Summations Only

Evidence?I think that most people would class that as an exercise of free will; as contrasted with the situation where the Magic Free Will Fairies spin their invisible roulette wheel.Try it on the next person you meet. "John Smith is fatally allergic to peanuts. I offer him a chocolate bar which he knows contains peanuts. Because he wants to live, he chooses not to eat the Chocolate Bar Of Death. Was he acting of his own free will?"I will bet you that out of the next ten people whom you ask that question, not one of them will answer: "No, he wasn't, because he wanted to live." Which is exactly why I brought this up. That's the point. That's why I said your example was too good for its own good. You might indeed by the sophistical arguments that I suggested convince a believer in libertarian free will exercised by an immaterial soul that Mr. Peanut Allergy Guy's decision was not free will. That's why it's not an argument against compatibilism --- because it does not rest on the idea that the mind is deterministic or material, but simply on the idea that his actions are predictable given that he's going to do what he wants.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Er ... that wasn't a question to which the answer was either yes or no.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If you don't know what free will is, I don't understand how you'd recognize it in yourself even if you did have it.I know I don't have free will; for what reason should I believe that you do? You'd answer it any way you liked, based on what you think would be true about unicorns.. It's like asking how many horns unicorns have. They don't need to exist for you to know that the answer is "one." On the same basis that you recognize your own choices now.You're getting the syllogism completely backwards, Dr. Adequate. I'm not saying that every time someone does something they don't want to do, that's free will. I could put a gun to your head and make you eat the sandwich, I could even drug you with a paralytic and work your hand and jaw so that you lift the sandwich to your mouth and bite off a piece. I could completely coerce you into eating it and I've never said that would be free will.But you should also be able to coerce yourself, by choice, into eating a turd sandwich when you want a banana. You've gone off on this tangent where you think I'm saying that every time someone is coerced to do something against their will, that's free will.But that's stupid and incoherent. It makes no sense. I'm not asking you to be coerced, I'm asking you to express a choice, take an action, that isn't just an inevitable consequence of physical law because that's what free will is. If you have it, you should be able to demonstrate it by taking a certain kind of action. No, not against your will. According to your will. That's the point. Nothing makes you eat the sandwich except your will, in the face of your desire. If you have free will you should be able to do that. In the determinist world, the physical law that makes it inevitable that you will not desire to eat a shit sandwich at this time also makes it impossible for you to chose to eat a shit sandwich at this time. Your inability to even conceive of the choice of doing so is evidence in favor of determinism and against your compatibilism. No, I say "if compatibilism, this paradox; since it is paradoxical, no compatibilism." It's the argument by reducto ad absurdum, in the logician's sense.What you're doing is agreeing that compatibilism implies a consequence, and that the consequence is paradoxical, and that therefore the paradox is not observed; you're simply refusing to follow that to the conclusion.If and only if you have free will, then you could make choices and take actions outside of the causal chain of physical law. But you agree that you're not able to make any choices or take any actions outside the causal chain of physical law.Therefore you have no free will. A and B imply C. If and only if P, then Q; no Q, therefore no P. I can only put it out there for you, Dr A. If you refuse to read all the way to the end of the sentence, there's nothing I can do about that.

I apologize if I've not yet understood it, because your position appears to be nothing more than the deeply moronic act of taking two things that are inherently incompatible and simply asserting that they aren't.Is there anything more to compatibilism than this? If you believe that the "will" is completely material and determinist, it can't be free. Defending your absurd position is going to require a lot more than just replying "no, it is."Compatibilism might as well be the position that 0 = 1.

But I am at a loss to see why you quote it. That summarizes my point of view fairly accurately. I do not believe that the m-i-t-s is wrong when he claims to have free will, I believe that his concept of why he has free will needs a little revision. You have quoted someone stating this point of view, would you now like to quote someone arguing against it? Well, is it?I refer you to Bluejay's post.The m-i-t-s thinks that free will consists of having certain mental properties which I agree that he has. Just like the creationist thinks that a tiger is a large cat with stripes.Now, given that I agree that he has these properties in which he thinks that free will consists, would it be more straightforward and honest of me to say: "You have free will" or "You don't have free will"? If I am sworn to oath on the witness stand, and I am asked "Do people have free will?" then is the most honest answer I could give "yes" or "no"?

Well, so you say. 'Cos you're an incompatibilist. That's your point of view, you think that the two things are "inherently incompatible". Whereas I don't.So simply saying over and over again that they aren't compatible doesn't constitute an argument against me, because as a compatibilist I am precisely the guy who says that they are compatible. I agree with your premise, I deny that your conclusion follows from your premise. It is therefore of no use for you to merely assert your premise over and over, nor to assert over and over that your conclusion follows from your premise. And there you go again. "Premise, therefore conclusion". But I deny that your conclusion follows from your premise. That's the whole thing that I'm doing. That's the whole definition of compatibilism. If we are even to have an argument at all, you have to argue for the proposition that your conclusion follows from your premise, because that is actually what we're arguing about. That is the bone of contention. That is our beef. I say it doesn't, you say it does. That's the fucking question. Merely telling me over and over again that you are right does not constitute an argument.

But I do. I never claimed that I didn't. No I wouldn't. I'd say: "Since there are no such things as unicorns, the question is vacuous. It's like asking me what the Tooth Fairy's favorite song is."Since zombies don't exist, I have no opinions whatsoever about what I think would be true about zombies. I have no definite opinion as to whether these purely imaginary creatures do or do not have free will. I also don't know whether they prefer classic pop music to jazz. How could I? They don't exist. No, apparently on the exact opposite basis. That's your problem.According to your hypothesis, I want to eat a banana, and I don't want to eat a shit sandwich. And then something causes my body to eat a shit sandwich, even though I don't want to. At what point in that ghastly sequence of events happening against my will should I say: "Oh, look, that's my free will kicking in. I recognize it as my free will because it is making me perform actions against my will. And I can distinguish it from demonic possession because ... because ... actually, I have no idea."I can recognize my own choices because they are my own choices, they are what I want. If something compelled me to do things that were the opposite of what I want, then I would not recognize that causal factor as my choices. Because it would be the opposite of my choice.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Then you are a "Revionist" rather than a "Compatibilist". The clue here is in the name. The revisionist position, as detailed in my link, accepts that the common-sense man-in-the-street notion of freewill is not entirely compatible with determinism. But then goes on to argue that it can be suitably and meaningfully revised to be so. Hence the name "Revisionism".

quote:

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The core idea of revisionism is that the picture of free will and moral responsibility embedded in commonsense is in need of revision, but not abandonment. That is, the revisionist holds that the correct account of free will and moral responsibility will depart from commonsense.

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Yet throughout this thread you have insisted that your compatibilist use of the term "freewill" is the same as the common-sense intuitive notion used by the man in the street.If you want to join the "Revisionists" then I welcome you aboard. But at the moment it seems the-man-in-the-street is not the only one who is confused as to what he means by "free will". Properties - OK. But do you agree he has the same mental abilities that are also associated with freewill? Namely the ability to instigate a causal chain or shape it in ways that are not wholly predetermined by prior events? It is according to the research discussed in that link. And it is according to the various men from various streets taking part in this thread. Furthermore - If your subjective experience as a human being is remotely similar to mine then - Definitely YES. If you are interested in honesty as opposed to winning a debate you would need to first point out that what you mean by "free will" and what the-man-in-the-street means are not the same.If the link on "Revisionism" I provided summarizes your position adequately (as you claim it does) then you would say that the man-in-the-street notion of free-will needs to be revised before you can honestly say that he possesses "free will" without qualification.

Double post. PC problems.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Triple post. PC Problems.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Basicly gods take on free will

Well that's a false dichotomy. I'm both. Being a compatibilist, I think that most people are somewhat wrong about free will and need setting straight, hence I'm a revisionist. Those aren't two philosophies of free will, they're the same one.What I deny is that my revisionism involves a fundamental redefinition of free will, it just needs tidying up a bit. I think it is definitionally the same, not that it's the same notion. "Associated with"? No, I think that the association is false. Well, as you can see, I am happy to provide the qualification.But suppose I am simply asked a yes or no question. Suppose I have to say one of the two following things: "You have free will"; "You do not have free will".I think that I should say the first.By analogy, it's like being asked "are we descended from monkeys?" Now, the strict cladist in you might want to say no, not really. But if all you could say was yes or no, wouldn't you prefer to say yes? If you were allowed to add "but ..." then you'd be happier still. If you answered "no" to the question, the m-i-t-s wouldn't recognize you as a pedantic cladist, he'd think you were a creationist.In the same way, if I say "we do not have free will", the m-i-t-s would interpret me as denying the mental qualities that he associates with free will, not as affirming that these qualities certainly exist and that their existence is guaranteed by the existence of a material substratum.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Hi, Straggler.I've been lurking for a while here, and I don't know which side to take yet. One factor that I think needs a little more attention is the consistency in laymen definitions of "free will."I get the impression that the typical layman will espouse a specific definition of "free will," but, when asked to identify real-world behaviors that demonstrate free will, will actually uses a different definition.In this regard, I think there is actual merit to Dr Adequate's approach: it actually reconciles the layman's formal definition with the layman's practical usage.This is, however, based on a few rather unfruitful literature searches on my part. I'm hoping that either you or Perdition has access to materials that might shed more light on this topic.

I think you may well be right, or at least, it's right to say that there's perhaps confusion in the "man on the street's" attitude to the question.I think that most people do perceive themselves as caused beings, rather than uncaused prime causes of things, so that the "typical layman" who believes in free will may well be a compatibilist whether he realizes it or not.That would mean that the common usage of the expression "free will" is not really that of those who seem to be looking for completely unconstrained choices as what defines "free will".

'Free will' isn't something we have or don't have. It is something we live by or don't live by, based on what produces the better results.Do we imprison wife-beater Steve and thus prevent him from killing his wife, or do we say "ta fuck on dis shit; ain't not'in we can do" and let things happen as they will?We choose the former because living by free will creates a better world than not living by free will.And if we live as though there's free will, then it's as good as real.Jon