Free will re-redux

Well recalling that I am simply saying free will isn't incoherent** would "God" count as this factor? Or if one prefers, the "Ur-Mind" if Objective Idealism or "Unity of Will & Force" if Top-Down Panpsychism is true.

**By which I mean there is at least one possible world where one conscious agent can select from possibilities, in the sense that this being [could have done] otherwise.

Wanted to explain why I suggested God.

Because as the "best" being, or arguably the Ground of Being, God's an edge case and edge cases are good for trying to find - or in this case communicate - an invariant.

I say "invariant" because I assume this quest for a "how" explanation is saying there's something wrong and/or missing from every account given so far here, in the last thread, and all the threads of Skeptiko.

So God as the "highest" Consciousness, is an edge case where we can presumably ignore things like physics, genetics, etc. And as Ground of Being God would have a special relationship to Causation, Consciousness, and Time.

The other edge case, I think, is removing consciousness altogether and looking at Thomas Nail's argument that matter moves in a way that's neither deterministic nor random.

If the same "how" problem exists in both cases then it would seem the issue is not with conscious agents but with the idea that something is neither random nor determined. If it's a problem that is only with God, and presumably all "lesser" beings, than it's something to do not with randomness/determinism but instead with consciousness. And if God can be free willed but matter can't move in a way that's neither random nor determined then it has something to with the limitations faced by entities [whose being would be grounded, in some way, by God or some atheistic substitute].

OTOH maybe Laird is right and there is no actual "how", that what's really going on is a Socratic style of questioning where one ultimately says something like, "I choose the one I prefer more" and is greeted with, "GOTCHA! Your preference DETERMINES the choice!"

OR

someone says, "Free will is rooted in fundamental Novelty" to which they're greeted with, "GOTCHA! If something is fundamentally Novel it has no relation to the past so is RANDOM!"

I hope that's not the case, as I kinda feel like that'd be a waste of everyone's time going back years...

Here's a simpler and better proof:

1. If a concept is conceivable without contradiction, then it is (logically) possible.
   
2. Non-random, non-necessary decisions are conceivable without contradiction.
   
3. Therefore, non-random, non-necessary decisions are (logically) possible.
   

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.

~~ Paul

No one has posted a proof that every event must be exclusively deterministic or random.

Not even a flowery philosophical one.

This depends entirely on your definition of random. 

But I'm happy to agree with you. However, that does not suddenly produce a coherent description of a nonrandom indeterministic event.

~~ Paul

What is the "how" for a random choice?

When something "deterministic" happens, what is the "how" of why something else didn't happen[?]

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.

~~ Paul

That's because you're invested in not having any idea. And no, this time I won't be joining Sci in playing your sorry little game of "But I don't understand. That doesn't answer my question. Here it is again." I've invested enough hours in the past into it to know by now that it's never-ending. If you guys are simply enjoying the social dynamics of it, or if Sci appreciates the challenge of trying to satisfy the perpetually dissatisfied, then you guys stick with it and keep at it, but it clearly leads nowhere intellectually.

For the record, I answered the question in the article I wrote on the PQ wiki in response to your implied argument: In defence of free will. I linked to that article towards the end of the last free will thread. In it, I invited the forum "skeptics" to create their own page advocating their own (counter-)arguments should they see fit. Your response? Ignore it and start a new thread claiming the question hasn't been answered. [Edit: To be fair, I only added the section of the article which explicitly answers your question six months after first publishing and linking to the article, but on the other hand, that addition was eleven months ago.]

Cue: "That's not good enough, I still want to play my game", in which case, have at it buddy, but count me out.

As for Mediochre's demand for a "mathematical proof", I don't see how such a thing could be remotely applicable in this context.

Now we're getting somewhere. This article is new to me. Perhaps I missed it in that previous thread.

"One plausible answer is that, whilst a decision often can be broken down into a series of steps (as introspection reveals), at a certain point, the decision simply becomes irreducible. In this sense, the decision is simply an holistic function of a person's will given the context in which s/he finds him/herself. 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. In considering S3, we might find that although to an extent it can be broken down a little, at some point it becomes irreducible: the person, given the full context of his/her situation, simply holistically and contingently makes the choice. At that level, the choice cannot be broken down any further."

Seems to me an admission that you cannot, in fact, conceive of how a free choice can be made.

~~ Paul

I think the only even vaguely contestable premise is the second, but the fact that billions of people all over the world and throughout history (have) conceive(d) of themselves as making free choices which are neither forced (necessitated) nor random, and have not conceived of this as entailing a contradiction, makes it very difficult to contest.

Indeed, people conceive of themselves making free choices all the time. What they do not conceive, however, is the way in which those choices were made.

~~ Paul

[Laird]

Cue: "That's not good enough, I still want to play my game", in which case, have at it buddy, but count me out.

And then:

Seems to me an admission that you cannot, in fact, conceive of how a free choice can be made.

Did I pick it or what?

Did I pick it or what?

I think this depends on what Paul means by "conceive".


Of particular interest is what he means by "conceiving" of randomness.

Also I feel like there's this cycle that needs to be explained:

1) We seem to start off with the issue of the randomness/determinism dichotomy. This seems to be the source of the idea that free will is incoherent.

2) But then we are told the "how" problem exists even if one (temporarily at least) forgoes the dichotomy.

3) Yet attempted clarification of the "how" problem always seems to lead back to the inability to conceive of something that is neither deterministic nor random.

I skipped around in the 75 page thread and this was the same problem there. Of course this is why I said people should stop talking about free will until they've had a good conversation or ten about causation...

[Laird]

I feel like there's this cycle

No kidding. I choose to exit the cycle, which in programming terms appears to be an endless loop: a while(1) with no break statement. I'll keep following the thread though. Maybe you can pull off a miracle.