Talk:Free will/Archive-to-April-2006

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Last sentense of intro...colon needed?

When I read "We can ask several logically independent questions about free will.", I expect a colon and then a listing of the questions we can ask. This is a logical expectation. The article is excellent but the introduction is vague and confusing. 69.141.33.247 15:31, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also,is "voulntrism" a word? 69.141.33.247 15:35, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The spelling may not be right, but the word was the one taught to me when I studdied this at University. Which is why I added it :) --Crowley 21:34, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)Crowley

Removed POV section

I just removed the recently added "Free will" section, which was POV and highly unencyclopedic:

Free will has existed for ages, that can extend back as far as the bible, to as current as the war which takes place today(War in Iraq) Free will is a choice but yet at the same time a privlege in which we must learn how to accomodate and control. By possessing such power as free will,allows us to both cause good and cause evil. Many great leaders have battled free will and many more to come shall battle. As for now it is up to us to continue on making good from our free will in which we have.

Wikipedia is not a soapbox. --David Iberri | Talk 21:14, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

3rd to last paragraph very POV

The sections that talks about God (referring to the God of Christianity) is ridiculously biased and could easily be offensive to Christians. How exactly does God's omnipotence imply that he chooses our actions? Just because he is "all-capable" doesn't mean that he's "the only one capable".

(William M. Connolley 10:33, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)) I don't understand how more than one entity could be all capable, otherwise they could conflict. This is just getting bogged down in words.

--For clarification, I'm not saying more than one entity can be all-capable, I'm saying that one entity can be all-capable, but other entities (e.g. humans) can still be "capable".

Also, saying that most Christians find ways of avoiding predestination is by all means a point of view, and should be replaced by something more along the lines of "most Christians consider the word "predestined" as it's used in the Bible to mean God did know, but did not choose". Perhaps it would be best to get rid of "most Christians" and reword it all together, since it's doubtful that anyone has polled all Christians. By at least getting rid of the negative wording ("find ways of avoiding"), this article can be less biased and offensive.

(William M. Connolley 10:33, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)) I do agree that the FW article is not a sensible place to attack or even debate the Christian world view.

Go

As a point of information, Go is algorithmic, since it is a game of perfect information (all is visible to the players). No bluffing is possible, and there is no chance involved. Chess programming has received a greater amount of effort. It is true that the complexity of Go is much greater, and it is a much more philosophical game. Nonetheless, deleting the edit about it was a good call. Hu 21:00, 2004 Dec 24 (UTC)

I have no idea what the bit about Go or chess has to do with free will. "Yet, chess and Go, with their strict and simple rules, generate great variety and unpredictable behaviour." - Chess and go don't "generate" anything, certainly nothing like "unpredictable" behaviour. Maybe the author of that snippet meant to say, that the single best playing strategy is [not known|not yet known|may never bw known|does not exist] - but it is totally unclear fromt he way that is phrased. 84.63.13.21 10:17, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

In theology

I made some minor changes to this section. Previously, it seemed to say that the canonical Christian belief in predestination was the definition given, whereas in reality, this differs from sect to sect (as the article goes on to admit). I also removed the John 3:16 quote since its relevance is disputable: e.g. Calvinists do not think their position is contrary to John 3:16 in the least when 'properly' understood. -- OracleofTroy

I've just been pondering this little paradox: I don't believe that an omniscient god can exist and we still have free will (as according to the bible). The reasons for this were outlined in the article, but the arguments I have extend that. I will post some in case anyone disagrees with me. As a rebuttal to those dead Jewish philosophers, who claim that God limits himself, I say that it makes no difference whether or not he does when it comes to the free will paradox. If he did limit himself, then we humans have the power to create the future. In other words, we possess a power which God does not give himself (making the future). This makes it hard to differentiate between what is God's plan and what is our doing, which blurs the line greatly between what is God and what is human. And unless we are God and God is us, Christianity and Judaism hav a self-created paradoxes. ----- Tritium919

I'd be interested in what you mean by "as according to the bible" in your first sentence, in reference to human freewill. There are many beliefs regarding the interaction of God's sovereignty and man's will in the different sects. Just contrast the answers given by Calvinism and Open Theism. Each believe that their interpretation is in accordance with the bible, yet are nearly polar opposite positions. If I might indulge my own bias, Calvinism is more consistent in that is claims that man has freewill, and God has full sovereignty, and insofar as man's will is contrary to God's own will, God wins every time. On this vein, it might be interesting to check out the differences between Determinism, Libertarian Free will and Compatibilist Free will

- OracleofTroy 02:06, 3 September 2005 (UTC)

Free will/scientific determinism

I've been perusing this article and all the related ones yet I've not seen one cover a view on free will that I've read. I am not entirely sure but, I believe, I read it in Murray Gellmann's "The Quark and the Jaguar". I believe the argument goes a little like this:

Free will must exist because a prediction is either correct or incorrect. If you make a prediction about a persons actions, and they are informed, they can usually act in such a way to avoid the prediction. Thus making the prediction incorrect.

If free will didn't exist then such behaviour would not be possible.

Such behavior isn't possible. KVenzke

How is avoiding a prediction made to oneself impossible? --Reasonableman 13:43, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this affects other views of free will/determinism. But I believe shows that scientific determinism is impossible. That's because in a deterministic system it's thoeretically possible for a computer to 'solve' it. This 'solution' could then be consulted and approriate action taken to ensure the prediction is incorrect. (I am aware of chaos theory and QM that could be used to argue that such a deterministic solution is impossible).

I don't think this shows that determinism is impossible, but that it would be impossible to possess correct, complete predictions of the future. Surely that isn't surprising. KVenzke

My point here was that QM/Chaos makes a deterministic *solution* physically impossible, but not a deterministic system. So I think we are agreeing on this point. However the fact that a solution is philosophically possible is what's used in the argument. --Reasonableman 13:54, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm sure that this must have an origin somewhere else so don't know what references could be used. I also don't know enough about philosophy to know how it affects those interpretations.

Reasonableman 16:06, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Re:

"Free will must exist because a prediction is either correct or incorrect. If you make a prediction about a persons actions, and they are informed, they can usually act in such a way to avoid the prediction. Thus making the prediction incorrect."

This is an extremely bad argument, so I'll limit my criticism to what I think is the key point the author is trying to make. I suspect that the author is assuming that if someone predicted that someone would perform a certain action and the subject of the prediction were informed of the prediction, then the subject might be able to act so as to falsify the prediction. However, if the prediction is based on events which do, in fact, determine that the subject performs the predicted action, then it is not possible that the subject's being informed of the prediciton will result in the falsification of the prediction. If it is possble for the agent to falsify the prediction, then the basis of the prediction is not a sufficient condition for the occurrence of the predicted action, and so is not an infallible basis for the prediction. Roughly, a prediction based on a sufficient condition must in some sense take into account all relevant factors, including the beliefs of such an agent.

We believe that we often have several different possible courses of action "open" to us, but there is no guarantee that this belief is true - it's not clear that we even have any reason to have such a belief. Hemlock 02:16, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when you have added a few references to the article. - Taxman 17:27, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

I've added a few references.[1] Hope that helps. --Wade A. Tisthammer 18:36, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Added a new section with some more references.[2] I'm glad your stopping by for WP:CITE. Too many times I've seen editors ignore the policy even when it comes to challenged material. --Wade A. Tisthammer 20:45, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Prevenent grace

Please link the article Prevenent grace to this article. I'm a newb to editing Wikipedia, but I love Wikipedia, can someone fix this little thing? There is a reference that isn't connected under the Theology section.

Christian anarchists

Christian anarchists feel that earthly authority such as government, or indeed the established church do not and should not have power over them. Christian anarchists are pacifists and oppose the use of all physical force, both proactive and reactive
What does this have to do with free will? --Yodakii 17:17, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Nothing as far as I can see. KHM03 17:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Has anybody ever heard of Christian anarchists? Their pretty obscure, and Free will is one of the top couple philosophical issues. I think the Christian anarchist opinion on freewill can safely be described @ Christian anarchist w/o impairment to the reader. Sam Spade 01:34, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Contemporary thought

This article is too much about philosophers of centuries ago. It should be called: the history of the concept of free will, or something like that. What is the contemporary thought about free will? Did the modern philosphers drop this issue after postmodernism? I read somewhere that it is a hot debate at the moment.--Daanschr 13:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Quantum mechanics and free will

I just want to clearify that everything I write here is from my own speculation. In the beginning: I soon discovered that the path physics class took me, was that all of the universe is deterministic, meaning that free will is an illusion. So since then I've not been able to throw that idea away. But when I present this idea to others, they direct me to quantum physics, which tells me that at a quantum level, things happen with a certain inaccuracy. But this gets me thinking that even though this means that the universe isn't deterministic, free will would still be an illusion, since free will would mean you had the ability to cause the inaccuracy, and break out of the cause and effect pattern. Wouldn't it? Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. If there is a place that's more fit for questions like this, please let me know. --83.108.156.75 21:00, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

This idea has been around for a while, but I don't think it works. Quantum events are either deterministic or random, depending on how you look at them. If free will is random, then what's the point? Rick Norwood 22:10, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

You have both accepted the premise that the dispute over free will has something to do with personal responsibility, and blame. Incompatibilists typically claim, in effect, that one can't really be blamed for what one had no choice in. Yet compatibilists can respond, as you both have, that in that case one couldn't properly be blamed for the outcome of a random quantum jump either. So what's the point?

Well, as William James used to argue, the point isn't about personal responsibility at all. As a matter of instinct and social utility we will continue to blame each other and hold each other responsible for anti-social actions whatever metaphysics we attach to that. The point might be ... hope. Determinism means that the future will indefinitely repeat the past, and it makes the passage of time rather pointless, since spatial relations are sufficient for deterministic relations. Indeterminism means that the future may bring something new, and better, although it also carries the risk that the future may inflict upon us something worse. Indeterminism has the same difference vis-a-vis determinism that gambling has vis-a-vis contract labor for a set rate. --Christofurio 18:42, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

First, on the subject of personal responsibility, there is an interesting consequence to the absence of free will. That is, we are really punishing a murder for having the character of a murderer, rather than for the act, over which he had no control. This means that attempted murder, or even a psycological profile indicating the character of a murderer, ought to be punished as severely as the murder itself.

As to your second point, Determinism has no correlation with periodicity, nor does randomness. There are deterministic functions that a periodic and others that predict, for example, exponential growth or decay. And there are stochastic functions with the same properties. Rick Norwood 14:35, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Your point on the responsibility issue raises the whole matter of moral luck, a much-debatewd issue right now on which I'm afraid I have nothing to add. As to the issue of hope, I think you're wrong, and that there is a sense in which predictable growth isn't change at all, just an unfolding. --Christofurio 14:59, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see the point in changing the meaning of "change". Rick Norwood 15:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

The meaning of such words is variegated enough already, and needs no change to become so. But as to the point of distinguishing between genuine novelty and predetermined unrolling, I'll let James explain it himself. http://csunx2.bsc.edu/bmyers/WJ1.htm

PREEMPTIVE APOLOGIES

I am new to Wikipedia and have not yet mastered all of the techniques for posting comments. So I hope any audience I have will bear with me while I learn the technical ropes.

My objective is to join in on the discussion of the Free Will article in the hopes of stimulating a certain line of conversation. I recognize there is nothing really new under the sun in this aeviternal philosophical debate. But I think I may have a bit of a novel approach, if only stylistically.

By the way, I found the Free Will article itself exceptionally well written and commend all who have contributed to it. They have provided an excellent platform for the other discussions surrounding this article that I have read – and, I hope, for my own contribution to this discussion.

The underlying argument I would like to make is a dialectical one. "Dialectical argument" is a term that I will leave undefined for the moment, but I will assume my audience is sophisticated enough to have a pretty good idea of what a dialectical argument is. My argument will be that universal antecedent causal determinism (UACD), as exemplified most memorably in Pierre Simon Marquis de Laplace's lapidary statement of it, but as implicitly subscribed to au fond – at least as far as I can tell -- by nearly every determinist – hard or soft – as well as by every fellow travelling compatibilist upends itself into something approaching what I would call existential incoherence when it is subjected to a certain line of analysis.

"Existential incoherence" is my special take on a form of incoherence which is sometimes also called self-referential inconsistency. The latter is not a bad term, but I prefer to denominate the version of inconsistency that I hope to expose here as existential incoherence because this characterization distinguishes more clearly the practical or performance aspects of the inconsistency I will be exploring. Not necessarily, but almost reflexively, when philosophers use the term self-referential inconsistency, the discussion gets transposed to a more or less sanitized logical space. While logical space will be the very air which is necessarily being breathed in my argument, I think that the real nub of the point about inconsistency that I want to make is located in practical space, and located there in a way in which it strongly, but perhaps not perfectly, however, overlaps with logical space.

Perhaps a less grandiose way of saying all this is that I will be focusing on a form of inconsistency which finds someone talking the talk but not walking the walk.

But enough for the moment of this epistemological, or perhaps rhetorical, prolepsis. I have no doubt that this issue can and will be revisted if there is any traction which emerges from my main argument.

A final apology.

My initial contribution is somewhat lengthy. I do not really see a way to avoid this if I am to get enough cards on the table for folks to take intelligent and well aimed – as opposed to a cheap, either intentional or inadvertent – shots at it. To palliate the potential tedium of length, I have dressed up the argument as a dialogue. We'll soon see if this has eased the pain of reading that much.

SETTING UP THE DIALOGUE

With this infrastructure of apologies in place, let me proceed to the argument which I maintain shows the strong incoherence of UACD, both in and of itself and, most importantly, as a potential – even if only in idealized form -- end-of-inquiry possible outcome for determinists and compatibilists.

My argument will take the form of a dialogue in a neighborhood café with the unlikely name of Buridan's Ass. We are to imagine that this café is situated near the convention center where the annual meeting of the American Philosophical Association is being held at the time the dialogue takes place.

The dramatis personae in the dialogue are:

BOB: Bob is a dyed-in-the-wool professional philosophical indeterminist and, by strong implication, incompatibilist. Bob may or may not at times appear to be a bit of an avatar of Robert Kane, a well known indeterminist, and cited as such in the Wikipedia article on Free Will. But no claim is being made to represent the real Bob Kane's views accurately or comprehensively on the issues discussed in the dialogue -- even though the dialogue will arguably come out in terms of its dramaturgy closer to the real Bob Kane's position than to that of his imagined adversary in the dialogue, Dan, to whose "bio" I now turn.

DAN: Dan is a professional philosopher who is a pretty much dyed-in-the-wool compatibilist in the free will vs. determinism debate. Any similarity between the views of Dan and the real professional philosopher named Daniel Dennett (mentioned in the Free Will article as a leading compatibilist) are purely coincidental. That is, as with Bob, no claim is being made about comprehensively or correctly representing Daniel Dennett's views on free will and its compatibility with a possibly underlying metaphysical UACD. Anyone who wants to know exactly what Daniel Dennett argues on these matters is invited to read and/or ask him directly.

DEM: Laplace's Demon, the very guy, but, as will be seen in a moment, somewhat less disembodied than he was when first introduced to us by Pierre Laplace as an "intellect" about two hundred years ago.

JOE: Joe, an ordinary -- mi-educated at best -- working class guy who happens to be in the café in which the dialogue takes place. Joe really is intended to be a bit of a naïf untainted by the sorts of intellectual preconceptions (Zeitgeist driven and otherwise) which most philosophers – even those who regularly pore thoughtfully over the pages of The New York Review – have become encrusted with over the years. Though from time to time, in the interests of expedited presentation, Joe will sometimes say things which suggest that he might have sat in a philosophy seminar at one time or another.

TIM: Tim, the bartender on duty at Buridan's Ass when the dialogue takes place.

We are to imagine that Bob and Dan have dropped into Buridan's Ass for dinner after both have recently come out of a paper free will and determinism which was given at the APA convention. They have known one another for some time and, sitting at the bar in the café nursing their beers while they are waiting for their dinners, they are continuing their long standing discussion about free will and determinism, Dan maintaining his compatibilist position and Bob just as firmly maintaining his indeterminist position.

The Demon, though his true identity is not immediately known to Dan and Bob, is sitting on one side of them at the bar and is obviously intently listening to their argument. Joe is sitting on the other side, seemingly less interested in their conversation, but clearly registering on it from time to time. Tim, for the moment, is simply trying to make sure their glasses do not get too empty.

ACT I: YA' WANNA BET?

DAN: Bob, you're a broken record with your claim that the indeterminism which is a feature of modern quantum mechanics (QM) is most probably a metaphysical reality – as distinguished from a mere epistemological/methodological requirement – and, as such, is the very crack in the iron chain of causality of classical universal antecedent causal determinism (UACD) which is needed to arguably ground a metaphysical indeterminism. And that this would be an indeterminism which is continually percolating up the neural chain to blossoming forth at the level of at least some human behavior into what you would like to call indeterministic free choice.

BOB: Ok, but are you saying that you have a convincing argument that QM is not to be interpreted metaphysically, i.e., that it is to be interpreted merely epistemologically or methodologically as being true in the order of knowing but not at all in the order of being?

DAN: You know that I don't have a knock down drag out argument for such an interpretation of QM. But you also know that the contrary is not the case. No one has yet provided a metaphysical interpretation of QM that would make someone as intelligent and reflective as, say, an Einstein completely comfortable. So I think we have a dialectical standoff on the metaphysical issue. And based on this standoff, as well as other unsatisfying features of your indeterminism -- which I have beaten you about the head and shoulders with previously, but which I will skip for the moment -- I would argue that it is not at all implausible to think that the indeterministic effects of QM, even if they were real at the micro level, would be effectively dampened out at the macro level at which human behavior, and most emphatically conscious human behavior, plays itself out. In short, despite the indeterminism ingredient in QM, whether methodological/epistemological or metaphysical in form, it is not unreasonable to think that we operate, at the level of human behavior, in a classically deterministic universe. And this could easily be true even though, because of the complexities involved, we may forever at best only asymptotically approach a detailed understanding of how all the pieces of human behavior fit together in whatever canonical form might be prescribed by the specific form of UACD regnant at the moment.

BOB: Oh, the old "Let's hide behind the complexity but not question the in principle possibility of such an understanding" argument. A bit redolent, wouldn't you say, Dan, of the Intelligent Design argument, which I have heard you argue against, nay ridicule, in the past?

DAN: That's an unfair comparison, and you know it.

BOB: Hmm. Maybe.

DEM: Gentlemen, perhaps I may be of some help.

BOB: Yes?

DEM: First, let me introduce myself and, as soon as I do, you'll see why I have a deep interest in your discussion.

DAN: Sure. I'm Dan the compatibilist and this is Bob the indeterminist, but you can call us Dan and Bob. So who are you?

DEM: I gathered from your conversation that you are professional philosophers and that you argue back and forth about free will and determinism all the time. So surely you've heard of the Marquis Pierre Simon de Laplace?

DAN: Of course. He gave us a usefully simple and vivid image of determinism almost two centuries ago, and it has structured our imaginations, and hence our theories and debates, ever since.

BOB: Uh, where have I heard that before?

DAN: If you have to ask …. Anyway you, sir, know a bit about Laplace?

DEM: A bit. Let's see. What if I were to say: "We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at any given moment knew all of the forces that animate nature and the mutual positions of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit the data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom; for such an intellect nothing could be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes." Sound familiar?

DAN: Sure, that is the statement, in his very words – well, in a pretty good translation at any rate – of Laplace's conceptual vision of UACD. You seem to have the statement pretty much down pat.

DEM: No surprise in that. You see, I am that very "intellect" which Laplace introduced in his conceptual vision of UACD. That statement I just quoted, my procession from Pierre the Father, as it were, constitutes what M. Laplace's German friends – French scientists at least did have German friends even at the time of Napoleon – might call his Gedankenexperiment about the structure and, in principle, validation of UACD. By the way, you may call me Demon, which is a name I picked up later along the way after Laplace gave birth to me.

BOB: But how can that be? You, and particularly the Gedankenexperiment in which you play a key role, are not practically possible in the ordinary world in which we live, move, and have our beings.

DEM: Perhaps. And maybe Schrödinger could never really get his cat into the box, or John Searle ever really get his Chinese translating room up and running, or Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen get their requisite sub-atomic particles appropriately isolated. But so called real world impracticality does not automatically invalidate the conceptual legitimacy of a carefully crafted Gedankenexperiment. Even physically or otherwise practically impossible Gedankenexperiments (excuse the anglicized plural) may still have conceptual validity as long as they don't violate any strictly logical norms. I mean, you philosophers could hardly get any argument off the ground without an appeal somewhere along the way to something which might fairly be described as a Gedankenexperiment.

DAN: Ok, Ok, you're Laplace's Demon and Gedankenexperiments -- your natal one in particular -- are not automatically suspect and/or invalid. Now what?

DEM: Don't be so testy, Dan. I'm here to help you.

DAN: How?

DEM: Well, let's just say that we were able to get enough beers in Bob to mellow him up to the point where he would abandon his insistence on the efficaciousness of QM causality at the macro level of conscious human behavior and admit, just for the sake of argument mind you, that if we ever were to be able to satisfy the conditions for running Laplace's Gedankenexperiment, we would have an effective validation, indeed, something approaching an actual experimental proof, of the truth of Laplace's vision of UACD.

BOB: I never drink that much.

DEM: But what if?

JOE: What if, indeed!

DAN: Huh? Pardon me, friend. Who are you?

JOE: My name's Joe. My friends sometimes call me Joe Six Pak, for reasons you might imagine. But just call me Joe. Anyway, like Demon here, I've been listening to your discussion and I think, not to put too fine a point on it, that Demon is full of it. I mean Demon's vision of a deterministic universe, at least as far as human behavior is concerned, would mean that we, as human beings, couldn't really do otherwise than what we do, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. In a word, we would not be free in that very common sense untheoretical notion we all have of what it means to be free. And I'm not talking here about free from terrorists, which is a related, but quite different matter for our purposes. Our ability to make free choices occurs within limits imposed by various external and even internal (e.g., in our neurological systems, for one) elements to be sure, but not so as to completely drown out the possibility and actuality of some non trivial degrees of freedom when it comes to our conscious choices.

BOB: Hmm. Not spoken quite like a guy whose nickname is Six Pak. But no matter. Would you care to expatiate?

JOE: Would that be to explain further?

BOB: Yes, Joe.

JOE: Sure. But mind you I'm no professional philosopher, like you guys.

DAN: Trust us to make allowances, Joe.

JOE: Ok. Let's assume that Demon has got everything his P-Daddy (sorry, couldn't resist) asked for.

DAN: What do you mean?

JOE: Well, as I understood what Demon said -- and I here paraphrase what I took Laplace to be saying in the quote provided by Demon -- if you provide Demon with:

1. A complete state description of the universe at time T relative to a particular piece of future human behavior at time T + 1, a universe which, for the sake of this discussion, Bob has agreed to admit would somehow have all of its relevant QM indeterministic effects dampened out or "smoothed down" to their deterministic edges;

2. A set of the complete laws of physics for such a universe;

3. And a computer powerful enough and fast enough to run the numbers ….

DEM: Again, a pretty sophisticated paraphrase for a Six Pak sort of guy.

JOE: De rien.

BOB: And a set of conditions we all agree are physically impossible, even without my concession (for the sake of argument) about the irrelevance of QM indeterminism at the level of human behavior.

DAN: But not logically impossible, so let him continue. This is a Gedankenexperiment after all.

JOE: Anyway, if the Demon had all of this available to him, say right now in this very Bush's Ass bar ….

TIM: Joe, it's Buridan's Ass, and you know it.

JOE: Ok, Buridan's Ass. But what's with that sign in your window that this is a terrorist free zone?

TIM: Joe, this is not a Wise Ass's bar.

JOE: Right. Anyway, let me give you, Demon, everything Laplace said you might need. As I understand the point of his Gedankenexperiment, armed with these tools and the frictionless universe that comes with the territory in your typical Gedankenexperiment, you should be able to predict infallibly whether or not I will, say, drink this beer I have here in my hand when the clock strikes 8:00 p.m. Two choices only: drink the beer or not drink the beer when the clock strikes 8:00 p.m.

DEM: I'm with you. Continue.

JOE: Ok, if you were able to infallibly predict what I would do with this beer at 8:00 p.m., it seems to me that this would demonstrate, show, manifest – you pick whatever rhetorical term gets you through the night on this one -- that, though seemingly contrary to my common sense belief, I really couldn't do otherwise with respect to drinking or not drinking this beer than you, based on all the tools for prediction you have available, could predict that I would do.

DEM: Well, it's 7:30 p.m. now, so I'm going to need, shall we say, a very fast computer, but give me that and, sure, I can do it. Papa Pierre, starry-eyed Newtonian that he was, knew whereof he spoke, at least as far as, for our present purposes, the behavior of physical systems at the level of conscious human behavior are concerned.

DAN: Let me jump in here for a moment, Joe. You don't have in mind snookering us at some point and saying: "Surprise, I was talking about 'animate nature' in Laplace's fairly strict sense which appears equivalent to physical nature, because, see, in my sense, animate nature includes these special sorts of principles called souls, minds, or whatever, which are animate – indeed, the very principles of animation – but which are not at all essentially physical, despite whatever connections -- interactive, occasionalist, preestablishedly harmonious, or whatever -- they may have with physical nature?

JOE: Not at all. Have no fear. I am just as much a dumb, fat, and happy materialist as I suspect you are. I only had an immaterial soul as long as I was going to Confession. And I gave that up some time ago for HBO.

DAN: I'm relieved.

JOE: Now back to Demon. I love a guy who's confident about his abilities. So let's go to work. But first I want to introduce two specific conditions -- events if you will -- into the state description of the universe at time T with which you will be working, Demon.

DEM: I'm all ears. Though actually, if I weren't having so much fun, I'd spend a bit of time calculating what those two events are from the state of the universe at time T -1. I can do that under my theory, don't you know?

JOE: That's the sprit, Demon! Ok, the first condition is that, just to make this interesting, I am willing to bet $100 -- against anyone who wants to try to take my money -- that you can't do it, i.e., that you can't make an accurate prediction about whether I will drink this beer or not drink this beer at 8:00 p.m.. And I will take your failure to make an accurate prediction – under these ideal conditions – to mean that I really can do otherwise, in other words, that my common sense belief that I have genuinely my free choice stands not only in contradiction to your belief in your theory of UACD, but that my common sense belief is superior as a belief to your theoretical belief. In a word, relative to your theory -- though not necessarily absolutely, whatever that might mean -- my belief is certainly true and your theory is certainly false.

DAN: A strong claim, Joe. It will be interesting to see whether you can deliver on it. But I am forced to remind all of us again that Demon can't make such a prediction in the real world.

BOB: Look, Dan, I was willing to drop my insistence on a realistic interpretation of QM for this Gedankenexperiment. You should be willing to play along with the rest of it, unless you have some logical contradiction that you can point to.

DAN: Maybe not logical. But are you saying that you will bet on Demon against Joe?

BOB: I don't know that I can do that given my very strong belief in the reality of indeterminism at the sub-atomic level, and my attendant, less strong but still very salient belief that such indeterminism might very well be filtering up in a causally efficacious way to the macro level of conscious human behavior.

DAN: I thought you were willing to give up at least that second point for the sake of this Gedankenexperiment.

BOB: Yeah, but that doesn't mean I have to bet on it. When it comes down to money, I find myself hard up against the Henry Frankfurt limit.

DAN: Harry Frankfurt is a well-known compatibilist. What do you mean?

BOB: I wasn't talking about his views on compatibilism. I was referring to his much more important observations on Bullshit.

DAN: Say what?

BOB: I'm just saying I have existential reasons for sitting this one out. But you, Dan? Surely Joe has provided you with a compatibilist's dream scene. What possible objection could you have to letting your money talk rather than your bullshit walk on this one?

DAN: Very funny. Ok, I'll bet on the Demon against Joe, but with the right to come back and either change my mind or show how there was some logical flaw in the Gedankenexperiment.

DEM: Thank you for your support, Dan, and just to show you that this is not a hustle which Joe and I cooked up in advance, I'll bet on myself as well. You got two bills, Joe?

JOE: Yup. Got paid just today. Let's let Tim hold the money. Here's mine.

TIM: Mr. Demon? Dan?

DEM: Here.

DAN: I'm in too.

TIM: Ok, I got the money.

DEM: And I'm ready to roll.

JOE: Hold it. Before you get started, remember that I said there would be two specific conditions – along with everything else -- included in the state description of the universe at time T.

DAN: You mean the Demon's and my bets?

JOE: No, the three of our bets is an aggregated first such condition.

DAN: So what's the second?

JOE: That the Demon write his prediction on a piece of paper, hand it to Tim to hold, …

DEM: No problem. Here it is Tim.

JOE: … and that he announce his prediction out loud and truthfully as he is handing it to Tim, thus making it a cheek-by-jowl event in the state description of the universe at the time T upon which you will perform your predictive calculation.

DEM: You jest.

JOE: Not at all.

DAN: Hey wait a minute. I said I reserved the right to change my bet. Can I do that?

END OF ACT I

And so we leave Buridan's Ass café with all but the most benighted determinist and/or compatibilist is found scrambling to change his bet from one in support of his own theory of determinism -- and the compatibilism which attempts to act as the intellectual Praetorian guard for such a theory -- to a bet against that very theory. And this existential reversal even after having been presented with an ideal scenario in which Laplace's Demon has been handed every predictive tool he asked for.

In short, the determinist/compatibilist, when forced to put his money where his mouth is, existentially caves in and admits that his theory of UACD, at least as far as human behavior is concerned, has been – and will always be -- trumped in the limit case by the common sense, very untheoretical belief (dare I say by a justified true belief which is, in context, functionally equivalent to knowledge?) that we really can do otherwise than we in fact do, no matter how refined the tools of an evolving science may suggest that we might, even if only in principle, reach a point where we would discover that we cannot do otherwise than the metaphysical reality underlying a putative UACD says that we do do.

In short, Laplace's Gedankenexperiment, proffered in the first instance to exhibit the possible sway of UACD, shows that it is UACD itself that is in deep doo doo, that UACD blows up in its own face in a way in which I would characterize it as being existentially incoherent, with a working definition of "existentially incoherent" being: "Well, it might be nice to contemplate, but I'd never bet real money on it."

Or so it would seem.

Thanks for that anonymous contribution

Completely wong IMO though.

1. If we at present cannot predict human behaviour with 100% accuracy - so what? This doesn't mean human behaviour is not determined. We can make predictions of human behaviour that are reasonably accurate at the macro level. For example, we might be able to show that the smell of hamburgers will make 90% of people feel hungry, and 70% of them actually seek out and eat food. In the case above, it would be possible, given sufficient knowledge of Joe's behaviour, to say that he will have a drink some time in the course of the evening or not (for example - is Joe an alcoholic or teetotal?) to be able to win your bet more than 50% of the time if the situation is repeated. If Joe, despite being a heavy drinker, decides not to drink on this occasion in order to make a fool of the determinist, that is an aspect of his behaviour that could then be predicted with sufficient knowledge of his personality.

2. Some people may make an apparently free choice not to obey their programming. For instance, if I am on a diet I may decide not to eat even if I am hungry. But what does "I am on a diet" mean other than I have reprogrammed myself to behave in a certain way, in response to events (eg I am getting too fat). Does the existence of the word "I" in that sentence mean I have conceded the case? Not at all. My case is that there is an entity that I can refer to as "I" which is capable of making decisions. However - so is a machine if it is programmed to be capable of making choices - which even quite simple machines can do (eg - thermostat). A sophisticated machine can change its programming in response to events, or in a pseudo-random fashion in mimicry of human behaviour.

In other words - being capable of making decisions is not the same as having genuine free will.

Exile 11:53, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Excellent clarification, Visualerror

Your clarification is a vast improvement on this paragraph. Rick Norwood 17:40, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Cheers!Visual Error 19:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Spinoza and Liebniz on Free Will

From Matthew Stewart's The Courier and the Heretic 2006; 0393058980; p. 285—Free Will:

Leibniz, of course, responds that the monads' ignorance of their own true nature requires that they act as if they were free. That is, God knows Caesar will cross the Rubicon, but when Caesar stands on the banks of the river, he faces a momentous decision. Thus, Caesar, like the rest of us, has free will. The best reason to think that Leibniz's argument in favor of free will is as bad as it sounds is that it is indistinguishable from Spinoza's argument against free will. This surprising coincidence is evident in a moment when Leibniz lets down his guard and speaks frankly. The will, he says, has its causes, but since we are ignorant of them and they are oft-hidden, we believe we ourselves independent.... It is this chimera of imaginary independence which revolts us against the consideration of determinism, and which brings us to believe that there are difficulties where there are none. These words could have been simply lifted out of the Ethics, where Spinoza writes {3P2:27} that men believe they are free ... because they are conscious of their volitions and desires, yet ignorant of the causes that have determined them to desire and will. Leibniz was—and, at least in the privacy of his personal notebooks, understood himself to be—a determinist.

Yesselman 00:45, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

FREE WILL VIEWED FROM A RELIGIOUS POINT OF VIEW, AS IT IS ONE OF ITS PRINCIPLES, SPECIALLY BY CHRITSTIAN´S POINT OF VIEW, IS THE PARADOX ENCOUNTERED WHEN FACED GOD´S OMNIPRESENCE , A DOGMA MUST BE CONSIDERED IF HE IS STATED AS ETERNAL AND THUS ATEMPORAL. IN SUCH CONDITION THERE IS NO PLACE NOR TIME WHERE GOD ISNT AT, SO TIME HAS ALREADY ELAPSED,AS FOR GOD´S POINT OF VIEW , AND BY SUCH ALL EVENTS IN OUR LIVES HAVE ALREADY OCCURED. AND THIS LEADS TO CONSIDERING THAT THERE IS NOTHING FOR US TO CHOOSE SINCE ALL OUR CHOICES WERE DONE BEFORE OUR OWN EXISTENCE, AS WE SEE IT, SINCE ONCE AGAIN, FOR GOD, TIME: PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE IS ONE AND ONLY AS HIM. THIS CONTRADICTION LEAVES US WITH EITHER ONE OF TWO CHOICES TO CHOOSE, EITHER GOD ISNT ATEMPORAL , AND THUS ISNT OMNISCIENT AND OMNIPRESENT, OR WE ARE TRICKED TO THINK THAT WE POSSES THE POWER TO CHOOSE -FREE WILL- BUT WE ACTUALLY ARE ONLY ACTING A PREDETERMINED SCRIPT. THIS PARADOX HAS LEAD ME TO INUMEROUS THOUGHTS (SUCH AS PARALEL UNIVERSES WHERE ALL OUR OPTIONS WHERE EXPOSED) BUT NON HOLDING CONSISTENCY. I WOULD BE GLAD IF ANYONE COULD POST HERE ANY LIGHT ON THIS CONTRADICTION. THANKS

Please do not write in all capital letters. It is hard to read.

In the Bible, according to Saint Paul, God decided who would be damned and who would be saved before he created the universe. That doesn't leave much room for free will. The Free Will Baptists disagree. Rick Norwood 19:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Hgilbert's edit

"For psychology, it implies that we are able to control (and thus may be held accountable for) our own actions."

Hgilbert has added the parenthetical phrase. I object. Many people believe free will is necessary for accountability. But I do not think this idea is part of the discipline of psychology, which tends to be descriptive and non-judgmental. Comments? Rick Norwood 21:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I can explain why I find this idea relevant here. A psychologist might ask, "Why did you do this?", or even simply "What did you do?" These questions imply that the person spoken to was the actor and possesses some level of free will. Similarly, a psychologist may be asked in court if a given person is responsible for his/her actions. The judgment of whether accountability is present is a psychological one. There are then legal, ethical and moral consequences that follow from this judgment.

I've spent a lot of time on the couch, and no psychologist ever asked me either of the two quetions you suggest. They were more apt to say, "How did that make you feel?" or "What do you think about that?"

In any case, in this context, it would seem we are talking about psychologists as students of the human mind rather than as doctors treating patients or as witnesses in court. Rick Norwood 13:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

recent edit

Good rewrite, David. Rick Norwood 15:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Religions

Isn't there any information about Free will in Islam, Hindouism or buddhism thoughts? CG 18:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Free will, as I understand it, is more of a problem in Western philosophy (though I don't know about Islam). There hasn't been, as far as I am aware, a serious Jain, Hindu or Buddhist denial of "free will" (such a concept flies in the face of karma) — ok, there are exceptions to this in a soteriological sense (that is, one is inevitably liberated — e.g. the putative opinions of the Ajivaka school). Nevertheless, none of these are really standard interpretations...

I believe there are similar problems in Islam with regard to Allah and the free will of people as those in Christianity and Judaism, but I don't know enough to know how these problems are dealt with by the Qu'ran or Islamic theologians. Ig0774 01:48, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Ig0774's edit

Good work, Ig, the passage is much improved. Rick Norwood 23:11, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I am a little puzzled by these edits (putting may imply instead of simply implies). Free will does imply that a divinity does not (completely) control our will (though the reconciliation of the omnipotence of the divinity and the freedom of human will has been a complex theme in theology), that physical action-reaction mechanisms do not determine my actions, and so on. This is not to assert that free will exists, merely that from its existence follow certain consequences in a variety of areas. What do others think about this? Hgilbert 02:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain my reasoning for my edit. In general, the passage I edited claimed too much specifically by using "the implication", since there might, in fact, be several implications for any given domain. More than that, the particular implications rather prejudge what answers are possible. So to the particular case you raise, I agree that, in general, when free will is seen as problematic it is because the will of human beings contradicts the will of God (or Brahman or Amida's Primal Vow, or whatever else). But to say that free will "implies" that an omnipotent being does not (completely) control our will is to say that "free will" always has the potential to be at odd with the will of an omnipotent power. This need not be the case; one can cogently argue that we freely will the will of the divinity (a version of an argument like this is advanced by Leibniz). As for the physical action-reaction... um... what happened to compatibilism? As I understand it, compatibilists hold that physical determinism does not contradict free will, and thus, having free will does not preclude physical determinism. I also invite you to visit this, particularly the articles by Hume and Honderich himself. As for the issue of ethics, it is a debatable point whether accountability requires free of will (one might here think of Antigone or Arjuna).

You are right that we can talk about the implications of free will, but not in the limited sense that this introduction previously did. I am still less than happy with the "implications" for psychology, since it seems to me that they place the cart before the horse. That "the mind controls some of the actions of the body" is, as I understand it, a basic axiom of psychology (and a major reason it was divorced from physiognomy), and not an implication of free will (this axiom may itself imply free will, but it doesn't follow the other way around).

This article is good overall, but we do need to be very careful, and that's all I was trying to do. If any of these arguments seem completely wrong to you, I invite you to point out to me how, hopefully before reverting my edit. Odd how it takes way more text to justify myself than to make the edit itself :-). Ig0774 04:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I am not going to revert the edits, but I think they are fundamentally mistaken. Leibniz, for example, affirms free will in the sense of my original examples: he says in his Theodicy I have added, following many good authors, that it was in accordance with order and the general good that God gave to certain creatures the opportunity of exercising their liberty, even when he foresaw that they would turn to evil, but which he could so well rectify; because it was not right that, in order to hinder sin, God should always act in an extraordinary manner. Free will here is God's will, not in that we do all that he wishes us to, but in that he wishes us to be free to do what he may not wish us to.

Compatabilists try to reconcile a 19th century view of a determinate physical world with consciousness, which experiences freedom. The 20th century revolution in physics broke apart the physical view they were working with; now the corresponding challenge would be for someone who denies free will to reconcile this with a non-deterministic universe! :) In any case, what they describe as free will is an experience of freedom in a situation of non-freedom, i.e. that we experience no external constraints leads us to feel we are free despite our internal state totally determining our actions. This is arguably not free will at all, but an explanation of how we can experience an illusion of free will (or a redefinition of free will to be when we are only - but totally - constrained from one side), and side-steps serious questions about what is external and what internal to our self and/or consciousness.

Hume explicitly accepts free will; I'm not sure to what part of which article on your referenced page you are referring. Honderich's work seems to put in question the existence of free will, not what it implies - thanks for the link, though; I was unaware of his research.

I still stand behind the original implications and feel that the revision is somewhat misleading, but also recognize that the original form raises questions (that I think can be answered, but not in an introductory paragraph). Hgilbert 14:22, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed response. I am not sure I really disagree with you on any particular point except the phrasing on this page itself. Well, okay, I disagree on your reading of Leibniz (but I was refering mainly to the argument that this universe is the best possible universe and consequentially whatever evil (human free will) occurs occurs for the sake of greater good (God's free will), but this is not the place to debate the point).

You're perhaps right that the problem for compatibilism should be reconciling free will with a non-determinate universe, nevertheless, I am not aware of anyone who really tries to do this (determinist arguments tend to be that quantam indeterminism is either unproven/unprovable or irrelevant since it leads to a (roughly) Newtonian universe anyways; libertarians tend to see quantum indeterminancy as potential proof of free will, not as the implication of free will; on this issue, compatibilists tend to side with determinists). Whether or not compatibilist "free will" is free will at all is a debatable point, you're right (I happen to think it isn't, but that's just my POV). Nevertheless, it does seem to be accepted by quite a number of philosophers (in some form) and so should be taken fairly seriously. (The citation of Honderich and Hume was just to bring out the problem of opposing physical determinism to free will absolutely -- for example, Hume did explicitly accept free will, but also explicitly accepted determinism. But, again, I don't really think this is the appropriate forum for debating all of this.

What does concern me is that you say my revision is "somewhat misleading". In what way? I am not sure my edits changed the original meaning at all, except to allow for a greater diversity of views, but I would like to correct any misdirection I may have added. Ig0774 16:52, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I think that Ig is using admirable caution in writing about a topic on which many philosophers have strongly disagreed. Unless you can prove that from hypothesis A conclusion B follows with mathematical precision, then it is better to say that from hypothesis A conclusion B may follow. In particular Hgilbert's assertion "Free will does imply that a divinity does not (completely) control our will." is an assertion that is subject to doubt. Rick Norwood 20:37, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If a divinity does completely control our will, in what sense is it free? Hgilbert 13:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Ig: my phrase 'somewhat misleading' may itself have been somewhat misleading. The use of 'may' instead of 'does' when the relationship is a strict logical one is what I was referring to; I am convinced that this relationship is a strict logical one, at least when free will is taken to signify some genuine degree of freedom (as opposed to an illusory perception of this, etc.), but recognize the diversity of usage of (or confusion over) the term and will gracefully defer to your no doubt wise caution. Hgilbert 14:06, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia not infrequently requires me to argue in favor of positions that I do not hold, but let me paraphrase as best I can the position of many "bible believing" Christians. Man's will is aboslutely free, but because he is by nature sinful, following the fall, he wall always choose to do evil. God, being all knowing, all powerful, and all wise, allows this state of affairs because he loves mankind, and since the sins of man must be punished, he allowed the punishment to fall on his own blaimless Son, thus washing from man the sin caused by his free will choice to fall from grace by eating the fruit in Eden and allowing him to submit his free will to the omnipotent power of God. Never-the-less, man's free choices are all part of God's greater plan, and which free choice man makes is absolutely determined by that plan.

Now, this all sounds like utter nonsense to me. But who am I to say that I am right and the vast majority of my friends and neighbors are wrong? Rick Norwood 14:56, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I know and respect the view; in it, as you say, God leaves the will free (does not control it) - though knowing what choices will be made and that these will fit in with his plan. If the divine power doesn't actually leave this freedom (to do His will), the human will is not free. There is a difference between God omnisciently knowing what you will choose and actually determining your choice (so that you actually have no choice). (I realize we seem to be discussing theological points - in and of itself interesting enough - rather than working towards any possible revisions of the article here! And I'm enjoying the discussion.) Hgilbert 01:07, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Agency theory neglected

I noticed how agency theory was omitted in this article. That's pretty surprising considering how prominent this view of free will is. I put up a list of terms regarding freedom in the article and included agency theory among them (and added references).[3] --Wade A. Tisthammer 18:33, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, made a mistake when I defined incompatibilism. I fixed this in my next edit. --Wade A. Tisthammer 20:42, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Lucidish edit

I think you move too much of the discussion of moral responsibility into the discussion of free will. These are two separate topics, and the topic of moral responsibility is covered fully below. Arguments of the form "there must be free will because without it there is no moral responsibility" suggest the the universe ought to be structured along moral lines and not deterministic lines, but the universe is what it is, and questions of how to assign or not assign moral responsibility have no power to shape the universe. It should be obvious that the universe is not constructed along moral lines.

I'm going to rewrite, and at at the same time change from bullet point form to paragraph form, which I am told is more encyclopedic. Rick Norwood 21:50, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually my edit watered down the mentioning of moral responsibility: since before, issues of compatibilism etc. were being stipulated to be issues of accountability, while my edit hedged those claims. Perhaps the mentions of accountability should be removed entirely from the section. I didn't do it myself, because I was acting out of deference to the editor who introduced this useful section. Lucidish 22:42, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Would this, perhaps, be a good place for a definition list, since most of the narrative to connect the various ideas seems to occur later? Ig0774 22:57, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

It's just a matter of style, so I don't have much of a preference. Lucidish 01:11, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Philosophy for Dummies

Do we really want so many of the footnotes here to point to Philosophy for Dummies? Rick Norwood 22:09, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully not... I'm having a hard time following which footnotes point to which references on this page, or else I would look for some better citations. Ig0774 22:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Tom Morris (the author) has a Ph.D. in philosophy from Yale, has published extensively, serves as a professor at a major university, and seems like a reliable, reputable source. I will admit however that the title of the book is perhaps not as confidence inspiring. --Wade A. Tisthammer 05:20, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Ig0774, as you know I usually support your edits, but your most recent one seems to use five words when one will do. Also, I caught at least one pronoun with the wrong anteceedent. I'm going to work over the definions again -- between the two of us I'm sure we'll get it right sooner or later. Rick Norwood 23:01, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, I did mess up. Thanks for catching that! Ig0774 23:10, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

My reaction to the "For Dummies..." series is visceral, not reasoned. If it is a good book, then more power to it. It's just...just... Rick Norwood 13:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

extensive POV and copyediting issues

Hopefully someone can fix this. The issue is trivial, but it is so tedious to fix I don't think I can finish it all. I might even list it on featured article removal, because frankly, the point of view using "we" nullifies the entire formality of it. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 00:25, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Note, from the Wikipedia Manual of Style:

Nevertheless, it might sometimes be appropriate to use "we" or "one" when referring to an experience that anyone, any reader, would be expected to have, such as general perceptual experiences. For example, although it might be best to write, "When most people open their eyes, they see something", it is still legitimate to write, "When we open our eyes, we see something", and it is certainly better than using the passive voice: "When the eyes are opened, something is seen."

Rick Norwood 15:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but it is not the best solution, certainly not for a featured article. It makes it very informal and unprofessional, especially about a philosophical issue. Furthermore, the use of "we" is analogous and very rude as it is coercive in style on the reader, and is incorrect in the sense of singular they, because we are not merely discussing the reader and the author as a group (we), but rather individuality in itself, and thus individuals is the preferred thing to refer to. Elle _{vécut heureuse} ^{à jamais} (Be eudaimonic!) 22:47, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Dr. Delusion and "Other Criticisms of Compatibilism"

This section was originally added by 208.11.8.10, but was already reverted out once by Rick Norwood, then restored by Tisthammerw. To be honest, I'm half-tempted to revert it out myself, but it would seem better to talk on it first. Critiques are clearly relevant in an article like this, but the current structure seems to interweave the critiques throughout rather than have a specific "Critiques" section. That said, this part can still be relevant, although if we keep it, I'd be in favor of rewriting it.

First off, as a disclaimer, philosophical & political ideas are certainly under no requirement to make sense, if for no other reasons than accurate history ("A common argument levied for X, despite its generally considered lack of soundness, is...). That said, I think that there is something of a requirement to make it clear when blatantly silly arguments are used, and in general try and put "the best foot forward" for each view. In other words, I'm not angling for a forum-type debate on Compatibilism.

That said. The current argument is just silly. Rephrased, it might be "Suppose Dr. Demento takes away a subject's free will. Then that subject acts with no free will. Clearly, free will doesn't exist! Take that!" This proves nothing. Another equivalent argument might be "Jones wants to eat some ice cream. But suppose Sgt. Colt, a master marksman, shoots Jones in the head. Now, instead of going out to eat ice cream, Jones lies on the ground bleeding out. You lose, compatibilists!" I don't think even the sunniest compatibilists would claim that free will is inalienable. Materialists would claim that things such as brain damage or death can take away someone's agency, and soulists would presumably admit that if someone was somehow de-souled, they wouldn't have free will any more. And yet the article contains the line:

The compatibilist would say that Jones still had free will; Jones stayed because he had a desire to stay, an inner state (albeit one planted by Dr. Delusion) that most immediately caused him to stay. Thus, he stayed freely.

To some extent, it comes down to the same muddle-headed semantic issue that makes this debate at times infuriating. Soft determinists believe that free will merely means "internally generated decision," yes... but there's a difference between an internal state created by all the previous events of the universe, combined with a later history of this internal state interacting with that universe, and internal states forced by outside events. If I can dig it up, I'll bring in a quote from Daniel Dennet on the topic which nicely shows why the argument above is attacking a straw man. Paraphrased, it's something like:

Consider two people. Jones goes down to the police station because he'd like to tour it and see what it's like. Smith goes down there because he got into a bar brawl, and officers drag him in to the jail. In every day conversation, consider the sentences "Jones went to the police station of his own free will" and "Smith went to the police station of his own free will." Both of these events were determined, but in one of them, Jones went due to a decision he made himself. Smith went due to forces external to his brian. The meaningful way to use the term in every day conversation is that of internally generated decisions.

That dealt with physical compulsion; It's not hard to ask the same question here concerning some theoretical mental compulsion. Scenario A: "Dr. Demento talks to Jones and suggests that he kill Smith, because Smith is a bad man. Jones mulls it in his mind, then agrees that Smith needs to be killed, and he does so." Scenario B: "Dr. Demento pulls out an alien mind-control beam and turns it on Jones, forcing him to kill Smith." In Scenario A, there is an outside impetus (as of course there are plenty), but the final decision comes from within Jones. In Scenario B, the fulcrum is the outside impetus- Jones is basically a weapon for the rest of the story, so there's no internal decision. The fact that Jones's mind-controlled brain thought what it was instructed to think is irrelevant, since the crucial decision came from outside Jones. This is even more clear if Scenario B is rephrased as "Dr. Demento kills Jones, then uses his body & (last brainstate / soul) as the material to build a robot, then orders the robot to kill Smith."

Anyway, as mentioned before, I bring up this argument not to go on a crusade, but simply because I think this argument falls down on the facts, and assumes that compatibilists have an extremely naive view of how a determinstic world would work. I mean, the first statement to the "critiques" basically restates determinism, which compatabilists have already accepted- of course everything was decided by past actions! If someone can suggest a better critiques section, great, but otherwise, I say we chuck this. SnowFire 17:31, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

I think you are giving Dr. Demento more credit than it deserves. I deleted it once. Now it is your turn. Exercise your free will! Rick Norwood 20:06, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

It's out now. Again, if we have something better, we can replace it, but I wonder if the focus for this article shouldn't be shortening it and trimming the fat as opposed to making it even longer- as the edit page points out, it's getting a bit long in the tooth.

Ryan205, on the chance you come by here to see why your contribution was removed, aside from that being an unsourced idea, it doesn't prove anything. Perhaps twins choose to do the same, not out of some mystical twin-compulsion force, but merely because they want to.

Hgilbert, I wanted to go a bit more in-depth as far as quantum mechanics rather than merely assert that it undercuts determinism, but the flow didn't feel right where you originally put your contribution, so I moved it to the scientific section where I felt I could expound more easily. Hopefully this is okay. SnowFire 19:48, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I put the "other criticisms" section in here because arguments of that sort seem common against compatibilism (the internal states that necessarily cause one's actions being the result of forces beyond one's control)--and the article neglects them and is a little bit on the pro-compatibilist side because (among other things) it focuses only on the weaker arguments launched at this metaphysical belief. For this:

Rephrased, it might be "Suppose Dr. Demento takes away a subject's free will. Then that subject acts with no free will. Clearly, free will doesn't exist! Take that!" This proves nothing.

True, and your point might have some validity if it accurately represented the criticism. But that is not quite the case. Basically (1) Dr. Delusion created what compatibilism would consider an internal state (e.g. a desire to stay) rather than an external one (e.g. putting a gun to Jones's head). The point of the argument is that whether the internal state be forced on by Dr. Delusion or by past events that extend before Jones was born, in either case it was a force beyond Jones's control. The common argument in short is that "free agency and moral responsibility are incompatible with causal determinism precisely because causal determinism entails that all human choices and actions are ultimately compelled by originating conditions beyond the agent's control." [4] This is a common and easily citable sort of objection. Confer also the origination argument from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. You may not agree with arguments like these, and you are free to do so . But please recognize that is a fairly significant one apparently held by a significant minority (there are already arguments in this entry I consider to be very silly, but I allow them because I suspect them to be significant minority viewpoints). And given that criticisms like these actually have cited sources (as opposed to the somewhat weaker argument) why not let this one in? (Perhaps we can compromise, this argument can be allowed in exchange for yet another pro-compatibilist argument in the entry?)--Wade A. Tisthammer 21:36, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I completely agree that this argument is bad, but that the incompatabilists have a better and valid point to make here. It's not merely that the original argument straw manned the compatibilist side, but that it also didn't do justice to the incompataibilist argument that it contained a kernel of, which is why I deleted it. I think that the incompatibilist point that needs to be mentioned here is: You say you can differentiate between the one, sudden act that violates free will and the million preceding shaping acts that determined the subject's internal state. How? Where do you draw the line? And is this even a valid distinction? (One of the main problems with the old section was that any compatibilist would disagree that the brainwashing was an exercise of free will. The better question is "why is the brainwashing not free will, but 'Jones' the collective force of neurons shaped by fate free will?").

I definitely think this debate can be worked in, but I think it's already in the article, albeit muddily. I don't think we need a separate section for it, but perhaps parts could be rewritten to give this a better focus and make this debate more clear. Hmmm. (Also, it's amusing that you think that there's already lots of pro-compatibilist arguments, since I think that the pro-compatibilist arguments currently there are for the most part unclear and kind of bad. Perhaps we can compromise by removing some, but making the others better.) SnowFire 17:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

From the entry, "Thus, they argue that determinism does not matter; what matters is that individuals' choices are the results of their own desires and preferences [i.e. internal states], and are not overridden by some external (or even internal) force." But what if these internal states (that necessarily cause actions) are the result of forces beyond the agent's control? Hence the argument. The story of Dr. Delusion (and others like it; I found a similar argument in my old college philosophy textbook) was about creating internal states (beliefs, desires) that (according to the compatibilist) necessarily cause actions, so I'm not sure how it "straw manned" the compatibilist because it did use internal states as opposed to external ones (like putting a gun to his head). True, one can say ordinary internal states come about via "ordinary" past events instead of an intelligent cause--but is that using the genetic fallacy? In either case (past events or Dr. Delusion) the internal states are planted via forces beyond the agent's control--so I'm not sure why the origin of the "planter" makes any relevant difference as long as we are dealing with internal states.

In any case, below is a copy-and-pasted segment of the "other criticisms" section that I think should remain, as it appears to be a significant minority view (note the references above and below):

Determinism believes that events are the necessary consequence of previous causes. One criticism is that if the chains of causation extend back beyond our birth, we eventually reach circumstances that are clearly beyond our control--and thus our actions are ultimately determined by forces beyond our control. One form of this argument is the following:

If determinism is true, then our acts are consequences of the laws of nature and events in the remote past. But it is not up to us what went on before we were born, and neither is it up to us what the laws of nature are. Therefore, the consequences of these things (including our present acts) are not up to us. ^[1]

Like it or hate it, this sort of thing seems to be a significant minority view and (I think) worthy of mention. I see no reason to censor it merely because some people believe it to be a "bad" argument (there are already arguments in the free will entry that I consider less than perfect, but I allow them because I suspect them to be significant minority views).

I was surprised to find that you think the arguments for compatibilism "unclear" and "kind of bad." For instance, from the entry:

Compatibilists often point to clear-cut cases of someone's free will being denied — rape, murder, theft, and so on. The key to these cases is not that the past is determining the future, but that the aggressor is overriding the victim's desires and preferences about his or her own actions. The aggressor is coercing the victim and, according to compatibilists, this is what overrides free will. Thus, they argue that determinism does not matter; what matters is that individuals' choices are the results of their own desires and preferences, and are not overridden by some external (or even internal) force. To be a compatibilist, one need not endorse any particular conception of free will, but only deny that determinism is at odds with free will....

Compatibilists often argue that, on the contrary, determinism is a prerequisite for moral responsibility — society cannot hold someone responsible unless his actions were determined by something. This argument can be traced to Hume and was also used by the anarchist William Godwin. After all, if indeterminism is true, then those events that are not determined are random. One questions whether it is possible that one can blame or praise someone for performing an action that just spontaneously popped into his nervous system. Instead, they argue, one needs to show how the action stemmed from the person's desires and preferences — the person's character — before one starts holding the person morally responsible. Libertarians sometimes reply that undetermined actions are not random at all, and that they result from a substantive will whose decisions are undetermined. This argument is widely considered unsatisfactory, for it just pushes the problem back a step, and further, it involves some very mysterious metaphysics, as well as the concept of Ex nihilo nihil fit.

So far it seems very pro-combatibilist. Most of it seems strong with the exception of the last few sentences of the last paragraph. If you wish to replace some of these with what you perceive to be a better one (providing of course you can source it) so that the cited argument I proposed is entered, I would have no objection. --Wade A. Tisthammer 21:07, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

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