Timeline for Is free will reconcilable with a purely physical world?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
27 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 3 at 21:49 | answer | added | Mike Song | timeline score: 0 | |
| Jul 2 at 17:13 | comment | added | mudskipper | "Presented with the exact same situation, the entity will again have these options, and can easily choose to act differently." That's obviously false and very misguided. Either "can" is just used in the sense of "it's not logically impossible that", so it's a statement without empirical sense, or it means something more, in which case it is false. If the choice was made "easily" the first time, it will probably be made "easily" the second time too, and be the very same choice... Unless the agent has dramatically changed (which is probably excluded by speaking about "the same situation"). | |
| Jul 2 at 14:50 | answer | added | Pertti Ruismäki | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 26 at 20:09 | answer | added | Nikos M. | timeline score: 0 | |
| May 6, 2020 at 10:10 | comment | added | CriglCragl | Karl Friston seems to be quite for on in modelling reality-building and decision making from first principles, in a way that can account for the sense of agency, and the reasons for it's emergence youtu.be/TcFLQvz5uEg | |
| Apr 29, 2020 at 15:14 | answer | added | JohnRC | timeline score: 0 | |
| Oct 13, 2017 at 13:15 | comment | added | user20253 | @Josh1billion - Nice comment. Kant is well ahead of the game. But his ideas do not save freewill. If we read Kant as endorsing the Perennial philosophy, at least a far as ontology goes, then this view states that freewill and determinism are aspects of one process, and there would be a strong sense in which freewill would not exist. But this is an ultimate or metaphysically-complete view. For most of us it would be the case that to all intents and purposes it exists. This would be the Stoic idea, 'Only those who are free who know they are not free'. | |
| Dec 3, 2013 at 21:19 | comment | added | labreuer | It's not at all clear that positing dualism really helps in considering what would enable libertarian free will. | |
| Dec 3, 2013 at 15:04 | answer | added | Jose Torres Torres | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 8, 2013 at 14:44 | answer | added | Chris Sunami | timeline score: 5 | |
| Mar 17, 2013 at 23:11 | answer | added | Anixx | timeline score: 3 | |
| Feb 4, 2012 at 14:27 | comment | added | commando | @xtian - "A decision in a non-metaphysical world view which still accepts free will accepts action against 'conclusive knowledge'." This reminds me of Notes from Underground, a beautiful text on the nature of people. | |
| Feb 4, 2012 at 14:22 | comment | added | xtian | @Josh1billion, and the value people place on "conclusive knowledge". A decision in a non-metaphysical world view which still accepts free will accepts action against "conclusive knowledge". For me this seems evident in political or statistical contexts. These comments reveal a highly order-dependent problem; changes imply different connotations and therefore different conclusions. IMHO. | |
| Feb 1, 2012 at 2:09 | comment | added | Josh1billion | Individuals will have varying reactions to conclusive knowledge that the world is entirely deterministic and that free will is ultimately an illusion (depending upon how one defines free will). Under certain popular definitions of free will, I suppose the reaction can also depend upon the level of value at which one places freedom and upon how one defines identity. | |
| Feb 1, 2012 at 0:43 | comment | added | stoicfury | @Josh1billion - I'm not sure why it "invokes despair" for you. If causal determinism is true, nothing really changes. I still wake up in the morning to go to work, I still love my family, chocolate still tastes delicious. It is of no more consequence to me than the concept of "onomatopoeia" is to a termite. | |
| Jan 30, 2012 at 5:15 | comment | added | Rex Kerr | @Josh1billion - Some people don't find that argument convincing (not in modern times, anyway). | |
| Jan 30, 2012 at 0:02 | comment | added | Josh1billion | I spent much of my time pondering this very question over the fall of 2011. The others have answered with what is generally the same conclusion with which I ended up: no, free will is not reconcilable in a purely physical world. This can invoke a great level of despair, so the next question you should ask yourself (and this is another argument entirely) is whether the world is purely physical. It may seem so on the surface, but for example, Kant lays out a convincing argument to the contrary in The Critique of Pure Reason. | |
| Jan 29, 2012 at 16:38 | vote | accept | commando | ||
| Jan 29, 2012 at 16:19 | answer | added | k0pernikus | timeline score: 15 | |
| Jan 29, 2012 at 13:40 | answer | added | Michael Dorfman | timeline score: 6 | |
| Jan 28, 2012 at 9:47 | answer | added | Rex Kerr | timeline score: 8 | |
| Jan 28, 2012 at 8:27 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/#!/StackPhilosophy/status/163176477372841984 | ||
| Jan 28, 2012 at 1:26 | answer | added | Alpha | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jan 27, 2012 at 20:45 | history | edited | commando | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 735 characters in body
|
| Jan 27, 2012 at 10:53 | comment | added | leancz | The definition of free will is, of course, important. If free will is the ability to decide on a course of action based on the input of information, including the loop back input of reflection or reason, then this mechanism is evidently reproduceable, in terms of electronic computers, materially. It is then a matter of extending this mechanism to apply to human senses and brain. | |
| Jan 27, 2012 at 7:03 | comment | added | stoicfury | People can still talk about free will but in different terms. Free will not as the freedom to go against causal determinism but rather simply to be able to be aware of the options available. Plus, at any rate we still have to act as if we had free will. So there is still a discussion but it gets a bit more complex than merely "can it exist or not". | |
| Jan 27, 2012 at 1:39 | history | asked | commando | CC BY-SA 3.0 |