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@ - YesNo & mal4mac...
You might find this short introductory undergraduate lecture on 'Free Will' from Oxford University (You Tube) helpful and informative. There are four parts to the lecture and they range from 10-20 minutes each. The short four sections follow on from each other automatically. (7.1 - 7.4) I think you'll find it's worth the effort to watch all four parts.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XT6DKn6ZJso
I hope you enjoy them, and look forward to hearing what you think. :smile5:
I watched the four Millican talks. He provided a review of some ideas associated with free will and mentioned Robert Kane, a libertarian, whom I have not read, but I plan to read later.
There are some ideas that came up that interested me: 1) determinism, 2) randomness, 3) choice and 4) intentional agency. The first two, determinism and randomness are usually believed to be ways for changes to occur without the need to have an agent intending and then performing the change. The last two, choice and intention, clearly require an agent.
The first thing I would question is the very existence of determinism as a cause that does not need an agent. Millican referenced Hume as pointing out that we don't really know what cause means except that we see things happen as a conjunction and intuit that one thing causes the other thing. The book by Mumford and Anjum that I mentioned earlier in the thread goes into Hume's argument in more detail, but for now I'll use Hume's argument to suggest that we really do not know that an agent at some level was not responsible for what we label as a deterministic cause.
The second thing I would suggest is that the same argument would apply for randomness.
However, we could still retain the ideas of determinism and randomness as something not requiring an agent for theoretical purposes in the same way that we look at philosophical zombies. Such zombies are human organisms without intentionality. These zombies do not exist, but they are useful when we want to contrast how they would behave with the way real humans behave.
Millican says it is important to come up with a definition of "choice". I would suggest that a choice occurs if one can rule out determinism and randomness as the complete cause.
When someone says we have free will, they do not mean that we have absolute free will, only that we can make a responsible choice after all the determinism and randomness has been accounted for. Also we just have to perform one intentional act in our entire lifetimes for that condition to be satisfied. Those who claim we have no free will claim we cannot perform even that one act.
I will stop there.
How does your position on not having free will fit in with what Millican had to say?
Edit:
I had a chance this morning to listen to a lecture by Robert Kane which is relevant to human free will: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtceGVXgH8s Anyone who says we do not have free will will have to address Kane's position.
I am also interested in the possibility of free will outside the human species and even outside any species. This is where I find quantum physics interesting. We need to add something to the results of a quantum experiment besides determinism and randomness since neither completely explain the outcome of the experiment and there are no hidden variables. That is where I would assign free will, or choice, although it is not the same sort of free will and choice as the human choosing to perform the experiment has. Why bother doing this? It would be one way to justify the views of panpsychism which Thomas Nagel has promoted.
In determinism a man is never free of his past.
The categorical thinking of the old masters is passe and stiff.
Free will is a relative claim, formally a matter of definitions.
The only totally free being would be the one children are taught, who has no limitation whatsoever.
On the Bell curve of relative freedom of will, man falls somewhere. One guess is as good as the next.
I agree that it is relative or comes in degrees. All I am claiming is that it exists.Quote:
Originally Posted by desiresjab
I've been looking at videos of Robert Kane recently who is an incompatiblist (libertarian). That is he does not believe free will is compatible with complete determinism, a position I support as well. Here's a video that summarizes his view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A61X-5b847U
His definitions of "self forming actions" and "ultimate responsibility" may have resolved the logical problems some have justifying our common sense notion of free will and responsibility. At least from my perspective, those issues are resolved. He also emphasizes free will over free action and finds a physical ground for free will in our ability to do parallel processing in the brain allowing us to have alternatives from which to pick.
At the end of the video he describes the movement of our lives as similar to character development in a novel that we create through our choices.
After reading this I changed my mind abt the free will"
"This trend began even before the work of psychologists such as Benjamin Libet, who showed that the conscious feeling of willing an act actually occurs after the brain process that brings about the act"
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/18/op...=fb-share&_r=0
with this fact arises the need for an external system " moral , metaphysical ,.." to follow and to be hold responsible according to it
I agree with the two mistakes that were attributed to Descartes: (1) "...our knowledge of our mind's nature is more reliable than any other belief" and (2) "...his denial that other animals have any mental lives at all."Quote:
Originally Posted by caddy_caddy
I don't think that leads to a total lack of free will, but our free will is part of a larger will. I wonder if that is what you are suggesting with the "need for an external system".
Here is an overview of Libet and his experiment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Libet
Yes, another point of reference, call it a larger will or another will .Moreover,this justifies the existence of the divine will.The article says that there is no first point of view and that we" read "ourselves not know ourselves.Maybe our brain "reads"our destiny .
I think part of Libet's experiements show there is a larger will as you mention. If one couples them with evidence from psi research (see Dean Radin) it looks like we are part of something larger that is conscious and not unconscious.
There are two positions about free will that I think are incorrect:
1) The view that we are determined by unconscious, materialistic causes seems wrong.
2) The view that we have free will as individuals seems wrong. When we exercise free will we do so in a shared way with other parts of reality that are also conscious and which influence our choices, but do not determine them.
A mind boggling thread but very fascinating.
'Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and saint, and heard great argument
About it and about: but evermore came out
By the same door as in I went.'