Free will re-redux

[Laird]

This is too facile. I cannot conceive of them, with or without contradiction, because no one can describe what they mean by a nonrandom, non-necessary decision. I simply do not understand what you claim to be conceiving.

Sci incidentally reminded me of why for the wiki article I chose the word "contingent" to describe the "third option" you kept asking for, and I've updated the article accordingly. Here's the relevant part. The analogy at the end, in particular, might help you to understand, especially if you have a little background in formal logic:

That missing third option covers those events for which we can say that although the event happened due to some cause, it did not "have to" happen because of that cause; it simply "did" happen because of that cause. A suitable term for this third option, borrowing from its definition in logic, is "contingent". In logic, a proposition whose truth is "contingent" is one which, while true, is not true necessarily; it "just so happens" to be true. Here, we apply "contingent" not to logical propositions but to causal relations. Note that we specifically and explicitly exclude the ordinary sense of "contingent" as "subject to chance". Indeed, we contrast our use of contingent against that concept, especially insofar as it refers to the same arbitrary "randomness" of the above argument, which is typically understood to represent an event without a cause: our "third option" of contingency explicitly requires that effects have causes; those causes, however, simply do not necessitate their effects.

We might make the following analogy:

• Event governed by a necessary causal relation <=> Necessarily true proposition.
  
• Event governed by a contingent causal relation <=> Contingently true proposition.
  
• Event not governed by any causal relation (a random/acausal event) <=> False proposition.
  

You've declared the critical part of the issue---how one makes a nonrandom indeterministic decision---to be irreducible.

On reflection, that part of the article wasn't very well framed. That's one of the reasons why I'm reengaging with you (the other is that it's simply too irritating to let your ongoing false allegation that there is insufficient reason to accept the possibility of free will stand on this forum).

Here's how I've reframed it:

But how does it work?

A (set of) question(s) that often comes up at this point is:

But how are these choices made? In the case of determinism, we can explain how any given deterministic process works by breaking it down very exactingly in terms of the laws of physics, and for randomness, even though we can't exactly break it down like that, physics does give us a good reason to believe that in certain contexts it is applicable, and why. Can similar explanations be offered for how a free will choice is made?

A plausible answer is that just as a deterministic causal process can be broken down into a set of - themselves irreducible - laws which explain how the process works, freely willed choices and behaviour can be broken down into a set of - themselves irreducible - reasons which explain how the choice or behaviour were willed by the agent who willed them.

In this sense, reasons and the discipline of psychology are to free will choices what (respectively) laws and the discipline of physics are to causal determinism.

We might observe, for example, that in making choice C, person P took the steps S1, followed by S2, and then S3, in which S1 was a consideration of the options available, S2 was a narrowing down of options, and S3 was the - potentially provisional - commitment to one of the options - the choice itself. Though it might not be apparent to others (and sometimes not fully understood by P either), P had some reason or set of reasons R1 for undertaking S1, and some reason or set of reasons R2 for undertaking S2, and so on for not just S3 but C as well. In considering those reasons, we might find that although to an extent they can be broken down a little into "reasons why the reasons hold", at some point they become irreducible: P, given the full context of his/her situation, simply holistically and contingently chooses C for the given reasons. At that level, the choice cannot be broken down any further.

A full accounting of free will allows that these reasons are to an extent themselves freely (contingently) chosen, and thus neither the choice nor its reasons are necessitated. In other words, we are, to an extent, free to contingently "choose why we choose what we choose". There is a sense of circularity or endless recursion to this, but that is why the word "holistically" from the previous paragraph is especially relevant.

So, your complaint simply has no merit, because deterministic processes reduce analogously to an irreducible element (the laws of physics) - and randomness seems on your account anyway to be irreducible right from the start (let alone explicable).

why don't you (and others) simply answer my question: I do not know how a nonrandom indeterministic decision is made. Then I would not keep pestering you in the hope that you have something to say about it.

Given the updates to the wiki article, I have answered "how" free will works on the (mechanistic or reductive) level which seems to interest you, and that answer is better grounded than the answers we have for determinism/randomness.

For the mechanistic or reductive level, this is what we've got so far for "How does X work?":

1. Determinism: (Paraphrasing your answer) According to a detailed set of laws (of physics) into which any given presumed-to-be deterministic process/phenomenon can be reduced. For example, we can explain how computers work - i.e., reliably follow a programmable sequence of steps - in terms of the laws of physics. This answer reduces to the more basic "how" questions:
   
   • How (or why) is it that these laws even exist in the first place?
     
   • How (or why) do those laws necessitate physical behaviour?
     
   It is not clear that on physicalism a satisfactory answer is even possible to either of these questions.
   
2. Randomness: (Paraphrasing your answer) Acausally; without prior cause, in various scenarios known to physics. Given its lack of prior cause, however, it is causally irreducible, and in this sense unamenable to mechanistic explanation. The decay of a particle, for example, is simply an instantaneous occurrence with no definite cause beyond a stochastic law - the existence and effectiveness of which is, again, as for deterministic laws, inexplicable, at least on physicalism. Too, the provided description is very vague, and, as Sci points out, potentially (1) incoherent or inconceivable, and (2) amounting to creation ex nihilo.
   
3. Free will: (Summarising my answer) By a conscious agent participating freely and holistically in a contingent (that is, non-necessitated, non-random) causal process which can be explained in terms of (sets of) psychological (including ethical) reasons. For example, we can explain how (or why) a person makes a free choice to adopt veganism in terms of such reasons as being ethically committed to minimising harm, having a personal love of animals, and having an emotional repugnance for the mistreatment of animals. The discipline of psychology provides systematic study into the reasons which people tend to use in freely (and sometimes not-so-freely) making their decisions, and why they tend to use those reasons.
   

Whereas we have no answer to the two devolved "how" questions for determinism, we do have them for the analogous questions for free will:

1. The reasons (analogous to physical laws) for free will choices exist in the first place because they are aspects/functions of - and in part chosen by - conscious agents.
   
2. These reasons effect (analogous to "necessitate") free choices by the power of conscious agency.
   

Thus, the "how" answer for free will is better grounded than the one you posit for determinism, and given that for randomness we have only the vaguest "how" answer, and not even a reducible one, the "how" answer for free will is obviously better grounded there too.

Now there's enough context by which to respond to this exchange:

The "how" of a deterministic event is all of physics. That doesn't provide the ultimate bottom "how," but no one is asking for that with respect to a nonrandom indeterministic event, either. Give us the high-level "physics" of such events.

Isn't the description Laird put in the PsienceQuest Wiki exactly on that level?

I don't think so, no.

Fair enough. Until the most recent edits I've made, it hadn't been. Now that I've provided you with the analogy between psychological reasons and physical laws; and between psychology and physics, your claim is no longer true.

Similarly:

What we do have for deterministic and random events are plenty of examples and amazing explanation down to that elusive bottom.

And if we are to introspect into our own behaviour and choices, or analyse the behaviour and choices of others, we can come up with plenty of examples of, and amazing explanations for, freely willed choices and behaviour too. Again, the distinction you seem to want to draw in terms of explanatory (in)sufficiency just doesn't exist.

Finally:

I think you are relying on having consciousness underneath. [...] But now you have consciousness to explain

This is just silly. First, to be able to rely on the existence of something, one only needs to be sure that it exists, not explain how or why it exists, and that consciousness exists is one of the few things that we do know for sure.

Second, it isn't me who has the problem explaining consciousness; it's the physicalist. The ontological commitment to physicalism entails an (impossible) explanation of consciousness in terms of physical stuff. I have no such or similar requirement; I am free to simply accept consciousness as ontologically basic and irreducible, just as the physicalist accepts of physical stuff.

I have no notion how that consciousness is making a decision that is based on the current state of affairs and yet could be different, except by flipping a coin. What is the intuition for how the agent chose the decision but could have chosen differently?

Wait, are you saying that coin flips are causeless? Because that's how you've defined randomness. I think you're equivocating here on "random".

Conscious decisions involve a degree of freedom, but the crucial insight is that that freedom is not "random" in the sense of being "without cause": it is contingent on prior causes. The contingency (as opposed to necessitation) is what confers the freedom; the causal connectivity is what confers authorship of the decision.

[Laird]

Wait, are you saying that coin flips are causeless? Because that's how you've defined randomness. I think you're equivocating here on "random".

Conscious decisions involve a degree of freedom, but the crucial insight is that that freedom is not "random" in the sense of being "without cause": it is contingent on prior causes. The contingency (as opposed to necessitation) is what confers the freedom; the causal connectivity is what confers authorship of the decision.

Incidentally, this leads to a question:

Is Paul's idea that there might be a continuum between "determinism" and "randomness" even coherent? Randomness on his definition entails a total lack of cause, but how could there be degrees of non-existence (that is, of the non-existent cause)? And if, as on Paul's definition of determinism, an effect is necessitated by prior causes, then how could adding a lack of cause change it in any way?

Just a quick note, consciousness being a superior explanation than determinism/randomness based on grounding why of all possible outcomes one is selected...

That's the metaphysically neutral position for preferring consciousness. One can give further arguments depending on a metaphysical picture.

However, I deleted a bunch of my responses because I just want to know if the problem of free will is the same problem Paul has with Thomas Nail's materialism where matter [which has no consciousness] moves in a way that non-random but not determined either.

But there is no clarification of the "how" problem. At least Laird is being straightforward in saying that it is irreducible in between and below the point where it is deterministic and/or arbitrary. So now I am left with deciding whether I want to have faith that there is a nonrandom indeterministic component.

Setting aside the faith part for now....Hmmm, in 2019 that last time this debate happened I said ->

Well sticking for the moment with the dualist assumption of the supernatural agent, why can't the decision simply be a kind of mental causation that is neither random nor determined?

And in this thread I said ->

If free will can be explained in terms of some non-free processes, then it isn't free.

Pretty sure I've always been saying there's an irreducible mental causation that's neither random nor determined, and I believe I said this repeatedly in the 75 page thread in some way or another.

Anyway in the interest of straightforward-ness, when you say conceive you mean conceive an event as neither random nor determined, whether it's a conscious decision making entity or just matter moving in Thomas Nail's "Pedesis"...right?

So it's the same problem for free will as it is for Thomas Nail's non-random, non-deterministic materialism?

I guess so. Really, though, I'm just looking for a description that rings true as describing how I can make an indeterministic decision that isn't truly random. Nothing I read sounds as if it's describing this. Suggestions are made about possible sources of the decision. Questions are asked about whether randomness is truly random. People point out that QM is indeterministic. Nonuniformly random stochastic processes are suggested as evidence of some hidden causes. Various terms are coined.

Let me put it this way: If you could prove that there are nonrandom indeterministic processes, I would still ask for a description of how they lead to free decisions. What happens between the final moment of indecision and the first moment of decision?

~~ Paul

Incidentally, this leads to a question:

Is Paul's idea that there might be a continuum between "determinism" and "randomness" even coherent? Randomness on his definition entails a total lack of cause, but how could there be degrees of non-existence (that is, of the non-existent cause)? And if, as on Paul's definition of determinism, an effect is necessitated by prior causes, then how could adding a lack of cause change it in any way?

I don't think there is a continuum. However, I have suspended the assumption of a dichotomy so that the assumption does not get in the way of people offering descriptions of free decisions.

~~ Paul

Setting aside the faith part for now....Hmmm, in 2019 that last time this debate happened I said ->


And in this thread I said ->


Pretty sure I've always been saying there's an irreducible mental causation that's neither random nor determined, and I believe I said this repeatedly in the 75 page thread in some way or another.

Anyway in the interest of straightforward-ness, when you say conceive you mean conceive an event as neither random nor determined, whether it's a conscious decision making entity or just matter moving in Thomas Nail's "Pedesis"...right?

Correct. I simply do not understand what it means for a process to be indeterministic yet not random. I don't know what that process would do, how it would proceed, what would guide it from one step to another, which bit of it would be undetermined yet not arbitrary. I cannot picture the indeterministic "force" that would push it across the threshold from undecided to decided.

~~ Paul

Wait, are you saying that coin flips are causeless? Because that's how you've defined randomness. I think you're equivocating here on "random".

Conscious decisions involve a degree of freedom, but the crucial insight is that that freedom is not "random" in the sense of being "without cause": it is contingent on prior causes. The contingency (as opposed to necessitation) is what confers the freedom; the causal connectivity is what confers authorship of the decision.

I just use the term "coin flip" to mean a random event, possibly even uniformly random.

If you could describe the difference between a contingent decision and a necessitated one, that might do the trick. All I've read just sounds like "contingent" is coined to mean "caused but not dictated," which gets us nowhere.

~~ Paul

Let me put it this way: If you could prove that there are nonrandom indeterministic processes, I would still ask for a description of how they lead to free decisions. What happens between the final moment of indecision and the first moment of decision?

~~ Paul

So I don't think we should get ahead of ourselves but I would answer exercising of a conscious entity's (irreducible?) ability to select from a set of possibilities.

I think there's at least two (not mutually exclusive) ways to argue this ->

1) Show that the alternatives - Determinism, Randomness, Pedesis - fail to account for any kind of causation or at least mental causation. Then show why the last option, Conscious Possibility Selection, is the most rational explanation for why of all live possibilities for any cause only one effect is actualized.

Note that I don't think it suffices to simply show how bad the other options are, there does need to be some affirmative argument.

2) Make an argument for conscious agents having mental powers in the philosophical sense like Miltenburg & Ometto do...I say philosophical as opposed to Psi abilities.

In this paper, we investigate how contemporary metaphysics of powers can further an understanding of agent-causal theories of free will. The recent upsurge of such ontologies of powers and the understanding of causation it affords promises to demystify the notion of an agent-causal power. However, as we argue pace (Mumford and Anjum in Analysis 74:20–25, 2013; Am Philos Q 52:1–12, 2015a), the very ubiquity of powers also poses a challenge to understanding in what sense exercises of an agent’s power to act could still be free—neither determined by external circumstances, nor random, but self-determined. To overcome this challenge, we must understand what distinguishes the power to act from ordinary powers. We suggest this difference lies in its rational nature, and argue that existing agent-causal accounts (e.g., O’Connor in Libertarian views: dualist and agent-causal theories, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002; Lowe in Personal agency: the metaphysics of mind and action, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013) fail to capture the sense in which the power to act is rational. A proper understanding, we argue, requires us to combine the recent idea that the power to act is a ‘two-way power’ (e.g., Steward in A metaphysics for freedom, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2012b; Lowe (in: Groff, Greco (eds) Powers and capacities in philosophy: the new Aristotelianism, Routledge, New York, 2013) with the idea that it is intrinsically rational. We sketch the outlines of an original account that promises to do this. On this picture, what distinguishes the power to act is its special generality—the power to act, unlike ordinary powers, does not come with any one typical manifestation. We argue that this special generality can be understood to be a feature of the capacity to reason. Thus, we argue, an account of agent-causation that can further our understanding of free will requires us to recognize a specifically rational or mental variety of power.

A quick sketch of 1) for Determinism and Randomness ->

Determinism: The innards of mental character - or if we pretend Physicalism isn't false whatever "matter" & "energy" are - of the person leads to a particular outcome due to an Irreducible Law. Of course with Memory & Qualitative aspects of Consciousness it's not clear what law applies to each unique instance of decision making.

Randomness: Some act of nonsensical Chance, for no grounded reason at all, yields an outcome. This then means reality is unintelligble to anyone including someone with a "God" level understanding.

It does seem we're running into this word "conceive" and what it means. I can't see how anyone can conceive of Physicalism being true, nor can I see how one conceives of Randomness. I used to be able to conceive of Determinism, or thought I did, until I was asked to consider why of all the things that could happen only one effect came from a particular set of causes.

Now someone can accept randomness, just as they can accept matter moving in "deterministic" regularities that they are confident won't change. I am not sure that's the same thing as "conceiving" however.

[Laird]

I'm just looking for a description that rings true as describing how I can make an indeterministic decision that isn't truly random.

Ridiculous. Same-old same-old. At this point, I think you really are trolling. Re-engaging was obviously pointless. He's all yours, Sci.