[OT] Love and free will
Evgenii Rudnyi
more scientific, another more philosophic. In the latter there is a
couple of paragraphs related to Goethe’s “Elective Affinities” that are
100% in agreement with Rex:
Die Utopie der Liebe
http://www.zeit.de/2011/15/Ps-Treue-Philosophie
"Fidelity is mere an idea that fails due to the natural laws. The
materialistic calculation that Goethe has reviewed in a sharp game
becomes clear in a remark by the captain, with whom Charlotte felt
reluctant in love: “Think of an A that is intimately connected with a B,
such that one cannot separate them without violence; think of a C that
is connected in a similar way with a D; now bring the two couples in
touch: A goes to D, C goes to B, without that one can say who first
left, who first joined the other.“
"So it happens. And is it not devilish near to a common way of thinking?
The fact that we are not masters of our decisions, but products of
biochemical processes (or some others)?"
Hence Rex might well be right that the discussion here continues because
we do not have free will.
Evgenii
Bruno Marchal
This shows only that we don't have free-will in the absolute
incompatibilist sense, but there are compatibilist theories, which
explains well the correctness of a relative (to the subject)
incompatibilist feature of free will.
Critics of free-will are based on error confusion level. I think it is
a bit dangerous, especially that there is already a social tendency to
dissolve responsibility among those taking decisions. We are just not
living at the level were we are determined. If we were, we could
replace jail by hospital, and people would feel having the right to
justify any act by uncontrollable pulsions. This leads to person and
conscience eliminativism.
Bruno
Stephen Paul King
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
**
Hi Bruno,
Well said! I wonder if such eliminatists are subconsciously attempting
to justify psychotic thoughts, tendencies and/or impulses. Parenthetically,
it has been noticed that almost all of the serial (and mass) murderers in
history where highly intelligent but did not even care to justify their
pathological acts.
Onward!
Stephen
Rex Allen
The free will that we don't have in the "absolute incompatibilist
sense" is the free will that most people believe in.
Compatibilist free will should be called "faux will". Or more
charitably, "subjective will".
> Critics of free-will are based on error confusion level.
Critics of "free will in the absolute incompatibilist sense" are correct.
Critics of "compatibilist free will" object to the misuse of terms by
compatibilists, not to the concepts described by those terms.
There is no confusion. The problem is quite clear...combatibilists
are engaged in word-jugglery.
> I think it is a bit dangerous, especially that there is already a
> social tendency to dissolve responsibility among those taking
> decisions.
Rewarding bad behavior will get you more bad behavior - but this is a
consequence of human nature, and has nothing to do with free will.
Even if we take a purely deterministic, mechanistic view of human
nature, the question remains: "What works best in promoting a
well-ordered society?"
Society, in that crime is only an issue when you have more than one
person involved.
Is more criminal behavior due to correctable conditions that can be
alleviated through education programs or by a more optimal
distribution of the wealth that is generated by society as a whole?
In other words, can criminal behavior be minimized proactively?
Or is most criminal behavior an unavoidable consequence of human
nature, and thus deterrence by threat of punishment is the most
effective means of minimizing that behavior? In other words, can
criminal behavior only be addressed reactively?
The question is: As a practical matter, what works best?
What results in the greatest good for the greatest number? Whatever
it is, I vote we do that.
> We are just not living at the level were we are determined.
But we are nonetheless determined, and thus not free from what
determines us. This is an inconvenient truth, and no amount of
word-jugglery gets around it. Best to just deal with it squarely,
rather than try to hide it under the rug as with compatibilism.
> If we were, we could replace jail by hospital,
> and people would feel having the right to justify any act by uncontrollable
> pulsions.
All acts are justifiable in that sense. But, just as we don't allow
malfunctioning machines to run amuck, neither should we allow
malfunctioning people to do so.
To the greatest extent possible, malfunctions should be minimized
through proper configuration and maintenance. When malfunctions
inevitably occur, the damage should be minimized and repairs made if
possible.
Free will is irrelevant at best, and more likely a counter-productive
distraction.
As before, the question is what works best?
Rex Allen
You think Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and Mark Twain were
closet psychopaths?
I would think that you should focus on refuting their arguments rather
than defaming their character.
Besides, if we are ascribing unsavory motives to our opponents, what
equally dark impulses might we conclude drive the believer in free
will? That knife cuts both ways.
Rex
meekerdb
> Critics of "free will in the absolute incompatibilist sense" are correct.
>
> Critics of "compatibilist free will" object to the misuse of terms by
> compatibilists, not to the concepts described by those terms.
>
> There is no confusion. The problem is quite clear...combatibilists
> are engaged in word-jugglery.
>
It is not word-jugglery. It's legal terminology and distinguishes what
someone does out of their personal desires as compared to what they do
under threat of coercion. Compatibilist free will corresponds with the
legal term.
Brent
meekerdb
> This shows only that we don't have free-will in the absolute
> incompatibilist sense, but there are compatibilist theories, which
> explains well the correctness of a relative (to the subject)
> incompatibilist feature of free will.
>
> Critics of free-will are based on error confusion level. I think it is
> a bit dangerous, especially that there is already a social tendency to
> dissolve responsibility among those taking decisions.
But they want to deny compatibilist free will too. You never hear
politicians use the excuse, "I did it because that's who I am."
Brent
Evgenii Rudnyi
the form of en executive summary) on absolute incompatibilist sense and
compatibilist theories of free will?
On 15.04.2011 21:16 Rex Allen said the following:
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:45 AM, Bruno Marchal<mar...@ulb.ac.be>
> wrote:
>>
>> On 14 Apr 2011, at 22:25, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>
>>> This week in Die Zeit there were two papers about love and
>>> fidelity. One more scientific, another more philosophic. In the
>>> latter there is a couple of paragraphs related to Goethe�s
>>> �Elective Affinities� that are 100% in agreement with Rex:
>>>
>>> Die Utopie der Liebe
>>>
>>> http://www.zeit.de/2011/15/Ps-Treue-Philosophie
>>>
>>> "Fidelity is mere an idea that fails due to the natural laws.
>>> The materialistic calculation that Goethe has reviewed in a sharp
>>> game becomes clear in a remark by the captain, with whom
>>> Charlotte felt reluctant in love: �Think of an A that is
>>> intimately connected with a B, such that one cannot separate them
>>> without violence; think of a C that is connected in a similar way
>>> with a D; now bring the two couples in touch: A goes to D, C goes
>>> to B, without that one can say who first left, who first joined
>>> the other.�
Rex Allen
What court has ever ruled that libertarian free will does not exist?
What percentage of legislators, judges, lawyers, and jurors do you
think are compatibilists vs. libertarian on free will?
I would guess that the legal system, and the people who work within
it, and the jurors who participate, and the legislators who write the
laws that are enforced are *all* heavily biased towards a libertarian
view of free will.
Compatibilism corresponds to the legal term because that's the whole
*point* of compatibilism...to be "compatible" with the libertarian
view of free will which underlies every aspect of the legal system.
Change the definitions and justifications, keep everything else the
same. Compatibilism.
Rex
meekerdb
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:48 PM, meekerdb<meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> On 4/15/2011 12:16 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
>>
>>> Critics of "free will in the absolute incompatibilist sense" are correct.
>>>
>>> Critics of "compatibilist free will" object to the misuse of terms by
>>> compatibilists, not to the concepts described by those terms.
>>>
>>> There is no confusion. The problem is quite clear...combatibilists
>>> are engaged in word-jugglery.
>>>
>>>
>> It is not word-jugglery. It's legal terminology and distinguishes what
>> someone does out of their personal desires as compared to what they do under
>> threat of coercion. Compatibilist free will corresponds with the legal
>> term.
>>
> What court has ever ruled that libertarian free will does not exist?
>
What court has ever ruled that it does exist? None. That's not a
question courts rule on. They decide on coerced vs not coerced,
competent vs not competent. They don't address metaphysics.
> What percentage of legislators, judges, lawyers, and jurors do you
> think are compatibilists vs. libertarian on free will?
>
What percentage are pre-destinationists? What percentage are
fatalists? Who cares?
> I would guess that the legal system, and the people who work within
> it, and the jurors who participate, and the legislators who write the
> laws that are enforced are *all* heavily biased towards a libertarian
> view of free will.
>
And theism and capitalism.
Rex Allen
> On 4/15/2011 1:36 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:48 PM, meekerdb<meek...@verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> On 4/15/2011 12:16 PM, Rex Allen wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Critics of "free will in the absolute incompatibilist sense" are
>>>> correct.
>>>>
>>>> Critics of "compatibilist free will" object to the misuse of terms by
>>>> compatibilists, not to the concepts described by those terms.
>>>>
>>>> There is no confusion. The problem is quite clear...combatibilists
>>>> are engaged in word-jugglery.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> It is not word-jugglery. It's legal terminology and distinguishes what
>>> someone does out of their personal desires as compared to what they do
>>> under
>>> threat of coercion. Compatibilist free will corresponds with the legal
>>> term.
>>>
>>
>> What court has ever ruled that libertarian free will does not exist?
>>
>
> What court has ever ruled that it does exist? None. That's not a question
> courts rule on. They decide on coerced vs not coerced, competent vs not
> competent. They don't address metaphysics.
Then compatibilism is not legal terminology, and so gains no legitimacy there.
Compatibilism involves redefining words associated with the
traditional notion of "free will" in such a way as to make determinism
seem compatibile with free will.
But if I get to redefine terms unilaterally, I can make anything seem
compatible with anything else. On paper at least.
Compatibilism is just a technical term for "free will related word jugglery".
I'm not sure what you meant by your claim that it was "legal terminology".
>
>> What percentage of legislators, judges, lawyers, and jurors do you
>> think are compatibilists vs. libertarian on free will?
>>
>
> What percentage are pre-destinationists? What percentage are fatalists?
> Who cares?
People who claim that compatibilism is a legal term, I assume.
Rex Allen
> Could someone recommend a nice and not that long reading (the best in the
> form of en executive summary) on absolute incompatibilist sense and
> compatibilist theories of free will?
On the compatibilism side, maybe Daniel Dennett's "Elbow Room"?
On the incompatibilist side...maybe Galen Stawson's "Freedom and Belief"?
Here is a recent article in the NY Times by Strawson on free will:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/22/your-move-the-maze-of-free-will/
Evgenii Rudnyi
..
>> I think it is a bit dangerous, especially that there is already a
>> social tendency to dissolve responsibility among those taking
>> decisions.
>
> Rewarding bad behavior will get you more bad behavior - but this is
> a consequence of human nature, and has nothing to do with free will.
>
> Even if we take a purely deterministic, mechanistic view of human
> nature, the question remains: "What works best in promoting a
> well-ordered society?"
>
> Society, in that crime is only an issue when you have more than one
> person involved.
>
> Is more criminal behavior due to correctable conditions that can be
> alleviated through education programs or by a more optimal
> distribution of the wealth that is generated by society as a whole?
> In other words, can criminal behavior be minimized proactively?
>
> Or is most criminal behavior an unavoidable consequence of human
> nature, and thus deterrence by threat of punishment is the most
> effective means of minimizing that behavior? In other words, can
> criminal behavior only be addressed reactively?
>
> The question is: As a practical matter, what works best?
>
> What results in the greatest good for the greatest number? Whatever
> it is, I vote we do that.
It seems that your question "As a practical matter, what works best?"
implies that there is still some choice. Could you please comment on how
such a questions corresponds to your position in respect on free will?
Rex Allen
That I don’t believe in free will doesn’t imply that I shouldn't act.
It just means that I don’t believe that I am the ultimate author of my
actions.
A welding robot in a car factory has no free will, and yet it goes
about it’s business anyway. Free will is not required for action.
If the robot reacts to sensor input, it’s reactions don't require free
will in order to explain.
And neither do my actions and reactions require free will to explain.
Determinism, randomness, or some mixture of the two are sufficient for
explanation.
But even without free will, I still have things that I want. And if I
want to do something and I’m able to do it, then I will do it. If I
don’t want to do something, then I won’t. Determinism doesn’t change
this...it just states that I don’t *freely choose* what I want or how
I act on those wants.
What ultimately matters to me is the quality of my experiences. And I
act accordingly. When my head hurts, I take aspirin. But a robot
could be programmed to make that same kind of “choice”: if damage
detected, then activate repair routines. It's not indicative of free
will.
Returning to your original question - I want to live in a well ordered
society, and I act accordingly...by voting that we focus on pragmatic
solutions, and by advising against muddying the water with nonsensical
concepts like "free will" and "moral responsibility" that come with
compatibilism.
Why do I want to live in a well ordered society, and why do I feel
that the approach mentioned above is the best way to achieve that
goal? Why does it matter to me?
Well...to the extent that this isn't determined by the causal
structure of reality, it's random.
But it still matters to me, even though I recognize that it doesn't
matter in any other sense. And this subjective meaning is enough.
The libertarians and compatibilists are focused on the wrong thing.
It’s not the choices that matter...it’s the experience.
John Mikes
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Bruno Marchal
On 15 Apr 2011, at 21:16, Rex Allen wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:45 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
> wrote:
>>
>> On 14 Apr 2011, at 22:25, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Hence Rex might well be right that the discussion here continues
>>> because
>>> we do not have free will.
>>
>> This shows only that we don't have free-will in the absolute
>> incompatibilist
>> sense, but there are compatibilist theories, which explains well the
>> correctness of a relative (to the subject) incompatibilist feature
>> of free
>> will.
>
> The free will that we don't have in the "absolute incompatibilist
> sense" is the free will that most people believe in.
How can you know that?
>
> Compatibilist free will should be called "faux will". Or more
> charitably, "subjective will".
Then earth does not exist. Because most people was think that earth is
a flat object.
When we do some dioscovery it is better to adapt our word instead of
throwing the baby with the bath water.
Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will" or
worst "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist
free will.
You act like atheist who defends a very particular definition so as to
better mock the concept.
>
>
>> Critics of free-will are based on error confusion level.
>
> Critics of "free will in the absolute incompatibilist sense" are
> correct.
So we agree on the sense.
>
> Critics of "compatibilist free will" object to the misuse of terms by
> compatibilists, not to the concepts described by those terms.
>
> There is no confusion. The problem is quite clear...combatibilists
> are engaged in word-jugglery.
Not at all. They realized that 68% of the reasoning done by the
incompatibilist are valid, so it is worth to save the notion and
recast it in a consistent theory.
That is what we do all the time in science. We change the definition a
little bit, to save the interesting theories and abandon the
inconsistent ideas.
>
>
>> I think it is a bit dangerous, especially that there is already a
>> social tendency to dissolve responsibility among those taking
>> decisions.
>
> Rewarding bad behavior will get you more bad behavior - but this is a
> consequence of human nature, and has nothing to do with free will.
>
> Even if we take a purely deterministic, mechanistic view of human
> nature, the question remains: "What works best in promoting a
> well-ordered society?"
>
> Society, in that crime is only an issue when you have more than one
> person involved.
>
> Is more criminal behavior due to correctable conditions that can be
> alleviated through education programs or by a more optimal
> distribution of the wealth that is generated by society as a whole?
> In other words, can criminal behavior be minimized proactively?
This is really another vast topics, and a very complex one. What
machine's theology can explain, is that in such a domain the hell is
paved with the good intentions. We can teach to the children the
respect of the other person *only* by examples, or theories (that is
explicit conjecture). But in the human science, we are still a long
way from understanding the advantage of the conjectural, deductive,
axiomatic way of thinking. They just fight and resist. It is a long
lasting tradition.
>
> Or is most criminal behavior an unavoidable consequence of human
> nature, and thus deterrence by threat of punishment is the most
> effective means of minimizing that behavior? In other words, can
> criminal behavior only be addressed reactively?
>
> The question is: As a practical matter, what works best?
>
> What results in the greatest good for the greatest number? Whatever
> it is, I vote we do that.
I would certainly never vote for a politician who pretend to have the
solution. I prefer to vote for an "honest opportunist" who will be
able to abandon its post in case of failure than for an illuminate who
believes having solve the good/bad human problem.
I do suggest a practical solution below, not for solving the problem,
but for leading us to making the situation better for handling it
practically.
>
>
>> We are just not living at the level were we are determined.
>
> But we are nonetheless determined, and thus not free from what
> determines us.
Orwell get the point; freedom (the attractor of free will) *is* 2+2=4.
And this can be real relief ... if you have the chance to be able to
say that 2+2=4 in your neighborhood. I am living in a society who has
always defended my right to say that 2+2=4, until I said so. Oh no! I
was not supposed to say it.
"2+2=4" is the liberating power making it possible for birds and
humans to fly. "2+2=5" or any BS of that style is what makes it
possible to be tortured by your pairs, as Orwell illustrated quite well.
> This is an inconvenient truth,
1) Why?
2) Science is not wishful thinking.
> and no amount of
> word-jugglery gets around it. Best to just deal with it squarely,
> rather than try to hide it under the rug as with compatibilism.
Compatibilism show that we are "really" free (even if partially only).
It is not an illusion. It is subjective, but consciousness is also
subjective. The error of the aristotelians is that they use
"subjective" as meaning illusory or false (as you did above), That is
close to person elimination.
The comp compatibilist theory of free will makes it as real as
consciousness, and pain, and pleasure and all that. Matter is also
made into something subjective, first person (plural), but this does
not make asteroids and earthquake less real, in our histories.
And free will, like consciousness, is not "just" a qualia, it is a
qualia which change the relations between the quanta in the
neighborhood, for the best (walking on the moon), or the worst
(exploding atomic bombs).
>
>
>> If we were, we could replace jail by hospital,
>> and people would feel having the right to justify any act by
>> uncontrollable
>> pulsions.
>
> All acts are justifiable in that sense. But, just as we don't allow
> malfunctioning machines to run amuck, neither should we allow
> malfunctioning people to do so.
But you are begging the question, or saying that given that free-will
does not exist, then we should send everybody acting badly to the
hospital, because it is pure "malfunctioning". Believer in free will
(compatibilist or not) believe that you can badly treat people and be
100% not malfunctioning.
>
> To the greatest extent possible, malfunctions should be minimized
> through proper configuration and maintenance. When malfunctions
> inevitably occur, the damage should be minimized and repairs made if
> possible.
We certainly agree on this!
>
> Free will is irrelevant at best, and more likely a counter-productive
> distraction.
You are so quick here ...
People who doubt free-will are so closed to those who told me that
consciousness is a crackpot notion. There is a so much tendency to
eliminate the person, which is logically implied by the widespread
confusion between mechanism and materialism, that I am very vigilant
when someone detract a notion of human science as being senseless.
Free will is what makes us wanting more freedom. It is the ability to
be aware and exploits our infinity of universal machine degrees of
freedom.
>
> As before, the question is what works best?
i did answer this: to send in jail the bad guy, and to send in
hospital the "malfunctioning guy". The bad guy is the one who did not
respect a person, or a social rule, purposefully. Judges and
physicians might have to use their intimate conviction to make some
judgment about that, and it cannot always be fair. But perfection just
don't exist in this sphere. Those who believe in perfection here are
those who pave the roads to hell.
All this works even much better when corruption is minimized, and thus
the most urgent is to stop prohibition, because prohibition is
generating and banalizing corruption at all levels everywhere. So the
answer is
LEGALIZE
Do what you want as far as the others can do what they want as far as
you can do what you want as far as the others can ....
Concerning humans they are billions of unknowns.
Bruno
Rex Allen
> We exercise a decisionmaking 'will' that is a product of the 'mini'
> everything we are under the influences of. But "free" it is not.
Well put.
So, here is a summary of Dennett's position:
"Dennett makes use of his treatment of the intentional stance to argue
for compatibilism. Just as the decision to adopt the intentional
stance towards a system is a pragmatic one, so too is it a pragmatic
decision to adopt towards a system the stance that it is a morally
responsible person. Dennett calls this latter stance the personal
stance (1973, pp. 157–8). As with the intentional stance, there is
nothing metaphysically deep required to interpret legitimately a
system as a person (no special faculty of the will, for instance).
Such systems are morally responsible agents if interpreting them
according to the personal stance pays off (1984a, pp. 158–63). And of
course, just as the physical (or the deterministic) stance is
compatible with the intentional stance, so too, according to Dennett,
is it compatible with the personal stance. Furthermore, just as he
treats the intentional stance, Dennett argues that, due to the
complexity of such systems, it is practically impossible to interpret
and predict the system purely from the physical (deterministic)
stance. Hence, the physical stance will never supplant the personal
stance. We persons involved in the everyday commerce of interacting
with each other need the personal stance; it is not threatened by the
specter of determinism. "
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/
So he also appeals to pragmatism. If it is useful to treat someone
(or something) as morally responsible, then they are.
The reasoning there seems suspect to me, and again gets into
definitional issues - but even if I accept his point, I still say that
this stance is *not* useful when dealing with society as a whole. The
system of interest is society, not the individual.
If there are commonalities in individuals who manifest certain
behaviors, then it makes sense to look at those commonalities as
causal (especially once a plausible mechanism can be identified), and
to no longer treat those behaviors as "free".
In most situations it doesn't make sense to look at each individual as
unique and "free"...instead it makes sense to look at what is common
accross individuals and assume the existence of a mechanism that
accounts for those commonalities.
And, if you want to improve things, to focus your ameleorative efforts
to the mechanism, not to the individuals who are subject to it. Treat
the disease, not the symptoms.
The concept of individual moral responsibility isn't needed and serves
no good purpose.
The argument that we need the concept of moral responsibility lest
society fall apart is the same as the argument that we need God and an
afterlife to motivate good behavior.
Individuals respond to incentives and deterrents. Get those right,
and the system will work. Get those wrong and people will rationalize
around morality anyway.
All we need to justify some particular incentive or deterrent is:
1) It works.
2) We can't think of anything that would work better.
Talk of moral responsibility and free will just serve to distract and
confuse. If a policy can't be justified on the above two points, then
adding moral responsibility and free will to the equation *still*
won't justify it.
If a policy *can* be justified on the above two points, then it should
be implemented regardless of issues involving moral responsibility and
free will.
Rex
meekerdb
This is really another vast topics, and a very complex one. What machine's theology can explain, is that in such a domain the hell is paved with the good intentions. We can teach to the children the respect of the other person *only* by examples, or theories (that is explicit conjecture). But in the human science, we are still a long way from understanding the advantage of the conjectural, deductive, axiomatic way of thinking. They just fight and resist. It is a long lasting tradition.
Brent
meekerdb
Orwell get the point; freedom (the attractor of free will) *is* 2+2=4. And this can be real relief ... if you have the chance to be able to say that 2+2=4 in your neighborhood. I am living in a society who has always defended my right to say that 2+2=4, until I said so. Oh no! I was not supposed to say it.
"2+2=4" is the liberating power making it possible for birds and humans to fly. "2+2=5" or any BS of that style is what makes it possible to be tortured by your pairs, as Orwell illustrated quite well.
--- Lawrence Krauss, on how physicists use mathematics
Bruno Marchal
meekerdb
> On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 6:32 PM, John Mikes<jam...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> We exercise a decisionmaking 'will' that is a product of the 'mini'
>> everything we are under the influences of. But "free" it is not.
>>
> Well put.
>
> So, here is a summary of Dennett's position:
>
> "Dennett makes use of his treatment of the intentional stance to argue
> for compatibilism. Just as the decision to adopt the intentional
> stance towards a system is a pragmatic one, so too is it a pragmatic
> decision to adopt towards a system the stance that it is a morally
> responsible person. Dennett calls this latter stance the personal
> nothing metaphysically deep required to interpret legitimately a
> system as a person (no special faculty of the will, for instance).
> Such systems are morally responsible agents if interpreting them
So if almost everyone is deterred from committing crimes by community
approbation and fear of punishment, the person who does commit a crime
should be treated as "free"?
> And, if you want to improve things, to focus your ameleorative efforts
> to the mechanism, not to the individuals who are subject to it. Treat
> the disease, not the symptoms.
>
> The concept of individual moral responsibility isn't needed and serves
> no good purpose.
>
> The argument that we need the concept of moral responsibility lest
> society fall apart is the same as the argument that we need God and an
> afterlife to motivate good behavior.
>
> Individuals respond to incentives and deterrents. Get those right,
> and the system will work. Get those wrong and people will rationalize
> around morality anyway.
>
> All we need to justify some particular incentive or deterrent is:
>
> 1) It works.
> 2) We can't think of anything that would work better.
>
>
> Talk of moral responsibility and free will just serve to distract and
> confuse. If a policy can't be justified on the above two points, then
> adding moral responsibility and free will to the equation *still*
> won't justify it.
>
The actual context in which "free will" comes up is in prosecution for a
crime. Did the defendant act of his own free will or was he under some
compulsion or coercion. This already takes what is common to
individuals into account. If most individuals in that circumstance
would not commit that crime, then the defendant is judged to have acted
out of his own free will. If most individuals would have committed the
crime, e.g. in defense of ones family, then the defendant may be excused.
Brent
Stephen Paul King
Rex Allen
>
> On 15 Apr 2011, at 21:16, Rex Allen wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:45 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 14 Apr 2011, at 22:25, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hence Rex might well be right that the discussion here continues because
>>>> we do not have free will.
>>>
>>> This shows only that we don't have free-will in the absolute
>>> incompatibilist
>>> sense, but there are compatibilist theories, which explains well the
>>> correctness of a relative (to the subject) incompatibilist feature of
>>> free
>>> will.
>>
>> The free will that we don't have in the "absolute incompatibilist
>> sense" is the free will that most people believe in.
>
>
> How can you know that?
“In a massive survey of people in 36 countries, more than 70% agreed
with the statement that their fate is in their own hands
(International Social Survey Programme, 1998).”
Okay, so that rules out incompatibilism for “most people”. How many
of that 70% do you think answered that question in the affirmative as
compatibilists?
I’ve met a lot of people who are libertarians on free will, and I’ve
met a few who are incompatibilists, but I’ve never actually met a
compatibilist in person.
The idea that I might not have libertarian free will didn’t even occur
to me until I was 22, and I had a degree in engineering by then. I
didn’t come across the idea that someone could accept determinism but
still believe in “free will” until several years later.
Now, admittedly, most of that time was “pre-internet” and certainly
“pre-Google”, but still, I’m thinking most of the people surveyed
aren’t compatibilists or even aware of the possibility.
Hell, 40% of Americans believe that humans were created by God within
the last 10,000 years.
I think I’m right on this.
>> Compatibilist free will should be called "faux will". Or more
>> charitably, "subjective will".
>
> Then earth does not exist. Because most people was think that earth is a
> flat object.
> When we do some dioscovery it is better to adapt our word instead of
> throwing the baby with the bath water.
What you are proposing would be more like biology reusing the word “soul”.
Or when physicists talk about "knowing the mind of God" and whatnot.
It just causes confusion amongst the layman, for no good purpose.
“Free will” has too much baggage to be re-used.
So why keep it? Why not start fresh with a nice new term that you can
use to mean exactly what you want, with no misunderstandings?
Think of a new term that you can make your own. What could
compatibilists possibly have against that?
BUT...maybe compatibilists don’t want to make things clear? Maybe
they welcome the confusion that reusing the older term causes amongst
the layman?
> Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will" or worst
> "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist free will.
Huh?
> You act like atheist who defends a very particular definition so as to
> better mock the concept.
Libertarian free will deserves to be mocked. If you don’t want
compatibilist free will to be painted with the same brush, then use a
term besides “free will”. It’s that easy.
>>> Critics of free-will are based on error confusion level.
>>
>> Critics of "free will in the absolute incompatibilist sense" are correct.
>
> So we agree on the sense.
Hmmm?
>> Critics of "compatibilist free will" object to the misuse of terms by
>> compatibilists, not to the concepts described by those terms.
>>
>> There is no confusion. The problem is quite clear...combatibilists
>> are engaged in word-jugglery.
>
> Not at all. They realized that 68% of the reasoning done by the
> incompatibilist are valid, so it is worth to save the notion and recast it
> in a consistent theory.
>
> That is what we do all the time in science. We change the definition a
> little bit, to save the interesting theories and abandon the inconsistent
> ideas.
What possible experiment could decide the question of whether “free
will” is compatible with determinism? What predictions does
compatibilism make? What phenomena does it explain?
Compatibilism isn’t science, it’s propaganda.
>> This is an inconvenient truth,
>
> 1) Why?
> 2) Science is not wishful thinking.
See above.
Science isn't wishful thinking, but that doesn't make scientists immune to it.
>> and no amount of
>> word-jugglery gets around it. Best to just deal with it squarely,
>> rather than try to hide it under the rug as with compatibilism.
>
> Compatibilism show that we are "really" free (even if partially only). It is
> not an illusion. It is subjective, but consciousness is also subjective. The
> error of the aristotelians is that they use "subjective" as meaning illusory
> or false (as you did above), That is close to person elimination.
I agree that the experience of making a choice is not an illusion.
The experience is real.
It’s just that the beliefs you hold within your experience are untrue
beliefs. Your beliefs about the meaning and implications of your
experiences are wrong. And that wrongness is what is referred to as
illusion.
> The comp compatibilist theory of free will makes it as real as
> consciousness, and pain, and pleasure and all that. Matter is also made into
> something subjective, first person (plural), but this does not make
> asteroids and earthquake less real, in our histories.
> And free will, like consciousness, is not "just" a qualia, it is a qualia
> which change the relations between the quanta in the neighborhood, for the
> best (walking on the moon), or the worst (exploding atomic bombs).
We are no more free than the most shackled, restricted, confined,
manipulated, brainwashed prisoner. It's just that our bondage is much
more pleasant.
We are all slaves to Fortune, but Fortune has her favorites, as well
as those she despises...
The only difference between you and the prisoner is that you feel
free, whereas he doesn't. But he is right, and you are wrong. You
are not free.
>>> If we were, we could replace jail by hospital,
>>> and people would feel having the right to justify any act by
>>> uncontrollable
>>> pulsions.
>>
>> All acts are justifiable in that sense. But, just as we don't allow
>> malfunctioning machines to run amuck, neither should we allow
>> malfunctioning people to do so.
>
> But you are begging the question, or saying that given that free-will does
> not exist, then we should send everybody acting badly to the hospital,
> because it is pure "malfunctioning". Believer in free will (compatibilist or
> not) believe that you can badly treat people and be 100% not malfunctioning.
Perhaps it’s better to say that someone who treats other people
criminally is indicative of a malfunction within the system of
society.
The crime is a symptom of that malfunction, a sign that something has
gone wrong somewhere else and the evidence has finally bubbled to the
surface.
The damage is done, and there’s no undoing it. The question should be
how best to repair the system and its parts, and to make improvements
so as to minimize recurrences.
And this is where “free will” and “moral responsibility” do their
damage, in that they distract people from these practical concerns.
They whet the appetite for punishment and retribution instead of
repair and improvement.
They focus too much attention on the individual, and not enough on the
system that produced the individual.
As I said, rewarding bad behavior will get you more bad behavior, but
the question is why did the bad behavior manifest in the first place?
To declare yourself yourself uninterested in that question, to be so
eager to just chalk it up to “free will” - that is...peculiar.
Rex
Rex Allen
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>
>> Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will" or worst
>> "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist free will.
Ah, I see what you're saying.
I've mentioned this before. I think that libertarians are referring
to *something* when they use "free will". It's just something that
doesn't exist. Like unicorns, or the bibilical Triune God.
They are referring to an imaginary ability to make decisions that are
neither caused nor random - but instead are something else, something
that can't be clearly conceived of or described but which somehow
gives them ultimate responsibility for their actions.
It isn't a coherent concept, or rational...but that's people for you.
Rex
meekerdb
> What you are proposing would be more like biology reusing the word �soul�.
>
No, it's analogous to music using the word "soul".
Brent
meekerdb
> So why keep it? Why not start fresh with a nice new term that you can
> use to mean exactly what you want, with no misunderstandings?
>
> Think of a new term that you can make your own. What could
> compatibilists possibly have against that?
>
> they welcome the confusion that reusing the older term causes amongst
> the layman?
>
That's like telling gays they should be happy with "civil unions".
"Free will", meaning free of coercion and compulsion, as used in law, is
useful concept referred to in many, many decisions which set precedents
- just as "marriage" appears in many laws and regulations. So there are
excellent reasons of understanding to keep it. If you are a
determinist, then compatibilism is the theory that shows this legal
meaning is compatible with determinism; so you don't have to give it up
and reinterpret hundreds of years of law and social discourse.
Brent
Rex Allen
> On 4/18/2011 9:55 AM, Rex Allen wrote:
>>
>> If there are commonalities in individuals who manifest certain
>> behaviors, then it makes sense to look at those commonalities as
>> causal (especially once a plausible mechanism can be identified), and
>> to no longer treat those behaviors as "free".
>>
>> In most situations it doesn't make sense to look at each individual as
>> unique and "free"...instead it makes sense to look at what is common
>> accross individuals and assume the existence of a mechanism that
>> accounts for those commonalities.
>>
>
> So if almost everyone is deterred from committing crimes by community
> approbation and fear of punishment, the person who does commit a crime
> should be treated as "free"?
If we consider the case of this person, and are unable to see any
plausible explanation that could account for their behavior - no
commonalities with other cases, nothing that matches against any other
statistics, no plausible mechanisms from sociology, neurology,
psychiatry, medicine, biology, genetics, chemistry, or physics...then
sure, treat him as “free”.
That was exactly the situation we were in a thousand years ago. And
it was justifiable - in that the approach does “work” to some extent,
and they didn’t know of any better way to go about it.
I just think that there are better ways to go about it now.
It would be odd if we have access to all of the above information, and
all of the productivity and wealth of the modern world - and yet we
can’t really come up with any significantly better approaches to
ordering society than “Getting Tough on Crime” or “Three Strikes”
laws.
Maybe we should try getting smart about crime and societal
dysfunction. We can always go back to “tough” later if it doesn’t
work.
Obviously that’s *not* the only context in which “free will” and
“moral responsibility” come up.
It comes up when the laws are written and punishments specified, it
comes up in terms of what policies the government implements for the
disadvantaged and unfortunate, it comes up when voters evaluate
politicians promising to get tough on criminals, it comes up in the
ways we treat prisoners - both in jail and upon release, it comes up
in the conduct of prosecutors and their choices about which case to
even bring to trial, it comes up in terms of what jurors (and thus the
public at large) find plausible from expert witnesses.
Society's views on free will and moral responsibility affect all of
those things.
Of course, things are changing, generally for the better. And will
likely continue to change - so the system is adapting to the new
information available. Just more slowly than seems reasonable to me.
In some part due to the obfuscation of compatibilism.
Rex
meekerdb
> If we consider the case of this person, and are unable to see any
> plausible explanation that could account for their behavior - no
> commonalities with other cases, nothing that matches against any other
> statistics, no plausible mechanisms from sociology, neurology,
> psychiatry, medicine, biology, genetics, chemistry, or physics...then
>
> That was exactly the situation we were in a thousand years ago. And
> and they didn�t know of any better way to go about it.
>
> I just think that there are better ways to go about it now.
>
And it is done differently than a thousand years ago, when they
prosecuted donkeys and chickens for crimes. Nowadays mental illness and
external coercion are defenses or at least considered as mitigating
factors. Even eating twinkies.
Brent
Bruno Marchal
Dennet agrees with the existence of higher levels, but denies that it
can have higher level attributes. he is coherent, because he is
materialist, so UDA predicts such kind of rational decision, but then
he can endow comp, as he does, only by going toward eliminativism, and
explaing consciousness away, as he seems to realized.
That gives me a bit of chilling, brr...
Bruno
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1Z
On Apr 17, 11:32 pm, John Mikes <jami...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rex, Evgeniy and List:
>
> Are we speaking about a mysterious 'free will' that is unrelated to the rest
> of the world and depends only "how we like it"? In my view our 'likings' and
> 'not' depend on the concerning experience and genetic built in our mentality
> (whatever THAT is composed of) in limitations of the perceived reality - the
> basis for our mini-solipsism. We cannot slip out of our shoes and 'like'
> something unrelated
- or, horribile dictu: opposing the stuff that
> penetrated our mindset.
> The idea of a Free Will was a good intimidating factor for religious
> punishment of sins, means to ensure the rule of the church over the
> gullible. Or for the courts in fault-finding.
> We are 'rpoducts' of the world around us, not independent 'gods' (Bruno's
> word).
1Z
On Apr 18, 5:24 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 15 Apr 2011, at 21:16, Rex Allen wrote:
>
>
>
>
> >> On 14 Apr 2011, at 22:25, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
> >>> Hence Rex might well be right that the discussion here continues
> >>> because
> >>> we do not have free will.
>
> >> This shows only that we don't have free-will in the absolute
> >> incompatibilist
> >> sense, but there are compatibilist theories, which explains well the
> >> correctness of a relative (to the subject) incompatibilist feature
> >> of free
> >> will.
>
> > The free will that we don't have in the "absolute incompatibilist
> > sense" is the free will that most people believe in.
>
> How can you know that?
been a problem of FW.
> > Compatibilist free will should be called "faux will". Or more
> > charitably, "subjective will".
>
> Then earth does not exist. Because most people was think that earth is
> a flat object
> throwing the baby with the bath water.
"epicylce"?
1Z
On Apr 19, 6:24 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On 15 Apr 2011, at 21:16, Rex Allen wrote:
>
>
> >>> On 14 Apr 2011, at 22:25, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>
> >>>> Hence Rex might well be right that the discussion here continues because
> >>>> we do not have free will.
>
> >>> This shows only that we don't have free-will in the absolute
> >>> incompatibilist
> >>> sense, but there are compatibilist theories, which explains well the
> >>> correctness of a relative (to the subject) incompatibilist feature of
> >>> free
> >>> will.
>
> >> The free will that we don't have in the "absolute incompatibilist
> >> sense" is the free will that most people believe in.
>
> > How can you know that?
>
> “In a massive survey of people in 36 countries, more than 70% agreed
> with the statement that their fate is in their own hands
> (International Social Survey Programme, 1998).”
>
> Okay, so that rules out incompatibilism for “most people”.
> How many
> of that 70% do you think answered that question in the affirmative as
> compatibilists?
>
> I’ve met a lot of people who are libertarians on free will, and I’ve
> met a few who are incompatibilists,
>but I’ve never actually met a
> compatibilist in person.
philosophers.
> BUT...maybe compatibilists don’t want to make things clear? Maybe
> they welcome the confusion that reusing the older term causes amongst
> the layman?
>
> > Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will" or worst
> > "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist free will.
>
> Huh?
>
> > You act like atheist who defends a very particular definition so as to
> > better mock the concept.
>
> Libertarian free will deserves to be mocked.
> The damage is done, and there’s no undoing it. The question should be
> how best to repair the system and its parts, and to make improvements
> so as to minimize recurrences.
>
> And this is where “free will” and “moral responsibility” do their
> damage, in that they distract people from these practical concerns.
> They whet the appetite for punishment and retribution instead of
> repair and improvement.
like what you take to be its consequences? But if determinism
is true, that doesn't mean we will change. We might carry on being
punitive libertarians. We might change into non-punitive determinists.
We might become *punitive* determinists. We will do as we are
determined to.
> They focus too much attention on the individual, and not enough on the
> system that produced the individual.
>
> As I said, rewarding bad behavior will get you more bad behavior, but
> the question is why did the bad behavior manifest in the first place?
> To declare yourself yourself uninterested in that question, to be so
> eager to just chalk it up to “free will” - that is...peculiar.
influences and causes....that is obviously a straw man.
LIbertarianism means people have some non-zero level
of freedom, not that they float free of all causation.
1Z
On Apr 19, 6:38 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 1:24 AM, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will" or worst
> >> "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist free will.
>
> Ah, I see what you're saying.
>
> I've mentioned this before. I think that libertarians are referring
> to *something* when they use "free will". It's just something that
> doesn't exist. Like unicorns, or the bibilical Triune God.
>
> They are referring to an imaginary ability to make decisions that are
> neither caused nor random - but instead are something else, something
> that can't be clearly conceived of or described but which somehow
> gives them ultimate responsibility for their actions.
>
> It isn't a coherent concept, or rational...but that's people for you.
>
> Rex
A popular argument against free will has it that free will is
incompatible with causal determinism (because of lack of Alternative
Possibilities or "elbow room") and with indeterminism (because will is
not "mere randomness"). This seems to neglect the alternative the free
will is a judicious mixture of the determinism and indeterminism —
after all, we cannot infer "salt is not sodium chloride" from "salt is
not sodium" and "salt is not chlorine", true as both those statements
are.
Or perhaps there it is more than that ? Perhaps the determinist is
making the assumption that free will is a basic ingredient to the
universe, and using that as a reason to exclude the possibility that
it is a composite, emergent phenomenon. This would certainly explains
why Gordon Orloff says things like:- "if so, how and why doesn't
everything in the universe — atoms, cells, dogs, cars — possess this
unnatural quality? [free will]" Why should they ? If free will is an
outcome of the engineering of the brain, we would not expect to find
it in the absence of any other mental faculties. We would hardly
expect to find thought in the absence of memory, for instance. If free
will is looked at as a psychological phenomenon, it depends on other
psychological phenomena. we have specific reason to think it is
dependent on other mental faculties, because, we need the ingredient
of rationality to distinguish free will from "mere caprice". If we
adopt the hypothesis that free will is indeed and outcome of a complex
combination of causal determinism and indeterminism, we have further
reason not to ascribe it to systems with the wrong engineering:
systems like sticks and stones, or deterministic computers.
This does not add up to chauvinism, by the way. Non-humans could have
the appropriate engineering, and appropriate equivalents of the
accompanying mental faculties. Even a convincing artificial
intelligence could have free will — if it had genuine rationality and
genuine indeterminism. The basicness assumption seems to provide a
justification for the supernatural assumption: causal determinism and
indeterminism seem to be the only logical options for basic features
of the world, so if free will is a third basic feature, it must be
supernatural. But, we contend, it is a third option which is natural
but non-basic.
The Separate Self Assumption.
Another argument against free will states: "If the universe is
deterministic, you are a slave to causal determinism; if the universe
is indeterministic, you are a slave to indeterminism". I would like to
ask who this "you" or "self" is ? You cannot be a slave to yourself.
If you are constituted by deterministic processes, you cannot also be
a slave to them. This line of argument often seeks to portray
indeterminism as some sort of external force that overrides your own
will. But my hypothesis is that the indeterminism relevant to free
will is internal to people. If some external source of indeterminism,
something outside your body, controlled your actions, you could justly
complain that you were "enslaved" to it; but the same could be said of
deterministic processes external to you; the relevant factor is the
externalness, not the indeterminism.
III.1.ii The Buridan's Ass Assumption
According to a mediaeval argument, Buridan's Ass, which for the
purposes of the story, has no free will, is placed at an equal
distance between two bales of hay, and starves to death because it is
unable to make up its mind which of the two bales it should eat.
We do not need to make a Supernatural Assumption about the free will
in this case; indeterminism would do just as well in allowing the Ass
to decide.
This approach does indeed indicate that free will is inimical to
rational decision making..up to a point. The Ass has no rational
reason to prefer one bale over the other. It's decision to go for, say
the left bale, is therefore irrational. But how much more irrational
to starve to death! One of the morals of the story is that there is
more to rationality — of a kind worth having — than being able to
logically justify every one of you actions. As I have explained in a
previous section, the whole gamut of human behaviour has to include
pragmatic decision-making, creativity, and many other styles of
behaviour that don't reduce to following explicit rules.
However, the real problem is that it is locating indeterminism in the
wrong place — ie, interposed between decision making and action. If
you are committed to a model in which determinism and randomness
combine to produce free will, you still have a range of options as to
how they combine.
1Z
On Apr 19, 7:26 am, Rex Allen <rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
distinct:
whether libertarian FW is meaningful and true; and whether a punitive
approach
to crime is right. The 70% of people in 36 countries will include a
lot who
live under justice regimes considerably more liberal than that of the
US.
Bruno Marchal
On 19 Apr 2011, at 07:24, Rex Allen wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
> wrote:
>>
>> On 15 Apr 2011, at 21:16, Rex Allen wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:45 AM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 14 Apr 2011, at 22:25, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Hence Rex might well be right that the discussion here continues
>>>>> because
>>>>> we do not have free will.
>>>>
>>>> This shows only that we don't have free-will in the absolute
>>>> incompatibilist
>>>> sense, but there are compatibilist theories, which explains well
>>>> the
>>>> correctness of a relative (to the subject) incompatibilist
>>>> feature of
>>>> free
>>>> will.
>>>
>>> The free will that we don't have in the "absolute incompatibilist
>>> sense" is the free will that most people believe in.
>>
>>
>> How can you know that?
>
> “In a massive survey of people in 36 countries, more than 70% agreed
> with the statement that their fate is in their own hands
> (International Social Survey Programme, 1998).”
What does that mean?
>
> Okay, so that rules out incompatibilism for “most people”. How many
> of that 70% do you think answered that question in the affirmative as
> compatibilists?
In Europa, free-will is a notion in popular psychology and cognitive
science, it is not related to religion.
>
> I’ve met a lot of people who are libertarians on free will, and I’ve
> met a few who are incompatibilists, but I’ve never actually met a
> compatibilist in person.
>
> The idea that I might not have libertarian free will didn’t even occur
> to me until I was 22, and I had a degree in engineering by then. I
> didn’t come across the idea that someone could accept determinism but
> still believe in “free will” until several years later.
>
> Now, admittedly, most of that time was “pre-internet” and certainly
> “pre-Google”, but still, I’m thinking most of the people surveyed
> aren’t compatibilists or even aware of the possibility.
People are known to have difficulties with notion like determinism. I
am trying to talk about concepts, not definition.
>
> Hell, 40% of Americans believe that humans were created by God within
> the last 10,000 years.
>
> I think I’m right on this.
But some use God to say free-will does not exist, and others the
contrary.
>
>
>>> Compatibilist free will should be called "faux will". Or more
>>> charitably, "subjective will".
>>
>> Then earth does not exist. Because most people was think that earth
>> is a
>> flat object.
>> When we do some dioscovery it is better to adapt our word instead of
>> throwing the baby with the bath water.
>
> What you are proposing would be more like biology reusing the word
> “soul”.
In science we always redefine the terms. Atoms meant non divisible, we
accept the idea that atoms and particles can be divided, or compose of
something else (like string).
>
> Or when physicists talk about "knowing the mind of God" and whatnot.
> It just causes confusion amongst the layman, for no good purpose.
We have abandon the science "theology" to the politician, so everyone
think he can do theology. It is a tradition of scientist to lose the
sense of rigor in the fields of colleagues, and this is even more true
for theology.
>
> “Free will” has too much baggage to be re-used.
Actually I never use it. I say just "personal will", which is more
free in some context than other. But I defend a lot of use of free-
will in many book, including theologians.
>
> So why keep it? Why not start fresh with a nice new term that you can
> use to mean exactly what you want, with no misunderstandings?
If we abandon a word because it is badly used, the concept will
remains in the hands of those using it badly.
>
> Think of a new term that you can make your own. What could
> compatibilists possibly have against that?
>
> BUT...maybe compatibilists don’t want to make things clear? Maybe
> they welcome the confusion that reusing the older term causes amongst
> the layman?
The layman might not have the interest in the complex technical
question of compatibilism/incompatibilism.
>
>
>> Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will" or
>> worst
>> "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist
>> free will.
>
> Huh?
I see that you get this in the other post, so I will comment there.
>
>
>> You act like atheist who defends a very particular definition so as
>> to
>> better mock the concept.
>
> Libertarian free will deserves to be mocked.
Nobody deserves to be mocked, but if you think they are wrong, you
might try to convince them.
> If you don’t want
> compatibilist free will to be painted with the same brush, then use a
> term besides “free will”. It’s that easy.
I am against creating new word. It is a myth that words have univocal
meaning. Keeping the words unchanged help to reread the text of the
past, and see where they are still valid, and what has changes when
they are no more.
>
>
>>>> Critics of free-will are based on error confusion level.
>>>
>>> Critics of "free will in the absolute incompatibilist sense" are
>>> correct.
>>
>> So we agree on the sense.
>
> Hmmm?
>
>
>
>>> Critics of "compatibilist free will" object to the misuse of terms
>>> by
>>> compatibilists, not to the concepts described by those terms.
>>>
>>> There is no confusion. The problem is quite clear...combatibilists
>>> are engaged in word-jugglery.
>>
>> Not at all. They realized that 68% of the reasoning done by the
>> incompatibilist are valid, so it is worth to save the notion and
>> recast it
>> in a consistent theory.
>>
>> That is what we do all the time in science. We change the
>> definition a
>> little bit, to save the interesting theories and abandon the
>> inconsistent
>> ideas.
>
> What possible experiment could decide the question of whether “free
> will” is compatible with determinism? What predictions does
> compatibilism make? What phenomena does it explain?
>
> Compatibilism isn’t science, it’s propaganda.
Or a consequence is some theory, like the mechanist thesis.
People said: a machine cannot be conscious, a machine cannot this, a
machine cannot that. The point is to refute such statement.
I can explain why machine will believe in their own free-will a long
time before thinking about compatibilism and incompatibilism. And with
the definition of free-will I suggested, they are right.
But it is not a big deal, except that it is of the same nature that
what we need to recognize them as person.
>
>
>>> This is an inconvenient truth,
>>
>> 1) Why?
>> 2) Science is not wishful thinking.
>
> See above.
>
> Science isn't wishful thinking, but that doesn't make scientists
> immune to it.
Sure.
>
>
>>> and no amount of
>>> word-jugglery gets around it. Best to just deal with it squarely,
>>> rather than try to hide it under the rug as with compatibilism.
>>
>> Compatibilism show that we are "really" free (even if partially
>> only). It is
>> not an illusion. It is subjective, but consciousness is also
>> subjective. The
>> error of the aristotelians is that they use "subjective" as meaning
>> illusory
>> or false (as you did above), That is close to person elimination.
>
> I agree that the experience of making a choice is not an illusion.
> The experience is real.
OK. Nice.
>
> It’s just that the beliefs you hold within your experience are untrue
> beliefs.
Why? If I believe that my free-will is of the incompatibilist kind,
then I am OK with you. But if I believe that my free-will is of the
compatibilist kind, why shouls I be not correct?
The fact that some people can predict what I will do, has nothing to
do with the fact that I will do it because I want to do it.
Free-will is what makes us attracted to "more freedom".
> Your beliefs about the meaning and implications of your
> experiences are wrong. And that wrongness is what is referred to as
> illusion.
In which theory?
>
>
>> The comp compatibilist theory of free will makes it as real as
>> consciousness, and pain, and pleasure and all that. Matter is also
>> made into
>> something subjective, first person (plural), but this does not make
>> asteroids and earthquake less real, in our histories.
>> And free will, like consciousness, is not "just" a qualia, it is a
>> qualia
>> which change the relations between the quanta in the neighborhood,
>> for the
>> best (walking on the moon), or the worst (exploding atomic bombs).
>
> We are no more free than the most shackled, restricted, confined,
> manipulated, brainwashed prisoner. It's just that our bondage is much
> more pleasant.
>
> We are all slaves to Fortune, but Fortune has her favorites, as well
> as those she despises...
>
> The only difference between you and the prisoner is that you feel
> free, whereas he doesn't. But he is right, and you are wrong. You
> are not free.
Hmm...
>
>
>
>>>> If we were, we could replace jail by hospital,
>>>> and people would feel having the right to justify any act by
>>>> uncontrollable
>>>> pulsions.
>>>
>>> All acts are justifiable in that sense. But, just as we don't allow
>>> malfunctioning machines to run amuck, neither should we allow
>>> malfunctioning people to do so.
>>
>> But you are begging the question, or saying that given that free-
>> will does
>> not exist, then we should send everybody acting badly to the
>> hospital,
>> because it is pure "malfunctioning". Believer in free will
>> (compatibilist or
>> not) believe that you can badly treat people and be 100% not
>> malfunctioning.
>
> Perhaps it’s better to say that someone who treats other people
> criminally is indicative of a malfunction within the system of
> society.
This leads to the idea "it is the fault of the other", and people feel
less compel to search for their own mistakes.
>
> The crime is a symptom of that malfunction, a sign that something has
> gone wrong somewhere else and the evidence has finally bubbled to the
> surface.
That is partially true, and partially false. Humans are richer than
such a form of determinacy.
>
> The damage is done, and there’s no undoing it. The question should be
> how best to repair the system and its parts, and to make improvements
> so as to minimize recurrences.
We are not machines, in that sense! Nor the machines, actually.
>
> And this is where “free will” and “moral responsibility” do their
> damage, in that they distract people from these practical concerns.
> They whet the appetite for punishment and retribution instead of
> repair and improvement.
I am all for repair, improvement, harm reduction. But we can be
guilty, sometimes, and plead guilty, and only then get the pardon and
the possibility of repair.
>
> They focus too much attention on the individual, and not enough on the
> system that produced the individual.
What is the system? We inherit our whole neighborhood. The system is
good: it brings you. If you can improve it a bit, I applaud. Many bad
things comes from those who think they can improve it, though. But
improvement is possible.
>
> As I said, rewarding bad behavior will get you more bad behavior, but
> the question is why did the bad behavior manifest in the first place?
Jealousy, sadism, pulsion, opportunity, fears, bad mood, injustice,
revenge, bad circumstances, genetical history, human and inhuman
history,
> To declare yourself yourself uninterested in that question, to be so
> eager to just chalk it up to “free will” - that is...peculiar.
I am interested but it is a so general and complex topic. I am not the
one having start of free-will. I just feel the need to defend a lot on
the notion of free-will and responsibility, about machines notably,
and children and humans, etc.
Bruno
meekerdb
>> When we do some dioscovery it is better to adapt our word instead of
>> > throwing the baby with the bath water.
>>
> Always? So we should have adapted the meanings of "phlogiston" and
> "epicylce"?
>
>
Of course not always. "Epicycle" still means what it did; we just don't
use it to describe planetary orbits (although we could). We dropped
"phlogiston" as not referring to anything. "Heat" originally was
thought to refer to a kind of fluid; we kept and adapted it.
Brent
Bruno Marchal
On 19 Apr 2011, at 07:38, Rex Allen wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 1:24 AM, Rex Allen <rexall...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Bruno Marchal <mar...@ulb.ac.be>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will"
>>> or worst
>>> "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist
>>> free will.
>
> Ah, I see what you're saying.
>
> I've mentioned this before. I think that libertarians are referring
> to *something* when they use "free will". It's just something that
> doesn't exist. Like unicorns, or the bibilical Triune God.
Yeah, but we agree. That's the incompatibilist free-will.
Since then, Artificial Intelligence Research is born, and Mechanist
theories have gone through the Gödel, and the Church-Turing
"revolution". Now many are open to the idea that machine can be
conscious, and it is not far stretched to defend the idea that they
can have a sort of free will similar to our own.
A clever computer is a computer which take a time before choosing its
user.
>
> They are referring to an imaginary ability to make decisions that are
> neither caused nor random -
Yes, that is close to nonsense. Yet the compatibilist notion explained
why we feel it to be so, and why it *is* so, from the machine's point
of view.
I have no free will ... in the eyes of God, but then I cannot look
through the eyes of God (without salvia, say :)
> but instead are something else, something
> that can't be clearly conceived of or described but which somehow
> gives them ultimate responsibility for their actions.
OK, but responsibility is never ultimate.
if you build a nuclear central on a place with frequent earthquakes,
that is stupidity, akin to irresponsibility. It is bad, but then we
learn.
But if you build it knowing the risk, and hiding it, then you have a
responsibility. If you do it again, you have full responsibility.
The bad is not so bad.
What is bad is the bad, and again the bad, and again the bad, and
again the bad, and again, ... without ever listening to the other.
That happens.
>
> It isn't a coherent concept, or rational...but that's people for you.
When a concept appears to be inconsistent, I try to reshaped it with
the minimal changes as to make it consistent again.
Bruno
meekerdb
>
> On Apr 19, 6:38 am, Rex Allen<rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 1:24 AM, Rex Allen<rexallen31...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Bruno Marchal<marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
>>>
>>
>>>> Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will" or worst
>>>> "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist free will.
>>>>
>> Ah, I see what you're saying.
>>
>> I've mentioned this before. I think that libertarians are referring
>> to *something* when they use "free will". It's just something that
>> doesn't exist. Like unicorns, or the bibilical Triune God.
>>
>> They are referring to an imaginary ability to make decisions that are
>> neither caused nor random - but instead are something else, something
>> that can't be clearly conceived of or described but which somehow
>> gives them ultimate responsibility for their actions.
>>
>> It isn't a coherent concept, or rational...but that's people for you.
>>
>> Rex
>>
> III.1.i The Basicness Assumption.
> A popular argument against free will has it that free will is
> incompatible with causal determinism (because of lack of Alternative
> Possibilities or "elbow room") and with indeterminism (because will is
> not "mere randomness"). This seems to neglect the alternative the free
> after all, we cannot infer "salt is not sodium chloride" from "salt is
> not sodium" and "salt is not chlorine", true as both those statements
> are.
>
> Or perhaps there it is more than that ? Perhaps the determinist is
> making the assumption that free will is a basic ingredient to the
> universe, and using that as a reason to exclude the possibility that
> it is a composite, emergent phenomenon. This would certainly explains
> why Gordon Orloff says things like:- "if so, how and why doesn't
> unnatural quality? [free will]" Why should they ? If free will is an
> outcome of the engineering of the brain, we would not expect to find
> it in the absence of any other mental faculties. We would hardly
> expect to find thought in the absence of memory, for instance. If free
> will is looked at as a psychological phenomenon, it depends on other
> psychological phenomena. we have specific reason to think it is
> dependent on other mental faculties, because, we need the ingredient
> of rationality to distinguish free will from "mere caprice". If we
> adopt the hypothesis that free will is indeed and outcome of a complex
> combination of causal determinism and indeterminism, we have further
> reason not to ascribe it to systems with the wrong engineering:
> systems like sticks and stones, or deterministic computers.
>
> This does not add up to chauvinism, by the way. Non-humans could have
> the appropriate engineering, and appropriate equivalents of the
> accompanying mental faculties. Even a convincing artificial
> logically justify every one of you actions. As I have explained in a
> previous section, the whole gamut of human behaviour has to include
> pragmatic decision-making, creativity, and many other styles of
> behaviour that don't reduce to following explicit rules.
>
> However, the real problem is that it is locating indeterminism in the
> you are committed to a model in which determinism and randomness
> combine to produce free will, you still have a range of options as to
> how they combine.
>
>
I would point out that "indeterminism" can have two different sources.
One is internal, due to the occasional quantum random event that gets
amplified to quasi-classical action. The other, much more common, is
the unpredictable (but possibly determinisitic) external event that
influences one through perception. I don't think this affects the above
analysis except to qualify the idea that external indeterminism is
justly considered enslavement.
Brent
1Z
On Apr 19, 7:28 pm, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
> On 19 Apr 2011, at 07:38, Rex Allen wrote:
>
> > wrote:
> >> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:24 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be>
>
> >>> Th fact that you say that compatibilist free will is "faux will"
> >>> or worst
> >>> "subjective will" means that you *do* believe in incompatibilist
> >>> free will.
>
> > Ah, I see what you're saying.
>
> > I've mentioned this before. I think that libertarians are referring
> > to *something* when they use "free will". It's just something that
> > doesn't exist. Like unicorns, or the bibilical Triune God.
>
> Yeah, but we agree. That's the incompatibilist free-will.
>
> Since then, Artificial Intelligence Research is born, and Mechanist
> theories have gone through the Gödel, and the Church-Turing
> "revolution". Now many are open to the idea that machine can be
> conscious, and it is not far stretched to defend the idea that they
> can have a sort of free will similar to our own.