Like your idea that meaning should be based on popular opinion. That's different from utility.
Well when utility lies in communication, and popular opinion deals with how people understand your words I think it necessarily follows that the two are quite closely linked.
What he's saying has nothing to do with "popular opinion" or "pretending". All he's saying is that if we're presented with a term that has two potential meanings, one coherent and one incoherent, we should prefer the coherent meaning.
Yes. And this is especially the case when most popular use of the term presupposes the coherent meaning.
Hume is wrong.
Generally, thinking this is a sign that you are on the wrong side of an issue.
Also Yar, some clarification: you have said things like this
I know this is true for humans but not rocks because it is useful for me
Which could be understood in the way I did, or could imply something else. To what extent do you believe truth is a matter of usefulness? Was my characterization earlier on this page of your reference to usefulness representative of your stance?
Chake99 on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
Like your idea that meaning should be based on popular opinion. That's different from utility.
Well when utility lies in communication, and popular opinion deals with how people understand your words I think it necessarily follows that the two are quite closely linked.
What he's saying has nothing to do with "popular opinion" or "pretending". All he's saying is that if we're presented with a term that has two potential meanings, one coherent and one incoherent, we should prefer the coherent meaning.
Yes. And this is especially the case when most popular use of the term presupposes the coherent meaning.
Hume is wrong.
Generally, thinking this is a sign that you are on the wrong side of an issue.
Also Yar, some clarification: you have said things like this
I know this is true for humans but not rocks because it is useful for me
Which could be understood in the way I did, but imply something else. To what extent do you believe truth is a matter of usefulness? Was my characterization earlier on this page of your reference to usefulness representative of your stance?
Coherency is in no way an objective measurement. I find your stance incoherent. You find mine incoherent.
Yar will claim this means I am incoherent. I will claim that Yar is incoherent. Yar will claim this is fine, but he is right. And thus the circle completes.
Coherency is a function of one's entire world view, from axioms on down. If someone's axioms are different to yours, there's going to be a fundamental disconnect.
So, given that, how are you defining coherency? Logic? What kind of logic? What axioms are you using? What premises/definitions follow on from those axioms? And so on.
You telling me that you consider something incoherent is a worthless piece of information to me unless I know whats behind that subjective judgement. I've got no reason to take it seriously otherwise.
Morninglord on
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By coherent I mean consistent; non-contradictory. Coherence is absolutely an objective measure - well as objective as bivalent truth-functional logic. And if you deny that that's objective then we should simply stop talking because the barrier between us is insurmountable by language.
'free will' is commonly used in such a way as to imply personal responsibility. If one is claiming that free will is uncaused and free will is responsible then they are using an incoherent notion of free will.
On the other hand if someone is simply (and primarily) using 'free will' as a term to denote something corresponding to responsibility - then they are assuming the existence of free will as a coherent concept. The question "do people have free will?" is similar to or identical to "are people responsible?" "do people have liberty?" And they are all asking if people possess a certain trait. They assume that the trait is itself logically possible and are asking if people express it.
You could prove the question nonsensical if you can prove the trait necessarily does not exist - but compatibilism offers a coherent formulation of this trait that works within our language game.
So to be exact I don't think your stance is incoherent: I think it's coherent but fucking retarded. It's like purposefully misunderstanding a question.
Chake99 on
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MorninglordI'm tired of being Batman,so today I'll be Owl.Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
Right, but the same word commonly has different meanings in different fields. This is usually sorted out by people defining which meaning they are using beforehand.
So claiming that someone who is using a meaning from one field is doing it wrong because of this meaning from another field isn't even a real claim. It's a nothing. I mean no shit you can't compare two different fields easily. That's why they are different, you see.
You seem to want to grapple with the issue of people having different meanings for the same word, which is fine and admirable.
But you are doing it by claiming only one meaning is allowed per word. Which is baffling and silly.
Whats next, are you going to go through the dictionary and sort out all the multiple definition words in there too?
I'm not sure who you are referring to when you talk about claiming free will is both uncaused and responsible. I haven't really talked about moral responsibility at all. At least, that's what I thought I was doing. Perhaps you interpreted me differently?
I don't think free will exists at all. As an entity, I don't think it is. I think it is not. I'm saying that there is a deterministic explanation for any given behavior you might express and the claim that there is not is as equally unsolvable as the claim that there is. You cannot ever repeat a choice perfectly because you can't reset the universe. To perfectly prove wether or not free will exists you would need to replicate the exact conditions a given human encountered in that situation, including not having had an experience of that situation before. Except that as organisms within the world, a human being is affected by everything around it at all times, by psychological, social and biological influences. So I don't see how it is possible to even make the claim that someone can choose other than what they are influenced to do. You simply cannot set up that experiment, ever. It's a big fat assumption.
On the other hand, as more and more is known about how we are influenced by what is around us, there is much greater ability to understand how people are influenced and much greater ability to predict how a person will behave based on knowledge of what psychosociobiological factors are influencing them. So there is evidence, growing evidence, that is taking away more and more behaviors from the wing of free will and personal responsibility. For example, mental illnesses. Crazy people used to be just considered wrong, bad, evil and choosing to do the wrong thing.
Other examples, such as further understanding of how a person is influenced by their social environment, have thrown questions on various moral ideas. For example, the milligram experiments or the stanford prison experiment question just how responsible someone is when ordered to do something by authority for the former and, in the case of the latter, how responsible someone is for what they do when in a given cultural role. Deindividuation in large groups of people is anothe rexample. Throw a human being in a large enough group of humans and they need to have extremely strong beliefs to withstand the sheer pressure of all the human animals around them.
You can make a personality profile of someone and predict what they are going to do with an incredible level of success. You can manipulate what they are experiencing to change how they act, again with a huge level of success, well above chance.
So there is support for determinism. People do seem to be shaped by their psychosociobio environment. Decades and decades of experiments lend support to this. In comparison, it is impossible to actually set up a free will experiment because you can't ever reset both the environment and the human being and try again to see if they do make another choice given the same circumstances.
So I'm not sure how one can claim I am saying free will is anything. That would be, I think, a fundamental misunderstanding of what I have been trying to say.
I'm trying to find a justification for being able to claim that anybody has free will as it has been defined by all the definitions I have encountered, including the compatabilist ones. All I keep running into is "it is obvious, duh" which baffles me. You'd think such an incredibly important concept that leads onto all these other important things, like morality, our legal system, and so on, would have a solid foundation. A strong bedrock upon which it rests. This doesn't seem to be the case.
I also wanted to mention that the claim that determinism is unfasifiable is a misunderstanding of where falsifiability came from. Falsifiability only applies at the level of theory and also at the level of hypothesis testing, it doesn't apply at the axiomatic level. For most sciences, determinism is a requirement. There's no point in performing experiments if there is no cause and effect. So determinism is an axiom, and a claim of unfalsifiability is an incorrect accusation. It doesn't apply. How do you falsify something scientifically without cause and effect? You can't! Yar was the one who mentioned this and I wanted to respond at the time, but couldn't due to time pressures.
Morninglord on
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'free will' is commonly used in such a way as to imply personal responsibility. If one is claiming that free will is uncaused and free will is responsible then they are using an incoherent notion of free will.
Just going to go ahead and echo Morninglord: As far as I know I have never discussed personal reponsibility, in this thread, or implied that there exists any sort of thing as a moral responsibility which results from freedom of the will, in this thread.
I already defined "free" earlier: Uncaused, unconstrained, etc. A free will would be a will of complete uncaused / unconstrained randomness.
I will grant that in a deterministic system a particular amalgamation of particulars can combine to cause event X. If a coffee maker has faulty wiring and that faulty wiring starts a fire then there is a causal story wherein the coffee maker's wiring, the electricity, etc. "caused" the fire. But that is not moral or ethical responsibility. That is just a causal story.
For someone who constantly accuses other people of not reading what people post? You do not seem to be doing a very good job yourself. We are not arguing incoherent positions.
The question "do people have free will?" is similar to or identical to "are people responsible?"
This is the point at which I think your argument is basically question begging.
If people are responsible, then People have free will.
Persons are considered to be responsible.
Therefore, people have free will.
But that is not answering the question of whether or not people are, in fact, responsible. That is saying that persons are considered to be responsible; it is a simple description of social considerations. The question in a free will debate (for persons who engage in philosophy) is to ask if people ARE responsible. That would require an investigation into metaphysics and ontology to discern whether or not persons are, in fact, responsible for their actions. Which to ask whether or not people have free will, which would be to ask how there can be freedom in a causally deterministic universe.
That would be a philosophical discussion.
Your position, as I understand it, is just "We treat people as if they are responsible SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP." without ever having a moment of enlightenment when you ask whether or not positing responsibility onto a particular individual is at all justified or sensible.
If your position really is "society treats people as if they are responsible, so they are." then ok, fine. But that is not an argument; that is a description of how society works.
Are you interested in having a discussion about metaphysics and ontology? Or are you just here to tell us all things we already know about how legal systems function in 2010 on Earth?
Edit: Here is another way of articulating what I take you to be saying.
If people consider the earth to be flat, then the earth is flat.
People consider the earth to be flat.
Therefore, the earth is flat.
If that is how you think the world works then, ok. But I have a couple hundred books of shit people previously thought to be the case which is no longer thought to be the case. So I have no idea why "people think it" is any reason to think the "it" true.
Free Will makes no god damned sense. The only way to try to get it to make sense is to write things akin to that which Schelling wrote. And no one in this thread is doing that. At best, there is a claim that "people consider themselves to be free" which is then supported with nonsense and hateful ad hominem attacks.
You'd think such an incredibly important concept that leads onto all these other important things, like morality, our legal system, and so on, would have a solid foundation. A strong bedrock upon which it rests. This doesn't seem to be the case.
Yeah. That is pretty awesome. I do not know of any good arguments for freedom or free will. Usually the argument is
"we have it; fuck you."
or
"we do not have it for the following well-conceived and clearly articulated reasons: causality."
Schelling makes kind of a good argument...if you can put up with the notion of a Godhead of rotary motion.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
If "freedom" means freedom from causation, then nothing has ever been free. "Free" would be then an impossible state, and the word would border on meaninglessness. So I submit that's not what "free" actually means. "Free" usually means uncoerced by other human beings. That's certainly the usage of "free" germane to legal proceedings.
The entire idea that free will must entail freedom not only from human coercion but also a mystical sort of freedom from the forces of nature is an artifact of Christian theology; it was an idea dreamed up to solve the problem of evil in a universe with a just God. This medieval innovation should be discarded. The Ancient Greeks, for example, were fatalistic -- really just an old form of deterministic -- but they also had no trouble with the concept of ethical responsibility. By insisting that freedom of will means freedom from causation, you have accepted the definition of medieval theologians. But they were stupid, and you shouldn't use their definition.
The entire idea that free will must entail freedom not only from human coercion but also a mystical sort of freedom from the forces of nature is an artifact of Christian theology; it was an idea dreamed up to solve the problem of evil in a universe with a just God. This medieval innovation should be discarded.
Exactly - so why keep using the same terminology to describe something completely different?
If "freedom" means freedom from causation, then nothing has ever been free. "Free" would be then an impossible state, and the word would border on meaninglessness. So I submit that's not what "free" actually means. "Free" usually means uncoerced by other human beings. That's certainly the usage of "free" germane to legal proceedings.
The entire idea that free will must entail freedom not only from human coercion but also a mystical sort of freedom from the forces of nature is an artifact of Christian theology; it was an idea dreamed up to solve the problem of evil in a universe with a just God. This medieval innovation should be discarded. The Ancient Greeks, for example, were fatalistic -- really just an old form of deterministic -- but they also had no trouble with the concept of ethical responsibility. By insisting that freedom of will means freedom from causation, you have accepted the definition of medieval theologians. But they were stupid, and you shouldn't use their definition.
I'm not sure that anyone in this thread has trouble with the concept of ethical responsibility either?
If someone tells me "Tom, Dick, and Harry robbed the bank. Tom was coerced but the other two did it if their own free will." I understand what they are saying - and I don't think they should use different words.
But that doesn't mean that any of them "have Free Will." That is something completely different.
We all agree that humans are Sapient; they make decisions. In the bank robbing example, we are distinguishing between which Wills we are holding ethically/morally/legally responsible for the actions taken by the men.
Likewise, it makes just as much sense to say "The cash registers in the new store aren't charging sales tax. A few of them have that stupid computer virus we were warned about but the rest are doing it of their own free will." This doesn't mean that I think the cash registers have Free Will and no one would take me to be implying that they do.
I don't think that anyone is saying that, in the realm of social constructs like morality, law or ethical responsibility, we should not use the useful social construct free will vs coercion. I'm certainly not saying we should open the jails and empty them out.
What I am saying, is that Free Will, like the tooth fairy, does not exist. Free Will, like a Soul, is not something that people have. The course of your life is set, and no triumph of human spirit will change that course. You are not the master of your own destiny.
If "freedom" means freedom from causation, then nothing has ever been free. "Free" would be then an impossible state, and the word would border on meaninglessness. So I submit that's not what "free" actually means.
So, then, "God" exists since we have a word for it? Everything for which there is a word must exist?
If "freedom" means freedom from causation, then nothing has ever been free. "Free" would be then an impossible state, and the word would border on meaninglessness. So I submit that's not what "free" actually means.
So, then, "God" exists since we have a word for it? Everything for which there is a word must exist?
No.
No.
No.
No.
LoserForHireX on
"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it." - Oscar Wilde
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
So you admit there is a difference between Freedom of action, and Free Will? That someone can be in jail, and for the most part, lose their Freedom, but that has nothing to do with the discussion of their having or not having Free Will?
Not exactly. The over-arching discussion about Free Will is usually, to me, about a very general property of human existence, not about specific incidents. The incidents are examples.
But I could have sworn that in all your posts you keep mentioning, you have been defining Free Will has being able to make complex decisions and being able to enact them?
That's a bit closer than your last several purposeful mischaracterizatrions. We're getting there. But anyway, the above is an example of that sort of general property of human existence I'm talking about. Yes, generally, as human beings, we are able to make complex decisions regarding reasoned expectations of the future and our preferences thereof. A man in jail is still a human being with a general prpoerty of free will. However, he has very limited chance to actualize it while in jail.
"Your" is the possessive case of "you". So, if "desires" are posessed by "you", then there has to be a "you" doing the possessing. What is that "you"? The desires? Is this self-posession? But then what is the self? And how can desires posess?
It is common to describe a constituent of a whole as being possessed by the whole, and does not necessitate that the whole be anything more than the collection of constituents. I find it odd that you are trying to use my own argument against me; it clearly supports my position and denies your own.
"My arm" need not imply anything more than "the arm which makes up a part of me" and does not require that I be something separate from those things which make up me. On the other hand, you cannot say "arms are just an imaginary name we give to a collection of fingers and palms and wrists and forearms and shoulders. Therefore, Yar doesn't have arms. He'll have to use his legs or something to pick things up." That is obviously incoherent nonsense. But it is how you argue against Free Will.
There are teeth, a stomach, hair, and a wealth of other biological nonsense within which these 'desires' come into and go out of being. And this biological thing, as a material object, will be causally influenced by other biological things. Furthermore, that biological entity, when made slave to the desires which occur within it, will be caused to perform actions as a result of these desires...
I edited out a lot of the snark that was so-very-not warranted and only made you look silly.
But what are you claiming is the self here? The physical body? Are not desires made up of the physical body? Don't the brain and stomach make up the desire for cake? If desires are not part of the physical body, then aren't you arguing for an independent soul?
Either a) the desires that occur within the body are a collection of physical things, in whcih case nothing has changed, and you're still saying that the body is a slave to itself (which, in case you haven't figured out, means the body is its own master: Free Will), or else b) desires and other such causal qualities of human life are not of the material world, they are causeless mystic souls that guide us: Free Will. Again I must point out that this is exactly where I trapped you when we did this same discussion years ago.
Like your idea that meaning should be based on popular opinion. That's different from utility.
Not very different, no. Common usage is usage. Usage is utility. But the problem is that you refuse to provide the alternative. You say we should use a meaning just because you say that's what it means, despite what you say contrasting with any common usage or even logical consistency. We have popular usage and rational consistency. Maybe that doesn't do it for you, but what do you have?
Also Yar, some clarification: you have said things like this
I know this is true for humans but not rocks because it is useful for me
Which could be understood in the way I did, or could imply something else. To what extent do you believe truth is a matter of usefulness? Was my characterization earlier on this page of your reference to usefulness representative of your stance?
The utility issue is a distraction. I've long learned that forumers will pounce on a distraction to avoid having to continue to defend what has unveiled itself as indefensible. If you want to know what they are going on about, see here. The bottom line is that they smelled blood and are dog-piling on a scarcely related issue that was never resolved well, because they can't even answer simple challenges to their own position here now.
I shouldn't have gotten roped into it. I can work under any semi-reasonable notion of truth. Compatibilism reigns most rational under any of them. Truth is usually a value assigned to a statement in one system when it can be consistently evaluated by filling in elements from another independent system. Often we invoke reason and observation, such that reasoning is considered true when it correctly predicts observation, and observation is proven true when it passes a reasoning check, and back and forth and so on. Another common one is to evaluate classical logic using mathematics. More commonfolk definitions will describe it as a value of a statement in human language when it is evaluated against reality. That last one I feel is rather problematic unless you suppose that it is just a different way of stating the one about reason and observation.
To answer your question, yes, the way we got there this time is through debating what ought to be the definition of a word. I invoked the usefulness (and logical consistency and alignment with common usage) of a certain definition over the uselessness (and inconsistency and defiance of common usage) of another. They har-har mightily, and sarcastically jest about our references to usefulness and usage, but offer no alternative manner in which to justify their preferred definition, except "that's what I say it is and that's what it is."
I already defined "free" earlier: Uncaused, unconstrained, etc. A free will would be a will of complete uncaused / unconstrained randomness.
The burden is on you to justify some purpose of this definition, or otherwise abandon it in the face of alternative definitions that have purposes. Or, at least, to abandon your challenge of those latter definitions, until you can justify your own. You seem to think that this is just a matter of us saying potato and you saying potahto, except we're arguing why potato is useful and meaningful and better, and you're just arguing "potato, potahto, my definition is my definition, man."
Edit: Here is another way of articulating what I take you to be saying.
If people consider the earth to be flat, then the earth is flat.
People consider the earth to be flat.
Therefore, the earth is flat.
If that is how you think the world works then, ok. But I have a couple hundred books of shit people previously thought to be the case which is no longer thought to be the case. So I have no idea why "people think it" is any reason to think the "it" true.
We've been here before, philosophically. I think you know where it leads. Your last paragraph clearly invalidates the second premise: people don't consider the earth to be flat. You somehow failed to recognize that the manner in which you disproved "truth is what people consider to be true" is by showing us that truth is, in fact, what people consider to be true.
If you want to make the argument you think you're making, you'd have to give me a truth that no one considers to be true. Of course you know, that is impossible.
Keep in mind that I'll I'm showing here is that your argument fails. You used the definition of truth you were attacking in order to disprove it. That doesn't work. But I'm not actually arguing for "truth as what we consider," not right now. That would also be a needless distraction.
Free Will makes no god damned sense. The only way to try to get it to make sense is to write things akin to that which Schelling wrote. And no one in this thread is doing that. At best, there is a claim that "people consider themselves to be free" which is then supported with nonsense and hateful ad hominem attacks.
I understand that you still feel this way, but the rational discourse so far in this thread leads to the exact opposite conclusions. It is only your useless concept of Free Will that makes no god damned sense. The general concept most people have does make sense.
I'm not sure that anyone in this thread has trouble with the concept of ethical responsibility either?
If someone tells me "Tom, Dick, and Harry robbed the bank. Tom was coerced but the other two did it if their own free will." I understand what they are saying - and I don't think they should use different words.
But that doesn't mean that any of them "have Free Will." That is something completely different.
We all agree that humans are Sapient; they make decisions. In the bank robbing example, we are distinguishing between which Wills we are holding ethically/morally/legally responsible for the actions taken by the men.
Likewise, it makes just as much sense to say "The cash registers in the new store aren't charging sales tax. A few of them have that stupid computer virus we were warned about but the rest are doing it of their own free will." This doesn't mean that I think the cash registers have Free Will and no one would take me to be implying that they do.
I don't think that anyone is saying that, in the realm of social constructs like morality, law or ethical responsibility, we should not use the useful social construct free will vs coercion. I'm certainly not saying we should open the jails and empty them out.
What I am saying, is that Free Will, like the tooth fairy, does not exist. Free Will, like a Soul, is not something that people have. The course of your life is set, and no triumph of human spirit will change that course. You are not the master of your own destiny.
Then you are getting close to a rational stance. Most of this post is a good argument for exactly why Free Will does exist, in the same sense that anything can said to exist. Similarly, your statement that it is a fairy tale and doesn't exist, is only so in the manner that anything at all can be said to be imaginary and non-existent.
You are incorrect about what most people here have argued. They have in fact argued against responsibility, and that there is no difference whatsoever between the robber coerced and the robber not. I'm curious, though, why you would describe exactly what free will tends to mean, but then follow it up by saying that such is totally different from what free will means. All you need to do is understand that certain statements you're making, like "the course of your life is set, and no triumph of human spirit will change that course. You are not the master of your own destiny" are inconsistent with your own stance. Who is the "you" in that statement? Is he part of that set course, or something separate from it? If he is not the master, is he the slave? If he is the slave, is he a slave to those very things which comprise him? If not, what is he a salve to? If he is a slave to himself, is he then not also his own master? Just as easily as you can claim that the course of my life is set, so too can I claim that my mastery of that course is also equally set. In the end, your notion of there being a set course is utterly useless, inconsequential, and inaccessible to me, it is unprovable and non-falisifiable, merely a belief you have that cannot ever be demonstrated nor disproven, whereas my notion of being the master is quite the opposite on all accounts, and hence I favor that as my truth, without any compromise whatsoever as to what truth means.
Also, saying that the cash registers were acting of their own free will would be, at best, an idiom, and more more likely would elicit a response of, "no, they don't do things of their own free will, let's figure out where the bug is."
The Ancient Greeks, for example, were fatalistic -- really just an old form of deterministic -- but they also had no trouble with the concept of ethical responsibility. By insisting that freedom of will means freedom from causation, you have accepted the definition of medieval theologians. But they were stupid, and you shouldn't use their definition.
I'm not exactly sure if you are joking with the "they were stupid" line, but I hope you are. If a functional philosophical reply to your problem (Zomg how do we have ethical responsibility without freedom?!) is only met with "they were stupid" then I'm not sure how serious you are about the discussion.
1) There are ways of having ethical / moral responsibility without free will; free will is not a requirement for ethical / moral responsibility.
2) There are words and terms for things which do not exist.
So, why the fuck do we need "free will"?
- It doesn't actually exist.
- It is not necessary.
Why the hell does everyone get sand in their vagina when people articulate, quite clearly, that "free will" is nonsense? There can be responsibility without free will AND and there are already plenty of words which apply to notions which are nonsense.
If "freedom" means freedom from causation, then nothing has ever been free. "Free" would be then an impossible state, and the word would border on meaninglessness. So I submit that's not what "free" actually means.
So, then, "God" exists since we have a word for it? Everything for which there is a word must exist?
No.
No.
No.
No.
Well, apparently the reason for which "free will" exists is that we have a word for it and we hate words whose referrents are nonsense.
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
So, J, how can you have ethical responsibility without free will?
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
Also, again, I am not sure why everyone is insisting that freedom must mean freedom from causation (a nonsense idea). That is obviously not the definition of freedom that most people use in most contexts. I mean look at the dictionary:
free
/fri/ Show Spelled [free] Show IPA adjective, fre·er, fre·est, adverb, verb, freed, free·ing.
–adjective
1.
enjoying personal rights or liberty, as a person who is not in slavery: a land of free people.
2.
pertaining to or reserved for those who enjoy personal liberty: They were thankful to be living on free soil.
3.
existing under, characterized by, or possessing civil and political liberties that are, as a rule, constitutionally guaranteed by representative government: the free nations of the world.
4.
enjoying political autonomy, as a people or country not under foreign rule; independent.
5.
exempt from external authority, interference, restriction, etc., as a person or one's will, thought, choice, action, etc.; independent; unrestricted.
6.
able to do something at will; at liberty: free to choose.
So, J, how can you have ethical responsibility without free will?
The same way that a toaster with faulty wiring is responsible for a fire. If X is a component of the causal chain which resulted in event-Y, then X is responsible for event-Y. We can then quantify the degree of causal influence with regard to immediacy to to the event, the percent of other causal influences, etc. to discern the degree of responsibile for any component of the causal chain.
If you reply: "But that's not what the majority of people mean by 'responsible'!"
Well, so what? People are wrong. If everything for which you argue is going to be ultimately founded upon public perception? Then there is no point to the argument; you are simply describing what people take to be the case without any concern for what is true.
I mean, honestly, is that your argument? "My mom thinks 'free will' means 'x' and 'responsible' means 'y' so that is what free will and responsible mean."
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
So, J, how can you have ethical responsibility without free will?
The same way that a toaster with faulty wiring is responsible for a fire. If X is a component of the causal chain which resulted in event-Y, then X is responsible for event-Y. We can then quantify the degree of causal influence with regard to immediacy to to the event, the percent of other causal influences, etc. to discern the degree of responsibile for any component of the causal chain.
If you reply: "But that's not what the majority of people mean by 'responsible'!"
Well, so what? People are wrong. If everything for which you argue is going to be ultimately founded upon public perception? Then there is no point to the argument; you are simply describing what people take to be the case without any concern for what is true.
I mean, honestly, is that your argument? "My mom thinks 'free will' means 'x' and 'responsible' means 'y' so that is what free will and responsible mean."
The key word in "ethical responsibility" is "ethical." Do you believe that a toaster has ethics?
And yes, words only have meaning through consensus.
Also, again, I am not sure why everyone is insisting that freedom must mean freedom from causation (a nonsense idea). That is obviously not the definition of freedom that most people use in most contexts.
Who cares what definition people use in most contexts? We're trying to discern what is TRUE.
I can provide you with quotes from Schelling which define freedom in basically the same way I define it. But if your only reply is going to be "But that's not what my mom thinks 'freedom' means." then there's no need for me to try to articulate anything or argue anything.
If your whole damn argument is "I think X cause that's what 51% of people think and 51% of people are right because they are 51%." then we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
Also, again, I am not sure why everyone is insisting that freedom must mean freedom from causation (a nonsense idea). That is obviously not the definition of freedom that most people use in most contexts.
Who cares what definition people use in most contexts? We're trying to discern what is TRUE.
The different between incompatibilism and compatibilism is essentially a matter of perspective and semantics. Words have fluid definitions that are determined by consensus. You can say that "no this is what freedom means" until you are blue in the face but if you can't persuade people to accept your definition then you are just talking to yourself. And communicating nothing other than your own pigheadedness.
And yes, words only have meaning through consensus.
If this is your understanding, we two shall never agree. I respect your utilization of Wittgenstein, but Wittgenstein is fucking wrong. I do not grant his premises.
If "freedom" means freedom from causation, then nothing has ever been free. "Free" would be then an impossible state, and the word would border on meaninglessness. So I submit that's not what "free" actually means.
So, then, "God" exists since we have a word for it? Everything for which there is a word must exist?
He's saying that if a supposed definition is impossibly meaningless, then any use of the word should imply some other definition than the meaningless one. This should not imply in any way that anything which does have a word therefore must refernce something that exists in a particular context. It only means that the use of a word implies the user has some meaningful definition of that word, else the word would not be used. You don't have a meaningful definition of free, and hence ought not to be using that word at all. When we use it, it is based on a meaningful definition.
1) There are ways of having ethical / moral responsibility without free will; free will is not a requirement for ethical / moral responsibility.
Praytell. This should be interesting. Word of warning: whatever you think you can use to justify responsibility will almost certainly be what sane people refer to as "free will."
EDIT: Oh ok, I see the causation thing. We had this very discussion pages ago, about a toaster, in fact. I'll just point you to it and you can go back and answer it from there. It's at the bottom. tl;dr, if you say that toasters and people are equally responsible for things, then you are most certainly denying any such thing as responsibility in the sense we are discussing. You're claiming that putting a toaster on trial and sending it to jail would be no different than putting someone on trial for choosing to ignore safety standards in the design of their toasters and holding them accountable for it.
2) There are words and terms for things which do not exist.
I think the complexity of the discussion on this point has gone above your head. We don't have a problem with there being words for things that don't exist under certain contexts of existence. We ahve a problem with your use of words which you define in terms that make those words utterly meaningless, but then suppose you can convey any meaning at all to us by using them. If you're using a word that doesn't mean anything, no one cares whether you say it exists or doesn't exist. Because the word itself is meaningless, you're cut off at the ankles before you can even claim existence or non-existence.
Your statements on this matter are internally inconsistent and represent notions that were arrived at through faulty reasoning. That is the problem, one we hope to help remedy.
Yar on
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HachfaceNot the Minister Farrakhan you're thinking ofDammit, Shepard!Registered Userregular
And yes, words only have meaning through consensus.
If this is your understanding, we two shall never agree. I respect your utilization of Wittgenstein, but Wittgenstein is fucking wrong. I do not grant his premises.
Also, again, I am not sure why everyone is insisting that freedom must mean freedom from causation (a nonsense idea). That is obviously not the definition of freedom that most people use in most contexts.
Who cares what definition people use in most contexts? We're trying to discern what is TRUE.
The different between incompatibilism and compatibilism is essentially a matter of perspective and semantics. Words have fluid definitions that are determined by consensus. You can say that "no this is what freedom means" until you are blue in the face but if you can't persuade people to accept your definition then you are just talking to yourself. And communicating nothing other than your own pigheadedness.
I do not think the concern is for perspective and semantics. I think compatibilism is concerned with pragmatic or practical issues while incompatibilism is concerned with metaphysics and ontology.
if you can't persuade people to accept your definition then you are just talking to yourself
Truth is not determined by vote. Persuading people is not the point of philosophy. If people happen to be persuaded along the way of the quest for Truth and Certainty? Well, ok, cool.
I like to engage in debate and discourse; I like to learn what people think of my arguments. But if the only argument against my definition of freedom is "that is not what most people think the word means!" then my only question is why anyone would care what most people think.
Which is what I'm interested in now. Why does "51% of people think word X means Y" matter? And if your reply is "Wittgenstein said that meaning is use" then, ok, well we're done.
If the whole damn thread ends in Wittgenstein then all we have to talk about is wittgenstein.
Exactly - so why keep using the same terminology to describe something completely different?
That's what we're saying. It isn't free will that's archaic and meaningless, it's you guys' insisted definition of free that is archaic and meaningless.
Also, _J_ frequently resorts to mystical bullshit in all of these threads. I think he actually believes a lot of it, and I don't have much problem with any of it, I just wish he'd start out with them so we could properly contextualize the rest of his arguments.
Regardless though, the Theory of Forms provides ample room for Free Will, particulary the less meaningful notions of free will that _J_ himself insists upon. It supposes an ideal uncaused realm separate from physical existence.
I like to engage in debate and discourse; I like to learn what people think of my arguments. But if the only argument against my definition of freedom is "that is not what most people think the word means!" then my only question is why anyone would care what most people think.
It's funny that you believe such is the "only" argument. You're ignoring the many others. Regardless, I think you've been asked enough times now to justify your own alternative manner of defining something. Shall I take it that your preferred method is Plato's Theory of Forms? Because I can still give you your Free Will under that notion of truth, too. Like I said, I can use pretty much any semi-rational, or even barely-rational notion of truth and still show that arguments against free will are inconsistent and self-contradictory and meaningless, whereas arguments for it are sound and superior.
As for there being no point to persuasion, what do you think debate and discourse are? To what end are you countering others' arguments? There are several people in this thread who have reasoned about this matter with greater success and accuracy than you have, do you not believe that they might eventually be able to communicate to you the reasoning that failed you?
EDIT: There's been a lot of walls of text recently, but I want to clear up one point that's really bugging me. Please read this entire part before trying to cut out pieces and recycle the whole discussion again. Several of you, such as ML and _J_, have claimed repeatedly that our argument for our notion of free will is nothing but "duh" or "obviously!" or "it just is," whereas yours has been clearly articulated.
Mine is this: Free will is a capacity to envision possible futures and act with personal preference towards some and away from others, free from a dominant coercion of others, or from accident or duress, or any other force that singificantly over-powers causes of general personal preferences for the future, and to do so in a relatively complex and adaptive manner as opposed to only within a small set of circumstances and possible decisions.
Speaking for others here, we find this definition preferable, because it lends itself to help identify and judge those who we feel have the preference and vision to act in ways that harm others, specifically when such vision and preferences were relatively dominant and direct causes of an actualized harm, and hence hold them responsible. It is consistent and doesn't contradict itself, and represents a signficant quality affecting all of us in our everday lives and is usable in order to make judgments, not just in our legal system but in our personal daily lives. It is a concept that allows us to, for example, put an executive of a toaster company on trial for gross negligence of industry standards in safety design, as opposed to putting the toaster itself on trial for causing the fire. Or simply to remain friends with those who hurt us by accident and avoid those who bully us. It is a significant quality unique to humans and perhaps in some fashion to intelligent social animals and maybe AIs someday soon. It is also what people generally mean by Free Will, a fact that our opponents seem to accept as true. And, most importantly to the OP, we find this definition to be entirely compatible with the reasoning behind Determinism. It is in no way affected, diluted, or rendered any less meaningful by the presumable nature of cause-and-effect and invariable destiny.
The opposing articulation so far appears to me to be "Free Will means uncaused randomness that compels people to act independent of any causes, even independent of their own desires and preferences. A will cannot be called free unless it is free from even its own physical existence." Naturally this definition stands in outright contrast to determinism. One might describe it by saying "Free Will means indeterminism of the will." And maybe I've missed something, but I've yet to see any argument whatsoever as to why this is a preferred notion of free will, other than simple outright refusal to accept the challenge that this defintion needs to be justified, usable, or meaningful in any way.
Since you've made several statements about our arguments being nothing more than "duh" and "just because" and so forth, and whereas yours have been clearly articulated, I've seen fit to reiterate again at least my own version of some core arguments. I would like for someone on the opposing side to do the same. Specifically, to explain, or to repeat for me, where you've articulated the reasons that the definition of Free Will as "supernatural uncaused random compulsion to act independent of anything" is actually a preferred or better definition, or why this must be the definition used, as opposed to ours and its many justifications given above. That last part I think is key to the current phase of this discussion.
1. The theory of forms is mystical bullshit.
2. It is also not incompatible with linguistic descriptivism. It is in fact entirely mute on semantics.
Stop being dense on purpose.
I find it curious that in a philosophy thread you could consider Platonism to be trolling.
1) No, the theory of forms is an establish philosophical tradition originating in Platonism.
2) Fuck Linguistic Description. Modern theories are neither Certain no A Priori, self-evidently true. One can argue for them, but they are not necessarily true or the ONLY way to articulate a theory of language.
_J_ on
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MrMisterJesus dying on the cross in pain? Morally better than us. One has to go "all in".Registered Userregular
edited July 2010
Platonism still exists, J, but no one buys the theory of recollection because it is completely ridiculous.
Mine is this: Free will is a capacity to envision possible futures and act with personal preference towards some and away from others, free from a dominant coercion of others, or from accident or duress, or any other force that singificantly over-powers causes of general personal preferences for the future, and to do so in a relatively complex and adaptive manner as opposed to only within a small set of circumstances and possible decisions.
- What is it to "envision"?
- What constitutes a "possible" future?
- What is "personal" preference? What constitutes the "person" in "personal"?
- What is "coercion"?
- What is an "accident"?
- What is "duress"?
- What is "significant" over-powering?
- What is "relativly" complex?
- What constitutes a "small" set of circumstances?
Since you aren't going to answer any of those, here is the one I care about:
X desires Z.
Within a causally deterministic universe, X will have been causally determined to have that desire. Right? Ok.
Now, it was maintained that free will is free from coercion. So, I understand this to be the problem:
X wants Z as a result of the "preference for Z".
X came to have "preference for Z" as a result of external causal forces.
Coercsion is an external causal force.
So, how is X free when it acts on its "preference for Z" since that preference came to be as a result of coercion?
If I shove some electrodes into Player-A, zap its brain, and make "desire for Z" appear, is Player-A freely desiring Z? Or is this coercion on the part of my putting electrodes into Player-A's brain?
If it is coercion, then EVERYTHING IS COERCION because every desire results from a causal chain which originates external to the agent who desires.
If it is not coercion, then "freedom" just means "acting in accord with one's programming".
Specifically, to explain, or to repeat for me, where you've articulated the reasons that the definition of Free Will as "supernatural uncaused random compulsion to act independent of anything" is actually a preferred or better definition, or why this must be the definition used, as opposed to ours and its many justifications given above. That last part I think is key to the current phase of this discussion.
The problem with replying to this is that you predicate definitions upon "preference" and suggest that multiple definitions are valid, live options which are then assessed and picked based upon social / practical concerns and a vote.
Free means X.
Free means Y.
Free means Z.
By what you have said, these are all value-neutral articulations which are then assessed with regard to practical, societal concerns. These definitions have no value unto themselves, but rather are assessed and picked with regard for some societal shopping list.
- We need a definition which coheres with our judicial system.
- We need a definition most people can understand.
- We need a definition most people like.
- We need a definition which allows us to do that which we want to do.
Based upon these concerns, the definitions X, Y, and Z are then assessed. That definition which most accomodates the above desires is then maintained to be "true".
The difficult is that this process is COMPLETELY FUCKING BACKWARDS.
A reasonable person does not start with "I want to punish people / I want people to be morally responsible." and then work BACKWARDS to articulate a system which supports that desire.
A reasonable person starts with the question "Is moral responsibility something which actually exists?" Then, one considers the metaphysics of reality to discern whether or not "moral responsibility" is floating around out there.
Upon engaging in this inquiry, one will discover causality. One will discover that all events are caused, that persons are caused to act as they necessarily must. As a result of this inquiry, one will realize that "moral responsibility" conceived under a notion of "freedom" is nonsense, given that there is no such thing as freedom, given that everything is caused.
So, then, one abandons the notion of moral responsibility founded upon freedom, as there is no such thing as freedom to serve as a foundation.
TL;DR
One does not start with "I want X" and then work backwards to construct an argument which supports X.
One starts with "nothing" and then tries to figure out what actually, metaphysically, exists. Then articulates that existence.
My definition of free is not "more better" or "more preferable" or "more workable" or "more functional" or "more pragmatic" than others.
My definition is just plain fucking True. Other definitions are just plain fucking False.
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It's Free Will v Determinism. That's a debate on the metaphysics of causality.
Well when utility lies in communication, and popular opinion deals with how people understand your words I think it necessarily follows that the two are quite closely linked.
Yes. And this is especially the case when most popular use of the term presupposes the coherent meaning.
Generally, thinking this is a sign that you are on the wrong side of an issue.
Also Yar, some clarification: you have said things like this
Which could be understood in the way I did, or could imply something else. To what extent do you believe truth is a matter of usefulness? Was my characterization earlier on this page of your reference to usefulness representative of your stance?
Coherency is in no way an objective measurement. I find your stance incoherent. You find mine incoherent.
Yar will claim this means I am incoherent. I will claim that Yar is incoherent. Yar will claim this is fine, but he is right. And thus the circle completes.
Coherency is a function of one's entire world view, from axioms on down. If someone's axioms are different to yours, there's going to be a fundamental disconnect.
So, given that, how are you defining coherency? Logic? What kind of logic? What axioms are you using? What premises/definitions follow on from those axioms? And so on.
You telling me that you consider something incoherent is a worthless piece of information to me unless I know whats behind that subjective judgement. I've got no reason to take it seriously otherwise.
'free will' is commonly used in such a way as to imply personal responsibility. If one is claiming that free will is uncaused and free will is responsible then they are using an incoherent notion of free will.
On the other hand if someone is simply (and primarily) using 'free will' as a term to denote something corresponding to responsibility - then they are assuming the existence of free will as a coherent concept. The question "do people have free will?" is similar to or identical to "are people responsible?" "do people have liberty?" And they are all asking if people possess a certain trait. They assume that the trait is itself logically possible and are asking if people express it.
You could prove the question nonsensical if you can prove the trait necessarily does not exist - but compatibilism offers a coherent formulation of this trait that works within our language game.
So to be exact I don't think your stance is incoherent: I think it's coherent but fucking retarded. It's like purposefully misunderstanding a question.
So claiming that someone who is using a meaning from one field is doing it wrong because of this meaning from another field isn't even a real claim. It's a nothing. I mean no shit you can't compare two different fields easily. That's why they are different, you see.
You seem to want to grapple with the issue of people having different meanings for the same word, which is fine and admirable.
But you are doing it by claiming only one meaning is allowed per word. Which is baffling and silly.
Whats next, are you going to go through the dictionary and sort out all the multiple definition words in there too?
I'm not sure who you are referring to when you talk about claiming free will is both uncaused and responsible. I haven't really talked about moral responsibility at all. At least, that's what I thought I was doing. Perhaps you interpreted me differently?
I don't think free will exists at all. As an entity, I don't think it is. I think it is not. I'm saying that there is a deterministic explanation for any given behavior you might express and the claim that there is not is as equally unsolvable as the claim that there is. You cannot ever repeat a choice perfectly because you can't reset the universe. To perfectly prove wether or not free will exists you would need to replicate the exact conditions a given human encountered in that situation, including not having had an experience of that situation before. Except that as organisms within the world, a human being is affected by everything around it at all times, by psychological, social and biological influences. So I don't see how it is possible to even make the claim that someone can choose other than what they are influenced to do. You simply cannot set up that experiment, ever. It's a big fat assumption.
On the other hand, as more and more is known about how we are influenced by what is around us, there is much greater ability to understand how people are influenced and much greater ability to predict how a person will behave based on knowledge of what psychosociobiological factors are influencing them. So there is evidence, growing evidence, that is taking away more and more behaviors from the wing of free will and personal responsibility. For example, mental illnesses. Crazy people used to be just considered wrong, bad, evil and choosing to do the wrong thing.
Other examples, such as further understanding of how a person is influenced by their social environment, have thrown questions on various moral ideas. For example, the milligram experiments or the stanford prison experiment question just how responsible someone is when ordered to do something by authority for the former and, in the case of the latter, how responsible someone is for what they do when in a given cultural role. Deindividuation in large groups of people is anothe rexample. Throw a human being in a large enough group of humans and they need to have extremely strong beliefs to withstand the sheer pressure of all the human animals around them.
You can make a personality profile of someone and predict what they are going to do with an incredible level of success. You can manipulate what they are experiencing to change how they act, again with a huge level of success, well above chance.
So there is support for determinism. People do seem to be shaped by their psychosociobio environment. Decades and decades of experiments lend support to this. In comparison, it is impossible to actually set up a free will experiment because you can't ever reset both the environment and the human being and try again to see if they do make another choice given the same circumstances.
So I'm not sure how one can claim I am saying free will is anything. That would be, I think, a fundamental misunderstanding of what I have been trying to say.
I'm trying to find a justification for being able to claim that anybody has free will as it has been defined by all the definitions I have encountered, including the compatabilist ones. All I keep running into is "it is obvious, duh" which baffles me. You'd think such an incredibly important concept that leads onto all these other important things, like morality, our legal system, and so on, would have a solid foundation. A strong bedrock upon which it rests. This doesn't seem to be the case.
I also wanted to mention that the claim that determinism is unfasifiable is a misunderstanding of where falsifiability came from. Falsifiability only applies at the level of theory and also at the level of hypothesis testing, it doesn't apply at the axiomatic level. For most sciences, determinism is a requirement. There's no point in performing experiments if there is no cause and effect. So determinism is an axiom, and a claim of unfalsifiability is an incorrect accusation. It doesn't apply. How do you falsify something scientifically without cause and effect? You can't! Yar was the one who mentioned this and I wanted to respond at the time, but couldn't due to time pressures.
Just going to go ahead and echo Morninglord: As far as I know I have never discussed personal reponsibility, in this thread, or implied that there exists any sort of thing as a moral responsibility which results from freedom of the will, in this thread.
I already defined "free" earlier: Uncaused, unconstrained, etc. A free will would be a will of complete uncaused / unconstrained randomness.
I will grant that in a deterministic system a particular amalgamation of particulars can combine to cause event X. If a coffee maker has faulty wiring and that faulty wiring starts a fire then there is a causal story wherein the coffee maker's wiring, the electricity, etc. "caused" the fire. But that is not moral or ethical responsibility. That is just a causal story.
Determinism: Yes.
Free Will: No.
Moral Responsibility: No.
Incoherent position? No.
For someone who constantly accuses other people of not reading what people post? You do not seem to be doing a very good job yourself. We are not arguing incoherent positions.
This is the point at which I think your argument is basically question begging.
If people are responsible, then People have free will.
Persons are considered to be responsible.
Therefore, people have free will.
But that is not answering the question of whether or not people are, in fact, responsible. That is saying that persons are considered to be responsible; it is a simple description of social considerations. The question in a free will debate (for persons who engage in philosophy) is to ask if people ARE responsible. That would require an investigation into metaphysics and ontology to discern whether or not persons are, in fact, responsible for their actions. Which to ask whether or not people have free will, which would be to ask how there can be freedom in a causally deterministic universe.
That would be a philosophical discussion.
Your position, as I understand it, is just "We treat people as if they are responsible SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP." without ever having a moment of enlightenment when you ask whether or not positing responsibility onto a particular individual is at all justified or sensible.
If your position really is "society treats people as if they are responsible, so they are." then ok, fine. But that is not an argument; that is a description of how society works.
Are you interested in having a discussion about metaphysics and ontology? Or are you just here to tell us all things we already know about how legal systems function in 2010 on Earth?
Edit: Here is another way of articulating what I take you to be saying.
If people consider the earth to be flat, then the earth is flat.
People consider the earth to be flat.
Therefore, the earth is flat.
If that is how you think the world works then, ok. But I have a couple hundred books of shit people previously thought to be the case which is no longer thought to be the case. So I have no idea why "people think it" is any reason to think the "it" true.
Free Will makes no god damned sense. The only way to try to get it to make sense is to write things akin to that which Schelling wrote. And no one in this thread is doing that. At best, there is a claim that "people consider themselves to be free" which is then supported with nonsense and hateful ad hominem attacks.
Yeah. That is pretty awesome. I do not know of any good arguments for freedom or free will. Usually the argument is
"we have it; fuck you."
or
"we do not have it for the following well-conceived and clearly articulated reasons: causality."
Schelling makes kind of a good argument...if you can put up with the notion of a Godhead of rotary motion.
The entire idea that free will must entail freedom not only from human coercion but also a mystical sort of freedom from the forces of nature is an artifact of Christian theology; it was an idea dreamed up to solve the problem of evil in a universe with a just God. This medieval innovation should be discarded. The Ancient Greeks, for example, were fatalistic -- really just an old form of deterministic -- but they also had no trouble with the concept of ethical responsibility. By insisting that freedom of will means freedom from causation, you have accepted the definition of medieval theologians. But they were stupid, and you shouldn't use their definition.
Exactly - so why keep using the same terminology to describe something completely different?
I'm not sure that anyone in this thread has trouble with the concept of ethical responsibility either?
If someone tells me "Tom, Dick, and Harry robbed the bank. Tom was coerced but the other two did it if their own free will." I understand what they are saying - and I don't think they should use different words.
But that doesn't mean that any of them "have Free Will." That is something completely different.
We all agree that humans are Sapient; they make decisions. In the bank robbing example, we are distinguishing between which Wills we are holding ethically/morally/legally responsible for the actions taken by the men.
Likewise, it makes just as much sense to say "The cash registers in the new store aren't charging sales tax. A few of them have that stupid computer virus we were warned about but the rest are doing it of their own free will." This doesn't mean that I think the cash registers have Free Will and no one would take me to be implying that they do.
I don't think that anyone is saying that, in the realm of social constructs like morality, law or ethical responsibility, we should not use the useful social construct free will vs coercion. I'm certainly not saying we should open the jails and empty them out.
What I am saying, is that Free Will, like the tooth fairy, does not exist. Free Will, like a Soul, is not something that people have. The course of your life is set, and no triumph of human spirit will change that course. You are not the master of your own destiny.
So, then, "God" exists since we have a word for it? Everything for which there is a word must exist?
No.
No.
No.
No.
"We believe in the people and their 'wisdom' as if there was some special secret entrance to knowledge that barred to anyone who had ever learned anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche
That's a bit closer than your last several purposeful mischaracterizatrions. We're getting there. But anyway, the above is an example of that sort of general property of human existence I'm talking about. Yes, generally, as human beings, we are able to make complex decisions regarding reasoned expectations of the future and our preferences thereof. A man in jail is still a human being with a general prpoerty of free will. However, he has very limited chance to actualize it while in jail.
No, I am not.
It is common to describe a constituent of a whole as being possessed by the whole, and does not necessitate that the whole be anything more than the collection of constituents. I find it odd that you are trying to use my own argument against me; it clearly supports my position and denies your own.
"My arm" need not imply anything more than "the arm which makes up a part of me" and does not require that I be something separate from those things which make up me. On the other hand, you cannot say "arms are just an imaginary name we give to a collection of fingers and palms and wrists and forearms and shoulders. Therefore, Yar doesn't have arms. He'll have to use his legs or something to pick things up." That is obviously incoherent nonsense. But it is how you argue against Free Will.
I edited out a lot of the snark that was so-very-not warranted and only made you look silly.
But what are you claiming is the self here? The physical body? Are not desires made up of the physical body? Don't the brain and stomach make up the desire for cake? If desires are not part of the physical body, then aren't you arguing for an independent soul?
Either a) the desires that occur within the body are a collection of physical things, in whcih case nothing has changed, and you're still saying that the body is a slave to itself (which, in case you haven't figured out, means the body is its own master: Free Will), or else b) desires and other such causal qualities of human life are not of the material world, they are causeless mystic souls that guide us: Free Will. Again I must point out that this is exactly where I trapped you when we did this same discussion years ago.
Not very different, no. Common usage is usage. Usage is utility. But the problem is that you refuse to provide the alternative. You say we should use a meaning just because you say that's what it means, despite what you say contrasting with any common usage or even logical consistency. We have popular usage and rational consistency. Maybe that doesn't do it for you, but what do you have?
The utility issue is a distraction. I've long learned that forumers will pounce on a distraction to avoid having to continue to defend what has unveiled itself as indefensible. If you want to know what they are going on about, see here. The bottom line is that they smelled blood and are dog-piling on a scarcely related issue that was never resolved well, because they can't even answer simple challenges to their own position here now.
I shouldn't have gotten roped into it. I can work under any semi-reasonable notion of truth. Compatibilism reigns most rational under any of them. Truth is usually a value assigned to a statement in one system when it can be consistently evaluated by filling in elements from another independent system. Often we invoke reason and observation, such that reasoning is considered true when it correctly predicts observation, and observation is proven true when it passes a reasoning check, and back and forth and so on. Another common one is to evaluate classical logic using mathematics. More commonfolk definitions will describe it as a value of a statement in human language when it is evaluated against reality. That last one I feel is rather problematic unless you suppose that it is just a different way of stating the one about reason and observation.
To answer your question, yes, the way we got there this time is through debating what ought to be the definition of a word. I invoked the usefulness (and logical consistency and alignment with common usage) of a certain definition over the uselessness (and inconsistency and defiance of common usage) of another. They har-har mightily, and sarcastically jest about our references to usefulness and usage, but offer no alternative manner in which to justify their preferred definition, except "that's what I say it is and that's what it is."
The burden is on you to justify some purpose of this definition, or otherwise abandon it in the face of alternative definitions that have purposes. Or, at least, to abandon your challenge of those latter definitions, until you can justify your own. You seem to think that this is just a matter of us saying potato and you saying potahto, except we're arguing why potato is useful and meaningful and better, and you're just arguing "potato, potahto, my definition is my definition, man."
Including event categorized as "Free Will."
More like,
Determinism: Yes
Free Will: No.
Anything else in existence, including myself and my own concepts of determinism and Free Will: No.
Which is, unfortunately, still rather incoherent.
We've been here before, philosophically. I think you know where it leads. Your last paragraph clearly invalidates the second premise: people don't consider the earth to be flat. You somehow failed to recognize that the manner in which you disproved "truth is what people consider to be true" is by showing us that truth is, in fact, what people consider to be true.
If you want to make the argument you think you're making, you'd have to give me a truth that no one considers to be true. Of course you know, that is impossible.
Keep in mind that I'll I'm showing here is that your argument fails. You used the definition of truth you were attacking in order to disprove it. That doesn't work. But I'm not actually arguing for "truth as what we consider," not right now. That would also be a needless distraction.
I understand that you still feel this way, but the rational discourse so far in this thread leads to the exact opposite conclusions. It is only your useless concept of Free Will that makes no god damned sense. The general concept most people have does make sense.
Then you are getting close to a rational stance. Most of this post is a good argument for exactly why Free Will does exist, in the same sense that anything can said to exist. Similarly, your statement that it is a fairy tale and doesn't exist, is only so in the manner that anything at all can be said to be imaginary and non-existent.
You are incorrect about what most people here have argued. They have in fact argued against responsibility, and that there is no difference whatsoever between the robber coerced and the robber not. I'm curious, though, why you would describe exactly what free will tends to mean, but then follow it up by saying that such is totally different from what free will means. All you need to do is understand that certain statements you're making, like "the course of your life is set, and no triumph of human spirit will change that course. You are not the master of your own destiny" are inconsistent with your own stance. Who is the "you" in that statement? Is he part of that set course, or something separate from it? If he is not the master, is he the slave? If he is the slave, is he a slave to those very things which comprise him? If not, what is he a salve to? If he is a slave to himself, is he then not also his own master? Just as easily as you can claim that the course of my life is set, so too can I claim that my mastery of that course is also equally set. In the end, your notion of there being a set course is utterly useless, inconsequential, and inaccessible to me, it is unprovable and non-falisifiable, merely a belief you have that cannot ever be demonstrated nor disproven, whereas my notion of being the master is quite the opposite on all accounts, and hence I favor that as my truth, without any compromise whatsoever as to what truth means.
Also, saying that the cash registers were acting of their own free will would be, at best, an idiom, and more more likely would elicit a response of, "no, they don't do things of their own free will, let's figure out where the bug is."
I'm not exactly sure if you are joking with the "they were stupid" line, but I hope you are. If a functional philosophical reply to your problem (Zomg how do we have ethical responsibility without freedom?!) is only met with "they were stupid" then I'm not sure how serious you are about the discussion.
1) There are ways of having ethical / moral responsibility without free will; free will is not a requirement for ethical / moral responsibility.
2) There are words and terms for things which do not exist.
So, why the fuck do we need "free will"?
- It doesn't actually exist.
- It is not necessary.
Why the hell does everyone get sand in their vagina when people articulate, quite clearly, that "free will" is nonsense? There can be responsibility without free will AND and there are already plenty of words which apply to notions which are nonsense.
So, what the hell is the problem?
Well, apparently the reason for which "free will" exists is that we have a word for it and we hate words whose referrents are nonsense.
The same way that a toaster with faulty wiring is responsible for a fire. If X is a component of the causal chain which resulted in event-Y, then X is responsible for event-Y. We can then quantify the degree of causal influence with regard to immediacy to to the event, the percent of other causal influences, etc. to discern the degree of responsibile for any component of the causal chain.
If you reply: "But that's not what the majority of people mean by 'responsible'!"
Well, so what? People are wrong. If everything for which you argue is going to be ultimately founded upon public perception? Then there is no point to the argument; you are simply describing what people take to be the case without any concern for what is true.
I mean, honestly, is that your argument? "My mom thinks 'free will' means 'x' and 'responsible' means 'y' so that is what free will and responsible mean."
The key word in "ethical responsibility" is "ethical." Do you believe that a toaster has ethics?
And yes, words only have meaning through consensus.
Who cares what definition people use in most contexts? We're trying to discern what is TRUE.
I can provide you with quotes from Schelling which define freedom in basically the same way I define it. But if your only reply is going to be "But that's not what my mom thinks 'freedom' means." then there's no need for me to try to articulate anything or argue anything.
If your whole damn argument is "I think X cause that's what 51% of people think and 51% of people are right because they are 51%." then we're just going to have to agree to disagree.
I care about Truth.
You care about polling data.
Ain't no way for those two to mesh.
Sure. Why not?
-Because ethics are only had by entities with moral responsibility!
Oh boy! Question begging!
The different between incompatibilism and compatibilism is essentially a matter of perspective and semantics. Words have fluid definitions that are determined by consensus. You can say that "no this is what freedom means" until you are blue in the face but if you can't persuade people to accept your definition then you are just talking to yourself. And communicating nothing other than your own pigheadedness.
If this is your understanding, we two shall never agree. I respect your utilization of Wittgenstein, but Wittgenstein is fucking wrong. I do not grant his premises.
And he would most assuredly not grant mine.
Praytell. This should be interesting. Word of warning: whatever you think you can use to justify responsibility will almost certainly be what sane people refer to as "free will."
EDIT: Oh ok, I see the causation thing. We had this very discussion pages ago, about a toaster, in fact. I'll just point you to it and you can go back and answer it from there. It's at the bottom. tl;dr, if you say that toasters and people are equally responsible for things, then you are most certainly denying any such thing as responsibility in the sense we are discussing. You're claiming that putting a toaster on trial and sending it to jail would be no different than putting someone on trial for choosing to ignore safety standards in the design of their toasters and holding them accountable for it.
I think the complexity of the discussion on this point has gone above your head. We don't have a problem with there being words for things that don't exist under certain contexts of existence. We ahve a problem with your use of words which you define in terms that make those words utterly meaningless, but then suppose you can convey any meaning at all to us by using them. If you're using a word that doesn't mean anything, no one cares whether you say it exists or doesn't exist. Because the word itself is meaningless, you're cut off at the ankles before you can even claim existence or non-existence.
Because the only nonsense here is your articulation.
Your statements on this matter are internally inconsistent and represent notions that were arrived at through faulty reasoning. That is the problem, one we hope to help remedy.
So what ought a toaster do?
How do words obtain meaning?
I do not think the concern is for perspective and semantics. I think compatibilism is concerned with pragmatic or practical issues while incompatibilism is concerned with metaphysics and ontology.
Truth is not determined by vote. Persuading people is not the point of philosophy. If people happen to be persuaded along the way of the quest for Truth and Certainty? Well, ok, cool.
I like to engage in debate and discourse; I like to learn what people think of my arguments. But if the only argument against my definition of freedom is "that is not what most people think the word means!" then my only question is why anyone would care what most people think.
Which is what I'm interested in now. Why does "51% of people think word X means Y" matter? And if your reply is "Wittgenstein said that meaning is use" then, ok, well we're done.
If the whole damn thread ends in Wittgenstein then all we have to talk about is wittgenstein.
Toast.
Are you familiar with the Theory of Forms?
Why should a toaster toast? Who made that rule? People? OK. And what should people do?
Yeah now I think you're trolling.
1. The theory of forms is mystical bullshit.
2. It is also not incompatible with linguistic descriptivism. It is in fact entirely mute on semantics.
Stop being dense on purpose.
Also, _J_ frequently resorts to mystical bullshit in all of these threads. I think he actually believes a lot of it, and I don't have much problem with any of it, I just wish he'd start out with them so we could properly contextualize the rest of his arguments.
Regardless though, the Theory of Forms provides ample room for Free Will, particulary the less meaningful notions of free will that _J_ himself insists upon. It supposes an ideal uncaused realm separate from physical existence.
It's funny that you believe such is the "only" argument. You're ignoring the many others. Regardless, I think you've been asked enough times now to justify your own alternative manner of defining something. Shall I take it that your preferred method is Plato's Theory of Forms? Because I can still give you your Free Will under that notion of truth, too. Like I said, I can use pretty much any semi-rational, or even barely-rational notion of truth and still show that arguments against free will are inconsistent and self-contradictory and meaningless, whereas arguments for it are sound and superior.
As for there being no point to persuasion, what do you think debate and discourse are? To what end are you countering others' arguments? There are several people in this thread who have reasoned about this matter with greater success and accuracy than you have, do you not believe that they might eventually be able to communicate to you the reasoning that failed you?
EDIT: There's been a lot of walls of text recently, but I want to clear up one point that's really bugging me. Please read this entire part before trying to cut out pieces and recycle the whole discussion again. Several of you, such as ML and _J_, have claimed repeatedly that our argument for our notion of free will is nothing but "duh" or "obviously!" or "it just is," whereas yours has been clearly articulated.
Mine is this: Free will is a capacity to envision possible futures and act with personal preference towards some and away from others, free from a dominant coercion of others, or from accident or duress, or any other force that singificantly over-powers causes of general personal preferences for the future, and to do so in a relatively complex and adaptive manner as opposed to only within a small set of circumstances and possible decisions.
Speaking for others here, we find this definition preferable, because it lends itself to help identify and judge those who we feel have the preference and vision to act in ways that harm others, specifically when such vision and preferences were relatively dominant and direct causes of an actualized harm, and hence hold them responsible. It is consistent and doesn't contradict itself, and represents a signficant quality affecting all of us in our everday lives and is usable in order to make judgments, not just in our legal system but in our personal daily lives. It is a concept that allows us to, for example, put an executive of a toaster company on trial for gross negligence of industry standards in safety design, as opposed to putting the toaster itself on trial for causing the fire. Or simply to remain friends with those who hurt us by accident and avoid those who bully us. It is a significant quality unique to humans and perhaps in some fashion to intelligent social animals and maybe AIs someday soon. It is also what people generally mean by Free Will, a fact that our opponents seem to accept as true. And, most importantly to the OP, we find this definition to be entirely compatible with the reasoning behind Determinism. It is in no way affected, diluted, or rendered any less meaningful by the presumable nature of cause-and-effect and invariable destiny.
The opposing articulation so far appears to me to be "Free Will means uncaused randomness that compels people to act independent of any causes, even independent of their own desires and preferences. A will cannot be called free unless it is free from even its own physical existence." Naturally this definition stands in outright contrast to determinism. One might describe it by saying "Free Will means indeterminism of the will." And maybe I've missed something, but I've yet to see any argument whatsoever as to why this is a preferred notion of free will, other than simple outright refusal to accept the challenge that this defintion needs to be justified, usable, or meaningful in any way.
Since you've made several statements about our arguments being nothing more than "duh" and "just because" and so forth, and whereas yours have been clearly articulated, I've seen fit to reiterate again at least my own version of some core arguments. I would like for someone on the opposing side to do the same. Specifically, to explain, or to repeat for me, where you've articulated the reasons that the definition of Free Will as "supernatural uncaused random compulsion to act independent of anything" is actually a preferred or better definition, or why this must be the definition used, as opposed to ours and its many justifications given above. That last part I think is key to the current phase of this discussion.
I find it curious that in a philosophy thread you could consider Platonism to be trolling.
1) No, the theory of forms is an establish philosophical tradition originating in Platonism.
2) Fuck Linguistic Description. Modern theories are neither Certain no A Priori, self-evidently true. One can argue for them, but they are not necessarily true or the ONLY way to articulate a theory of language.
- What is it to "envision"?
- What constitutes a "possible" future?
- What is "personal" preference? What constitutes the "person" in "personal"?
- What is "coercion"?
- What is an "accident"?
- What is "duress"?
- What is "significant" over-powering?
- What is "relativly" complex?
- What constitutes a "small" set of circumstances?
Since you aren't going to answer any of those, here is the one I care about:
X desires Z.
Within a causally deterministic universe, X will have been causally determined to have that desire. Right? Ok.
Now, it was maintained that free will is free from coercion. So, I understand this to be the problem:
X wants Z as a result of the "preference for Z".
X came to have "preference for Z" as a result of external causal forces.
Coercsion is an external causal force.
So, how is X free when it acts on its "preference for Z" since that preference came to be as a result of coercion?
If I shove some electrodes into Player-A, zap its brain, and make "desire for Z" appear, is Player-A freely desiring Z? Or is this coercion on the part of my putting electrodes into Player-A's brain?
If it is coercion, then EVERYTHING IS COERCION because every desire results from a causal chain which originates external to the agent who desires.
If it is not coercion, then "freedom" just means "acting in accord with one's programming".
TL;DR: What constitutes personal preference?
It is not completely ridiculous. It is ridiculous when assessed from a non-compatible system.
In the same way that Spinoza is ridiculous to Wittgenstein; they are operating with contrary primary assumptions.
The problem with replying to this is that you predicate definitions upon "preference" and suggest that multiple definitions are valid, live options which are then assessed and picked based upon social / practical concerns and a vote.
Free means X.
Free means Y.
Free means Z.
By what you have said, these are all value-neutral articulations which are then assessed with regard to practical, societal concerns. These definitions have no value unto themselves, but rather are assessed and picked with regard for some societal shopping list.
- We need a definition which coheres with our judicial system.
- We need a definition most people can understand.
- We need a definition most people like.
- We need a definition which allows us to do that which we want to do.
Based upon these concerns, the definitions X, Y, and Z are then assessed. That definition which most accomodates the above desires is then maintained to be "true".
The difficult is that this process is COMPLETELY FUCKING BACKWARDS.
A reasonable person does not start with "I want to punish people / I want people to be morally responsible." and then work BACKWARDS to articulate a system which supports that desire.
A reasonable person starts with the question "Is moral responsibility something which actually exists?" Then, one considers the metaphysics of reality to discern whether or not "moral responsibility" is floating around out there.
Upon engaging in this inquiry, one will discover causality. One will discover that all events are caused, that persons are caused to act as they necessarily must. As a result of this inquiry, one will realize that "moral responsibility" conceived under a notion of "freedom" is nonsense, given that there is no such thing as freedom, given that everything is caused.
So, then, one abandons the notion of moral responsibility founded upon freedom, as there is no such thing as freedom to serve as a foundation.
TL;DR
One does not start with "I want X" and then work backwards to construct an argument which supports X.
One starts with "nothing" and then tries to figure out what actually, metaphysically, exists. Then articulates that existence.
My definition of free is not "more better" or "more preferable" or "more workable" or "more functional" or "more pragmatic" than others.
My definition is just plain fucking True. Other definitions are just plain fucking False.