Free will and why it doesn't really matter.

[Helandhighwater]

Much to my own surprise, actually, I've had a bit of a change of heart about my approach to the free will discussion -- I'm still very much a determinist, but I've come to agree with Eliezer_Yudkowsky's compatibilism.

Whilst the argument is coherent it assumes that the universe runs like clockwork, nothing about the universe however tells us this is the case, especially on the scale of the very large or very small.

[Helandhighwater]

[s]strike through is useful[/]

But I do wish sites would all use lates, as both formal logic and maths, gain greatly from it. It's not like it's a huge expense to use or install either.

[Joe Schmoe]

Intuition is often thought of as the internalization of accumulated knowledge--internalized to the point of being almost instinctive--iow, we don't know where the knowledge came from, it just is. Quoting a well-known, more often than not dead, philosopher doesn't really add much to a discussion since all of us have our own understanding of the philosopher's words. It's more important, to me, to try to explicate my own ideas rather than parrot another person's ideas.

"Intuition - the ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason."

I personally consider intuition to be a form of pattern recognition. Anyway, in order to be able to communicate effectively, all parties must be on the same page. If you go down your own path and define words, you're going to run into problems as soon as you try to communicate them.

A parrot repeats words with presumably little understanding or intent. People repeat words with the intent to express an idea. To learn from others, is not to be a parrot.

Are you a parrot because you understand the structure of the solar system? That you know the earth is spherical?

"Dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants - One who develops future intellectual pursuits by understanding the research and works created by notable thinkers of the past."

Determinism has been countered, not by the concept of "free will," so much as by the idea that determinism implies (and I did say, 'implies', or 'suggests) a 'something' that determines causes and effects. That 'something' can be the Laws of Nature, except there are no real laws, there are only theories. That means, again to me, that any of the nuances of determinism cannot be proven--nor can they be disproven.

You said that determinism suggests a plan. That is very different than saying determinism suggests an initial source.

I believe that if you'd try to verify your understanding of determinism, you'd have quickly found out that it doesn't suggest a plan. If you don't want to verify your ideas, then you're going to be creating and arguing straw wo/men.

"Proof - sufficient evidence or argument for the truth of a proposition".

Proof is relative to what one considers sufficient. Some may be satisfied, others not. I disagree with your assertion that there isn't enough information for anyone to believe the truth of determinism. It's a question of how much you require, in order to be persuaded.

[Flannel Jesus]

nothing about the universe however tells us this is the case, especially on the scale of the very large or very small.

nothing? I'd certainly yield your point if you said "there's not enough evidence to conclude that that's the case," but to say "There's no evidence that that's the case"...no, there is. Even if it's not conclusive proof, there's still evidence.

Of course, I understand that there's some popular conceptions about what "evidence" means that are incorrect, and you certainly seem to have such a conception. People sometimes think evidence is synonymous with proof; it's not. People are often unwilling to admit something is evidence for a conclusion they disagree with, even if it is actually evidence; that's just a form of bias, of course. And especially when it comes to political beliefs, people feel as though admitting something is evidence for the other side is tantamount to treason; it's not.

There's plenty of evidence that the universe is deterministic. I'd completely agree with you if you said the evidence isn't conclusive, but to say that there's none? Bah, that's bologna. So take it easy on the hyperbole.

[volchok]

@Flannel Jesus

I just read some Eliezer Yudkowsky's texts and so far I think his arguments are pretty ridiculous.

First he goes on and on about how people feel the need to ask if the tree does make a sound or not even after deconstructing the question and how that reveals a lot about our cognition. This is bullshit. From the moment you understand what sound is, the answer to that question becomes painstakingly obvious and you no longer feel the need to pose the question as he argues. A layman who does not know what sound is, will keep repeating the question to himself, obviously.

He goes on to say that one can say that free will is an illusion but until one has explained how the mind works, you're not really saying anything.
Really? Do I really have to point out the flaws in this argument?

He also seems to imply that a person´s subjective experience may somehow indicate that free will exists. It's a shame he doesn't deconstruct our subjective experience (which by the way is so easily explainable when it comes to why we think we feel free) as much as he deconstructs the "tree in the forest".

Regarding moral responsibility he claims that we should be held responsible (in the truest sense) for our actions even if they are fully caused because, after all, we are also part of the causes. This is profoundly nonsensical. If we concede that we are caused, then what we cause cannot be self-caused.
Randomness doesn't really change anything either. If what causes you depends on the roll of a dice, how does that grant you any more responsibility/authorship?

He goes on to say that there is no single true cause of a event as seen here:

But above all: There is no single true cause of an event. Causality proceeds in directed acyclic networks. I see no good way, within the modern understanding of causality, to translate the idea that an event must have a single cause. Every asteroid large enough to reach Earth's surface could have prevented the assassination of John F. Kennedy, if it had been in the right place to strike Lee Harvey Oswald. There can be any number of prior events, which if they had counterfactually occurred differently, would have changed the present. After spending even a small amount of time working with the directed acyclic graphs of causality, the idea that a decision can only have a single true source, sounds just plain odd.
So there is no contradiction between "My decision caused me to run into the burning orphanage", "My upbringing caused me to run into the burning orphanage", "Natural selection built me in such fashion that I ran into the burning orphanage", and so on. Events have long causal histories, not single true causes.

So, he understands this and yet he wants to held the last link in the chain of events responsible !? Why?

He reiterates very clearly that he doesn't understand:

How could anyone possibly believe that they are the ultimate and only source of their actions? Do they think they have no past?

So, he agrees that we are the product of an incalculable number of variables (which should have led him to the conclusion that there is no independent unit in us but oh well) and yet we should be held responsible simply because we are the proximate cause or our actions!?!?

Later on he argues:

And you run into exactly the same trouble, if you try to have yourself be the sole ultimate Author* source of even a single particular decision made by you - which is to say it was decided by your beliefs, inculcated morals, evolved emotions, etc. - which is to say your brain calculated it - which is to say physics determined it. You can't have Author* control over one single decision, even with a time machine.

So, again, he agrees that we are the product of a huge number of variables which we are not aware of and have no control over. But, he argues that being the "sole ultimate author" of an action shouldn't be a free will requirement. What he's doing here, besides contradicting himself, is creating an artificial distinction that is not substantiated at all. On one hand, we are the the product of the past and variables and cause, on the other hand there's still an "I" that can act upon all this. Let's just assume for a second that there is an I. How is that I not caused, also!?

At the end, however, he pulls some seriously shady shit :

I have no problems about saying that I have "free will" appropriately defined; so long as I am out of jail, uncertain of my own future decision, and living in a lawful universe that gave me emotions and morals whose interaction determines my choices.

So, now, forget about everything. As long as "he" feel like he's doing things freely, then he has "free will". What kind of free will? His own version he says.

Flannel Jesus, do you mind pointing out which specific arguments led you to a change of heart?

[Flannel Jesus]

The whole "Ultimate Source" part.

I didn't think your counterarguments were very persuasive. The way you talked about the "tree makes a sound" debate makes me think you're actually closer to agreement with him than you think. You ask, "Let's just assume for a second that there is an I. How is that I not caused, also!?" He doesn't argue that the I is not caused. Read the article Thou Art Physics. Perhaps you'll find your answers in there. He is as much a determinist as you are, including regarding his own self -- he explicitly recognizes, as do all determinists, that the particles that compose a human are subject to the laws of physics as much as the particles that make a rock. The only difference between your view and his, really, is that you think because everything in the universe is determined, there's no room for you, no room for me, no room for individuals. In Thou Art Physics, he explains eloquently why he doesn't think that's necessarily the right approach. I beseech you to read that one if you haven't already. I found it enlightening.

I think this is, again, a case of two people who agree with each other almost completely, but you read something that didn't immediately click with your present world-view and you took that and ran with it. I think upon close reading, you really will find that you and he have enough in common to at least consider the ideas he has that you don't hold in common.

[xzc]

Also can someone tell me the differance between fatalism and determinism?

Fatalism is teleological, determinism is not. In a way, determinism says the present is contingent on the past, whereas fatalism says the present is at least in some part contingent on the future. Fatalism states that there are certain events or states of affairs in the world that must occur, and nature will find a way to make them happen. Determinism states that there are no states of affairs that must come about.

Think of it in terms of a person drawing a single line on a piece of paper. Think of nature as the drawer, the sheet of paper as states of affairs, and the line that appears as time/space. With determinism the future is a blank sheet of paper, and nature draws freehand all over the paper. With fatalism, the future is not a blank sheet. There are points on the paper which it must touch upon, and perhaps an overall picture it must draw.

[volchok]

The whole "Ultimate Source" part.

I didn't think your counterarguments were very persuasive. The way you talked about the "tree makes a sound" debate makes me think you're actually closer to agreement with him than you think. You ask, "Let's just assume for a second that there is an I. How is that I not caused, also!?" He doesn't argue that the I is not caused. Read the article Thou Art Physics. Perhaps you'll find your answers in there. He is as much a determinist as you are, including regarding his own self -- he explicitly recognizes, as do all determinists, that the particles that compose a human are subject to the laws of physics as much as the particles that make a rock. The only difference between your view and his, really, is that you think because everything in the universe is determined, there's no room for you, no room for me, no room for individuals. In Thou Art Physics, he explains eloquently why he doesn't think that's necessarily the right approach. I beseech you to read that one if you haven't already. I found it enlightening.

I think this is, again, a case of two people who agree with each other almost completely, but you read something that didn't immediately click with your present world-view and you took that and ran with it. I think upon close reading, you really will find that you and he have enough in common to at least consider the ideas he has that you don't hold in common.

That was, I think, the only text I hadn't read.

I do not deny that human beings are causal agents. Clearly, actions have consequences.
And I agree with him that human beings are part of physics, that's exactly why they are causal agents. And that is why determinism, if it is true, should not be mistaken with fatalism.

However, there's a huge difference between saying that you are a causal agent, that is, that your actions lead to outcomes and that you play an active role in your life; and saying that you have authorship. That despite the fact that you are fully caused, you can still be held responsible. Notice that you are fully caused regardless of determinism being true or false. He too agrees that causality exists regardless of what kind of universe we live as seen here:

My position might perhaps be called "Requiredism." When agency, choice, control, and moral responsibility are cashed out in a sensible way, they require determinism—at least some patches of determinism within the universe. If you choose, and plan, and act, and bring some future into being, in accordance with your desire, then all this requires a lawful sort of reality; you cannot do it amid utter chaos. There must be order over at least over those parts of reality that are being controlled by you.

At the end of the day he's just toying around with semantics:

But if the laws of physics control us, then how can we be said to control ourselves?

Turn it around: If the laws of physics did not control us, how could we possibly control ourselves?

Of course we can control ourselves. That is one of the results of being a causal agent, or as he puts it, an integral part of physics/nature. But what is controlling oneself ? It's simply an action, that leads to an outcome. One doesn't have to possess contra causal free will in order to control one self.

The future is determined by physics. What kind of physics? The kind of physics that includes the actions of human beings.
People's choices are determined by physics. What kind of physics? The kind of physics that includes weighing decisions, considering possible outcomes, judging them, being tempted, following morals, rationalizing transgressions, trying to do better...

Everything he says here is true, but how does conceding that we are biological organisms capable of insanely complex processes justify or even hints at free will? It's a total nonsequitur.

The thoughts of your decision process are all real, they are all something.

Of course the decision making process is real. Not believing in free will does not mean that we don't believe in the processes of the mind.
And that process does serve a very important function. It's been studied for decades. I'm sure you have heard of Daniel kahneman's work.
But, at not point does any of this hints at free will.

Also, I couldn't help but notice how you said that he was a determinist like me. To be honest, I really couldn't care less if he is or not. None of my views about free will, agency and authorship are contingent on determinism being true. Absolutely none.
Here's a very simple explanation by Harris on how the determinism vs randomness debate is completely irrelevant when it comes to the free will debate:

If the laws of nature do not strike most of us as incompatible with free will, it is because we have not imagined how human action would appear if all cause-and-effect relationships were understood. Consider the following thought experiment:

Imagine that a mad scientist has developed a means of controlling the human brain at a distance. What would it be like to watch him send a person to and fro on the wings of her “will”? Would there be even the slightest temptation to impute freedom to her? No. But this mad scientist is nothing more than causal determinism personified. What makes his existence so inimical to our notion of free will is that when we imagine him lurking behind a person’s thoughts and actions—tweaking electrical potentials, manufacturing neurotransmitters, regulating genes, etc.—we cannot help but let our notions of freedom and responsibility travel up the puppet’s strings to the hand that controls them.

To see that the addition of randomness—quantum mechanical or otherwise—does nothing to change this situation, we need only imagine the scientist basing the inputs to his machine on a shrewd arrangement of roulette wheels, or on the decay of some radioactive isotope. How would such unpredictable changes in the states of a person’s brain constitute freedom?

All the relevant features of a person’s inner life could be conserved—thoughts, moods, and intentions would still arise and beget actions—and yet, once we imagine a hypothetical mad scientist dispensing the appropriate cocktail of randomness and natural law, we are left with the undeniable fact that the conscious mind is not the source of its own thoughts and intentions. This discloses the real mystery of free will: if our moment to moment experience is compatible with its utter absence, how can we say that we see any evidence for it in the first place?

And finally another quote by Harris that I think completely encapsulates why free will is not feasible:

All of our behaviour can be traced to biological events about which we have no conscious knowledge.Apparent acts of volition merely arise, spontaneously (whether caused, uncaused or probabilistically inclined, it makes no difference), and cannot be traced to a point of origin in the stream of consciousness. A moment or two of serious self-scrutiny, and you might observe that you decide the next thought you think no more than you decide the next thought I write

.

[Flannel Jesus]

I'm still not quite sure you understand what's going on in The Ultimate Source.

you said "However, there's a huge difference between saying that you are a causal agent, that is, that your actions lead to outcomes and that you play an active role in your life; and saying that you have authorship."

Here's a quote from The Ultimate Source:

So you might think that having Author-like control over ourselves - which we obviously don't

This is what leads me to believe you're merely skimming his words.

Humor, Volchok, humor me for a while. I think you know I'm a pretty sane, rational fellow. Hell, you even said I was one of your favorite posters. I don't change my mind whimsically, you can trust me on that. This guy Eliezer is a really brilliant guy -- dropped out of highschool and ended up founding a group dedicated to AI research. Through his own interest in AI, he began studying the art of Rationality, perhaps as part of his goal to develop an AI that makes correct decisions. That's what his sites LessWrong and Overcoming Bias are about -- what are the optimal algorithms for coming to the correct answer? I think that, even if he's wrong about many of them, he's at least less wrong.

I've always liked his free will series. Like you, however, I was okay with pretty much everything except the part at the end of Ultimate Source that goes into compatibilism. Having reread it recently, I changed my mind.

So, this is why I say humor me: don't skim it, don't try to find something you disagree with. In fact, try the exact opposite: give it as generous a reading as possible, trying your best to interpret everything in such a way that it makes sense. This is, I think, an important skill to have if you're going to read the works of someone you disagree with -- if you can't even see why it made sense to them, you certainly won't be able to convince them why it doesn't make sense. You have to understand their perspective if you wish to change their perspective. Sometimes, understanding their perspective ends up changing yours.

So, humor me. Read it closely, read it generously. Even if you still don't agree, at least you'll be closer to understanding why I think differently.

[volchok]

So you might think that having Author-like control over ourselves - which we obviously don't

Right, he does say that but then he goes on to say that despite that, we can still be held responsible, not just as a social convention mind you ( which would still be stupid) but truly responsible. This is, obviously, nonsensical. Let me ask you this: Do you believe that you can have free will without authorship? Free will is contingent on authorship and the only way you get authorship is if you're self caused. If we concede that we are not the conscious authors of our thoughts and actions, then the only way you can possibly get free will is by redefining the term. I wasn't expecting you to fall for that.

This is what leads me to believe you're merely skimming his words.

I really did read like 7 or 8 of his articles.

Humor, Volchok, humor me for a while.

Trust me, I am. Otherwise I woudn't have gone to the trouble of reading a bunch of articles.

I think you know I'm a pretty sane, rational fellow. Hell, you even said I was one of your favorite posters.

I have the same opinion about you.

I don't change my mind whimsically, you can trust me on that. This guy Eliezer is a really brilliant guy -- dropped out of highschool and ended up founding a group dedicated to AI research. Through his own interest in AI, he began studying the art of Rationality, perhaps as part of his goal to develop an AI that makes correct decisions. That's what his sites LessWrong and Overcoming Bias are about -- what are the optimal algorithms for coming to the correct answer? I think that, even if he's wrong about many of them, he's at least less wrong.

Appeal to anonymous authority?! Really?
I could just as easily say that Harris has a phd in neuroscience...

We all know brilliant people who happen to be wrong about something.
Neil deGrasse Tyson is a brilliant scientist and just the other day I saw him make one of the stupidest arguments I have ever seen. And no, it wasn't just me who noticed it.
I can assure that the man is brilliant though.

[Dan~]

Punishment and potential punishment deters and suppresses certain desires, regardless of free will.
I can see the utility of punishment, but its ideological backing is flawed/wrong.

[Helandhighwater]

apologies for all those typos, I have a new PC, thus new keyboard.

Having read most of this thread I'd be interested to see if the current free will is impossible want to take a crack at my argument.

If you don't I will assume you realised you were wrong or just cant.

I'll take that as a no then, and all are agreed that the question of free will is currently moot.

Good at least I know where the debate is.

[Helandhighwater]

Punishment and potential punishment deters and suppresses certain desires, regardless of free will.
I can see the utility of punishment, but its ideological backing is flawed/wrong.

I agree punishment does not have any bearing on free will because it is coercion, it stops us from doing what we freely will and makes us take another choice at "best" and at "worst" renders us incarcerated or unable to act.

Of course its trite to say that free will is an act that requires that there is no coercion from outside sources making us do other than what we want and in some cases when it comes to the law, forcing us not to act in certain ways.

[Joe Schmoe]

[Flannel Jesus]

Volchok, I was reading around on lesswrong and found a post that I'd like to bring up in regards to our disagreement about compatibilism:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/nu/taboo_your_words/

When you find yourself in philosophical difficulties, the first line of defense is not to define your problematic terms, but to see whether you can think without using those terms at all. Or any of their short synonyms. And be careful not to let yourself invent a new word to use instead. Describe outward observables and interior mechanisms; don't use a single handle, whatever that handle may be.

Albert says that people have "free will". Barry says that people don't have "free will". Well, that will certainly generate an apparent conflict. Most philosophers would advise Albert and Barry to try to define exactly what they mean by "free will", on which topic they will certainly be able to discourse at great length. I would advise Albert and Barry to describe what it is that they think people do, or do not have, without using the phrase "free will" at all. (If you want to try this at home, you should also avoid the words "choose", "act", "decide", "determined", "responsible", or any of their synonyms.)

If you and Elizier were to both describe what it is you think people do and don't have in regards to the free will debate, without using the term "free will," I very much think you'd actually agree on all counts. Elizier, like you, doesn't think we are the "ultimate authors" of our own lives. Elizier DOES think that we have the ability to, and in fact do, cognitively treat primitive actions as primitively reachable. Without using the term "free will," you're both, I think, in complete agreement -- as such, your disagreement is merely a superficial one, a semantic one. He feels it's ok to use "free will" to mean "treating actions as primitively reachable," whereas you seem (and reasonably so, imo) to want to limit the term to meaning "ultimate author." However, we must always keep in mind the two tenets of language:

a) definitions are not objective; god does not speak english
b) uniformity is desriable, because language is for communication -- if i mean one thing by "a" and you mean another, it's going to be quite hard to communicate anything about "a"

As such, both of your two approaches have strengths and weaknesses -- his strength is partially in tenet a, yours in tenet b. He doesn't hold any beliefs about free will that would be experimentally different from your beliefs.

[volchok]

Fj, you're bending over backwards for no good reason.

Let me put it this way:

Let's say that you and I were debating the existence of god. I was sure that god existed and upon being asked what god meant, I pulled one from Deepak Chopra's book and answered that it was a "high instinct to know the non-local particles of our own mind".

Would you or would you not be up in arms ?

If he's not defending free will, then he should call whatever the fuck he's defending something else.
The moment you play with linguistic tricks, intellectual discourse is over..

[Flannel Jesus]

I don't think he's doing a "linguistic trick". I think the term "free will" has had multiple meanings since before you were born.

meaning a) ultimate source
meaning b) cognitive process of treating "possible" actions as primitively reachable
[there are of course other meanings]

you both agree that meaning a is clearly false
you both agree that meaning b (regardless of if you think it's a legitimate meaning) is the case

There's nothing else to it.

The reason he chooses meaning b at the end of his series is because meaning b is more closely related to the feeling people have when they talk about "the illusion of free will." I think that's an interesting and useful approach -- instead of talking about what people misinterpret that feeling to be (meaning a), we can also choose to talk about the actual psychological source of that feeling (meaning b). I do'nt think either of those approaches is strictly wrong -- but I do think you're making a mistake in pretending like you disagree with him after we've already dissolved the question.

[Helandhighwater]

Fj, you're bending over backwards for no good reason.

Let me put it this way:

Let's say that you and I were debating the existence of god. I was sure that god existed and upon being asked what god meant, I pulled one from Deepak Chopra's book and answered that it was a "high instinct to know the non-local particles of our own mind".

Would you or would you not be up in arms ?

If he's not defending free will, then he should call whatever the fuck he's defending something else.
The moment you play with linguistic tricks, intellectual discourse is over..

No offence but the moment you play with linguistic tricks intellectual discourse has probably just begun.

It's over when semantics becomes so much a part of the debate that nothing at all can be reasonably gained from talking, except the defintion of it. Then with a hey nonny no, the philosophers of language dance and merrily lay on in musical parody amongst the prose whilst saying nothing that means anything to anyone, like anyone thinks they have or had a point (a point I hasten to digress and yet stay firmly on the subject), not since reiterated to any use since Wittgenstein got shit faced and proved that a chair (it might of been a table the juries out on that one, due to a semantic peculiarity, induced by Absinthe) existed by collapsing into -- or it maybe onto it see aforementioned babble -- it and weeing himself to the strains of the English national anthem _ And and this is the most improtant part, yelling at the top of his lungs that he was right and your all just a shower of bastards, after preciously saying he just fucking loved whoever and whomever at all was present.

[volchok]

No offence but the moment you play with linguistic tricks intellectual discourse has probably just begun.

Hmm, I don't think so.
To talk about language and it's limitations is fine.

Linguistic tricks, on the other hand, imply intellectual dishonesty or just a complete lack of intelligence.
At least, that is what I mean by linguistic tricks.

[Helandhighwater]

No offence but the moment you play with linguistic tricks intellectual discourse has probably just begun.

Hmm, I don't think so.
To talk about language and it's limitations is fine.

Linguistic tricks, on the other hand, imply intellectual dishonesty or just a complete lack of intelligence.
At least, that is what I mean by linguistic tricks.

Hmm you are talking about linguistic "tricks" or methods of discourse, like they are an inappropriate method of discourse, I see them more as a deck of cards perhaps where jokers are wild and one eyed jacks
.

[volchok]

I don't think he's doing a "linguistic trick". I think the term "free will" has had multiple meanings since before you were born.

meaning a) ultimate source
meaning b) cognitive process of treating "possible" actions as primitively reachable
[there are of course other meanings]

you both agree that meaning a is clearly false
you both agree that meaning b (regardless of if you think it's a legitimate meaning) is the case

There's nothing else to it.

The reason he chooses meaning b at the end of his series is because meaning b is more closely related to the feeling people have when they talk about "the illusion of free will." I think that's an interesting and useful approach -- instead of talking about what people misinterpret that feeling to be (meaning a), we can also choose to talk about the actual psychological source of that feeling (meaning b). I do'nt think either of those approaches is strictly wrong -- but I do think you're making a mistake in pretending like you disagree with him after we've already dissolved the question.

Well, for starters I think you're misrepresenting his position. If I remember correctly he said that even though we are not the ultimate authors of our actions we are still authors nonetheless ( and we supposedly share our authorship with many other variables) therefor we have free will.

But, even if you're right about his position, why call it free will? Should I call god "energy" ? Again, if you are right about his position, which I don't think you are, it seems to me like he's trying to get the best of both worlds. He won't alienate most people (by calling whatever it is that he's defending free will and therefor not hurting their feelings) and will please a few at the same time (by claiming that we, in fact, cannot be considered what we need to be considered in order to have free will).

Furthermore, why call the "feeling of having free will" as you have put it, free will? Just goes against everything we as "philosophers" tend to strive for; truth, clarity, rationality.

Also, could you elaborate on what "cognitive process of treating "possible" actions as primitively reachable" means ? I don't quite remember what he meant by that.

[Flannel Jesus]

Furthermore, why call the "feeling of having free will" as you have put it, free will? Just goes against everything we as "philosophers" tend to strive for; truth, clarity, rationality.

Why does it go against that? I actually think that's a great way to define a word -- pain doesn't have some definition completely separate from the feeling of pain, does it? red doesn't have some definition different from the experience of red.

wikipedia:

Red is any of a number of similar colors evoked by light consisting predominantly of the longest wavelengths discernible by the human eye, in the wavelength range of roughly 630–740 nm.

You know how they decided 630-740 nm? Because those wavelengths were the ones people saw when they said "that looks red."

If you aren't looking for the source of the feeling of free will, but just attacking a misinterpretation of that feeling, then you're only doing half the problem. "Ultimate Authorship" is BS, you agree, I agree, he agrees. But then there's still a string left dangling -- where does the feeling come from? It certainly doesn't come from having ultimate authorship, does it? It's not enough to just dismiss Ultimate Authorship, that's too easy. Elizier's approach, which I now find is correct, was to continue asking questions, even after he dismissed ultimate authorship. Where does the feeling of free will come from? Oh, it comes from the fact that we treat actions as primitively reachable. So, instead of saying "I feel like I have free will" and then defining it as something that totally isn't the source of that feeling, why not say "I feel like I have free will" and then define it explicitly as the source of that feeling? I don't see anything remotely wrong with that. I don't see how that's against philosophy or science of anything. In fact, I see that as the crux of science. We defined red as "the wavelength of light that makes us see red," so why not define free will as "the cognitive process that makes us feel free will"? Science is largely about refining our sensory experience -- it's not enough to just reject the misinterpretation of the sense of free will, we've got to track down the source of it.

Also, could you elaborate on what "cognitive process of treating "possible" actions as primitively reachable" means ? I don't quite remember what he meant by that.

Well, free will is feeling like you're choosing from a bunch of possible actions, right? Chess programs do that too. In CS terms, they call that "primitively reachable." A chess program looks at the available moves, thinks about what would happen if it did make them, as if it could make them, analyzes the moves based on some deterministic algorithms, and deterministically comes up with a move (though these days the move is occassionally slightly randomized -- it "randomly" chooses from a few of the options it deems best). So, looking at the program from the outside, if we input a given board arrangement, it will output the same move every time -- deterministic. But from inside the computer, it feels like all those moves are possible, and that it's choosing that move from the available moves, you see?

[Joe Schmoe]

FJ,

Can't we just say will? When we say free will, it clearly implies that it isn't determined, which as you say, no one agrees to.

To continue calling it free will is misrepresenting our position.

[Flannel Jesus]

No gershdarnit, IF I CHANGE MY BELIEFS I RISK GOING TO HELL! Haven't you ever heard of Pascal's Wager ffs?

[Flannel Jesus]

jk

it's just a word. if you and i were having a discussion in which one of us was trying to convince one of us to change a testable belief, i'd be happy to say, "for the duration of this conversation, I submit the authority to define Free Will -- we can define it however you like for the rest of the conversation, on the condition that the definition stays the same for the rest of the conversation." As such, I would agree to only use the term "free will" to mean whatever concept you find you want to talk about.

but you and i aren't arguing over testable beliefs. so that's where it ends for me.

however, if for the sake of the rest of this thread you were interested in limiting the meaning of the word "free will" to all people who you do have differences with in terms of non-superficial beliefs, I'd support that obviously. if you guys aren't meaning the same thing by the same word, you might as well be speaking different languages. so all the power to ya!