Impossibility of free will

[tonyrey]

The intention not to act is still and act, and is a choice of a free will and the person behind it. Not all acts require the movement of body parts.

Incontestable!

 

[tonyrey]

		 		 	 	 Just a small point, but sometimes I think it is necessary to think  to think, (reflection?) and also sometimes we have to remember we have  to choose to choose.

Determining the difference between a mortal and venal sin, is a little like this in it’s structuring of thought.

On very rare occasions. But you would agree that we don’t have to choose to choose to choose!

 

[tonyrey]

*If determinism on a macro level is true, everything has been set since the big bang, there is only one future, and all our choices are fixed… ?
*

That is why materialists reject free will: on principle. It subverts their assumption that everything is “natural” - although the limits of nature have never been clarified!

 

[glowingembers]

That is a dogmatic assumption which requires substantiation.

By “action” I mean whatever a person does, including doing nothing, sitting still, whatever. So if an intention to do action X does not lead to action X then you have no intentional action and thus no free will. So if there is an intentional action then it must be determined by the intention to do it. A person may act against his intention but such an action would be unintended (unintentional) and thus not an act of free will.

 

[jpelham]

Normal experience doesn’t confirm free will, just as normal experience doesn’t reveal the visual blind spot caused by our retinas. In both cases, as Sam Harris has written,…

If normal experience doesn’t confirm free will, neither does normal experience prove that I am a man who dreamed that I was a giant butterfly soaring over verdant fields, and not a giant butterfly now dreaming that I am a man, as the lyric Chinese sage Chuang Tzu observed. (Don’t be distracted by nonessential details)

But we know the truth in both cases.

 

[tonyrey]

By “action” I mean whatever a person does, including doing nothing, sitting still, whatever. So if an intention to do action X does not lead to action X then you have no intentional action and thus no free will. So if there is an intentional action then it must be determined by the intention to do it. A person may act against his intention but such an action would be unintended (unintentional) and thus not an act of free will.

Doing nothing is inaction!You are stretching the meaning of the word to suit your conclusion!

 

[ASimon]

Doing nothing is inaction!You are stretching the meaning of the word to suit your conclusion!

Incorrect. “Doing nothing” is as much an action as anything else. And it’s actually a very hard action to do. Try it sometime.

 

[tonyrey]

Incorrect. “Doing nothing” is as much an action as anything else. And it’s actually a very hard action to do. Try it sometime.

That’s a brilliant excuse for a lazy person who doesn’t want to work!

 

[ASimon]

That’s a brilliant excuse for a lazy person who doesn’t want to work!

Stop deflecting - “doing nothing” is an action, and one you probably couldn’t do for an extended period of time if your life depended on it.

 

[JDaniel]

Free will in that sense is fully compatible with determinism - we may be choice machines, indeed, and still fulfil the relevant criterion of having the ability to choose between two or more alternatives. The difficulty many seem to have is in supposing that if there are unconscious mechanisms influencing or indeed determining the choices we make, then somehow the person is not involved in making the decision, but is merely carried along as a floating patina of consciousness on the murky waters of unconscious processes, with no ability to influence those processes whatsoever. If one is prepared to insist that the person must be somehow separate from the physical, then one must conclude that free will - in the sense of our being fully conscious originators of our actions - is just not feasible.

Sair:

I don’t necessarily disagree.

And I would be interested to know where, exactly, one might draw the line between moral decisions and merely everyday actions. Any decision can be construed as having a moral element, even down to the clothes we wear and the food we eat. If decision-making in general is something of which we, as a species, are capable, there seems little sense in supposing that free will, if we have it, kicks into gear only for decisions classified as moral decisions.

This is where this type of analysis gets very murky. I suppose that an unaberrated person knows whether or not he is violating his conscience or not - or, violating a commandment. If a thing causes various bodily effects - that might be called “psychosomatic” - or, if a person’s inner test of whether or not a thing should, or should not be actualized, I suspect that a line is being crossed. We tend to sense these things as we grow up, and tend to notice these things even more whenever we do something that is harmful. These, in turn, become sort of wired to us in some, but totally sidestepped in others. We know, from forensic personality testing, that the younger a person is, the more apt he/she is to actualize incipient immorality - or morality.

In the late 1980’s, when lie-detector tests were prohibited (for employment and a few other purposes), employers found companies that produced psychological testing formats that would very accurately predict an individual’s moral leaning, so to speak. I used a test that consisted of 60 questions, none of which had a right or wrong answer. It was not the answer to specific questions that mattered, rather, it was the pattern of questions and answers that mattered. On this test, there were 5 - 6 questions that dealt with an individual’s tendency toward the use of psychotropic drugs. After a prospective employee took the exam, I would discuss the results of his pattern of answers. I could determine a number of extraordinarily secretive things about that person directly from analyzing the test. (1) I could determine that this person did not use drugs, but had no aversion to their use, for example. Now, here is a very interesting state of affairs, because, if left unattended, this tendency would tend to become more and more a part of an individual’s psyche. If this were to happen, an individual’s future “free” choices would be sort of determined, but only by the individual’s overall underlying tendency, which would include many more tonalities. That same person might, from time to time, surprise us by choosing the better moral direction, seemingly without reason.

(2) I could determine that this person was a drug user. (3) I could determine that this person used drugs more deleterious than marijuana. (4) I could determine that this person used drugs daily. (5) I could determine that this person used some sort of psychotropic drug just prior to coming to take the test, and usually tell him whether it was a minor drug, or a major one. (6) I could determine that this person was intentionally lying to try to skew the test. These are about 10% of the things such tests could ferret out - and by the end of the interview, the results were never found to be wrong!

Young people, given no moral direction while growing up, usually failed miserably. Young people that were brought up very by religious, or otherwise strict parents, usually passed the test from passably well to very well. But, what are the referents to something purely material that could cause an individual to choose the bad or the good? Most of them are, in my opinion, being implanted with an overall moral tendency, or code. The Ten Commandments are God’s codification of the primary percepts of that Law which is written, so to speak, on our heart - otherwise there’s no guaranty that man should have flourished at all.

Now, if an individual possesses some sort of mental (or physical) aberration, that individual might not be fully responsible for his moral misconducts. It’s hard to say what kind, or how much, of an aberration would need to be present in order to mitigate responsibility. But, humans seem to have always been able to figure that out - to some degree or other.

Everyday decisions tend not to leave us with anything that we would define as psychosomatic. If I decided to eat a steak and potato dinner, this would not leave behind a tinge of violation, unless my doctor had forbade me from eating such things!

God bless,
jd

 

[tonyrey]

Stop deflecting - “doing nothing” is an action, and one you probably couldn’t do for an extended period of time if your life depended on it.

I’m not deflecting. You’re defecting from the true meaning of the word to reach a preconceived conclusion! “saying nothing” is a failure to speak and “doing nothing” is a failure to act.

The difficulty of being inactive is completely irrelevant. You can be guilty of manslaughter for wilful neglect if a person is in danger and you do nothing - even if it is only not saying anything or not communicating silently…

As Lear said, nothing shall come of nothing - despite your efforts to make it something.

 

[ASimon]

The difficulty of being inactive is completely irrelevant. You can be guilty of manslaughter for wilful neglect if a person is in danger and you do nothing - even if it is only not saying anything or not communicating silently…

Thank you from proving my point. If you do nothing, and this results in someone’s death, your failure to act is, itself, an action. It will certainly be punished as one.

 

[glowingembers]

Doing nothing is inaction!You are stretching the meaning of the word to suit your conclusion!

How does it suit my conclusion whether we call “doing nothing” an action or inaction? If an action or inaction is intentional (intended) then it must be determined by an intention to do the act or by an intention not to act.

 

[tonyrey]

Thank you from proving my point. If you do nothing, and this results in someone’s death, your failure to act is, itself, an action. It will certainly be punished as one.

The occurrence of someone’s death does not imply activity on the part of the individual. Neglect is** negative** not positive.

I think there is confusion between mental activity and physical actions. Thoughts and decisions are usually distinguished from deeds…

 

[Sair]

That is why materialists reject free will: on principle. It subverts their assumption that everything is “natural” - although the limits of nature have never been clarified!

And the thing is, this is exactly why it makes no sense to assume a level of existence that is somehow “above” or “beyond” nature - this implies that we already know the limits of nature, which you have just denied, and which I will join you in denying. In principle, natural phenomena are explicable in terms of either causal relationships or random occurrences, and the randomness in nature appears, as far as we have been able to discern thus far, to occur only at the quantum level; and then random events in themselves may cause other phenomena. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a serious scientist who would claim we know more than a middling fraction, if that, of what there is to be known about the natural universe.

If there are phenomena that are ‘unnatural’ or somehow ‘beyond’ the natural, they are likewise beyond our ability to explain, beyond having any effect upon us and thus in all practical terms, irrelevant.

Supernatural phenomena are usually presented, in argument, as being necessarily beyond our comprehension, not just practically out of our reach (as exploration of distant planets in other galaxies is presently well out of our reach, for example). Those who insist upon supernatural phenomena - as I see it - are thus divesting themselves of any effort or responsibility for explanation or understanding. It may even be the case that they don’t want some things to be explained - consciousness and free will, for example - and thus will reject naturalist explanations for no better reason than that they fail to take the “mystery” into account.

What it means to seek a naturalistic explanation for free will is to actually attempt to find out how it happens. If it doesn’t happen as supernaturalists would have it, then what else is going on to make us think we have it? It doesn’t help any effort at explanation to say, “Well, free will is just supernatural” and leave it at that. How, for example, does anything supernatural interact with anything natural? If supernatural phenomena are independent of causal webs, how do they, in their turn, cause anything to happen? These are questions usually dismissed by supernaturalists, at least as far as my experience of their views is concerned. They generally seem more interested in “saving” humanity from the perceived degradation of merely naturalistic explanations.

 

[Bobber90]

I think your position is apparently rational but that’s just because I do not believe in your system and adhere to the existence of free will, which is essentially a supernatural object. And the reason why I don’t believe in your system is the following.

If I didn’t believe in supernatural objects, and therefore in free will, I would be a nihilist; I would distrust the mere possibility of rational thinking.

Why would rational thinking go out the window if we discovered that all the thoughts we are already having are not caused by some ex nihilo free process? Let’s start by saying that a thing is rational insofar as it is consistent with logic. Our arguments can be consistent with logic even if we are not their authors.

How can I assume that a magical law entitles me with reason, when reason itself is a blind result of purposeless processes?

Well I don’t believe there is a magical law, so I would never consider that in the same scenario as reality. Are you saying that you would doubt our ability to be rational if such an ability was merely evolved? Our eyes have merely evolved, and yet we can see… Lol glibness aside, being rational is adaptive, so it is developed. I don’t see how that really presents an obstacle to the idea that 1+1=2, for example.

In my view, that would call immediately for a “fixer” of laws entitling me with reason (a law presumably ensuring that reason would emerge from chaos) and that would be inconsistent with my initial position of not believing in supernatural objects. This is why I think your position, while seemingly rational, is actually inconsistent. In sum, without supernatural objects, there is no free will - and no reason either. This could be true, but doesn’t seem to be true.

I think you have several things right. There are conditions which have entitled us to reason, but these laws did more than just enable reason, on my view they determined it (ignoring any possible quantum indeterminism). Daniel Dennett has a chapter in his book Freedom Evolves in which he describes a computer programme that allows a designer to create ‘life-forms’ in a world made up of a grid of cells that can either be turned on or off and which remain on or off according to the status of their neighbours. The ‘life-form’ is merely a group of these cells turned on close together so that by the rules of the game, they maintain their shape over time. There are some life forms which vanish immediately when time is advanced, because by the laws of the game, they lack the necessary neighbours to remain switched on. Others move, oscillate, or fire particles outwards, consume or destroy other life forms, and do various things. The point I’m trying to make by this example (ironically the opposite point Dennett goes on to make) is that if we have a certain set of laws and a certain arrangement of cells turned on or off at the start, there is only one outcome, only certain arrangements will prevail, and this will happen as a matter of course. Those which survive appear to have the characteristics which aided them fortuitously built into them, but the reality is that certain forms of clutter persist, and others don’t. We are just the necessary, determined arrangement of clutter that would be around if we took a sample of all the initial or possible arrangements, and then advanced time. In terms of complex piles of matter, only those piles of atoms/molecules/proteins/cells/organs which ‘work together’, act logically, act socially, reproduce etc etc are going to be the patterned piles of clutter still around today. We are like the glider gun configuration (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway’s_Game_of_Life) being fired off into the future until something swallows us up - perhaps a meteor.

Well I can only apologise that it was your post which prompted this ramble. Nevertheless, I do think our lack of free will and possession of the ability to reason are perfectly compatible. If nothing else, have a look at the game of life article, it is good.

(On a second reading of your post, it seems you’re saying that freedom is determined + this wouldn’t have happened without God?)

 

[tonyrey]

How does it suit my conclusion whether we call “doing nothing” an action or inaction? If an action or inaction is intentional (intended) then it must be determined by an intention to do the act or by an intention not to act.

The flaw in your argument is in your definition:

By “action” I mean whatever a person does, including doing nothing, sitting still, whatever.

“whatever a person does” cannot include “doing nothing” without breaking the Law of Contradiction.

 

[tonyrey]

That is why materialists reject free will: on principle. It subverts their assumption that everything is “natural” - although the limits of nature have never been clarified!

It implies nothing of the kind. It is not necessary to know the precise limits of nature to know when a phenomenon not only transcends scientific knowledge but **explains **scientific knowledge - and all knowledge for that matter. The power of reason presupposes free will as I have already pointed out.

In principle, natural phenomena are explicable in terms of either causal relationships or random occurrences, and the randomness in nature appears, as far as we have been able to discern thus far, to occur only at the quantum level; and then random events in themselves may cause other phenomena. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a serious scientist who would claim we know more than a middling fraction, if that, of what there is to be known about the natural universe.

If there are phenomena that are ‘unnatural’ or somehow ‘beyond’ the natural, they are likewise beyond our ability to explain, beyond having any effect upon us and thus in all practical terms, irrelevant.

Your very ability to explain is not explicable in terms of either causal relationships or random occurrences! It presupposes insight which does not exist in natural phenomena.

Supernatural phenomena are usually presented, in argument, as being necessarily beyond our comprehension, not just practically out of our reach (as exploration of distant planets in other galaxies is presently well out of our reach, for example).

You have just conceded that the natural universe is beyond our comprehension!

Those who insist upon supernatural phenomena - as I see it - are thus divesting themselves of any effort or responsibility for explanation or understanding.

We are more realistic than materialists who assume they are capable in principle of explaining and understanding everything.

It may even be the case that they don’t want some things to be explained - consciousness and free will, for example - and thus will reject naturalist explanations for no better reason than that they fail to take the “mystery” into account.

That is an argumentum ad hominem which is inconsistent with your admission of ignorance of “more than a middling fraction, if that, of what there is to be known about the natural universe” - and considerably weakens your dogmatic assumption that science is capable in principle of explaining and understanding everything.

What it means to seek a naturalistic explanation for free will is to actually attempt to find out how it happens.

Thus overlooking the impossibility of a biological machine with free will!

If it doesn’t happen as supernaturalists would have it, then what else is going on to make us think we have it?

The fact that we are constantly exercising our free will when we choose to reject false explanations!

It doesn’t help any effort at explanation to say, “Well, free will is just supernatural” and leave it at that. How, for example, does anything supernatural interact with anything natural?

How do you compel yourself to resist the urge to eat or drink or do anything to excess?

If supernatural phenomena are independent of causal webs, how do they, in their turn, cause anything to happen?

By directing them towards goals which they otherwise lack, i.e. by purposeful activity.

These are questions usually dismissed by supernaturalists, at least as far as my experience of their views is concerned. They generally seem more interested in “saving” humanity from the perceived degradation of merely naturalistic explanations.

Naturalists generally seem more interested in degrading persons to the level of biological robots…

 

[tonyrey]

How does it suit my conclusion whether we call “doing nothing” an action or inaction? If an action or inaction is intentional (intended) then it must be determined by an intention to do the act or by an intention not to act.

BTW Neither an intention nor a decision is a physical action.

 

[glowingembers]

The flaw in your argument is in your definition:

“whatever a person does” cannot include “doing nothing” without breaking the Law of Contradiction.

That is irrelevant. As I said, If an action or inaction is intentional (intended) then it must be determined by an intention to do the act or by an intention not to act. Do you agree with that?