Free will re-redux

In the hopes of moving things along, and not ending up repeating everything said in the Mega Free Will Argument thread, here's my understand of why Free Will is supposedly incoherent:

I mean we can't help it if just say the same things again for 75 pages, it's not like we have a choice in the matter 

In the hopes of moving things along, and not ending up repeating everything said in the Mega Free Will Argument thread, here's my understand of why Free Will is supposedly incoherent:

Free will is incoherent because all causal sequences must be deterministic or random.

But let's look at everything following the "because". So we have:

All causal sequences must be deterministic or random.

I follow your subsequent arguments, but it seems to me unnecessary. There's a saying in computing/data processing, GIGO. That is garbage in, garbage out.

I find this is especially true for philosophical discourses. One can go on for pages, whole volumes of books, discussing the outcome from a given premise. What is always lacking is any foundation. The original postulate is simply a hypothesis, we take a hypothetical stance, then consider where that hypothesis might lead. But it is a castle built in the air.

We don't need to take the original assertion as being fact, it is simply a point of view.

For example, we could replace it with a different postulate:

All causal sequences must be one of: deterministic or random or influenced by a conscious agent.

This isn't the only possible postulate, I can think of a number of others. However, whichever one chooses, it is important to realise that all the voluminous outpouring which follow, are dependent on the original postulate. Selecting a nonsensical starting point will lead to nonsense conclusions. Selecting a starting point which by definition does not include free will is a rather nonsensical basis upon which to discuss free will in my opinion. It is this poor choice of starting point which leads to so many pages and pages of lengthy discourse.


Sooner or later, when no fresh or original conclusions emerge, and the futility of the discussion is recognised, the logical next step, as in science, is to look for an alternative hypothesis. The Sun revolving around the Earth is not the only possible viewpoint.

I mean we can't help it if just say the same things again for 75 pages, it's not like we have a choice in the matter 

On the contrary, we DO have a choice. This is a game. This is how it is played:

• take an arbitrary hypothesis.
  
• discuss its consequences.
  

You want a different discussion with different content?
Pick an alternative arbitrary hypothesis and discuss it.

I follow your subsequent arguments, but it seems to me unnecessary. There's a saying in computing/data processing, GIGO. That is garbage in, garbage out.

I find this is especially true for philosophical discourses. One can go on for pages, whole volumes of books, discussing the outcome from a given premise. What is always lacking is any foundation. The original postulate is simply a hypothesis, we take a hypothetical stance, then consider where that hypothesis might lead. But it is a castle built in the air.

We don't need to take the original assertion as being fact, it is simply a point of view.

For example, we could replace it with a different postulate:

All causal sequences must be one of: deterministic or random or influenced by a conscious agent.

Oh I just wanted to try and understand the actual claim that free will is incoherent.

I *think* the argument Paul is making is that the free conscious agent can only make decisions that are deterministic, random, or some combination of the two. I don't really understand it myself.

For myself I would actually remove the first two in your postulate, as I think all causation is ultimately grounded in conscious agency.

But yeah we should make amendments to the conversation lest we just end up covering the same ground a[s] the last 75 page debate.

 I'm suspicious that we do not know how to tell whether the brain is functioning, and to what degree.

Nor can we tell exactly when the supposed function (e.g., thought) actually occurred.

Nor can we control for what happens between the supposed event and its report.

But I'm happy to take a look at one good case.

~~ Paul

1. Brain cells need oxygen and glucose/blood to function. Cut the blood supply off (heart stoppage) and the brain stops functioning after about 10-20 seconds, as does the brain stem (apparently according to experts) 

2. We can tell exactly when a certain thought must have occurred if it is expressed as an observation of an event that took place when the person's brain wasn't functioning. There are hundreds of these cases now. 

3. Contamination. The doctors fed the patient the information accidentally. And this happens every time there is a veridical report. With hundreds of cases however, that is statistically highly unlikely. 

4. I suspect your definition of a good case is one that does not exist

1. Brain cells need oxygen and glucose/blood to function. Cut the blood supply off (heart stoppage) and the brain stops functioning after about 10-20 seconds, as does the brain stem (apparently according to experts) 

2. We can tell exactly when a certain thought must have occurred if it is expressed as an observation of an event that took place when the person's brain wasn't functioning. There are hundreds of these cases now. 

3. Contamination. The doctors fed the patient the information accidentally. And this happens every time there is a veridical report. With hundreds of cases however, that is statistically highly unlikely. 

4. I suspect your definition of a good case is one that does not exist

You should Google #1.

You should Google #1.

You should explain why.

My understanding is that Paul isn't just saying free will is incoherent because of materialism or neuroscience, but rather even if Idealism is true and Time/Causality is grounded in Mind and/or there is a God of Gods who created the Real...

...even then free will would be incoherent.

Would be nice to have some kind of argument/proof if that's the case, as it seems like a pretty extraordinary claim to say free will is incoherent in all possible worlds.

Edit: Regarding the random/determinism dichotomy, here's the materialist Thomas Nail saying even matter moves in a way that is unpredictable but not random:

Heisenberg thus showed that even at the quantum level, matter in motion is both relational and uncertain, or pedetic. Pedesis may be irregular and unpredictable, but it is not random. What is interesting about movement is not simply that it is pedetic, but that it is through pedesis and turbulence that metastable formations and emergent orders are possible. By contrast, the ontology of randomness is quite bleak. In a purely random ontology, all of matter would be moving randomly, and thus nonrelationally, at all times.


Nail, Thomas. Being and Motion (p. 73). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

You should explain why.

This is not true. "the brain stops functioning after about 10-20 seconds, as does the brain stem (apparently according to experts)" .  Fact check yourself.

 What is interesting about movement is not simply that it is pedetic, but that it is through pedesis and turbulence that metastable formations and emergent orders are possible. By contrast, the ontology of randomness is quite bleak. In a purely random ontology, all of matter would be moving randomly, and thus nonrelationally, at all times.


Nail, Thomas. Being and Motion (p. 73). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.

That, for me, is the crux of the matter (excuse pun).

I'm not up to the intellectual-philosophical back and forth and I had to look up the meaning of "pedetic" but "emergent orders" speaks to me. In my imagination, that requires some form of knowing, whether that comes from the material particles involved or some external, omniscient presence is unclear but my favoured conjecture would be that matter and motivation are indivisible: they are aspects of the same thing and it is only our limited perception that divides them into different entities. Of course, materialists will hold that only the particles exist but then observations such as this one quoted above need to be explained.