We are cognitively closed to free will and act creation

[polytropos]

Suppose you are in a situation with number of options lest call them A, and suppose that number of counterfacuals which clearly define the situation and your mental state are B. If A is bigger that B then you have freedom to act upon A-B states. You are not free to act if A is equal to B and A can never be smaller than B.

Can you give some examples of what the counterfactuals look like in such a case?

 

[Bahman]

What do you mean by “optimal solution”? If you mean that given a set of circumstances, there is a counterfactual with a nondisjunctive consequent (the governing state of affairs being the antecedent) that reports exactly how we would act, then I deny that.

First, the situation define the purpose/goal for action. In case of God the situation and purpose are well defined. God in another hand knows all counterfactuals meaning that it knows what is the best option for the situation to reach the purpose. One can argue about existence of best option but if the system of interest is not marginal (there exists a set of best solutions) then God has to follow the best option hence it is not free since following the worst solution is illogical.

If that were the case, we would not be free. Noting that we don’t know all of the counterfactuals does not rescue free will or make us “free to act based on what we understand.” One would not have to know that one is unfree to be unfree (ontologically).

We could not of course be free if we always know what is the best option for a situation. And free will is rescued once the number of prepositions for defining it is infinite since one cannot define free will with finite set of preposition and grant freedom. Freedom is granted as a result of ambiguity of infinity. Can you define a system which is governed by a set of laws at the same time set it free?

But your point here seems to depend on there being, in addition, some other proposition governing which of the two options (driving inland or hiding in a shelter) that I will actually take. But it seems quite consistent to suppose that this is not the case: law-like propositions do not determine which of the two routes I will take.

Law-like prepositions in micro-level defines your action. How macro-level prepositions are translated to micro-level and vice versa is subject of discussion as it is claimed the number of micro-level prepositions which define your actions are infinite since otherwise we could not be free. This is the problem of looking at free will in mechanical way, in another word trying to explain it in term of a set of prepositions/laws. This means that free will is irreducible in term of prepositions/laws hence any attempt to define it in term of a set of prepositions requires a infinite number of prepositions.

Introducing the notion of a “best solution” does not seem to change this. If my choice is determined, its freedom does not seem to be vindicated simply because I don’t know which of the two was better. (It also does not seem to be the case that my decision is groundless or random if I choose with incomplete knowledge.) It also does not seem to be the case that if I know which solution is best, I am compelled to choose it.

That is the best solution in micro-level that define your decisions. You are aware of decision in macro-level hence what is best looking in macro level does not translated to what is the best for micro-level that we are not aware of it since we are free because the set of micro-level prepositions which define our action is infinite.

 

[Bahman]

I don’t agree with a lot of the assumptions here. Can you specify the form of these counterfactuals? You are saying that unless N is infinite, the system will not be free (N being the number of counterfactuals). I still don’t see why this is the case. Freedom seems to depend on the nature of the counterfactuals rather than the quantity.

Do you agree that we cannot define a system which work with a finite set of laws in micro level and it is free in that level? Nature of counterfactuals does not help us since each acts as a constraint on the system. Lets assume that a system has A degrees of freedom. And there exist B prepositions/laws which define the movement of system within its degree. Assume that A and B are finite and equal. That means that this set of prepositions uniquely define the state of affair hence system is not free. B cannot be bigger than A since the system is over determined and can only be free if B is smaller than A. This means that there exist A-B internal mixed states which are free of change and these set defines the evolution of system. Call each of A-B degree of freedom as force (which translate as wish/desire in macro-level) which move the system accordingly unless the number of prepositions which act on the system changes and that is exactly how a intelligent system works, namely it faces the consequence of the action in macro-level and this leads to an experience in which the experience is translated as a set of prepositions reducing the value A-B until A becomes equal to B which means that the system is no longer free in micro-level. This means that a system with limited number of degree of freedom is only free for a limited period of time. To grant the freedom one need to consider A to be infinite hence the number of counterfactuals which saturate the system becomes infinite.

To clarify, counterfactuals will be of the form “if p, then q.” Having a finite number of counterfactuals is still consistent with free will as long as some counterfactuals contain disjunctions in the place of q.

Can you please elaborate?

Adding counterfactuals does nothing for the issue of freedom. The antecedents (p) are states of affairs. Making the amount of counterfactuals infinite does not change the fact that states of affairs determine actions (q). You could say that in our world, there are a finite number of possible states of affairs, so if there are an infinite number of counterfactuals, there would have to (for some state of affairs p1) exist multiples states of affairs q1, q2 such that “if p1, then q1” and “if p1, then q2” are both true. But that actually leads to inconsistencies, since, then, if p1 is the case then both q1 and q2 must be the case (and freedom is not preserved). So it seems like an infinite set of counterfactuals is irrelevant to freedom.

State of affairs must be always bigger than number of counterfacutals otherwise the system is overdetermined as you mentioned. This is explained in the comment before the that last comment.