But nobody thinks that things are happening in the brain without prior causes, neither compatibilists nor incompatibilists. So there is nothing to explain!archibald wrote:I do not see how anything at all in my brain can happen 'off its own bat', that is to say without having prior causes. That's the teensy-weensy part that no one seems to be able to explain.
Free Will
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Re: Free Will
#4921 
by ughaibu » Jan 19, 2017 2:30 pm
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Re: Free Will
#4922 by archibald » Jan 19, 2017 2:32 pm
ughaibu wrote:But nobody thinks that things are happening in the brain without prior causes...
Nobody except....DavidMcC (about 7 minutes before you typed that) who is going to be very cross that you deny his existence. And that of a lot of libertarians.
And please don't fudge me. Prior causes is prior causes. Not prior partial-causes or causes of only some things.
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Re: Free Will
#4923 by ughaibu » Jan 19, 2017 2:41 pm
But DavidMcC didn't suggest that things happen, in the brain, without prior causes! And:
Libertarians are incompatibilists and to repeat, the most popular libertarian theories of free will are causal theories!!ughaibu wrote:nor incompatibilists
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Re: Free Will
#4924 by DavidMcC » Jan 19, 2017 2:41 pm
archibald wrote:DavidMcC wrote:OK, so do you think that our thoughts/conscious decisions are completely controlled by these "prior causes", then, or do you, as I do, think that they leave some room for conscious thought to make a difference to decisions "off its own bat", even if it is informed by memory other than the rather limited "working memory".
I do not see how anything at all in my brain can happen 'off its own bat', that is to say without having prior causes.
That's the teensy-weensy part that no one seems to be able to explain.
Only for your version of free will, not mine. BTW, the "bat" is memory. Sometimes, I find I spontaneously recall something, without any obvious jog of my memory.
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Re: Free Will
#4925 by DavidMcC » Jan 19, 2017 2:46 pm
Eh?
That's a strange interpretation of the free will that I have argued for. It seems I am supposed tp be able to predict the future excatly. If I could do that, i could be a rich man, exploiting my foreknowledge of the stock market, etc.
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Re: Free Will
#4926 by archibald » Jan 19, 2017 2:47 pm
DavidMcC wrote:That's a strange interpretation of the free will that I have argued for. It seems I am supposed tp be able to predict the future excatly.
That appears to be a non-sequitur.
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Re: Free Will
#4927 by archibald » Jan 19, 2017 2:49 pm
That's just bollocks fudge. David McC did and you need to go and google libertarian free will and stop wasting my time.
ETA: and don't cite me 'some' libertarians. A minute ago you used the word 'nobody'. At least be consistent.
Last edited by archibald on Jan 19, 2017 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Free Will
#4928 by archibald » Jan 19, 2017 2:49 pm
DavidMcC wrote:Sometimes, I find I spontaneously recall something, without any obvious jog of my memory.
Good for you. Lovely word, jog. Still allows magic wiggle room for a teeny weeny bit of uncaused.
Last edited by archibald on Jan 19, 2017 2:53 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Free Will
#4929 by archibald » Jan 19, 2017 2:50 pm
There is so much fudge here I am going to put it on ebay.
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Re: Free Will
#4930 by ughaibu » Jan 19, 2017 2:54 pm
You really haven't a clue about this subject. DavidMcC definitely did not claim that things happen in the brain without prior causes and there is no "libertarian free will". There is a libertarian position on free will, that position is that in a determined world, no agent would ever perform a freely willed action, and in the actual world, some agents on some, occasions, do perform freely willed actions.archibald wrote:That's just bollocks fudge. David McC did and you need to go and google libertarian free will and stop wasting my time.
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Re: Free Will
#4931 by DavidMcC » Jan 19, 2017 2:54 pm
It means I think that nothing happens without prior cause, even though you seem to be claiming (bizarrely) that I can predict the future with my causeless brain activity.
Maybe you hadn't understood, and no doubt you will blame me for that.
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Re: Free Will
#4932 by LucidFlight » Jan 19, 2017 2:55 pm
Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to jog on down to the pub and exercise my free will.
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Re: Free Will
#4933 by GrahamH » Jan 19, 2017 2:58 pm
ughaibu wrote:So, a strawman definition of "free will" of no interest to anyone involved in the free will discussion. Well done.
You tell it like it ughaibu! Why don't you get onto these muppets at Stamford and explain to them what all philosophers mean by free will? They obviously didn't get the memo.
Our survey of several themes in philosophical accounts of free will suggests that a—perhaps the—root issue is that of control. Clearly, our capacity for deliberation and the potential sophistication of some of our practical reflections are important conditions on freedom of will. But any proposed analysis of free will must also ensure that the process it describes is one that was up to, or controlled by, the agent.
Fantastic scenarios of external manipulation and less fantastic cases of hypnosis are not the only, or even primary, ones to give philosophers pause. It is consistent with my deliberating and choosing ‘in the normal way’ that my developing psychology and choices over time are part of an ineluctable system of causes necessitating effects. It might be, that is, that underlying the phenomena of purpose and will in human persons is an all-encompassing, mechanistic world-system of ‘blind’ cause and effect. Many accounts of free will are constructed against the backdrop possibility (whether accepted as actual or not) that each stage of the world is determined by what preceded it by impersonal natural law. As always, there are optimists and pessimists.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#3
Why do you think that?
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Re: Free Will
#4934 by DavidMcC » Jan 19, 2017 2:59 pm
LucidFlight wrote:
Well, if you'll excuse me, I need to jog on down to the pub and exercise my free will.
Yes, it's that unpredictable (= random) thing called an "idea".
Last edited by DavidMcC on Jan 19, 2017 3:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Free Will
#4935 by archibald » Jan 19, 2017 3:00 pm
DavidMcC wrote:
It means I think that nothing happens without prior cause, even though you seem to be claiming (bizarrely) that I can predict the future with my causeless brain activity.
Maybe you hadn't understood, and no doubt you will blame me for that.
Then what was the point in asking this question, with an 'or' in it (in bold):
DavidMcC wrote:OK, so do you think that our thoughts/conscious decisions are completely controlled by these "prior causes", then, or do you, as I do, think that they leave some room for conscious thought to make a difference to decisions "off its own bat"..
Completely controlled or something else?
If the next part.
DavidMcC wrote:...even if it is informed by memory other than the rather limited "working memory".
is not just an example of 'completely controlled by'? And not just the fudgy 'informed by'.
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Re: Free Will
#4936 by archibald » Jan 19, 2017 3:03 pm
DavidMcC wrote:Yes, it's that unpredictable (= random) thing called an "idea".
Unpredictable does not necessarily equal random. Maybe that's what's confusing you about the prediction thing.
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Re: Free Will
#4937 by GrahamH » Jan 19, 2017 3:05 pm
archibald wrote:ughaibu wrote:But nobody thinks that things are happening in the brain without prior causes...
Nobody except....DavidMcC (about 7 minutes before you typed that) who is going to be very cross that you deny his existence. And that of a lot of libertarians.
And please don't fudge me. Prior causes is prior causes. Not prior partial-causes or causes of only some things.
They don't own up to that though. David said something about consciousness, as if some neural activity can do this magical free will thing, but he doesn't have a agent that is not, as far as anyone can detect, physics and chemistry. Ask where the free will acts, how it fit's into the CNS or whatever and you'll get no sensible answers. David may go about T-C loops, as if a feedback of in-free neurons will become free as axonal spikes travel in circles.
Then he said something about a bat...
Last edited by GrahamH on Jan 19, 2017 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Free Will
#4938 by DavidMcC » Jan 19, 2017 3:07 pm
archibald wrote:DavidMcC wrote:
It means I think that nothing happens without prior cause, even though you seem to be claiming (bizarrely) that I can predict the future with my causeless brain activity.
Maybe you hadn't understood, and no doubt you will blame me for that.
Then what was the point in asking this question, with an 'or' in it (in bold):DavidMcC wrote:OK, so do you think that our thoughts/conscious decisions are completely controlled by these "prior causes", then, or do you, as I do, think that they leave some room for conscious thought to make a difference to decisions "off its own bat"..
You obviously need to think a bit more about that.
Completely controlled or something else?
If the next part.DavidMcC wrote:...even if it is informed by memory other than the rather limited "working memory".
is not just an example of 'completely controlled by'? And not just the fudgy informed by.
That's right, it is indeed NOT just an example of "completely controlled by". Only the timing of an idea is completlely controlled by the unconscious, the final content of the ensuing thought is controlled by the conscious mind.
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Re: Free Will
#4939 by ughaibu » Jan 19, 2017 3:08 pm
So, there is nothing in that quote about free will requiring that there be no prior causes, is there?GrahamH wrote:You tell it like it ughaibu! Why don't you get onto these muppets at Stamford and explain to them what all philosophers mean by free will? They obviously didn't get the memo.ughaibu wrote:So, a strawman definition of "free will" of no interest to anyone involved in the free will discussion. Well done.Our survey of several themes in philosophical accounts of free will suggests that a—perhaps the—root issue is that of control. Clearly, our capacity for deliberation and the potential sophistication of some of our practical reflections are important conditions on freedom of will. But any proposed analysis of free will must also ensure that the process it describes is one that was up to, or controlled by, the agent.
Fantastic scenarios of external manipulation and less fantastic cases of hypnosis are not the only, or even primary, ones to give philosophers pause. It is consistent with my deliberating and choosing ‘in the normal way’ that my developing psychology and choices over time are part of an ineluctable system of causes necessitating effects. It might be, that is, that underlying the phenomena of purpose and will in human persons is an all-encompassing, mechanistic world-system of ‘blind’ cause and effect. Many accounts of free will are constructed against the backdrop possibility (whether accepted as actual or not) that each stage of the world is determined by what preceded it by impersonal natural law. As always, there are optimists and pessimists.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#3
So what was the point of posting it? To demonstrate that your reading comprehension is as bad as Archibald's?
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Re: Free Will
#4940 by archibald » Jan 19, 2017 3:10 pm
Look, you said, "so do you think that our thoughts/conscious decisions are completely controlled by these "prior causes" "
I do, yes. Do you not?
I don't care what 'these' refers to, as if there were 'some situations', just take it out. And the inverted commas. and the forward slash.
Do you or do you not think that our thoughts and conscious decisions are completely controlled by prior causes?
Yes or no.
I do, yes. Do you not?
I don't care what 'these' refers to, as if there were 'some situations', just take it out. And the inverted commas. and the forward slash.
Do you or do you not think that our thoughts and conscious decisions are completely controlled by prior causes?
Yes or no.
Last edited by archibald on Jan 19, 2017 3:19 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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