people think other people have reading disorders. people think reality is quite the cool thing. what is an epic fail and what has been pointed out as an epic fail, is in fact “final causes”.
a ridiculous notion if ever there has been one.
Look at this phrase for a second: finite things can have a range of natural ends or final causes - how final is something that has a range of final causes?? (wtf!!) and if (all) finite things’ final cause is to seize to exist, what the hell does it actually mean in the first place?? nonsensical to the extreme.
I do not want to explore the merits of the doctrine of final causes. It raises many questions, but they are not topical to naturalism or free will. For now, I accept that you (Tele) have demonstrated a distinction between predetermination and the doctrine of final causes and that the latter can accommodate free will.
One could also argue that, from a Darwinian perspective, natural selection would never have accommodated the development of intellect if one could not apply it.
It still leaves us with the naturalist claim that, given the way the brain works, it can, under a specific set of circumstances, come to only one unique conclusion.
Fair enough, the merits of final causality is not suitable for this thread I agree. Just two remarks about final causes before returning to talk about naturalism:
The doctrine of final causes is not incompatible with free will.
There is no need to think that the doctrine of final causes is incompatible with the theory of evolution or change and motion in general.
With a vacuous pseudoanswer, you can contrive preordination to look different from final-cause teleology by the simple expedients of jargon mining, bald assertion and an unsubtle implication that whatsoever might happen, it is geared towards some final cause (to be decided post hoc), and thereby accentuate what little meaningful distinction there was to start with. Preordination and teleology (final-cause or otherwise) both imply an underlying intent towards some or other result. This says more about our own subjective appraisals than of the underlying reality. The only thing that can distinguish preordination from final-cause teleology is the nature of the ostensible agent behind them that means. Fortunately, this artifice is one of those wholesome situations where scientists pay no heed to the highbrow jibber-jabber of armchair pontiffs.
As far as the existence, or not, of free will goes, this debate is presently fruitless. Adherents have their views, as do detractors, but nobody really knows. Personally, I think that whoever asserts that it does not exist is jumping the gun with more than a little by assuming that we’ve exhausted the limits of materialism and that there are no more deep undiscovered aspects of reality. The history of science is replete with examples of our assumptions being simply, fundamentally wrong. I happily accept that free will is not only possible, hinging on some such unknown aspect, but actually evolutionarily advantageous. Those who deny it are left with the rather stiff task of explaining not only the advantageousness of a pervasive illusion of free will but also how such an illusion arises to begin with.
A summary. I don’t think anything useful is being said about freedom or will by stringing those two words together. Actions can be willed and they can be free of constraint, free will is not required for either to be true.
As someone who does not believe they have free will I have to ask, what would this illusion feel like? I make decisions all the time and I don’t enjoy being forced to do things against my will.
Why, the alleged illusion would feel just like the real thing, namely that you are making decisions and taking actions, in many cases, though not always, based on some careful deliberations and that in the same circumstances you could always potentially think and act differently. That should be obvious enough, I would have thought. Your question strongly suggests that in all seriousness you’re asserting that those “decisions” that “you” “make” are predetermined and that in the making of them you have no feelings at all of sovereignty over them. If you do have such feelings of sovereignty then that is a big part of the illusion and its advantageousness that you would need to give an account of. Another part is our instinctive rebellion against any intimation that we are, in effect, robots.
As already indicated, I’m not for one moment suggesting that the question of how free will (or any will for that matter) comes to be is one that we can presently answer. I’m merely pointing out my own preference in this regard and that while denial of free will seems to follow inevitably from materialism and/or naturalism, such denial is attended by a host of deep problems of its own, problems that are not easily set aside either. The bottom line is that we don’t properly know what it is that we are actually talking about.
I could be mistaken, but I get the impression that you interpret “free will” in the context of a civil liberty akin to “freedom of expression” etc. as opposed to a cerebral process where you can make decisions that are not solely determined in an uncontrolled way by the matter of which the brain is composed and involuntary electric pulses.
Naturalism argues that, given a certain mental state and circumstances, one would necessarily come to one unique conclusion. One would then in fact not be master of one’s own thoughts and believing that one is free to make decisions would be an illusion.
Making decisions and taking actions based on those decisions doesn’t feel free to me. The more deliberation that occurs the more obvious and inevitable my decision feels.
Not necessarily, some of them could be random. This wouldn’t make them any more free though.
I don’t deny that I have become quite emotionally attached my character in the story of my life and am interested to see what happens next. It’s hardly surprising though, the same thing happens when I watch good TV or read a book.
I dunno, I kind of like it.
Yet this idea no one understands is used to justify all kinds of other strange ideas and behaviours.
Naturalism agues that mental states are a result of natural processes. Whether determined or indetermined these processes are not self caused, regardless of how one interprets the experience.
You can have the free will to not stop at a red traffic light, but it’s a choice which will result in chaos if everyone starts doing it. A baby in a safe play pen has absolute free will to play with everything around him. A baby crawling on the ground around a camp fire will regularly be picked up and moved to a safer spot. Free will is something which exists while you don’t use it. It is like a potential energy. As soon as you start acting on that free will you will be limited by environmental factors. It therefore becomes like a kinetic energy. In my opinion free will and naturalism can therefore co-exists since they are measured differently. One by a potential for action and one by the result of an action. When I look at what I want to type here now, I can see that I have free will to decide what to type. When I look tomorrow at what I typed here now, I’ll conclude that I didn’t really have a choice.
You have the freedom, but I doubt you have the will to do it consistently, at least not without checking first.
Again, he has the freedom, but not necessarily the will. Some things may not interest him, or he may be unhappy for some reason and not feel like playing.
This one’s different, here we have the will but not the freedom.
Where and in what form?
Gravitational, elastic, chemical, electrostatic, magnetic or nuclear?
Probably heat too, energy conversion is never 100% efficient. Is free will perhaps food?
How do you define this different kind of measurement?
Are we talking about vague theoretical potential or physical potential?
Having limited options is not the same as naturalistic absence of free will. The naturalistic absence of free will implies the existence of only one option. A sun seeking plant has no other option but to grow in the direction of the sun. There can be no free will in such a case. A person approaching a red traffic light has very few conceivable options, arguably only one logical one, but nevertheless there is some choice. Beethoven composing a symphony has an incalculable number of conceivable options. There are aesthetic and technical limitations, but that would not equate the absence of free will in the naturalistic sense – the naturalistic absence of free will prescribes that he would have no other option but to compose it in one unique way. Should he think otherwise, it would be an illusion.
If we lack the knowledge to have certainty on this issue, what should the default position then be? My personal view is that, in a complex situation such as the Beethoven composition, any claim that he had no other option but to compose the symphony in one unique way, would be extraordinary. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. In the absence of such evidence I therefore subscribe to the existence of free will
Agreed. Though I have yet to meet anyone with unlimited options. ;D
No, it really doesn’t. We don’t yet know if the universe is fully deterministic or not so there might be more than one “option” based purely on random chance. However, this is hardly what we mean when we talk about options. We have to at least be aware of an option and be able to choose between it and other options for it to really be an option in the true sense of the word. When we say choose though, we are talking about a natural, physical process happening in our brains which obeys rules like a computer program. Options are evaluated according to pre-existing preferences and we decide which course of action to take. The only way that this natural process can choose a different option is if different options are provided at the start or if the brain is effected in some way.
I don’t think it has even one option in the real sense of the word. Some kind of awareness would be required first.
Mainly because there is no will.
Conceivable being the operative word.
Well I think the ones he conceived of are the important ones here. Perhaps some of his rough notes survive?
Again, no it doesn’t. There may only be one option Beethoven was capable of choosing though.
Perhaps not so much an illusion as an artefact of how we experience time, remembering the past and not the future.
Well most people want free will so they can justify retributive punishment. If free will doesn’t exist then we may be punishing people more harshly than is strictly necessary based on the false assumption that they deserve it in some cosmic sense. Also we’d be less justified in thinking that the poor deserve their fate and that they could somehow choose to do better.
There are probably more possible symphonies than stars in the sky, but only 9 of them are Beethoven’s. That’s what makes them special, not some contra-causal free will.
The way I see it free will is the extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence, much like the miracle working Jesus.
Excluding the possible existence of options that the thinker is unaware of, which, as you point out, would not be under consideration, it seems to me that we are actually in agreement on the implications of naturalism here.
Again, “he would have no other option” and “only [be] one option Beethoven was capable of choosing” seem to be the same thing to me.
Most people might indeed argue that way, but it would be an argument based on desired outcomes (wishful thinking). Things are not true because we want them to be true, so I reject that line of reasoning.
I find the notion that I have no control over any decisions I make counter-intuitive.
