A Google search for define:free gives "able to act or be done as one wishes; not under the control of another.". It seems to me that this is consistent with the compatibilist's definition: I pick the red ball because it's what I want to happen, not because it's what someone else wants to happen (contrary to my wishes). — Michael

But you defined "free" with "responsible". If your will is responsible for your actions, then your will is free. Accordingly, a person (or one's will) is only free in so far as it is responsible for activity. Freedom of the will is defined by you as the will being "responsible" for activity. My point is that "responsible" is not compatible with "free" in the normal usage of "free". To be able to act as one wishes is not compatible with being responsible for one's actions. Responsibility is what curtails one's freedom. For example, a person can freely choose to be irresponsible, even break the law etc., but the desire to be responsible inspires the person to choose otherwise.

So we don't define "free" with "responsible", as you do. Free is unbounded whereas responsible is bounded. We may define responsible in relation to free, as responsibility is what bounds our freedom, but we do not define free in relation to responsible as if freedom necessarily entails being responsible. The free person is not necessarily responsible. Likewise, a free will may choose inactivity over activity, therefore the defining feature of the free will cannot be "responsible for activity", because the will's freedom extends beyond the bounds of activity, to inactivity.

I really don't understand what you mean here. Sometimes I will not to do something (e.g. to not drink alcohol), and because of that will to not drink alcohol I don't drink alcohol. — Michael

OK, this is a less deceptive way of stating it. So let's say that you will not to drink alcohol. Compare this with your definition of "free will". Your definition of "free will" is such that your will is free if it is responsible for your actions. In this case there is no action, you are not drinking alcohol. According to your definition it cannot be a free will which is responsible for this inactivity. But let's assume that it is in some sense "the will" which is responsible for this inactivity. I conclude that this is therefore a constrained will which is responsible for the inactivity. What is it that is constraining the will? Is it another will? There is a free will which is responsible for activities, but do you think that there is another will which constrains the free will in order to produce inactivity?

As I explained earlier, in the traditional definition of free will, the free will is the means by which we refrain from activity. The important aspect of the free will is the capacity to refrain from activity, what is commonly called will power. By defining "free will" as a relationship between the will and human activity such that the will is only free if the human being is active, you produce an unwarranted separation between free will and will power. And it is through demonstrations of will power that we prove that the will is not causally determined.

Do some research.
Read up on Stanford. They explain the origin of compatibilism. — charleton

Actually I did a quick search to see if there was a legal definition of "free will" before I made my post, and found none. I am not inclined to use Stanford because I generally dislike the narrow minded physicalist perspective which they put forward. But if it helps you, then be my guest and refer to Stanford to produce your "legal definition" of free will.

In talking about the will being free you're tacitly implying a libertarian definition of "free will", and so all you're really arguing is that the compatibilist's definition is incompatible with the libertarian's definition. — Michael

You can say it like that if you want, that in talking about the will being free, you're tacitly implying a libertarian definition, but I don't see it the way you're saying it. I don't accept the libertarian definition either, I'm more of a traditionalist. So I'm not implying a libertarian definition, you're just misinterpreting.

What I think, is that the word "free" has a certain range of acceptable usage, and to use it outside that range is unacceptable, even dishonest, because you know that the reader will think that "free" has its normal meaning, but you are really using 'free" to signify something completely different.

Free will, for the compatibilist, isn't a matter of whether or not the will is free to choose from more than one outcome but a matter of whether or not we are responsible for our behaviour. And as I've said before, there are two different senses of responsibility: causal and moral. We're causally responsible if the will is the cause of our behaviour and we're morally responsible if we're causally responsible, in the right state of mind, and not under any unreasonable duress. — Michael

See, you define "free" with "responsible". But free means not under the control of another, and responsible means to be liable to be called to account for. So these terms are really incompatible, almost even contradictory because to be liable implies that you are bound by another. When you say that the person, or person's will, is free, what you really mean is that the person is liable, or bound, to be called to account. That's not freedom at all. And I think it's a deceptive use of "free", because if you told a person you are free to do want you want, when what you really meant is that the person is bound to be called to account for whatever is done, I would call that deception.

If my will causes me to turn down the alcohol then it is responsible for me not accepting and drinking the alcohol. So I don't see why we can't say that determinism allows for the capacity to prevent some action or another. — Michael

You still haven't provided any principles for dealing with the will's capacity to cause inaction. All you have done is described a particular instance of inactivity as an action, ("turn down the alcohol"), in order to avoid the issue, furthering your tactic of deception.

One has a will, but whether or not it is causally responsible for one's actions is debatable (see here). If it is then we have free will, according to the compatibilist, and if it isn't then we don't. Talk about the will being free isn't talk about whether or not the will is free from external influence but talk about whether or not the will is free (able) to direct one's behaviour. — Michael

I find that to be a very odd set of definitions. Each of us has a will, and our wills may or may not be the cause of our actions. If the will is the cause of our actions then the will is free. That's a strange use of the word "free". Wouldn't the will be more free, if it were free to either cause our actions or not cause our actions? But instead, you say that when the will is constrained, to cause one's actions then it is free.

That's a definition of "free will" which I would designate as unacceptable. You describe the will in a free state, free to either cause or not cause an individual's actions. Then you describe a constrained will, one which must cause the person's actions, and you say that this is a "free" will. So in your definition "free" has a meaning which is opposite to what it normally means. When the thing is constrained from its natural state, it is said to be free. The "will" itself is free to either cause or not cause human actions, but it is only said to be a "free will" when it is constrained to be causing human actions.

There's a very important aspect of the free will which you do not seem to be accounting for. This is the power which the will has to refrain from activity, what we call "will power". It is through will power that we break our bad habits, maintain our resolve, allowing ourselves to proceed toward new things. This is where the original philosophical sense of "free will" comes from, in work such as Augustine's. We have the power to break away from the habits which our material bodies have established, to follow pure intellectual principles in contemplation. That is why the will is said to be "free". It is not constrained by the habits of the body, to cause those activities which have been habitualized. We can designate those habits as "bad" and the free will has the power to break them. The traditional concept of "free will" associates the freedom of the will with our capacity to prevent our actions, not to cause them.

How would you account for the existence of "will power" under the compatibilist definition of "free will"? It could not be the free will which constrains human activity, because the will is only said to be free when it causes human activity. How would you account for this capacity which we have, to refrain from habitual activities which have been determined as bad, if it's not the free will which gives us the power of restraint?

It does establish compatibility between determinism and free will because it defines free will in terms that are consistent with determinism: one has free will if one's will is causally responsible for one's actions. — Michael

As I pointed out "free" here has no meaning. One's will is by your description causally responsible for one's actions. Whether one's will is free relative to a particular action is determined by moral responsibility. If the person was coerced or such, the person's will was not free.

So you cannot say that "free will" is defined in this way without equivocating with the word "free". You claim that one's will is always causally responsible for one's actions, and this is "free will". Yet when the person is not morally responsible due to coercion, the person"s will is not free. What exactly does "free" mean to you in "free will"?

As I've said already, I don't think you've defined "free will" at all. You have defined "will", and whether or not the will is free is another issue. You haven't yet defined what "free" means, because you allow that a person's will, which is the cause of one's actions, may or may not be free from duress. So you need to clear up this issue with the meaning of "free". Your definition claims that if the will is the cause of one's actions then it is a free will, yet you allow that under duress the will is still the cause of one's actions, but it is in some important way, not free.

Perhaps the solution is to remove "free" from the compatibilist's conception of will. The compatibilist has a conception of "will" which is compatible with determinism. But it would be deceptive to say that this is a conception of "free will" because the word "free" here doesn't do anything at all, except to mislead.

In a causal sense you're responsible for all your actions (if your will causes your actions) but in a moral sense you're not responsible if you've been coerced or are otherwise not in the right state of mind. — Michael

Now I think understand. You, and your will, are always the cause of your actions. But this is irrelevant to morality. Whether you are morally responsible is determined by some other principles. So this is consistent with what you said earlier:

The difference is that the libertarian wants for the will to be free from prior influence whereas the compatibilist doesn't think it matters. — Michael

Now this brings me back to my original criticism. You have defined, or described "the will", and you have said that whether or not the will is "free" is irrelevant. If this is the case, then the compatibilist position (as described) doesn't really establish compatibility between determinism and free will, it just claims that with respect to morality, the question does not need to be resolved.

That's irrelevant, logic is what justifies.

If you think that your desires are merely rooted only to your physical needs you clearly haven't
fully investigated this. Take the practise of psychology for instance, quite a fair share of experiments have enabled us to pry into the human psychology and infer that evidence to most of the human population. Now some of it may be inaccurate and not appealing to scientific procedures but we still have somewhat of a stencil in understanding human behavior. You can stand aside and say that your particular desires are distinct from the collective and it may appear that way I am not disputing that, but your preferences and desires are always modulations of the culture and society that you inhabit — Fumani

I don't see your point here. How does the study of psychology disprove my claim that desires are rooted in physical needs? You know we are all very similar physically, so this would account for the fact that people throughout the population have similar desires.

Now I did not say that these negations will be blatantly obvious to you I did say 'overtly' and in most cases it is overt. If you look at the root word of decision Latin it means to cut off, meaning cut you off from any other course of actions but the one you chose, even language demonstrates this. As I said the word negation may be a bit crude but my point is that when you make a choice you are eliminating all other choices that you weren't necessarily conscious of. — Fumani

This is completely different from what you argued before. You said that when we choose one thing, it is because the others are unappealing. Now you have changed to say that choosing one thing cuts you off from the others. This doesn't support your argument now, that we have no freedom to choose what we want, we are forced to because the other possibilities are what we do not want. And this was fundamental to your claim that there is no free will involved with such choices. Since it is now clear to you that we are not forced to choose what we do, because we apprehend the other possibilities as unappealing, do you see that we really do have free will?

Thus, proposition B is true, Smith believes that B is true, and Smith is justified in believing B is true. — Sam26

I would not say that Smith is justified in believing B, because his reason for believing B is A, that Jones will get the job. And Jones is not getting the job so A is false. Therefore Smith's belief of B is not really justified because the supposed justification is based in a falsity.

However, it is not clear who ‘the man’ refers to here. If ‘the man’ refers to Jones then the statement is false, because Jones is not the man who gets the job. If ‘the man’ refers to Smith, then Smith would be making a statement without any justification, since he believes that Jones will get the job. — Sam26

This is what I told Banno, truth depends on the meaning of the statement, and meaning requires interpretation. If there is to be a "true interpretation" it is the one which puts the statement into the proper context, and this is what is in the mind of the speaker. If Smith is the speaker of the statement, then "the man" refers to Jones, because Smith believes that Jones is the man who will get the job.

Gettier has tried to use semantic obscurity to trick the reader into believing that justified true belief is not enough for knowledge. However, it can be seen that in this case the ‘knowledge’ was either not justified or false, and thus never constituted knowledge in the first place. — Sam26

That's exactly right, Gettier has produced ambiguity with respect to who "the man" refers to, and uses this ambiguity in his argument. The argument is really an argument from equivocation. A states univocally that Jones is "the man" who will get the job. Later, it is suggested that "the man" might be considered to refer to Smith. To allow this is to allow equivocation.

In both cases, justification for Smith comes from empirical evidence. — Sam26

But this cannot be the case in "Jones is the man who will get the job" because the job has not yet been rewarded so Smith cannot be justified by empirical evidence in this belief.

Why do you believe in free will? — SonJnana

I've studied quite a bit of philosophy, especially metaphysics, and I've come to realize that the same principles which make reality intelligible are also the principles which support the notion of free will. This starts with the fundamental difference between past and future which we all recognize in our daily existence.

One can have a will but it might not be responsible for one's actions — Michael

I'm excluding cases of coercion, intoxication (to an extent), etc. — Michael

I don't understand. You seem to have a double standard of responsibility. In the one case you said: "One can have a will but it might not be responsible for one's actions...". In the other case you said: "... one is one's will, and one's will is responsible for one's actions." In this latter case you made exception for coercion etc..

So an individual is inseparable from one's will and this is why the individual is responsible for ones actions. But in cases of coercion etc., the person is separated from one's will, so that the will is not responsible for one's actions, something else is. You know that doesn't make sense, because either the person is inseparable from one's will, or not. If some things can separate a person from one's will, then why not other things? And since we're all different, anything in principle could separate a person from one's will. So it's questionable whether a person could really have a will, and it might be just a fiction used to hold people responsible.

Do you see what I mean? I am responsible for my actions because I am inseparable from my will, and my will is responsible for my actions. But in some cases I am not responsible for my actions because I am separated from my will. So then it's not true that I am inseparable from my will, and not true that I am responsible for my actions. There is no reason to believe "one is one's will". These are clearly distinct because one is only one's will when one is responsible. And if the individual is distinct from the will, then how can the individual ever be responsible?

Because one is one's will, and one's will is responsible for one's actions. Therefore, one's will is responsible for one's actions. — Michael

You said that in the case when one's will is not free, that individual is not responsible for one's actions. You are now saying that one's will is always responsible for one's actions. Or do you have a double standard of responsibility? An individual is always responsible for one's acts, because one is one's will, but in some cases the person is not responsible because one's will isn't free. That doesn't make sense.

One's actions are always determined, and one's will is always determined by some external influence. So there's no alternating back and forth. — Michael

If one's will is always determined by external influence, how can one ever be responsible for one's acts?

It doesn't. One can have a will but it might not be responsible for one's actions (e.g. perhaps if this is correct). In such a case one wouldn't have free will, but would have a will. It is only when the will is responsible for one's actions that one has free will. — Michael

OK, so a person has a free will sometimes, but not all of the time. Sometimes the person's will is free, sometimes it is determined. We still don't have any principles for compatibility here, only an alternating back and forth between free and determined. What kind of principles could be used to judge whether one's will is responsible for one's actions, or one's environment is responsible for one's actions?

It wasn't as precise as it could have been, but it's easy enough to understand that it excludes these situations. — Michael

OK, so under those described situations, duress, and coercion, a person does not have free will, according to your definition. I think that this is false, because some people will fight back, rather than be coerced. So the person must actually decide whether to be coerced or to fight the coercion, and under my understanding of free will, a decision is only possible if there is a free will. How do you account for the possibility that a person might fight the coercion? Is the will of some people more free than the will of other people? What if some people have no free will at all, and are just puppets?

Actually, the very fact that we can determine that our description of universals are inaccurate proves that we have knowledge of the real universal; because if we did not, then we could never judge our description to be inaccurate. You might reply that if we knew the universal, then we could always accurately describe it. This is very much the Meno's Paradox: "If we know what we're looking for, inquiry is unnecessary. If we don't know what we're looking for, inquiry is impossible. Therefore, inquiry is either unnecessary or impossible." — Samuel Lacrampe

I agree that in seeking knowledge we assume that there is such a thing as what you call "the real universal". The point I made earlier in the thread, is that this perfect universal is "the ideal", and as the ideal, it is no longer a universal, it has the characteristics of a particular. This is what Plato recognized in "The Republic" when he saw "the good". Suddenly "the real universal" is no longer a universal, it is a particular. Now it is necessary that the inquiry take a whole new course. We have been seeking the real universal, but we have been looking in the completely wrong place because there is no such thing as "the real universal", what we would call "the real universal" is actually a particular. When we determine what is required of the universal to be "real", we describe a particular. This opens a whole new perspective onto the nature of ideas and forms, the reality of the particular form.

To solve the paradox, we need to make the distinction between implicit knowledge and explicit knowledge. As per Aristotle, we have implicit knowledge of universals, obtained through the process of abstraction, and we are searching for the explicit knowledge. The ability to describe the universal accurately is the explicit knowledge, and the ability to judge if our description is accurate is the implicit knowledge. This is how the socratic method works. This also explains why we can all use the concept of 'justice' correctly and meaningfully in a sentence (e.g. "the holocaust was unjust"), but have trouble coming up with the perfect definition of 'justice'. — Samuel Lacrampe

So this distinction between explicit and implicit requires an assumption of the ideal, a perfection of the universal, and this ideal is necessarily a particular. Therefore such judgements always involve, within the implicit, the assumed reality of the particular. As much as we explicitly judge the universal, i.e. the universal is what is being judged for level of accuracy, this indicates a privation in the reality of universal, in reference to the assumed real perfection which is a particular.

It does provide a definition of free will: "to have free will is to have one's will be responsible for one's actions". — Michael

Your definition states what it means to have "will". It doesn't state what it means for that will to be free. It just states that if one's will is responsible for one's acts, that person's will was necessarily free. So your definition would not be good in legal situations, because even under duress, coercion, and force, a person's will is responsible for one's actions.

Please justify this. — Banno

You could very well have a look into your own head Banno, to find the truth about that. But that would not be justification, and that's why there is a difference between justification and truth. And it's also why what's in my head is not "knowledge" in the sense of JTB, and what's in your head is not "knowledge", these are just ideas. That they are not properly called "knowledge" does not mean that they are not real though.

If you do not allow for the reality of what's in the head, you'll never have any truth, because the meaning of any statement is dependent on context. And the true context is in the head of the author. Without the true context you have (as meaning) only a multitude of subjective interpretations. Wittgenstein demonstrated this quite well, in the sense that there is a multitude of interpretations of what he wrote. Unless there is a "what he meant" which is determined by what was in his head at the time (context), then there can be no truth or falsity to anything he said, just multiple subjective interpretations.

So, the claim "the stuff in the head is very real", is justified. The reality of the stuff in the head is demonstrated by a person's actions. The actions of the individual demonstrate that the person is thinking, and has real ideas within the head. To me, this qualifies as justification.

So you believe that determinism isn't true? Why do you believe that? — SonJnana

Because I believe in free will, and for the reasons discussed already, I believe free will is incompatible with determinism.

That one's will determines one's actions. — Michael

To say that one's actions are determined by ones will is a rather meaningless and irrelevant statement. It says nothing about free will, nor does it say anything about determinism. So it does not actually provide a definition of free will.

SO the question I have for the in-the-head theorists is, what is added by the stuff in the head that is not already in the statement? And the answer seems to me to be that the Beetle argument shows that in so far as a belief is private, it drops out of the discussion; and in so far as it is public, it is a statement and associated behaviours. — Banno

The issue though, is that "the stuff in the head" is very real, just like the thing in the box is very real. We can call the thing in the head a Belief, and we can call the thing in the box a Beetle, but this doesn't tell us anything about those items.

You can argue that because for each of us, the others cannot see these items, then there is no point in talking about the items, because we will never understand them with any sort of certainty, but that's why we have descriptive terms. So we find ways to describe these things, just like we find ways to describe colours to the blind person. There is no reason why the blind person cannot understand the wavelengths of light, and how they interact with various substances to produce what we perceive as colours. But colour doesn't drop out of the discussion, it is still there, as what is being described.

Actually, I think it's the other way around. Once we realize that determinism is wrong, this puts us on the right track toward understanding the universe.

not the forces around you, the history of the way you construe the world is what constrains your present options. — Joshs

I understand what you're saying, but how is "the way you construe the world" any more constraining than the forces around you? I can't choose to think something which I haven't the capacity to think, just like I can't choose to jump over the moon. Each of these constrains me in its own way, but neither is complete or absolute. So freedom of choice persists despite these different types of constraints.

So from our own standpoint we are free to choose and desire what we will, but from a larger cultural standpoint what we will is constrained by the era and cultural environment in which we live. — Joshs

It's quite obvious that what we can do is constrained by the forces around us. I don't think I can jump to the moon for example, and if I break the law I am subject to punishment. But these constraints in no way indicate that we are not free to choose. Freedom of choice does not mean that we are unlimited in what we can do.

Free will in normal parlance simply means not coerced, and that is a legal definition. — charleton

This is false, there is no legal definition of "free will", it is a philosophical term. And philosophical terms often have a meaning in common vernacular which is quite different from their meaning in philosophy, as is the case with many terms which are proper to a particular field of study but have been adopted into common speech.

Philosophers do not own the language. If you were asked in court whether or not you freely made a choice, as a determinist you are able to say yes without obfuscation. — charleton

This is a philosophy forum so I think it is only proper that we be discussing the meaning which "free will" has in philosophy. If you see a particularly good reason why you think that free will should be given another meaning, then you should offer up a good argument. But to say that "freewill " ought to be given another meaning because this will make it compatible with determinism, and I am determinist but it would make me feel better if I could believe that I have free will as well as being determined, is nonsense.

Try and tell a judge that all acts are deterministic and therefor I was not free to chose not to steal the car!!! — charleton

It just so happens, that the entire legal system is based on the assumption that free will is very real. So the claim, I am determinist and therefore I am not responsible for my actions, doesn't go over very well in court.

I mean exactly what you said that we have a whole array of templates to choose from, but even when we seem to choose a template that choice was inspired by a previous template. Your personal desires are rooted within the human condition, the desire for more resources, happiness and 'love' now how these desires express themselves is where the sense of individuality comes in. — Fumani

This is where I disagree with you. I think that my desires are rooted in my physical being, physical needs, instinct and such. not the templates which are offered to me by society.

All choices overtly or covertly are negations most of the time, you chose to join this forum because the prospect of not joining did not entice you, I chose to respond to your comment because the prospect of not responding did not alure me. — Fumani

And I do not agree that choices are necessarily negations. When something I like is offered to me I choose it without considering and negating other options. You can observe this in habits. So very often a choice is simply an affirmation without any negation at all. I do agree that we have the option to turn things down, and the capacity to say no is very important, but I do not agree that affirming necessarily involves negation. You can know what you want, and proceed toward that without an consideration as to what you don't want. This is evident from all the times in which we get what we don't want (make mistakes) from being to hasty.

I also think that affirmation and negation are in a very important sense categorically different. These are two very different ways to approach a choice. When I know what I want, and see something I want, I'll affirm it without hesitating to negate other possibilities. But if I'm not sure what I want, or must make a choice without any clear indication of what is the right choice, I may proceed through a process of elimination, negating the most unfavourable options first. So affirmation follows directly from knowing what you want, and involves certitude, while negation follows from being uncertain as to what you want. And when something is certainly unwanted, it will not even be considered to the point of needing to be negated.

Plato explored this categorical difference as the difference between pleasure and pain. He argued that pleasure could not be a simple negation of pain, because then all pleasure would have to follow from a negation of pain, so we would have to desire pain in order to negate it, to receive pleasure. So he found that pleasure, (what is desired), is in a completely different category from pain, (what is avoided). And this is why I argue that we can choose things, what is desired, pleasures, without having to negate any other options as undesirable, or painful. This indicates that pleasure and pain are in completely different categories and one is not a simple negation of the other.

Accordingly, I disagree with the conclusion of your post. You do not work out what you want by discovering what you don't want, these are categorically different. That would be like saying that you figured out that you like apples, because you dislike oranges. It doesn't work that way. You can't determine what you want by excluding what you don't want.

You are making the assumption that your desires are separate from society at large. — Fumani

Yes of course I am making that assumption. It appears blatantly obvious to me, that my personal desires are completely distinct from society as a whole. Do you not agree? I would not think that society is expressing its desires through me. My desires are intrinsically selfish, stemming from my own physical needs. But I may conform, to want what I think society wants from me.

Free will by its own definition is the ability to choose any course of action. Now do you honestly think you decide the course of your actions when you already contain a template for which course of action is right or which course of action is wrong? — Fumani

Yes, that is honestly what I think. I choose a template according the situation in which I find myself, as the means to the end. Since each situation varies due to its own particular circumstances, it is impossible that I already contain a template within me as to which course of action is right or wrong with respect to each situation I will be in. The templates only consist of general principles, and I must choose the ones best suited to the particular situation.

You cannot choose a template without negating another, a choice implies that there is a selection of options that are available. Now you choose one and you make the proclamation that you chose it on your own accord but you merely chose it based on either your instinct (biochemistry in your body) or a new template that you are trying to adopt. — Fumani

Why would choosing a template require negating another? Imagine having hundreds of templates laid out on the table, each with its own principle of application. Depending on my situation, I choose the one I think is best suited for my purpose. I don't negate the others, I leave them accessible to me for when I am in a different situation and require a different template.

Basically what I am saying Meta is that templates cannot be avoided, they are constructs that you operate under. Free will from your particular perspective is just the ability to move from one template to another, but every template that you can operate from is and was created by society, whether its supported by the majority or minority. The amount of people supporting that template matters not it can be a billion or just a hundred it doesn't change the fact that it is a template created by man and you are obligated to operate by one, your will is not free in that regard. — Fumani

I agree that templates cannot be avoided, and that if I am to be a human being I will necessarily use them. But I do not agree with your logic which concludes that because we use templates we have no free will. There may be hundreds, thousands, or even millions of existing templates. We are able to dismantle them and create new ones out of combining parts from different ones. So the number of possible templates is countless. With that amount of freedom of choice, how do you conclude that the use of templates indicates that the will is not free?

To be aware of many different things is distinct from focusing on one particular thing. To focus on one particular thing requires a conscious decision concerning the many different things which you are aware of.

For example if you want to start your own business but you recall that society at large has given you a template that you need money, and to get money you need a job, it will create resistance within you. We can oppose this template by starting our own business negating the prospect of getting a job, but we are still operating on the template of money. — Fumani

I don't see how my want for something can be interpreted as a template given to me by society. Let's say that I desire sexual pleasure, how is this a template given to me by society?

It appears to me like you have everything backwards. Society doesn't tell me that I need money, and therefore I have a desire for money. I have desires for many different things, and society tells me that to get these things, I need money, and so I transform my desire into a desire for money in order that I can get what I truly desire. So the template doesn't form my desire, it only transforms it. And it isn't even the template really which transforms it, I transform my desire, to be consistent with the template.

There are certain things we may be able to bypass but the fundamentals remain the same, our desires are intertwined with society, because even in opposing them and forming new ideologies or habits of our own, we cannot escape seeking a template that has already been created by a collection of other individuals. — Fumani

So the template doesn't negate free will. It has to be chosen. And even after choosing a particular template, we can switch templates at any moment. Therefore we do not really operate on a template, as you suggested, because we are always choosing different templates right and left, as we see fit, and the templates are nothing more than tools which are at our disposal, if we so desire to use them.

Perhaps you could. I can be only be focally conscious of one thing at any time. I of course could keep a few thing in my working memory. — bahman

It seems to me, like I am always consciously aware of many things at the same time. I hear many different things going on around the room, I look around and see many different things. Perhaps you are different from me in that respect, but don't you hear many different things going on at once?

The whole concept of "being consciously aware" is problematic as it imports an unwanted degree of binary definiteness into what is going on. — apokrisis

I guess it depends on how one defines "conscious", and how one defines "at any given time". But I think bahman's premise that we cannot be conscious of more than one option at any given time is clearly false. To me "conscious" specifically implies being aware of a multitude of things. "At any given time" is quite vague, but we'd have to shorten that period of time to an unreasonably short duration to have any hope of limiting the conscious mind to being aware of just one thing at a time. I think we would probably have to shorten that duration to the point where we couldn't say that the mind is even conscious of anything. So to give the mind a long enough time to qualify as being conscious, would be enough time that the mind would be conscious of multiple things. Therefore I believe that being conscious is being aware of multiple things at the same time.

To say we have free will to decide what we want is incorrect, we always operate on a template. — Fumani

I don't know what you mean by this. As far as I understand, I do not operate on a template. Care to explain yourself?

The problem with compatibilism, as I already suggested above, is that under its assumption moral responsibility is not rationally justifiable, but is merely something we cannot help feeling, and thus imputing to ourselves and others. — Janus

Just as libertarian free will is incoherent, and therefore an illusion, to the compatibilist, so moral responsibility follows into the same category. As freedom of choice is something we "feel" that we have, but is not understood rationally by the compatibilist, so is moral responsibility.

But proponents of compatibilism will say the libertarian conception of free will is incoherent. — Janus

Free will is a complicated subject, requiring much study. It's a lot easier to say that it is incoherent than it is to understand it.

You’ve mixed up that story with the other one which tests perceptual grouping. At a glance, we can see that there are one, two, three or then “many” of some object in a collection. If the objects are arranged - as a square, as a hexagon - we can then see the wholeness of the pattern and the number we associate with it. With a random arrangement, we would have to go back to some form of serial inspection. — apokrisis

No, I'm talking about the number of different objects around us which we can be consciously aware of at the same time. This is what you call holding in one's working memory.

That’s more a measure of how many items we can hold at once in working memory. — apokrisis

I would say that this is another way of saying the same thing as me. To be in one's working memory, means that the person is consciously aware of that thing. So if the person is able to hold six items in one's working memory, this means that the person is consciously aware of all six of those items at the same time. Bahman claimed that we can only have one item at a time in our working memory.

Good reply. However, we are creatures of free will and therefore despite what society gives us to form our habits of desire, we ultimately still choose our own goods to be desired.

Everybody can only focally be conscious of one thing at a time. — bahman

I think that the average person is aware of about six objects at once, without having to count them. So this premise is incorrect, we are focally conscious of numerous different things at the very same time.

There are different levels, or degrees of consciousness. The soul uses the brain to obtain higher degrees of consciousness. When a person is knocked "unconscious" there are still minimal degrees of conscious which remain for that person. This is evident from the fact that the person maintains a continuity of past memories despite being unconscious. How could the person maintain past memories if consciousness was completely lost?

You reject compatibilism, but you are actually rejecting the concept of non deterministic free will.

A compatibilist is a determinist. — charleton

Right, the compatibilist redefines "free will" such that what "free will" signifies is something which is compatible with determinism. All that this indicates is that the compatibilist rejects the traditional understanding of "free will", in favour of a different understanding of "free will". This does not make the traditional understanding of "free will" compatible with determinism, it just makes the compatibilist a determinist.

No, there is no thing apart from the thought. The thing is the thought. — Agustino

You are misrepresenting Manzotti's position. The word is an "external object" which is "encountered". Therefore it must exist prior to the thought which contains it. Unless the thought actually creates the word, the word necessarily exists apart from the thought. But Manzotti's description is that we encounter the word as an object, not that the word is created by thought.

If you want to put forth an ontology in which the thought actually creates the word, then this is completely different from Manzotti's. And you'll still have to account for the physical presence of the word, when we speak and write it down. This is when the word is separated from the thought, and this is inconsistent with your statement that there is no word apart from the thought.

Sure, his description is fictional, just like it's fictional when we say that the sun goes down. But it's a useful fiction. — Agustino

I don't see it as a useful fiction, I see it as a misguided ontology. And, if someone presented me an ontology which described the sun as going down, and going around the earth to come up on the other side in the morning, I would say it's a misguided ontology. Manzotti's ontology is very primitive and useless because he provides no distinction between particular instances of objects which we remember from the past, and general, universal principles, which we apply toward the future.

It's not future, it's happening right now, not in the future. If I have a thought, that thought occurs now, not in the future. So what future are you talking about? I might be thinking about what I will do tomorrow, but tomorrow is my distinction, which is occurring right now in the present. There is no tomorrow. — Agustino

The "thing thought about" is in the future. We have a distinction between the act of thinking, which is in the present, and the "thing thought about". In this case (Manzotti's interview), the things thought about are words. The existence of the words in thought is attributed to the past encounters with the physical occurrence of words. However, since we are discussing "things thought about", we must include things thought about which are in the future as well. We cannot just ignore the "things thought about" which are in the future, to focus on past "things thought about", just because the future "things thought about" do not fit into our preferred ontology. That will produce a lopsided and ineffective ontology

I disagree that the person always anticipates a future need. What if I'm just imagining different ways chess pieces could be arranged on a chess board just for fun? For no purpose (that is located in the future) at all? — Agustino

You can say things which are nonsense. Just because you can talk about doing something without purpose, doesn't mean that you can actually do that. When you decide to do something purposeless, then in making that decision, to do something purposeless, you have already given that act purpose.

I don't think there is any past or future in his vision. There is just the present. The past and the future are merely distinctions in the present. There is no other time but the present moment. — Agustino

That's false, the objects of thought in Manzotti's description are past encounters. Yet his description of thinking is to put these objects in relationships with future events:

Imagine you’re lying in bed planning to furnish a house you’ll soon be moving to in a distant town.
[future event]
...
When we say we are thinking, what we are actually doing is rearranging causal relations with past events, objects that we have encountered before, to see what happens when we combine them.
[past encounters]

What if time (past and future) are likewise merely useful fictions? — Agustino

I doesn't matter if it's fictional or not, past and future is a division which enters into Manzotti's description of thinking. Because it is an integral part of his description, then it is real as per that description. To say it is fictional is to say that his description is fictional.

One could perhaps produce a description without the references to future and past, but it wouldn't be Manzotti's description, it would be completely irrelevant to Manzotti. According to Manzotti, the existence of words, and other objects of thought, within the human mind in the act of thinking, is derived from past encounters. If we remove the past, claiming that the past is fictional, then there is no source for any objects of thought in the human mind. We're left with nothing.

That's not clear at all to me. How are there future things in the mind? — Agustino

When I think about something I will do tomorrow, that, "what I will do" is a thing in my mind, and it is a future thing.

How is it driven by anticipation? He's imagining possible combinations, has nothing to do with the future as such. — Agustino

In the example, he is thinking about an apartment he will furnish in the future. The act of rearranging is clearly driven by this anticipation. In all these acts, which Manzotti refers to, rearranging the furniture, juggling words, and the child learning, we can ask why does the person who does this, do this. The answer is always that the person anticipates a future need.

His position is in the right-hand bottom corner. But I would push it even further, and argue that even the physical/non-physical distinction makes no sense.

So there is no internal agent at all carrying out the actions. The actions themselves are the agent. Why do we need an agent who is different from the actions themselves? — Agustino

If that is his position, then his enterprise clearly fails for the reasons I've indicated. First, he doesn't properly distinguish between past and future, such that all objects in the mind, are explained by encounters with past objects (memories). He provides no explanation for the encounters in our minds with future objects (anticipation). Second, the terminology he uses reduces all things in the mind to "external objects", such that words are external objects. So he does not dissolve the externalist/internalist division, he just describes a hard core externalism.

Yes, I can imagine rearranging, juggling, and learning happening by themselves, without an agent. — Agustino

Well I'd like to see you describe that. An "agent" is a source of activity, an efficient cause. I really don't know how, you could explain any rearranging, juggling, or learning, going on without a source of activity. And the problem with Manzotti's claims, is that unless the agent is within the human being, as the human mind or soul or something like that, then the source of activity is the encounter with the external object which brings that object into the person's mind. But there is a break in the chain of efficient causation when the object goes into memory. And in reality, the efficient causation which is required to reproduce that object (recollect) is derived from the human agent's anticipation of a future thing, as per Manzotti's examples. It cannot be anything present to the individual which acts as the efficient cause of recollection, because Manzotti has already described the situation as the person's anticipation of the future occurrence as the efficient cause of these activities.

No, my claim is that there is no projection towards the future, just old ideas coming to mind when new impressions are encountered through old associations. — Agustino

This is in contradiction to Manzotti. He claims a projection towards the future. And he needs to include this projection toward the future, because it is a very real aspect of human activity. If it is your desire to produce a position without this projection toward the future, then you have just created a meaningless, unreal position. Why argue from a completely false premise?

So red is represented by what physical things? — Banno

In Manzotti's argument, the word "red" within your mind, is just an extension of the physical existence of the word "red" which you have already encountered. I called it a representation, but Augustine wouldn't like that because Augustine seems to think that Manizotti has devised a way to dissolve the division between the physical object and what I called the representation of it in the mind. The existence of the word is supposed to have a temporal extension in your mind, such that when you recollect the word, to think with it, you are not reproducing the word, it is just a continuation of the word's existence, it's temporal extension.

The problems with this position are numerous. One criticism I had, which Augustine failed to address, is why we need numerous encounters with the same word, in order to properly use that word. Augustine talks about a "bundle" of "impressions". But this doesn't account for what appears to be some form of inductive reasoning whereby the bundle of impressions seems to transform into one general principle which we call knowing how to use the word. The numerous encounters, what Augustine calls the bundle, reoccurring in each single instance of usage, is clearly inconsistent with Manzotti's position, which describes as an extension of existence of particular occurrences.

What's there to distinguish? And why is this relevant? — Agustino

It's relevant because of Manzotti's claim that mental activity is a rearranging of past things. But it is clear that in the mind there is future things as well as past things. So mental activity cannot be strictly a rearranging of past events, it also relates the past events to future events. So if he wants to discuss the rearranging of past things he needs to provide a means of separating past from future, such that he is discussing only past things, not past things in their relation to future things..

What do you mean by "rearranging" and why would this be driven by anticipation? — Agustino

"Rearranging" is Manizotti's word. And in his example of imagining furniture in a future home, this rearrangement is driven by anticipation. Also. when he uses "juggling" and "learning", these are both activities which are driven by anticipation of the future.

Yes, you're right, it's not externalist. It collapses the distinction between external and internal. — Agustino

No it clearly doesn't collapse that distinction, it makes it more evident, because the way he describes things implies a distinction between the internal agent which is carrying out these activities such as rearranging, juggling, and learning, and the things, the objects which form the past memories which the agent is engaged with in these activities.

Why is an agent needed? All that is there is the change from one impression to the next (or likewise from one idea to the next), why is there an agent needed to do the changing? Why can't the changing itself be basic? — Agustino

An agent is implied by Manizotti's description. Can you imagine rearranging, juggling, or learning, being carried out without an agent which is carrying out this activity?

I disagree. The whole point of the article, as I see it, is to strike at this distinction between inner and outer, internal and external. Nothing is internal or external, the distinction is false. All there exists is impressions and copies of impressions (ideas). What is external here? There is no external object to the impressions - the impressions themselves are the objects. — Agustino

If that is Manizotti's aim, then he clearly fails. He refers to words as well as other objects as "external objects". I think it's your turn to reread the interview.

Simple. The mind assumes that the same associations it's seen in the past will continue into the future. — Agustino

And you criticized me for using the word "mind", saying that it is "no-thing" and a term that needs clarification. You didn't allow me to say that the mind "creates" something, but now you've turned around to say that the mind "assumes" something. What's the difference between creating something and assuming something?

We're talking about how mental activity turns past memories toward the future events. If your claim is that this is done through the means of assumptions, then we must account for where these assumptions come from. As I said already, I believe the mind creates them. Where do you think they come from?

So if it finds something that smells like pineapple, but cannot see it, for whatever reason, then it will expect it to be pineapple. Remember that pineapple, on this account, is just a bundle of different impressions, smell being just one of them. So when we say it will expect it to be pineapple, we simply mean that the experience of the smell of pineapple, will recall/cause vague experiences of the taste of pineapple, and all the other previous impressions associated with it. — Agustino

See, you explain expectation through assumption. If it smells and looks like a pineapple one "assumes" that it will taste like a pineapple. But this is not really an assumption at all, it is a conclusion of inductive reasoning. Now we have to account for the mental performance which is inductive reasoning. This is to produce a generality from particular instances. A generality cannot be described as "a bundle of different impressions",. This would be a category mistake. A conclusion, a principle, which the agent can act on, in the future, is produced from the bundle of impressions. So there is a process of reduction whereby a bundle of impressions is reduced to a single (general) principle. Isn't this what we call abstraction?

After reading through the interview, I would say that my original criticism still holds. Manzotti does not adequately distinguish between past and future, memory and anticipation. So he speaks about mental activity as "rearranging causal relations with past events". Memories of external objects are past events, but we still must account for the act of "rearranging", and this is the creative act which is driven by anticipation. Anticipation cannot be validated by external objects because it's object is non-existent, and so this mental act, the creative act of rearranging, also cannot be described in reference to external objects. And so Manzotti continues to speak about rearranging, and juggling, and learning, without accounting for the agent of this act. He answers this with ambiguity "I am nothing", or "I am part of everything". But the problem is that his position requires an agent, and this brings us right back to the internal. There is an internal agent which is doing the rearranging, the creating. So it isn't really an externalist position at all.

No, the mind is a no-thing as far as I'm concerned. What is "mind"? Until it's clarified what that even means, you're saying nonsense by the "mind" creates. — Agustino

Very clearly there has to be something which anticipates the non-existent states of the future, something which does the rearranging, which does the juggling, which does the learning. If you don't like the word "mind", then use "soul", or "agent", but the brain cannot completely account for this creativity because the brain is just another object. And that object only has past memories, and past memories cannot account for the anticipation of non-existent objects of the future.

Yes, so this constant conjunction isn't always the same. There must be an input from the imagination to fill in gaps of vagueness. — Agustino

So the input, from the imagination, and this is the creative factor, cannot be accounted for by the memories of past occurrences. It must be accounted for by reference to the anticipation of future occurrences. How can you account for the brain "representing" something which has not yet occurred? And this is what prediction is.

Oh sorry Augustino. I missed the whole interview. I read the first part, thought it was the end of the article, and lost interest. I'll read the rest and get back to you.