Free will re-redux

I just see the argument unfolding like this between Skeptic (Sk) and Proponent (Pr)

Skeptic: Free will is incoherent, so it is impossible for even God to have it.

Propoponet:   Not even God?! Why is that?

Sk: Free will would have to be neither determined nor random.

Pr: Is there a proof everything has to be determined or random?

Sk: ...No. But it still doesn't make sense. How would free will work?

Pr: If by "How" you mean some sub-level processes/parts constituting the act of selecting among possibilities, then it's a trick question. Free will is an irreducible act.

Sk: There should still be a "how" description.

Pr: You mean "How" something is neither determined nor random? But you didn't provide any proof those are the only two options?

Sk: I'm willing to forget about the dichotomy, if you give me a "how" explanation. After all I can make a decision by flipping a coin or following a series of steps, and that explains "how" a decision was made.

Pr: But isn't the decision occurring when you decide to flip the coin, or follow the steps, or some combination of steps + indeterminism such as a coin flip or dice roll? It seems that is the point where you make a "meta-level" decision to answer the original question of selecting among possibilities by basing the choice on these steps +/- indeterminism?

So there is no actual "how" explained. In fact at any point in the chosen process you could choose to switch to another process, or just make the decision directly.

Sk: ....But even so there can still be a "how" explanation and nobody has given one.

Pr: Okay...Can you give an example of some other "how" explanation [so I can understand what you're looking for]?

Sk: You can see how a computer works, all the way down to the bottom level of physics.

Pr: But a computer has many processes [constituted of individual events], each of which involve one possibility occurring out of many possibilities. And none of those - whether determined or random - has been explained, all we have is an appeal to Dualist notions of "Laws of Physics"  for determinism or the illogical idea that something can happen without any cause.

In fact, given the "Laws of Physics" themselves would need Meta-Laws to explain why they don't change it seems "determinism" is just a special kind of randomness?

Sk: ....But we can look at the bottom level of physics and find only random events that become determined at higher levels.

Pr: Why would we think those events at the QM level are random?

Sk: Because we can't predict either the time and/or place of their occurrence despite having information about prior state.

Pr: Right but we can find patterns those events resolve to that allow them to be modeled by statistics and probability. So they can't be fully random either, in fact it makes the most sense to say these events are neither determined nor random.

Sk: They are random, they just have some constraints based on the prior frame [of states].

Pr: But Randomness doesn't make any logical sense, and the fact the events have relations to the past state even shows this isn't random. Even if one accepted randomness, how can randomness be constrained and still be random?

Sk: Well even *if* we accept non-random, non-determined events we would still need more of any explanation than that.

Pr: Well one good example is the Metaphysics of Dispositional Causal Powers. Here's a list of papers that start the bottom level of causation and go all the way to the top to explain how free will is a Rational Two-Way Causal Power.

Sk: Can you summarize those papers?

Pr: I could, but can you tell me the criteria that is to be met so I know what that kind of effort would go towards?

Sk: The criteria is my personal satisfaction.

Pr: Yeah, I think I'll pass on putting too much more effort into this as I think it's now been shown Philosophically / Mathematically / Empirically that Free Will is not incoherent. That at the least God can have it in a logically possible world.

QED, Resolved, however you want to say it there's no argument left for the claim that free will is incoherent that I can see...

[Laird]

Yeah, I think I'll pass on putting too much more effort into this as I think it's now been shown Philosophically / Mathematically / Empirically that Free Will is not incoherent. That at the least God can have it in a logically possible world.

QED, Resolved, however you want to say it there's no argument left for the claim that free will is incoherent that I can see...

I think it's time this thread was closed. It's clear by now that an argument that has well and truly been taken apart and demolished is never going to be conceded by its proponent, who is otherwise going to continue to dig in, endlessly repeat thoroughly answered questions, and waste our time. Any objection?

I think it's time this thread was closed. It's clear by now that an argument that has well and truly been taken apart and demolished is never going to be conceded by its proponent, who is otherwise going to continue to dig in, endlessly repeat thoroughly answered questions, and waste our time. Any objection?

I don't think the thread needs to be locked, people can simply choose of their own free will not to play the game unless the goal posts are clearly defined.

[Laird]

I don't think the thread needs to be locked, people can simply choose of their own free will not to play the game unless the goal posts are clearly defined.

I see what you did there.

OK, I'll leave it open for now, in the hope that something new is brought to the table, not merely a rehashing of that which has already been done to death. If nothing new eventuates, I'll reconsider.

Sk: ....But even so there can still be a "how" explanation and nobody has given one.

Pr: Okay...Can you give an example of some other "how" explanation [so I can understand what you're looking for]?

Sk: You can see how a computer works, all the way down to the bottom level of physics.

Isn't this doing an injustice to the poor old skeptic represented in this dramatisation? A computer is deterministic, so it cannot possibly have been given as an example of a "how", can it? I wonder what sort of example a skeptic would actually propose as a suitable illustration of the meaning of the word "how"?

I see what you did there.

OK, I'll leave it open for now, in the hope that something new is brought to the table, not merely a rehashing of that which has already been done to death. If nothing new eventuates, I'll reconsider.

Well, if you or Sciborg choose to not participate, that would slow things down. Presumably in responding, each person feels they have brought something new. (Apologies for not listing all contributors to the thread, no disrespect is intended).

Another alternative, rather than closing the thread which seems unnecessary to me, is to leave it open as a form of social interaction, which is I feel one of the primary functions of a forum.

Paul is a very pleasant sceptic, but what all that (redux) is about, god knows. I lost interest somewhere back in 1978.

It's not random for the reasons already given (see here).

"Pedetic motion, on the other hand, is not random at all, but instead emerges from and is influenced by other motions, just not in a completely determined way. Unlike randomness, pedetic motion is not unpredictable because it is not influenced by any other motions; rather, motion is pedetic precisely because it occurs in relation to other motions. It is the interrelation and mutual influence of matter with itself that gives it its unpredictable character. Over a long period of time, the pedetic motion of matter combines and stabilizes into certain patterns, synchronies, and relations, giving the appearance of stability and solidity, only to become turbulent again and enter into new conjoined relations."


Can you explain what you think he is trying to say here? The second sentence particularly sounds like gibberish. First he says that pedetic motion's unpredictability is not due to lack of influence, then he uses the term to try to define the term. After all, deterministic motion also "occurs in relation to other motions."



We cannot know the positions and velocities of all the particles that influence a particular particle's motion. So we might say that the particle's motion is deterministic yet not predictable. Or we might say that the entire system is therefore stochastic. But what is this third process where the particle's motion is neither deterministic nor stochastic? Or do you agree that it is stochastic and somehow infer the possibility of free will in there somewhere?



~~ Paul

You seem very confused. You had written "Physical laws don't happen", implying that I'd written that they do - which I hadn't. Instead, I'd written that (your position could be summarised as) "The application of 'necessitating' [...] physical laws just happens" (bold emphasis added).

You want to have it both ways. On the one hand, your argument against free will depends on physical laws "forcing" the decisions made by agents (the laws "being applied" by something; who knows what), such that those decisions are not truly free. On the other, recognising that the lack, on your apparently physicalist metaphysic, of anything that could meaningfully be the "enforcer" of those laws, you affirm that they are merely descriptive rather than prescriptive. Once you remove prescriptiveness, though, then there is no longer anything "forcing" agents to make decisions; the possibility is open for them then to make genuinely free choices which can merely be - as for physical laws - "described rather than prescribed".

I have no interest in physical laws forcing anything, since they are merely descriptive. I'm entirely happy to drop any assumptions in this regard.

But, as I've said many times, this does not suddenly make free will an obvious notion. Just because a decision does not inexorably result from the previous state of affairs does not make it clear how it does arise. That is, how it does arise in a way that is related to the previous state of affairs but not produced by a random number generator.

~~ Paul

Oh dear. We've been through this so many times in so many threads already that it's unbelievable that you don't get it by now. "Trolling" very likely is an accurate way to describe your engagement on this forum. In any case, see the above: if, indeed, "laws" are merely descriptive and not prescriptive, then, fine, pick any decision anybody has ever made, describe it, and - presto - there's your "law", albeit that that law might apply solely to that individual decision. This is not an argument against free will; rather, it supports free will.

Okay, so there are no general laws that we can derive.

I mean that the decision was - in part - predicated upon them, but not necessitated by them. See senses #1:

1 : dependent on or conditioned by something else

...and #5:

5 : not necessitated : determined by free choice

#1 doesn't help me understand what it means to be contingent. I understand the "dependent on" part, but I do not understand the "not necessitated" part. That is, I don't know what else there is to the decision over and above the dependency on the prior state of affairs.

#5 just tells me that "not necessitated" means "not necessitated."

Am I simply to understand that "not necessitated" means that I could have made a different decision under the same prior state of affairs?

~~ Paul