Does it mean all matter is conscious (a notion I actually like personally)? — khaled

That depends on what you mean by ‘conscious’. I think all matter starts out (at the BB, for instance) with the capacity to make these three yes/no decisions with each interaction. That’s it at base.

Also what would explain the regularity we see in matter. Throw the same rock the same way a 100 times and it'll do the same thing. It might have will but that doesn't seem too free to me. — khaled

Okay, a rock is not making a decision to be aware here - but each particle/molecule has already made a number of ‘no’ decisions that have limited its capacity to then make yes/no decisions to subsequent interactions, including its ability to connect with its neighbouring rock molecules and respond to forces in relation to them. ‘No’ decisions are irretreivable for the molecule, though, and therefore for anything non-living.

The thing about humans is that the ‘yes’ decisions made by our ancestors have given us a much, much greater capacity to make yes/no decisions than any other species. But within our current set of collaborations are a number of smaller collaborations that have made ‘no’ decisions that limit their awareness, connection and collaboration with other elements of this larger collaboration - if that makes sense. And within those limited collaborations are a number of smaller limited collaborations, and so on.

But because these collaborations are continually changing in a living organism, we are at least capable of making new and revised yes/no decisions with every interaction, down to a certain level.

What you're describing is basically "energy" not "free will". A definition of energy is capacity to do work. But if you're running real fast, sure you can do more work (move things) but I wouldn't say you have more free will. — khaled

Remember that we’re still not entirely sure what energy IS. Capacity to do work in relation to will is more than running real fast, because it doesn’t only include ‘work’ at the level of bodily action, but at thought level, and at the level of electrical impulses. The more yes/no decisions you can make, the more ‘yes’ decisions you can make, and so the more ‘free will’ you have.

So instead of saying ‘move your free will up’, perhaps it would be a matter of saying ‘choose to collaborate more/less’ in relation to a specific set of interactions which have already made it through the first two ‘yes’ decisions, and then work our way backwards.

Awareness is a decision that is made before we ‘see an apple’. A decision is made to be aware of sense data - to seek information from our senses - and then to connect that sense data to related information in the brain that we find points to there being ‘an apple’ in that sense data. The collaboration occurs when another decision is made to integrate these related sources of information into the thought of ‘seeing an apple’. — Possibility

I suppose this sums up a bit proto-man to human development, 'awareness' having now become automatic, along with the other two items. Or maybe it was the other way around, per Damasio, with awareness and then consciousness coming to mind.

We can train ourselves to be more aware, such as would the intelligence operative and the ninja or by following a cat around in the dark.

The way I see it, the existence of free will essentially boils down to three assertions, — Possibility

The way I see it, it boils down to one assertion: I have and can make a choice.

The way I see it, it boils down to one assertion: I have and can make a choice. — Terrapin Station

Any choice, always and in every situation?

I have and can make a choice. — Terrapin Station

Me, too. This is my brain's will 'speaking' here and always, for thoughts ever arise therein.

The part of the brain that is called the 'will' comes up with a result, after 300-500 or so milliseconds of subconscious analysis, probably via neural connections, of bio, electric, and chemical, of my repertoire.

It may be sometimes that the result is to ruminate further or to put it all aside and move on to something else. This all seems rather instant, but science has informed of what would not otherwise be known about what underlies and the time it takes. The conscious quaila sequentially follow, when meant to.

It is probably that quaila are the brain's own invented internal language, at least closer to that endpoint. Qualia, too, take a bit of time to build and apply unity to, as will as to stitch them seamlessly to the previous. Perhaps they get remembered as a whole and get fed back into memory as a kind of short cut.

These choices appear to aid my survival through their consistency, generally, when one is not a reckless risk taker, nuts, stupid, etc.

I can't say a lot for sure, though, as the brain, for even I am not privy to my own sub-conscious going-on, although sometime I get an inkling. Other times the thoughts seem to come out of the blue. I have also learned not to take my thoughts as gospel just because I thought of them, but with a grain of salt, meaning, I guess, like count to ten first, reflecting. Other, impulsive types may not be so lucky, missing out on that space, but that's life.

Now, after many more milliseconds signal whirling, I'm not even so sure if I should post all this. I await the choice; oh, here it is: post!

Any choice, always and in every situation? — Possibility

The idea is just that some choices are possible, contra the idea that none are.

Any choice, always and in every situation?
— Possibility

The idea is just that some choices are possible, contra the idea that none are. — Terrapin Station

oops. Only one choice is possible, no matter how many possibilities are presented.

This is the bread and butter of the "no free will possible" camp.

Having no choice means inactivity, a frozen world with no moviement and no change of anything in it.

------
I did not use any references in this opinion. I trust the reader to intuit the meaning of my post without any reference to Socrates, Aristotle, Hume, Kant or Spinoza, to name only a few of them.

BAck to the topic:

--------------
If more than one choice was possible, then that would violate the law of excluded middle. For instance, if I bought a watch (one watch) and chose and bought a Berghammer watch and a Rolex watch, then there would be separate histories happening in time concurrently. That is not happening, so when you set out to buy one watch, your choice is always one watch of the kind that you choose.

If will is defined as "the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action" then the next logical step is to define the word "free". If by "free" you mean a decision of the "will" that is not determined by any causal factors then that becomes difficult to nail down as it becomes an infinite regress. But if you define "free" as the ability of the "will" to decide, or choose, between a multiplicity of actions and possibilities that it has become aware of then that is simply that particular faculty of the will that in the end makes that decision. That is to say that given our limited understanding of a) how the faculty of the will operates within our biological and environmental constraints, b) our limited understanding of how that complex process projects possible future scenarios, c) and then how that process selects between the multiplicity of possible futures, then free will is a useful concept to define that process. Using that argument I then see no problem with that term as it is always grounded in specific instances and is a useful term we use to describe that process.

On the watch analogy - doesn't it depend on the sequencing? If you set about to buy a watch, but are not aware at that point of a particular watch that your conscious mind has decided on, then when you reach the store and are faced with say 5 watches, then the point at which you become aware of a decision to purchase one particular watch, and then but that one watch, is the point at which your will has decided to act and carries out that act. But you only became aware of that decision at the point at which you were faced with a concrete reality that necessitates a decision regarding the 5 watches. In that sense free will is simply the point at which you were faced with a reality that necessitated a decision to move forward into the future. Whether or not what preceded that "awareness" of that decision is itself "free" is constrained by the fact that we don't really understand how that awareness happens. And whether the process through which that awareness happens is deterministic is constrained by our lack of understanding of it -but the constant requirement to act in the face of an uncertain future means that the idea of "free will" is useful to us and the fact that we use it daily is evidence of its utility as a concept.

Maybe it is simply about the utility of "free will" as a concept which can usefully be applied to a multiplicity of situations and which we therefore use?

oops. Only one choice is possible, no matter how many possibilities are presented. — god must be atheist

??? I'm not following you.

There is more than one choice in that I can choose what album to listen to, I can choose which ice cream to eat, I can choose which film to watch, etc., and I can choose among many albums, flavors, etc.

The idea is just that some choices are possible, contra the idea that none are. — Terrapin Station

Only one choice is possible, no matter how many possibilities are presented. — god must be atheist

I think we need to be clear about when we use ‘choice’ as:

- the ACT of choosing,

- the VARIETY or range to choose from OR

- the particular OPTION to be chosen,

otherwise this could get messy.

NO FREE WILL, as I understand it, says that there is no act of choosing. Regardless of how many possibilities are presented, you were always going to ‘choose’ the same watch, because this option to be chosen has already been determined. So in fact, what you believe to be the variety or range to choose from is just an illusion.

A standard argument for FREE WILL, as I understand it, says that the act of choosing is indeed yours to make, and regardless of how constrained the variety or range to choose from may be or how much power, influence or control is apparently exerted on you, the notion of ‘free will’ maintains that you are still ‘free’ to choose from at least two options.

My argument is that defining the ‘will’ as the entire thought process behind all the acts of choosing that one makes in life - rather than the basic faculty by which an action is decided and initiated - is what seems to be confusing the issue.

The will, as I understand it, is an underlying faculty that is inherent in every element of matter, but has been permanently constrained to some extent in all but humanity - where it remains entirely unconstrained: FREE.

There are ZERO CONSTRAINTS on the act, the range or the options of choosing whether or not to be aware, to connect or to collaborate - regardless of what your circumstances are. These are the basic, underlying decisions that I believe no-one can take away from you - your will.

I think we need to be clear about when we use ‘choice’ as:

- the ACT of choosing,

- the VARIETY or range to choose from OR

- the particular OPTION to be chosen,

otherwise this could get messy. — Possibility

The act of choosing, though that obviously requires options that can be chosen.

NO FREE WILL, as I understand it, says that there is no act of choosing. Regardless of how many possibilities are presented, — Possibility

There couldn't be any real possibilities (aside from one) if no choice is possible (or if no ontological freedom is possible).

A standard argument for FREE WILL, as I understand it, says that the act of choosing is indeed yours to make, and regardless of how constrained the variety or range to choose from may be or how much power, influence or control is apparently exerted on you, the notion of ‘free will’ maintains that you are still ‘free’ to choose from at least two options. — Possibility

Right, which is what I was getting at in the earlier post.

There are ZERO CONSTRAINTS on the act, the range or the options of choosing whether or not to be aware, to connect or to collaborate - regardless of what your circumstances are. These are the basic, underlying decisions that I believe no-one can take away from you - your will. — Possibility

That part I don't understand. One constraint on the act of choosing, for example, is a time constraint. You'd have to make the choice while you are able to--while it's available, while you're capable of expressing it, while you're alive, etc.

That part I don't understand. One constraint on the act of choosing, for example, is a time constraint. You'd have to make the choice while you are able to--while it's available, while you're capable of expressing it, while you're alive, etc. — Terrapin Station

This is according to your broad definition of the will, which includes the entire process of thinking about every act, range and option to be chosen.

But when you understand the will to be just those three acts of choosing yes or no, then you realise that it always chooses at each moment of interaction, before time even factors in. Like gates, if you will, that open or close to create causal links. So when determinists look back on the causal flow, they don’t see the gates, they only see the linked chains extending back in time.

no matter how you define it, either you have it or you do not and arguing settles not the issue. it is philosophy as industry and you are only proving my point in that regard.

- the ACT of choosing,

- the VARIETY or range to choose from OR

- the particular OPTION to be chosen,

otherwise this could get messy. — Possibility

Hurray. I subscribe gladly to this. Until a better one comes along.

My proposal for a more precise and more rigorously defined alternative set of words to use before things get messy, is as follows:

- Variety of things available from which to choose - selection
- the act of picking one thing from th e available selection - choosing
- the thing that we decide with and consider our chosen one - realized item
- the entire process of examining, evaluating each or most or some of the items in the selection, and picking one chosen item to be the reallized item - making a choice

There are ZERO CONSTRAINTS on the act, the range or the options of choosing whether or not to be aware, to connect or to collaborate - regardless of what your circumstances are. These are the basic, underlying decisions that I believe no-one can take away from you - your will. — Possibility

Once I argued EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE to a manager of a store when I wanted to return an item, and I suspect he was a Philosophy major, because he conceded all his prior objectoins to giving me a refund, and did issue me a refund after I presented him with this:

"in front of me there are many different kinds of bicycle computers. I take home one. I choose the one that I can afford, can use, and has all the features that I want, or the maximum features that I want. There are seventeen different kinds of bicycle computers on the shelf in your store, and in my previous trip I chose the precise one that was the ONLY ONE POSSIBLE under the constraints of what reasons went into my selection."

Here, the constraints were minimizing the price, maximizing the features, and thus finding the ideal.

I believe that similar constraints are always present whenever we are finding ourselves in a position to make a choice.

@Possibility, we argued about the free will in past posts. You finally appealed to authority, saying you agree with Descartes and subscribe to his "proof" of free will.

I read his proof on Wiki. Descartes proof is a hideously laughable one, sorry to say so.
1. It hinges on having a god. But that is not proven, and there is an equal possibility as far as humans KNOW whether god exists or not. So a proof, if it is to stand, has to have elements that are acceptable to the person to be convinced.

2. Descartes attacks the problem of the LORD'S foreknowledge of any future act, prior to any act, even if it is an act of free will, by saying that he, Descartes, does not know how that is possible, but he trusts that the LORD is so much smarter than he, Descartes, that the LORD has figured out a way of doing it.

That is complete bullshit, and it has no proof value, not even the value of evidence. "It must be done somehow, but I don't know how, but because i want to prove this to be true, I accept and I will you to accept too, that it is possible,otherwise I can't prove my point." That is the parallel of his argument, and it is a complete hoax; it is a null-and-void, invalid way of proving something.

no matter how you define it, either you have it or you do not and arguing settles not the issue. — Arne

We defined it, recently, here, for example, that the will makes choices, and, thus, so defined, we have free will. 'Defining' is the key to have the words 'free will' mean something, among other possible meanings. (Aside from coercion, as always.)

it is philosophy as industry and you are only proving my point in that regard. — Arne

Philosophy, leading to science investigation, is not useless, but can sometimes show high probability findings.

Others are often after something deeper, and so define 'free will' to mean that the result of the will doesn't have to be the same if the exact same situation could be run again—that some measure of variety is inherent, even if this is only due to something truly 'random'. 'Random' disrupts the will's natural flow and so it's seldom touted as any kind of plus toward free will, it being like an anti-will harm.

Aside from 'random', the 'fixed will' proponents have a good case, in that the will does its job exactly according to what it has in it, called 'determined', or at least to the best of its resolution. The black and white only opposite, then, to 'determined' is 'undetermined', which is no will at all.

Since indeterminate states other than 'random' can't even be defined, much less shown, a highly probable conclusion obtains for this second definition, which is that the two hundred trillion brain neuron connections do as they must.

This fixed will would be but of the instant of the decision, it continually growing from new information, thus, one might decide today what wouldn't have been decided yesterday, or even a few minutes ago. Minds can change.

In either case, of free versus fixed, the will widens and thus can make better choices, presuming that learning can happen.

Another philosophical item of interest stemming from this area is that of whether consciousness is an independent, second will, with some similar but alternate mechanism to the brain. Well, it doesn't have to duplicate anything like the brain, for it already has the brain behind it, plus consciousness would be part of the brain, too, reflecting what the brain just came up with, albeit in its own unique language.

Consciousness needs to be something useful to the brain, such as a global result that other brain areas can get to and then comment on, now or later, and perhaps the shorthand notation of qualia is necessary, but we are only in our infancy of finding such things out. Better to look into things than to quit because they might never get resolved.

Even finding that consciousness itself doesn't decide anything would shock the world to its foundations, as would fixed will, too. The good part would be to then have more compassion for those who are really stuck

The courts now seem to lean toward protecting society over punishing the offender.

no matter how you define it, either you have it or you do not and arguing settles not the issue. — Arne

this is true of whether god exists or not. It is true regarding our knowledge whether tomorrow will rain or not rain. But it is not true of having an infinite three-dimensional space independent of everything. And it is not true of a deterministic universe allowing non-deterministic things to happen. If you accept determinism, then you exclude free will. If you reject determinism, then you accept that things happen without causes. And this last bit is the crux of the stronghold of no-free will arguers. Everything has a cause and every cause has an effect. If you go outside of that, you must necessarily find things in our universe that would not follow physical laws, that would be random beyond explanatory possibility. And you don't find those things in our universe.

Possibility, we argued about the free will in past posts. You finally appealed to authority, saying you agree with Descartes and subscribe to his "proof" of free will. — god must be atheist

Really? I’m sorry, but I don’t recall that discussion, and if I HAD ever ‘subscribed’ to Descartes’ proof of free will, then I’ve since unsubscribed, so I wonder why you even bring it up - or ‘god’ for that matter. I will acknowledge that I am rarely of the same opinion as I was in previous discussions, such has been the progress of my awareness over the last few years, but I’m curious when and where that discussion took place. As I have mentioned to you before, if you paraphrase or interpret what was said, I will ask for direct quotes or sources.

If you want to dispute what I’ve said in THIS discussion, then make your argument. But there’s not much point in bringing past discussions into it. What I’ve written here in relation to free will, I have only been fully aware of quite recently, to be honest - let alone able to articulate with anything resembling clarity. I am learning as I go.

Is it possible I mixed you up with someone else? In that case, my deepest and most sincere apologies.

Dear @Possibility,

You are absolutely right. My debate I referred to was not with you but with @pantagruel.

I am a complete dolt when it comes to non-associated rote memory stuff. I can't remember faces, names of people, and the older I get, the worse this condition gets.

Here's what I had thougth you had written, inbedded in this short post of debate fracture:

Pantagruel
65
↪god must be atheist
"This is patently false.

If you believe you have free will, but you don't, you were caused to believe that you have free will.

There is no magic about it."

That is straight up Descartes. He concludes, and I agree, this is the one thing about which you cannot be deceived. — Pantagruel

Once I argued EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE to a manager of a store when I wanted to return an item, and I suspect he was a Philosophy major, because he conceded all his prior objectoins to giving me a refund, and did issue me a refund after I presented him with this:

"in front of me there are many different kinds of bicycle computers. I take home one. I choose the one that I can afford, can use, and has all the features that I want, or the maximum features that I want. There are seventeen different kinds of bicycle computers on the shelf in your store, and in my previous trip I chose the precise one that was the ONLY ONE POSSIBLE under the constraints of what reasons went into my selection."

Here, the constraints were minimizing the price, maximizing the features, and thus finding the ideal.

I believe that similar constraints are always present whenever we are finding ourselves in a position to make a choice. — god must be atheist

I’ve been trying to point out from the start (rather poorly, it appears) that the way we tend to define free will as ‘the capacity to make a choice’ is not necessarily synonymous with ‘the [unconstrained] faculty by which one decides and initiates action’. I’ve suggested a description of the will as three specific ‘gates’ that either allow or disallow the path of causal chains.

All you demonstrated here was that you regretted the decision you made to purchase the item (which was sufficient for the store manager’s purpose), not that your will was/was not free. You could have chosen to leave the store without a purchase, aware that there were other stores and other avenues to a more suitable bicycle computer, but for whatever reason you didn’t. Those reasons were not enforced on you, rather in my view they were a collaboration of connected awareness that effectively closed out any information you freely chose not to collaborate with, connect with or be aware of.

I guess one observation that’s fascinated me when discussions of free will and determinism arise is that there are those who look forward and see the myriad opportunities or choices available, and those who look back and see unbroken causal chains that preclude the possibility of choice. The way I see it, they’re both pointing to an element of truth. So I’ve been looking for a bridge theory in my own understanding of how differences in perspective come about: one that recognises BOTH the subjective experience of unbounded potentiality AND the actuality of seamless causal chains.

We defined it, recently, here, for example, that the will makes choices, and, thus, so defined, we have free will — PoeticUniverse

how convenient that must be. and that is what is known as garbage in and garbage out. I hereby define the greatest philosopher of all time as Arne and therefore Arne must be the greatest philosopher of all time, since I have already defined it.

so it has gotten to the point that people are arguing:

1. we define free will as A;
2. we have A.
Therefore, we have free will.

And to think people spent the last 2000 years arguing over the issue.

How silly of them.

I hereby define — Arne

Yes, we were attending to definitions back there so we could know more about what the 'free' meant, and then attending to the compatibilists' non-coerced free will definition, which is a trivial one, although better than yours, because what seekers really want to know is if there can be an opposite of 'determined' other than 'not determined at all', and also not 'random' since that disrupts the will.

1. we define free will as A;
2. we have A.
Therefore, we have free will. — Arne

There are others in this discussion who seem to think that ‘free will’ must be defined as a concept, but I disagree with this, and regret not making this clearer at the outset. I think you need to define ‘will’ and ‘free’ separately first and foremost, and then discuss whether or not the will IS free.

To clarify:

Will: the basic faculty by which one decides and initiates action.

Free: unconstrained.

It is in interpreting the definition of ‘will’ that I think the real dispute lies.

What is a bicycle computer?

What is a bicycle computer? — Noah Te Stroete

Ha ha. I’m not sure, but I can speculate based on my understanding of what a bicycle is and what a computer is.

:up: But speculative philosophy is a no no. Or so I’ve been told.