[MD] Free Will

[Steven Peterson]

Hi dmb,


> Steve said:
> That no one thinks of a bird's defiance of gravity (a biological pattern trumping an inorganic pattern) as an example of free will is exactly my point. It is the analogy I am drawing to call into question why we would think of a social pattern trumping a biological pattern (say, resisting the urge to urinate in public) as an exercise of free will.
>
> dmb says:
> That's exactly what I don't get about the analogy. It doesn't make sense to talk about the will until we get to social level morality.

Steve:
I already granted that we don't talk about the will before we get to
the social level. My question is why not? Why would you think of
social patterns as internally willed but biological patterns as
determined by external forces? That's totally SOM, dude.

dmb:
That's when the expression of preferences begins to meet with
resistance, particularly the biological impulses and instincts.

Steve:
Incorrect. As soon as there is a second set of value patterns there is
conflict with the first set if they are truly a different set of value
patterns.

dmb:
As far as I know, animals cannot defy their own urges and instincts. I
don't even think it would be fair to say that house-broken dogs have
any free will. We train them to poop outside by using their own
instincts against them. We can get them to prefer the yard by making
in-door pooping very unpleasant for them.

Steve:
Don't social patterns for humans function in exactly the same way?


> Steve said:
> [the question of free will has to be framed around an "independent" agent]  ... Because independence is another name for freedom. If the so-called agent is dependent or causally related to other things, then it is not a free agent.
>
> dmb says:
> Well, there you have reasserted the will as a separate metaphysical entity and opposed it to determinism, which follows from causal relations. As my dictionary puts it, determinism is "the doctrine that all events, including human action, are ultimately determined by causes external to the will."

Steve:
Yep, this free will issue depends on thinking of things as either
internal or external to the subject. The whole issue of free will
versus determinism depends entirely on SOM premises.

dmb:
> But to say the agent is "dependent" doesn't necessarily mean he is subject to causal relations, that she must act according to the laws of causality. It just means the agent is not isolated from or separate from all other things. I mean, to say we exist in relation to everything else is not the same thing as saying everything causes us to will or act or choose or whatever.

Steve:
When you buy into the premises of the free will/determinism Platypus,
the question is not whether causality is real but only whether or not
there is an internal cause located in "the will" that can at least
sometimes trump external causes.

> Steve said:
> Einstein is noting that the feeling of willing a given action is something that everyone experiences, but in what sense does it mean anything to say this willing is free? ...Is claiming to have free will saying that our acts are frequently accompanied by the feeling of having willed the act? If so, no one should disagree, but what more could someone possibly mean is unclear to Einstein who was quoting Schopenhauer (who had the same difficulties with the notion as Harris and I) since we don't have the feeling of willing our will.
>
>
> dmb says:
> The feeling of willing our will? I just can't make any sense of that notion. Why does this second will keep popping up?

Steve:
Because you assert that not only do humans will certain acts but that
willing is itself in some meaningful sense "free."


dmb:
 I don't understand why anyone would look for some other will in
addition to or behind the will as it's experienced by ordinary people
every day. If we make choices all the time, on what basis do we say
that free will is bunk?

Steve:
We make choices all the time, but what does it mean to say that that
choosing is done "freely"? In MOQ terms, I think all it can mean is
that social patterns can sometimes trump biological patterns and
intellectual patterns can sometimes trump social patterns.

dmb:
In what sense is that experience not real?

Steve:
I've affirmed many times the idea that we have a sense of intending or
willing many of the acts that we perform. The question is what can it
mean to say that that willing is free?


dmb:
Like I said, this is an empirical question with an empirical answer.
> And it's not just a feeling of freedom that we experience. It's also a practical matter, where we live with the consequences of those choices, have feelings of regret or satisfaction as they play out.


Steve:
What are we supposed to take away from the fact that we have feelings
of regret (often even when others tell us that it isn't our fault or
there's nothing we could have done differently)? Just how does that
make free will empirically verifiable?

Best,
Steve