My Basic Thought On Free Will

[luckyme]

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The sort of freedom Dennett talks about is consistent with us having no free-will in the sense people usually mean,

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The OP mentioned the need fo a definition which is what is lacking in most peoples sense of free-will.
Free to choose anything is more like a quantum random number generator and could hardly count as "my' choice or any choice.
Constrained in some way by preconditions in my brain doesn't fit any sense of 'free'.

I'm not concerned with the actual mechanism that would give us free will, I'm waiting to hear a definition of it that actually keeps it 'free'.

luckyme

[RayBornert]

It is quite easy to observe that a human has the power of decision wherein the subject is asked to make a selection from two or more choices.

If selected choice is evidence of "will", then the remainder of the discussion has to do with the definition of "free".

Ray

[chezlaw]

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The sort of freedom Dennett talks about is consistent with us having no free-will in the sense people usually mean,

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The OP mentioned the need fo a definition which is what is lacking in most peoples sense of free-will.
Free to choose anything is more like a quantum random number generator and could hardly count as "my' choice or any choice.
Constrained in some way by preconditions in my brain doesn't fit any sense of 'free'.

I'm not concerned with the actual mechanism that would give us free will, I'm waiting to hear a definition of it that actually keeps it 'free'.

luckyme

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Yes, free-will is easy to say but doesn't seem to refer to anything much.

chez

[ConstantineX]

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I'm pretty sure that I have the jist of a proof that free will exists. Intuitively I am almost certain of it.

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well, just scribble in a margin somewhere.

luckyme

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LOL. Hilarious post.

[shemp]

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I'm pretty sure that I have the jist of a proof that free will exists. [...] I might be able to do it myself but I have got a poker tournament to deal with.


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I'm pretty sure I could cure cancer and win the Nobel for Meds-- but my schedule for today has "download porn from the internet" slated for all waking hours. Oh well. Duty calls.

[EnderIII]

so uncertainty about x implies x.

this seems highly implausible for just about anything other than uncertainty and anything that uncertainty implies (thinking for example).

Is the intuition that deliberation (rather than uncertainty) about free will implies free will?

But without assuming free will to begin with, deliberation ought also questioned as whether it legitmately exists. Sure, people reason to conclusions, but is it deliberation if they must end up at one particular answer (is not knowing what the answer will be sufficient to call reasoning deliberation? maybe?)

Without the further elaboration that Russell could provide, this stance is suprisingly uninformative, but at least it recognizes the work required to answer the question well. And since many people have strong feelings about the issue without precise and rigorous definitions, this is worth something.

[pete fabrizio]

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Anyway, it seems to me that somewhere out there in logicland, a proof of free will can be constructed from the simple fact that PEOPLE WONDER (AND DISCUSS) WHETHER THEY HAVE FREE WILL.

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Not really. Discussing and wondering about free will can just be a product of the deliberative process that helps super-smart and incredibly-well adapted beings like humans make very good decisions, taking into account theoretical considerations, etc etc. I.e., the determinist just sees this as a perfectly reasonable (even expected) symptom of high-order reasoning.

I've spent a significant amount of time studying the free will question, and I've come to the conclusion that all sides are just talking past each other using different definitions. Pretty much everyone thinks we have to at least pretend we have free will in order to operate (although this would be true of people who didn't have FW too), and everything past that is kind of spinning wheels.

[river_tilt]

If there is no free will, does it mean that there is an algorithm that will predict all future actions?

Such an algorithm will hit an enormous number of problems. Roger Penrose considers a similar question in a number of his books (e.g. The Emporer's New Mind.) He restricts himself to the question of whether a computer can be programmed to do useful mathematics.

His conclusion stems for Godel's incompleteness theorems. He thinks computers cannot do meaningful maths, whereas humans can.

So humans do have free will.

[pete fabrizio]

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If there is no free will, does it mean that there is an algorithm that will predict all future actions?

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No.

[51cards]

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If there is no free will, does it mean that there is an algorithm that will predict all future actions?

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No.

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I was going to respond, but I think you sum it up pretty well.