Philosophy Now Forum

One can indeed poke holes. For example we arguably aren't just our conscious minds but also our unconscious minds. Our minds are made of parts. Maybe some parts of our minds can initiate free will decisions before other parts of our minds realize this.

Or the objection that the passage of time could be an everyday illusion. Do I make a decision because the past determines it? Or does the past get determined by the decision I make in the present? And so on. I certainly don't believe in the passage of time.

In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet, a physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, wired up the brains of volunteers to an electroencephalogram and told the volunteers to make random motions, like pressing a button or flicking a finger, while he noted the time on a clock.

Dr. Libet found that brain signals associated with these actions occurred half a second before the subject was conscious of deciding to make them.

The order of brain activities seemed to be perception of motion, and then decision, rather than the other way around.

I think the problem with the Libet experiments is that they assume that decisions and specifically free-will decisions must be made in the conscious mind.

I don't think that's necessarily true. I think the subconscious is making decisions all the time. And nothing in the experiments or other experiments shows that these are not free-will decisions.

IOW, I don't think the Libet experiments show anything very interesting.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Aug 16, 2025 12:34 pm

In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet, a physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, wired up the brains of volunteers to an electroencephalogram and told the volunteers to make random motions, like pressing a button or flicking a finger, while he noted the time on a clock.

Dr. Libet found that brain signals associated with these actions occurred half a second before the subject was conscious of deciding to make them.

The order of brain activities seemed to be perception of motion, and then decision, rather than the other way around.

I think the problem with the Libet experiments is that they assume that decisions and specifically free-will decisions must be made in the conscious mind.

I don't think that's necessarily true. I think the subconscious is making decisions all the time. And nothing in the experiments or other experiments shows that these are not free-will decisions.

IOW, I don't think the Libet experiments show anything very interesting.

I think they show something interesting! But not necessarily something as conclusive as some people make out.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sat Aug 16, 2025 5:06 am Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t
By Dennis Overbye at the New York Times

In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet, a physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, wired up the brains of volunteers to an electroencephalogram and told the volunteers to make random motions, like pressing a button or flicking a finger, while he noted the time on a clock.

Dr. Libet found that brain signals associated with these actions occurred half a second before the subject was conscious of deciding to make them.

The order of brain activities seemed to be perception of motion, and then decision, rather than the other way around.

I'm sure no doubt there are any number of folks [scientists, philosophers or otherwise] who can poke holes in this assessment by noting any number of particular variables that [they insist] are subject to being challenged: https://www.google.com/search?q=benjami ... s-wiz-serp

Otherwise, if there was absolutely no doubt that he was correct in regard to how the brain functions here, there would be little or no controversy left at all. Free will? Forget about it?

In short, the conscious brain was only playing catch-up to what the unconscious brain was already doing. The decision to act was an illusion, the monkey making up a story about what the tiger had already done.

Of course, there is a rather significant gap between monkey brains and tiger brains. Though nowhere near as large perhaps as the gap between monkey brains and human brains. With monkeys and tigers and all other living creatures, behaviors revolve almost entirely around instinct. No debates among them regarding free will, right?

With human brains on the other hand, the fact is scientists have been grappling to understand both its capacities and its limitations for decades now. And it is simply the case that they are not yet able to establish one way or the other whether human beings do in fact have free will.

Or, perhaps, someone here can link us all to that definitive assessment. Other than in a world of words.

Facepalm

First paragraph of his thoughts here says nothing. Later, "Of course, there is a rather significant gap between monkey brains and tiger brains", just doesn't engage at all with what was written.

Once again quoting text and then just refusing to even think about it

I think they show something interesting! But not necessarily something as conclusive as some people make out.

What's the interesting part?

Determinism

“Libet’s EEG experiments suggest that we might not have free will. If the results of the experiment are to be believed, then what is the point? What is the fun if everything is determined? Wouldn't the Almighty get bored with us? We are more than our thoughts. And we are certainly way more than our actions. But how and why?” Abhaidev

This part:

All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

Then those here who actually believe that what they believe about all of this reflects, what, the ontological truth about the human condition itself?

Then those who are compelled in turn to insist on a teleological component as well. Usually in the form of one or another God.

Meanwhile, philosophers and scientists and theologians have been grappling with this profound mystery now for thousands of years.

“Know, then, that now, precisely now, these people are more certain than ever before that they are completely free, and at the same time they themselves have brought us their freedom and obediently laid it at our feet. It is our doing, but is it what you wanted? This sort of freedom?'
Again I don't understand', Alyosha interrupted, 'Is he being ironic? Is he laughing?'
Not in the least. He precisely lays it to his and his colleagues' credit that they have finally overcome freedom, and have done so in order to make people happy.” Fyodor Dostoevsky

This part: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=escape+from+ ... f0mv_b_p67  

“Many scientists have tried to make determinism and complementarity the basis of conclusions that seem to me weak and dangerous; for instance, they have used Heisenberg's uncertainty principle to bolster up human free will, though his principle, which applies exclusively to the behavior of electrons and is the direct result of microphysical measurement techniques, has nothing to do with human freedom of choice. It is far safer and wiser that the physicist remain on the solid ground of theoretical physics itself and eschew the shifting sands of philosophic extrapolations.” Louis de Broglie

See, I told you. Though, of course, not just theoretically.

“No, free will is not an 'extra'; it is part and parcel of the very essence of consciousness. A conscious being without free will is simply a metaphysical absurdity.” Raymond Smullyan

Click.

“Is not an event in fact more significant and noteworthy the greater the number of fortuities necessary to bring it about? Everything that occurs out of necessity, everything expected, repeated day in and day out, is mute. Only chance can speak to us.” Milan Kundera

If only the right translation, of course.

“You cannot decide all the sensory stimuli in your environment, your hormone levels this morning, whether something traumatic happened to you in the past, the socioeconomic status of your parents, your fetal environment, your genes, whether your ancestors were farmers or herders. Let me state this most broadly, probably at this point too broadly for most readers: we are nothing more or less than the cumulative biological and environmental luck, over which we had no control, that has brought us to any moment.” Robert M. Sapolsky

Surely, that doesn't include the moments we spend here virtually.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pm You write two different sets of events for determinism and free-will and that's it. You do no reasoning, no exploring, no analysis.

Allow me [once again] to offer others the manner in which I translate this:

"When I attempt to reason and explore and analyze determinism, free will and compatibilism, I come to completely different conclusions. Therefore you clearly do none of them correctly. Otherwise you'd be here thinking about them exactly as I do."

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmYou don't show any of your reasoning so how can anyone judge it to be correct or incorrect?

Again [click]: my reasoning is not the same as your own here. And only when it gets considerably closer to it, I suspect, will it be deemed reasoning at all. 

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmLet's say that Mary's friend tries to talk Mary out of the abortion in a free-will world but not in the determined world. Why did that happen? What motivated her to act in that way in a free-will world but not in a determined world? What are her reasons and why does she not have those reasons in the determined world?

Of course, this is the part where I suggest that, given free will, human motivation revolves largely around dasein out in the is/ought world. So, even in accepting some measure of autonomy, there does not appear [to me] to be a font able to provide us with objective morality given a No God world.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmIt would revolve around dasein in both a free-will and a determined world. So that is not a fundamental difference.

Again: tell that to Jane. Her very existence depends on the assumption [yes, my own] that only in a world where Mom was in fact able to choose to either abort or not abort her, is that even possible. 

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmWho said anything about "objective morality"? Not me.

Well, if everything we think, feel, intuit, say and do is wholly determined, how would morality be any different? 

If, in going all the way back to the explanation for existence itself, the universe -- all of it -- unfolded only as it ever could have then the entirety of reality itself is objective. 

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmWhen I ask free-willers, I generally get no reasons. It just happens that way.

What, they tell you that they believe in free will? Okay, next time ask some them to provide you with all the evidence they have accumulated such that in utilizing the scientific method they are able to explain step by step how and why their own brain is able to function autonomously.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmI don't ask them for evidence or for them to utilize the "scientific method".

All I ask is for them to show their reasoning.

How does pursuing the scientific method not include reasoning?

Or let's say that Mary's friend talks to Mary in both the free-will world and the determined world and Mary is convinced in the free-will world but not convinced in the determined world.

    Again why does this happen? Why does Mary change her mind if she has free-will?

Being able to freely change her mind is what brings Jane into the world with all the rest of us.

Thus:

More to the point [at least for some of us], if Mary had no free will and nature autonomically "selected" Jane to be aborted, Jane is then never able to be around for you and those of your ilk here to discuss this with her. It's only in a world where human beings did "somehow" acquire free will that Jane has any chance at all of being among us "here and now".

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmAgain, you can't provide any reasons why she would change her mind in a free-will world but not a determined world.

Again, in a wholly determined universe as some understand it, every single one of her reasons for doing anything at all inherently/necessarily reflects the only possible reality. 

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmDoes your brain want to have other dreams or no dreams at all but something is forcing your brain to dream this stuff?
    Dreaming seems voluntary to me.

So, when you don't want to dream, what do you actually do in order to bring this about? And given your dreams [if you have them] are you in command of them?

How about others here? Anyone else dream only if and when they want to? And only what they see fit to dream?

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmOnce more this sounds like I'm separate from my brain. Like I have one set of wants and my brain has a separate set of wants and we're fighting over who gets to do what.

But isn't it really one set of wants? ... I want what my brain wants.

Okay, how, for all practical purposes, is that different from doing what your brain compels you to do? For example, posting here.

In other words, the logic that you and flannel jesus and flashdangerpants express here on this thread is inherently/necessarily more rational than my own jumbled logic? And this is true because philosophically you believe that it is true of your own free will. That's what makes it true. Either in being compelled to behave as you do given the only possible reality, or in being compelled to explore the science enabling you to actually demonstrate how and why your own assessment of compatibilism is the optimal assessment given the inherent relationship here between words and worlds.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmThen show the flaws in the logical reasoning that FJ, FDP and I are using. Show why your reasoning is correct.

I'm not claiming that my own reasoning here is correct. I'm only suggesting that correct and incorrect reasons will only be pinned down when it is established that we actually do have the capacity to make such distinctions autonomously. 

I can't even demonstrate how and why my own reasoning is autonomous let alone that given free will my own assessment here comes closest to being the correct one.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:19 pmSo, you admit that you are unable to reason and to use logic.

Okay, let's leave it at that.

Note to others:

Is that what I am admitting to here? 

phyllo wrote: ↑Sat Aug 16, 2025 12:34 pm

In the 1970s, Benjamin Libet, a physiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, wired up the brains of volunteers to an electroencephalogram and told the volunteers to make random motions, like pressing a button or flicking a finger, while he noted the time on a clock.

Dr. Libet found that brain signals associated with these actions occurred half a second before the subject was conscious of deciding to make them.

The order of brain activities seemed to be perception of motion, and then decision, rather than the other way around.

I think the problem with the Libet experiments is that they assume that decisions and specifically free-will decisions must be made in the conscious mind.

I don't think that's necessarily true. I think the subconscious is making decisions all the time. And nothing in the experiments or other experiments shows that these are not free-will decisions.

Okay, when your subconscious and/or unconscious mind is in command, how is that not just another manifestation of determinism? For all practical purposes.

As for experiments, what might be the philosophical equivalent of that here? What is crucial, in my view, is that actual experiments are conducted by brain scientists on actual functioning brains.

How do philosophers experiment here?

Can he even understand that Jane lives in a deterministic world, if that is what is determined? Mary can be talked out of abortion in a deterministic world.

I'm only suggesting that correct and incorrect reasons will only be pinned down when it is established that we actually do have the capacity to make such distinctions autonomously.

You're crazy then. Free will doesn't imply omniscience. Determinism doesn't imply that we can't know anything about anything.

I think he's missing something much more basic than we realize, but I just can't get him to spit it out.

I'm only suggesting that correct and incorrect reasons will only be pinned down when it is established that we actually do have the capacity to make such distinctions autonomously.

You're crazy then. Free will doesn't imply omniscience. Determinism doesn't imply that we can't know anything about anything.

I think he's missing something much more basic than we realize, but I just can't get him to spit it out.

I will explain this because Iambiguous is unable to do it.

This is my interpretation and understanding of his position on determinism :

He thinks that everything was set and fixed at the Big Bang. This is what he calls "the only possible reality".

As we move thorough life, we are forced to conform to this reality. It makes us do what we do.

At the Big Bang it was determined that Mary would have an abortion and so nothing can possibly change that. She has to have an abortion. "She can never not had an abortion".

When one looks at the specific case of "correct and incorrect reasons", the evaluation was already set at the BB. IOW, you don't think something is correct because if conforms to some sort of logic, instead you think it's correct because the laws of nature are making you think it's correct. And you would think it's correct even if it's incorrect because you're not doing the thinking/evaluating, the laws of nature are forcing the thoughts/evaluations onto you. It's already done for you.

"Correct and incorrect" lose their meaning because they don't reflect the actual state of reality, they reflect a compelled response. Place two coconuts in front of a person, and some will say there are two coconuts, some say three coconuts, some say none. Who is right and who is wrong when they have no control over what they say?

If we use a 'train' analogy ... the tracks were laid at the BB and you're just going wherever the tracks are. Compelled by the atoms in the tracks.

phyllo wrote: ↑Sun Aug 17, 2025 12:35 pm

I'm only suggesting that correct and incorrect reasons will only be pinned down when it is established that we actually do have the capacity to make such distinctions autonomously.

You're crazy then. Free will doesn't imply omniscience. Determinism doesn't imply that we can't know anything about anything.

I think he's missing something much more basic than we realize, but I just can't get him to spit it out.

I will explain this because Iambiguous is unable to do it.

This is my interpretation and understanding of his position on determinism :

He thinks that everything was set and fixed at the Big Bang. This is what he calls "the only possible reality".

As we move thorough life, we are forced to conform to this reality. It makes us do what we do.

At the Big Bang it was determined that Mary would have an abortion and so nothing can possibly change that. She has to have an abortion. "She can never not had an abortion".

When one looks at the specific case of "correct and incorrect reasons", the evaluation was already set at the BB. IOW, you don't think something is correct because if conforms to some sort of logic, instead you think it's correct because the laws of nature are making you think it's correct. And you would think it's correct even if it's incorrect because you're not doing the thinking/evaluating, the laws of nature are forcing the thoughts/evaluations onto you. It's already done for you.

"Correct and incorrect" lose their meaning because they don't reflect the actual state of reality, they reflect a compelled response. Place two coconuts in front of a person, and some will say there are two coconuts, some say three coconuts, some say none. Who is right and who is wrong when they have no control over what they say?

If we use a 'train' analogy ... the tracks were laid at the BB and you're just going wherever the tracks are. Compelled by the atoms in the tracks.

Thanks, this confirms that he's even dumber than I thought. The "laws" don't make us do anything in the above sense, under determinism. There is a difference between being determined and being compelled in everyday matters, that he doesn't seem to be able to pick up on. And we can just as much establish whether someone is right or wrong, under determinism.

Again [click]: my reasoning is not the same as your own here. And only when it gets considerably closer to it, I suspect, will it be deemed reasoning at all.

This is the excuse you use so that you don't have to do the 'tedious' and 'dangerous' work of defending your reasoning.

Different reasoning, no common ground, no point in going into it. Done.

Again: tell that to Jane. Her very existence depends on the assumption [yes, my own] that only in a world where Mom was in fact able to choose to either abort or not abort her, is that even possible.

"Assumption" being the critical word.

You have an assumption and it doesn't have to be justified or explained. You just have it and that's it.

How does pursuing the scientific method not include reasoning?

A cat is an animal but an animal is not a cat.

The scientific method may be reasoning but it's not the only reasoning available.

This is a public forum. Most of the people here have no experience with the scientific method. Why would I demand that they use the scientific method exclusively to show their reasoning about determinism and free-will?

I'm asking them explain using the methods that they understand.

I doubt that the scientific method can even be used to get a result about determinism/free-will. What kind of experiment could be constructed? It's not like you can set up two petri dishes, one with determinism and the other with free-will and observe the results. But that's another story.

Okay, how, for all practical purposes, is that different from doing what your brain compels you to do? For example, posting here.

Where is that face-palm emoji when you need it?

So, you admit that you are unable to reason and to use logic.

Okay, let's leave it at that.

Note to others:

Is that what I am admitting to here?

Well you wrote this : "I can't even demonstrate ..."
and now this : "I'm not claiming that my own reasoning here is correct."

So you must be admitting that you can't make a logical argument to support your position.

Compatibilism and Moral Responsibility
Exploring the Implications of Compatibilist Theories on Ethics
Sarah Lee

The debate surrounding compatibilism and moral responsibility is a longstanding one in the realm of philosophy, particularly within the fields of ethics and metaphysics.

Compatibilism, the view that free will is compatible with determinism, has significant implications for how we understand moral responsibility.

In other words, going all the way back to the pre-Socratics in the West, philosophers have clearly failed to concoct an argument that establishes one way or the other whether we do or do not have free will. Aside from theoretically in worlds of words. On the other hand -- click -- neither have the brain scientists.

Having a "view" about something pertaining to any of the Big Questions is one thing. Demonstrating that all rational men and women should view it in the same way that you do, another thing altogether.

In this article, we will delve into the relationship between compatibilism and moral responsibility, examine the implications of compatibilist theories on ethics and moral accountability, and explore various challenges to compatibilist accounts of moral responsibility.

See what I mean? Compatibilist theories, compatibilist accounts. And if those theories and accounts all came to the same conclusions, that would surely be one thing. But even here there are conflicting assessments regarding how to define the meaning of compatibilism...philosophically? Let alone how to take that definition and meaning and use them to explain how they are embodied existentially in the behaviors that we choose.

Compatibilism posits that the existence of free will is not undermined by determinism, the idea that every event, including human decisions and actions, is the inevitable result of prior causes. According to compatibilists, what matters for free will and moral responsibility is not whether our choices are completely uncaused, but whether they are in line with our own desires, intentions, and character.

In other words, back to the distinction made between external and internal factors?

There are any number of things we encounter from day to day in our social, political and economic interactions that are beyond our control. And while we assume our desires,intentions and characters are at least in part autonomous, there are hard determinists who insist that, on the contrary, this reflects only the psychological illusion of free will.

Just don't ask them to actually demonstrate this. Why? Because given the gaps in our knowledge going all the way back to how and why the "human condition" fits into the existence of existence itself, they are in the same boat that we are in. Again, all those things we don't even know that we don't know about.

Or, rather, so it seems to me here and now.

Compatibilism posits that the existence of free will is not undermined by determinism, the idea that every event, including human decisions and actions, is the inevitable result of prior causes. According to compatibilists, what matters for free will and moral responsibility is not whether our choices are completely uncaused, but whether they are in line with our own desires, intentions, and character.

How could our choices be "completely uncaused"?

The situation itself is causing you to make a choice and you come into it with certain preexisting "desires, intentions, character" and knowledge which is going to shape your decision.

A better questions might be ... Is any part of a choice uncaused?

Which leads to the followup ... Why would/should any part of a choice be uncaused?

Compatibilism and Moral Responsibility
Exploring the Implications of Compatibilist Theories on Ethics
Sarah Lee

The implications of compatibilism on moral blame and praise are significant. If we are morally responsible for our actions, we can be praised for the good ones and blamed for the bad ones.

Significant? I'd say so. The part where someone is able to clearly demonstrate how and why, even though Mary was never able not to abort her unborn baby/clump of cells, she is still morally responsible for doing so. I still can't wrap my head around that...if in fact it is true.

Which then brings me back around to this: click.

Compatibilists argue that our moral responsibility is not diminished by the fact that our choices may be determined by factors outside of our control, as long as they reflect our own reasons and values.

Ever and always the assumption here that in accumulating reasons and values, this is not in and of itself unfolding autonomically. And even more problematic, for many, in my view, is the assumption that their own reasons and values are objective because they are entirely in sync with one or another One True Path.

No fractured and fragmented moral philosophy for them. On the contrary, for any number of objectivists [God or No God] their own reasons and values are such that others either toe the line or else.

Critique of Incompatibilist Views on Moral Responsibility

Incompatibilists, on the other hand, argue that determinism is incompatible with free will and moral responsibility. They claim that if our choices are determined, we cannot be held morally responsible for them. Compatibilists counter that this view is based on an overly simplistic understanding of free will and moral responsibility.

Yes, they argue one thing, while others argue another thing altogether. And they've been doing so now for millenia. But to the best of my current knowledge, each and everyone of us are confronted with this:

"All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was "somehow" able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter "somehow" became living matter "somehow" became conscious matter "somehow" became self-conscious matter.

"Then those here who actually believe that what they believe about all of this reflects, what, the ontological truth about the human condition itself?"

The distinction I make here is between those who acknowledge significant gaps that neither science nor philosophy have been able to close and those who just shrug off the Big Questions by subsuming them in their own "my way or the highway" dogmas.