Posted: Aug 26, 2017 5:21 pm
romansh wrote:GrahamH wrote:
It seems to me it is enough for free will to have the thought that I may do X and then do X. If I have the capacity to realise I don't know what the outcome of X may be that surely doesn't rob me of free will. Why would it?
Having a thought I may do X seems to be simply saying I have a will to do X. So when we put the adjective free in front of will what does it mean? Free from constraint? Isn't that freedom of action?
It would just mean that what you will was not obviously coerced. thought to do X occurs to you and you act on it considering that it is your own thought. Isn't that what free will means?
romansh wrote:GrahamH wrote:
Conversely there is a sense in which knowing the outcome reduced freedom. Outcomes are constraints. In particular people can be too afraid to act for fear of what might happen. There is some freedom in not being bound by such constraints. Some may do what they hope may happen rather than what they may reasonably expect to happen.
Sort of agree ... potential outcomes can be constraints either inhibiting or engendering the action to create the outcome. This leaves us with the more chaotic (for want of a better word) aspects of our thought processes. But I don't think this what most people who claim they have free will mean by that term. But either way the fundamental processes that create our choices are the same (patterns may vary) for cogitated and intuitive choices. I don't get a sense I really control either, especially the intuitive ones.
This is tricky. What does free will mean to most people? Is there one definitive definition? A common theme is autonomy of thought and thought being a cause of actions. Anyone who argues that deliberation is required is tacitly acknowledging that.
I would be surprised if many people would think that acts of artistic creativity were not free will acts, but they are surely not primarily the result of deliberation of outcomes.romansh wrote:GrahamH wrote:
The total focus on deliberation seems to me to about rational agents rather than free will agents. These are surely not the same thing in all cases. Rational agents need not be free and free will agents need not be rational.
Again I agree ... but it seems important to those that have a belief in free will.
Agreed, it does seem important to them.