Neuroscience and free will

Is the notion or concept of logic sufficient in this case?  It seems that, again, so little is known about consciousness that logic in this arena sits on rather precarious ground, no?  Even in studying the physical world, logic has proven to be a suspect tool in many cases.

But that's all we have in philosophy. If we are going to blow off logic, then we might as well just admit we have no idea.

It may be illogical to even be seeking an answer to your question.  Again, I am appealing to the woefully inadequate starting point with which we ponder the question.

It may indeed be illogical, but I would look for some sort of logical proof that such is the case. Otherwise I'm in pain of immorality if I do not try to understand this.

~~ Paul

What is the difference between the agent making the selection and the agent not making any selection at all?

~~ Paul

IMO this has been covered? Since the free decision is the effect of an Efficient Cause, there is some decision that has to be made. This IMO follows from the layperson understanding of decisions -> you can decide to wait on a particular decision X, decide to ask a friend before you decide on X, etc.

I can see this heading to the same impasse...[I can quote stuff about Whitehead's idea of taking in the past/present and composing it into a novelty, but this ends up using the term Final Cause as well]...I feel like it's obvious what Laird and I think is at least the gist/sketch of a solution is missing something for you but we don't know what that is. Also why I think it's best to not worry about free will for now and go into the brick/window scenario in that other thread.

I think at this point the conversation relating to free will is going in circles.

I'm happy to stop playing the game if someone simply asserts that there is no answer to my question. But apparently it's an important issue, since Sciborg thinks it is immoral (correct word?) not to agree that we have free choice. So surely I should continue to do my homework.

~~ Paul

I believe I said *if* there is no way to rescue human achievement and moral responsibility, then it seems to me immoral to push a view that negates even the possibility some brute-fact/just-because free will. Rather a good deal of funding should go toward research that supports the possibility mental causation - parapsychology, NDEs, etc.

But if someone has an answer as to how you explain to a child they are not in control of their actions but still responsible for them, as well as an appropriate age to have this talk, I'm all ears.

Discussions about causality and indeterminate/random seem a red-herring.

We've already stipulated that the all-of-a-piece "fish" decision is the cause (whatever that happens to mean) of Paul's choosing fish for supper.

And indeterminate/random can simply be defined as any process would be regarded as unsatisfying as a driver of "free will". That is, if "random" is a coin flip, nobody would be satisfied with the discovery that those decisions which bubble into consciousness had been decided on a lower (non-conscious) level by a coin flip. 

So we have an all-of-a-piece "fish" module and an all-of-a-piece "chicken" module ready to make an appearance, in our consciousness. At some point (i.e. when a decision is needed), one of them makes an appearance. Can a description be given of which one makes an appearance which is satisfying wrt ''free" and also satisfying wrt "will"? That is, "a beta particle pinged the "fish" module" is "free", but certainly not satisfyingly attributable to "will". And "modules will make an appearance in reverse alphabetical order" can reflect your "will", but wouldn't be "free".

Can a description be given which reflects "free" "will"?

Linda

IMO this has been covered? Since the free decision is the effect of an Efficient Cause, there is some decision that has to be made. 

But if someone has an answer as to how you explain to a child they are not in control of their actions but still responsible for them, as well as an appropriate age to have this talk, I'm all ears.

Every parent knows that there is no logic to it for the child - if you don't teach personal responsibility.  They need to internalize that they are free to choose to be good, which maybe at a personal sacrifice for them.

In my point of view - this is where an adult example can help build character in the decision-making process of a young person.  Character being an informational object.  Tendencies to have predictable outcomes from moral choices comes from inner structured relations.  These structured relations can be viewed as an information object and be synonymous with character, such as would be referred to in court.

[Laird]

So we have a singular decision/selection which is non-composite. What about that makes it "free"?

The question was, what would make a decision "free"? We've already stipulated, for the sake of the discussion, that free will could be possible. Given that we have our possibility selector (consciousness), and that it is not composite, what about the selection is "free", rather than something else, like "indeterminate"?

How did the possibility selector select "fish"?

So another way to ask the question is: Why/how did the Final Cause cause me to choose chicken instead of fish? And why could it have chosen fish under the same circumstances in a way that isn't just a coin flip? And by "same circumstances" I mean that very same time.

What's unsatisfying is to say that the decision is all-of-a-piece and can't be broken down at all. Heck, even if it is all-of-a-piece, surely we can say something about how that unitary decision is made. What's missing from the discussion is any sense of "freeness."

I thought the whole point is that we have some sort of causation that is free. If we ignore free will, why do we need anything other than deterministic causation?

Doesn't there have to be some method by which a free agent selects from among the options? We agree it's not a coin toss. We agree it isn't forced. We agree it isn't algorithmic. We agree it could have been different. We agree that no other agent is making the selection.

So unless there really isn't any selection at all, there have to be factors that the agent uses to make the selection. There have to be inputs. There has to be some way of using those inputs to reach a decision. There has to be an actual decision made.

Let's try this:

What is the difference between the agent making the selection and the agent not making any selection at all?

So we have an all-of-a-piece "fish" module and an all-of-a-piece "chicken" module ready to make an appearance, in our consciousness. At some point (i.e. when a decision is needed), one of them makes an appearance. Can a description be given of which one makes an appearance which is satisfying wrt ''free" and also satisfying wrt "will"? That is, "a beta particle pinged the "fish" module" is "free", but certainly not satisfyingly attributable to "will". And "modules will make an appearance in reverse alphabetical order" can reflect your "will", but wouldn't be "free".

Can a description be given which reflects "free" "will"?

Until recently, I'd been without regular internet access for several months, so I hadn't been able to respond in this thread - I hope I don't ruffle any feathers by resurrecting it, even if only for a single post. No doubt, it is futile to respond in the expectation that it will change the views of either of the above quoted participants in the thread, but for the sake of other readers I thought it would be useful to add my own comments to those of Sci in addressing the above, lest it appear that these questions really do remain unanswered.

First, I think this quote from Bernardo Kastrup in his Why Materialism is Baloney book lays out the background nicely:

if the word has any meaning at all, freewill must not have any explanation, otherwise it wouldn’t be free. An explanation always entails a chain of cause and effect that unfolds into the phenomenon being explained. If freewill could be explained, it would consist merely of the unfolding of causality, which contradicts the meaning of the word. Therefore, freewill is, by definition, something that can’t be explained or modeled

In other words, free will by definition can't be explained in terms of breaking decisions down into composite causes (and their effects)... which probably won't stop Paul from asking us to do it anyway!

But what about the repeated question above: what makes a freely willed decision "free"? One way of answering this question is: that decision's not being necessitated, neither by logical, metaphysical nor nomological necessity, and in particular its not being necessitated (nor "compelled" nor "forced") by anything external to the willing agent, including the laws of physics.

OK, but then how is a "free" decision different to a "random" or "indeterministic" one? Well, Paul has defined "random" or "indeterministic" decisions as those without a cause, but freely willed decisions do have a cause: the willing agent, in particular that agent's (freely willing) consciousness.

OK... but what about "fish versus chicken", and the need for inputs. Well, sure, there are inputs: the agent takes these into account holistically when making the decision. So then, why one and not the other? This is where we have to keep Bernardo's quote in mind: we can't ultimately explain or model this (that is, by breaking it down into parts); all we can say is that the freely willing agent, in holistically assessing its options, chose one and not the other via a free act of will (even if that free act plays itself out across a sequence of events). This, I think, is the crux of the problem that Paul, Linda, and others have with the position taken by Sci, myself, and others: they cannot (do not) accept that this is a sufficient answer. Perhaps it seems too "magical" to them. I think "wondrous" would be another word, and one which I am quite happy to share in when it comes to the existence and joy of the gift of free will... but I am open to the possibility of a non-causal explanation of free will that goes beyond accepting it as a brute aspect of consciousness, I simply have no idea at this point how it would come about or be expressed other than introspectively.

I have no problem with a description of "free will" as something which seems both indeterminate and determinate with respect to your will. I also have no problem if anyone wants to call this "magical" or "wondrous" or "inexplicable" or "tautological", rather than peaking behind the curtain.

Linda

the position taken by Sci, myself, and others: they cannot (do not) accept that this is a sufficient answer.

Hmmm...I'm not sure we have the same position, because I don't think Bernardo is correct about what explanations ultimately entail.

But I made thread for discussion of causation if you want to talk about that...

[Laird]

Hmmm...I'm not sure we have the same position, because I don't think Bernardo is correct about what explanations ultimately entail.

But I made thread for discussion of causation if you want to talk about that...

I might raise this question there then. In the meantime, here's a brief redux of the failure of the argument presented by the free will skeptics in this thread, whether explicitly or implicitly:

That argument is essentially that an (allegedly) exclusive dichotomy exists, both options of which are (allegedly) incompatible with free will.

In this thread, the dichotomy has been presented in various ways, which I think can fairly be summarised as the following:

1. Deterministic versus indeterministic.
   
2. Caused versus uncaused.
   
3. Necessitated versus random (in the sense of "arbitrary").
   

The first is problematic in that "determinism" is an ill-defined or at least misunderstood and confused word, but I think it's fair to say that in this thread this dichotomy has been presented as being synonymous with one or the other of the remaining two dichotomies, which I address next.

The second is legitimately exclusive, based on classical logic (law of excluded middle) given the syntax of the words, however, its failure is that its first option is compatible with free will: as we have seen, free will choices can be caused, by their agents.

The failure of the third is that it is not exclusive. Paul has more-or-less explicitly stated that "random" is synonymous with "uncaused", so, by comparison with the second dichotomy, for this third dichotomy to be exclusive, we would need "necessitated" to be synonymous with "caused"... but it isn't. An effect need not be "necessitated" by its cause; it could just as well be "contingent" upon its cause - and contingency is compatible with freedom in the sense required for free will.

So, that's my attempt to wrap up this debate, though it's probably in vain...

[Laird]

rather than peaking behind the curtain.

Behind the curtain of hard determinism lies the great and mighty Wizard of Oz..