Free Will vs Determinism

[Belinda]

All right, Immanuel, fair enough ,I'll do the test according to your prescription.

I did the test accordingly. After initially being stuck at the young woman percept I easily saw the old hag. It was only a minute or so before I could see both percepts at will. I had the feeling that my will was free of coercion from anyone or any thing.

I agree that most of us have the feeling that our wills are free of coercion from anyone or any thing.

I don't agree that this feeling is sufficient evidence or even any evidence at all that what we tend to think of 'our wills' originate our choices. I put startle marks around 'our wills' because there are no such things as our wills. We feel desire, need, hope, fear, a simple percept, and so on to the extent that we act upon our feelings whatever they may be, but there is no final arbiter within our heads or guts or wherever that instructs us what to do.

[Walker]

This implies that dogs have free will.

Dogs Will Lie to Get What They Want, New Study Says
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/ ... study-says

Only if you believe that dogs can decide what they want, the dog I'm keeping is always hungry and would ask for food more times than she should have. If it were up to her she would be very fat by now, and I would get scolded by my daughter. Dogs don't lie, the concept is beyond their comprehension.

This appears to be a scientific study, and not a belief study.

Does not the use of tactical deception indicate free will?

From the abstract:
“These results show that dogs distinguished between the cooperative and the competitive partner, and indicate the flexibility of dogs to adjust their behaviour and that they are able to use tactical deception.”
https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 017-1078-6

[Immanuel Can]

All right, Immanuel, fair enough ,I'll do the test according to your prescription.

I did the test accordingly. After initially being stuck at the young woman percept I easily saw the old hag. It was only a minute or so before I could see both percepts at will. I had the feeling that my will was free of coercion from anyone or any thing.

I agree that most of us have the feeling that our wills are free of coercion from anyone or any thing.

Good on you for doing the test, and for being so frank about your findings.

I don't agree that this feeling is sufficient evidence or even any evidence at all that what we tend to think of 'our wills' originate our choices.

I was suggesting that it was not "sufficient evidence," and that yes, it is still possible to insist that Determinism is true. But I think that enough snowflakes add up to an avalanche; and we have an avalanche of intuitions, experiences and observable behaviours that imply that free will is real. This is just one, but there are plenty of other manifestations of what clearly appears to be free will, whether it is or isn't.

And at some point, I think we need to explain the avalanche.

[Dave Mangnall]

We drones are stuck with our odd sense of humour.

Fair enough.

By the way, I've googled Nagel's Mind and Cosmos. I'm unwilling to shell out the fifteen quid for it, especially as one review I read called the book "frustrating and unconvincing".

You'll find his pals in the Atheist side of things are very unhappy with him. There problem with him is that he criticizes materialism and *gasp* Darwinism for their inadequacies in accounting for important parts of the world and human experience -- such as free will and human consciousness, among others.

Now, to be perfectly fair to Nagel, he's no kind of Theist. Nor does he appear, at this moment, to be interested in entertaining becoming one. His argument is basically, "C'mon, Atheists: we've got to do better than we're doing."

He is quite explicit in his two closing chapters in saying that he is NOT campaigning for Theism, but rather he sees the secular scientific and philosophical worlds has having got stuck down a sort of cut-de-sac of Materialism and Neo-Darwinian Gradualism, and he wants them to find a better paradigm with which to frame science, one that does not conceptually hack off things like perception, identity, consciousness and will, and then has to pretend they don't exist, but rather one capable of embracing these things -- the reality of which, he argues, is really beyond reasonable dispute. (You'll have to read him if you want all his reasons; I can't possibly do all that for you in this space.)

In the end, he explicitly says that he looks for remedy in Atheism, not in Theism. While admitting that Atheism is not there yet, he hopes it will come up with something better than the horse it's been backing so far; because in his view, the cost of a bad paradigm in terms of bad science is just too high to pay.

Now, that's a reasonable argument from a committedly secular perspective. But if you read the subsequent reviews -- particularly those just after the initial release of his book -- he's been pilloried in the press by his Atheist friends, simply for suggesting they've been playing without a full deck thus far. Most of the annoyance seems to come not just from the fact that he's indirectly, as a side effect, opened the door to Theism again, but that he has the temerity to say that any paradigm Atheism's been backing as hard as it can is less than ideal, and even worse, he hasn't replaced it already with something better. I suspect that's what they find most "frustrating."

They've pretty much shut down his (formerly rather promising) career. And near as I can see, the only reason is spite. His peers just don't like what he's saying. But I have to feel a little sympathy for him, even though he's not of my camp; because as nearly as I can tell, he's committed no "sins" against Atheism, he's just raised some questions they really ought to have been asking themselves years ago but were too busy desperately trying to fend of Theism to realize it.

I think he deserves a read. I wonder if you have such a thing as a "library" in your area...

Hi, Immanuel.
Thank you for taking the time to give me such a substantial commentary on Nagel’s book. I have to say, though, that the sarcasm in your finishing sentence ill becomes you! Yes, there are libraries nearby and I know how to use them! The problem, with the debate here progressing at such a frenetic pace, would be the time taken to access a reserved book. However, one day.....
That said, you seem to be indicating that the book is mainly about theism and atheism rather than free will. You’ll recall that I was seeking a coherent account of free will. (Yes, I know you gave me other references and I will check them out.) Reading your words about Nagel, the only reference to Free Will is to say that Nagel asserted that materialism and Darwinism didn’t account for it. This sounds as though Nagel is taking free will for granted, at least in this book. Please tell me if I’m wrong.
Meanwhile, I’ll tackle his essay on freedom extracted from “The View From Nowhere”.

[Dave Mangnall]

Dave,

I think most of us free will-types understand cause and effect, and implications of cause and effect, as well as any one. We see the practical examples of c & e all around us, all the time.

Speaking for me only: as I've said before, while recognizing c & e, I can't deny my own real, on-going experience as a self-director, so: some aspect of cause and effect must be false, or, some aspect of 'selfness/I-ness' renders that self/I (partially) exempt from c & e.

Mebbe selfness and self-direction is a kind of nondeterministic algorithm (an on-going computational event [or error]).

*shrug*

Whatever it is, it's real...as real as I am, as you are.

So, again, the question is: How can you so easily deny your own experience of self-direction in favor of a formula which has no room in it for 'you', for self-direction?

Hi, Henry.
It’s not a matter of denying one’s experience so much as the way the experience is interpreted. Regarding self-direction, it sounds as though for you, as a believer in free will, self-direction is a function of the consciousness. For me, self-direction flows from the subconscious into the consciousness. So whereas in your model you are consciously deciding what you do, within my model I find out what it is I’m about to find myself doing. And that’s how it feels to me, as though I were reading a script.
My belief in determinism stems from an epiphany I had forty years ago when I’d been agonising about a decision I had to make in my personal life. Suddenly, one evening when I was out running and actually thinking about something else, I knew, beyond further doubt or hesitation, what it was I was going to do. I thought afterwards, “Where did that decision come from? I didn’t make it!”

[Immanuel Can]

Thank you for taking the time to give me such a substantial commentary on Nagel’s book. I have to say, though, that the sarcasm in your finishing sentence ill becomes you! Yes, there are libraries nearby and I know how to use them! The problem, with the debate here progressing at such a frenetic pace, would be the time taken to access a reserved book. However, one day.....

No unkindness intended, Dave. I just think the book is worth a look, and I was hoping to remind you gently of an alternative. If I came across as sarcastic, then culpa mea.

That said, you seem to be indicating that the book is mainly about theism and atheism rather than free will.

No, not at all. Nagel actually barely mentions Theism, and then only in a later chapter, to explain that he isn't a Theist. It's really a book about how secularism has put itself down a cut-de-sac by backing certain ideologies that have not played out well, and areas where they have not played out well are things like identity, perception and free will. That's all.

This sounds as though Nagel is taking free will for granted, at least in this book. Please tell me if I’m wrong.

Yes, you are; but just in this case. He's really more concerned about saving his own cause, not rebuking mine. If he were tackling Theism, he'd need a much longer book.

[henry quirk]

Then, Dave, we're stymied, stalemated, and stuck (in the place where the whole debate, no matter the forum, no matter the participants, has been for god knows how long).

[Immanuel Can]

Then, Dave, we're stymied, stalemated, and stuck (in the place where the whole debate, no matter the forum, no matter the participants, has been for god knows how long).

Oh, I don't know, Henry. At least Dave's "subconscious" explanation isn't mere Materialism. After all, the subconscious is still part of that phenomenon we call "consciousness," the one Nagel's so concerned about. I think maybe Dave's a little more open than the Materialists to hearing that people can be "causes" in their own right. Conscious or subconscious, the locale of the volition is still in the person there.

But I agree with you that it can't be all subconscious either. Some explanation for what our consciousness contributes seems necessary.

[Harbal]

Oh, I don't know,

No problem, just carry on pretending you do.

[henry quirk]

Mannie,

Dave is as stubborn as you or me, and, like you and me, he ain't budging.

We're all mules pullin' in opposite directions.

Me: not the first time sweatin' in this particular harness, so I'm pretty damn sure I'm not gonna see any more of a profit from this particular contest than I did from all the past versions (which is to say: I got, and am gonna get, zilch, nada, nuthin', zero for my trouble).

[Harbal]

If I came across as sarcastic, then culpa mea.

While you're at it, a few culpa meas for being a patronising twat wouldn't come amiss.

[Immanuel Can]

Mannie,

Dave is as stubborn as you or me, and, like you and me, he ain't budging.

We're all mules pullin' in opposite directions.

Me: not the first time sweatin' in this particular harness, so I'm pretty damn sure I'm not gonna see any more of a profit from this particular contest than I did from all the past versions (which is to say: I got, and am gonna get, zilch, nada, nuthin', zero for my trouble).

Fair enough, Henry. And yet still you are here...

[thedoc]

If I came across as sarcastic, then culpa mea.

While you're at it, a few culpa meas for being a patronising twat wouldn't come amiss.

And what are you going to apologize for?

[thedoc]

Mannie,

Dave is as stubborn as you or me, and, like you and me, he ain't budging.

We're all mules pullin' in opposite directions.

Me: not the first time sweatin' in this particular harness, so I'm pretty damn sure I'm not gonna see any more of a profit from this particular contest than I did from all the past versions (which is to say: I got, and am gonna get, zilch, nada, nuthin', zero for my trouble).

Fair enough, Henry. And yet still you are here...

Isn't it somewhat common for rubberneckers to slow down and look at a train wreck or an auto accident?

[henry quirk]

Meh.

I can't win...don't mean I gotta lie down.

#

Doc,

HAHAHAHAHA!