Acfions initiated by mental states and preferences sounds suspiciously like choices. You seem to want gave control of choice itself, as if we were free to select what was entailed in any choice, such that if I made a choice to make this post, such I could select whether of not I wrote something and posted to the server.

The notion of free will you are using is one that demands nothing be chosen.

No, things can be chosen, but the reasons behind these choices (our preferences) are outside of our control. Certainly we don't have the choice to change our preferences.

The preference itself is the choice. No doubt we can have no control over our choices in this sense. That would entail predetermining what we do. Free will requires our choices occur without such restriction.

At each moment, we must have the freedom to have any preference. If our preferences were set prior to their being, we would have no freedom in our action.

"Reason behind" a choice are a red herring. A choice is not defined by a prior thought or desire, but by the choice itself.

I don't know what you're getting at here. I have a preference to not feel pain - when I feel pain, I tend to the source of the pain. The reason I tend to the source of the pain is because I have a preference to not feel pain. But I did not choose to have this preference to begin with.

Because of this, any attempt at a radical metaphysical rebellious existentialism is going to be shallow as it ignores our inability to free ourselves from our preferences to begin with. The only rebellion worthy of such a name would be one in which the agent performs actions that are entirely against his own preferences - which is impossible to do without having a preference to rebel in the first place.

The reason might be "why" you tend to the source of the pain, but it is not the act of tending to it. It's only a story. You say you were destined to act that way because you didn't want pain, but it's not true. Sometimes people feel pain, hate it and do nothing about it. Indeed, you might have acted that way. You just chose to tend to it.

"Rebellious existentialism" isn't interested in freeing anyone from preferences. It's point is one cannot free themselves from their preference-- you must choose, you must have a preference and there is no other state which can define it. Its freedom is defined in our inability to determine our preferences.

well, at least you don't have the preference to feel pain. Imagine if that were the case, and it would be outside your control

Despite lacking free will, our brains tend to do what we prefer and avoid what we don't enjoy, thanks to millions of years of programming behind it

We definitely have some free choice. We can chose where we focus our consciousness. Even pain can be reduced or amplified by focus.

For example how many of us cut our knees playing sport as a child but didn't notice the cut until we looked down to see the blood. It was only then it hurt.

As someone with tinnitus, I found I could choose to listen to it and get upset, or focus on other things and let my brain learn to ignore it. I rarely notice I have it now.

Nothing you write here will persuade me that you didn't create this thread of your own free will. Nothing compelled you to do it, you could have chosen to do something completely different. And you can choose whether to respond to my comment, and how, or not.

I don't think it is quite true that we have no control over our preferences or desires. Many preferences result from habits that we can modify. We can ween ourselves off from addictions (to watching TV or eating too much sugar, say). Secondly, human beings routinely act against their preferences or desires. When our desires and values clash, our desires can sometimes cloud our better judgment and lead us to betray our values, but it also often happens that our values motivate us to act against our "raw" desires (i.e. against what we would want to do if we didn't know any better).

Hard determinists may argue that values just are the same sort of things as preferences and desires: that they are fully predetermined by inborn temperament and past conditionings. But this is to overlook the fact that what values we endorse is sensitive to our present reasons for endorsing them. It is misleading to say that we can't choose what good reasons we have for acting in the way we do (or endorse the values we do). A reasonable account of free will doesn't portray the will as an ability to act, or to chose, in a arbitrary manner unconditioned even by reason, but rather portrays it as an ability to act in accordance with reason.

Free will requires us to have autonomous control over our actions. Actions are initiated by mental states, specifically preferences. — darthbarracuda

This is another homunculus argument very similar to the one that proves we cannot see things. Light enters the eye, optic nerve signals, neurons fire, etc, but 'we' don't 'see' the world. The explanation of how we see purports to demonstrate that we don't see.

"Actions are initiated by mental states" looks as if it is saying something other than "we initiate actions".

We have no control over our preferences: — darthbarracuda

Again, it looks as though there is a me, a mental state and some preferences. This disowning of myself into fragments does indeed result in a powerless homunculus that has no will at all, but is ruled by outside forces called 'preferences'. But I choose to strangle the little wretch to silence its incessant complaints and excuses, and since it has no preferences of its own, it doesn't even care.

We like things not because we chose to like them but because these preferences were forced on us. — darthbarracuda

But the alternative is incoherent. What would it mean to be able to like something this morning and then not like it this afternoon because we want to? Life would be near impossible if we didn't have stable preferences. Imagine shopping at a supermarket for the week's groceries if you couldn't be sure that you will not find the breakfast cereal you like today repulsive next Monday! There is in fact a condition which renders choice all but impossible in such a situation leaving people standing for hours in front of the same shelf literally unable to make up their mind between two brands for example.

Preferences are, by definition, predispositional. They may develop and change over time as we acquire tastes and are exposed to new experiences but but we can't flip between liking something and not liking something and we should be jolly glad of it!

Because of this, any attempt at a radical metaphysical rebellious existentialism is going to be shallow as it ignores our inability to free ourselves from our preferences to begin with. The only rebellion worthy of such a name would be one in which the agent performs actions that are entirely against his own preferences - which is impossible to do without having a preference to rebel in the first place. — darthbarracuda

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms

Part of me actually finds this to be kind of horrifying. — darthbarracuda

You find it horrifying not because you've decided it's horrifying, but you find it horrifying because you're compelled to find it horrifying, just like it hurts when you stub you toe.

Fortunately, I believe in free will, which, according to you, I believe in because I am compelled to. You might try to convince me otherwise, but I would ask that you save yourself the breath because I'm going to believe what I am forced to believe regardless of what you say. But, then again, you're forced to try to convince me regardless. We're all just sort of doing what we must, which includes our having this futile conversation.

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills. — schopenhauer1

Which is of course false.

Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms — schopenhauer1

Which is of course true.

For every action there is a preference. The act of choosing one's preferences is an act itself, which requires a preference that was not chosen.

Sometimes people feel pain, hate it and do nothing about it. Indeed, you might have acted that way. You just chose to tend to it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

In which case, I would argue that they have other preferences over-riding others. Accomplishment is the essence of action. We want something to be the case, therefore we do something.

"Rebellious existentialism" isn't interested in freeing anyone from preferences. It's point is one cannot free themselves from their preference-- you must choose, you must have a preference and there is no other state which can define it. Its freedom is defined in our inability to determine our preferences — TheWillowOfDarkness

My point was that the ultimate act of rebellion in the existential sense would be a rebellion against yourself. It's why we see people who go cliff jumping as totally crazy, yet somehow in an endearing way. They are fighting against their own body's preferences which instantiate themselves as fear and anxiety. But cliff jumping would pale to the maximal act of rebellion, which would be suicide. It wouldn't make sense to kill yourself when you are really, really happy - yet for the rebellious this is exactly what they ought to do.

And that's kind of what I was getting at here, we don't have control. We only think we have control. We didn't get to choose what was to be enjoyable and uncomfortable to us. For some reason, synthwave music jives with me - but I had no choice in this matter. I enjoy synthwave music, and I enjoy it without my own consent. I know that sounds edgy but really if we're all about existential rebellion, then this is kind of important. If we're really actually concerned about individuality then we need to recognize that we don't even have control over who we are, and that the greatest act of individuality would be the rebellion against the individual himself.

Despite lacking free will, our brains tend to do what we prefer and avoid what we don't enjoy, thanks to millions of years of programming behind it — Weeknd

On the contrary I think it rather that our mind, our sense of self, is aligned with what the body needs. But what the body does and needs does not always align with the self - see hunger, thirst, aging, etc.

"Actions are initiated by mental states" looks as if it is saying something other than "we initiate actions". — unenlightened

Yes, I meant preferences which would be outside of the self's grasp. I did not choose to hate tomatoes, for example. This preferences against tomatoes guides my action - without any over-riding higher-level preferences, I will not eat tomatoes. So I suppose it does look like a homunculus, but then again I suspect agency is entirely epiphenomenal.

No, you did in fact decide whether or not you liked tomatoes (which I'm extrapolating from "preference" which tends to indicate that you rather one thing over another. You may prefer a kick in the crotch to a stab in the chest, but that doesn't mean that you like either one of them at all), because one day you had one, and decided it then, and no one jumped out at you and demanded you like or dislike them, nor is it the law or anything. That is what makes it up to you. The stuff you're saying is nonsense.

Which is of course true.

For every action there is a preference. The act of choosing one's preferences is an act itself, which requires a preference that was not chosen. — darthbarracuda

This may only seem true from the standpoint of a metaphysics of Humean events that are individuated independently of their relational and causal relationships. This Humean view also tends to assimilate each and every manifestation of a "mental state" (including manifestations of so called "motivational states") with an isolable "event" in space and time. From the point of view of a more Aristotelian metaphysics -- a naturalism that is more biologistic than physicalistic -- acts of the will are actualizations of rational/practical embodied capacities rather than them being self standing events that are merely caused to happen by antecedent events and conditions.

If one drops the Humean view, actions and choices (including endorsements of values) can thus be seen as manifestations of a rational agent's orientation of her will. This is a manifestation of her sensitivity to the reasons that she has to act in this or that way in such or such general range of circumstances. If one seeks to trace further back the causal antecedents of the actualization of such rational/practical capabilities then what one primarily finds aren't more ancient "acts of will" but rather the conditions that led up to, or enabled, the formation of that person's rational character and capabilities. This account need not lead a free will defender to any troublesome regress since there is no need to deny that one must have had the good fortune to have sufficiently matured intellectually (thanks to one's biology and culture) before one can act freely.

This is a manifestation of her sensitivity to the reasons that she has to act in this or that way in such or such general range of circumstances. — Pierre-Normand

But what are these reasons, other than preferences (i.e. needs, desires, concerns, etc)?

If we are not free when we have to follow a social contract that we did not agree to, then we are not free when we have to follow preferences that we did not agree to.

For example the pedophile may have an implicit preference for children but may also believe this to be wrong and so thus has a higher-level preference that disables the pedophilic preference. However, this pedophilic preference still has influence, since it has to be repressed.

Even the higher-level preferences we did not ask for. The preference to be loved, the preference to have a good set of friends, the preference to have a stable job, etc - although we may really really enjoy these preferences being satisfied, after reflection we can come to realize that these preferences are inherently limiting in their nature. They limit what we can and cannot do by limiting what we like and dislike. Therefore, we have no control over what we like and dislike, and therefore have no control over what options will be seen as better than others.

This is why I was saying rebellious existentialism is sort of incoherent, since it takes a preference (that of being an individual) and forgets where this preference came from (not from the individual!).

I meant preferences which would be outside of the self's grasp. I did not choose to hate tomatoes, for example. This preferences against tomatoes guides my action - without any over-riding higher-level preferences, I will not eat tomatoes. So I suppose it does look like a homunculus, but then again I suspect agency is entirely epiphenomenal. — darthbarracuda

You need to stretch your nostrils if you want to reach into your brain and grasp your preferences. There are bits of yourself that can be grasped, and bits that cannot. You seem to be wanting to grasp your wanting to grasp, and concluding that you cannot grasp anything if you cannot grasp that.

If you care to experiment, you will find that you can eat tomatoes even if you prefer not to. It just requires will-power. But even if you are entirely the slave of your passions and your passions are out of control, you unfreedom only arises because you separate yourself from your passions so as to say, 'not I, but my preferences choose'. The homunculus is yourself imagined without passions, so as to choose them.

Imagine that one could do that with every aspect of oneself. When one is choosing to like tomatoes or not to, who is choosing, and on what basis. I suggest that if you liked tomatoes, you would not be darthbarracuda, but darthfruitfly. Perhaps in the spirit world, darthfruitfly chose not to like tomatoes, and was reincarnated as darthbarracuda. It's all his choice, not yours. But this is nonsense talk, isn't it?

Talk of dispassionate choice reminds me Stoicism. But the attempt to dispassionately choose something is nevertheless motivated by some other preference - the wish to not be enslaved to preferences. No matter where you go, there's always a preference lurking behind the choice.

there's always a preference lurking behind the choice. — darthbarracuda

Yes. And there is always no one lurking behind the preference not being able to choose it, only an imaginary homunculus.

Sure, I can agree with that. I think this is why I generally don't like the existentialist slogan of individuality - if there is an individual, then its preferences are an imposition onto itself.

if there is an individual, then its preferences are an imposition onto itself. — darthbarracuda

No. if there is an individual, then its preferences are itself.

It is only in dividing the individual that one part, the preference can be an imposition on another part, the complainant.

But what are these reasons, other than preferences (i.e. needs, desires, concerns, etc)? — darthbarracuda

This question involves a category error. Reasons are categorically distinct from preferences (or desires, concerns, etc.). If you need milk and believe the corner store to be open, then you may believe that you have a good reason to go to the corner store. But you may be mistaken about that if the corner store is in fact closed. Your being right or wrong about that need not be conditioned by your preferences. You may want to say that upon learning that the store is closed the acquisition of this knowledge leads you to reorder your preferences (e.g. you now prefer to stay home and drink orange juice). But this reordering of preference of yours is sensitive to the fact that it is pointless to go to the corner store to buy milk when the corner store is closed.

Some philosophers with a Humean bent believe that only instrumental actions (things done for the sake of something else, or for the sake of some end) are sensitive to (instrumental) rationality while the choices of the ends themselves aren't sensitive to reasons. The latter merely reflect brute "passions", which we are passively affected by or straddled with, according to such philosophers. But that is a prejudice. It is routine for human beings to reflect on the cogency of their pursuing the ends that they pursue, and have their wills reoriented on the basis of such deliberation. Many among our ends are rational ends (i.e. sensitive to reasons) rather than them all being brute a-rational desires. This is not to say that our natural or culturally ingrained proclivities don't effect the ends that we take ourselves to be justified to pursue, but we hardly are slaves to those proclivities.

There are times I wonder if we are in a position to know if we have free will. If we're wrong about this being a deterministic universe, then it's possible we do have free will, by anyone's definition.

I've been going back over Sam Harris' book Free Will, and I think the main point of his entire way of looking at free will may just be to get people to accept that a lot of what they believe about the world around them, was determined by things beyond their control. I think his point is that if we believe we and other humans have free will, then there are certain expectations that go along with that belief, and we tend to hold ourselves and others accountable. If we truly believed no one has free will, then those expectations would be very different.

I bought into Dennett's fear-mongering for a while. But, then I met some people who, because of Harris, were totally convinced that they have no free will. They and Harris are living good lives, as far as I can tell. They're not out there committing crimes and blaming those crimes on the universe.

Like my other thread suggests... I think any position on free will would have to be one of blind faith.

Regardless of free will or not, we still consider the consequences of our actions... (at least if we're sane).

This is one of the better talks on free will that I have heard in a while.

I would guess that those who have a problem with the idea of a deterministic universe are very egotistical. :-)

...but as I said, I think we do have some free will. Maybe we get more when we are learn to be responsible enough to use it. So far in this world, we have a lot to learn.

Regardless of free will or not, we still consider the consequences of our actions... (at least if we're sane). — anonymous66

If Harris were right about our not having free will, our not being responsible for out decisions, and our actions being entirely determined by past circumstances that lay entirely outside of our control, then, while it could still be judged to be sane in a purely medical/psychological sense for one to consider the consequence of one's actions prior to acting, it would be practically irrational to do so, just as it is irrational for us to deliberate about things that we know not to be in our power to affect generally.

It has been pointed out to Harris that if it is true from one's perspective, at any given instant, that what one is poised to do already had been determined at that time by one's (and the Universe's) past history then it is pointless to deliberate what to do. Harris's reply to this seemingly absurd practical consequence of his view is to claim that while we can't control the causes of our action, our actions nevertheless have consequences and since consequences matter we ought to take them into account while deliberating what to do. But this answer is completely point missing and is a garbled attempt to take in stride the central insight from compatibilism while, at the same time, denying the cogency of compatibilism.

If we can't control what it is that we are going to do, then we can't control what the consequences of our actons will be, either. If Harris were consistent he would have to claim that, while the consequences of our action matter greatly, it is a sad tragedy of our human predicament that we are powerless to control what it is that we are going to do and we must therefore just as well stand back -- wait and see what the Universe already had in store for us -- and cherish however little confort we can get from the though that the consequences of our resigned inaction were inevitable and thus leave us blameless.