We ought to embrace free will

[Gary Childress]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do. As long as there is any possibility of free will whatsoever, then we ought to embrace free will over determinism. Determinism seems amoral because it undermines the possibility of responsibility for our actions. And responsibility ought to be weighed according to how egregious or not an action is. Such responsibility cannot realistically be applied to a deterministic system. There ought to be no excuses for some acts.

[Fairy]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do. As long as there is any possibility of free will whatsoever, then we ought to embrace free will over determinism. Determinism seems amoral because it undermines the possibility of responsibility for our actions. And responsibility ought to be weighed according to how egregious or not an action is. Such responsibility cannot realistically be applied to a deterministic system. That ought to be no excuses for some acts.

To me, free will, means, there's an apparent conscious intention to act out a particular action that appears as if there is an action-man choosing the action. Even though science has already proved the action-man is but an apparent appearance and has no more substance or reality to it as does
the thought (there is a ghost in my head)

In reality, there is no separate entity doing anything, reality is never willing or intending to be anything different than what it already is as it's immediately happening, as everything is just happening as it does, without any will or intention to do so.

Intention is the rider of the will. But what is (will) exactly? did anyone will themself into existence, did anyone will themself to be a boy and not a girl? No one chooses anything. Choice is only apparently real within the artificial dream of separation, which is illusory. Having said that, that's the whole reason and point of consciousness in the first place, is to act as if there is a character in the form of a human being, and that is where the saying ( I am living my dream ) I am consciously choosing to live my dream, comes from...but no separate one is doing that, as there is only one consciousness conscious of itself, when it becomes lucid of it's own dream. Life is but a dream within a dream within a dream.

Beyond the dream of separation; beyond the story of ( 'me') there is no such thing as a separate entity known as 'me' who has free will...

Have you heard of this Zen poem > ( The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; The water has no mind to retain their image.
When a mountain stream flows out of a spring beside the road, and a thirsty traveler comes along and drinks deeply, the traveler is welcome. But the mountain stream is not waiting with the intention of refreshing thirsty travelers; it is just bubbling forth, and the travelers are always welcome to help themselves. )

[Gary Childress]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do. As long as there is any possibility of free will whatsoever, then we ought to embrace free will over determinism. Determinism seems amoral because it undermines the possibility of responsibility for our actions. And responsibility ought to be weighed according to how egregious or not an action is. Such responsibility cannot realistically be applied to a deterministic system. That ought to be no excuses for some acts.

To me, free will, means, there's an apparent conscious intention to act out a particular action that appears as if there is an action-man choosing the action. Even though science has already proved the action-man is but an apparent appearance and has no more substance or reality to it as does
the thought (there is a ghost in my head)

In reality, there is no separate entity doing anything, reality is never willing or intending to be anything different than what it already is as it's immediately happening, as everything is just happening as it does, without any will or intention to do so.

Intention is the rider of the will. But what is (will) exactly? did anyone will themself into existence, did anyone will themself to be a boy and not a girl? No one chooses anything. Choice is only apparently real within the artificial dream of separation, which is illusory. Having said that, that's the whole reason and point of consciousness in the first place, is to act as if there is a character in the form of a human being, and that is where the saying ( I am living my dream ) I am consciously choosing to live my dream, comes from...but no separate one is doing that, as there is only one consciousness conscious of itself, when it becomes lucid of it's own dream. Life is but a dream within a dream within a dream.

Beyond the dream of separation; beyond the story of ( 'me') there is no such thing as a separate entity known as 'me' who has free will...

Have you heard of this Zen poem > ( The wild geese do not intend to cast their reflection; The water has no mind to retain their image.
When a mountain stream flows out of a spring beside the road, and a thirsty traveler comes along and drinks deeply, the traveler is welcome. But the mountain stream is not waiting with the intention of refreshing thirsty travelers; it is just bubbling forth, and the travelers are always welcome to help themselves. )

Free will means we are responsible for what we do in proportion to what we do. If someone is unjustly killed by someone else, then the murderer can be guilty of pre-meditated murder or they can be guilty of manslaughter. That is to be decided by a court based on what can be established to have happened and the perpetrator ought to be sanctioned accordingly.

If someone rescues a baby from a burning building, then they rescued a baby from a burning building and deserve accolades at the very least. Choices produce results. And results ought to be considered. A person who commits premeditated murder is responsible for murder and deserves to be tried accordingly. A person who rescues a baby from a burning building, made a monumental, herculean decision to risk their own life in order to do so. It ought not be viewed that they were "pre-determined" to do so. No. they truly are a hero in every way shape or form in proportion to the circumstances of the situation and the decision that was made.

[accelafine]

But your 'choice' was predetermined before you made it. That's just the way it is.

[FlashDangerpants]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do. As long as there is any possibility of free will whatsoever, then we ought to embrace free will over determinism. Determinism seems amoral because it undermines the possibility of responsibility for our actions. And responsibility ought to be weighed according to how egregious or not an action is. Such responsibility cannot realistically be applied to a deterministic system. There ought to be no excuses for some acts.

I don't think it's common to pay any attention to the problems of determinism when doing moral philosophy as a rule, there are too many reasons to just put determinism aside before even considering moral outcomes. It's the same as the God question, if it gets an authoritative answer, then all previous bets are off. So if mentioned at all, it tends to be in passing by way of dismissal.

To the extent that I have been following Big Mike's continuing campaign, the only person who seems to be writing anything worth reading there is Alexiev. Mike, Henry and IC are all out of their depth, and whatever mystical woo Jacobi and Wizzy are up to is never very important.

I am aware of one major exception to my first point though, which is the essay Freedom and Resentment by P.F. Strawson, which is from the 60s. Truth be told, I don't think even this essay is widely considered important as a work of moral philosophy, but more for the impact it had on the matter on compatibilism, which apparently went through a little bit of a revolution mid 20th century. Anyway, here's the link to a copy of the essay if you are interested <PDF warning goes here>...
https://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/P._ ... ntment.pdf

The opening...

1. Some philosophers say they do not know what the thesis of determinism is. Others say,
or imply, that they do know what it is. Of these, some—the pessimists perhaps—hold that if
the thesis is true, then the concepts of moral obligation and responsibility really have no
application, and the practices of punishing and blaming, of expressing moral condemnation
and approval, are really unjustified. Others—the optimists perhaps—hold that these
concepts and practices in no way lose their raison d’être if the thesis of determinism is true.
Some hold even that the justification of these concepts and practices requires the truth of
the thesis. There is another opinion which is less frequently voiced: the opinion, it might be
said, of the genuine moral sceptic. This is that the notions of moral guilt, of blame, of moral
responsibility are inherently confused and that we can see this to be so if we consider the
consequences either of the truth of determinism or of its falsity. The holders of this opinion
agree with the pessimists that these notions lack application if determinism is true, and add
simply that they also lack it if determinism is false. If I am asked which of these parties I
belong to, I must say it is the first of all, the party of those who do not know what the
thesis of determinism is. But this does not stop me from having some sympathy with the
others, and a wish to reconcile them. Should not ignorance, rationally, inhibit such
sympathies? Well, of course, though darkling, one has some inkling—some notion of what
sort of thing is being talked about. This lecture is intended as a move towards
reconciliation; so. is likely to seem wrongheaded to everyone.

But can there be any possibility of reconciliation between such clearly opposed positions as
those of pessimists and optimists about determinism? Well, there might be a formal
withdrawal on one side in return for a substantial concession on the other. Thus, suppose
the optimist’s position were put like this: (1) the facts as we know them do not show
determinism to be false; (2) the facts as we know them supply an adequate basis for the
concepts and practices which the pessimist feels to be imperilled by the possibility of
determinism’s truth. Now it might be that the optimist is right in this, but is apt to give an
inadequate account of the facts as we know them, and of how they constitute an adequate
basis for the problematic concepts and practices; that the reasons he gives for the adequacy
of the basis are themselves inadequate and leave out something vital. It might be that the
pessimist is rightly anxious to get this vital thing back and, in the grip of his anxiety, feels
he has to go beyond the facts as we know them; feels that the vital thing can be secure
only if, beyond the facts as we know them, there is the further fact that determinism is
false. Might he not be brought to make a formal withdrawal in return for a vital concession?

[Gary Childress]

I guess I'm deterministically bound to think that we ought to believe in free will. I don't see how anyone can be held accountable in a deterministic world for anything. And if no one is held accountable, then there is every incentive to do whatever one wants if it may somehow benefit the one who survives the deed. Might makes right.

[phyllo]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do. As long as there is any possibility of free will whatsoever, then we ought to embrace free will over determinism. Determinism seems amoral because it undermines the possibility of responsibility for our actions. And responsibility ought to be weighed according to how egregious or not an action is. Such responsibility cannot realistically be applied to a deterministic system. There ought to be no excuses for some acts.

I don't know what acting as if we have free-will could possibly involve.

You can take responsibility for your actions whether or not there is free-will. You know, it seems that taking responsibility is independent of free-will. Also not taking responsibility is independent of free-will.

[FlashDangerpants]

I guess I'm deterministically bound to think that we ought to believe in free will. I don't see how anyone can be held accountable in a deterministic world for anything. And if no one is held accountable, then there is every incentive to do whatever one wants if it may somehow benefit the one who survives the deed. Might makes right.

You have a very confused list of things that do and do not survive determinism. Incentives do, but accountability does not. That makes no sense.


Imagine you were God (just do as you are told and imagine it, don't Gary this all up) and you exist anywhere you want on the timeline of the universe, knowing everything that has happened so far, and not knowing anything yet to come. If you take a position at the end of time and remember everything that ever happened, the whole thing looks determined. Take a position midway, the past looks determined, but the future does not. Unless you can spawn and then inhabit multiple universes where the choices people make might be different in one than the others, that's all this shit boils down to, just a matter of perspective and a mode of description.

The entire free will debate is a complete waste of time, every possible postion on the debate is unfalsifiable, and amounts to nothing except your preference for how to think about time. See also the debates on causation, and whether the universe is really there or not. None of these moot parlour-game questions actually has any moral outcomes unless they are misunderstood.

[Immanuel Can]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do.

If there isn't already free will, then we can't "ought" to do anything. So your statement already assumes the existence of free will, Gary.

[Gary Childress]

I guess I'm deterministically bound to think that we ought to believe in free will. I don't see how anyone can be held accountable in a deterministic world for anything. And if no one is held accountable, then there is every incentive to do whatever one wants if it may somehow benefit the one who survives the deed. Might makes right.

You have a very confused list of things that do and do not survive determinism. Incentives do, but accountability does not. That makes no sense.


Imagine you were God (just do as you are told and imagine it, don't Gary this all up) and you exist anywhere you want on the timeline of the universe, knowing everything that has happened so far, and not knowing anything yet to come. If you take a position at the end of time and remember everything that ever happened, the whole thing looks determined. Take a position midway, the past looks determined, but the future does not. Unless you can spawn and then inhabit multiple universes where the choices people make might be different in one than the others, that's all this shit boils down to, just a matter of perspective and a mode of description.

The entire free will debate is a complete waste of time, every possible postion on the debate is unfalsifiable, and amounts to nothing except your preference for how to think about time. See also the debates on causation, and whether the universe is really there or not. None of these moot parlour-game questions actually has any moral outcomes unless they are misunderstood.

OK. So if debating that we have free will is a waste of time, then so is debating that we don't.

[Gary Childress]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do.

If there isn't already free will, then we can't "ought" to do anything. So your statement already assumes the existence of free will, Gary.

True. However, I don't see how one can even have morality without "ought".

[Fairy]

Free will means we are responsible for what we do in proportion to what we do. If someone is unjustly killed by someone else, then the murderer can be guilty of pre-meditated murder or they can be guilty of manslaughter. That is to be decided by a court based on what can be established to have happened and the perpetrator ought to be sanctioned accordingly.

If someone rescues a baby from a burning building, then they rescued a baby from a burning building and deserve accolades at the very least. Choices produce results. And results ought to be considered. A person who commits premeditated murder is responsible for murder and deserves to be tried accordingly. A person who rescues a baby from a burning building, made a monumental, herculean decision to risk their own life in order to do so. It ought not be viewed that they were "pre-determined" to do so. No. they truly are a hero in every way shape or form in proportion to the circumstances of the situation and the decision that was made.

No one is choosing to do anything except as a belief there is a person who is choosing. The person aka the ( I ) is a self-writing mirage, the brain is artificially constructing. Notice there is no creature outside of the human creature who is responsible for their actions. So why are humans made to be responsible?
That's a brain construct unique to the human brain. Perhaps it's how the big one singular meta universal consciousness wanted to get to know itself, as and through finite little (my eyes)

But of course, yes, as a human brain, we all have to pretend and act responsibly as if my (I) is the one choosing an action, because that's just how the human brain appears to operate. Even though, all our little (my eye) decisions are made before (my eye) is aware of it, meaning choice is only ever made on an unconscious neural level. If every choice was made immediately on a conscious level, that would leave room to change the choice. But that's not how reality works, reality is one continuous singular movement, that does not work in reverse. So in reality, what is done in the immediacy of the moment, can never be undone by a change of mind, well not until it's already too late to change the mind.

The body's action is simply to mimic what the brain has already decided to do, and the result is only a reaction, never an action. What is doing the doing are 'automatic' mechanisms that connect our decisions of what we want to do to the actual execution of it. There is no separation between the will to do something and the execution of it. It's all the brain, braining.

There is no co-pilot piloting the brain braining activity. So yes, all our ''assumed'' actions, the beliefs believed to be an action-man living inside our head, are in fact predetermined by the brain. And not by some person inside the brain who believes in it's own will to have power over controlling an action.

In reality, nothing is controlling anything that happens, and that anything that does happen is a self-writing mirage constructed by a brain. But of course we cannot just single out the brain for the decisions it makes, because whole bodies are attached to brains. So that's a metaphor for no thing is responsible for it's actions, or, every thing is responsible for it's actions.


And that's the game being played. No thing is pretending to be every thing, or, every thing is pretending to be no thing. Same ONE

[Immanuel Can]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do.

If there isn't already free will, then we can't "ought" to do anything. So your statement already assumes the existence of free will, Gary.

True. However, I don't see how one can even have morality without "ought".

One cannot, of course. So Determinism requires us to think of the world as a place in which morality is simply an illusion -- a inexplicable one, perhaps, but an illusion nonetheless.

[Fairy]

If there isn't already free will, then we can't "ought" to do anything. So your statement already assumes the existence of free will, Gary.

True. However, I don't see how one can even have morality without "ought".

One cannot, of course. So Determinism requires us to think of the world as a place in which morality is simply an illusion -- a inexplicable one, perhaps, but an illusion nonetheless.

In the world of known illusion, the opposite is also true. Morality is an explicable illusion.

[phyllo]

Whether we have free will or not, we ought to act as though we do.

If there isn't already free will, then we can't "ought" to do anything. So your statement already assumes the existence of free will, Gary.

True. However, I don't see how one can even have morality without "ought".

No, it's not true. There are always "oughts", whether self-imposed or imposed by others.

In a determined universe, you can think that you ought to lose weight. Your teacher can think that you ought to do your homework.