RoR: Forum

Ed Thompson wrote:

> no one who was brave enough to enter into the Free Will Problem debate was also brave
> enough to attempt an answer to these 2 simple and fundamental questions

Ed:

The problem for me is I read over your questions a couple of times and I really do not understand them. I can't provide any answers because I'm not completely sure how those answers would be interpreted.

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 41

Monday, May 7, 2007 - 11:08am

Ed - one does not debate facts...;-)

Post 42

Monday, May 7, 2007 - 3:12pm

Ed, I'll take a shot at answering your multiple choice quiz, although the choices offered are not entirely clear to me.

My best single answer to the first question is B--the agent has freedom to expand or contract awareness about some issue. My best single answer to the second question is C--control over one's power to initiate or refrain from initiating mental effort toward some particular issue.

If I selected the right answers, I expect a gratuity of some kind--a Red Sox Cap, maybe a can of WD40, or even a T Shirt with this message on the back, that I observed in the Cowboys' Bar Saturday afternoon: W.R.A.N.G.L.E.R.S. (below which read)
                                             Western
                                                 Ranchers
                                                    Against
                                                       No
                                                          Good
                                                             Left-wing
                                                               Environmental
                                                                  Radical
                                                                    Shitheads
However, if I selected incorrect answers for either question, please couch your critcism in the sofest language possible. I'm sensitive.

Post 43

Monday, May 7, 2007 - 8:06pm

Mark, thanks for being the first to answer.

Your answer to where the locus of freedom would be found is (B) that it's in the agent (the chooser). This seems correct via the reductio ad absurdum exclusion of the alternatives.

A) There is a sense in which the will isn't totally free -- as B. Dwyer has consistently argued.

C) There is a sense in which the actions aren't free -- as they are directed by the will (i.e., by the intellect combined with the appetite).

D) There is a sense in which the choices aren't free -- as they are directed by the will (i.e., by the intellect combined with the appetite).

E) There is a sense in which the deliberations aren't free -- as they are directed by the will (i.e., by the intellect combined with the appetite).

But there is no sense in which the agent (B) isn't free -- free to choose to give more or less weight to sheer intellect or to sheer appetite or even to their integration.

Your answer to what's essential to freedom is (C) the control of response (to an environmental cue) due to personal intentions. This seems correct, too.

A) An initial indifference (between alternative courses of action) doesn't seem necessary, else we'd have to choose each choice from a blank slate.

B) The spontaneity of doing "what you felt like doing" -- at the time -- seems a little primitive for free-thinking humans.

D) The autonomy of self-determination -- influenced by built character, higher values, informed reason, etc. -- while probably correct for the most part -- seems a little deterministic and would probably not bat 1000% in the real world.

E) And the arbitrariness associated with pure "chance" is absurd on its face.

At first glance, I'd say that I have to agree with your assessment of the Free Will Problem debate (though I'd remain open to counter-arguments).

Ed

Post 44

Tuesday, May 8, 2007 - 4:23pm

My head is spinning! I'm having difficulty understanding all these abstractions. But I have a question for Bill. Bill you said:

Ask yourself whether or not you're free to believe in socialism if you're convinced that capitalism is superior, or free to believe in God if you're convinced that atheism is true, or free to believe in determinism if you're convinced that man has free will?

Maybe this is a silly question, but what if I had a set of choices before me, like a set of tasks I could complete, that I valued each of them equally. For example let's say I like going out to eat a restaurant equally to riding my bike, or building a cat condo for my two cats, and I don't find either of these activities as superior to any other. But I choose one activity over the other because I can't choose all of them at the same time. What determines that I make that choice?

Post 45

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 - 3:29am

Monday, May 7 - 8:33am

"I find it interesting that -- though this is now the second time that I've asked these 2 very simple questions -- that no one who was brave enough to enter into the Free Will Problem debate was also brave enough to attempt an answer to these 2 simple and fundamental questions about it.

"Who do you all think you are, anyway (above philosophical reproach?)?

Ed
[put your money where your mouth is (or shut up about it)]"

There is just one question here and let me answer it just as far as it pertains to me, not to "all"--I am Tibor Machan.

Post 46

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 - 7:15am

Dr. Machan,

Apologies, and due respect, are in order. My "bad" -- as they say.

Ed
[opens mouth, inserts foot]

Post 47

Wednesday, May 9, 2007 - 10:50am

Just don't chew yer toes off, Ed - ye don't want to be panned for cloven feet......;-)

Post 48

Thursday, May 10, 2007 - 11:13pm

Ed writes,

In order to turbo-charge the efficacy of this debate, I am going to give Bill -- and every other interested party -- exactly 2 multiple choice questions (I'm a teacher, by nature, so please bear with me) ...

1) The "freedom" in the Free Will Problem debate is properly ascribed to

A) the will
B) the agent
C) actions
D) choices
E) deliberations

[Adapted from Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, free will problem, p. 326-7]

I would say that it could be ascribed to all of them. The will is said to be free, and so is the agent insofar as he possesses a will that is free. His actions are free because they are under the control of a faculty that is free, namely, his will. And, of course, if his will is free, then (at least some of) his choices are free. Moreover, advocates of free will would presumably say that his choice to deliberate -- i.e., to think -- is free as well.

2) The essential characteristic (the conceptual common denominator) of freedom in this debate is that it always involves

A) indifference (an initial indifference between alternative courses of action)
B) spontaneity (doing "what you felt like doing" -- at the time)
C) control (ability to perform or refrain from an act, based on one's underlying intentions)
D) autonomy (a kind of self-determination influenced by built character, higher values, informed reason, etc)
E) arbitrariness (basically: "chance" -- i.e., a complete severance from reality)

I would say A), but not B). I'm not sure about C), which could be consistent with compatibilism, depending on how it's interpreted. If the ability to perform or refrain from performing an act depends on one's underlying intentions, then it's not free unless one's intentions are themselves free, i.e., not strictly determined by one's values and underlying motivations. I don't think D) qualifies, for if autonomy is influenced by built character, higher values, informed reason, etc., then it is determined by these factors. Nor would E) qualify, as it is a description, not of free will, but of indeterminism.

- Bill

P.S. I think I may have misunderstood your question, Ed? When you referred to the proper ascription of "freedom" in the free will debate, did you mean "proper" in the sense of what the doctrine of free will would consider proper, or what any of the respondents to your question would consider proper? I took you to mean the former, but it now appears that you may have meant the latter.

As I mentioned, I would say that option A) -- indifference between the alternatives -- is required for free will to exist. If the moral agent is not indifferent between the choices open to him, then he will choose the one that he values most, which means that his choice will be determined by that value.

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 5/11, 12:18am)

(Edited by William Dwyer
on 5/11, 12:33am)

Post 49

Friday, May 11, 2007 - 12:15am

John Armaos writes,

My head is spinning! I'm having difficulty understanding all these abstractions. But I have a question for Bill. Bill you said:
Ask yourself whether or not you're free to believe in socialism if you're convinced that capitalism is superior, or free to believe in God if you're convinced that atheism is true, or free to believe in determinism if you're convinced that man has free will?
Maybe this is a silly question,
It's not a silly question at all.
but what if I had a set of choices before me, like a set of tasks I could complete, that I valued each of them equally. For example let's say I like going out to eat a restaurant equally to riding my bike, or building a cat condo for my two cats, and I don't find either of these activities as superior to any other. But I choose one activity over the other because I can't choose all of them at the same time. What determines that I make that choice?

Once you decide they're of equal importance, the value you place on your time will determine how quickly you choose one over the others. Which one you choose will probably be determined by whichever alternative you happen to be focused on at the time that you wish to make your choice.

This example reminds me of the famous Buridan's Ass dilemma in which an ass that is placed equidistant between two bales of hay supposedly starves to death, because it has no motive for choosing one bale of hay over the other. The answer to this supposed dilemma, at least for a human being, is that sooner or later the person would value choosing whichever alternative he happens to be thinking of at the time rather than postpone his decision any longer.

But this kind of choice is not an example of "free will" in the Objectivist sense of the term. Objectivism would say that such a choice is determined by one's values, which in turn are determined by one's choice to think or not to think. As Rand puts it, "...that which you call "free will" is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character." (For the New Intellectual, p. 155) The problem I have with the Objectivist view of free will is that even the choice to think must be motivated by a value preference. If it wasn't, a person would have no reason to choose to think over choosing not to think, in which case, the choice to think, far from being rational, would be completely and utterly arbitrary.

- Bill

Post 50

Friday, May 11, 2007 - 2:39am

Bill, I asked ...

1) The "freedom" in the Free Will Problem debate is properly ascribed to

A) the will
B) the agent
C) actions
D) choices
E) deliberations

[Adapted from Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, free will problem, p. 326-7]

I would say that it could be ascribed to all of them. The will is said to be free, and so is the agent insofar as he possesses a will that is free. His actions are free because they are under the control of a faculty that is free ...

And I think can live with this answer (i.e., all of the above). However, regarding whether the "properly" in "properly ascribed" was the philosophically-properly -- or merely the "where do YOU personally-ascribe it?" -- I did mean the "philosophically"-properly ascribed (i.e., the "right" way to think about free will).

I continue ...

2) The essential characteristic (the conceptual common denominator) of freedom in this debate is that it always involves

A) indifference (an initial indifference between alternative courses of action)
B) spontaneity (doing "what you felt like doing" -- at the time)
C) control (ability to perform or refrain from an act, based on one's underlying intentions)
D) autonomy (a kind of self-determination influenced by built character, higher values, informed reason, etc)
E) arbitrariness (basically: "chance" -- i.e., a complete severance from reality)

I would say A), but not B).

Recap:
You would say that free will always involves an initial indifference between choices, but not (always) doing what you felt like doing.

I'm not sure about C), which could be consistent with compatibilism, depending on how it's interpreted. If the ability to perform or refrain from performing an act depends on one's underlying intentions, then it's not free unless one's intentions are themselves free, i.e., not strictly determined by one's values and underlying motivations.

This is what I've been harping about, Bill. Your conception of free will is a completely arbitrary will -- and it is not philosophically-correct to think that way.

I don't think D) qualifies, for if autonomy is influenced by built character, higher values, informed reason, etc., then it is determined by these factors.

Here you equivocate between "influenced" and "determined" -- and that is philosophically-incorrect to do.

Nor would E) qualify, as it is a description, not of free will, but of indeterminism.

Interesting answer. If you admit that free will is not identical to indeterminism -- and you, here, do -- then you have also admitted (albeit indirectly) that determinism is not the opposite of free willl. So, with determinism not being an opposite to free will, there's wiggle-room in your mind for both to exist at the same time (because they don't contradict each other)? Am I right about this? Do you hold a conception of free will that is not contradictory to determinism?

Ed

Post 51

Friday, May 11, 2007 - 8:29am

Bill, I agree with your post #49.

But at the end you write: "The problem I have with the Objectivist view of free will is that even the choice to think must be motivated by a value preference. If it wasn't, a person would have no reason to choose to think over choosing not to think, in which case, the choice to think, far from being rational, would be completely and utterly arbitrary."

My answer would be that the choice to think IS motivated by a value preference: one's own life. One's life is the fundamental value. A person who 1) recognizes the conditional nature of his life and happiness (ie, that suffering or death will be the result of flouting the facts of reality), and 2) wants to live and be happy, will then 3) choose conceptual identification/integration of sensory-perceptions (thinking) as his method. This choice underlies his choice of values and their placement in his value scale, which then cause his actions.

Does this imply that there are people who don't recognize the conditional nature of their lives or don't really want to live? Yes. Some people evade the basic fact that they aren't immortal, that their lives aren't gauranteed to them, that their actions can have disastrous consequences for their own lives. And some people, while repeating the routine motions of their lives day after day, feel no love for their own existence metaphysically (that doesn't mean they're passionate about dying, of course, only that they're not passionate about living).

That's why Objectivism, as Ayn Rand said, is the philosophy for living on earth.
(Edited by Jon Trager
on 5/12, 8:07am)

Post 52

Friday, May 11, 2007 - 8:30am

Bill just wondering and my apologies if you've already explained, but how would you define free will?

Post 53

Friday, May 11, 2007 - 12:44pm

but how would you define free will?

As anything but free.......[snort]

Post 54

Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 7:27am

Bill, as Jon Trager alludes to in post 51, you sell humans short.

When you brought up the analogy of the famous Buridan's Ass dilemma, you equivocated between an ass and a human. You didn't presume any kind of intellectual deliberation on the human's part. Instead, you said that humans, like hungry asses, will choose based on happenstance focus. But here is how a human would actually react (and notice it involves free will) ...

1) notice 2 sources of same food equidistant from present location
2) notice hunger
3) notice no appreciable difference over which choice is made (but that EITHER would satisfy hunger)
4) deliberately, but somewhat randomly, choose to decide on one of them (over the other) because of the existential indifference of the 2 choices AND the importance of your life continuance

Asses don't "think" like that. Asses don't "choose" like that. Asses aren't "free" like that.

Ed

Post 55

Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 7:39am

In post #51 Jon Trager writes:

> Bill, I agree with your post #49.

Jon:

Does this mean that you agree with Bill conclusion that, at a given point in time, and under a specific set of circumstances, that a man has only one possible course of action open to him, and if those conditions were repeated, he would always be determined to act the same way; i.e., would be determined to always make the same "choice" given those conditions?

Regards,
--
Jeff

Post 56

Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 11:31am

Jeffrey, I agree with the Ayn Rand quote Bill referenced:

"...that which you call "free will" is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character." (For the New Intellectual, p. 155).

So, my answer to your question in post #55 is yes, UNLESS the man conceptually changed his relevant values in the interim (during the period between identical circumstances).

Robert Malcolm: Ever think about posting more than a snide one-sentence comment once in a while? Just wondering.

Post 57

Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 5:15pm

If it was perceived as snide, then it must have 'struck' close to home...

Post 58

Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 6:20pm

Okay, Robert. Looks like the answer is "no."

Post 59

Saturday, May 12, 2007 - 10:33pm