What Most People Fail to Understand about the Concept of Free Will

Agreed, but that does not rule out evolution.

Only if evolution is a thing with no options...and thus you would have to put a red pen through the whole of natural section, mutation, adaptation, fitness, game theory, etc.

One doesn't enforce logic. There are many logically possible paths that the universe could take but doesn't. This is true with or without indeterminism.

But the universe can't take them. That's the problem.


They don't happen differently, but logically they could have happened other ways.

Not in a determinism (sigh). You need a different cosmos with a different start state.

So the cosmos is aware of every wavefunction collapse, using a standard definition of aware? Okay, but I really think some evidence of this would be helpful.

It has always been my position that all neutral systems have a first perspective ontology. This is not new in my stance and shouldn't surprise you. What kind of evidence do you have in mind that is also capable of demonstrating the inverse (that they don't have a first perspective ontology)?


Then it isn't unbiased. Anyway, I'm glad I finally notice the un-.

Well the random influence on the die would be unbiased. The entire die, including its weighting would be biased...as it is meant to be.

Which therefore is not making a free choice. If there is any free choosing going on, it seems like it is in other modules.

No that's not true at all and I have no idea why you think that.
 
Definitions: Comments: Regardless on how you define "free will," it must be compatible with either determinism or indeterminism. Why? Because those are the only two logical possibilities. (If anyone here believes that there is another possibility, then please share it with us.) This is what most people fail to understand about the concept of free will: If determinism holds true, then every choice we make could not have been otherwise. If indeterminism holds true, then every choice we make could only have been otherwise due to chance.
Imagine a hall, a hall that you (Higher Mind-Self) has pre-chosen, pre-configured if you will, that has all of the main themes of the life you have decided to explore. You may traverse that hall anyway that you choose (free will) . Walking, lurching, break dancing, upside down, on your knees. Yet you will walk that hall. No chance, no determinism.
 
Only if evolution is a thing with no options...and thus you would have to put a red pen through the whole of natural section, mutation, adaptation, fitness, game theory, etc.
In a completely deterministic world, evolution takes a particular path through the logically possible paths that exist in all possible worlds with the same physics. In an indeterministic world, evolution takes a particular path throught the logically possible paths that exist in all possible worlds with the same physics.

But the universe can't take them. That's the problem.
The universe takes one path through them. How is this different with indeterminism available? It also takes one path. There is supposedly an additional means by which choices are made at forks. I guess it is the "biased cosmic will" that makes you feel as if "real choices" are being made at those forks. But would pure randomness do just as well?

Not in a determinism (sigh). You need a different cosmos with a different start state.
In this other universe, evolution would proceed differently. I agree that everything has to happen a particular way in any given deterministic universe. But it's still evolution. If you don't think it is, it would be helpful to present your definition of evolution.

It has always been my position that all neutral systems have a first perspective ontology. This is not new in my stance and shouldn't surprise you. What kind of evidence do you have in mind that is also capable of demonstrating the inverse (that they don't have a first perspective ontology)?
I couldn't say, since I don't know the details of this supposed first perspective (person?) ontology. It appears that only certain things in the universe are conscious. There is no evidence that a photon is conscious, and we know a heck of a lot about photons. Could we somehow detect consciousness in them?

Well the random influence on the die would be unbiased. The entire die, including its weighting would be biased...as it is meant to be.
And so the President can be replaced with a roll of a fair 10-sided die (numbers 1--6 for the 60% choice, numbers 7--10 for the 40% choice). The President is unnecessary. The analysis of the problem is actually occuring in the other modules. Are the other modules deterministic?

No that's not true at all and I have no idea why you think that.
There is no choosing by the President if she is simply rolling that fair die. The choice is random with a built-in skew (nonuniform probabilities) that she has nothing to do with.

~~ Paul
 
Ectoplasm is created from the recombination of oxygen and hydrogen that has been dissociated (unbound chemically and energetically), originally taken from the physical medium and the seance sitters. The apport's etheric body is replicated and used as a template to exactly copy the qualities of the object being apported. The template is filled with ectoplasm and, often, combined with elements not found within the medium's/sitters physical being (eg. high levels of copper). Consciousness is applied and the energy from that consciousness 'transports' aka apports through the medium as conduit into the seance room.
And yet none if this can be explained by chemistry. Why is that?

~~ Paul
 
In a completely deterministic world, evolution takes a particular path through the logically possible paths that exist in all possible worlds with the same physics. In an indeterministic world, evolution takes a particular path throught the logically possible paths that exist in all possible worlds with the same physics.

Evolution is not taken to be a creature requiring MWI in order to exist. If alternatives are not possible within this universe, the use of the term "evolution" within this universe is meaningless.


The universe takes one path through them. How is this different with indeterminism available? It also takes one path. There is supposedly an additional means by which choices are made at forks. I guess it is the "biased cosmic will" that makes you feel as if "real choices" are being made at those forks. But would pure randomness do just as well?

Please see a previous post in which I specified two different arguments I was making and the difference between them. I am not inclined to answer the same point multiple times.


In this other universe, evolution would proceed differently. I agree that everything has to happen a particular way in any given deterministic universe. But it's still evolution. If you don't think it is, it would be helpful to present your definition of evolution.

So now natural selection needs other universes to even make sense? Apart from the fact that these other universes are completely notional, I see no sensible way at all in which a rabbit facing off against a fox on Clapham Common can be said to be under the influence of information in some other determinstic universe.

I couldn't say, since I don't know the details of this supposed first perspective (person?) ontology. It appears that only certain things in the universe are conscious. There is no evidence that a photon is conscious, and we know a heck of a lot about photons. Could we somehow detect consciousness in them?

So again, I ask you...is there way we can be sure that they don't have consciousness? I don't think so. Not by 18th - 20th century empirics, so far as I can see.


And so the President can be replaced with a roll of a fair 10-sided die (numbers 1--6 for the 60% choice, numbers 7--10 for the 40% choice). The President is unnecessary. The analysis of the problem is actually occuring in the other modules. Are the other modules deterministic?

Yes, the analysis is occurring in the other modules. However, indeterminacy is still necessary. In your rendering, it is simply the "random" element contributing to the fall of the die. In mine, it is the exertion of cosmic will on the part of an agent. But I already said all this in the last post...


There is no choosing by the President if she is simply rolling that fair die. The choice is random with a built-in skew (nonuniform probabilities) that she has nothing to do with.

No, because the "President" in your die picture, is true randomness contributing to the fall of the die. The "president module" is that randomness plus the die, giving an open situation shaped by "advice." I think that's at least the third time I've said this :)
 
I couldn't say, since I don't know the details of this supposed first perspective (person?) ontology. It appears that only certain things in the universe are conscious. There is no evidence that a photon is conscious, and we know a heck of a lot about photons. Could we somehow detect consciousness in them?

~~ Paul

Integrated Information a Theory could in principle offer an answer. If IIT demonstrates itself to be correct, then that mathematical theory could then be used on a photon to calculate whether or not it has any level of consciousness. Based on the theory, the answer would be no.
 
Evolution is not taken to be a creature requiring MWI in order to exist. If alternatives are not possible within this universe, the use of the term "evolution" within this universe is meaningless.
Then you have some kind of interesting definition of evolution, along with every other process that occurs in the deterministic world. Do computers compute in a deterministic world? Do atmospheric processes produce weather?

So now natural selection needs other universes to even make sense? Apart from the fact that these other universes are completely notional, I see no sensible way at all in which a rabbit facing off against a fox on Clapham Common can be said to be under the influence of information in some other determinstic universe.
Natural selection makes perfectly good sense in a deterministic world. It's the mechanism by which certain of the deterministic processes involved in evolution operate. It works just fine with pseudorandom numbers, as many simulations show.

Anyway, we agree that in this universe there is indeterminism. I don't know whether you think pure randomness without cosmic will is sufficient for evolution.

So again, I ask you...is there way we can be sure that they don't have consciousness? I don't think so. Not by 18th - 20th century empirics, so far as I can see.
If we're going by empirics, I would say we are pretty certain that photons don't have consciousness. We can predict and harness them in myriad ways without any mention of consciousness in the math or in the technology. They never appear to exert any will against our use of them.

Yes, the analysis is occurring in the other modules. However, indeterminacy is still necessary. In your rendering, it is simply the "random" element contributing to the fall of the die. In mine, it is the exertion of cosmic will on the part of an agent. But I already said all this in the last post...
But there is no cosmic will in the 60/40 choice. Or are you saying that the fair 10-sided die is actually not fair due to the intervention of cosmic will? I don't think you're saying that. So the cosmic will is neutral with respect to the roll of the die, in which case it is unnecessary.

No, because the "President" in your die picture, is true randomness contributing to the fall of the die. The "president module" is that randomness plus the die, giving an open situation shaped by "advice." I think that's at least the third time I've said this :)
So the actual free decision is being made in the other modules, right?

I'm confused because I do not understand where the decision is being made and how much of it requires free will.

~~ Paul
 
Integrated Information a Theory could in principle offer an answer. If IIT demonstrates itself to be correct, then that mathematical theory could then be used on a photon to calculate whether or not it has any level of consciousness. Based on the theory, the answer would be no.
How about a 10-sided die?

~~ Paul
 
3. Necessarily, a choice which is not causally determined can be any one of the possible options, with no relationship whatsoever to the desires of the agent making the choice [premise].

Good, I think that's the best we've come so far in explicating what you seem to be actually arguing, along with a corresponding premise #2 that a free will choice is necessarily one which entails a relationship between that which is chosen and the desire of the agent making the choice. I think that for this (#3) to be a "perfect" premise in terms of your argument, you'd need to stipulate the "possible options", but we can work with it as-is.

So, here's my explanation of why I think both premises, but more particularly #3, are false:

Firstly (re premise #3), because causal determinism in the strict sense in which it applies in this argument (rather in than the looser sense in which I prefer to view it) only stipulates that any given causal chain is a necessary causal chain, not that causal chains (or causal-like chains) are in principle impossible. Thus, a choice which is not "causally determined" might still entail some sort of causal (or causal-like) chain - and hence entail a causal or causal-like relationship between the agent's desire and choice - it is just a causal chain that is not "forced upon" the agent (necessitated by unavoidable laws), but rather one that the agent, through the exercise of his/her choice-making, "creates" - i.e. any "causal laws" are of the agent's choosing, rather than imposed upon it. (Although I'm over-simplifying here because I do think that some "causal laws" governing our choices are not volitional but are instead imposed, or at least conditioned into us).

The problem with this is that it has been my position from the start, going right back to the early pages of the original thread which I started on free will, and so if you haven't understood or accepted it until now, then repeating it here is unlikely to change that. Thus, it is likely that unless you appear to have finally "clicked" with it, I really will stop responding in this dialogue/debate.

Secondly (re premise #2 as adjusted to correspond with your new #3): because it is by some definitions of libertarian free will (including one which I quoted a truncated description of earlier) explicitly possible for an agent to make a choice which is not in accordance with its desires, to say that such a phenomenon is inconsistent with free will more generally simply begs the question.

The definition I quoted earlier was from Theopedia; I have stripped the original emphases and added my own, to emphasise a part which I had originally truncated:

Libertarian free will means that our choices are free from the determination or constraints of human nature and free from any predetermination by God. All "free will theists" hold that libertarian freedom is essential for moral responsibility, for if our choice is determined or caused by anything, including our own desires, they reason, it cannot properly be called a free choice. Libertarian freedom is, therefore, the freedom to act contrary to one's nature, predisposition and greatest desires. Responsibility, in this view, always means that one could have done otherwise.

I think this is an empirical issue: We have to find the "mechanism" hidden in indeterminism. However, people talk as if it should be undiscoverable. At least it seems that way to me.

I think what's undiscoverable is not that there are, typically, causal or causal-like relationships in libertarian free will choices, but why or how these can meaningfully be described as volitional. I also think, though, that consciousness is key in this mystery, and that we haven't acknowledged or explored enough in discussions to date the relationship of consciousness to free will.

Sorry, your statement simply sounded like a contradiction in terms. Could you just explain what you meant?

Sorry, I don't understand. Could you explain this another way?

Seriously? I don't think I can explain it any more clearly than I already did.

I'll just add this though: that the existence of a universe - causally deterministic or not - with a beginning in time[*] can be explained as a creative act of an atemporal (outside of time) agency, and that the relationship between this atemporal agency and the universe might be seen as causally deterministic even though (because the agency is not within time) not involving time. In any case, this only shifts the argument a little: because that atemporal agency can be conceived of as being part of the (initial conditions of the) universe, and cannot itself have a causally deterministic explanation for its existence, the conclusion that the universe (any universe) cannot - ultimately - have a causally deterministic explanation remains.

[*] And for strictly logical reasons I believe it to be necessarily the case that a universe has a beginning in time, owing to the logical impossibility of an infinite past.
 
Yes, you're right. I tend to not be careful with how I use terms and vacillate between the neuroscience use of the term consciousness and the idealist/vedantic use of the word consciousness. Thanks for pointing this out.

So my answer is that consciousness is fundamental, and conscious awareness is emergent.



That is a good point, and I appreciate your knowledge of these more philosophical points. I think you are correct, and that is also why I go with the type F monism. But if I may elaborate on my point, perhaps you may see why I think they are actually quite close.

I think the problem arises due to attempting to draw metaphysical conclusions using classical physical concepts. If one views matter as little balls of matter existing and bouncing around and colliding with other little balls of matter in empty space, and then to identify these interactions with conscious awareness (as in IIT), it does seem quite incorrect. It should be carefully considered that a great deal of philosophy and metaphysics still uses classical physical concepts, which is fundamentally false, and one could draw equally false conclusions when using classical concepts as a premise. In other words, when dealing with a metaphysical question, how valid is it to base a premise off of a physical theory whose metaphysics as been demonstrated to be entirely false?

If we approach the type B materialism from a more correct contemporary physical understanding using quantum theory, what would it mean to say that "matter," with certain arrangements, has the capacity for experience? What is matter? Well, at first it appears to be excitation states of quantum fields, but then what are quantum fields? It seems that they may arise from non-local information fields, i.e. they originate outside of spacetime. So then, we are really saying that this apparent substratum of matter has the capacity for experience. This is quite different from what we get using classical metaphysics.

Now if we consider that type B materialism entails an epistemic gap, not an ontological cap, what does this mean? When we practice science, we utilize a relative objectivity to describe phenomena (technically an inter-subjectivity, but I will call it a relative objectivity). This relatively objective description of the phenomena is intrinsically different from the actual experience. This is the epistemic gap. It is created through the very process of science. The same epistemic gap occurs in type F monism and both lack an ontological gap. In fact, advaita vedantic literature, which is the most extreme type F monism, describes the epistemic gap as well, since it is repeated over and over that knowledge of pure consciousness cannot replace the experience of pure consciousness. That is to say, one can read the vedantic texts for one's entire life and understand it well, but never gain the understanding that comes from the direct experience of brahman.

So now type B materialism is essentially saying that the substratum for matter, whatever these non-local information fields consist of, has the capacity for experience. This is very different from saying little balls of mattering interacting has the capacity for experience. In type B materialism, one is really saying that a non-local field has the capacity for experience, and certain interactions of information fields and the excitation states of these fields in certain arrangements and modes of interaction can give rise to conscious awareness (as with IIT).

Type F monism seems to be saying the same thing, just that it calls the substratum "consciousness." Here is a quote from Chalmer's on what type F monism is, from his book "The Character of Consciousness:"



How is this so different than to say that the substratum that constitutes matter has the capacity for experience?

Another view that I think creates problems is panpsychism. Panpsychism holds that even subatomic particles have a tiny bit of consciousness. But the name of this view itself causes problems--it literally means that everything has some level of psyche, and psyche means something like the human soul, mind, or spirit. This is a view that can fall under type F monism, but it is an extremely confused idea. This view really seems to equate the ultimate consciousness with human mind and conscious awareness, as if an electron has some level of human mind to it. This is a completely different view from my type F monist position that says that the fundamental consciousness is nothing like our mind and is really a completely abstract existence (beyond spacetime) that has the capacity for experience.


Nice post, thanks for the explanation.

I'm still open to the possibility that type-f monism is "the" explanation, but I also still tend to favour dualism of one form or another, potentially compatible with the sort of idealism which you advance - because even given your brand of idealism, there is still a subject/object duality, which could be seen as standing in for or "ultimately explaining" the more standard mind/matter duality.
 
Oh, and by the way:

perhaps you could work out a proof of the existence of libertarian free will.

I don't have a strict proof of the existence of libertarian free will, only an argument (which I think is strong) that it is much more likely than not given that ultimately nothing is "necessary", and hence that hard determinism fails even in what appears to be a wholly deterministic universe - but then, arguing all that was a main point of my original thread, so I'm not inclined to repeat that reasoning here (although much of it is already present in my earlier posts to this thread).
 
Nice post, thanks for the explanation.

I'm still open to the possibility that type-f monism is "the" explanation, but I also still tend to favour dualism of one form or another, potentially compatible with the sort of idealism which you advance - because even given your brand of idealism, there is still a subject/object duality, which could be seen as standing in for or "ultimately explaining" the more standard mind/matter duality.

I believe in dualism, but it is a relative dualism. It depends on from what reference from you are considering. I think considering the reference frame is vital.

For example, from our frame of reference it makes sense to talk of objects existing, but from a more fundamental level there is no table, or even no "matter" making it up. Yet it makes sense to say from our frame of reference that tables exist and use it to describe our experience.

This is also why I say that, from the absolute perspective, the universe exists empirically but not ontologically, yet from our reference frame it makes sense to discuss the universe existing. So for many descriptions i think it makes sense to discuss daulities, and these daulities can exist within a monism.
 
I believe in dualism, but it is a relative dualism. It depends on from what reference from you are considering. I think considering the reference frame is vital.

For example, from our frame of reference it makes sense to talk of objects existing, but from a more fundamental level there is no table, or even no "matter" making it up. Yet it makes sense to say from our frame of reference that tables exist and use it to describe our experience.

This is also why I say that, from the absolute perspective, the universe exists empirically but not ontologically, yet from our reference frame it makes sense to discuss the universe existing. So for many descriptions i think it makes sense to discuss daulities, and these daulities can exist within a monism.

OK, fair enough. I suppose I'm more of a realist about the existence of the universe and the objects within it - not just with respect to "everyday physicality" but also with respect to "subtle energy" in the sense of astral/auric bodies etc - but I do understand that realism is not very compatible with current science, so I suppose that implies some degree of skepticism on my part. I certainly haven't studied it (current science) nearly as much as you appear to have.
 
OK, fair enough. I suppose I'm more of a realist about the existence of the universe and the objects within it - not just with respect to "everyday physicality" but also with respect to "subtle energy" in the sense of astral/auric bodies etc - but I do understand that realism is not very compatible with current science, so I suppose that implies some degree of skepticism on my part. I certainly haven't studied it (current science) nearly as much as you appear to have.

That's the point--realism makes sense from our perspective. From our perspective it makes sense to say that objects exist, causation exists, things are influenced locally, etc., but these are not supported by quantum theory at a fundamental level. The deeper we go the more abstract and removed from our every day experience things become. It makes sense that if we go deeper still, it will become more abstract, not suddenly going back to a reductionist realist type of explanation. But that doesn't change that we have to have different levels of descriptions based on the frame of reference that are needed to make sense of that reference frame. We just have to be careful of absolute ontological statements since many of the ontologies will be relative to the theory used to describe that domain. This is also a good reason against scientific realism.
 
Firstly (re premise #3), because causal determinism in the strict sense in which it applies in this argument (rather in than the looser sense in which I prefer to view it) only stipulates that any given causal chain is a necessary causal chain, not that causal chains (or causal-like chains) are in principle impossible. Thus, a choice which is not "causally determined" might still entail some sort of causal (or causal-like) chain - and hence entail a causal or causal-like relationship between the agent's desire and choice - it is just a causal chain that is not "forced upon" the agent (necessitated by unavoidable laws), but rather one that the agent, through the exercise of his/her choice-making, "creates" - i.e. any "causal laws" are of the agent's choosing, rather than imposed upon it. (Although I'm over-simplifying here because I do think that some "causal laws" governing our choices are not volitional but are instead imposed, or at least conditioned into us).
This does not address how the agent chooses which causal laws to create. It also doesn't deal with the various problems and paradoxes that would arise if an agent could actually choose laws that contradict other laws, but let's not worry about that.

The problem with this is that it has been my position from the start, going right back to the early pages of the original thread which I started on free will, and so if you haven't understood or accepted it until now, then repeating it here is unlikely to change that. Thus, it is likely that unless you appear to have finally "clicked" with it, I really will stop responding in this dialogue/debate.
I'm happy to go with the agent choosing causal laws, but I still don't know how the choosing is done. If this means I haven't clicked with it, so be it.

Secondly (re premise #2 as adjusted to correspond with your new #3): because it is by some definitions of libertarian free will (including one which I quoted a truncated description of earlier) explicitly possible for an agent to make a choice which is not in accordance with its desires, to say that such a phenomenon is inconsistent with free will more generally simply begs the question.
Why would an agent make a choice inconsistent with its desires, unless there were deeper desires that provided an override?

The definition I quoted earlier was from Theopedia; I have stripped the original emphases and added my own, to emphasise a part which I had originally truncated:
I don't see why one would act contrary to one's "greatest desires" unless there was an overriding desire or need or principle. But I don't see why this matters. I'm happy to say that libertarian free will allows one to take the action that one decides to take, however that decision is made.

~~ Paul
 
This does not address how the agent chooses which causal laws to create.

The problem is that you are looking for a reductionist answer, when, as Neil has helpfully pointed out, causality (and hence reductionism) breaks down at the ultimate level. As I indicated in my last post, I think the answer to the mystery lies in the nature of consciousness rather than in some mechanism. Perhaps the real problem is that you are (as best I can tell) a physicalist, and thus that on some level you don't "really" believe in consciousness - at least not a consciousness that cannot be reduced to the physical and to physical interactions.

It also doesn't deal with the various problems and paradoxes that would arise if an agent could actually choose laws that contradict other laws, but let's not worry about that.

By "laws" I really just mean "abstractions of (timeless descriptions of) individual choices which occur in the context of physical/mental laws which the agent cannot breach", so it's not really possible (because they relate to individual choices separated in time) for these laws to contradict one another.

Why would an agent make a choice inconsistent with its desires, unless there were deeper desires that provided an override?

I guess it depends on how we define "desire". A very strict definition might as you allude be unavoidably associated with choice, as in "a choice is the manifestation of a desire". But (1) I'm not sure that we need to define it so strictly, and (2) I think that you also allude to something else which is important: that we rarely have singular desires; that our desires are often complex and exist at different (deeper/shallower/etc) levels and in different contexts, such that we are not necessarily ever in a "singular" state of desire.

And, as I've also written multiple times already, our desires are rarely ever defined down to the minutest detail, which again is an argument against the existence of some "singular" state of desire which even could/would be "overridden" as opposed to "elaborated or extended upon".
 
@Neil, if nothing else, your changing avatars are causing me to doubt my realism. They seem to exist only empirically and not ontologically.

More seriously, what you say makes a lot of sense, it's just counter-intuitive given our everyday experience... which I suppose is what has always and often been remarked of quantum physics.
 
@Neil, if nothing else, your changing avatars are causing me to doubt my realism. They seem to exist only empirically and not ontologically.

More seriously, what you say makes a lot of sense, it's just counter-intuitive given our everyday experience... which I suppose is what has always and often been remarked of quantum physics.

Intuitions based on our every day experience are the bane of philosophy, metaphysics, and interpretations of our physical theories like quantum theory.

There is no justification for using our intuitions of every day experience for metaphysical reasoning.
 
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