Free Will

[Immanuel Can]

"Go read the journals " is a worthy challenge. I will not be reading any material that is badly written . I have my work cut out to read stuff that is well written.

For purposes of demonstrating my point, that's still fine...because in order to find the articles that are well-written, you're still going to find yourself wading hip deep in horse-manure articles, as well, if only so long as it takes you to realize that the vast majority of Humanities articles today are really infected with jargon, passive voice, ideological babble and verbosity.

In fact, you won't find it an easy task to locate those that are not. They do exist, of course; but they're by no means the preponderance.

[Immanuel Can]

...can we agree that continuity, if not a cause in itself, is a necessary part of causal explanation...

Yes. We can agree it's a precondition, not a cause. And even as a condition, we can only go so far as to agree it's necessary; but there's no justification in anybody concluding that it's sufficient. In fact, identity is not even a weak case of causality; it's not causality at all.

Please bear in mind that my references to causality/determinism do not assume discrete chains of causes

Of course. I thought we were already assuming that.

But complexity does not change the basic dynamic in any way. If material cause-and-effect is all that's in view, then nothing but cause-and-effect is in view, even if we diagram it as a sort of "web" rather than as a simple line. It's still just one dynamic.

But what I'm pointing out is that it's misleading to say they "must have arisen out of something that was already in your mind." Because stuff that's "in a mind" is not "in material reality" the way that, say, neurochemicals are.

I do mean in a mental sense. Stuff like ideas, impressions, hunches, feelings. So how can that be misleading?

I would argue that's not misleading. But it is Dualistic.

You've now got two kinds of "causes": material "causes," and mental "causes." And the latter is not being subsumed into the category of the former, so you have mind-material Dualism there.

Either some element of consciousness has a (present or earlier) cause or combination of any number of contributory causes, in which case each such cause is either something that was in the mind before or something external, or it arrives in consciousness for no reason at all. Each case has implications.

Well, let's eliminate the explanation "for no reason at all," because it's both ambiguous and misleading. Can something in a mind be "caused" by a prior mental state, or does it have to be "caused" by materials? If it can be "caused" in a way that does NOT eventually invoke strict Materialism, then you are a Dualist. You are then saying that mind, without reference to materials, is capable of initiating a causal chain.

That is the crucial contest point against Determinism.

In creativity, for example, the creative mind imagines [1] something new, or [2] a new combination of things already known, but one that has not yet existed anywhere.

These are two significantly different cases [numbering added]. I am assuming for the sake of argument that case [1] doesn’t occur:

I don't see the warrant for that assumption, I must confess. Maybe you can tell me.

...that every apparently new idea is in fact an unconscious combination of ideas already known to the mind concerned, and asking what the implications would be. (First implication: there would still be room for creativity, as shown by case [2].

Not only "room," but definite creativity. For it is not inherent to creativity that it must come ex nihilo, using no resources from the material world at all. Picasso used paint: he did not produce paint ex nihilo; but that does not mean that "paint" is the sufficent explanation of Guernica. In fact, as an explanation, that's pretty useless.

...let us assume that dualism is correct, how can that rule out the possibility that the mind, together with its inputs from and actions upon the material world, acts in a deterministic way?

I think we can see that material explanations are not adequate for a phenomenon like Guernica. They're not utterly wrong, per se, but just so desperately trival, so entirely inadequate to the phenomenon they attempt to describe that they are just not plausible, just not informative, just not useful.

"Picasso painted the way he did because...paint." If we say that, that's a lousy kind of explanation, and I don't think it takes any special wisdom to see that it is.

The whole of the nature & state of Picasso’s mind before the Spanish civil war plus the whole of his experience in the interim, such as his awareness of the events at Guernica, was a necessary condition for the whole of the nature & state of his mind when he began his painting of it, and hence for his ability to come up with it, I think we agree.

Yes, of course. But there you are not appealing to material things, but to mind things. You say "Picasso's experience" and "state of mind," and "awareness," and so on. Those are decidedly part of the right explanation; but they are not strictly materials. They're mind states.

How can you rule out the possibility that it was also a sufficient condition?

Pretty easily, actually.

Do you accept the postulate that Guernica was a product of nothing but materials, with no mind states bieng invoked? Of course not. Above, you don't, in fact. That would be a laughably reductional explanation, sort of like the "paint" explanation. So I think we both see the basis of rejecting that.

But in point of fact, the burden of proof is on the person who is the Determinist. Because the natural and obvious explanation, the one most people use all the time, is that Picasso's mind was special, and his creativity was unique to his being Picasso. And we all naturally refer to mind-states in any plausible explanation, not just of Picasso but especially of our own actions and decisions. Mind-states are universally treated as causative. And it takes a real feat of mental gymnastics to convince ourselves that they might not be, a feat we are not even able to sustain for long. We naturally lapse back into mind-cause explanations.

So the burden's on the Determinist to say that all our intuitions about that are just plain wrong, and how he knows they are, and to show how he is justified in positing mere material causes in their place.

I’m not saying that was the case, just that the world wouldn’t obviously look any different if it was, and we don’t know enough about how the mind works to rule this possibility out.

Maybe. But if that's the case, then the default would be to mind explanations. And again, it would be on the Determinist to prove his case; because nobody really acts as if Determinism is true. Even you don't, since you're discussing with me. What would be the use, if strict Determinism were true?

If everything is part of the original Divine plan, isn’t that a different kind of predetermination?

Not necessarily. It could be: there are people called "Calvinists" who think it is. But most Theists think not, and with good reason. An omnipotent God is surely not incapable of endowing creatures with free will.

God could, for example, have enough power to force people to do nothing but His predetermined will, if he were to choose to do that; but He could choose to allow them volition instead.

And which is more powerful: a "god" who can't deal with the volition of his creatures, or One who can? Is God greater if he can foresee every possible choice in a matrix or "web" of choices, and have wisdom to deal with them all, or is a "god" greater if he can only handle one line of determinations at a time and loses track of anything more complex?

That's pretty obvious, isn't it?

How can free will then be possible? I can understand three possible answers:

Mabye. But my answer above doesn't fit any of the ABC options you offered. So there's another possibility.

It seems to me that the rest of your post is more to do with dualism, and specifically theistic dualism, than with free will.

Well, free will implies Dualism. There's no separating the two, really. So I don't think it's a shift in subject.

If I may, I'll get back to you on the "responsibility" question when I've had time to check out the link and give it some further thought.

Thanks for your thoughts, Roger.

[Belinda]

"Go read the journals " is a worthy challenge. I will not be reading any material that is badly written . I have my work cut out to read stuff that is well written.

For purposes of demonstrating my point, that's still fine...because in order to find the articles that are well-written, you're still going to find yourself wading hip deep in horse-manure articles, as well, if only so long as it takes you to realize that the vast majority of Humanities articles today are really infected with jargon, passive voice, ideological babble and verbosity.

In fact, you won't find it an easy task to locate those that are not. They do exist, of course; but they're by no means the preponderance.

I don't pretend to be a literary critic, but if I put my mind to criticising some specific piece I will do so if I am socially compelled , as for instance when I once belonged to a book readers' group at the library.

As it is, the 'humanities' books I read are old favourites, twentieth century children's literature, or 19th century novels.
I am never bored by badly written articles because I'd simply stop reading those after the first few seconds if I came across them, or if they were on TV likewise I'd switch off or over. I really do not see what your problem is with lack of literary merit. To my mind there is no point in persisting with rubbishy books.

[Immanuel Can]

To my mind there is no point in persisting with rubbishy books.

Then you won't enjoy the current Humanities journals. They're pretty much a sea of jargon and obfuscation. What Orwell saw and feared has come upon us...in more ways than one.

[Belinda]

To my mind there is no point in persisting with rubbishy books.

Then you won't enjoy the current Humanities journals. They're pretty much a sea of jargon and obfuscation. What Orwell saw and feared has come upon us...in more ways than one.

I don't even know what you mean by "Humanities journals".. Are they a thing?

[Immanuel Can]

To my mind there is no point in persisting with rubbishy books.

Then you won't enjoy the current Humanities journals. They're pretty much a sea of jargon and obfuscation. What Orwell saw and feared has come upon us...in more ways than one.

I don't even know what you mean by "Humanities journals".. Are they a thing?

Yep. They're the "trade magazines" (if I can explain it simply) of the academic world. If you want esteem and promotion as a professor, you have to publish in these journals, and do it frequently, and then get quoted and used in other research, ideally.

But unfortunately, they're mostly infected with the kinds of incomprehensibility, illogic, propaganda and dimness that Orwell feared would ensue if we allowed our usage to become sloppy and jargon-infested.

[RogerSH]

Can something in a mind be "caused" by a prior mental state, or does it have to be "caused" by materials? If it can be "caused" in a way that does NOT eventually invoke strict Materialism, then you are a Dualist. You are then saying that mind, without reference to materials, is capable of initiating a causal chain.

That is the crucial contest point against Determinism.

.......

...let us assume that dualism is correct, how can that rule out the possibility that the mind, together with its inputs from and actions upon the material world, acts in a deterministic way?

I think we can see that material explanations are not adequate for a phenomenon like Guernica. They're not utterly wrong, per se, but just so desperately trival, so entirely inadequate to the phenomenon they attempt to describe that they are just not plausible, just not informative, just not useful.

"Picasso painted the way he did because...paint." If we say that, that's a lousy kind of explanation, and I don't think it takes any special wisdom to see that it is.

You keep ignoring my statement that I am assuming dualism (because I'm wishing to understand its implications), so constantly repeating that you can’t see how monism/materialism could explain things doesn’t progress the matter!

I can’t explain consciousness either, but there are so many things that science has now explained to my satisfaction in ways that no-one could have dreamt of how to explain in advance, that I am just making a bet, based on various very rough analogies, that there are explanations to be found in principle, and I happen to think most of your a priori objections are founded on misconceptions of the nature of scientific explanation – shared by many scientists who focus too narrowly on their own discipline, I may add. Anyway, I think settling the dualism/materialism question is orders of magnitude more difficult than settling the question of compatibilism, so I really do want to focus on the latter, which is after all the topic of the OP.

On this question, there do seem to be some areas of agreement, though the sticking point is that I don’t agree that Calvinist theism gives any less free will than the kind of theism you prefer.

If everything is part of the original Divine plan, isn’t that a different kind of predetermination?

Not necessarily. It could be: there are people called "Calvinists" who think it is. But most Theists think not, and with good reason. An omnipotent God is surely not incapable of endowing creatures with free will.

God could, for example, have enough power to force people to do nothing but His predetermined will, if he were to choose to do that; but He could choose to allow them volition instead.

How can free will then be possible? I can understand three possible answers:

Maybe. But my answer above doesn't fit any of the ABC options you offered. So there's another possibility.

Well, it sounds pretty much like my option (b). "God deliberately left gaps in his plan for self-determining human free will to fill in."

As I said, I don’t agree that Calvinist theism gives any less free will than the kind of theism you prefer. So let’s dig into that.

One source of possible confusion is two possible ways that it might be thought that the will is free: freedom to form a will, and freedom to implement a will once it has formed. My claim is that freedom to form a will is an incoherent concept, as impossible/meaningless in an undetermined world as in a physically or divinely determined one; whereas we have just as much freedom to implement our settled will once formed whether it was formed in a divinely pre-ordained way or not. You may find it very hard to reconcile the Calvinist view with your personal experience, but that doesn’t alter the validity of the above two claims.

[Belinda]

Then you won't enjoy the current Humanities journals. They're pretty much a sea of jargon and obfuscation. What Orwell saw and feared has come upon us...in more ways than one.

I don't even know what you mean by "Humanities journals".. Are they a thing?

Yep. They're the "trade magazines" (if I can explain it simply) of the academic world. If you want esteem and promotion as a professor, you have to publish in these journals, and do it frequently, and then get quoted and used in other research, ideally.

But unfortunately, they're mostly infected with the kinds of incomprehensibility, illogic, propaganda and dimness that Orwell feared would ensue if we allowed our usage to become sloppy and jargon-infested.

I see. Well I will take your word for it as I am unlikely to want to read any of those. Possibly I may if I want to look up something. Actually I thought professors were expected to publish books.

[Belinda]

Can something in a mind be "caused" by a prior mental state, or does it have to be "caused" by materials? If it can be "caused" in a way that does NOT eventually invoke strict Materialism, then you are a Dualist. You are then saying that mind, without reference to materials, is capable of initiating a causal chain.

That is the crucial contest point against Determinism.

.......

...let us assume that dualism is correct, how can that rule out the possibility that the mind, together with its inputs from and actions upon the material world, acts in a deterministic way?

I think we can see that material explanations are not adequate for a phenomenon like Guernica. They're not utterly wrong, per se, but just so desperately trival, so entirely inadequate to the phenomenon they attempt to describe that they are just not plausible, just not informative, just not useful.

"Picasso painted the way he did because...paint." If we say that, that's a lousy kind of explanation, and I don't think it takes any special wisdom to see that it is.

You keep ignoring my statement that I am assuming dualism (because I'm wishing to understand its implications), so constantly repeating that you can’t see how monism/materialism could explain things doesn’t progress the matter!

I can’t explain consciousness either, but there are so many things that science has now explained to my satisfaction in ways that no-one could have dreamt of how to explain in advance, that I am just making a bet, based on various very rough analogies, that there are explanations to be found in principle, and I happen to think most of your a priori objections are founded on misconceptions of the nature of scientific explanation – shared by many scientists who focus too narrowly on their own discipline, I may add. Anyway, I think settling the dualism/materialism question is orders of magnitude more difficult than settling the question of compatibilism, so I really do want to focus on the latter, which is after all the topic of the OP.

On this question, there do seem to be some areas of agreement, though the sticking point is that I don’t agree that Calvinist theism gives any less free will than the kind of theism you prefer.

If everything is part of the original Divine plan, isn’t that a different kind of predetermination?

Not necessarily. It could be: there are people called "Calvinists" who think it is. But most Theists think not, and with good reason. An omnipotent God is surely not incapable of endowing creatures with free will.

God could, for example, have enough power to force people to do nothing but His predetermined will, if he were to choose to do that; but He could choose to allow them volition instead.

How can free will then be possible? I can understand three possible answers:

Maybe. But my answer above doesn't fit any of the ABC options you offered. So there's another possibility.

Well, it sounds pretty much like my option (b). "God deliberately left gaps in his plan for self-determining human free will to fill in."

As I said, I don’t agree that Calvinist theism gives any less free will than the kind of theism you prefer. So let’s dig into that.

One source of possible confusion is two possible ways that it might be thought that the will is free: freedom to form a will, and freedom to implement a will once it has formed. My claim is that freedom to form a will is an incoherent concept, as impossible/meaningless in an undetermined world as in a physically or divinely determined one; whereas we have just as much freedom to implement our settled will once formed whether it was formed in a divinely pre-ordained way or not. You may find it very hard to reconcile the Calvinist view with your personal experience, but that doesn’t alter the validity of the above two claims.

Calvinism i.e. predestination is tangential to determinism and is not the same as determinism. (Fatalism is another tangent to determinism). The Free Will doctrine although it is silly is not as horribly harmful to people as pre-destination.

[Immanuel Can]

I can’t explain consciousness either, but there are so many things that science has now explained to my satisfaction in ways that no-one could have dreamt of how to explain in advance, that I am just making a bet, based on various very rough analogies,

Yes, I would say it's a "bet" rather than an estimation, and I think not a very good "bet."

It's a bit like "betting" that your next horse will win at the track because your last one did. Or actually, it's more like betting that a dog who's not even racing will win the Kentucky Derby instead of a horse: because there's absolutely no reason to assume (other than wild betting) that "consciousness" is even of the same order as "rocks" or "lightning bolts," no matter how well the existence of the latter is accounted for in Materialist explanations.

I happen to think most of your a priori objections are founded on misconceptions of the nature of scientific explanation

Oh, well...I can disabuse you of that mistake.

Science and Materialism are not at all synonymous. In fact, Materialism is a gratuitous imposition on science.

I don’t agree that Calvinist theism gives any less free will than the kind of theism you prefer.

Calvinists would certainly disagree with you.

"God deliberately left gaps in his plan for self-determining human free will to fill in."

No, this isn't a good explanation, because it characterizes options as "gaps," and God's "plan" (whatever you mean by that) as somehow limited, like maybe "not knowing" or "letting hang loose" in some way. And I'm not proposing either of those things.

So let’s dig into that.

Okay.

My claim is that freedom to form a will is an incoherent concept,

Most people don't think so. Can you trace all your own decisions rigorously and exclusively to prior Material conditions? You seem to suggest you don't, and attribute actual "consciousness" to yourself...

But if you cannot, then what makes your "betting" in any sense "scientific"?

You may find it very hard to reconcile the Calvinist view with your personal experience...

Well, sure: any sane person would. But that's only one of its many problems. The fact that it's unBiblical would be more important. The Calvinists are "reading into" all sorts of Biblical passages their own belief in Divine Determinism. So I find them both untheological and unscientific...as well as problematic philosophically, for a variety of other reasons.

But I'm not sure how appealing to Calvinism is going to help you get traction for the sort of Eliminativist Materialism, though.

[Immanuel Can]

I thought professors were expected to publish books.

They are, but books take a long time to write and get published, and by the time they are, the research in them may have become a little dated. The cutting-edge stuff, therefore, is supposed to happen in the journals, and at the conferences where new papers are presented and peer critiqued.

[Immanuel Can]

Calvinism i.e. predestination is tangential to determinism and is not the same as determinism. (Fatalism is another tangent to determinism).

No, the three are hooked up.

Calvinism is merely Determinism by Divine Fiat; and its implications are every bit as Fatalistic as those of Materialist Determinism, at least for anyone who follows them out to their logical conclusions (which, thank God, almost nobody does).

[Belinda]

I thought professors were expected to publish books.

They are, but books take a long time to write and get published, and by the time they are, the research in them may have become a little dated. The cutting-edge stuff, therefore, is supposed to happen in the journals, and at the conferences where new papers are presented and peer critiqued.

I see. But are you sure the material that annoys you is silly showing-off, and not that you don't actually understand quite good material?

I am not surprised if at least some of your accusations are correct, but I really cannot comment.

[Belinda]

I thought professors were expected to publish books.

They are, but books take a long time to write and get published, and by the time they are, the research in them may have become a little dated. The cutting-edge stuff, therefore, is supposed to happen in the journals, and at the conferences where new papers are presented and peer critiqued.

I see. But are you sure the material that annoys you is silly showing-off, and not that you don't actually understand quite good material?

I am not surprised if at least some of your accusations are correct, but I really cannot comment.

[Belinda]

Calvinism i.e. predestination is tangential to determinism and is not the same as determinism. (Fatalism is another tangent to determinism).

No, the three are hooked up.

Calvinism is merely Determinism by Divine Fiat; and its implications are every bit as Fatalistic as those of Materialist Determinism, at least for anyone who follows them out to their logical conclusions (which, thank God, almost nobody does).

I understand your point.I think you are right. However there is no need to presume Free Will instead is there?