Free Will Revisited.

Is arguing for determinism the same as arguing against free will? Bob, you used both terms in your post. But are they really the same thing? 

That was not my question. Please think about my question a little more seriously rather than just brushing me off lightly. Here's something to think about in the meanwhile...what do you think about indeterminism as to free will. 

Thanks, Bob. That's what I was looking for...somewhat. It's a start. I hope Dave is still interested. 

I do not think that determinism or indeterminism is relevant to the issue of conscious free will. When we speak of free will I think what we are usually talking about, or at least what I am referring to, is the kind of conscious brain activity that allows for moral culpability.

When determining this culpability the question becomes where does the origin of the causal chain that resulted in my behavior terminate? If it can be shown that my decision to steal that piece of candy did not connect causally to any event before my conscious mind's forming the question of stealing it then I have conscious free will and am morally culpable for stealing the candy.

If instead the cause of my decision traces back to neural activity and then to previous neural activity (all of which I am not consciously aware of), external environmental forces, on back to my birth, my DNA, the life histories of my parents, humans, proto-humans, ... , the Big Bang (or whatever) then this would mean that my conscious mind did not originate the causal chaing that led to the decision to steal and that I do not have conscious free will. While I might still be held responsible for the theft, my conscious mind would not be the original cause of my actions and would not be the morally culpable causal agent.

What this means is that whether the universe is inherently random or not plays no role in the question of conscious free will. All that matters is the ultimate causal origin of my conscious decisions.

The termination of the causal chain is the moment you make a conscious decision. At that point, it doesn't matter what went on before (unconscious neural activity, the Big Bang, etc.). You are at a point where a conscious decision has to be made. And that decision is up to you.

Bob

Lily, I love you! That was brilliant! You said it better than I ever could. I mean it. Especially that last sentence.

Bob

Bob,



I'm having a difficult understanding your question. I am not able to form any informed opinion about anything without first learning about that thing and developing the tools to think about it. As a child I would not have known enough about the free will debate to describe my thoughts about my thoughts as being free or not.





Each thought is one thought (as per the simplified model I'm presenting here). There are not two but three (and of course there can be me many, many more intermediate thoughts -- I'm just presenting a simplified example here in order to illuminate the model I'm proposing).



But you haven't explained anything and you certainly haven't addressed my point. Where does that decision come from? If its causal origin terminates in my conscious mind then I have conscious free will. If the causal origin can be linked to a chain that extends beyond my conscious mind then I don't. I'm just trying to frame the debate in such a way for both sides to understand what is being claimed.

Lily:

Maybe, but my point is that whether the universe is inherently deterministic or random has no bearing on the issue of conscious free will.



I'm not sure where you get the idea that anyone needs to believe in determinism or indeterminism. I think the issue is about people trying to better understand how the universe works.

As for whether we have conscious free will or not, besides the inherent desire to better understand the universe, it also might affect our criminal justice system. Those people who do not believe in conscious free will (i.e., believe that all of our thoughts and decisions are caused by forces outside of our conscious minds) might feel we should be rehabilitating criminals. People who believe in conscious free will might take the position that criminals freely chose to commit crimes and therefore should be punished for what they did. Rehabilitation would make little sense since those people knew what they were doing and freely chose their actions.



I presented a model that, hopefully, explains the nature of the conscious free will debate. I suspect that people on either side of the model will be unlikely to concede that the other side is even possible. But yes, one could maintain that sometimes our thoughts are ultimately caused by forces outside our conscious minds and at other times the ultimate cause is our consciousness.

But that's just my model and how it defines the problem. You are free to create your own model explaining the relationship between our physical brain and our conscious thoughts and decisions. And perhaps your model will better fit the observations and ideas you have about the nature of thought and conscious free will including the combination you suggested.

And again, at least personally, I do not feel the need to force either side of my model to be the one everyone accepts. I just want to better understand how the universe operates. I do have a strong opinion about which side of my model makes the most sense but I can be convinced that I'm wrong or that my model is inherently flawed.

There's certainly an "academic" side to it but there is the potential for the debate to affect how we treat people. In the US the criminal justice system sometimes treats the conscious mind as the sole causal agent and at other times not (crimes of passion, for example). It could be that this mixed model is the best one or it could be that it is an either/or situation in which case certain aspects of the criminal justice system would be based on a flawed model.



I'm really not that familiar with the Truth of what goes on in hypnosis, but if the claim that a person's mind can be caused to have a thought/make a decision that the person would not have made otherwise while not under the influence of hypnosis then I would think this would be evidence that our conscious thoughts/decisions are ultimately caused by non-conscious forces.

I read a book recently where one of the main characters, after being hypnotized, was walking along a stream with a friend. When that friend uttered the "trigger phrase" the character took off his clothes and jumped in the stream even though it was freezing cold outside. What made it interesting is that the character manufactured a reason why it was a good idea to jump in the water when clearly it wasn't. Again, I have no idea if this sort of thing is possible but it was an amusing and interesting part of the novel.

No, not thinking. Deciding. What you seem to be claiming here is that decisions are not consciously made at all. Then what is consciousness for anyway? If what you say is true, then consciousness is useless. But then according to the Theory of Evolution, consciousness would never have evolved.

Bob

Example: A women walks into a store and wants some cosmetics, but it's way too expensive. Because no one is around and she thinks it's safe, she shoplifts the items.

After she gets home she starts feeling guity and returns to the store with the items. 

So, if her decision to steal was something out of no free will, then what was the action to return the goods?  And where does guilit feelings come from?

Bob:

Is making a decision not also thinking? If you decide things without thinking then ... well, I'm not even sure how to make sense of that.

Actually I'm not here, right now, claiming to support one side of the debate or the other. What I am trying to do is create a model that explains the debate. When people speak of "free will" I think they are usually talking about the kind of conscious free will relevant to moral culpability. As such I've tried to create a model that comprises both sides of the debate and draws a clear line between them. A line that can be discussed and investigated.

So before dealing with what consciousness is used for if not originating causal chains (and how it evolved and so on) the first step is to hammer out what the actual debate is. I've already proposed that the fundamental nature of the universe (vis a vis determinism or randomness) is irrelevant to the debate. In its place I've provided what I think is a model that captures both sides of the free will debate.



That's not what I said. I said that I was not then, nor am I able to now, have an informed opinion about something I know nothing about. Just like I couldn't explain Cagean experimental music when I was five (knowing absolutely nothing about it then), I would not have been able to state that I feel like I have free will since I did not know anything about the topic. I'm sure I had all sorts of informed opinions on things like the best football team ever and which cartoons were best, but that's not what we're discussing.



OK, so in terms of my proposed model then you are claiming that the causal chain that led to that decision originated/began in the conscious mind and not in some causal process that originated outside the conscious mind. Correct?

Lily:

I'm not sure what statement of mine you are referring to. I think it's possible to want to understand better how the universe operates and at the same realize that this understanding can affect our day-to-day lives. It's not an either/or situation and I certainly never meant to imply this was the case.



If it were to be proven without any doubt that our conscious thoughts and decisions are ultimately caused by forces outside of our conscious minds then I would like to think that our criminal justice system would become less about punishment and more about how to train criminal minds to no longer perform criminal activities. Doing this and not obliterating the original personality might be impossible. Not to mention all sorts of other ethical dilemmas concerning messing with someone's mind and sense of self.

Are you familiar with the story of Phineas Gage? During an accident a metal pipe went straight through his brain. He survived (somehow) but his behavior after the accident changed dramatically. In fact some of his behavior became criminal. Clearly a physical change to his brain altered how his actual thought processes. Imagine that there was this small little patch of neurons that were causing someone to steal and just by disconnecting some of those neurons the person would stop stealing. Yes, very science fiction but it would be nice if we could make very small changes that would eliminate criminal behavior.

But since all this technology is way beyond what we can do (though there has been some success with various programs like work-release and providing education and so on) what do we do now? Society does have the right to protect itself so if we cannot rehabilitate someone then we should remove them from society but at the same time minimize the punishment factor. In the US spending 1 year in jail is not just being removed from society for 1 year but also being subject to some pretty horrific conditions. If we determine that their conscious minds are not ultimately responsible for their actions then we are, in effect, punishing the wrong "person". So keep them from hurting others while not causing them to suffer for something they cannot control.



The human brain is a complex thing and is capable of holding contradictory notions at the same time. Sometimes I want to sleep at the very same time I want to eat. One side wins out and I do that thing. Maybe later the other side will win out.

In the grander scheme of things, explaining where guilt comes from takes us too deeply into the specifics of the evolution of the human mind and society and the influence societies have on individuals. But the general idea is the same, at any given point in time you want to do something and are doing it and later you do something that might contradict it. It's just a messy complicated brain at work.



For the same reason that the universe is not now entirely homogenous. Stars, galaxies, and planets formed because there were slight deviations in place from the beginning. Without these deviations the universe would just be a single mass of stuff with nothing differentiating one spot from another. But because these differences exist this means that the causal chains that lead to each of us must also be, at the very least, slightly different.

But that's what you said. It all started with the Big Bang was one hypothesis you mentioned. Did the Big Bang resulit in one chain of causes or many chains?