Eise

So they have free will, exactly according my definition. And do you see that that has nothing to do with my definition of free will? The examples you gave here, are factors that made you to what you are. But that has nothing to do with the question if somebody can act according his wishes and believes. Don't forget, I fully agree that we are determined. So repeating again and again that we are determined does not undermine my position. I think this is at least the third time I am saying this in this thread. Must I yell to get this point across? Do you see my point? I brought in the energy and momentum to show that there is no causal relationship between the lower, physical levels, but a conceptual relationship. Nowhere I said that energy or momentum have something to do with free will. This is a straw man.

Ok, I'll wait. Just as a correction: It is not 'coded'. But every physical process implies an exchange of energy and momentum. But there is no exchange of those between the different description levels of a system. If there would be, then your 'proof calculations' would show that somehow energy leaks away, or is added from some unphysical source (aha, the soul!). But physically that does not make sense.

I did not. Weinberg's description with "arrows of implication" is already much better than what you say, because it does not necessarily imply causality. Do the atoms of a system determine what the system does? In the end, yes, of course they do. But it is not a 'causal connection' as you mention it here again. Say, you look at the causal connections between some physical events. Then a physicist, trying to describe these connections, can e.g. use the conservation laws of energy and momentum. If she has a description of the processes involved, one check she can do is calculating if both conservation laws apply. If not, then she knows that her description is not complete. And this applies not just to simple systems of moving and colliding bodies, but also to the electrical processes of a computer, or the electro-chemical processes in our brains. Now if this description turns out to pass the test, there is nothing left: energy and momentum are balanced. So now, how can this system physically cause emergent properties? It simply can't, there is no energy, or momentum, or what else, that goes into the emergent property! Otherwise it would be missing already on physical level, and our physicist would have considered her description as incomplete. 'Emergence' depends on the level that we are observing a system, and that has directly nothing to do with the system in itself. I already said before, that when the lower physical level is determined, than the system as whole is. I also agreed that therefore, we are determined. But the 'determining relation' between us and our constituents is an emergence relationship, not a causal relationship. And then I called the emergence relationship a conceptual relationship, because how we see a system depends on the concepts we use to describe the system. Just look at how I reacted on these two different passages of you: Indeed, I did not react at all, because I more or less agree with this. But then in a later posting you said this: So I am only denying that the 'determining' between lower layers and higher layers is a 'physical causal connection'. Determined, yes; but causally, no. So I pointed you at the part in your understanding that is plainly wrong. One last example: say I am looking closely at a video screen. Because I am so close, I only see some different coloured pixels. Is that a correct description of what I see? Of course. But now I take a distance to the screen, and I see letters, I go a bit further, and e.g see the words 'black lives matter'. Now, is there a physical causal relationship between the pixels and the message 'black lives matter'? If so, can you show me the laws of physics that lead to this? (just think about what I said above about the conservation laws).

This is you worst posting until now. It is not thought through at all. If you do not see the difference between determination by physically causal relationships and by emergence I cannot help you. If you want to learn it, please say so, but please refrain from these kind of cheap and shallow arguments. This is pretty to the point. I only object to the sentence I made italic.The behaviour is not 'undetermined'. If it really was, there would be no reason that the two AI systems would behave exactly the same. There are some practical problems with your scenario, e.g. both A.I.s should be fed with exactly the same input, but I think the gist of your argument is correct. In the end 'determined' implies that when two exactly the same systems are fed with exactly the same inputs, they react exactly the same. Same holds for us. But that we are determined does not mean we have no free will, at least not in a definition of free will that does not go back to some magical metaphysics.

No, no, you did this freely. Yes. This is what your proposition was based on: This is not a causal relationship. As said in my previous posting, it is a conceptual, or logical relationship. How neurons fire, depends on how other neurons fire that are connected to it. That is a causal relationship. That the whole of firing neurons represents you thinking about free will, is not a causal relationship, but another way of viewing the same process. SAP??? Igit...I must throw up, puke and vomit... And, BTW, there is a relational database working under SAP: that can even be Oracle... (For those who don't know: ABAP is the programming language of SAP) You seem to be quite knowledgeable about relational databases... And I thought your were a neuro-biologist! (But of course, that can be a non-excluding 'or').

With 'fundamental' you mean (sorry for the technical wording) 'ontological primacy'. To say it simple: a database could not exist, if there were no atoms; atoms can very well exist without databases. But now do the same with an algorithm. You can also run the program I gave above: count to 600 every second, and then switch the light off (I changed the example a little, to make it less cruel... ). So what is the 'fundamental sense' of such an algorithm? (In the case of relational databases, it started as a mathematical theory on organising information. Everything a relational database can do, you can do too: use paper to write down your tables in columns and rows, join the data to get the information you want. So the idea of relational databases is independent of its implementation, even if it needs at least some physical implementation: it can be you with pencils, eraser, and paper, or it can be software running on a CISC computer. Some people do not seem to realise that the essence of a relational database is the algorithm. Real life example: one day a developer came to me how he could get certain information from a database. I showed him with an example on paper that it was logically impossible, and ended saying that even Oracle (a relational database software) cannot do what is logically impossible, despite its name...) So the primary existence of a relational database, is definitely not the way it is implemented in 'reality': it only must be implemented somehow. Not its ontology, but its functions. Exactly. And in different situations there are different 'merits'. We must use the one that has the most merit given the situation. Asking if an action was free or not is not answered by reference to the ontological primary parts, but by looking (asking, investigating) the motives of an action. Definitely, I never said otherwise. For all practical purposes, we are determined. You cannot undermine my view by saying we are determined. The difference between a free or coerced action lies not in the question if one is undetermined, and the other is not. The difference lies in the way the action is determined. With the above example about databases in mind: the essence of a free or coerced action lies not in its physical implantation, but in its relationship with my believes, my wishes, my fears, etc. So this is simply not true. Somehow I do not believe you. I do not think that you find your knowledge of chemical interactions of collections of physical inputs very useful when e.g. coping with relationship problems. So it really depends on the context what is most useful. In your very well formulated postings in the 'George Floyd thread' you never refer to 'chemical interactions of collections of physical inputs'. (I do not expect you at a demonstration with a banner with the text 'black atoms matter', or 'atoms of black lives matter'). Not quite. Imagine AI would be so far to 'run persons' that can listen, speak, act etc, then it would be shown that our essence does not lie in the hardware from which something is build up (organic chemistry or semi conductors). Of course. But I always take these two examples, because they express the two elements that are needed for a successful action: knowing the facts, and knowledge of your motivations. Or say it another way: it needs a picture of reality as I perceive it, and a picture of how I want it to be. Sure. I think that is a reason LISP was designed. But you are right: in the brain there is not such a clear distinction between hardware and software. So in an extreme case, it might mean that the only way to make AI conscious and able to be free is by modeling the brain till the level of synapses (or worse), because no other structure can mimic how a physical structure gives rise to our capabilities. That is in its generality wrong. There is no causal connection between the constituents of an emergent property and its constituents: it is a logical, or if you want, a conceptual connection. I think this is one of the confusions that leads people to say that we are not free because we are 'caused by our brain'. We aren't. We are implemented in our brains. Yeah!

That is what you say, not me. I extra highlighted the 'nothing but' operator. As I stated before, everytime in these kind of debates, somebody uses this operator, you can bet on it that he leaves out what es essential. Take an example: in the 1990's there were two completely different computer architectures, RISC and CISC. On very basic logical level, they worked on different principles. However, it was possible to install Windows NT on RISC systems, where the standard for Windows NT was (and is) computers based on a CISC architecture. That means on the surface, they become the same: the difference is so to speak hidden under the operating system. However, what is important for the usage of the computer is above the operating system layer. So for me, as a database administrator, the essence of the computer lays a few levels above the physics of the computer, and to exaggerate a little, overnight somebody could exchange the hardware, and I would not even notice. The problem here is that our underlying mechanisms have no intentions. They are constituents of what I am. For coercion, as opposite of free, also belongs an intention. If you stumble over something on the floor there is no intention involved. It is just an accident, and to describe your falling as an action is wrong. You had not the intention to fall, and the object on the floor neither. And the object is not part of the mechanism that makes you. However, if somebody wants to avoid that you are following your way, he might threaten you to beat you to the floor. Now an intention is involved, but not your's. So you decide not to go on on your path, but now it is coerced. This is the way I use the concept of 'coercion', to distinguish it from physical causation (no intention involved). If you have another meaning for coercion, then I must invent a new word for it (let's call it the @koti-move...). Your use of 'coercion', I would say, is metaphorical, not literal. So can we stick to the accepted meaning of 'coercion'? Italics by me. Just make three categories of 'forcing' relationships: Physical causation Coercion, meaning intentional influencing you Emergence: higher level phenomena in an otherwise purely physical system In my opinion you mix them up: neurons have no intentions, my brain doesn't cause me, electrons are not coerced on their paths, etc etc. So take a cup of coffee, and tell me what you think. I don't have that problem. So you first must convince that I have a problem... So take a glass of advocaat.

No. Because I define free will with 'high-level phenomena', i.e. wishes, believes and actions, one can only define, and recognise, free will on that level. Of course. but again, it can only be described in the realm of these higher level phenomena. The simplest version is that the more situations I am in, in which I can do what I want, the freer I am. A slightly more complicated version, is the better I know my self and the world, the easier it becomes to live according my wishes and believes. Then, when some of the capabilities needed for free will is somehow impaired, I am less free than if I could. E.g. when somebody is not so good in evaluating the results of his actions, he is less free. But in all cases there is no need to refer to laws of physics to describe the differences between them. No .

Yes, but! Imagine following computer program: counter = 0 loop counter = counter + 1; sleep 1 second; if counter > 600 then exit loop; end loop; shutdown computer; On one side you are completely right: the program is stored in a constellation of physical states, and the program can only run thanks to the physics of the hardware. But now, imagine we run the program on an Intel machine, or one with an AMD processor, under Windows, under Linux, on a Mac, on a main frame... On every system, the same happens: in the end, the relay that switches the power is activated to interrupt the electricity. But the hardware is different in all cases, or at least behaves differently. Now a super duper computer model of each of the systems can predict correctly, on basis of the laws of physics and physical configuration of the respective systems, that the electricity will be cut off after 10 minutes. But those models will not have an explanation, why these different systems do this exactly the same. The explanation for that is the program, which is an higher order description of the system. Knowing no details about the system, you, @joigus, recognise immediately why the computers switches off after 10 minutes. You can predict, in one single glance, why the computers shut down. Where the physicists staying on the level of the physical description, have no idea what the different systems have in common. They are simply missing something, and that something only reveals itself to us at the higher level description. Again: yes, but! 'Free will' does not lie in how we became who we are, but in the relationship between what I have seen, heard, thought, felt, believed, wished and in fact do. If what I do is in accord with what I feel, believe and wish, then I acted freely. If for some reason I have to act against them, I am coerced, and the action is not free. Well, one way to see this is that I say this 'working definition' is exactly what free will is. It never was more, and the idea that we think it should be more ('genuine free will') is historical: we are still not loosened completely from our religious heritage, that says that we are souls, and that nature is forced to behave as it does because the laws of nature that were put in place by God. First, just remember what I wrote in my previous post: if the physical layer is determined, than everything that supervenes on this layer will be determined too. Really, I am not saying that we are not determined! So the word 'levitating' does not apply. But there is a certain independence of higher level phenomena from the exact physical layer, as you can see from my program example above. It can be implemented on different kind of systems! You, as a human, can even understand immediately what will happen, and you need no detailed information about the computer system. It cannot run on any physical system (a car will not do), but given a minimal set of requirements, any computer system will do. I, as a database administrator, need no knowledge of physics, even if there is a tremendous amount of physics in the workings of a computer. For the greatest part I even don't have to know if my Oracle database is running under Windows or Linux, on an Intel- or AMD-based server. Yes, for me too. And there simply is not anymore to free will. And I even go further: it is good enough to support our practice of responsibility, ethics, etc. 'Genuine free will' is an old fashioned chimera, that we still carry with us long after we abandoned religious (meta)physics.

Of course. No. E.g. concentrating on the elements that make up a traffic jam, i.e. cars, you will never get at the concept of a traffic jam. It is a phenomenon that transcends the individual components, yet is completely dependent on its components. But assuming that the components are determined, of course the higher level is just as determined too. Maybe here also lies some misunderstandings in our (@MigL, @joigus) discussion. I am nowhere implying that at higher levels determinism will be broken. But maybe you are reading me like that. When I say that we are determined, I really mean 'determined', and not that emergence somehow can 'break free' from its components. The problem seems to be that you are looking for something that I would call 'genuine free will', which would imply that we can act independently from laws of nature. But of course we can't. And if we can't at the lowest level, then we cannot at all. But the 'logic': 'if determined, than not free'. is wrong! Maybe I should turn the discussion upside down: as long as you cannot prove that there is a contradiction between free will and determinism, you have no point at all. (And 'it is obvious' of course will not do... ) Whereby I define 'free will' as 'being able to act according your wishes and beliefs'. I am pretty sure, that everytime you deliver such a kind of proof, I can point you to a place in the argument where you use another definition of free will.

I do not agree. We need sufficient determinism for free will to exist. If there is no more or less fix connection between what I observe, belief, wish, and do, my actions will be chaotic, and have nothing to do with the situation I am in. If my beliefs and wishes change randomly, I have no character. If I want to move my arm to fetch something, but because of some random process I move a toe instead, acting becomes difficult, etc, etc.

Right. But as people with a naturalistic world view we are curious enough to want to understand how such high-level phenomena can be implemented in the structure of the brain. But quantum field theory, however correct it is, and is the basis for our understanding of how elementary particles behave, it is not much use to understand which actions are free and which aren't. To understand a chess computer in order to beat it, you'd better find out its strategies: understanding the physical principles will not help you. So 'reductionism' for me is not that everything must be understood from the basic particles a system exists of. But it means that any system, must be implemented in some physical substrate, and we understand how the capabilities of a system can be explained by the the functioning of a layer below, without referring to some 'magic'. (A soul, the magic of free will, etc). I do not think this is such a problem. We are products of evolution, and nature has so to speak put the 'border' at our skin. The evolutionary success of higher animals, is their capability to somehow see themselves in their environment. They know what do when it is cold, and when they are thirsty they know where to go to find water. So I think our concept of 'self' is an evolutionary product of organisms to 'self-preserve'. We identify ourselves with our body. Of course it does, and it is no accident... Our self does not exist independently. I think there are strong parallels between Buddha's idea of the five skandhas, that form the basis of what we are, and on the other side, say, the chemical elements we exist of. There is nothing that endures in Buddhism, and that is just as valid for the 'self'.

Sorry, I do not understand your question. Of course. But not by 'old-fashioned AI', i.e. by explicit programming of beliefs and wishes. See my example of 'massive parallel processing'. And therefore, the following is not necessarily true: It is more like 'the bigger and complexer the structure, the more possibilities arise'. Don't you think that a modern PC has slightly more possibilities than a pocket calculator from the 70s/80s? However, their basic components are the same: transistors, flip-flops, adders, multipliers, etc. A 'programmer' of a neural network has only provided a physical and functional layer: what the neural network does in the end, depends on its 'experiences': if it is trained to recognise cats, it will have different weights at the nodes than the same neural network that was trained to recognise paintings of Magritte.

I don't think so, well, better, I do not think your antecedent ('if an A.I could be predicted and controlled down to the finest details') will ever occur. We will understand the way different layers build up on other ones, but not be capable anymore to follow the concrete processes and give exact predictions. Think about neural networks ('massive parallel processing, 'deep learning'): we made them, but we do not program them in the usual way: cats are not recognised by the rules that were programmed, but by 'learning by example'. For such a neural network to reliably recognise cats, it cannot be too small. So we have a big neural network, and not even the programmer is able to predict how the weights of the connections will be distributed around the network, or the other way round, will be able to read from the weights of the connections, that the network is able to recognise cats, and not for recognising if a painting was painted by Magritte ('Ceci n'est pas une pipe'). Another, maybe not such a strong point, is that computer programs can very well surprise the programmer: why should we otherwise build computer models of the atmosphere, of the universe, or the quantum vacuum? We do it, because we do not understand how the basic laws of nature (and initial conditions) work out on massive scales. That means we gain knowledge by such simulations, which simply means that the programmers do not know how their model will develop. If they did, there would be no need to write the simulation. So that does not follow. Hmm... I possibly did not explain it too clearly. An important aspect of philosophy is finding out what implicit presumptions are hidden behind certain views and discourses. To say 'we have no free will', one needs to know what counts as free will, to call it 'genuine free will'. So first you define a concept, clearly (and when possible succinct), and then you look if it applies to the objects where the question is interesting. (The possible free will of a stone, or even a virus... is not interesting.) So my question is, which concept of free will do you use, in order to deny its existence? Say, we have a concept of a unicorn: an animal with one horn. Now we can say unicorns exist! Rhinos! (At least one subspecies of them. Most have two horns.) As soon as we define it as 'a white, horse-like animal, with a beautiful spiral horn on its forehead, and which lies its head on the lap of a virgin', it does not exist. Now this is what I said: When you deny 'free will', by saying that the laws of physics do not have room for such a thing, it is obvious that you think that 'genuine free will' must be explained by some 'basic free willicles' on physical level. And as we do not find these, free will does not exist. So our impression we have free will, must be an illusion, and you explain this illusion with emergence. OTOH, I say free will exists, and show this also with emergence. The gist of my traffic jam example is that the congestion moves backwards, that even its physical effects run backwards, but the cars themselves move forwards. But your position with free will is that to have something moving backwards, at the lowest level, cars must move backwards. As nothing is moving backwards, you deny the backwards moving of the congestion, and call the moving backwards an illusion. But the backwards moving has physical impact (alarms go off at the bridges)! So for me it is clear that you, and @MigL (and @iNow of course) deny the existence of free will, based on the idea that nothing like free will shows up on the fundamental level of the components that make us. And I argue that this is wrong: yes, we are determined, but we can very well distinguish between actions that we do voluntary, and actions to which we are forced. And as many actions of us are voluntary, we obviously have the capacity to act freely, which means we have free will. But not the radical libertarian idea of free will, which is an illusion indeed, but the more practical one: that we can act according our wishes and beliefs. But wishes and beliefs only exist at the highest level description of the brain, so only in that context it makes sense to ask oneself if an action was free or not. On the levels below that, the question simply does not apply. PS I was not trying to fish for compliments by showing false humility... What I wanted to express is that you cannot make a single jump from the basis constituents of a computer, or humans, to the functioning of the whole. That would be shallow reductionism. One can recognise the 'shallow reductionist' by remarks of the kind 'we are just X', or even worse, 'we are nothing but X'. My answer to that is always the same: if a computer is just (nothing but) silicon, metal and insulator, then say 'here I put you a heap of silicon, metal and insulator on the desk, can you please calculate how many primes we have below 10⁷?' if a steam train is just iron, coal, and water, then try to travel a few 100 miles with just a heap of iron, coal, and a lot of water if we are just a bag of chemicals and water, then throw these altogether in a container, and let it think out a scientific theory. It is the structures of the components, and the processes they enable, that make computers, steam trains and humans to what they are, not just their components.

Hi joigus, But I do accept reductionism! But I am not a shallow reductionist. There is not just one level of explanation from atoms to conscious and free agents. There are many levels. Compare with a computer: you will never understand how a computer works, if you just see it for what it, from a shallow reductionist view, really is: a bunch of silicon, metal an insulating material. There are many levels of explanation for a computer: atoms, semi-conductor crystals, potential layers between P- and N-areas, and- or- and not-ports, flipflops, all the way to running programs and algorithms. And computers can do things that do not even exist on the level of atoms. I am pretty sure that for a complete explanation of how brains 'make minds' there are even more layers, and on every layer you get phenomena that do not not exist on the levels below, but in principle can be explained by it. On the highest level, we have things like beliefs, intentions, thoughts, observations, actions etc. And only on this level, 'free will' gets its meaning: something that has no beliefs, no wishes and cannot act, 'free will' simply does not apply. It makes no sense to ask if an electron wants to be bound to a nucleus, or is forced to stay there. So the 'spectrum' 'free-coerced' does not even apply. Now the reason, I think, you believe I am not a reductionist, lies in your view that 'free will' should exist already at the deepest level. You ask an electron to run a program for you, so to speak. It can't, even if the electron's properties are essential for the computer to run a program. You see, there is no contradiction between determinism and free will. So I am a determinist (again leaving out QM), but, to use the same figure of speech, not a shallow one. So put me in the camp of reductionists, but still... we have free will!

It is teachers, my boy, not teacher's.

Hi MigL, Try to formulate the same, but without using 'governing'. Don't you agree that laws of nature are our descriptions of the regularities we find in nature? Do you really think that laws of nature 'govern' or 'enforce' natural processes? It is my strong conviction that this way of speaking is just metaphorical. Maybe this question helps to weaken up these kind of concepts: how do laws of nature determine what happens in the universe? Is this a scientific question, a philosophical one, a theological, or just nonsensical? Seems some misunderstanding here. Everytime we act, we give further proof of e.g. the laws valid for chemico-neurological processes, because that is the way our brain functions. We do not find magic in the brain, just a very complicated structure and its processes, developing according the same laws of nature as everywhere else in the universe, and that, amongst others, constitute our will. But it doesn't cause our will. So I do not see the hubris in it. If this is not clarifying your point, then I might have misunderstood you, and you must explain a bit more, why you think it is hubris. Thanks. I do my best. (But if I can't convince you, I am a 'miserable failure'... ).

Indeed. This is even central to my position. And it really is one of the biggest hurdles to overcome the idea that we are not free because we are determined. This, what you put so simply in one sentence: Takes Dennett about 200 pages in his Consciousness explained. Not because it is difficult to express, as you clearly show here, but because it is so difficult to get rid of a Cartesian outlook. He uses many arguments, thought experiments, results of real experiments to show that there is no place and not even a precise time, in the brain where 'everything comes together' and from where our actions are coordinated. Even if one does not postulate a homunculus (or soul, or agent) in the brain, it does not mean one has freed himself from the 'Cartesian spell'. There is a strong parallel with thinking that laws of nature 'force' events to happen as they do. It is like old metaphysical ideas that God created the laws of nature to which everything in the universe must abide. In reality, laws of nature describe regularities we observe in nature. It is pretty much the opposite: the laws of nature are as they are, because nature enforces them. Every planet, simply running its course around its star, is (re)enforcing the laws of gravity, not the other way round. Instead of calling them 'laws of nature', one better would call them 'the tao of nature': the way nature is, or better, the way we understand nature. Laws of nature enforce nothing: in our case, they enable us to exist and to act.

I exaggerated a little, but the main point stays. Causation has 2 sides: B is caused by A, but B causes C. Somehow we are fixed on the 'passive part' (B is caused by A) but not the 'active part' (B causing C). That is why your decision what to eat in a restaurant has causal consequences. So if you want, they are both: without causal relationships, the word would be boring, nothing could happen, we would not exist, let alone that we can do something, i.e. act. So as I said, the causal relationships open the possibility of something happening. On the other side, not everything can happen. To see that as a constraint, I would say one uses an idea that simply has no real counterpart: a world where everything is possible, without constraints. But as we've seen, in such world we could not exist. Maybe there is a parallel with the concept of free will you are normally denying, you know, the 'uncaused' one. This is just such a chimera as unconstrained actions. Pointing your arrows at empty concepts is easy...

No science here. Lounge, Trash Can, or close. @Strange: Don't even think about it to move it to 'General Philosophy'... 😣

Yes and no. 'Yes' in the specific case, 'no' in the general case. The problem with the general case is that we must agree what we mean with 'free will'. As long as people just use their intuitions on what free will is, the problem will never be solved. No wonder: the problem of free will is an intelligibility problem, i.e. a problem of understanding. And not every intelligibility problem is an empirical problem. And there are only a few disciplines that are concerned with pure intelligibility problems: mathematics (with its parent, logic) and philosophy. And intuitions are dangerous in such areas. In none of the cases intuitions bring you very far, especially if you are not trained in a certain discipline. Compare with quantum mechanics: the intuitions of a lay person are next to worthless. Think about all the crackpots that say QM is wrong because it does not fit to how they experience the world. On the other side, the intuitions of a seasoned 'quantum mechanic' can be very valuable, but as QM is an empirical theory, the intuitions still must be put to the test. Now to the specific case: Let's take a trial as example. To be declared guilty, a few things must apply: the defendant did an illegal action the defendant is not somehow mentally ill the defendant was not coerced to act as she did, i.e. she could have done otherwise The last point of course is very interesting: how could somebody do otherwise, when we live (yes, I leave out QM here) in a determined world? It just means that other options were available for the defendant. Now all this together is an empirical investigation! (Maybe not scientific, sometimes based on unreliable sources, but the character of the investigation is, per definition, empirical). So in my previous example of the vegetarian restaurant: could the defendant have ordered a hamburger? No, of course, in the vegetarian restaurant; but yes, in a normal restaurant this option was available. This is the relevant meaning of 'could have done otherwise', and the question is an empirical one. I also have a science fiction scenario that might help to overcome some wrong intuitions about what free will is: the super-duper brain scanner is perfectly able to see which actions were done freely, and which ones are voluntary: if an action is caused by 'brain-routines' of fear and accompanied by repugnance, the action was not free; if it is done with pleasure, motivated by what the person would normally do etc, then the action was free. But both cases are of course determined! Yes, but not any definition will do. Say, e.g. in geometry, I define a square as every object that has 4 angles of 90o. Where this is true for every square, it does not suffice. We can do better. So what we need is a concept of free will that fits best to our 'Lebenswelt'. So as a negative example 'could have done otherwise' in the metaphysical sense does not fit to what we daily do. Just look at the example of the legal case above. Which constraints? Physical laws are not constraints. They open up a field of possibilities! Without (natural) insight in causes and effects, of actions and their results, you would not be able to act at all! Or from the other side: laws of physics are descriptions of what just happens. They force nothing, and therefore do not constrain anything.

Hi MigL, But 'you' are choosing! What you in fact do is distinguishing between your brain processes (that what is 'forcing internally'), and what you are. But there is no such distinction! 'You' are your brain processes! And one other confusion: internal and external 'forces' are not just constraints. They are the 'substance' of the choice. Just imagine that there were no constraints for 'free will' at all. Then there neither would be grounds for acting. 'Your' free will is only constrained if the 'internal forces' are somehow blocked to act out by somebody else. Otherwise the 'internal forces', i.e. the constituents of 'you' are free to play out the will that they constitute into the chosen action. What is wrong with my definition: being able to act according your wishes and beliefs? What blocks you from consistently using this definition? One other point, maybe not an easy one either: what does 'constrained' mean? The concept 'constrained' only makes sense when you can compare it with an unconstrained situation. So what is the unconstrained situation? When it doesn't exist, what does 'constrained' mean?? To give an example, directly from my work: as a database administrator I have to do with 'tables' that have 'columns'. Each column must have a datatype, e.g 'number', or 'character' or even 'boolean' (there are many more...). Now is defining a datatype a constraint (you cannot but the word 'MigL' in a number column), or is it what defines how data 'act' in programs that use the data? E.g. creating a number column makes it possible to do arithmetic with it. On the other side, to capitalise a number, makes no sense. On the other side, one can have 'constraints' on columns. A constraint is something that, well, constrains the normal behaviour of a column. E.g. 'number' might allow values from -1048576 to +1048576. But to order -5 T-shirts makes no sense. So we put a constraint on the column that the number must be > 0. So the constraint is in comparison with what 'number normally is allowed to'. And this exactly is what constraints on free will are: you compare what you normally would do in a similar situation, with what you are forced to do now, e.g. because somebody is 'constraining' you. Really? Why? If nature would react inconsistently on my wishes and believes, it would be impossible to evaluate possible future events as result of my actions. Without determinism I could not even be sure that my wishes and believes are causal factors in my actions. In a free act, 'it is me who determines my actions'. Where 'me' is not a soul or something, but my living brain (body, bag of chemicals). That opens another discussion, but to say it already here: I think that my concept of free will is exactly the basis we need for such social practices. But I would like to stick to the basic points here. Except the 'internal forces' that constitute your will.

That is exactly what I expect. And therefore this does not follow: As long as I can do what I want, which is in my eyes the only correct definition of free will (well, its short version...), I have free will. 'Free will' just does not mean that it must be uncaused. I could have, but not in the rigorous meaning you use here. Say, a child is climbing in a tree, and moves on a branch away from the trunk of the tree. At a certain moment, her father is seeing that, finds it very dangerous, and yells that she must get out of the tree. Once down the father says "The branch could have broken." Is that a true remark? Again, according to a rigid interpretation it is wrong. If the branch did not break (it is in the past) it could not have broken under exactly the same circumstances. What the father really means, is that in situations that are very similar, branches can break: it could be less strong, the child could be slightly heavier, and the branch would have broken. In the context of 'free will' the meaning is not different: in circumstances very similar to the situation I was in, I might have done something different. To make it a little more technical: the sentence ''The branch could have broken" is a counter-factual, but true statement. We know branches can break. Compare you visiting two different restaurants: one is a vegetarian restaurant, the other a normal one. There is a relevant sense in which the sentence 'I could have ordered a hamburger' is false for the vegetarian restaurant, but true for the normal restaurant. And this is the relevant meaning in when we are talking about free will: 'I could have done otherwise'. That means you postulate free will in the 'gap' in which science has nothing to say, i.e. QM cannot predict the exact outcome of an experiment, only the chance for it. But there is not a single shred of evidence that such a process exists.

No, of course not. But they can show how careful one must be when discussing free will. There is a huge difference between 'the neural structure of the brain causes mental events' and 'Mental event are higher order (emergent) descriptions of what the brain does'. The first description must lead to a dualistic viewpoint, because causal relationships are always between two different events. To avoid I have to write everything again, please use the search function of the forum, and search for 'traffic jam' (complete phrase), and start with the earliest mentioning of it in posts by me about free will and the 'Split from AI sentience' thread. You will find there my description of an emergent phenomenon that has real physical impact. Nothing. And in my realistic concept of free will it is not needed anyway. Determinism is a necessary condition for free will. Which brings me to the idea that we need randomness for free will to exist. Why would this be? If you actions were random, what have they to do with who you are? Why would free actions need to be unpredictable? If free will means 'to be able to act according your wishes and beliefs' there is no contradiction with determinism and predictability. So in my opinion, there are two ways to oppose my position: show that my definition does conflict with determinism and predictability show that my definition of free will is wrong (for this it is important to make a distinction between how we experience free will in our daily life, not the metaphysical or ideological meanings many people associate with 'free will', so without any superfragilistic expialidociousity. One other word about randomness: there is a possible reason why we need a randomiser. Compare with the chess program: if two possible moves are evaluated, are the best possible moves, and have exactly the same 'evaluation value'. Then the program must just pick one. Same with us. If two different action possibilities seem equally preferable, I must choose one. Another one is that we want to keep our strategy secret. E.g. the best strategy in 'scissors, stone, paper' is to be as random as possible. So for a secret strategy, a super-duper brain scan is a threat. But for normal daily decisions and actions this of no importance. So this is pertinently wrong: And, I think I mentioned it already in this thread, laws of nature do not force anything. They are our descriptions of processes in nature, i.e. they are abstractions from regularities we observe in nature. That exactly is the point. Try to do what you want by letting a randomiser determine your actions. I think you would be in psychiatric clinic very soon. Another false opposition: maybe the upgrade made free will possible. Not because the software somehow 'overrides' the hardware, but because it introduced much better 'self-referencing' routines. Your second dialogue shows some aspects of consciousness and free will: the capability to give reasons for one's behaviour (which needs a certain level of self-referencing). If your car would pass the full Turing test of course is still another question.

Does that include me??? 😭 This is what Dogbert says: That is at least very close to dualism, depends a little on how Dogbert means his question. If we take the 'chemistry of the brain' as more or less what a person is then he is asking if people control what they do. That is not dualistic. Mimicking a philosopher? Now you only must prove that determinism conflicts with 'free will'. And, as said many times, for me free will is the capability to act according your motivations and beliefs. Right. Examples of emergent properties are consciousness, beliefs motivations, actions, persons. So free will is an emergent property too, because it can only be defined on this emergent level. The definition of free will I gave is in terms of these emergent properties. These properties do not exist at the level of neurons. Again, before you say 'but that is not free will for me', then I know that you are using another definition than mine, and we can shift the discussion to the operative usefulness of different definitions of free will.