My Basic Thought On Free Will

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
"If when a man writes a poem or commits a murder, the bodily movements involved in his act result solely from physical causes, it would seem absurd to put up a statue to him in the one case and to hang him in the other."

This doesn't really say much on the question of whether we have free will or not, but it illustrates the necessity of acting as if.

[/ QUOTE ]
I assume Russell is talking morality because its fairly obvious why we would seek to stop behavior that hurt us and encourage behavior we like.

If someones going around murdering people then we want him stopped. What difference does it make whether or not we believe the murdering is an act of free-will?

How would you behave differently if you believed you had no free-will?

chez

[Marnixvdb]

David,

your 'proof' sounds very much like the logically flawed ontological God proof to me

It seems impossible to give a conclusive proof of free will as it is impossible to repeat the exact circumstances under which an hypothetical act of free will was made: we cannot undo a previous experience, and we cannot undo time.

[keith123]

so by saying we have free will, is one saying that free will is the cause of our choices?

[F Paulsson]

[ QUOTE ]
How would you behave differently if you believed you had no free-will?

[/ QUOTE ]
You'd have a justice system based entirely on rehabilitation and deterrence, and not on revenge.

One where, say, the family of the victim didn't have a say in whether or not someone should get a parole.

[chezlaw]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
How would you behave differently if you believed you had no free-will?

[/ QUOTE ]
You'd have a justice system based entirely on rehabilitation and deterrence, and not on revenge.

One where, say, the family of the victim didn't have a say in whether or not someone should get a parole.

[/ QUOTE ]
If so belief in free-will would actually a bad thing (I take it you agree that Russell didn't think revenge was anything to do with justice).

but in fact it makes no difference because the desire for revenge is an emotion that would still exist in some. Many people who had no belief in free-will would still want revenge and many people who do believe in free-will would be generally against revenge within the justice system.

chez

[Roland32]

Please correct my thinking here but I could of sworn I read a post in SMP that staed something like this:

Because we dont have a theory of everything yet it could be possible that the one that does..
Would be based on probability on a quantum level ( I feel that I am already butchering this explanation but bare with me) so within a internal mental system, a decision could be based on a probability of a reaction between some quatom bodies. SO an answer could be yes or no based on the probability of the outcome. This would mean that you have freewill because a decision could go either way if it were to happen under the exact same circumstances (this is a hypothetical held outside the universe or dimension or whatever) So the freewill is based on the fact that it canot be known what a decision is going to be even though it is already within a set parameter.

I botched this but hopefully somebody can salvage this and explain why this is wrong.

[KUJustin]

I haven't read through the thread but I'll have to give this some thought. On the surface it's something that either has a lot of truth in it or is one of those great meaningless phrases that makes itself seem to have profound meaning.

[Dr_Doctr]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forums and am currently studying for a doctorate in philosophy so I was pleased to see all these posts on interesting topics. I'm probably better at philosophy than poker but that wouldn't be saying much [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img].

David, love the books especially 'Theory of Poker'. This post will be quick but hopefully I can get back to it later. I am particularly interested in the 'free-will' problem and if anyone wants I can send them interesting material on it.

[ QUOTE ]

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.


[/ QUOTE ]

You seem to be arguing from the conceivability of free-will to it's existence. There are two problems here. The first has already been mentioned - that this seems analogous to the line of argumentation in the various ontological proofs for the existence of God, and hence would be subject to similar criticisms.

But we can ignore this criticism, even if it isn't valid, as there is a second one that is far more serious. Who ever said free-will was conceivable? I think the notion is demonstrably incoherent - it is conceivable only in the manner that square circles are conceivable. Determinism is completely irrelevant to whether we have free-will or not. Notice the structure of that last sentence. Saying things like 'whether we have free-will or not' tricks us into thinking that there is some thing called 'free-will' and some fact in which it is involved. But it is similar to saying 'I wonder if there are any square circles in this office?'.

Free-will is dependent on causa-sui, or self-causation, which is an incoherent notion. Below is a very short argument. This is the general thrust of more complex arguments for the incoherence of free-will, but they are all pretty much the same.

1) For any given event, that event is either determined by prior causes, or it randomly occurs.

2) My actions are composed of a series of events.

3) If my actions are determined by prior causes, then they are not free actions.

4) If my actions are random, then they are not free actions.

5) Therefore, my actions are not free actions.


Notice that true metaphysical randomness, of the kind posited by quantum mechanics, is as irrelevant to the free-will problem as determinism. The issue is not whether we have free-will, but whether anyone can present a coherent formulation of 'free-will'. I have studied this problem for a long time so you can take my word for it - no one ever has. So sorry, we don't have 'free-will', or more correctly, the concept of 'free-will' is incoherent. Like a wall of infinite length, there's no getting around it.

I will try to get back to this thread if anyone replies and please let me know if anyone wants some material to read on this problem.

[Roland32]

[ QUOTE ]
Hi all,

I'm new to the forums and am currently studying for a doctorate in philosophy so I was pleased to see all these posts on interesting topics. I'm probably better at philosophy than poker but that wouldn't be saying much [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img].

David, love the books especially 'Theory of Poker'. This post will be quick but hopefully I can get back to it later. I am particularly interested in the 'free-will' problem and if anyone wants I can send them interesting material on it.

[ QUOTE ]

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.


[/ QUOTE ]

You seem to be arguing from the conceivability of free-will to it's existence. There are two problems here. The first has already been mentioned - that this seems analogous to the line of argumentation in the various ontological proofs for the existence of God, and hence would be subject to similar criticisms.

But we can ignore this criticism, even if it isn't valid, as there is a second one that is far more serious. Who ever said free-will was conceivable? I think the notion is demonstrably incoherent - it is conceivable only in the manner that square circles are conceivable. Determinism is completely irrelevant to whether we have free-will or not. Notice the structure of that last sentence. Saying things like 'whether we have free-will or not' tricks us into thinking that there is some thing called 'free-will' and some fact in which it is involved. But it is similar to saying 'I wonder if there are any square circles in this office?'.

Free-will is dependent on causa-sui, or self-causation, which is an incoherent notion. Below is a very short argument. This is the general thrust of more complex arguments for the incoherence of free-will, but they are all pretty much the same.

1) For any given event, that event is either determined by prior causes, or it randomly occurs.

2) My actions are composed of a series of events.

3) If my actions are determined by prior causes, then they are not free actions.

4) If my actions are random, then they are not free actions.

5) Therefore, my actions are not free actions.


Notice that true metaphysical randomness, of the kind posited by quantum mechanics, is as irrelevant to the free-will problem as determinism. The issue is not whether we have free-will, but whether anyone can present a coherent formulation of 'free-will'. I have studied this problem for a long time so you can take my word for it - no one ever has. So sorry, we don't have 'free-will', or more correctly, the concept of 'free-will' is incoherent. Like a wall of infinite length, there's no getting around it.

I will try to get back to this thread if anyone replies and please let me know if anyone wants some material to read on this problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Interesting, there is a Science, Math and Philosophy forum on this website that you should check out, I think you would make an interesting contributor there.

[West]

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1) For any given event, that event is either determined by prior causes, or it randomly occurs.


[/ QUOTE ]

I'm unconvinced of the first premise of your argument. Why couldn't an event be influenced, but not determined by, prior causes, and also not be random (because it's 'chosen')?