Free will re-redux

Regarding computers and RNGs that's the wrong level of explanation, as I've said earlier in the thread -> Computers are using predictable causal relations that already exist, same with RNGs using stochastic patterns. These devices work without examining causality, they'd be the same if this is all a dream in God's mind, we're in a simulation, etc.

Huh? Of course they examine causality. If they did not, they would not reliably cause the results we are looking for. I think what you mean is that they do not examine "ultimate causality," but we agree that is impossible. So I don't think it's legitimate to discard my "how" question just because my example of a computer does not go all the way down. I'm not asking you to go all the way down, either. I'm just asking for a start, an outline.

But free will is the establishment of a new effect for some prior set of causes, as a twist on Sartre's "Freedom is what you do with what is done to you". A conscious agent selecting possibilities is choosing what effect comes from the preceding causes that brought about a situation where a decision needs to be made.

And my question is: By what means is that choice made?

Why I said the most comparable thing to free will would be at the level of quantum indeterminism, namely having a set of possible outcomes of which one is selected.

What do the random outcomes of quantum indeterminism have to do with free will?

It's an "ultimate how" problem, at least insofar as Causation and Consciousness are problems of that level.

I am not asking for the "ultimate how." I am asking for a hint of an outline of the "top-level how."

~~ Paul

Huh? Of course they examine causality. If they did not, they would not reliably cause the results we are looking for. I think what you mean is that they do not examine "ultimate causality," but we agree that is impossible. So I don't think it's legitimate to discard my "how" question just because my example of a computer does not go all the way down. I'm not asking you to go all the way down, either. I'm just asking for a start, an outline.

I'm not discarding it, I'm just pointing out that computers assume causal relations rather than make new effects for a set of causes like free will would have to.

In my last post I also asked you to pull a quote or two from the three papers you [posted] as having relevance to your question so we can see what "how" means to you. So not discarding it at all.

I'm not discarding it, I'm just pointing out that computers assume causal relations rather than make new effects for a set of causes like free will would have to.

In my last post I also asked you to pull a quote or two from the three papers you [posted] as having relevance to your question so we can see what "how" means to you. So not discarding it at all.

I found nothing particularly interesting in the papers I read. I didn't bother with the first one, since I didn't feel like paying for it. The second one (https://wmpeople.wm.edu/asset/index/lwek...mysterypdf) contains this paragraph:

"In  Free Will  (Ekstrom  2000 ) , I defend the following event-causal indeterminist account of free action: An" act is free just in case it results by a normal causal process from  a  preference  for  the  act,  a  preference  that  has  undefeated  authorization .  An agent’s  preference  has  undefeated  authorization  just  in  case  (i)  the  preference  is noncoercively formed or maintained, and (ii) the preference is caused but not determined by her considerations, that is, by the inputs to her deliberative process. The considerations taken up by the agent might themselves have chancy causes or deter-ministic ones. Indeterministic generation of the considerations is not required by the account, but is allowed."

I thought requirement (ii) might prove interesting, but it was not further elaborated.

I can't copy from the third reference (https://trace.tennessee.edu/cgi/viewcont...xt=pursuit), but the first paragraph of Section VI is interesting. Nowell argues that Kane fails to give: "Some explanation which clears  up how the undetermined state of affairs at t1 can be causally transformed into an agent’s performing a certain action at t2." That leaves neural coin-tosses and indeterministic noise as the possibilities.

So, at least the third reference discusses the same question as I've been asking. The second reference uses the term "caused but not determined by," but leaves me without a definition.

~~ Paul

Here is another way to think about what I'm asking.

At a point in time where I make a free decision, we agree that it must be the case that the decision is not entirely determined by the prior state of the world, including my mental state. What, then, accounts for the difference between my choosing A instead of B, that is not just a matter of chance?

~~ Paul

Here is another way to think about what I'm asking.

At a point in time where I make a free decision, we agree that it must be the case that the decision is not entirely determined by the prior state of the world, including my mental state. What, then, accounts for the difference between my choosing A instead of B, that is not just a matter of chance?

~~ Paul

So when one thinks they are making a decision, it actually is some kind of fundamental randomness, with "randomness" meaning something happening for no reason at all?

Isn't that like the mirror/inversion of Fate, where everything that happens has to happen for some inexplicable reason?

So when one thinks they are making a decision, it actually is some kind of fundamental randomness, with "randomness" meaning something happening for no reason at all?

Isn't that like the mirror/inversion of Fate, where everything that happens has to happen for some inexplicable reason?

It's not just random. It's also deterministic. How much of each I do not know. And, if free, presumably some indeterministic aspect.

I think, though, that you misunderstood my question. Let me reword it.

At a point in time where I make a free decision, we agree that it must be the case that the decision is not entirely determined by the prior state of the world, including my mental state. What, then, accounts for the difference between my choosing A instead of B (not including any possible chance factor)?

~~ Paul

It's not just random. It's also deterministic. How much of each I do not know. And, if free, presumably some indeterministic aspect.

I think, though, that you misunderstood my question. Let me reword it.

At a point in time where I make a free decision, we agree that it must be the case that the decision is not entirely determined by the prior state of the world, including my mental state. What, then, accounts for the difference between my choosing A instead of B (not including any possible chance factor)?

~~ Paul

Isn't this the same assertion? That the indeterminism just has to be randomness?

Quite frankly the fact that Paul is still needing to ask the same exact question over and over without getting an iota closer to an answer proves that the other side doesn't have one and the whole discussion is a waste of time.

Isn't this the same assertion? That the indeterminism just has to be randomness?

I'm not sure how a question can be an assertion. I'm asking what accounts for the difference between my choosing A instead of B, setting aside any possible chance factor. That is, if there is a chance factor, ignore it and specify what else accounts for the difference. The door for a nonrandom indeterministic factor is wide open.

~~ Paul

[Laird]

Quite frankly the fact that Paul is still needing to ask the same exact question over and over without getting an iota closer to an answer proves that the other side doesn't have one and the whole discussion is a waste of time.

That's of course exactly the reaction he's hoping for. The reality is that his question and variants of it have been answered multiple times in multiple ways over multiple threads over at least two forums, yet he continues to ask it. That's rhetorically effective but intellectually bankrupt, and bordering on trolling (as he effectively admitted early on in this thread), and it's why I haven't participated in this thread except to point out at the start that there's no satisfying him - not because satisfactory answers can't be provided (they have been), but because he's not looking for them, and simply ignores them when they are provided. It's gamesmanship, not Socratic dialogue.