An Argument About Free Will

[MGL]

This will be determined by your previous experience with that person. It is never arbitary

A lot of responses, but I get the impression they all derive from the claim that a purely random event - and therefore a purely arbitrary action is impossible. I would agree with you that if this were the case, then free will - in the libertarian sense - is impossible. But what is it that convinces you that this is so? Why are all causes deterministic? Interpretations of quantum physics allow true randomness. Is there a good reason to doubt this?

[MGL]

Why is not random chance the same as free will?

If your supposedly free will is determined by forces beyond your control, then how can it actually be free will? Random chance is as much beyond your control as predestination.

If I AM the force that is acting randomly, there is nothing beyond me controlling my random action.

[MGL]

Surely an ability to imagine alternative actions presupposes a belief in real physical alternatives? I can’t really comprehend how imagining alternative actions could be done without such a belief.

Of course there is belief. But belief exists in the realm of imagination, just like the notion of free will, not in physical reality.

If there is nothing in physical reality which corresponds to belief, what is going on when I go outside with an umbrella when it is raining? If I do not in fact believe it is raining, but just imagine I believe it, what physical process explains my umbrella carrying behaviour which does not correspond to my imagined concept of belief?

[MGL]

The belief in real physical possibilities - or at least a belief in their possibility- must come first. But if reality is not like that, where does this belief come from? Is seems like such a basic concept - like time and space - without which it would be impossible to think at all.

It is a basic concept, and it is created by our conscious imagination as an interpretation of our experiences. Our experiences do not necessarily correspond directly to anything in physical reality.

How is it created in our imagination? If creativity cannot be genuinely spontaneus, then the concept has to be created by some deterministic process that should in principle be explainable.

It seems more like a basic concept that we use to interpret our experiences, rather than one which arises as an interpretation of our experience.

I agree that our experiences do not necessarily correspond directly to anything in physical reality. But if we lacked the concepts of space and time I can't see how we would imagine a reality at all. And if these concepts did not correspond to some fundamental nature of reality we would have no hope of surviving in it. I suspect that the concept of real physical possibilities is of a similar nature. More important, I do not see any reason to doubt that this concept\belief corresponds to to a feature of reality.

[Notvacka]

If I AM the force that is acting randomly, there is nothing beyond me controlling my random action.

Identity is a very hard concept to come to grips with. You are of course a lot of things. "Force" is a much abused word that becomes rather vague when used outside physics or warfare. And acting randomly in a credible way is much harder than you might think. What does "nothing beyond me" even mean? Nothing beyond your physical body? Nothing beyond your subjectively experienced self? Where do you find that "force" and what is it?

If there is nothing in physical reality which corresponds to belief, what is going on when I go outside with an umbrella when it is raining? If I do not in fact believe it is raining, but just imagine I believe it, what physical process explains my umbrella carrying behaviour which does not correspond to my imagined concept of belief?

What difference could there possibly be between belief and "imagined" belief? Your beliefs exist in your imagination and nowhere else. They might or might not correspond to stuff in physical reality.

It seems more like a basic concept that we use to interpret our experiences, rather than one which arises as an interpretation of our experience.

I agree that our experiences do not necessarily correspond directly to anything in physical reality. But if we lacked the concepts of space and time I can't see how we would imagine a reality at all. And if these concepts did not correspond to some fundamental nature of reality we would have no hope of surviving in it. I suspect that the concept of real physical possibilities is of a similar nature. More important, I do not see any reason to doubt that this concept\belief corresponds to to a feature of reality.

All our concepts arise as interpretations of our experiences or are derived from such concepts. Where else could they come from? That does not mean that there is always a direct correspondence between concept and physical reality.

[chaz wyman]

This will be determined by your previous experience with that person. It is never arbitary

A lot of responses, but I get the impression they all derive from the claim that a purely random event - and therefore a purely arbitrary action is impossible. I would agree with you that if this were the case, then free will - in the libertarian sense - is impossible. But what is it that convinces you that this is so? Why are all causes deterministic? Interpretations of quantum physics allow true randomness. Is there a good reason to doubt this?

QM phenomena do not promote the concept of free-will in any sense.
QM might allow true randomness, but until QM is understood no one knows what it means.
QM events do not occur in everyday circumstances. My keyboard is still just one keyboard, and I fully expect it will ignore QM uncertainty and not spontaneously generate a bowl of petunias by the morning.
Billiard balls pretty much act the way they are expected to, and people pretty much follow their experience.

[MGL]

QM events do not occur in everyday circumstances. My keyboard is still just one keyboard, and I fully expect it will ignore QM uncertainty and not spontaneously generate a bowl of petunias by the morning.
Billiard balls pretty much act the way they are expected to, and people pretty much follow their experience.

How do you know that QM events do not occur in some everyday circumstances?

Assuming that QM might imply randomness , if we have the technology to measure the sub-atomic random consequences of quantum events, then we have the technology of magnifying these consequences. We can effectively construct quantum dice to determine macroscopic events - including our own actions. If we can do this artificially, why could nature not do the same? We are not talking about QM generating macroscopic phenonema from nothing like your petunias example, but generating random events within a range of options constrained by the deterministic features of reality.

[MGL]

If I AM the force that is acting randomly, there is nothing beyond me controlling my random action.

Identity is a very hard concept to come to grips with. You are of course a lot of things. "Force" is a much abused word that becomes rather vague when used outside physics or warfare. And acting randomly in a credible way is much harder than you might think. What does "nothing beyond me" even mean? Nothing beyond your physical body? Nothing beyond your subjectively experienced self? Where do you find that "force" and what is it?

I am identifying myself with some physical phenonema - something I expect to be explainable by physics. If that physical phenonema has purely random states, then these are not being determined by any other physical phenonema.

I would agree with you that consciously TRYING to act randomly in a credible way is not easy, especially as we have no way of knowing wheter our choice was purely random or not. All I am saying is that when we do act in a spontaneous manner, when for instance we are thinking creatively, I see no good reason to suppose that we are not tapping into truly random resources.

[Notvacka]

I am identifying myself with some physical phenonema - something I expect to be explainable by physics.

Whatever those physical phenomena are, they are not your conscious self. They are not you. Note that your body is not you either. Your body stretches through four-dimensional space-time from the point of birth to the point of death. What you experience is just a temporal slice of that physical reality. QM suggests that this physical body could possibly be split into multiple variations existing in countless other realities. As far as our reality is concerned, those "realities" only exist in our imagination and are completely inaccessible to us. What your conscious self experience is no more than a temporal slice of physical reality anyway.

If that physical phenonema has purely random states, then these are not being determined by any other physical phenonema.

Correct. But neither are they determined by you or imply that your conscious self have free will in any meaningful sense.

Assuming that QM might imply randomness , if we have the technology to measure the sub-atomic random consequences of quantum events, then we have the technology of magnifying these consequences. We can effectively construct quantum dice to determine macroscopic events - including our own actions. If we can do this artificially, why could nature not do the same? We are not talking about QM generating macroscopic phenonema from nothing like your petunias example, but generating random events within a range of options constrained by the deterministic features of reality.

Even so, those random events are not you. Your conscious self is not in control of sub atomic occurences in your physical brain.

[Ron de Weijze]

Cannot randomness be our objective? I think it is essential in finding Truth or what feels like it. Only randomness guarantees that confirmation is truly independent between people or between our basic capacities of sensing and knowing.

[chaz wyman]

QM events do not occur in everyday circumstances. My keyboard is still just one keyboard, and I fully expect it will ignore QM uncertainty and not spontaneously generate a bowl of petunias by the morning.
Billiard balls pretty much act the way they are expected to, and people pretty much follow their experience.

How do you know that QM events do not occur in some everyday circumstances?

Like what?

Assuming that QM might imply randomness , if we have the technology to measure the sub-atomic random consequences of quantum events, then we have the technology of magnifying these consequences. We can effectively construct quantum dice to determine macroscopic events - including our own actions. If we can do this artificially, why could nature not do the same? We are not talking about QM generating macroscopic phenonema from nothing like your petunias example, but generating random events within a range of options constrained by the deterministic features of reality.

[lancek4]

I also am inclined to the view that our experience of 'choosing' is something that happens to us as a result of a decision-making 'event'. But if that is true, does it imply that this present discussion is itself only the working-out of the relations already pre-existing in the Universe? could be.

and to be logically consistent with this view (that our power to choose is fundamentally illusory) really ought we to stop trying to persuade each other of anything?
or perhaps that the method by which we attempt to pursuade is suspect

Or indeed does it not imply that we can't follow this thought to it's logical conclusion, and stop debating.I would suggest that to communicate in discourse, and argument, is inherent in being human

Or that if some of us do, that in itself will be only the working-out of all the pre-existing relations and conditions. . . .maybe the relations and conditions are likewise faulty because of the route by which we come upon reality
Is surrender to the Universe, (Allah, Krishna or whatever you want to call it) the only logical way forward? Must those of us incapable of such surrender start to pretend that we are choosing to argue for our political principles in order that we may still suppose that some of our discussions might make a difference?
such conclusions may also be conditioned by the particular route of knowing.

MGD is offering us a veiw of our present condition. By describing how past conditions may contribute to our present way of knowing, she suggests that there is a different way of knowing, that our present way may not be a 'true' way, but only a particular way.
But we have to be careful in taking that argument and reifying the present route by attempting to discuss the difference between the actual present we have right now, and the possibility that it could be different. This is not the argument.

[lancek4]

How can we have an illusion of an illusion? How can we have an imagined illusion? How can we be imagining things within an illusion? What are we talking about? How is it that we can talk about what might be real as to our imagination and not our imagination, in that we are in an illusion? Is our imagination 'real'? is the 'content' of the imagined thing 'real? How about the imagined real thing that is the illusion?
How dow we discern what is imagined in the illusion from what is not imagined, and then how do we establish the illusion and being 'an illusion'?

[Thundril]

How can we have an illusion of an illusion? How can we have an imagined illusion? How can we be imagining things within an illusion? What are we talking about? How is it that we can talk about what might be real as to our imagination and not our imagination, in that we are in an illusion? Is our imagination 'real'? is the 'content' of the imagined thing 'real? How about the imagined real thing that is the illusion?
How dow we discern what is imagined in the illusion from what is not imagined, and then how do we establish the illusion and being 'an illusion'?

These are the good questions, IMHO.
The one thing of which I can be absolutely certain is that error is possible.
But this implies (I think) that something has to be 'right' before it is possible for me to be 'wrong' about it.

[MGL]

I am identifying myself with some physical phenonema - something I expect to be explainable by physics.

What your conscious self experience is no more than a temporal slice of physical reality anyway.

What is the difference between a temporal slice of physical reality and physical phenomema? I would have thought by referring to some physical penonema I am referring to a temporal slice of reality.