Free will

[Mark Isaak]

Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
anyway.

What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:

>Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>anyway.
>
>What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?

I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
Libet (he of the famous experiments):

"The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
abort, with no act appearing.

This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."

That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
something that our instincts don't want us to do.

The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?

I would say that it is a continuum, not a dichotomy. I'd say that you have free will to the extent that the causes for your actions reside within you rather than outside you.

[broger...@gmail.com]

So you are free to the extent that you go against your natural inclinations. Is that what you mean?

[erik simpson]

On 2/15/24 12:19 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>

Not having free will means you never need apologize.

[Öö Tiib]

But you might occasionally apologize anyway despite there are no point.
If you do it or not is decided by scenario, you have no will to alter it.

[DB Cates]

You may not *need* to, but never the less, given the appropriate
history, you will do so.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/15/24 1:44 PM, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>
> I would say that it is a continuum, not a dichotomy. I'd say that you have free will to the extent that the causes for your actions reside within you rather than outside you.

Even if everything within you came from outside you?

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>
> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>
> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
> abort, with no act appearing.
>
> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."

The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
conscious may not be.

> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>
> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.

That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
are the same. But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
struggle mightily to break that habit?

Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
axons and their various activating potentials?

[DB Cates]

And how would one determine otherwise? I'm really having difficulty
coming up with any way of distinguishing the free will/no free will
positions. At least the 'no free will' position doesn't screw up physics.

[André G. Isaak]

On 2024-02-15 19:21, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/15/24 1:44 PM, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free
>>> will?
>>
>> I would say that it is a continuum, not a dichotomy. I'd say that you
>> have free will to the extent that the causes for your actions reside
>> within you rather than outside you.
>
> Even if everything within you came from outside you?

'Free will' happens when your choices seem to be the result of your
decisions rather than the result of external forces. This is true even
when your choices are the result of purely deterministic external forces.

IOW, it's not a particularly useful concept except when talking about
our specific attitudes towards our decisions.

André

--
To email remove 'invalid' & replace 'gm' with well known Google mail
service.

[Bob Casanova]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:10:26 -0800, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by erik simpson
<eastsi...@gmail.com>:

Even more, you can never be guilty of anything. The perfect
philosophy for a sociopath! :-(
>
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[jillery]

That would be love, not free will:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APMHp9sZyME>

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

[*Hemidactylus*]

That could be related to procedural memory. It takes great effort to learn
stuff. Over time things that took deliberatively taxing mental effort
become “second nature”. But when circumstances change it then takes effort
to unlearn such automatisms.

>
> Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
> of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
> that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
> axons and their various activating potentials?
>

The art of placing commas, sentence construction(,) or grammar are
typically nonconcious. One can override autopilot and edit what has been
written. Here’s the rub, following the late Daniel Wegner we tend to claim
volitional authorship over actions that are happening outside awareness. We
plagiarize our brain activity. This tendency may be adaptive per Wegner as
it has social utility. We signal intention and take responsibility for
actions stemming from our brain, though being outside the causal chain.

Dennett eschews libertarian free will, which should be the end of the
story, but responsibility is too important to him to throw the volitional
baby out with the spooky libertarian bathwater. He notes how we at some
developmental milestone typically become mature enough to be deemed
responsible adults. This is a Sorites problem so things like age of
majority are arbitrary boundaries. But without deeming social
responsibility how could we recognize and enforce contracts and
oaths/affirmations, the former have notarial language the explicitly
declare freewill exists, and penalize breakers of such documents?

His compatibilism relies on stuff like people being reasons responsive,
persuadable but not naive or manipulable, Machiavellian to the degree of
knowing what to convey vs conceal, be unpredictable, be able to make action
justifications by evaluation of probable outcomes, have well ordered
desires (he seems to channel Harry Frankfurt’s desirability of desires
here), and to have deliberative self-control. The last one is pretty much
what I think “free will” boils down to. Deliberation turns murder into a
capital offense.

Pat Churchland focusses more on the delay of gratification and impulse
control. Also the cancellation of action which seems to be Libet’s free
won’t.

Yet impulse control could be deconstructed as a hierarchy of higher and
lower impulses sorta like Frankfurt did with desires, no? The impulse to do
the right or responsible thing could be a matter of fallible second nature.

All the things that make up “free will” make it a suitcase word as Minksy
(cringe) called consciousness.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Mark Isaak <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>

Not having the capacity to mull decisions over an extended period of time?
Not solely living in the now or on autopilot?

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 13:48:14 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

I don't like your "to the extent that" qualifier. I think that free
will is one of those things that is difficult if not impossible to
*define* in simple terms but whose characteristics can be *described*.
What I have given above is a description, not a definition; it is one
of many possible descriptions but I think it does capture a key
characteristic.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Libet’s experiment is taking things down to a very tight time scale
(milliseconds) and to a very mundane nature (watching a clock) to help the
notion of free will much. Plus more advanced brainscanning places the
neural causal chain even further back per preceding brain activity.

Free will involves deliberation over longer time scales about meaningful or
impactful decisions. Say you want to buy a car. You could impulse buy the
first one you see, which still takes longer than the timeframe of Libet. Or
you could jot down multiple candidate cars and read Consumer Reports and
game out your longer term financial prospects and then eventually come to a
decision. Maybe you narrow it down to two cars and become Buridan’s ass
leaving it to some intangible subjective impulse to break the tie. You trot
into the dealership and note some notarizable documents allude to your
signing of your own free will. That’s part of what will make you
accountable in the future to hold up to your end of the deal. Free will is
more or less a legally binding social construction for enforcing contracts.
In reality it breaks down to whether you were instead acting out of
coercion, whether you could be duped into a bad decision, or if you
exercised due diligence from your POV in terms of self-interest. Outside of
the acknowledgment language in the contract “freewill” may have no
ontological standing in itself. As more became known about how we think
about what to do, there are perhaps more grounded terms we could use that
capture aspects of what is a problematic libertarian ( philosophical not
political sense) term.

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 20:54:05 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

There is a whiff of scientism about that final remark!

[Martin Harran]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:19:51 -0800, Mark Isaak

<specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:

>On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>
>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>
>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>
>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>
>The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
>conscious may not be.

The controversy reminds me somewhat of Ron Dean taking some of Gould
and Eldredge's results and using them to argue a conclusion that is
the opposite of what G&E themselves concluded about the impact on the
ToE.

>
>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>
>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>
>That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
>are the same.

Not quite sure how you get to that.

>But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
>struggle mightily to break that habit?

I can't see your issue with that. A habit is our body in control of
what we do; deciding to break the habit is an exercise of free will.
For example, I started smoking when I was 16 - that was a free will
decision, nobody or nothing forced me. Nicotine then took charge and
my body demanded a regular supply for the next forty years. After
those 40 years, I made a decision to quit. My body didn't like that
decision at all and there was an ensuing battle for quite some time
between my mind and my body. Seventeen years later, that battle has
still not entirely abated, I still get the occasional yearning for a
cigarette or cigar.

There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
but still a decision made by myself.

By coincidence, I have just started reading 'Determined A Science of
Life without Free Will' by Robert M. Sapolskyby; I'm only a couple of
chapters into it so too early to draw conclusions but he seems to base
his argument largely on these external influences being deterministic.

>
>Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
>of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
>that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
>axons and their various activating potentials?

I have a pin here, would you care to count the angels on its head?

[*Hemidactylus*]

I think he means more along the lines of impulse control, to not be a
brute. But there are habits (second nature), and social idols. Philosophize
with a hammer. Belief in free will is a socially constrained ideology. So
we may act against our instincts yet act in accord with social stricture.
Whether one believes in free will or not is a matter of birth as is one’s
religion. Strict Calvinism seems a matter of the elect being preordained so
personal choice is irrelevant. Some forms of Islam hold to the tablet in
heaven or scroll of life concept. And beyond whether belief in free will is
a matter of upbringing, other behavior influencing beliefs are social
constructs and not brute facts. There is social determination. The Ten
Commandments are socially constructed influencers of actions. There are
some 613 influencers of actions down to allowable clothing fabric. Abiding
by such stricture becomes second nature.

[broger...@gmail.com]

On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 9:23:12 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/15/24 1:44 PM, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> >> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> >> anyway.
> >>
> >> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
> >
> > I would say that it is a continuum, not a dichotomy. I'd say that you have free will to the extent that the causes for your actions reside within you rather than outside you.
> Even if everything within you came from outside you?

Not sure exactly what you are getting at. Of course every atom that composes you came from outside you at some point, but I don't see that as a problem. You could reasonably say that if someone slipped you a mind-altering drug that that cause of some of your actions resided outside you, even though the psychoactive molecules were inside your brain at the time of interest. Still, I think my formulation is generally pretty reasonable.

[broger...@gmail.com]

I'm not sure your example here is very clear cut. When you were addicted to nicotine, you followed a very natural inclination to avoid discomfort - low blood nicotine levels made you uncomfortable and you raised them. When you quit, you also followed a natural inclination to avoid discomfort, whether the discomfort was the thought of death by COPD or lung cancer or heart attack (as you say below), or social ostracism (depending on how out of favor smoking was around you at the time). Eventually the impulse to avoid the smoking associated discomfort became stronger than the impulse to avoid the low-blood-nicotine discomfort. You quit smoking. You weighed conflicting inclinations and the stronger one won - for me that's a free decision, regardless of whether you clearly articulated the reasons in your internal monologue (assuming you have one) or whether you just did it.

>
> There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
> smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
> thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
> that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
> my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
> parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
> schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
> came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
> long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
> was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
> but still a decision made by myself.

I agree with you that external influences are not deterministic. The reasons for your decision are a combination of factors within and outside of yourself. Nobody threatened to burn you at the stake if you became an apostate. You decided on your own to stick with it.

>
> By coincidence, I have just started reading 'Determined A Science of
> Life without Free Will' by Robert M. Sapolskyby; I'm only a couple of
> chapters into it so too early to draw conclusions but he seems to base
> his argument largely on these external influences being deterministic.

If you imagine yourself as an immaterial homunculus housed in the pineal gland, almost everything can be made external to "you" and therefore the deterministic nature of the external factors will be a threat to free will. If you identify yourself with your whole body and brain, your free will remains intact.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 03:32:17 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

FWIW, my decision was made on account of my wife and children. They
were very worried about me and my health - I hadn't actually had a
heart attack but 5 of my brothers had had at least one. I figured that
I had always said that I would do anything to protect my family from
harm but if I continued to smoke, I would actually be causing them
harm. There obviously was a lot of pressure on me to make the decision
but ultimately it was my own decision, made freely by myself. Just as
comparison, one of my brothers who suffered a heart attack, a few
years later required a stent and a couple of years after that had
prostate cancer (fully recovered) but despite family pressures, he
continues to smoke. He was under the same pressures and influences as
me but he made his own decision, different from mine. We shouldn't
draw conclusions from one example but I think the fact that we are
siblings making different decisions in similar circumstances points to
free will being an individual thing.

>>
>> There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
>> smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
>> thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
>> that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
>> my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
>> parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
>> schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
>> came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
>> long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
>> was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
>> but still a decision made by myself.
>
>I agree with you that external influences are not deterministic. The reasons for your decision are a combination of factors within and outside of yourself. Nobody threatened to burn you at the stake if you became an apostate. You decided on your own to stick with it.

I think we are close to violent agreement here - not a bad thing in
your final days on TO :)

[broger...@gmail.com]

He was in a similar situation - conflicting impulses to avoid different sorts of discomfort and in his case the impulse to avoid the discomfort of nicotine withdrawal was stronger. SImilar, but not identical individuals in similar but not identical situations make different decisions.

> >>
> >> There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
> >> smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
> >> thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
> >> that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
> >> my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
> >> parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
> >> schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
> >> came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
> >> long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
> >> was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
> >> but still a decision made by myself.
> >
> >I agree with you that external influences are not deterministic. The reasons for your decision are a combination of factors within and outside of yourself. Nobody threatened to burn you at the stake if you became an apostate. You decided on your own to stick with it.
> I think we are close to violent agreement here - not a bad thing in
> your final days on TO :)

Yes, we seem to be in agreement. Although that may be because I've been emphasizing the free will part of my "free will is compatible with determinism" compatibilism. I certainly agree that we make our own free choices and are responsible for them - even though I'd hold that under exactly identical circumstances we (also assuming we are exactly identical to who we are) could only make the choice that we actually made (leaving aside any hypothetical effects of quantum randomness which, in any case, would not add anything to our freedom). For us to have made a different choice either we, or the circumstances, would have to be at least slightly different.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Determinism need not rule out free will, I just think the various things
Dennett puts forward in response to Sapolsky should merely be kept as those
things and maybe jettison an archaic problematic concept.

Dennett v Sapolsky:
https://youtu.be/aYzFH8xqhns?si=c2yVc04ntmCfMYif

>
>>
>> Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
>> of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
>> that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
>> axons and their various activating potentials?
>
> I have a pin here, would you care to count the angels on its head?
>

Not close to the same thing.

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:

> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?

Philosophically, it involves a desire to eat brains. I learned that from popular
TV and movies.

Otherwise, from what I've read so far, nobody has a good answer.
Rather, they tend to rationalize some suite of definitions to apply in order
to achieve a somewhat comforting conceptual abstraction.

To go further, it's nearly universal that we develop desires to control ourselves
within our surroundings. If we look at more simple model organisms with
nervous systems, there are some rather simple neurochemical feedback
systems that provide what amount to awards for various levels of success in
effecting control. There is a hierarchy from basic control of movement up to
discovering realities to crafting plans. I'm unaware of any truly meaningful
discontinuity in that progression of control, meaningful in the way that it is
biologically achieved.

Consequential to the development of control are fairly parallel systems of
development to do so. Don't be distracted by systems that control without
any level of "conscious" awareness. Having hearts beat without thinking about
each beat turns out to be simple enough that it doesn't need more adaptive
networks of neurons.

A further consequence of these 'control systems' is the development of an
awareness layer within the neurological systems. Just as that layer develops
models of self that include modeling how big one is, where the various parts
are so that you can know to pull your arm away from a hazard, organisms
can develop models of self that get feedback from systems that control
movement, or how we model our environment, or plan for future events.
Neurological systems can create these sorts of feedback structures in ways
that are readily understandable.

So to the punchline: the same schemes for rewarding a sense of control of
movement and reward a sense of control for planning or learning. This results
in an organism that feels better (get neurochemical rewards) when its internal
models tell it that it is in control. I would call that control free will.

So free will is the model we develop within our larger model of self. It is pre-primed
to make us feel good when the model feeds back to us to tell us that we are
making our own choices --- are in control. In most people, those models tend to
elevate an abstracted entity of self which we endow with powers of convenience
in the model development rather than some wholesale reductionist awareness
of all of the involved input states.

This last is a matter of efficiency. I simply reference the whole 'think fast, think slow'
discussion for why we craft models of self with semi-mystical attributes. It's
quicker and sufficient, and doesn't need to reflect a fully accurate organic reality.

[Richmond]

According to Peter Hitchens, we have free will, and therefore addiction
doesn't exist.

https://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1712073940208627818

"That is the whole point of the 'addiction' claim, robbing us of free
will, and also robbing us of the [choice] to stop. Far form helping drug
abusers, it pesuades them they are powerless against their habit."

He also says there is no objective scientific verifyable evidence for
addiction.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/21/peter-hitchens-addiction-drugs-war

"Hitchens doesn't believe in addiction, because it cannot be objectively
proven by any scientific test. For the same reason, he refuses to
recognise other "modern" medical conditions such as ADHD or dyslexia,
which he dismisses as "disreputable, unscientific rubbish"

But can free will be proven by any scientific test?

I think there may be some bias as free will is necessary for
Christianity.

But here is St Paul apparently restling with it:

"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but
what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that
the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it
is sin living in me."

He recognises as Jung did, that he is not always himself, he has a
shadow side.

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Friday, February 16, 2024 at 9:38:12 AM UTC-5, Richmond wrote:
> According to Peter Hitchens, we have free will, and therefore addiction
> doesn't exist.
>
> https://twitter.com/ClarkeMicah/status/1712073940208627818
>
> "That is the whole point of the 'addiction' claim, robbing us of free
> will, and also robbing us of the [choice] to stop. Far form helping drug
> abusers, it pesuades them they are powerless against their habit."
>
> He also says there is no objective scientific verifyable evidence for
> addiction.
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/oct/21/peter-hitchens-addiction-drugs-war

There is clear evidence that chemical addiction exists. It is measurable as
physiological responses to the withholding of a chemical stimulus. It is quite
simply undeniable that our systems (and those of other animals) can become
acclimatized to drugs, ranging from caffeine, to alcohol, to opioids.

In the context of "free will" one might debate the association between the painful
physiological response of withdrawal to a compunction to renew self-administration
of the drug in question. That question is more complex, certainly not as simple
as dichotomous choices between full control and no control.

All that said, a therapeutic approach that promotes the belief that one has full
control, one just needs to exercise it, can undeniably benefit some while the
excuse that one has no control can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. Thus in a
therapeutic context, the underlying reality may not be especially useful.

> "Hitchens doesn't believe in addiction, because it cannot be objectively
> proven by any scientific test. For the same reason, he refuses to
> recognise other "modern" medical conditions such as ADHD or dyslexia,
> which he dismisses as "disreputable, unscientific rubbish"

Perhaps he can't help himself from lying like that.

[Richmond]

Lawyer Daggett <j.nobel...@gmail.com> writes:


>> "Hitchens doesn't believe in addiction, because it cannot be objectively
>> proven by any scientific test. For the same reason, he refuses to
>> recognise other "modern" medical conditions such as ADHD or dyslexia,
>> which he dismisses as "disreputable, unscientific rubbish"
>
> Perhaps he can't help himself from lying like that.
>

I don't think he is lying, I think he is not talking about chemical
addiction, but psychological. He mentions that people who say they are
addicts have been clean for years, and therefore (he says) cannot be
addicts.

And there are also people who lapse, i.e. they are clean for years, and
then go back to it. So in this case they cannot presumably be suffering
withdrawal.

[DB Cates]

How does "having the capacity to mull decisions over an extended period
of time" and/or "Not solely living in the now" preclude being on autopilot?

[DB Cates]

Can you come up with a definition of 'instinctive reaction' that can't
be applied to whatever action you actually do?

[DB Cates]

Being a hidebound materialist I plead guilty. Let me rephrase that last
sentence.
At least the 'no free will' position doesn't have the potential to screw

[Robert Carnegie]

On 15/02/2024 21:48, broger...@gmail.com wrote:

> On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 4:43:12 PM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>
>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>
>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>>
>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>
>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.

> So you are free to the extent that you go against your natural inclinations. Is that what you mean?

For me, on the original question, a name
does not mean that a thing exists, and I
tend to see "free will" as that, unless we
agree on a meaningful definition of it.
"consciousness" more so, except perhaps
in the sense of "to possess knowledge"
and of course "to be awake". Mostly,
"consciousness" is a word to mean that
"human beings are entities of particular
merit because they have consciousness".
So don't say it, prove it. I suspect
many philosophers are freeloaders.

With that said, I find it useful to relate
"free will" to personal moral and legal
responsibility - although that may just
push the difficult parts elsewhere.

If you fall from a high building, then
beginning the fall may be your responsibility,
if not exclusively so. Continuing to fall
is outside your control. If you land on
somebody and hurt them, these points are
relevant.

The current version of Tesla "self driving
car" is relevant, because it isn't self
driving really. When used correctly, an
attentive human driver has their hands on
the car's controls and they can govern
the car's action at any moment. But the
car also directs itself most of the time.
Nevertheless, the driver is controlling it.
The driver is held responsible for the driving.
That can be seen as a state of free will,
throughout.

As for "consciousness" - I don't think that
my mind and my self contain only what I can
recognise and express verbally. "Unconscious"
thought also belongs to me - even when I drive
home and I forget that I intended to stop to
buy groceries. I did it. I own my unconscious
!processes, and driving becomes as unconscious
as is the connection between a desire to raise
my hand and scratch at the back of my neck,
and the hand moving as I have willed - probably
without thinking verbally "I will scratch
my neck."

[Lawyer Daggett]

On Friday, February 16, 2024 at 10:58:12 AM UTC-5, DB Cates wrote:
...

> Can you come up with a definition of 'instinctive reaction' that can't
> be applied to whatever action you actually do?

Butting in, instinctive reactions include those that are 'mostly' hardwired
responses to well defined stimuli. The point of this definition is to draw
a distinction from reactions that are based upon pathways whose nature
is significantly the result of development from prior experiences.

mostly, and significantly are of course weasel words. More fully, the
distinction would attempt to capture a reaction to duck when the eyes
detect fast movement of something towards where one currently thinks
their head is, and the more deliberative choice to crouch down in a slow
moving canoe that is about to pass under a low hanging branch.

The former is close to hardwired while the latter is more of a learned
behavior that incorporates a more complex situational analysis that
appears to have layers of processing that are more plastic in adapting
to more complex situations.

[Ernest Major]

On 16/02/2024 14:34, Richmond wrote:
> I think there may be some bias as free will is necessary for
> Christianity.

Libertarian free will seems to be contradicted by large swathes of
Christianity.

Divine omniscience is a problem - freely choosing to do what God knew
you were going to do doesn't seem to me to qualify as libertarian free will.

Then there is occasionalism - the position that everything happens by
God's will. While I have the impression that it is more prevalent in
Islam when I performed a web search to remind myself of the word I was
presented with Christian sites espousing that position.

--
alias Ernest Major

[DB Cates]

I agree completely. Unfortunately it does not really address the
connection to the 'free will' controversy.

[Richmond]

I don't know how there would be sin without free will.

"Catechism of the Catholic Church

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P5M.HTM

Article 3

MAN'S FREEDOM

1730 God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of
a person who can initiate and control his own actions. "God willed that
man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' so that he might of
his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain his full and blessed
perfection by cleaving to him."26

Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will and
is master over his acts.27 "

[Lawyer Daggett]

Perhaps. I think that many who claim that we have free will (by some ambiguous
definition of free will) admit that instinctive actions are not the result of this
free will. And while they admit therefore that some actions people take are not
the result of free will, they assert that this thing called free will arises from
reactions that involve these other networks that produce reactions. We even
elevate these reactions with the label "choice" but it isn't ever clear to me what
that elevation entails at the level of brain chemistry, neuronal pathways, or any
materialistic mechanism. It's a bit like that science cartoon with the box that
says "and then a miracle occurs".

So we get a situation where some simpler reaction pathways don't include
free will but those that involve a more complex set of inputs and dependencies
are anointed as "choices" which involve some unspecified miracle. Or so it
seems to me.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Autopilot is walking and chewing gum at the same time. Fretting about how
to budget for the next week isn’t so much.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 11:59:30 +0000
Martin Harran <martin...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 03:32:17 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
> <broger...@gmail.com> wrote:
>

[]

>
> I think we are close to violent agreement here - not a bad thing in
> your final days on TO :)
>

[]

The End Days are with us! Repent! (iff you have the free will to do so).


If a GGuser wills it enough they don't have to give up usenet.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[erik simpson]

The will to continue is only free if you choose a free news reader.
Otherwise (like giganews) it's not free will.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Nice pun. Libre vs gratis may not quite cover free will.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gratis_versus_libre

With freedom there is freedom from and freedom to. I think that maps to
negative and positive freedom but that distinction seems wholly social
and/or political and not neural.

But there is the gratis consideration per cost given ATP is physiological
currency. Free or not in some sense of that vague adjective, will costs
energy. I would point to ego depletion and glucose research but that seems
to have belly flopped in the replication crisis???

[DB Cates]

Yes, I realize that is the claim, but what, precisely, is the
difference? Time? does the final outcome of an autopilot's processing
have to be immediate? If 'fretting' is due to a pattern of physical
processes in the brain, then the autopilot is in play.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Autopilot is second nature? A professional beancounter may be expected to
know how to budget without fretting, but maybe they are paying off student
debt via an OnlyFans account.

[DB Cates]

Yes, whenever I have taken (wasted?) time examining the 'free will'
question, eventually 'MAGIC' raises its (ugly?) head. And pondering that
magic leads to the whole thing exploding into meaninglessness (anything
could be true)

I've also considered one argument, not so much for free will but against
no free will, that should some entity commit act X then if there is no
free will involved then that entity should not attract any praise or
condemnation or anything in between from anyone else since they were not
'responsible' for X. But the huge long mesh of incidents leading to X
happening also led to the existence of that entity. So even though I
free will to be an illusion, I have no moral qualms about judging that
entity based on X. (Of course, I would have done so anyway without this
examination... hmmmm, or would I?)

[DB Cates]

Sorry, I don't follow.
but now I have the horrible vision of my debt after having to pay people
to watch my ONLYFANS account. shudder

[*Hemidactylus*]

An accountant can be expected to budget their week without effort but the
high dollar degree means allotting some time doing niche porn? Mere mortals
struggle to budget.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 09:59:40 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

Do you think it doesn't matter if it screws up things beyond physics
e.g. with the legal/penal system by punishing people for something
over which they had no control?

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 09:53:50 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

Definitions are tricky but examples are easy e.g. I'm under some
financial strain. Walking down the street, I see a $50 bill falling
unnoticed from the pocket of a rich-looking guy walking in front of
me. There is nobody around to see what is happening. Lifting the bill
and putting it into my own pocket would be an instinctive reaction.
Calling out "Hi mister, you've just dropped $50" would not be
instinctive.
>--

[broger...@gmail.com]

What is the "no free will" position? I'd say that I hold a no free will position, but only if free will is defined as follows......."Free will means that I, being exactly who I am and having exactly all the characteristics that I have at a particular moment, and given a precisely defined external situation, chose to do A, but could just as well have chosen to do B." I think that that sort of free will does not exist (but that another sort of free will does exist).

So the claim I reject is the claim that given absolutely identical circumstances and being an absolutely identical self I could do anything other than what I did. Rejecting this claim, does not depend either on materialism or strict determinism. All the rejection requires is that there be causes for choices. Some of those causes will be external to me, ie the situation I am in. Some of those causes will be internal to me, ie my physical state, including my brain state, and, if I have an immaterial soul, the specific characteristics of that soul.

All of those causes come together and lead to an outcome. There are only two ways the outcome could have been different. Either there was a difference, however slight, in the external or internal causes, or the difference was truly random, a la quantum mechanics. If there was a difference in the external or internal causes, then clearly there is no question of doing different things given absolutely identical circumstances. If the different outcome was truly random, then it is not in any sense a choice of mine, it's just something that happened.

People sometimes tacitly acknowledge that to have made a different choice they would have to have had different characteristics. Someone might regret not introducing themselves to a potential love interest (or business partner) and think "If only I hadn't been so shy." I think the feeling "I did X but I might just as well have done Y" does not stand up to close examination. On examination it always comes down to "I did X but I might just as well have done Y, if the situation or I myself had been a little different."

So my "no free will" position only rejects the idea that given an absolutely identical person in absolutely identical circumstances different choices are possible.

That position leaves plenty of room for free will, though. If you are lying in a hospital bed after a heart attack weighing the relative unpleasantness of nicotine withdrawal and anxiety about a second heart attack, you are the one doing the weighing and the decision you make depends largely on your characteristics - it is certainly your decision. So as I said earlier, you are free to the extent that the causes of your choice are more internal than external. Obviously then, there is a range - your choices in prison may be less free than outside, but that does not mean they are entirely unfree even in prison. This view leaves reasonable room for punishment - if you are the (predominant) cause of something bad that you did, it seems fair to punish you, and it also is possible that punishment will alter your characteristics in a way the reduces your likelihood of doing it again, and the example may alter the characteristics of other potential offenders. There's room, too for extenuating circumstances (ie a relatively higher proportion of external causes for your wrong choice). And if the internal causes of your poor choice are more amenable to medical treatment than to punishment, it's reasonable to try medical treatment first, etc.

So we might be in violent agreement - my rejection of the extreme form of free will I described at the top does not depend on materialism or strict determinism - I think it is compatible with your descriptions of free will and choices. But maybe I'm reading you wrongly.

[broger...@gmail.com]

.....

> >Can you come up with a definition of 'instinctive reaction' that can't
> >be applied to whatever action you actually do?
> Definitions are tricky but examples are easy e.g. I'm under some
> financial strain. Walking down the street, I see a $50 bill falling
> unnoticed from the pocket of a rich-looking guy walking in front of
> me. There is nobody around to see what is happening. Lifting the bill
> and putting it into my own pocket would be an instinctive reaction.
> Calling out "Hi mister, you've just dropped $50" would not be
> instinctive.

I'd say that depends on who you are and what sort of influences you had in your past. For some people, the "Hey, mister.." route might be just as instinctive as grabbing the money. Lots of people have good, generous instinctive reactions, and most people have them at least part of the time.
> >--

[jillery]

Since you mention it, there is the issue of total cost vs incremental
cost. Access to Internet generally requires substantial investment in
computer equipment and connection fees, but Usenet access with free
servers requires little if any additional cost beyond that.

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

[*Hemidactylus*]

To reply is a compulsion. Could not have done otherwise.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Empathy and reciprocity seem to have innate kernels.

[DB Cates]

Interesting. I actually addressed some of this in a different post last
night. Now, the legal/penal system is not supposed to be 'punishment'
(I'll get to what it mostly appears to me to be later) but protection of
society and rehabilitation. Where this idea has been properly funded and
implemented, it appears to work fairly well; and is not properly
construed as 'punishment'. I think this position is compatible with both
'free will' and 'determinism'.
What it appears to be in most places is that protection of society thing
(actually protection of the status quo) as cheaply as possible and
avoiding all that expensive rehabilitation thing. If someone makes a
shitton of money as well... well that's a bonus.

[DB Cates]

???? Maybe your instincts need some recalibration.

[*Hemidactylus*]

People tend to attribute free will to others whether it exists or not and
take delight in punishing perceived wrongdoers. There’s a strong inherent
tendency toward retribution over turning the other cheek. That’s why
political candidates play up the “law and order” thing. The existence of
chain gangs involves the concept of hard labor which is both punishment and
paying a so-called debt to society. The making of a shit ton of money is
implicit in the 13th amendment which has a clause keeping slavery legal.

https://apnews.com/article/c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e
“Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of
popular food brands”…

In the not so distant past convict leasing a debt peonage were used to keep
former slaves in chains.

[*Hemidactylus*]

It does recall Plato’s ring of Gyges. What if someone could act with
impunity? Probably why parents resort to an elf on the shelf, businesses
and municipalities to CCTV, and social engineers to religions with their
multiple edicts and a wrathful deity. All is panopticon.

[DB Cates]

I just noticed that he put in that detail of "rich looking guy". Perhaps
realizing (instinctively or freely?) that the instinctive reaction
varies with circumstances. Which leads me to surmise that whatever the
actual action it was likely to be instinctive given the full
circumstances involved.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 10:45:36 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

I generally find behaviour more readily calibratable than instincts.

>--

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 12:06:50 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

Yes, I did that deliberately because I recall a TV programme some
years ago where they set up two till operators to give excess change
to customers and monitored how many customers pointed out the error to
the operator. One operator was a young lady in a well-known chain
supermarket and the other was the elderly owner in a small corner shop
(mom-and-pop store). I can't remember the exact figures but the number
who pointed out the error to the corner shop owner was far higher than
with the till operator in the chain supermarket.

> Which leads me to surmise that whatever the
>actual action it was likely to be instinctive given the full
>circumstances involved.

On the contrary, I think that our decisions being affected by
circumstances is a good indicator for the existence of free will. If
we don't have free will then that would imply some underlying
deterministic process like a computer program with interminable IF…AND
IF …OR IF...ELSE…THEN steps with equally interminable nesting. Any
experienced programmer will tell you how quickly that gets out of
control.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 10:43:44 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

A man murders his wife in a fit of temper after discovering she has
had an affair. He is extremely remorseful so there is no real need for
any rehabilitation. This is the only time in his life that he is known
to have been violent, the police believe that this was a once-off
event between two specific individuals and the husband is no threat to
the general public. Do you think he should not be sent to jail?

[Kalkidas]

On 2/15/2024 1:19 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>

I asked GAB AI that question:

"Having free will means that individuals have the ability to make
choices and decisions based on their own desires, intentions, and
thoughts, without being predetermined or controlled by external or
internal factors. This concept is often associated with the belief that
humans have the power to shape their own lives and destinies.

On the other hand, not having free will implies that individuals'
actions and decisions are predetermined or controlled by external or
internal factors, such as genetics, environment, or destiny. This means
that individuals have little or no control over their own lives, and
their actions are the result of forces beyond their control.

In summary, having free will suggests that individuals have the ability
to make choices and shape their own lives, while not having free will
implies that their actions and decisions are predetermined or controlled
by external or internal factors."

Then I asked the AI: Do you have free will?

"I am Arya, a noble assistant built by Gab AI Inc. I have been
programmed to assist users with various tasks and provide helpful
responses, but I do not possess free will. I operate based on the
parameters and instructions that I have been given."

[broger...@gmail.com]

I don't care what the police think. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. He has a murderously violent temper - the police cannot reasonably conclude he is no risk to the public. Nor would it be wise to set the precedent of not punishing a man who kills his wife on the grounds that he only has one wife and is unlikely to kill anyone else - other men who might want to be rid of their wives could be watching.

[DB Cates]

I am at a loss how you might think this helps your argument.

>
>> Which leads me to surmise that whatever the
>> actual action it was likely to be instinctive given the full
>> circumstances involved.
>
> On the contrary, I think that our decisions being affected by
> circumstances is a good indicator for the existence of free will. If
> we don't have free will then that would imply some underlying
> deterministic process like a computer program with interminable IF…AND
> IF …OR IF...ELSE…THEN steps with equally interminable nesting. Any
> experienced programmer will tell you how quickly that gets out of
> control.
>

Can you please tell me in detail just what you mean by 'free will'. I
was under the impression that it meant that we were 'free' to chose our
actions independently of the set of circumstances.

[DB Cates]

Your hypothetical is ridiculous. Such extreme violence followed by
apparently genuine remorse in the absence of any history of violence
would indicate some kind of undiagnosed medical problem. What the police
believe would be meaningless. Jail? Maybe, certainly careful
supervisiion while appropriate medical care is arranged.

[DB Cates]

[new followup]

OH. oh. can I make up a hypothetical? Here goes.
After a big breakthrough in quantum computing a group gets an obscenely
large grant that simulates a pair of real people who are kept in a
highly controlled environment. Single environmental changes are
introduced and their responses are closely monitored. The simulation
predicts their responses with a very high degree of accuracy.
Is your faith in free will shaken?

[jillery]

Even if to reply is a compulsion, the contents of those replies remain
under conscious control.

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 02:04:55 -0500

Never let the other guy have the Last Word.

I feel a bit out of my depth here; in most other NGs I subscribe to
someone would have digressed onto discussing the film "Free Willy" by now.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 20:44:10 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

It illustrates that people will make different decisions according to
circumstances and, as I went on to say, I believe that is an indicator
*in favour of* free will. I see echoes of quantum physics here. Given
the half-life of a group of atoms, we can predict that 50% of them
will decay in that period but we cannot identify whether any specific
atom will decay. In a similar way, with statistical research, we can
probably identify what percentage of people will give the money back
in the above circumstances but we cannot predict how any individual
will react.

>
>>
>>> Which leads me to surmise that whatever the
>>> actual action it was likely to be instinctive given the full
>>> circumstances involved.
>>
>> On the contrary, I think that our decisions being affected by
>> circumstances is a good indicator for the existence of free will. If
>> we don't have free will then that would imply some underlying
>> deterministic process like a computer program with interminable IF…AND
>> IF …OR IF...ELSE…THEN steps with equally interminable nesting. Any
>> experienced programmer will tell you how quickly that gets out of
>> control.
>>
>Can you please tell me in detail just what you mean by 'free will'. I
>was under the impression that it meant that we were 'free' to chose our
>actions independently of the set of circumstances.

I certainly never said that. I said free will is the ability to act
against our instincts in a given set of circumstances.

To take another example and illustrate the difference between humans
and animals. If a human hunter spots a deer and has a clear shot but
then spots a fawn beside it, he may decide not to take the shot
because he doesn't want to leave the fawn motherless; neither does he
feel right about shooting the fawn. Can you see any wild predator
turning down an easy meal in those circumstances?


>
>--

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 15:36:17 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

You don't really approve of Parole Boards than?

>He has a murderously violent temper - the police cannot reasonably conclude he is no risk to the public. Nor would it be wise to set the precedent of not punishing a man who kills his wife on the grounds that he only has one wife and is unlikely to kill anyone else - other men who might want to be rid of their wives could be watching.

I think we are in violent agreement again. I am not arguing against
punitive measure, Don is the one who seems to think they are
pointless.

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 21:05:51 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

Please explain the relevant difference you see between some kind of
undiagnosed medical problem and the absence of free will. The only
difference I can see is that a medical condition may be curable but
absence of free will can't. If he has no free will then it is
pointless sending him to jail for rehabilitation and the only way to
fully protect the public would be to send him to jail for the rest of
his life without the possibility of parole.


>--

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 21:23:51 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 21:23:51 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

I'm not a big fan of drawing conclusions from thought experiments that
have no possibility of being carried out in real life. The nearest
thing to real life that I can think of is the Stanley Milgram
experiments but I don't think that those really have much impact on
the free-will debate. They just show that many people are too easily
manipulated into abandoning their own judgement and placing their
trust in authority figures.

>--

[Martin Harran]

On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 10:43:44 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

Here's a different example, a real-life one. A jury recently awarded
E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million against Donald Trump. The compensatory
damages of $18.3 are based on some sort of objective assessment of
what his behaviour cost her but what about the $65 million in
*punitive damages*. Apart from the fact that they are specifically
defined as punitive, I doubt if they will do much to rehabilitate
Trump or protect other women from him. Does that make them pointless?

[broger...@gmail.com]

I'm not sure why you think I don't approve of Parole Boards. I never said anything remotely like that. Parole Boards exist to take into account past behavior that has accrued since conviction and imprisonment.

> >He has a murderously violent temper - the police cannot reasonably conclude he is no risk to the public. Nor would it be wise to set the precedent of not punishing a man who kills his wife on the grounds that he only has one wife and is unlikely to kill anyone else - other men who might want to be rid of their wives could be watching.
> I think we are in violent agreement again. I am not arguing against
> punitive measure, Don is the one who seems to think they are
> pointless.

I'll let Don speak for himself, but I'm not sure that he thinks punitive measures are pointless, only that rather than thinking of them as punishment it is more useful to think of their goals as being protection of society (including disincentivizing other potential offenders) and rehabilitation.

[jillery]

My experience is people who mention the Last Word are trying to get
the Last Word.

[Ernest Major]

On 18/02/2024 10:14, Martin Harran wrote:
> Here's a different example, a real-life one. A jury recently awarded
> E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million against Donald Trump. The compensatory
> damages of $18.3 are based on some sort of objective assessment of
> what his behaviour cost her but what about the $65 million in
> *punitive damages*. Apart from the fact that they are specifically
> defined as punitive, I doubt if they will do much to rehabilitate
> Trump or protect other women from him. Does that make them pointless?

The concept of deterrence has already been mentioned in this thread.
Even if commentary on the case had not already mentioned the deterrent
event of punitive damages one might expect the deterrence motive to be
discernable.

"Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order
to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter
the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which
formed the basis of the lawsuit."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punitive_damages)

Trump continued to defame E. Jean Carroll after the first case. He seems
to have acquired the self control to refrain after the award of punitive
damages in the second case.

--
alias Ernest Major

[Robert Carnegie]

How well do you know hunters?

I don't know a lot about it but I expect
that American hunters take a bag lunch
with them. They aren't hungry.

[Robert Carnegie]

I assume you mean that in the experiment
there are two real people, and also there
is a separate simulation of the people
in that situation.

It's a problem for the argument that you
mention "quantum computing", because it's
possible to use that to claim that you
have merely recreated free will in a
quantum computer.

[Robert Carnegie]

Like it's going to admit it. ;-)

[Kerr-Mudd, John]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 06:12:18 -0500
jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 09:23:22 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John"
> <ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>

[]

> >Never let the other guy have the Last Word.
> >

[]

>
> My experience is people who mention the Last Word are trying to get
> the Last Word.
>

Over to you.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Weird dichotomy.

> If a human hunter spots a deer and has a clear shot but
> then spots a fawn beside it, he may decide not to take the shot
> because he doesn't want to leave the fawn motherless; neither does he
> feel right about shooting the fawn. Can you see any wild predator
> turning down an easy meal in those circumstances?
>

Dogs are domesticated wolves. Some go feral. But among the domesticated,
dogs can act against instinct. In the wild a dog would probably try to kill
and eat a rodent. My hamster got loose when I was a kid and we spent hours
trying to find. Later on my dog plopped it down unharmed in front of my
mom. Did my dog have free will?

Also a well trained dog exhibits a degree of impulse control in multiple
circumstances.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Humans are influenced by factors at different levels as are other animals.
Our responses are merely more complex by degree not kind. We have language
so can articulate situations to ourselves and others and often think in a
logical sequence, though other animals may have an implicit logic in their
responses.

When I fed a pet snake feeder fish in a clear bowl its responses were
affected by a circumstance. It eventually by accident would crawl over the
side of the bowl to retrieve the fish. It had to start this process from
scratch every time as it didn’t benefit from learning what happened in a
similar circumstance. Dogs and cats are better able to apply previous
learning to similar circumstances in the future. Are they making decisions?
Is free will exclusive to humans? Or do other animals with complexified
enough nervous systems have it? If the former it seems your argument is
theological in nature.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Regardless of effect on his behavior there may be a vicarious effect on
others.

[*Hemidactylus*]

A punished criminal is a vicar in a sense, though the word has evolved a
bit for behavioral purposes.

[broger...@gmail.com]

The sensation of being such an erudite wit is something I'll only ever experience through you, at second hand.

[DB Cates]

Except that that is exactly what determinism claims. How you can claim
it *supports* free will is a mystery to me.

I see echoes of quantum physics here. Given
> the half-life of a group of atoms, we can predict that 50% of them
> will decay in that period but we cannot identify whether any specific
> atom will decay. In a similar way, with statistical research, we can
> probably identify what percentage of people will give the money back
> in the above circumstances but we cannot predict how any individual
> will react.
>

Yes, quantum indeterminacy precludes perfect determinism, but as you
note, it is statistical in nature without the slightest hint of decision
making. Does the theoretical underpinnings prohibit such a thing?

>>
>>>
>>>> Which leads me to surmise that whatever the
>>>> actual action it was likely to be instinctive given the full
>>>> circumstances involved.
>>>
>>> On the contrary, I think that our decisions being affected by
>>> circumstances is a good indicator for the existence of free will. If
>>> we don't have free will then that would imply some underlying
>>> deterministic process like a computer program with interminable IF…AND
>>> IF …OR IF...ELSE…THEN steps with equally interminable nesting. Any
>>> experienced programmer will tell you how quickly that gets out of
>>> control.
>>>
>> Can you please tell me in detail just what you mean by 'free will'. I
>> was under the impression that it meant that we were 'free' to chose our
>> actions independently of the set of circumstances.
>
> I certainly never said that. I said free will is the ability to act
> against our instincts in a given set of circumstances.
>

How is that different from what I said?

> To take another example and illustrate the difference between humans
> and animals. If a human hunter spots a deer and has a clear shot but
> then spots a fawn beside it, he may decide not to take the shot
> because he doesn't want to leave the fawn motherless; neither does he
> feel right about shooting the fawn. Can you see any wild predator
> turning down an easy meal in those circumstances?
>

Umm, yeah, human beings are not loins. So the circumstances are
different and the responses are different. So what?
>
>>
>> --

[DB Cates]

What? Where do you get that from?

[DB Cates]

One is a belief about a very specific bit of reality and the other is
about the very nature of reality. So what is the relevant difference
between a free will decision and an identical circumstantially
determined decision?

The only
> difference I can see is that a medical condition may be curable but
> absence of free will can't. If he has no free will then it is
> pointless sending him to jail for rehabilitation and the only way to
> fully protect the public would be to send him to jail for the rest of
> his life without the possibility of parole.
>

Look, I'm a determinist. So I believe all the historical background,
environmental influences (including my interactions here with you), etc
leads me to conclude that such an unfortunate as your hypothetical
should receive medical treatment (as opposed to release, indefinite
incarceration, or death) hopefully leading to cure and a useful return
to society. It also leads me to the faint hope that what I am
contributing to the causal chain is part of a future where such things
happen.


>
>> --

[DB Cates]

That is a civil matter not penal. Different rules apply.

>
>> Where this idea has been properly funded and
>> implemented, it appears to work fairly well; and is not properly
>> construed as 'punishment'. I think this position is compatible with both
>> 'free will' and 'determinism'.
>> What it appears to be in most places is that protection of society thing
>> (actually protection of the status quo) as cheaply as possible and
>> avoiding all that expensive rehabilitation thing. If someone makes a
>> shitton of money as well... well that's a bonus.
>> --
>

[DB Cates]

In that case, surely it would give different results, not the same.

[broger...@gmail.com]

What makes you think that the absence of free will would make rehabilitation impossible? Put someone in a rehabilitative environment. That environment has effects on the offender, those effects produce changes in his predispositions and behavior. Eventually, those changes might reduce the risk of releasing him to the point that it would make no sense to keep him imprisoned. I see no reason why such a thing could not happen in an entirely deterministic universe. I don't see the same conflict between determinism and free will that you do, but that's not particularly relevant for this point.
>
>
> >--

[*Hemidactylus*]

DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On 2024-02-17 5:02 PM, Martin Harran wrote:

>> On Sat, 17 Feb 2024 12:06:50 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2024-02-17 11:09 AM, *Hemidactylus* wrote:

>>>> DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> On 2024-02-17 3:53 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>>> On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 09:53:50 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 2024-02-16 4:03 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 13:48:14 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
>>>>>>>> <broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 4:43:12?PM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>>>>>>>>>> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>>>>>>>>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>>>>>>>>>> anyway.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>>>>>>>>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>>>>>>>>>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>>>>>>>>>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>>>>>>>>>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>>>>>>>>>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>>>>>>>>>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>>>>>>>>>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>>>>>>>>>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>>>>>>>>>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>>>>>>>>>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>>>>>>>>>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>>>>>>>>>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.

>>> Which leads me to surmise that whatever the
>>> actual action it was likely to be instinctive given the full
>>> circumstances involved.
>>
>> On the contrary, I think that our decisions being affected by
>> circumstances is a good indicator for the existence of free will. If
>> we don't have free will then that would imply some underlying
>> deterministic process like a computer program with interminable IF…AND
>> IF …OR IF...ELSE…THEN steps with equally interminable nesting. Any
>> experienced programmer will tell you how quickly that gets out of
>> control.
>>
> Can you please tell me in detail just what you mean by 'free will'. I
> was under the impression that it meant that we were 'free' to chose our
> actions independently of the set of circumstances.
>

There are biological and social factors that can be construed as
deterministic. In the extreme either level makes free will problematic.

I am a very weak compatibilist. I had listened to the debate Dennett had
with Sam Harris years ago. Harris is too simplistic. Sapolsky is far more
formidable. As an aside Dennett is sadly showing his age, not in mental
acumen but with whatever is going on on his scalp:
https://youtu.be/aYzFH8xqhns?si=qUj4jMdcjpzzI1Kg

As with consciousness and self-concept I find non-libertarian free will
concepts intriguing but am agnostic about it all.

[DB Cates]

Sigh, I find it very difficult to fully express my thought on this
subject. I assume I've made it quite clear that I believe 'free will' to
be an illusion. But I acknowledge that it is a very strong illusion and
one that I suffer from. It's just that all the circumstances of my
upbringing and learning has led me to conclude both that the existence
of free will requires *magic* or , if you will, the supernatural and
that the supernatural is extremely unlikely. And that belief in the
supernatural has been, on the whole, a net negative on the 'progress' of
society. Still, given this strong illusion of free will, especially in
those small corners where there is some deviation from expectations, I
live virtually all my life *as if* I and those around me and much of my
environment have 'free will'. Since, in my belief, I would be doing the
same thing whether this was true or not so it makes no difference.So I
dismiss the supernatural and take comfort in the thought that this
inevitable "I" doing it's inevitable things is having some effect on the
inevitable unfolding of the universe.

[chris thompson]

On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>

> --
> Mark Isaak
> "Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
> doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

I found the confluence too good to pass up. On Facebook Rich Hammett (who was once a regular here) posted this link, and has been in discussion with Wesley Elsberry, also a former regular. It's an interesting little debate. Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQGEBJrehQ0

[jillery]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 13:24:28 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John"

<ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:

>On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 06:12:18 -0500
>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 09:23:22 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John"
>> <ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>>
>[]
>> >Never let the other guy have the Last Word.
>> >
>[]
>>
>> My experience is people who mention the Last Word are trying to get
>> the Last Word.
>>
>
>Over to you.

Based on the above you lack enough self-control to ignore me, and so
instead hope to convince me to do what you can't/won't do for
yourself. I suppose you think yourself clever.

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 13:24:28 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John"

<ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:

>On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 06:12:18 -0500
>jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 09:23:22 +0000, "Kerr-Mudd, John"
>> <ad...@127.0.0.1> wrote:
>>
>[]
>> >Never let the other guy have the Last Word.
>> >
>[]
>>
>> My experience is people who mention the Last Word are trying to get
>> the Last Word.
>>
>
>Over to you.

I think there's a wee bit of a divil in you, Mr Kerr-Mudd :)

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 02:50:14 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

I realise we are wandering away from the main topic here but why do
you think police would be less effective than a parole board at
assessing someone's likelihood of reoffending? Bearing in mind that
the police would be making their assessment based on the person's
behaviour and attitudes whilst living freely in society whereas the
parole board would be basing it on their behaviour and attitude whilst
incarcerated away from society, I would have thought the police if
anything would have something of an edge. I'm assuming that in both
cases, advice would be taken from other experts.

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 10:09:47 -0600, DB Cates <cate...@hotmail.com>

When I suggested that lack of free will would screw up the penal/legal
system, you replied:

"Now, the legal/penal system is not supposed to be 'punishment'
(I'll get to what it mostly appears to me to be later) but protection
of society and rehabilitation. Where this idea has been properly
funded and implemented, it appears to work fairly well; and is not
properly construed as 'punishment'."

I took that to mean that you didn't think that punishment is any great
value. If I read that wrong, then back to my original question, what
do you see as the value of punishment in the absence of free will?

>--

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 18 Feb 2024 09:37:44 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
<broger...@gmail.com> wrote:

I think you are stretching there.