Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:32 pm 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?

Yeah, I'm pretty sure about that.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:35 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:27 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:22 pm 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?

I don't think it's a "presumption." I think it's the automatic base assumption. The burden of proof is entirely on the Determinists, because no human being in history has ever been able to live consistently as if Determinism were so. And today's Determinists are no different: they speak as if Determinism could be true, but act like it is not.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:46 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:35 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:27 pm
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?

I don't think it's a "presumption." I think it's the automatic base assumption. The burden of proof is entirely on the Determinists, because no human being in history has ever been able to live consistently as if Determinism were so. And today's Determinists are no different: they speak as if Determinism could be true, but act like it is not.

Your objection to determinism is valid. However you have never made a sound case for the doctrine of Free Will 's persisting into modern times when we have such a great respect for causes of events.
Do you not see that you and your version of Xianity comes across as punitive?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:23 pm

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...

An incoherent concept, not an impossibility. The incoherence is that what is doing the choosing cannot also be what is being chosen. So what do you imagine it is that forms the will, whose freedom in doing so is hindered? If it is a “secondary will”, or some such, then the same question arises: is there a lack of freedom of formation of this secondary will, or in the implementation of it by forming the primary will? This is evidently a potentially infinite regress, until we come to a will that “forms” rather than “being formed”. If a will just forms, with no other kind of agency involved, there is nothing whose freedom is in question, except the freedom of implementation of that will. (The same applies if the will at one instant could be formed by the will at an earlier instant).

There is a sense in which the will can be said to be "self-forming", in the sense that structures in the material world, from soap bubbles to hurricanes, can be said to be self-forming, but this is not and cannot be a matter of "choice", just because a choice cannot exist before it is chosen. (In fact, my best picture of the neural correlate of an original thought is that it is a self-forming structure in the network of neural relationships that model concepts.) In short, the concept of freedom of formation of the will is incoherent, irrespective of any assumptions about determinism. The will, in the basic model (without secondary wills etc.), is something that forms, however it forms, and is or is not free to be implemented.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:22 pm
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.

If Calvinism entails that the entire material world as well as living beings has a predestiny at every moment, then it is clearly an example of non-materialist determinism, even if it is other things as well. That's what I was assuming. (Fatalism is tangential, I agree, it assumes that different routes lead to the same (pre)destination.) The point of the exercise is to consider how determinism of the entire world would affect free will under dualism.

When you call free will "silly", are you referring to the doctrine that we are granted special exemption from the laws of physics? What about the free will compatibilism of excellent writers like Hilary Bok, which entails that no special exemption could give us more free will than we actually have? The standard response is that this is "changing the meaning" of free will, but I have been arguing (see my last post to IC above, for example) that in fact there is no other coherent meaning, and the incompatibilist fallacy (as I call it) arises from an illegitimate attempt to describe the mind from inside and outside in the same breath. Volition cannot coherently appear in the objectuive view, but cannot be coherently omitted from the subjective view. (This is not a trivial argument - I came to it over some years of evolution).

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:53 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:46 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:35 pm
I understand your point.I think you are right. However there is no need to presume Free Will instead is there?

I don't think it's a "presumption." I think it's the automatic base assumption. The burden of proof is entirely on the Determinists, because no human being in history has ever been able to live consistently as if Determinism were so. And today's Determinists are no different: they speak as if Determinism could be true, but act like it is not.

Your objection to determinism is valid. However you have never made a sound case for the doctrine of Free Will 's persisting into modern times when we have such a great respect for causes of events.

That doesn't make sense as an objection, B. If Determinism were true, it would have been true in premodern times as well as now; and the same is true of free will. Neither depends on us knowing about it: whatever was, always was, in that regard.

But "burden of proof" means that the case needs to be made FOR Determinism, and unless it is, free will has to be the assumption. And while I think a very strong case can, in fact, be made, I feel no need to make it, so long as the Determinist case is so clearly unmade.

RogerSH wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 2:47 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:23 pm

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...

An incoherent concept, not an impossibility.

Well, an "incoherent concept" implies "impossibility." If an idea cannot even be made "coherent," it can't possibly be true.

The incoherence is that what is doing the choosing cannot also be what is being chosen.

Nobody would suggest that. In fact, I can't even understand what you would be alluding to. Nobody says that people "choose themselves." Rather, they say that the "self chooses its actions." So it's not at all circular, not incoherent at all, and not even unlikely to be right.

So what do you imagine it is that forms the will, whose freedom in doing so is hindered?

Like I say, the self chooses its actions among the various possibilities available to it. That's a very simple answer, and one that fits perfectly with the experience of everybody.

I think your persistent difficulty is understanding the word "free," in this context. "Free" never implies "without inducements or limitations of any kind." In fact, all free decisions are taken within a field of options available to one, and the range of those is constrained by circumstance. But the choice among those alternatives is not forced by mere prior causes. One could, plausibly, choose from among ten or a thousand possible options available to one; and the choice doesn't become "unfree" if there are also a thousand other options that are simply not available.

I am free to choose how I get to the store. I can choose to walk, to bike or to drive. The fact that I cannot fly there by flapping my arms, or teleport there by magic does not imply that my choice will be less "free". It just means that range of choice is always circumscribed by circumstances.

...If a will just forms, with no other kind of agency involved...

I have never met a single person who thinks this: it's not even a postulate worth refuting. Nobody's advancing it. Will is always within a range, and yet is free within that range.

If Determinism were true, I could not walk or bike to the store. I would have been fated to drive, and there would have been no range of choice at all.

...a choice cannot exist before it is chosen....

Choices don't "choose." Selves "choose."

Your usage here is most perplexing, Roger. It seems so manifestly wrong, so obviously not the hypothesis advanced by proponents of free will, that I can't quite imagine what you're trying to refute.

You seem to think we have some idea we've never had...something there needs to be cleared up.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 3:23 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:53 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:46 pm
I don't think it's a "presumption." I think it's the automatic base assumption. The burden of proof is entirely on the Determinists, because no human being in history has ever been able to live consistently as if Determinism were so. And today's Determinists are no different: they speak as if Determinism could be true, but act like it is not.

Your objection to determinism is valid. However you have never made a sound case for the doctrine of Free Will 's persisting into modern times when we have such a great respect for causes of events.

That doesn't make sense as an objection, B. If Determinism were true, it would have been true in premodern times as well as now; and the same is true of free will. Neither depends on us knowing about it: whatever was, always was, in that regard.

But "burden of proof" means that the case needs to be made FOR Determinism, and unless it is, free will has to be the assumption. And while I think a very strong case can, in fact, be made, I feel no need to make it, so long as the Determinist case is so clearly unmade.

Do you not understand that Free Will is a religious doctrine? In premodern Europe 'everybody' was a believer in the religious doctrines as taught by the priesthood.
If you want to believe that Free Will can originate in all human beings without exception that is your choice.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 4:50 pm Do you not understand that Free Will is a religious doctrine?

Not even remotely true, except to say that some religions support free will.

But Libertarians and Randians are not religious, and they believe in free will. Classical Liberals are not necessarily religious, but they definitely assume free will.

Heck, you, getting out of your bed in the morning, are presuming free will...even if you don't know you are.

Are you doing it for religious reasons?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 4:57 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 4:50 pm Do you not understand that Free Will is a religious doctrine?

Not even remotely true, except to say that some religions support free will.

But Libertarians and Randians are not religious, and they believe in free will. Classical Liberals are not necessarily religious, but they definitely assume free will.

Heck, you, getting out of your bed in the morning, are presuming free will...even if you don't know you are.

Are you doing it for religious reasons?

Heck, you, getting out of your bed in the morning, are presuming free will...even if you don't know you are.

shows that you do not know that the meaning of Free Will I am addressing is that of some supernatural origin in the individual. I am slightly disappointed that you seem to be unaware that God is supposed to have allocated this supernatural ability to men alone of all creation.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 5:42 pm the meaning of Free Will I am addressing is that of some supernatural origin in the individual. I am slightly disappointed that you seem to be unaware that God is supposed to have allocated this supernatural ability to men alone of all creation.

Oh I know that. But I don't expect you to assume it, if you don't believe there's a God who gave it.

For you, I'm sure it would just look like some very hard-to-explain phenomenon of material reality...so you would, of course, prefer to think it didn't exist at all, rather than having to account for it. It would seem "easier" to believe in Determinism, then, even if the choice needed to "believe" was made impossible thereby.

It's just more comforting not to have to notice features like consciousness. They do make one think of the Creator.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 2:31 am https://mindmatters.ai/2021/08/epilepsy ... m-is-dead/

That's fascinating.

I'm going to order that book. That's a must-read.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 8:26 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 5:42 pm the meaning of Free Will I am addressing is that of some supernatural origin in the individual. I am slightly disappointed that you seem to be unaware that God is supposed to have allocated this supernatural ability to men alone of all creation.

Oh I know that. But I don't expect you to assume it, if you don't believe there's a God who gave it.

For you, I'm sure it would just look like some very hard-to-explain phenomenon of material reality...so you would, of course, prefer to think it didn't exist at all, rather than having to account for it. It would seem "easier" to believe in Determinism, then, even if the choice needed to "believe" was made impossible thereby.

It's just more comforting not to have to notice features like consciousness. They do make one think of the Creator.

The myth of God Who intervenes in nature and history to benefit or punish human beings is a myth that is historically important, pervasive, and persistent. Within the myth's narrative the advent of Free Will for men makes sense and holds the narrative together.

You go on about The Bible as partly history. The myth of an intervening God was good for social control then and it remains so today. But its days are numbered now that there are more and more of what you call atheists.

Belinda wrote: ↑Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:43 am ...the myth's narrative the advent of Free Will for men makes sense and holds the narrative together...

Well, whether it's a "myth" or not has no dependence whatsoever on what sociological/narrative function it might perform. In fact, we might well question if anything that's just not true can have a salutary function in reality, ultimately. In the short term, maybe; but it looks maladaptive in the long run.

So the truth or falsehood of free will is not established by pointing out any "mythic" function. Both true things and false things can have "mythic" or narrative roles in society. For example, unicorns have a mythic role in history...but who cares? But so does Waterloo, and that really happened.

...its days are numbered now that there are more and more of what you call atheists.

Heh.

Only somebody who didn't travel outside of a small circle and didn't know any of the sociological data on this could imagine this was true. In point of fact, the narrative for which you have such contempt is actually rapidly expanding today, most dramatically in the Developing World and China. It's only smug Westerners who don't know that it's Atheism that is, in fact, contracting.

See P. Berger, "The Desecularization of The World." You're operating on an old sociological trope, called "The Secularization Hypothesis." It's been dead now statistically for at least three decades.