I believe in freewill but I would never say consciousness was "uncaused". My consciousness couldn't exist without my brain, so it appears the immediate "cause" of my consciousness is my brain, which is not magical at all. By the same token, physical bodies (people) who have brains are made (caused) by the sexual union of other bodies. (If one wants to say that robots or machines might have something called "consciousness", that's fine, and no one would say that such was uncaused.)
And furthermore, the facts that 1) I am alive and 2) I am conscious, are both caused; but to say that these facts were "determined" seems to me to suggest that I somehow "had" to be born, which I don't believe to be true. My parents could just as well have chosen not to have children.
I think there might be a problem with definitions in regard to the words "determined" and "caused", at least for some.
'Determined' has connotations which 'caused' doesn't have, for instance to say something is 'determined' could mean "to limit or set boundaries, to fix conclusively, to fix beforehand, ordain, regulate, decide" (Merriam-Webster).
'Caused' doesn't have those connotations. It mostly boils down to: to "cause" is to "effect". Merriam-Webster's online dictionary says, "to effect by command, authority, or force." There is nothing to suggest that to 'cause' something is to necessarily limit or set boundaries, ordain or decide anything, just "effect".
Another problem is that the word 'cause' is being used as a noun and a verb. As a noun, a 'cause' is a reason, a motive, or an agent, "something that brings about an effect or a result" (Merriam-Webster). But again, nothing suggests that this effect was "determined" (see above) in any sense, just "caused".
In an online dictionary of philosophy, there's this:
Cause: (Lat. causa) Anything responsible for change, motion or action. In the history of philosophy numerous interpretations were given to the term. Aristotle distinguished among:
1. the material cause, or that out of which something arises,
2. the formal cause, that is, the pattern or essence determining the creation of a thing,
3. the efficient cause, or the force or agent producing an effect; and
4. the final cause, or purpose. Many thinkers spoke also of
5. the first cause, usually conceived as God.
There's no entry in the dictionary I searched (Dagobert D. Runes, Dictionary of Philosophy, 1942) for 'Determined', just 'Determination' and 'Determinism'.
Determinism: (Lat. de + terminus, end) The doctrine that every fact in the universe is guided entirely by law.
and further down in the entry:
The doctrine that all the facts in the physical universe, and hence also in human history, are absolutely dependent upon and conditioned by their causes. In psychology: the doctrine that the will is not free but determined by psychical or physical conditions. Syn. with fatalism, necessitarianism, destiny. -- J.K.F.
So it seems to me that the determinist is saying that everything is dependent upon and conditioned by their causes, while the freewiller is merely saying that everything (at least that which pertains to his own decisions and actions) is "effected" by their causes: dependent on them only to a degree, not absolutely; and not necessarily "conditioned" by them.
From Merriam-Webster again:
Main Entry: conditioned
Function: adjective
1 : brought or put into a specified state
2 : determined or established by conditioning
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This "motivator" that causes us to make decisions and do things is You, and Me. We are the motivators, since we are the sum total of all these "memories and emotions" going on inside us, plus a myriad of other factors which make up our individual personalities and identities. And your reply in no way accounts for the fact that what you basically suggested was that the body makes choices, not the conscious mind, or at the very least that the conscious mind plays a decidedly subordinate role:
"I think the decision is *made by the body* as a preponderence of mitgating factors involving memory and emotion and our consciousness makes thoughts out of it that seem like choices."
Your post, once again, reminds me of the Calvinists, according to whom everything goes according to God's will, and nothing can go against God's will. God not only has foreknowledge of our destinies down to the last detail, he has foreordained our destinies, which will unfold exactly as he has determined and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. We will either be saved or damned, and God is the sole arbiter and "motivator" in every single case.
Then the Calvinists turn around and say that the damned deserve their punishment, despite the fact that they are given zero capacity to save themselves, and despite the fact that God intentionally and with forethought blinds their eyes and deafens their ears to the only means that are available to ensure their salvation.
Your worldview is virtually the same as Calvinism, without the mythology. Instead of God you have these hazily defined impulses and "motivators" which dictate what we will do in every situation (which sounds eerily like Original Sin, by the way), and you seem dead set against granting any free agency to a conscious, intelligent human mind.
And yet at the same time you claim that people who commit crimes ought to be held accountable for their actions, actions which you claim are pre-determined and fixed and over which these unlucky individuals have zero control. It isn't necessarily that a moral judgment is made against them, nor is it that they are to be held "responsible" in any clear sense. Instead you suggest that these people ought to be made examples of, not as a means of punishing wrongdoing, but as a means of ensuring less wrongdoing by others in the future.
And so poor Mr. Smith is to be a scapegoat, punished for no better reason than to be an example to others, despite the fact that he couldn't have done otherwise, just as the condemned sinner, in the Calvinist's view, is damned as a means of demonstrating God's "justice", despite the fact that he couldn't have done otherwise.
Don't get me wrong, I fully believe in people being held accountable for their actions, but only to the extent that they are free agents who could have acted responsibly but elected not to. If I believed that the way you describe things is accurate, I'd advocate removing murderers and criminals from society but my conscience would insist that they be treated with the utmost kindness being that they had no real control over what they were doing.
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...that's exactly what free will means to me: the ability to make decisions based on what kind of life I want for myself. It's the knowledge that actions have consequences, and that it's infinitely wiser to take actions and make decisions which have beneficial and positive consequences, and conversely to avoid taking actions or making decisions which bring about the opposite. Free will to me is the understanding that ultimately I determine which course my life will take, though obviously I don't have absolute control over things I interact with or which act upon me. I know that I'm not a superhero: I have a limited course of action to chose from in any given circumstance. I'm not omniscient either, and since I know that my knowledge is limited I'm aware that sometimes I can only make a best guess as to what the most beneficial course of action will be in any given situation. I can make mistakes and often do. And given the unpredictable nature of any number of external things going on around me at any given time, sometimes even the most practical and well-informed actions or decisions will have negative consequences: shit happens.
I shouldn't have used the word "enslaved" in my last post. To be a slave, at least to my mind, means having no options, having no choices, which isn't the case for your garden variety criminals or derelicts, or for responsible people. I don't believe that because our choices are influenced either internally or externally they are therefore "determined", at least not as I define the word. I take "determined" to mean outside the province of choice, not a choice which is arrived at by virtue of simply having a reason for making it, whether that reason be a simple preference or a strong disposition. If the argument is: our choices are determined by virtue of the fact that they are influenced by a whole bundle of factors such as personal tastes, habits, memories, predispositions, predilections, not to mention external influences such as the actions of other people, accidents of nature, environment, peer-pressure, legal obligations and limitations, social mores, well then I agree to that, but I agree only that our actions are influenced, sometimes heavily influenced, but not "determined" in the sense that these influencing factors are so overwhelming as to make our "choices" merely mechanical and automatic responses.
To me, the word "choice" itself often entails having to make a mental effort, having to weigh all sorts of various influences together and come to some sort of educated decision. Naturally some choices are trivial and easy and some are extremely difficult. But a choice made without any influencing factors whatsoever isn't a choice at all. It seems to me that to be completely free of influencing factors one would have to be unconscious, or dead. If free will is defined as a will which is totally uninfluenced either internally or externally, then I don't believe in it either.
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V**: It seems to me that he's arguing against determism simply because it's harsh. I'm just saying too bad. That's life. No problem.
This is incorrect, as I stated in another thread somewhere on this freewill subject when something was said to the effect that certain people might just not like the idea that they are not free agents. I said that, well, I don't like the idea that I am going to die someday and go back into oblivion, but I argue for that position anyway because I believe it to be true.
And don't forget that saying something like, "You argue against determinism because you just don't like it" is strikingly similar to the typical theistic response to just about any atheistic argument: "Aw, come on now, you argue against God because you just don't like the idea of God! Admit it!" The user j** typed this very same sentiment a thousand times.
I argue for what I think is more believable, period. Whether I like something or not is not a consideration. And what's more, I don't think determinism presents a world that is any more harsh than the world as I currently see it.
And all I'm trying to do is point out that responsibility and accountability are awfully hard to justify in the context of determinism. It's very simple: if a person has no real control over his or her actions then that person shouldn't be held responsible for what they do. That's why I asked the question about the insanity defense.
Do determinists think an insane person ought to be held to a much lesser degree of accountability when they commit a crime? And if so, is it because we agree that an insane person is not in control of his or her behavior? And if this is the case, then shouldn't the same leniency be granted to any and all in a deterministic world?
If the answer is, "well of course not, we need to ensure a stable society after all, we can't have these criminals running loose. And besides, punishing wrongdoers will discourage others from doing the same..." then my reply to that would be: Despite protests to the contrary, to worry about the interests of society, to actively work towards ensuring the security and prosperity of society in the future, is to project more than one possible state of affairs on the future. It presumes that there are things we can do and ought to do in order to prevent society from falling apart, and it presumes that failing to do these things could very likely have negative results, which means: the choice is up to us. But If we aren't free agents as individuals, then we aren't free agents as a collective either.
I didn't get a chance to read the comments that were deleted. Feel free to send them to me via PM, if you choose.
**And, in case there is any misunderstanding, I absolutely DO NOT advocate being kind to murderers and hardened criminals, since I believe that people are responsible for their actions, barring only very special cases. But if I were a determinist I would be forced to think differently, since I would believe that people acted in response to internal and external forces which were beyond their control.
D**: Did you notice that in William B.'s post he responds that if he were to believe that choices are made by the brain, he would advocate treating criminals with the "utmost kindness" since they wouldn't be responsible for what they did?
Wait a sec. I already believe that choices are made by the brain. Maybe this was a typo, or I am just missing the boat here? Is the brain being thought of as somehow separate from consciousness? If it is, I don't agree with that. Not that I believe that consciousness is material, only that it resides in the brain, is an "emergent property" of the brain, is wholly dependent on the brain, whatever.
I do believe in free agency, which is why I feel comfortable imputing culpability to people who commit crimes, being that alternatives are possible. What I did say was that if it could be definitively shown that people were not in control of their actions I would advocate removing criminals from society as a practical measure, but I couldn't see why we should be cruel to them, since in my view they wouldn't be responsible for what they did. When my old computer stopped working right and started to be a major pain in the caboose, I didn't render a moral judgment against it, I just put it out in the garage in the corner where it wouldn't cause any more headaches. I could've tried to get it fixed, but it was tax-season and I used my refund to buy a new one...
While I still hold he position I started out with, I'm more fascinated with this whole subject than I was before, though I can't get too excited about how the future looks in regard to criminal justice. Unless I'm mistaken, isn't eye-witness testimony holding up a lot less in court these days? And couldn't this be at least to some extent the result of so much doubt being cast on the reliability of the senses? It bothers me to no end that a woman who has endured being raped could potentially stand less and less of a chance of being trusted to identify her own assailant. Add to this what you guys have just been talking about, like:
D**: ...whether personal responsibility can remain fundamental to Law.
Maybe I'm making too much of it, but it seems to me that criminals might be dancing in the streets for joy in the not-too-distant future.
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I am sympathetic to a lot of what you said. But I think I've gone past the point where any of this freewill/determinism argument causes me anger, mainly because I suspect that the reason this particular argument is one of the mainstays in philosophy is because, quite frankly, a lot of people use terminology carelessly and loosely, on both sides that is, and most of the time what's being argued over isn't so much a drastic difference in how we view the world so much as it is how we define certain terms and how we integrate those terms into our arguments. Aside from that is the fact that there is too much we don't know about how the brain works---or, let's just say for now that there's an awful lot that I don't know about how the brain works---, which means that there is a lot of presumption and speculation involved.
I don't want anyone to think that I'm caving in, mind you. I'm not remotely convinced that determinism, in the strictest sense, is true. I very strongly believe that human beings are causal agents, some to a much greater degree than others, and that human intelligence can and does interfere with and manipulate physical laws to affect change; but at the same time I'm fine with this being just a strong belief, and as such I consider it susceptible to change depending on what there is to be learned, and depending on my capacity to understand it, which admitedly is not very great.
As for meaning and purpose: No one can tell me my life is meaningless or purposeless, I don't care who they are. I decide what my life means to me and what my purpose is, no one else. And it's really nobody's damn business anyway to tell someone else what their life means and what it doesn't. People who do that are annoying and pretentious whether they are theists or atheists, or anything in between.
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rosy tetra: You mean humans possess some sort of Maxwell’s Demon?
Or something akin to the “dust‿ or dark matter that settles on humans and brings free will to the characters in Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials‿ trilogy?
No, I mean that we're conscious. Why do you think an extra entity of some kind needs to be added to the mix in order to explain will and volition? I don't; and even if I did, it wouldn't be anything supernatural, since I don't believe in the supernatural. I also don't believe in destiny or fate, or that rocks avoid rolling uphill.
We might not be able to explain how consciousness, including will and volition, works, but it's like others have been trying to say: just because we don't fully understand how something works is no reason to suggest that it's either an illusion or it's magic. We thought rainbows were magical at some point in the past; we now know what causes rainbows to appear.
We interfere with and manipulate natural processes all the time. That's how we've survived. Medicine, surgery, farming, the building of dams, digging of canals, electricity: we use nature to our advantage, make it work for us, exploit it, harness it. That isn't to say that we can change physical laws, only interfere (as in alter or instigate an action caused by those laws, not the nature of the laws themselves) with them and manipulate them to our advantage. Sometimes we do it in an ugly way, I'll admit. And sometimes we screw up.
I think some determinists are just uncomfortable with the ideas of freedom and autonomy, much as certain theists are. The more I think about it, there are quite a lot of similarities between determinists and theists.
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m**:You just presented a list of things entirely consistent with deterministic law following. Did you have another argument?
It wasn't so much an argument for something as it was a response to rosy's humorous suggestions that I attribute volitional consciousness to some sort of outside agent, or supernatural internal agent. Why this is not completely obvious to everyone eludes me.
And, as it happens, my post is also competely consistent with the idea of volitional will and free agency. I basically described how we go about interacting and sometimes interfering with nature, at will, and not through recourse to a tiny demon in our heads or anywhere else, or any other fantastical thing. My post was a response to particular questions asked of me.
m: (By the way, the argument against counter causal free will is not: "we don't understand it", so you might want to work on that point too.)
If I understand you correctly, I've never argued for "counter-causal" free will. I've gone out of my way to explain that I agree that nothing is uncaused. All things, including human choices and decisions and actions, have causes; but what I don't believe is that something being "caused" and something being "determined" is the same thing. There are crucial distinctions: "determined" implies that something is ordained, decided, fixed conclusively, set; "caused" doesn't have those connotations, at least not necessarily.
So I suppose what I am saying is that: If we don't know exactly how intelligent humans can act as causal agents, that shouldn't mean we ought to rule out the possibility that it might one day be sufficiently explained.
I'll very gladly take your advice on working on any and all points.
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rosy tetra:When you said that “… human intelligence can and does interfere with and manipulate physical laws…‿ it sounded to me like you meant human intelligence molds, controls, alters physical laws.
Not at all, as far as molds or alters. 'Molds' would imply some authoritative creative process:
Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: mold
Function: transitive verb
1 archaic : to knead (dough) into a desired consistency or shape
2 : to give shape to
3 : to form in a mold
4 : to determine or influence the quality or nature of
5 : to fit the contours of
6 : to ornament with molding or carving
Note that 'influence' above refers to the quality or nature of something. We can't influence natural processes in that manner, we can only influence how those processes act in a specific situation, as in the making of a dam, or an electric light bulb.
Here's what Merriam-Webter's has for 'manipulate':
Main Entry: ma·nip·u·late
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -lat·ed; -lat·ing
Etymology: back-formation from manipulation, from French, from manipuler to handle an apparatus in chemistry, ultimately from Latin manipulus
1 : to treat or operate with the hands or by mechanical means especially in a skillful manner
2 a : to manage or utilize skillfully b : to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means especially to one's own advantage
3 : to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose
I was using the word in the sense of 1 and 2a. Naturally the word has negative connotations as well, and depending on how one views humanity's technical progress, you could say I was using the word in the 2b sense also. The third definition has no bearing on my use of the word, since this seems to be refering to outright deception and deceit, as in the manipulation of documents or evidence or something like that.
As for one of the words you used: yes, I am arguing that human intelligence can exert some degree of control over natural processes. Medicine, the use of electricity, farming, even an atrocity like the atomic bomb, are all examples of exerting control over physical laws. Note that doesn't suggest that these laws can be altered or changed insofar as their nature is concerned, only that we can control those laws in regard to their action in a specific circumstance.
I try to use words carefully and I don't mind any criticisms if I've used them carelessly, and when I do I'll own up to it, as I did in a very recent post. But in this case I think you took the words interfere and manipulate the wrong way because you might have preconceptions of what the freewiller's position is, or maybe because some people on this side of the FW/D fence really do believe that the human mind has some sort of authoritative creative powers in regard to natural processes, physical laws. I'm not one of those people.
I'll also grant that it's very possible that I am just not getting what your position actually is. On the surface you seem to be pushing for the idea that there isn't a great deal of difference in regard to human consciousness and an unconscious life-form such as a tree, or even an inanimate object, like a rock. I find that too fabulous a view to entertain, and I have to think that my phrasing must be inadequate in describing what you are really trying to say.
r.t: Certainly we can do things that affect our surroundings. I know you must mean more than just that, because all things living and non-living use natural processes that affect their surroundings. Certainly we do things to affect our surroundings often according to intentions we have.
Yes, I do mean more than that and hopefully by this time I've gotten it across. Now, is it just me or is there not a marked difference between the phrase: "do things that affect our surroundings", and "use natural processes that affect their surroundings."? Using things (even if we allow that non-sentient things can be said to "use" anything in the true sense of the word, and I'll allow it since I don't feel like quibbling over every word) that affect their surroundings" is clearly not equal to "do[ing] things that affect our surroundings." Can you see the difference? And even if certain living things behave in a way that increases their chances of survival to some degree, can it really be argued that what they do in comparison to what humans do is significant enough to trivialize the fact that humans build cities, write books, heal the sick, compose symphonies, fly to the moon?
r.t: If you just mean that I feel an intention to do something, while a rock does not feel an intention, then why not just say that humans feel intentions?
If I did, what would be the reaction in a discussion like this? "Hey, we humans feel intentions, therefore we have freewill." Obviously it's a lot more than that. For one thing, these intentions vary from person to person, and they vary greatly. Even if you could prove that a tree intends things, can you show me that there is a variety of intention among individual trees, or groups of trees? Some animals? Sure, I suppose they might have varying degrees of intentions, but I would bet only to an almost negligible degree. In short, just saying humans "feel intentions" fails miserably short of what our species has managed to do.
r.t: If you say that humans can choose what intentions they will feel, and their choice is not determined by their physical state, their DNA, their environment, etc, but by a will that is free from all that, it sounds like we’re back to a Maxwell’s Demon.
I think we're back to the importance of clear definitions. In prior posts I've given my position in regard to the words "free" and "determined". I'll admit that my position could be all screwy, but bear with me. I don't think 'free' means free from all those causes you mentioned, as far as the term freewill is concerned. In the reading I've done I haven't seen anyone suggest that this is so. Free, in the context of freewill, means not forced to one option and one option only, it means having options: real options, not the illusion of options. But any and all options as they pertain to choices and decisions are limited to reality, and by the impositions and boundaries of the natural world. We can't talk out of our bellybuttons, we can't turn into horses at will, we can't do anything magical. It just means that given option X and option Y, we are actually at liberty to choose either one. At liberty doesn't mean that all those causes you mentioned are suddenly out of the picture, or don't factor in somehow. It just means that those causes will no doubt contribute to and influence the choices we make, in some cases very powerfully so, so powerfully perhaps that there is virtually no decision process going on. But the bottom line is that, in fact, it is in our power as creatures of volitional consciousness to choose X or Y, and that contingent on this power is the fact that choices have consequences. If it makes it sound any better, freewill is also the ability to make truly disastrous decisions.
The way I see it, freewill is the belief that choices are influenced, but not determined - determined connoting that something is fixed conclusively, set, ordained, decided - by their causes; whereas determinism (or at least it as I understand it, and as it pretty much says in most definitions) is the belief that choices (and everything else) are absolutely determined by their causes.
As I see it, freewillers aren't arguing against the fact that the universe acts deterministically, just that consciousness creates a degree of causal agency within it, the wherewithal to move at will as an example, whereas inanimate objects can only move as they are acted upon; and, in the case of human intelligence, freedom of choice and freedom of action, neither of which exempts us from having to obey natural laws and processes but which merely gives us the capacity to control our environment, and those laws and processes, at least to the degree that our interests and desires are served. No magical powers, no carte blanche to do whatever we damn well please, just leeway.
I guess what it boils down to is that I don't think freewill cancels out determinism. I believe the two co-exist and cooperate a good deal of the time, at least in intelligent human beings. I do believe that higher intelligence means more control, less susceptibility to internal and external influences, more will.
All I want to do at this point is clarify whatI believe. My beliefs could very well be wrong, and I wouldn't be devastated at this stage of my life to learn that they were.
C** wrote: If you are "not forced or compelled to one course of action", then you tend not to take a course of action. If I choose something, something must have caused me to choose or I wouldn't have chosen.
By "not forced or compelled to one course of action I mean not one course of action in particular, and only that one. So I would argue that we can and very often do make decisions without being forced to one alternative to the preclusion of another. (I will admit that "compelled" was a poor choice of words on my part.) In your second sentence you seem to be using "caused" as if it were synonymous with being forced or compelled, which I think is a mistake. As I suggested in a post somewhere else, according to most definitions a determinist believes that all human decisions, are absolutely dependent on their causes, whereas a freewiller believes that all human decisions, are effected or influenced by their causes, but not absolutely, which just means that we don't believe that all of our choices or decisions are "determined". Caused, yes; determined, no, or at least not always. Determined connotes that limits are set, that outcomes are fixed conclusively, ordained, decided. Caused doesn't have the same connotations.
r.t wrote: If by “free will” people simply mean “conscious,” then why not just say “conscious”?
Because determinists believe in consciousness also.
r.t wrote: When people say that free will means a person could have chosen differently if he wanted to, this does not seem to mean anything except that people have desires and act on them. All living things do this. Unless you narrow the statement and say that you’re only talking about human desires and the sorts of human thoughts and feelings that happen when humans do things. Well, that leaves out rosebushes then, doesn’t it?
Of course. Rosebushes aren't conscious. The level of free (or volitional) agency increases in proportion to levels of intelligence and mental health. Animals might have some degree of limited, instinctually-biased free agency, but probably not much. Geniuses probably have the highest levels of free agency since it's evident in their work that they exert a greater degree of control over certain thought processes like concentration, focus, imagination, creativity. It takes a much greater control of mental processes to write "Paradise Lost" than it does to change a tire or make a grilled cheese sandwich, a much more powerful force of will.
N** wrote: The term [free will] is somewhat coopted by arguments over determinism. In this case it seems to be used mostly to mean "a choice not tracable to a cause".
I would say a "free" choice is one which is influenced by a cause or causes, but not absolutely fixed and determined by a cause or causes. A choice "not traceable to a cause" would be meaningless. For instance, if someone holds out a bunch of playing cards to me and says "pick a card, any card", and if they're evenly spaced and all appear identical, there will be a definite degree of randomness as to which card I select. Let's say for the sake of argument that there either is no real "cause" for picking one card over another, or that we just don't know what it is. We still wouldn't be able to say that my choice was not traceable to a cause. The action of picking a card was dependent on many factors: being at this boring party, sitting on a sofa beside the annoying aspiring magician, lying and saying I enjoyed card tricks, etcetera. So, even though all of those prior causes were necessary for me to pick a card at that particular time, when it came time to actually pick a card that particular choice at that particular time was not "determined" by those other "causes", which means that while the fact that I'm now sitting here looking at a group of playing cards was dependent on prior causes, none of those causes have anything to do with which card I actually pick. If I pick card X, that choice is traceable to a set of causes; if I pick card Y, that choice is traceable to the same set of causes, and so on.
N wrote: If we can prove that all of our choices derive from an indentifiable causal chain, then we do not have free will.
That sounds like 20-20 hindsight to me. The reverse would be true: if we could predict a causal chain going a fair ways into the future and get good results, that might help to cast doubt on free will; but humans, completely unaware that they are being observed or that they are involved in an experiment, must be present in such a chain or it wouldn't indicate anything except what we already know, which is that the universe runs according to certain fixed laws.
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