Free will and determinism

How can it be random - as in Pure Chance - but also follow the pattern you lay out above?

Are we really going to say all physical phenomena are governed by Pure Chance? Isn't it far more reasonable to say that if seemingly "random" phenomena can produce such reliable seeming determinism, then the nature of causation is neither determined nor random?


However, for me and I believe @Valmar the point is that rather than throw our hands up at the first deviation from seeming determinism and invoke Chance it is far more rational to accept that there is a place [for] phenomena like quantum "oddities" as well as free will in the story of causation. To go back to the post where I put those William James quotes:


So free will is an instance of the "positiveness and luminosity from within."

Thus it is unclear for me, in light of a rational response to quantum indeterminism, to see what exactly the problem is for free will that needs some kind of "how does it work?" explanation that is a work around a supposed randomness/deterministic dichotomy. I understand that there is a problem for some in the confines of their own minds, but someone being a prisoner to mechanistic-materialist belief systems is not a problem against free will in general. Certainly not my humble claim that free will is possible is some possible world. Or to put it another way, free will is a logical metaphysical possibility.

But I will note that even largely within the confines of naturalism one can lay out a story of causation that has a place for free will.

I'm not sure why you keep saying "Pure Chance" when particle decay is clearly not pure chance. If it were pure chance, there would be no discernible half-lives. A stochastic process is not pure chance unless the probability distribution is flat.

I've said this 10 times and I'll say it again: I'm entirely happy to jettison the notion that all we have is randomness and determinism. Gone! What I'm looking for is a word for the third sort of thing we need for free will, and then a definition of that word that gives us some even dim notion of what goes on. A decision is made: in what manner? Do I consult my prior needs, wants, and desires and use them as inputs to the decision? Are those inputs formed deterministically? If not, how? Do I consult my memories of how this decision affected me in the past? Again, how do those memories flow into the decision? Surely what I don't do is *poof!* make a free decision out of thin air. Because unless there is some input into that decision, then it's arbitrary.

~~ Paul

I'm not sure why you keep saying "Pure Chance" when particle decay is clearly not pure chance. If it were pure chance, there would be no discernible half-lives. A stochastic process is not pure chance unless the probability distribution is flat.

I've said this 10 times and I'll say it again: I'm entirely happy to jettison the notion that all we have is randomness and determinism. Gone! What I'm looking for is a word for the third sort of thing we need for free will, and then a definition of that word that gives us some even dim notion of what goes on. A decision is made: in what manner? Do I consult my prior needs, wants, and desires and use them as inputs to the decision? Are those inputs formed deterministically? If not, how? Do I consult my memories of how this decision affected me in the past? Again, how do those memories flow into the decision? Surely what I don't do is *poof!* make a free decision out of thin air. Because unless there is some input into that decision, then it's arbitrary.

~~ Paul

Something to ask Helen Steward for sure.

The way I've heard Christian reconcile this is that God has knowledge of all choices an individual can make, but not of what set of paths an individual will ultimately choose to go down, because even the individual doesn't know in advance until each moment of choosing.

I kind of feel this matches my experience, though I don't particularly express things in those words. Sometimes I've been in a situation where I wasn't sure what to do. I tried to find some guidance. That included all sorts of approaches such as asking a question and then monitoring my dreams. If it is an important matter which I'm dwelling on, it is sure to show up in my dreams. The answers I got were unexpected. The key word I received was "wait". That is, whatever I was dealing with did not require any action from myself. But for various reasons I felt in a hurry and made some steps which caused turmoil in my life and that of others. My dreams afterwards were conciliatory, not something like "told you so". But it did turn out that the "wait" advice was correct in a bigger and more unexpected way than I could have imagined. Some very positive events occurred in my life not long afterwards, and it turned out that all I had to do was just go along with the flow, not try to cause anything.

My conclusion, something I learned at that time was to listen to my intuition. It was and is possible to act in other ways, that is, free choices are available, but deliberately acting against my intuition could sometimes be dangerous. Or at any rate, less than optimal.

I kind of feel this matches my experience, though I don't particularly express things in those words. Sometimes I've been in a situation where I wasn't sure what to do. I tried to find some guidance. That included all sorts of approaches such as asking a question and then monitoring my dreams. If it is an important matter which I'm dwelling on, it is sure to show up in my dreams. The answers I got were unexpected. The key word I received was "wait". That is, whatever I was dealing with did not require any action from myself. But for various reasons I felt in a hurry and made some steps which caused turmoil in my life and that of others. My dreams afterwards were conciliatory, not something like "told you so". But it did turn out that the "wait" advice was correct in a bigger and more unexpected way than I could have imagined. Some very positive events occurred in my life not long afterwards, and it turned out that all I had to do was just go along with the flow, not try to cause anything.

My conclusion, something I learned at that time was to listen to my intuition. It was and is possible to act in other ways, that is, free choices are available, but deliberately acting against my intuition could sometimes be dangerous. Or at any rate, less than optimal.

Indeed.

Intuition, I feel, is something that comes from the Soul. Namely, at times of great importance. It seems important that we still have the choice to freely adhere to that intuition, or not. At the times we don't, and it turns out badly, well, we learn and grow all the same. Sometimes, it is simply necessary that we ignore our intuition, not because it is wrong, but because we learn what the consequences can be, and so, we can learn to not ignore our intuition in future.

Gone! What I'm looking for is a word for the third sort of thing we need for free will, and then a definition of that word that gives us some even dim notion of what goes on. A decision is made: in what manner?

I think you have to start to conceive of a world in which spirits can make decisions off their own bat - almost by definition.

If you cling to the materialist world but probe harder and harder, you will just go crazy trying to match your experience with materialism - which is ultimately just an assumption anyway.

I mean obviously, a fully materialist reality will simply chug along in a way that would be predictable if it were not for the impossible complexity of doing a prediction and the fact that quantum mechanics adds a random component. Because a brain does a lot of things on a small scale, I'd expect that the output from a brain will be fairly unpredictable at best.

However that is utterly inconsistent with the way that everyone - presumably including you - experience reality. Therefore why not suspect that materialism is false?

David

I think you have to start to conceive of a world in which spirits can make decisions off their own bat - almost by definition.

If you cling to the materialist world but probe harder and harder, you will just go crazy trying to match your experience with materialism - which is ultimately just an assumption anyway.

I mean obviously, a fully materialist reality will simply chug along in a way that would be predictable if it were not for the impossible complexity of doing a prediction and the fact that quantum mechanics adds a random component. Because a brain does a lot of things on a small scale, I'd expect that the output from a brain will be fairly unpredictable at best.

However that is utterly inconsistent with the way that everyone - presumably including you - experience reality. Therefore why not suspect that materialism is false?

David

I think you meant to quote Paul, but quoted me quoting Paul's quote.  

For my part however, I do agree conscious immaterial agents have the capacity for free will and this is an intrinsic power...I just also think that a proper naturalistic-atheist account of the world can have a conception of free will as well. I've posted links to papers here and in the 65 page thread and in the thread before that and so on....so I figure at this point we might as well wait for Helen Steward to grace us with some replies which will meet Paul's needs...

I think you have to start to conceive of a world in which spirits can make decisions off their own bat - almost by definition.

If you cling to the materialist world but probe harder and harder, you will just go crazy trying to match your experience with materialism - which is ultimately just an assumption anyway.

I mean obviously, a fully materialist reality will simply chug along in a way that would be predictable if it were not for the impossible complexity of doing a prediction and the fact that quantum mechanics adds a random component. Because a brain does a lot of things on a small scale, I'd expect that the output from a brain will be fairly unpredictable at best.

However that is utterly inconsistent with the way that everyone - presumably including you - experience reality. Therefore why not suspect that materialism is false?

David

I'm happy to allow spirits to make their own decisions. But how? Again, you can propose any source of free decisions and I'll go along with it. But my question is about how those spirits make free decisions.

Sorry, but I don't experience myself making a free decision. If I did, then I'd know something about how that is accomplished. What I experience is a short or long series of thoughts, perhaps spread over many days, followed by a decision. I do not experience the way in which I eliminate one of the two semi-final choices and end up with the final choice. That lack of experience may feel free to you, but to me it's just a gap, a leap, a poof!

Now, for simple decisions I may have two semi-final choices. Then I think "oh, but I don't have any shrimp." So then the dinner choice is clear. But that doesn't feel free, either. Instead, if anything, it feels deterministic.

~~ Paul

This conversation reminds me of those with very young inquisitive children who, not matter the response provided, ask again: "Why?".

Just substitute "How?" in this case.

Paul, I do not mean to demean here at all but just as we couldn't get an answer to the why question as children, I do not think there is an answer to this how question you are asking as an adult.  It is either an incoherent question (there is no such thing as free will) or it is an intractable one (there is free will, but its "how" can not be explained in the procedural/mechanistic parlance of human language).