll a die (cause).
Assuming the roll was repeated under exactly the same starting conditions, then determination would have it always landing on the same number.
However, QM suggests that it would land on different numbers, depending on the probability functions of the interactions and the chaos within the system.
So no, perfect causation (if my understanding of your phrase is correct) does not imply complete predetermination.
Pandaemoni
Valued Senior Member
Quantum mechanics, depending on one's preferred interpretation of it, does allow for "uncaused" events to occur. A radioactive atom, for example, will decay at a random time, but there is no internal structure or process that that causes that decay. Similarly, in a vacuum, virtual particle pairs will be created from nothing at random intervals. (So far as we know, at least....)
One way around this is to assume that wave functions are objective and real and that there is an objective universal wave function, in which case the universe can be said to be deterministic and governed by that classical and deterministic wave function.
I understand it completely. "Freedom is an illusion we feel only because we can't predict very well."
Whether we are good at predicting has nothing whatsoever to do with whether we are predetermined automatons. The question is whether or not the future is REALLY fixed, and not whether it SEEMS fixed.
Folks always use Quantum Mechanics' postulation of true randomness to "escape" the causal chain. But we've seen above, over and over, that randomness doesn't support freedom in any way. Unpredictable because the past doesn't cause the future won't allow the choice you make to control the action you take.
And sliding "probability functions" over to redefine them as complete causation is another word game.
And sliding "probability functions" over to redefine them as complete causation is another word game.