bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) (05/18/88)
One common misconception I have seen on the subject of free will is that free will requires nondeterminism. It does not. I do not intend to be rigorous in this posting, that would be better done in talk.philosophy.misc or sci.philosophy.tech. My purpose in bringing this up is to open the discussion to the idea of free will in a deterministic entity. If you do want me to defend what I say, do not ask for it in this newsgroup. Instead, send me e-mail and if I get enough requests and have enough time (next year, maybe), I will deal with this in one of those groups. (I am being deliberately vague here, so that what I say can be interpreted by those with varying philosophical ideas.) A sufficient cause is a phenomena which requires that some other phenomena exist. We can say that if external (to the thing) phenomena are sufficient cause for the state of a thing and for its action in a given state then external phenomena are a sufficient cause of a things action. The absolute minimum required for free will is that there exists at least one action a thing can perform for which there is no external phenomena which are a sufficient cause. For if this is the case, then it is invalid to say that everything that the thing does is caused by external phenomena. Therefore, the thing itself must be considered as the cause of what it does (unless you admit the existence of uncaused action). This does not require that the thing could have done other than what it did, though it does not prohibit this, either. Thus free will (a specific kind of action supposed to be not determined by external phenomena) could exist even in a deterministic universe.
vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu (Cliff Joslyn) (05/18/88)
In article <185@proxftl.UUCP> bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: >The absolute minimum required for free will is that there exists >at least one action a thing can perform for which there is no >external phenomena which are a sufficient cause. I hope you do choose to carry on with this here. . . Your view seems compelling, but also requires a crisp distinction between the inside and the outside of the entity in question. Although it is frequently sufficient to abstract such a boundary, in theory and in the limit of practice, this is not in fact possible. Actually, this issue is where traditional arguments of free will end up in circularity: we must say that reflexes, dreams, delusions, compulsions, etc., are all *OUTSIDE* of "me". As the earlier lively conversation on whether thoughts can be controlled shows, we can carry this distinction-making on, narrowing the scope of the "willing agent" in the mind to a singularity (my Will), about which we cannot gather evidence about causal processes, nor make meaningful theories as to necessary and/or sufficient conditions. -- O----------------------------------------------------------------------> | Cliff Joslyn, Cybernetician at Large | Systems Science, SUNY Binghamton, vu0112@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu V All the world is biscuit shaped. . .
jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) (05/24/88)
In article <185@proxftl.UUCP> bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes:
]The absolute minimum required for free will is that there exists
]at least one action a thing can perform for which there is no
]external phenomena which are a sufficient cause.
I have a suspicion that you may be getting too much from this
"external". If I decide to eat some chocolate ice cream when
I go home, there may well not be anything currently outside myself
that causes me to do so (although the presence of ice cream allows
me to do so). Nonetheless, it might be that entirely deterministic
events inside myself caused me to eat the ice cream and that my
impression that I made the decision freely was just an illusion.
It must also be considered that everything internal to me might
ultimately be caused by things external.
]For if this is the case, then it is invalid to say that
]everything that the thing does is caused by external phenomena.
]Therefore, the thing itself must be considered as the cause of
]what it does (unless you admit the existence of uncaused
]action).
I am also doubtful about "the thing itself". What is that
when referring to a person? If you include the body and not
just the consciousness, say, you may well be right that "the
thing itself" was the cause, but it would not be a case of
free will in the way people normally understand it. If I
have some inbuilt liking for chocolate ice cream it is no
more a case of free will than that I'm nearsighted.
]This does not require that the thing could have done other than
]what it did, though it does not prohibit this, either. Thus free
]will (a specific kind of action supposed to be not determined by
]external phenomena) could exist even in a deterministic
]universe.
If the action is not determined by external causes, and it
is not uncaused, what is the nature of the internal cause that
you suppose might remain and how does it count as free will?
-- Jeffbill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) (06/12/88)
In article <461@aiva.ed.ac.uk>, jeff@aiva.ed.ac.uk (Jeff Dalton) writes: > In article <185@proxftl.UUCP> bill@proxftl.UUCP (T. William Wells) writes: > ]The absolute minimum required for free will is that there exists > ]at least one action a thing can perform for which there is no > ]external phenomena which are a sufficient cause. > > I have a suspicion that you may be getting too much from this > "external". You (and several others) seemed to have missed the point. I did not post that message in order to defend a particular view of why free will does not require determinism. Rather, I posted it so that those of various philosophical persuasions could adapt it to their own system. For example, I am an Objectivist. This measn that I have a particular notion of what the difference between external and internal is. I also can assign some coherent meaning to the rest of the posting, and voila!, I have an assertion that makes sense to an Objectivist. You can do the same, but that is up to you. > It must also be considered that everything internal to me might > ultimately be caused by things external. It is precisely the possibility that this does not have to be true, even given that things can do only one thing, that makes free will something to consider, even in a determinist philosophy.