5.05.2011

BB post: as Gulielmus Beta : Free will/dubious phrase


Yes, I think the phrase free will is dubious in and of itself (in and of itself does not mean separate from [as in not including] any of its specific definitions, but that it contains or is comprised of all of its definitions, hence its dubious-ness). It arouses doubt and uncertainty because one cannot be certain in what sense it is being used. One of the reasons there is such debate over the phrase free will is precisely because it has so many definitions and means a variety of sometimes vastly different things. For instance, the accepted definition among at least a few of us in this thread: the ability to consciously choose from among two or more realizable options, is much different from the compatibilist definition ventured by a few, which refers chiefly to an action which is not compelled. While these two definitions are substantially different, each is useful in its own way, and the fact that they are not in agreement doesn't take away from their respectful usefulness. But to just toss out the phrase without defining it, there is not a great deal of usefulness there. If there were no threads here on the subject, and a person started a thread which began, "Do you believe in free will?", the first thing to be at issue would be: what exactly does free will mean?

I think we could say that a great many common terms and/or phrases are dubious in and of themselves and often require a good deal of pinning down. Take the word God. God is a famously dubious term and there is a different definition of God for practically every individual; yet this doesn't mean that a Calvinist's definition of God is dubious or non-useful to the Calvinist nor, for that matter, to the person with whom she is conversing. It is useful insofar as it conveys a particular, generally well-defined Being.


Your last question: "How does the term ''free will'' relate to the drivers of human behaviour?"

I would say that free will relates to the actions which are the result of those drivers, and not the drivers themselves. Or more simply: it is not a driver of behavior, but is an attribute of behavior. I have these "drivers" all at work in my brain, and I have a set of wants, desires, predilections, predispositions, what have you. Out of this comes the act of choosing. The act of choosing is free in that while I will necessarily choose one option, which option I in fact choose is not necessarily forced upon me nor inevitable. The act of choosing involves will in that it is an act of conscious intent. Hence, free will.

BB post: as Gulielmus Beta : Mind/body/dualism


In my many discussions of the mind/body problem, extending to off and online activity over the past 15 years, I have resolved only recently that there is no mind/body problem. The duality, mind and body, exists, insofar as we have an objective existence as a physical body which can be observed and analyzed by others, and a subjective existence which is internal and private, and cannot be literally shared with another person. We can share our subjective experiences by way of communication: conversation, philosophy, and poetry, for example, but we cannot literally allow someone else to experience what we experience inside ourselves.

This duality is sometimes embraced wholesale, as it was by Descartes (I think) and by people who believe in a soul as distinct from but operating in conjunction with a body. For some this soul is God-given and does not arise by any biological process that can be remotely identified or understood, and yet to others the soul or spirit refers simply to consciousness and its abstract, intangible content, its workings and motivations.

I have come to believe that the best approach to the mind/body problem is to understand that a whole person, a sentient, intelligent human being, is the consummation of its objective and subjective components, its quantitative and qualitative "parts". i.e: the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is not the mind and body operating in some distinct and/or independent fashion; it is both, operating together to form a unified entity or being. In this sense it is a trinity, or tri-unity.

This triunity, or union of three, can be observed in so many different things, not just organisms. Take a chair. A chair is at first an object made up of parts in an organized fashion. It has quantitative parts: wood, nails, varnish, leather (and these extend to statistical properties which are not material but nonetheless objective and not subject to opinion: size, weight, height, breadth); and it has qualitative parts or properties: it is pleasing to observe, as a piece of art or design; it has a function, a utility; it has a name, a purpose. The chair is neither its physical, or concrete parts alone, nor its abstract parts (which could not exist without the ordered design of its material parts, except as concepts in the mind about a thing called a chair, which would require by necessity having seen a chair or having invented the idea of a chair), but is all of these material and non-material components and properties taken together to form a whole.

If we extend this way of looking at things (and I admit that is all this is, a way at looking at things) to something like the Christian concept of the Trinity, it is more than a little illuminating.