Free will and determinism

After being given so many detailed answers over so many various comments... you want me to give you answers?

What can I even possibly tell you that you haven't already been told?

Absolutely nothing. I won't retread old ground for you. Do it yourself. You're intelligent, yes?


We do not see either randomness nor determinism in the real world whatsoever.

"Randomness" and "determinism" are only ever projections by us onto the world. They are appearances, nothing more. Illusions, if you will.

Particle decay is certainly not random at all. Particle decay follows known patterns. And so, it isn't deterministic either.

Computers are simply not deterministic at their basis. They are engineered to give the illusion of being deterministic, because we need them to function as if they are.


Computers never fail due to "random" external influences. There is always a cause, a reason. Always. Even if it's a cosmic ray causing a bit-flip. That's still not "random", except in the appearances of such.

I've had computers appear to "randomly" fail, yes, but when I dig at the problem, it is never random. Never.

I almost have to conclude at this point, that you're almost purposefully being obtuse...

I have never received a detailed answer to my fundamental question. If I had, I would acknowledge it. And it would seem that if I had, someone would be willing to repeat it. Lots of "do your own homework," as if I have not.

Particle decay is not random at all? Then I do not understand your definition of random. There are stochastic patterns, yes, but which particle decays next is entirely random.

Some of you folks too easily jump to the claim that I am being obtuse.

~~ Paul

In #120 above you quoted my argument but then forgot to respond to it! Here it is again:

I would argue that free will is an essential component of any scientific experiment. Take a simple experiment like verifying Ohm's law. We apply a voltage to a resistor and measure the current that flows. Then we draw a nice straight-line graph. However, we select the voltages at which we do the measurements. If we knew that the voltages had been selected by a machine, we might worry that the true relationship might be sinusoidal say. The whole essence of a scientific experiment is that the experimenters could use free will to control some aspects of the experiment so that it is reasonable to generalise from the particular set of measurements made to obtain a general law.

Thus discarding the concept of free will, really involves discarding science.

~~David

You are saying that science has a problem if we do not have libertarian free will. Perhaps so, but that does not answer my question. (Won't it be just as good if the selections are made at random?)

I am not arguing whether we have free will. I am asking how a free decision is made.

~~ Paul

This is... odd. A spirit is something not bound by physical laws or limitations, so it does indeed have free will in a more absolute sense.

There doesn't have to be anything that explains how a spirit makes free decisions. They just... can and do.

Now... being able to make free decisions does not imply omnipotence. Free decisions does not mean being able to do everything and anything ~ just that the spirit is free to choose to do anything. Being able to accomplish that desired outcome is an entirely different thing entirely.

Sorry, your claim that a spirit is not bound by physical limitations is a just-so claim. But, for the sake of argument, I'll assume it's true.

So apparently you're going to endow a spirit with libertarian free will by definition. Fair enough, that's a straightforward answer. But if there is no explanation of how it makes such a decision, isn't that fundamentally unsatisfying?

~~ Paul

You should check in with a philosopher like Helen Steward and/or a neuroscientist team like Tononi & Koch.

If you do let us know the replies, as I'm curious as to whether they think your "central question" - whatever it actually is - makes sense.

I've read some Steward. She talks about the source of libertarian free will, but I haven't ready anything about the method. But I'll watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z431zDCh4TE

I've read some Steward. She talks about the source of libertarian free will, but I haven't ready anything about the method. But I'll watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z431zDCh4TE

You should just email her directly then?

I'm curious to see if this "method" question is coherent.

You should just email her directly then?

I'm curious to see if this "method" question is coherent.

Well, that was quite a good video. Steward displays humility about her work, particularly on the problem of top-down causality. She says that is a problem in need of a solution. I liked her term "nexus" for the confluence of all the factors that go into a decision.

I found no answer to my question, so I just emailed her.

~~ Paul

Well, that was quite a good video. Steward displays humility about her work, particularly on the problem of top-down causality. She says that is a problem in need of a solution. I liked her term "nexus" for the confluence of all the factors that go into a decision.

I found no answer to my question, so I just emailed her.

~~ Paul

What did you ask exactly?

This is... odd. A spirit is something not bound by physical laws or limitations, so it does indeed have free will in a more absolute sense.

There doesn't have to be anything that explains how a spirit makes free decisions. They just... can and do.

Now... being able to make free decisions does not imply omnipotence. Free decisions does not mean being able to do everything and anything ~ just that the spirit is free to choose to do anything. Being able to accomplish that desired outcome is an entirely different thing entirely.

Yeah I think agency of any mental entity, spirit or not, would have to be something that is a fundamental aspect of reality.

I am not convinced "Laws of Nature " binding the behavior of everything in the universe is a coherent aspect of reality but if such laws existed at some fundamental level they wouldn't be explicable in terms of something else save perhaps God.

I believe Donald Hoffman even starts with these fundamental free agents as the building blocks of reality ->

What did you ask exactly?

Here is my message:

Helen,

Greetings. A few of us have had a years-long discussion about libertarian free will. I keep asking a question about it but do not get a satisfactory answer. Perhaps you can point me to something you have written about this question.

Let's accept that we have libertarian free will and that an agent can somehow influence the nexus of a decision with some sort of top-down causation. In other words, the decision is influenced by more than just deterministic events and true randomness, by some sort of indeterministic factor.

My question is: How does the agent make the decision that influences the nexus in a way that is not itself just deterministic and random? We agree that the agent is producing a top-down effect on the decision, but how? I cannot imagine, nor have I read any description of, how the agent itself is free from the confines of determinism and coin-flipping.

I'll accept that the top-down effect is free from prior event determinism, at least in part. But what does that leave to complete the decision-making "process" other than randomness? (I scare-quote "process" because many people tell me that by using such a word, I am assuming determinism.)

What is the process/procedure/method/algorithm/technique/trick that a free agent uses to make a free decision?

~~ Paul

Here is my message:

Thanks, I'll be curious as to her response.

Still not sure the question is coherent, but ideally she can make sense of it....maybe she'll use the term "two-way power" but we'll see...