So you think you have free will

This is why I tend to just ignore the free will debate; under free will denial, all possible outcomes from a given event are claimed as proof that free will is bunk.

Thats not the reason to deny free will. It's not only that they are possible, but that they are possible with all the other elements in the event being the same.

Unfortunately, proper science* requires there at least two possible outcomes in any given study. So taking a binary choice (red or blue shirt) and claiming that both shirts prove your point means the example is unfalsifiable and thus invalid. At this point one might as well invoke Descartes' demon.

There are, IMHO, two misconceptions in this. First, it assumes that I'm posing a scientific framework of study of free will, rather than a philosophical framework, specially since my objection revolves around logical consistency, rather than empirical lack/support of evidence. It's unwise to study a philosophical problem of logic using the limitations, assumptions and frameworks of science. It would be akin to study theories of morality using scientific studies, it hardly gets you anywhere. If one uses logic, and one shows that "if A, then B---> B----> Therefore A" it doesn't allow for any other possibility, however, it's logically valid.

The second misconception is that it isn't the point that both choises prove my point; it's more than there are just two possibilities ( the decision is repeated or is changed), so accepting this fact proves my point. The though experiment can be falsified of course: you just need to prove there can be a third possibility, that isn't either determinism or randomness. So it's not an impossible or stacked task in a scientific experiment, it's a philosophical though experiment in logical consistency and coherence. Showing that A and not-A don't allow for free will already proves by logic standards that free will it's impossible, since logically A and not-A are the only logical possibilities.

You might as well invoke Descartes Demon, but that hardly would show a third possibility is logically possible.

I agree with this. Free-will skeptics can almost be counted on to eventually bring up the "heads I win tails you loose" vignette, in the exact same fashion that they complain woosters bring up the "why is there something rather than nothing" question.

It's only a "heads I win, tails you loose" scenario if you assume that there is only randomness and determinism as outcomes. If you disagree, then please explain me how and what would be the nature of this alledged third scenario. You must just as well that the claim "All deciminals of Pi are between 0 and 9" is a "heads I win tails you loose" situation, because no matter what number one get, it will be 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. If those are the only possibilities, it's not me who is stacking the issue, but reality itself.
 
One of the interesting questions that I think gets overlooked is what exactly is indeterminism/randomness? Because it seems to me random events are acausal, and this would seem to spit in the face of logic. I can't imagine too many logicians would've taken randomness seriously if not for the fact that we seem to have strong proof at the QM level, which leads to arguments about the possibility of randomness at the macrolevel. (As Chomsky and Sheldrake note*, what we have in science are regularities. Whether we can upgrade these regularities to definitive, universally applicable laws isn't clear**.)

¿Why would random events spit in the face of logic? As far as I see, it doesn't contradict any known rule of logic.

Thus it seems to me the choices are not determinism or indeterminism, but rather Determinism and Something-We-Don't-Completely-Understand.

If something is deterministic, is by logic non-deterministic, or indeterministic, since those are the only logical two groups that can exist. Of course, you are free (no pun intended!) to say Free will doesn't follow the laws of logic, but then one might just say that free will isn't part of a coherent worldview. Which is fine if you are fine with saying that about your worldview.
 
Oh, I'm not arguing for (or against) free will there, I actually think the question of randomness is the more interesting one.

eta: On why randomness seems illogical to me - how can something happen without a cause?
 
Been meaning to read other books on Idealism, but I don't even know where to begin. Know any that are good?
Ethan, I just researched your question a little as the frustrated librarian I am, not as someone who's actually really smart and can think through these things. Duh. (Or maybe I'm just lazy. Or both.)

These threads drop some contemporary names:
http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/4364/which-contemporary-philosophers-are-idealists
http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/contemporary-idealists-46584.html
Freya Mathews, Robert Adams, Vittorio Hösle, Howard Robinson, John Foster, Nicholas Rescher, Timothy Sprigge

Sprigge seems to be something of a name.

Timothy Sprigge:
The author of The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (1984), Sprigge defended a panpsychist version of absolute idealism, according to which reality consists of bits of experience combined into a certain kind of coherent whole. His work presents several new arguments in favor of the plausibility of such an account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Sprigge

Timothy Sprigge, The Vindication of Absolute Idealism
The truth of any philosophical thesis cannot depend on what happens to be currently fashionable, but rather must stand on the soundness of philosophical argument. To this end, The Vindication of Absolute Idealism is a bold statement of Sprigge's conclusions, a synthesis of panpsychism and absolute idealism, which he contends is the most satisfactory solution to the question of the nature of consciousness and the mind-body problem. Sprigge's view of consciousness remains a challenge to mainstream physicalism and a viable option that addresses pressing contemporary concerns not only in metaphysics and philosophy of mind but also in environmental ethics and animal rights.
http://www.amazon.com/Vindication-A...Q3W_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408505356&sr=1-1

Timothy Sprigge, The Importance of Subjectivity
Timothy Sprigge was one of the leading exponents of philosophical idealism in the last fifty years. His scholarly work in the history of modern philosophy focused on Baruch Spinoza, William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, F. H. Bradley, Arthur Schopenhauer, Edmund Husserl, and Alfred North Whitehead: this eventually led to the construction of his own original system of metaphysics he called 'panpsychistic absolute idealism'. Idealism, long unfashionable, has been coming back into favour, and Sprigge's work has found a new readership. This selection of his finest essays ranges widely over metaphysics, ethics, and the history of philosophy: all the themes that he discusses are drawn together in his unique philosophical system, based upon his original theory of the nature of consciousness.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Importanc...m_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=09302KB3P3HYHYBMMZY9

John Foster, A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism
A World for Us aims to refute physical realism and establish in its place a form of idealism. Physical realism, in the sense in which John Foster understands it, takes the physical world to be something whose existence is both logically independent of the human mind and metaphysically fundamental. Foster identifies a number of problems for this realist view, but his main objection is that it does not accord the world the requisite empirical immanence. The form of idealism that he tries to establish in its place rejects the realist view in both its aspects. It takes the world to be something whose existence is ultimately constituted by facts about human sensory experience, or by some richer complex of non-physical facts in which such experiential facts centrally feature. Foster calls this phenomenalistic idealism. He tries to establish a specific version of such phenomenalistic idealism, in which the experiential facts that centrally feature in the constitutive creation of the world are ones that concern the organization of human sensory experience. The basic idea of this version is that, in the context of certain other constitutively relevant factors, this sensory organization creates the physical world by disposing things to appear systematically world-wise at the human empirical viewpoint. Chief among these other relevant factors is the role of God as the one who is responsible for the sensory organization and ordains the system of appearance it yields. It is this that gives the idealistically created world its objectivity and allows it to qualify as a real world.
http://www.amazon.com/World-Us-Case-Phenomenalistic-Idealism/dp/0199297134

A review of a recentish history of idealism up to the present, that mentions some of the above names:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/29657-idealism-the-history-of-a-philosophy/
http://www.amazon.com/Idealism-History-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham/dp/0773538372
Contents Introduction: Why Idealism Matters Part 1: Ancient Idealism 1. Parmenides and the Birth of Ancient Idealism 2. Plato and Neoplatonism Part 2: Early Modern Idealism 3. Phenomenalism and Idealism I: Descartes and Malebranche 4. Phenomenalism and Idealism II: Leibniz and Berkeley Part 3: German Idealism 5. Immanuel Kant: Cognition, Freedom and Teleology 6. Fichte and the System of Freedom 7. Philosophy of Nature and the Birth of Absolute Idealism: Schelling 8. Hegel and Hegelianism: Mind, Nature and Logic Part 4: British Idealism 9. British Absolute Idealism: From Green to Bradley 10. Personal Idealism: From Ward to McTaggart 11. Naturalist Idealism: Bernard Bosanquet 12. Criticisms and Persistent Misconceptions of Idealism 13. Actual Occasions and Eternal Objects: The Process Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. Part 5: Contemporary Idealisms 14. Autopoiesis: Idealist Biology I 15. Autonomous Agents: Idealist Biology II 16. Contemporary Philosophical Idealisms
 
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Oh, I'm not arguing for (or against) free will there, I actually think the question of randomness is the more interesting one.

eta: On why randomness seems illogical to me - how can something happen without a cause?

I agree it's an interesting question, and it might have several answers, however, how does that show it's illogical? at most, it sound like it would be puzzling, or counterintuitive only.
 
I'm sorry, I can't see video from where I am. ¿what point are you trying to argue here Bucky?
I was pointing out the interview to learn more about his ideas. It's pretty long but it goes into a lot of details and it answers some of the questions you are asking.

cheers
 
Doesn't seem possible at all, since A and not-A cover all the options, same as determinism and non-determinism ( or indeterminism) cover them. Of course "not-A" or "indeterminism" might have many varieties, but they will invariably be part of the groupo "not-A". Woudl love to see the google talk though.

It is not true that determinism and indeterminism are exhaustive options on the subject, because both have a common assumption: mechanicism, spatialization of time. For this both make inconceivable the free will, but suffice to reject that assumption so that there is room for free will. Henry Bergson realized this.
 
Ethan, I just researched your question a little as the frustrated librarian I am, not as someone who's actually really smart and can think through these things. Duh. (Or maybe I'm just lazy. Or both.)

These threads drop some contemporary names:
http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/4364/which-contemporary-philosophers-are-idealists
http://forums.philosophyforums.com/threads/contemporary-idealists-46584.html
Freya Mathews, Robert Adams, Vittorio Hösle, Howard Robinson, John Foster, Nicholas Rescher, Timothy Sprigge

Sprigge seems to be something of a name.

Timothy Sprigge:
The author of The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (1984), Sprigge defended a panpsychist version of absolute idealism, according to which reality consists of bits of experience combined into a certain kind of coherent whole. His work presents several new arguments in favor of the plausibility of such an account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Sprigge

Timothy Sprigge, The Vindication of Absolute Idealism
The truth of any philosophical thesis cannot depend on what happens to be currently fashionable, but rather must stand on the soundness of philosophical argument. To this end, The Vindication of Absolute Idealism is a bold statement of Sprigge's conclusions, a synthesis of panpsychism and absolute idealism, which he contends is the most satisfactory solution to the question of the nature of consciousness and the mind-body problem. Sprigge's view of consciousness remains a challenge to mainstream physicalism and a viable option that addresses pressing contemporary concerns not only in metaphysics and philosophy of mind but also in environmental ethics and animal rights.
http://www.amazon.com/Vindication-A...Q3W_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408505356&sr=1-1

Timothy Sprigge, The Importance of Subjectivity
Timothy Sprigge was one of the leading exponents of philosophical idealism in the last fifty years. His scholarly work in the history of modern philosophy focused on Baruch Spinoza, William James, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, F. H. Bradley, Arthur Schopenhauer, Edmund Husserl, and Alfred North Whitehead: this eventually led to the construction of his own original system of metaphysics he called 'panpsychistic absolute idealism'. Idealism, long unfashionable, has been coming back into favour, and Sprigge's work has found a new readership. This selection of his finest essays ranges widely over metaphysics, ethics, and the history of philosophy: all the themes that he discusses are drawn together in his unique philosophical system, based upon his original theory of the nature of consciousness.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Importanc...m_sbs_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=09302KB3P3HYHYBMMZY9

John Foster, A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism
A World for Us aims to refute physical realism and establish in its place a form of idealism. Physical realism, in the sense in which John Foster understands it, takes the physical world to be something whose existence is both logically independent of the human mind and metaphysically fundamental. Foster identifies a number of problems for this realist view, but his main objection is that it does not accord the world the requisite empirical immanence. The form of idealism that he tries to establish in its place rejects the realist view in both its aspects. It takes the world to be something whose existence is ultimately constituted by facts about human sensory experience, or by some richer complex of non-physical facts in which such experiential facts centrally feature. Foster calls this phenomenalistic idealism. He tries to establish a specific version of such phenomenalistic idealism, in which the experiential facts that centrally feature in the constitutive creation of the world are ones that concern the organization of human sensory experience. The basic idea of this version is that, in the context of certain other constitutively relevant factors, this sensory organization creates the physical world by disposing things to appear systematically world-wise at the human empirical viewpoint. Chief among these other relevant factors is the role of God as the one who is responsible for the sensory organization and ordains the system of appearance it yields. It is this that gives the idealistically created world its objectivity and allows it to qualify as a real world.
http://www.amazon.com/World-Us-Case-Phenomenalistic-Idealism/dp/0199297134

A review of a recentish history of idealism up to the present, that mentions some of the above names:
http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/29657-idealism-the-history-of-a-philosophy/
http://www.amazon.com/Idealism-History-Philosophy-Jeremy-Dunham/dp/0773538372
Contents Introduction: Why Idealism Matters Part 1: Ancient Idealism 1. Parmenides and the Birth of Ancient Idealism 2. Plato and Neoplatonism Part 2: Early Modern Idealism 3. Phenomenalism and Idealism I: Descartes and Malebranche 4. Phenomenalism and Idealism II: Leibniz and Berkeley Part 3: German Idealism 5. Immanuel Kant: Cognition, Freedom and Teleology 6. Fichte and the System of Freedom 7. Philosophy of Nature and the Birth of Absolute Idealism: Schelling 8. Hegel and Hegelianism: Mind, Nature and Logic Part 4: British Idealism 9. British Absolute Idealism: From Green to Bradley 10. Personal Idealism: From Ward to McTaggart 11. Naturalist Idealism: Bernard Bosanquet 12. Criticisms and Persistent Misconceptions of Idealism 13. Actual Occasions and Eternal Objects: The Process Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead. Part 5: Contemporary Idealisms 14. Autopoiesis: Idealist Biology I 15. Autonomous Agents: Idealist Biology II 16. Contemporary Philosophical Idealisms

Thanks Ian! This is great, I'll have to check some of these out. I think it's always a good idea to get more than one person's take on a subject and so far I've read only Bernardo's work on Idealism. So, it will be interesting to see what somebody else says and this Timothy Sprigge looks like a good bet. IN fact, I think Bernardo may have mentioned him before!
 
It is not true that determinism and indeterminism are exhaustive options on the subject, because both have a common assumption: mechanicism, spatialization of time. For this both make inconceivable the free will, but suffice to reject that assumption so that there is room for free will. Henry Bergson realized this.

If by mechanism you simply mean cause and effect (ie: A -> B) then I agree. Re: spatialization, I'm not sure what you mean there? Can you clarify?
 
To answer the question in the title, yes I do. And no theoretical abstraction or taxonomic distinction of such qualia can prove otherwise. Dissenters can only provide ostensive examples, and they are not intuitive. They would have to relegate intuition to a lower order of truth to prove otherwise, and that is self defeating. The limit of the claim must be "I do not have free will". "You do not have free will" is impossible to prove as the appeal is unsustainable compared to the sense of possessing it. Even if someone was superficially convinced by another that they do not possess free will, the position is not sustainable in practice, which is why nobody of sound mind conforms to the theory. And as nobody acts upon it, we are forced to conclude qualia trumps abstraction, and limits the appeal to the first person.

If doubters could provide practical examples that I, or they, lack free will, rather than ostensive models of merely intellectual appeal, that would be a different matter.
 
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If doubters could provide practical examples that I, or they, lack free will, rather than ostensive models of merely intellectual appeal, that would be a different matter.

The thought experiment raised above and that I've brought up before highlights it:

The thought experiment helps: If we get to the instant before a decision is made, is our decision basically set with the possible exception of randomness creeping in. That is: if we rewound 1000 times back to that instant: are we going to make the same decision every time (if it is different, would it be for reasons other than randomness)
 
The thought experiment raised above and that I've brought up before highlights it:

The thought experiment helps: If we get to the instant before a decision is made, is our decision basically set with the possible exception of randomness creeping in. That is: if we rewound 1000 times back to that instant: are we going to make the same decision every time (if it is different, would it be for reasons other than randomness)
But you've used an ostensive method to demonstrate your theory, that is to say one which has to use theoretical examples because it is not at all obvious. The point is further removed by the insistence on rewinding (which is temporally impossible) and by the large number required to prove it. Nothing about the example reflects how things happen in reality, which is a continuum of singularities.
 
It is not true that determinism and indeterminism are exhaustive options on the subject, because both have a common assumption: mechanicism, spatialization of time. For this both make inconceivable the free will, but suffice to reject that assumption so that there is room for free will. Henry Bergson realized this.
Interesting stuff. Thanks!

I know the physicist Lee Smolin has also thought to link consciousness and time.

Thanks Ian! This is great, I'll have to check some of these out. I think it's always a good idea to get more than one person's take on a subject and so far I've read only Bernardo's work on Idealism. So, it will be interesting to see what somebody else says and this Timothy Sprigge looks like a good bet. IN fact, I think Bernardo may have mentioned him before!

Freya Matthews is good too (board thread here), in fact I think you'll find some of her ideas familiar:

"This plenum is construed geometrodynamically, as a dynamic extended substance–space–in a continuous process of expansion and internal self-‐differentiation. The model is the age-‐old one of water (shades of Thales here)(how nice it would be if the very first philosopher got it basically right!):the universe may be compared with a vast ocean coursed continually by currents and waves, some of which interfere to become vortices which hold their structure for long enough to give the appearance of independent or enduring existents."

Of course if Ladyman & Ross are correct about Ontic Structural Realism, with everything being mathematical patterns (Massimo's overview here), it would seem that all panpsychism collapses into a kind of Idealism as there is no matter for Mind to adhere to.

And to bring it all back to this question of free will, according to Massimo's analysis there is no causality, which for the Panpsychist seems to leave Mind & Math together in a reality very different from the one we conceive under naive realist notions...
 
This entry describes my conceptual beliefs and has nothing to do with either science or the idea of free will as discussed by philosophers.

Not so long ago I would bristle when someone mentioned the idea that there is no free will. The very idea seemed to reduce us to nothing more than an automaton. Now my thinking has changed and I am no longer sure that the notion of having free will is that important. I find as I write this that it is difficult to express my intuition clearly. I suppose in some ways it has to do with the fact that I feel lately more that I am being led, than that I am leading. My feeling is also related to something I heard someone say recently that struck me as having some amount of truth. The idea was that our life could be viewed as a painting that resembles a ribbon a mile long and 20 feet high. Ordinarily we live quite close to the canvas and we see events unfolding slowly and in a serial fashion. But if we could step back from the canvas and take a broader view we would have a very different sense of the gestalt of this physical lifetime.

I also have occasionally sensed a deep trust that phenomena are appearing as part of an integrated whole. There is a brief story that affected me deeply:

In China, a long time ago, when there was much internal strife and many localized wars, there was an old man whose only horse ran away. His village was a very small one and after the horse disappeared many in the village came to the old man saying, "What bad luck for you."

The old man shrugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe."

About a week or so later the old man's horse returned and following behind the animal was a small pack of wild horses which the old man quickly corralled. The villagers came again to the old man saying, "What great fortune for you!"

The old man shrugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe."

The old man had a teenaged son who became fascinated with the wild horses and while breaking one of the animals in order to ride it, the boy fell from the horse and broke his leg badly in several places. Once again the villagers gathered saying, "What a terrible misfortune for you!"

The old man shrugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe."

Not long after some soldiers came through the town in order to gather all able-bodied recruits to fight on some new front in the never-ending war. They had to pass up on the old man's son since his leg was broken so badly. After hearing the news, the people of the village gathered around the old man saying, "What amazing luck for you!"

The old man shrugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe."​
 
Oh, I'm not arguing for (or against) free will there, I actually think the question of randomness is the more interesting one.

eta: On why randomness seems illogical to me - how can something happen without a cause?
I think there's a misunderstanding of that word. It's means in QM to be unpredictable if I'm not mistaken
 
The problem with discussions about free will is they come as part of a package, like compulsory mortgage protection. You have to wonder why someone is determined you don't have the option.
 
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It is not true that determinism and indeterminism are exhaustive options on the subject, because both have a common assumption: mechanicism, spatialization of time. For this both make inconceivable the free will, but suffice to reject that assumption so that there is room for free will. Henry Bergson realized this.

¿Can you explain what you mean by non-mechanistic ( the model you seem to be proposing)? So far, it just sound like a description of what something is not ( ie: a cat is not a table), not of what it is. I don't see however how this is supposed to work, since as I see it, free will ( in the libertarian sense) is inherently mechanistic, since the whole point is that your will causes a behaviour (ie: A -> B).
 
The problem with discussions about free will is they come as part of a package, like compulsory mortgage protection. You have to wonder why someone is determined you don't have the option.

I'm determined you don't have the option because I trully see it as incoherent, and hence, impossible. So far, I don't even see it as a tenable position, because I cannot conceptually understand what is actually being argued for in principle; Like a square circle.
 
I'm determined you don't have the option because I trully see it as incoherent, and hence, impossible. So far, I don't even see it as a tenable position, because I cannot conceptually understand what is actually being argued for in principle; Like a square circle.
I feel like I have free will. To disprove it you'd have to appeal to such an idea emotionally or intuitively, not conceptually. As I argued above, intellectual concepts do not possess the required immediacy to dispel qualia. An equivalent example might be someone shouting "watch out" in a horrified voice as you're on a pedestrian crossing at a busy road junction. The green man may say walk, you may have legal right of way, but you don't ponder why someone might be shouting at you, you run, because the inference cuts across other hypotheses. Free will works the same way, it beats conceptual competitors by dint of its immediacy and appeal to emotion. Like I said, nobody acts like they don't have free will because time is not negotiable to alternative re-telling, if it even exists as more than a notion.
 
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I feel like I have free will. To disprove it you'd have to appeal to such an idea emotionally or intuitively, not conceptually. As I argued above, intellectual concepts do not possess the required immediacy to dispel qualia. An equivalent example might be someone shouting "watch out" in a horrified voice as you're on a pedestrian crossing at a busy road junction. The green man may say walk, you may have legal right of way, but you don't ponder why someone might be shouting at you, you run, because the inference cuts across other hypotheses. Free will works the same way, it beats conceptual competitors by dint of its immediacy and appeal to emotion.

I don't 100% agree with this but I do think it shows a valid criticism of the rewind time thought experiment. If you do the same thing the second (or 1 billionth time around) it's determinism, if you something different it's indeterminism. But this is a very functionalist account, and IMO all it shows is that to the external observer free will cannot be ascertained. Yet this isn't very different from the Problem of Other Minds, where we can't prove anyone else has an internal subjective experience. (Whether telepathy/empathy would suffice is unclear, though this does further demonstrate the limitations of external evaluation...something Freya Matthews notes in her discussion of Panpsychism & Western conceptions of the mind.)

Nagel actually discusses this as well, that the internal and external accounts of free will seem to differ so widely that it's unclear how to bridge the gap without simply deferring to one side or the other. He also notes that some philosophers seem seduced by the scientist accounts simply because it provides a supposed solution to what remains an intractable problem...

Anyway, Gabriel I think you'd like Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide if you're not already familiar with the Thomist-Aristotilean conception of reality. I don't know if Feser's metaphysics - or his thoughts on free will - is the correct one but hylemorphism is at least something different for those acquainted with Idealism/Panpsychism/Cartesian-Dualism. It does further elucidate why people like Dawkins and Krauss only embarrass themselves when claiming "What caused God?" is an adequate refutation of the Cosmological Argument.
 
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