Timeline for Is libertarian free will incoherent?
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| Dec 5 at 22:51 | history | edited | Ted Wrigley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 5 at 20:21 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @mudskipper: No, it's an assertion. It would be a counterfactual if we said we did choose otherwise, | |
| Dec 5 at 19:35 | comment | added | mudskipper | "we could choose otherwise" (really it is: "we could have chosen") - so, that's not a counter factual?? | |
| Dec 5 at 19:05 | comment | added | Annika | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| Dec 5 at 18:43 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @Annika: [shrug] You seem to be arguing from counterfactuals. Our immediate perception is that we make choices, and that we could choose otherwise (LFW). The skeptic's job is to show that this isn't the case; our immediate perceptions don't have to prove themselves to be true. Maybe our immediate perception is false, but until someone shows it's false, we are obliged to take it as given. Empiricism 101… | |
| Dec 5 at 18:13 | comment | added | Annika | @TedWrigley but even if we found that, we have the introspective problem of will -- we end up in an infinite regress of reasoning or we end it with a brute "willful impulse" -- neither seems to describe the agency we want as we are still slaves to impulses | |
| Dec 5 at 18:11 | comment | added | Annika | @TedWrigley agreed on that -- if we found violations of physical laws in the brain we'd need to re-think the supervenience of the mind on the brain. There would be evidence of a purposeful (non-random) effect on our neurology that doesn't appear to be coming from prior neural events. | |
| Dec 5 at 18:09 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @Annika: Well, first, let's not straw-man the concept of will. Not philosopher suggests that will has to be absolutely and perfectly free; what will requires is some undetermined element couched within the contexts and structures of the physical world. You can have all the neurons you like, so long as somewhere in the system you escape or sidestep electrochemical determinacy. I think current speculations tend to look at accumulated quantum effects, but I don't really have an opinion. This is a "there are more things under heaven and earth than are spoken of …" situation. | |
| Dec 5 at 18:01 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @gs: I'm trying to avoid invoking metaphysics directly, because LFW doesn't really go there by itself. LFW asserts the existence of will, but leaves the question of its instantiation open. You can see that as cheap handwaving or empirical skepticism, as you're inclined… | |
| Dec 5 at 18:01 | comment | added | Annika | @TedWrigley - fair on the random part (we don't know if true ontic randomness exists). But let's say there is no ontic randomness, then we have "willed" and "determined", but if something is willed by an agent then the agent owns that decision, no external influences forced their hand. What I debate is if we can know if we ever see such phenomena - its neurons all the way up and down as far as we know... | |
| Dec 5 at 17:58 | comment | added | Ted Wrigley | @Annika: Nothing is stopping you from interpreting will as randomness, but… you have to understand that this interpretation is a belief specific to determinism (not a fact), and LFW specifically rejects that belief. 'Random' is one of those nebbishy scapegoat words (like 'soul') that effectively boils down to: "we have no idea what's going on, but we'll give it a label so we feel better about it." Saying something is random answers no actual question, but merely implies that there's a physicalist answer we haven't yet figured out. | |
| Dec 5 at 17:23 | comment | added | g s | In re Annika's comment, I think this answer could be improved by explaining interventional supernatural dualism as a possible a priori ontological framing. | |
| Dec 5 at 17:13 | comment | added | Annika | "The confusion in this question arises because the question presumes a deterministic worldview in which all events must have determinate causal explanations, and so it interprets the concept of 'will' (oddly) as randomness." -- more precisely, I cannot see what the will is actually doing that cannot be interpreted as randomness or determined by antecedent conditions. | |
| Dec 5 at 17:00 | history | answered | Ted Wrigley | CC BY-SA 4.0 |