smallism is probably the majority view of most people in the hard sciences - if I'm interpreting what it means correctly.

"Smallism" to me looks pretty interchangable with the statement "there's no strong Emergence", or in other words "all macroscopic phenomena are the direct consequence of microscopic phenomena"

↪wonderer1 smallism is probably the majority view of most people in the hard sciences - if I'm interpreting what it means correctly.

"Smallism" to me looks pretty interchangable with the statement "there's no strong Emergence", or in other words "all macroscopic phenomena are the direct consequence of microscopic phenomena" — flannel jesus

I'm skeptical that most people in the hard sciences would disagree with the proposition, "What happens at the microscopic level is a function of the context provided by a larger physical system." Do you think otherwise?

too vague of a statement for me to agree or disagree with.

all macroscopic phenomena are the direct consequence of microscopic phenomena — flannel jesus

I think more than 50% (but certainly not all) people especially in physics would agree with this statement in particular.

That doesn't mean it's a TRUE statement, but you asked if anyone actually endorses it - yes, they do, and it's probably more ubiquitous in some sciences than you think. (I guess that's an easy bar to pass, if you think there's 0 and there is in fact more than 0, but still)

Does the man possess free will or not? If interlocutors in some discussion don’t agree, then they may not be discussing the same concept. Which might imply they will never agree. — Art48

To me, one cannot make a term of two existing words like "free will" and be privileged to describe the term however they see fit. No matter how one defines the term I will not accept it. To conclude either way, that "Humans possess free will or not", will definitely have repercussions beyond any intended context.

Both words "Free" and "Will" are very, very tricky.

The problem with the term "free" is that you can't say one has "free will" if they're merely free from deterministic forces. A slave who is free from hunger isn't free, the same logic applies to will.

However, the bigger problem lies with the word "will", and it's truly a disaster in this context. I won't go into details unless asked, but in short, everyone has their own opinion on what this word refers to and means. On what constitutes a will and what's external, and on how we determine what was one's will.

Many of the things one might argue one's will is influenced by, another could argue are part of one's will. The circumstances that influence one's will... Is that a threat to freedom of one's will, or is that just decision-making? So many different understandings of "will", and on what "free" would mean, and what things "will" must be free from.

Anyway, TLDR is, if someone wants to argue for "free will", they should just express their position without using the term. If they insist on using the term, the discussion will likely go nowhere, and for my part, I will just disagree pretty much no matter what the argument, as long as its conclusion is on the existence of "free will".

Oh I agree with you that in reality our inability to predict the resultant state in the case of decision making doesn't tell us anything about the validity of Determinism nor Free Will.

I was only saying that if we somehow could (I know we currently can't), it would prove Determinism and disprove Free Will.

I am in complete agreement with you that Free Will, as a label is a total disaster. I wish the concept could have a different one, say "Bob" for instance.

Basically, I don't deal in labels, I think of concepts. Unfortunately when communicating with others, we generally use labels, and the miscommunication flows from there.

Here's a concept: does antecedent state X always lead to resultant state A or can antecedent state X lead to resultant state A or B or C? People I commonly converse with call the first scenario Determinism. I don't really care what someone calls it. Some call the second scenario Free Will others call it Indeterminism, again I am less interested in labels.

Certainly. It's still the dominant view it would seem, although this is more by inertia than anything else. But if you look back to the 20th century it was quite dominant; now this is less and less the case.

I think more than 50% (but certainly not all) people especially in physics would agree with this statement in particular.

Maybe it's just selection bias, but smallism actually seems less popular in physics, most popular in neuroscience and cognitive science, or amongst the laity (which makes sense because it was dominant until recently). In physics, the success of QFT, and the ideal of fields (wholes) being fundemental, not part(icles)s, and the rise of pancomputationalism both seem to have hit smallism quite hard. Just thinking of writers in physics who would not appear to be smallist, there is: Vedral, Tegmark, Davies, Lloyd, Wilzek, Rovelli, Deutsche, etc. A sort of "who's who" list of people writing popular theory.

Many of the things one might argue one's will is influenced by, another could argue are part of one's will. The circumstances that influence one's will... Is that a threat to freedom of one's will, or is that just decision-making? So many different understandings of "will", and on what "free" would mean, and what things "will" must be free from.

This is Plato's point in the Republic when he discusses the parts of the soul and how they can be set against one another. Saint Paul describes something similar in his Epistle to the Romans, describing how he is a slave to desire and instinct, at "war with the members of his body."

Plato's solution, picked up by the Patristics, Hegel, and others, was to posit that the unification of the will requires that all these elements, Nietzsche's "congress of souls," be ruled over by reason.

Why reason? In part because it can weigh and balance desires, but also because it's the "part of the soul," that allows us to figure out how to actually achieve any goals. But more importantly, reason has authority because in its desire for truth and "what is truly true/good," not just "what appears to be so," reason routinely transcends itself. It goes beyond the finite limits of what a person currently is. Other desires, per Plato, don't do this, and lacking this transcendent quality, they are more contingent, less necessary, and so less deserving of authority because they are less fully themselves. That is, they are effects from "without." But if we want to be free, we need to be self-determining, which means we seek the transcendent cause from within.

Against this view, Hume posited that reason should only be "the slave of the passions," but I don't recall Hume ever actually taking down Plato's argument re transcendence and the ability to bring unity. The dismissal is more grounded in the lack of a "unified ego," to rule. But of course, this is the same thing that Plato actually allows and starts with. If we were unified, we wouldn't need the rule of reason.

In physics, the success of QFT, and the ideal of fields (wholes) being fundemental, not part(icles)s, and the rise of pancomputationalism both seem to have hit smallism quite hard. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It would seem you and I have different ideas about smallism. To me, QFT is the very essence of smallism. To me, when a smallist says "big things happening are the consequence of small things happening", QFT is PRECISELY the sort of thing they mean by "small things happening".

QFT is a specification, a model, of what happens exactly to the smallest things in the universe and how they interact.

Smallism is the claim that all facts about larger things are reducible to facts about small things (parts). QFT says that facts about the smallest things are actually only/best describable as facts about completely universal entities. This is a reversal. The universe isn't what it is because of the properties of its most "basic" parts, but rather the properties of "basic parts" are driven by what the entire universe is.

To be sure, QFT has been made to fit with smallism, because smallism is still popular, but it at least creates a wedge. The larger motivation for abandoning smallism is a switch from a substance based view ("things are the way they are because of differences in the types of stuff that makes them up") to a process based view ("change is fundemental and things are what they are because of the processes underlying them"). Computation is a popular model here and computation isn't reducible in the same way as the substance view.

A classical substance view would be that Na + Cl = salt. Keep adding more salt and you have more salt, but it's always the same thing because of the parts that make it up. In process, more can be different. Nest a formula like PRIME(x*3) and adding more x gives you something different. X = 1 results in a prime, and the output will be 1 (1 = "yes, this number is prime"). Adding more X always makes a number divisible by 3, and so any other value for x will result in a 0 ("no, not prime").

Apparent substances then are just long term stabilities in process. And indeed, our "basic particles" do appear to "come into being" and "decay out of being," rather than being "essential building blocks."

To be sure, QFT has been made to fit with smallism — Count Timothy von Icarus

To the contrary, QFT was literally invented in the first place to be compatible with the most fundamentally smallist theory there is: relativity. QFTs reason for existence is smallism.

I agree, it's asking for a contradiction. That's why libertarian free will makes no sense. The idea of "us" choosing in a way that is autonomous from the past - our experiences, memories, desires, past thinking, etc. removes "us" from the will. — Count Timothy von Icarus

It does not remove "us" from the will. As I explained, it inverts the relation so that "us" is attributed to the will rather than "will" being attributed to us. Attributing "will" to us, as you do, actually removes "us" from will, in order to have an autonomous self which has a will as a property.

To say that such a "free will," "isn't actually totally free, that it's constrained by (determined by) all sorts of things like past experience, memory, desire, physics etc." is to simply grant the main claim of compatibilism. This is what I mean by "libertarianism turning itself into compatibilism." — Count Timothy von Icarus

It is not compatibilist because the will is not necessarily constrained by determinist 'laws of nature' which is what is inherent to determinism. So, at any moment in time, the will is free to act in a way which is inconsistent with determinist laws, even though the action produced can be described as consistent with those laws, to a degree. The "to a degree" is what makes compatibilism appear to be correct, but the "inconsistent with determinist laws" is what makes compatibilism actually impossible. In other words, determinist laws are not complete in their capacity to explain what happens in reality, and there are things which happen which cannot be explained by determinist laws. Freely willed acts have a source which is outside the governance of these laws. That makes free will not compatible with determinism. However, in so much as the free will act which occurs at the present, can only act on whatever is already existing, it is constrained by the past.

If you say "no, only most of our decision making is pre-determined, there is an extra bit of free floating free will that isn't determined by anything in the past," then I'd just repeat the same question: "what does such a will have to do with me?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

The free will act is not determined by anything in the past. However, it is constrained by the fact that it can only act at the present. This means that its capacity to have an effect in the material world is limited by the time when it occurs. Notice that the act itself is not determined, therefore not compatibilist, but the effect that the act has, is restricted and therefore limited by the temporal conditions produced in the past.

It basically comes down to this; "If something is not determined by anything in what way is it not random?" The uncaused is random, and there is no reason anything uncaused should tend towards any choice and not another. It seems incoherent to me to say "our wills are determined by our past experiences, thoughts, desires" but then also that there is also an "extra bit" that isn't determined by any of these. Ok, even if this is true, it doesn't result in more freedom, it just makes my actions partly random and unfathomable. If I can't possibly know what determined my actions, how am I to become free? — Count Timothy von Icarus

When we do not understand the cause of an act, we might be inclined to say that the act is random. This is due to our failure to understand, and it does not necessarily mean that the act is truly random in any absolute sense, it may just be that we do not have the ability to understand the cause. The determinist will say that if the cause is not a determinist cause then it must be truly random, because the reality of a freely willed cause, as a true cause, is not allowed by the determinist.

Therefore your statement reduces the act which is caused by a free will to an "uncaused" act, in the determinist way of excluding free will causes as possible causes, and concludes that such an act would be "random". The mistake is in categorizing the act of the free will, which is a type of act we do not completely ,understand as "uncaused", rather than categorizing it as a cause which is inconsistent with "cause" as defined by determinist principles, and therefore not understood by those principles.

The point isn't about whose will is involved, it is that, in every such instance of positive freedom the past dictates what we are free to do in the future. I have no problem saying that "past free choices influence future free choices." But this is still the past determining the future. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The free will act is neither past nor future, it is at the present. So in saying that the past necessarily determines the future, you exclude the possibility of a free will act at the present, and you have determinism. The concept of free will allows for an act at the present, which is not determined by the past.

If you don't learn to read, you're not free to read War and Peace. This is past states of the world determining freedom of action. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, but the will to learn allows one to learn how to read, and then read War and Peace. So it is not true to say that if you do not know how to read you will not ever read War and Peace, because you can learn and then do it. And the choice to learn is freely willed, therefore not determined by the past.

It basically comes down to this; "If something is not determined by anything in what way is it not random?" The uncaused is random, and there is no reason anything uncaused should tend towards any choice and not another. It seems incoherent to me to say "our wills are determined by our past experiences, thoughts, desires" but then also that there is also an "extra bit" that isn't determined by any of these. Ok, even if this is true, it doesn't result in more freedom, it just makes my actions partly random and unfathomable. If I can't possibly know what determined my actions, how am I to become free — Count Timothy von Icarus

When we do not understand the cause of an act, we might be inclined to say that the act is random. This is due to our failure to understand, and it does not necessarily mean that the act is truly random in any absolute sense, it may just be that we do not have the ability to understand the cause. The determinist will say that if the cause is not a determinist cause then it must be truly random, because the reality of a freely willed cause, as a true cause, is not allowed by the determinist.

Therefore your statement reduces the act which is caused by a free will to an "uncaused" act, in the determinist way of excluding free will causes as possible causes, and concludes that such an act would be "random". The mistake is in categorizing the act of the free will, which is a type of act we do not completely ,understand as "uncaused", rather than categorizing it as a cause which is inconsistent with "cause" as defined by determinist principles, and therefore not understood by those principles. — Metaphysician Undercover

MU, I can't say I understand your position. But I believe I understand the Count's. I believe he's saying that, if things in my past aren't causing my decisions in the present, then my decisions are random. So, for example, I will not have chosen chocolate ice cream over vanilla for any reason more significant than a coin toss. In fact, the fact that I don't like, or am allergic to, strawberry will not make it any less likely that I will choose strawberry than either of the other options.

My position is that my past does have bearing on my present decisions. However, it doesn't determine them. I could have chosen vanilla. But I didn't. Obviously, there's no way to prove that I could have done other than I did. But that's what I believe.

It basically comes down to this; "If something is not determined by anything in what way is it not random?" — Count Timothy von Icarus

While that may indeed be true, it does not follow from it, that there is nothing not caused by something. If it is necessary that everything be caused by something, it becomes a matter of what can cause and whatever relation is possible from it.

Simply put, the principle of cause and effect legislates either in a progressive or regressive series of given empirical conditions, but for which the terminus of the series is not given.

For purely rational conditions, on the other hand, as in a perfectly suitable self-determining system, it is possible that the will be that which is a cause for the progressive series of effects, terminating in an action manifest in the world. But this, even if the case, still leaves the will as either necessitating a cause of itself, or, be itself uncaused. If uncaused, the principle of cause and effect is contradictory, and if the principle of cause and effect is contradictory under some conditions, its total validity immediately becomes questionable, and from which the empirical power of science is doubtable.

If it is unreliable to question the principle of cause and effect, it must be allowed to condition the will, in which case, the regressive series continues. But if the regressive series continues, there is no reason for the notion of a will free to determine anything on its own accord, which destroys the very idea of will as such and inevitably makes morality as a innate human condition, impossible.

It all reduces to the fact the principle of cause and effect cannot be denied, and at the same time but under different conditions, it cannot be used. Which leaves the idea of a substitution for it that does not contradict or intervene on those conditions for which it is necessary.

Given that the principle of cause and effect, as either a progressive or regressive series, is conditioned by time, a non-contradictory substitution for that which is legislated by it, in this case the will and that in a regressive series alone, insofar as its progressive series ends in a behavior congruent with the determination for what it ought to be, must justify the exclusion of regressive successions of time as its own condition.

So it is that that which is not determined by anything may be random, but that which is determined by the will is determined by something, hence not random. But to say an effect is not random does not say anything of its cause other than there is one, and in the case of such cause that has will for its effect, that in its turn being a cause, must have the time condition legislating any other cause/effect series, excluded from it.

There is but one conception, while not precisely sufficient for causality is nonetheless non-contradictory with respect to it, and, most importantly, is irrespective of time, and that is spontaneity. But this conception of spontaneity does not carry the implication that the will is a spontaneous faculty, but only that it is conditioned by it, and from which the conception of autonomy is a logically valid deduction, and from that, arises the conception of freedom.

Easy-peasy.

Or not.

It all reduces to the fact the principle of cause and effect cannot be denied, and at the same time but under different conditions, it cannot be used

I am not convinced that we cannot use the concept of causation to good use. Nor do I see how substituting a "universal will" as a sort of first mover fixes any of the problems I've mentioned about personal freedom. If a cosmic will starts all causes and effects, it's still the case that for my actions to be mine they have to have something to do with my memories, emotions, knowledge, etc.

It does not remove "us" from the will. As I explained, it inverts the relation so that "us" is attributed to the will rather than "will" being attributed to us. Attributing "will" to us, as you do, actually removes "us" from will, in order to have an autonomous self which has a will as a property.

I don't understand how this is supposed to fix things. It's still the case that our thoughts, beliefs, memories, rational decision making process, knowledge, etc. all pre-exist our choices. And they also seem to determine our choices. If they determine our choices, then our choices are "determined by" the past. Laws of nature have nothing to do with it, that's just one specific flavor of determinism. I'm just talking about determinism in the sense that "everything has a cause" and "what comes before dictates what comes after, causes pre-exist their effects."

If those things don't determine our choices, then it's hard to see how our actions are "free. Moreover this seems to fly in the face of phenomenological experience and the social sciences as well. E.g., I am generally hungry before I decide to go make lunch, my past sensations determine my current actions in that case.

It is not compatibilist because the will is not necessarily constrained by determinist 'laws of nature' which is what is inherent to determinism.

Determinism is just the view that: "events are determined by previously existing causes." The Principle of Sufficent Reason gets you there by itself. Ideas of determinism, e.g. Stoic Logos Spermatikos and cause, predate anything like modern science, and are a more basic (and IMO even more empirically and logically supportable) description of determinism.

The free will act is not determined by anything in the past.

So why is any choice more likely than any other?

When we do not understand the cause of an act, we might be inclined to say that the act is random. This is due to our failure to understand, and it does not necessarily mean that the act is truly random in any absolute sense, it may just be that we do not have the ability to understand the cause. The determinist will say that if the cause is not a determinist cause then it must be truly random, because the reality of a freely willed cause, as a true cause, is not allowed by the determinist.

But if the act isn't determined by anything in the past what is determining it? If you say "your will," does this will involve your memories, desires, preferences, etc.?

If it does, well those things preexist our choices and influence/determine them. If you say "no" then it's completely unrelated to anything, which makes it impossible to explain why people act in the predictable ways they do.

Surely, the reliable way in which drugs and hormone injections affect behavior suggest some relation between past events and actions, no? Drinking alcohol changes how people decide to act.

Or consider traumatic brain injuries that radically alter someone's personality and short term memory? Why do these effect how people act?

Sure, but the will to learn allows one to learn how to read, and then read War and Peace. So it is not true to say that if you do not know how to read you will not ever read War and Peace, because you can learn and then do it. And the choice to learn is freely willed, therefore not determined by the past.

This is an example of past choices dictating future choices. Hence, not consistent with "free will that unaffected by the past." Our past choices affect our future choices, and how they do so depends on how they have affected us and the world around us. That is, past choices determine future choices.

MU, I can't say I understand your position. But I believe I understand the Count's. I believe he's saying that, if things in my past aren't causing my decisions in the present, then my decisions are random. So, for example, I will not have chosen chocolate ice cream over vanilla for any reason more significant than a coin toss. In fact, the fact that I don't like, or am allergic to, strawberry will not make it any less likely that I will choose strawberry than either of the other options.

Exactly. Or, even if they are somehow not random, they aren't free. I mean, it seems to me that I proposed to my wife because of all the experiences I had while dating her, not because a will that is totally unrelated to past events acted through me. And if my will is unrelated to past events, it doesn't really make sense why I have gone years without reversing my decision to be married to her. After all, my relative happiness or love for her could have nothing to do with my actions now, those are all things that occured in the past.

My position is that my past does have bearing on my present decisions. However, it doesn't determine them. I could have chosen vanilla. But I didn't. Obviously, there's no way to prove that I could have done other than I did. But that's what I believe

The concept of potentialities seems like something that can go to the side when considering free will. It's a bit of a red herring.

Muscle spasms are actions of our body, but they aren't what we'd generally like to call "free actions." Same with our heart beat. Rather than focusing on potentialities, I think it makes more sense to consider which of our actions "we" decide, and which are effects from causes we do not control and may not even fathom. If I am guided by drives totally alien to me, that I don't understand, it doesn't seem like I'm free.

Determinism plays a role on allowing us to make choices though. Our actions need to have predictable effects for them to instantiate our will. If the world was random, if water sometimes cleaned your child, sometimes dissolved then, you couldn't make meaningful choices. That we have some idea what our actions will entail re changes in states of affairs is also a prerequisite of freedom.

This doesn't require absolute determinism, and neither does freedom. But any stochastic element also doesn't seem to make us any freer because it can't be based on our reasons for choosing different actions.

Nor do I see how substituting a "universal will"….. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Cool. I never said or implied any sort of universal will.

For my actions to be mine, whatever their cause must be in me. Who ever contested that? Did you really get from what I said, that I was implying anything else?

Oh well. Ever onward.

I found that post quite hard to follow TBH. But you seemed to be talking about the problem of first cause, and a self-determining will somehow solving that? I assumed this must be "universal" in that it doesn't seem like any of our personal wills could possibly account for causation going back before we were born.

But IDK how that solves the problem of a will that isn't affected by the past, memories, desires, etc. either. My will being "mine" doesn't make sense to me if said will remains undetermined by any of my memories, desires, knowledge, etc.

Apparently your interest is in with examining what the will does, whereas my interest concerns what the will is, or, what it is about human agency that makes it possible.

So it isn’t so much first cause, as it is metaphysical reduction. And from that, it becomes clear the will is not determined by my experiences or desires and whatnot, but the determinations the will makes, which manifest as my choice of behaviors, are conditioned by them. If we already understand that’s what happens, it remains to find out how it happens. As you say…we seek a reason, a transcendent cause I remember you calling it. Or, at least make a reasonable philosophical stab at it.

I figured I just gave you one. Kinda. Transcendental rather than transcendent, but a form of cause nonetheless.

I believe he's saying that, if things in my past aren't causing my decisions in the present, then my decisions are random. — Patterner

There's no logic to support that conclusion. The decisions are made concerning the future, and they are made at the present. The present is prior in time to the future, so a decision made at the present can have an effect in the future. And there is no need to assume that a decision made at the present, which is free from being determined by the past, is random, because it is made with respect to the future therefore not random. This takes into account the reality of all three aspects of time, past, present, and future.

I don't understand how this is supposed to fix things. It's still the case that our thoughts, beliefs, memories, rational decision making process, knowledge, etc. all pre-exist our choices. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sure, all of these pre-exist the choice, just like the past condition of the physical world pre-exists the choice, but none of these can be said to be the cause of the choice. This is because the choice is made in relation to the future. So the thing which chooses, the agent, considers all sorts of past things, and possible future things, and makes a decision, at the present, concerning the future. If the decision was caused only by pre-existing things, the agent could not consider the future. Yet the future plays an integral role in the decision.

If those things don't determine our choices, then it's hard to see how our actions are "free. Moreover this seems to fly in the face of phenomenological experience and the social sciences as well. E.g., I am generally hungry before I decide to go make lunch, my past sensations determine my current actions in that case. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't think you are paying close attention to your own experience. I prepare my meals, and I think this is the case for most people, before i get hungry, by some sort of schedule or habit. Then I am ready to eat before I get too hungry. This is known as thinking ahead. I make my lunch even before I go to work in the morning, and bring it with me, so I in no way wait till I am hungry before I make my lunch.

Determinism is just the view that: "events are determined by previously existing causes." The Principle of Sufficent Reason gets you there by itself. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The principle of sufficient reason does not get you there, because as I explain above, the cause may be a freely will act of a free willing being, at the present, rather than previously existing causes. This is consistent with the principle of sufficient reason, but not consistent with determinism.

But if the act isn't determined by anything in the past what is determining it? If you say "your will," does this will involve your memories, desires, preferences, etc.? — Count Timothy von Icarus

The free will act is caused by a choice made at the present, free from the past. And as I said, the past is definitely considered, but the past does not determine the choice. The future is also considered. And since the thing which is desired, the good which is acted toward, is something in the future, the future has the principal position as providing the primary influence on the choice. So it is clearly incorrect to say that the act is determined by the past.

Surely, the reliable way in which drugs and hormone injections affect behavior suggest some relation between past events and actions, no? Drinking alcohol changes how people decide to act. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Obviously, I do not deny that there is "some relation" between the past, and the choice which is made. However, there is also a relation to the future, and the relation to the future is the principal one. That's why the free will choice is more properly represented as a relation between the present and the future. But the being which makes the choice must make careful consideration of the past in order to adequately know its position at the present, and make the best choices.

This is an example of past choices dictating future choices. Hence, not consistent with "free will that unaffected by the past." Our past choices affect our future choices, and how they do so depends on how they have affected us and the world around us. That is, past choices determine future choices. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I never said that the free will choice is "unaffected by the past". I clearly said precisely otherwise. What is being discussed is whether the choice is determined by the past.

We don't make decisions with no memory of the past. And, remembering the past, we don't ignore it when we make decisions. When you make lunch before going to work, hours before you eat it, you don’t make something you do not like. You probably don’t often make something you have never tried before. Knowing you are going to want to enjoy your lunch in the future, you likely make something that you know you like because you’ve had it in the past and you liked it. When you are shopping at the grocery store, you think about what you were going to take to lunch for the next several days. You pick out things that you have enjoyed in the past. That’s why you pick them out.

What you think about the future determines what you will do, but what you think about the future is determined by your past, or more precisely, your memory of the past. You do not know the future; all you can know are your own projections of the future, and your projections are informed by your memory of the past. To paraphrase something Marshall McLuhan would say, you are looking at the future through the rear-view mirror.

This is Plato's point in the Republic when he discusses the parts of the soul and how they can be set against one another. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I think this "reason" is "overarching reason" and is being referred to as just that, and not "reason".

Firstly, all vices either consist of or affect reasoning. The gambling addict will always have a reason. "I'll just go gambling this one time, I've worked hard and I deserve a reward", right? This is an example representative of most, if not all cases.

Secondly, neither one's will and reasoning are consistent across time. One's will is tied to one's consciousness, for it is about conscious acts, conscious choices and conscious desires. The consciousness is always and only ever experienced in the present. So, will must only ever exist in the present too, but I've never seen a view of free will that actually takes this to heart.

One's failure to follow up on yesterday's promise to quit gambling doesn't represent a failure of will. After all, it's one's free will that allows them to break that promise. Why is the promise to act in one's best interests privileged over the decision to self-sabotage? All sorts of moralistic favouritism like this are embedded into free will ideas.

But if we want to be free, we need to be self-determining, which means we seek the transcendent cause from within. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not convinced that will's freedom is threatened by anything internally. The "self-determination" you speak of, if my assumptions are correct, requires the sustaining of an intention across time.

That is a common problem for me because will should be tied to consciousness, and is thus trapped in the present.

An intention that spans across time is still just one's will at just one point in time. At 9:00 am Sam commits to meditating for an hour, that's his choice, but at 9:20 am, he's bored and wants to stop. The self-determination you speak of is Sam following through on his intention to meditate for an hour. However, regardless of how boredom, laziness, hunger or whatever else influenced him, it was still his choice to stop, and at 9:20 it was his decision to stop.

Part of the problem is this notion of some mystical, overarching reason, as if, what Sam really wanted to do was meditate for an hour, and he was robbed of that. I find this silly. Why is the decision to meditate for an hour privileged over the decision to quit after 20 minutes?

My own conclusions always come back to morality and idealism.

It's also a linguistic problem. We say that one's will at time A is to do action A at time B (in the future), and that action A represents one's will. Then at time B, one's will, which only exists in time B at time B, becomes this "other". This "other" that interferes with and gets in the way of one's will, the choice made at time A.

I'd say that will is not united by, nor ruled over reason, it's a concept tied to consciousness, and so it's united by the singular consciousness. What do you think is the relationship between will and consciousness?

We don't make decisions with no memory of the past. And, remembering the past, we don't ignore it when we make decisions. — Patterner

Like I explained, that does not imply that the past determines the decision.

You probably don’t often make something you have never tried before. — Patterner

There must be a first time for everything. Have you never heard of a process called trial and error?

Knowing you are going to want to enjoy your lunch in the future, you likely make something that you know you like because you’ve had it in the past and you liked it. When you are shopping at the grocery store, you think about what you were going to take to lunch for the next several days. You pick out things that you have enjoyed in the past. That’s why you pick them out. — Patterner

Not necessarily, that's the point, we often like to try different things. Since we actually do choose, and try things we've never done before, your argument that choosing familiar things is evidence of determinism fails. Those examples are all irrelevant because we actually do sometimes choose otherwise, therefore the necessity required for determinism is lacking.

What you think about the future determines what you will do, but what you think about the future is determined by your past, or more precisely, your memory of the past. — punos

But what you think about the future does not "determine" what you do. It is only a contributing factor. There is also many other factors, like what Patterner argues, the force of habit.

So you and Patterner are arguing two very distinct things that "determine" the choice. Patterner says that it is habits you've formed in the past, things you've come to be familiar with and like, while you are arguing that it is something you think about for the future which determines your action. However, it is quite clear to me, that both of these play a role, and neither one "determines" the choice.

And neither one of you has addressed the fact that the choice is made at the present. If the future is determined by the past, there is a continuity of necessity through the present, which lies between these two. This implies that nothing can really happen at the present, because if something actually happened it would break the continuity and alter the relationship of necessity. Of course evidence is contrary to this, we see that everything happens at the present, and freely willed choices at the present will have an effect on the future which is not determined by the past. Therefore we ought to form the obvious conclusion that determinism is based in a faulty understanding of the present.

We don't make decisions with no memory of the past. And, remembering the past, we don't ignore it when we make decisions.
— Patterner

Like I explained, that does not imply that the past determines the decision. — Metaphysician Undercover

I agree that decisions are not determined, by the past or anything else. But the past strongly influences them. I doubt any decision is made without influence from the past. Even the decision to make lunch at all is made because of the past. We remember hunger. We remember that hunger came after some minimum period of time without eating. Those memories of the past combine with the thought that, in the near future, we will be going that minimum period of time, so will likely be hungry.

You probably don’t often make something you have never tried before.
— Patterner

There must be a first time for everything. Have you never heard of a process called trial and error? — Metaphysician Undercover

Even that is influenced by the past. You couldn't try something new if you didn't know you never tried it in the past. I would say sometimes the decision to try X is made because we want to try something new, and know we haven't tried X in the past.

Knowing you are going to want to enjoy your lunch in the future, you likely make something that you know you like because you’ve had it in the past and you liked it. When you are shopping at the grocery store, you think about what you were going to take to lunch for the next several days. You pick out things that you have enjoyed in the past. That’s why you pick them out.
— Patterner

Not necessarily, that's the point, we often like to try different things. Since we actually do choose, and try things we've never done before, your argument that choosing familiar things is evidence of determinism fails. Those examples are all irrelevant because we actually do sometimes choose otherwise, therefore the necessity required for determinism is lacking. — Metaphysician Undercover

I am not arguing for determinism. I don't believe determinism. I'm arguing that we don't make decisions without the influence of the past.

I think there are definitely problems with the main ways of defining probability, particularly frequentism, but I don't think circularity is one of them. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/probability-interpret/ . — Count Timothy von Icarus

Probability Theory actually supports what i'm saying.

First recall that Classical Probability Theory is said to speak of 'events' of Probability 1 that occur almost surely, and conversely of 'events' of Probability 0 that occur almost never. So although classical probability is sound in the sense of comprising an identifiable class of entities belonging to the universe of, say, ZFC Set Theory, it's semantics is in contradiction with naive intuitions about chance.

E.g when probability theory is interpreted as saying that a dart must land somewhere on an infinitely divisible dart-board, at a location that has probability 0. One the one hand, we want Pr(1) to mean surely, and Pr(0) to mean never, but this 'exacting' demand conflicts with our other demand that it is possible to choose any member of an infinite set. What probability theory is actually expressing, is that our intuitions about chance, determinism and infinity are vague and contradictory and cannot be reconciled, let alone be formally represented in terms of a finite axiomatic definition.

An obvious way out of the above impasse is to interpret almost surely and almost never as referring to limits of a sequence of random events, such as the dart's sequence of positions over time, where these limits aren't considered to represents probability-apt events in themselves. In which case, we restrict our interpretation of Probability Theory as only assigning meaningful probabilities to either incomplete trajectories of darts that haven''t yet landed and whose eventual position is uncertain, or to landed darts whose position is vague and to within finite precision among a set of positions whose probability is strictly greater than zero. In my view, this way out amounts to a philosophical rejection of an absolute distinction between determinism and chance.

That's an interesting idea. Any tips on a place to read more? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Sadly I can't think of specific references off the top of my head, but in my view Category Theory is the right meta-language for relating physics, logic and philosophy, so Samuel Abramsky and Jean Yves Girard would be my generally recommended authors, Plus lots of nlab and SEP, of course.

E.g when probability theory is interpreted as saying that a dart must land somewhere on an infinitely divisible dart-board, at a location that has probability 0. One the one hand, we want Pr(1) to mean surely, and Pr(0) to mean never, but this 'exacting' demand conflicts with our other demand that it is possible to choose any member of an infinite set. — sime

Ooh I really like this thought experiment. Good food for thought. Thank you.

Fun fact: if you did throw a dart at an infinitely dividable board, and you got the x,y coordinates of the point it landed, you'd be more likely to land on irrational numbers than rational

No matter how one defines the term (“free will”) I will not accept it. — Judaka

Nor I. I think of the term as simple speech at the expense of critical thought.

Pretty sad, I must say, to create a philosophy predicated on the convenience of a phrase.

I would like to address the issue of contributing factors first to keep things simple and uncluttered so that we can potentially make some progress here. I'll address the issue of time, and making choices in the present later if you wish me to. For now...

It is only a contributing factor. There is also many other factors, like what Patterner argues, the force of habit. — Metaphysician Undercover

I would be very interested in seeing a comprehensive list of these contributing factors if you can provide one. Also, am i to understand that contributing factors no matter how many or which ones are not responsible for any choice determination? Besides contributing factors, what else is there? Once the contributing factors are in place what makes or determines the choice according to you? It appears to me that without a final determination a choice is not possible, free or not.


Allow me to articulate my framework for decision-making. Given that decisions originate within the brain, which is comprised entirely of neurons, it is logical to surmise that comprehending the workings of neurons will enhance one's understanding of the decision-making process. By examining the structure and function of neurons, one can gain insight into how decisions are executed at the most fundamental level.

A neuron consists of a central body (soma), dendrites for receiving input, and an axon for transmitting output. Essentially, the neuron receives signals from its surroundings, primarily from other neurons, via its dendrites. These signals enter the neuron's central body and modify its responsiveness to future signals. Each incoming signal serves as a contributing factor towards an adaptive function within the neuron. By considering the cumulative effect of all present contributing factors in conjunction with prior contributing factors, the neuron makes a discerning determination to emit a signal back into the environment, thereby instigating an action that informs the future state of the neuronal environment (the brain). A person's choice is therefor the result of all the elemental "choices" or signals made by these component neurons in their brain to fire or not to fire a signal.

Is there anything else you would add or modify in this neuronal model of decision making to make it compatible with free will?

Fun fact: if you did throw a dart at an infinitely dividable board, and you got the x,y coordinates of the point it landed, you'd be more likely to land on irrational numbers than rational — flannel jesus

Couldn't any spot on such a board be 0,0? How would any specific spot be more legitimately the center than any other?

sure, any spot on a board could be 0,0, so choose a spot to be your 0,0 and then throw the dart.

↪Patterner sure, any spot on a board could be 0,0, so choose a spot to be your 0,0 and then throw the dart. — flannel jesus

What I mean is, maybe anywhere it lands can be 0,0. I'm just goofing around. Ignore me.

Is there anything else you would add or modify in this neuronal model of decision making to make it compatible with free will? — punos

Although it's impossible for us to list all the variables, figure out how much weight each has at any given moment, and probably many other factors, I think your general ideas is pretty clear.

Of course, if the Hard Problem is real, if there is subjective experience that is not explained by physicalism, it could be decision making is not entirely neuronal.