What are the benefits of understanding our free will?

[Sensei]

People are slaves. Slaves of money, most of them, except some homeless and some billionaires etc. And slaves to tradition, rituals, the religion they were raised in, addictions, etc.

How can you say you have free will if you can't even wake up when you want? The clock rings at 5, 6 or 7.. and you rush to work, which you hate..

 

Edited November 19, 2023 by Sensei

[dimreepr]

22 hours ago, Bufofrog said:

I thought this was about free will as opposed to a deterministic future.

It's not about either, it's about what can, usefully, be done with that knowledge.

 

18 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

What are the benefits of understanding our free will?

I suspect the quick answer is that a true understanding of the nature of free will would take us close to a true understanding of the nature of consciousness which would be no small achievement.

One of the major challenges seems to be determining the sphere of influence of free will to which end it may be helpful to identify where free will has no observable scope of application. So if you will bear with me... 

Practically the entire Tree of Life outside of clade Holozoa (and many members of Holozoa) arguably thrive without any recourse to free will. Their activities can perhaps be simplified to a set of spontaneous reactions to stimuli (both external and internal) ultimately mediated by their genetic preprogramming.

A great diversity of viable ecosystems could be constructed of such purely impulsive communities that we would see as being dominated by plants and fungi.

Within such communities the following hierarchy of advantageous evolutionary development can be considered:

a) development of a nervous system to communicate stimuli and response by faster means than chemical diffusion/convection.

b) development of a centralised brain to better coordinate communication between sensory and endocrine systems.

c) expansion of the brain to facilitate development of learned responses (ie those not easily built into genetic coding).

These seem to be sufficient for the evolution of phenotypes capable of language and the ability to observe a written code of conduct (among many other behavioural characteristics).

To this extent, free will is not necessary. A societal training programme based along the lines of 'spare the rod and spoil the child', has historically been more or less sufficient to persuade individuals to resolve conflicts between subconscious impulse and social code in favour of the latter levering on natural fight or flight and pleasure/pain responses.

If we want to isolate free will, I think we need another level in the developmental hierarchy:

d) further develop the brain to generate reasonable, novel responses to novel stimuli.

This is clearly distinct from level c) as the response cannot be explicitly specified in advance of the experience - on post hoc ergo propter hoc grounds.

Specific types of training (eg the scientific method) may provide an approach to dealing with novelty when encountered, but this doesn't strike me as enough to guarantee a good outcome. Deduction has to be augmented with imagination I think. It is the imagination, free of dogmatic constraints, that generates the variety of possible responses in the mind of the individual. And I would tentatively propose that it is in the evaluation of those imagined possible responses that free will can be found.

If free will is so intimately connected with imagination, then is it not an expression if not the primary expression of consciousness?

I could develop this further, but enough for now.

 

Indeed you could (in another thread), I'm aware of the problem's of understanding such things, but what's it got to do with the question asked?

On 11/13/2023 at 1:54 PM, Peterkin said:

Like savages?

http://www.ajic.mb.ca/volumel/chapter2.html

Sorry I missed this post +1, it never ceases to amaze me, just how arrogant this/every generation becomes when they get the latest phone, that doesn't even need you to spell to work properly, and laugh at the savage that can't say "google" right.

I can think of a few thought experiments/television idea's that would wipe the smile... 😝

18 hours ago, Sensei said:

People are slaves. Slaves of money, most of them, except some homeless and some billionaires etc. And slaves to tradition, rituals, the religion they were raised in, addictions, etc.

How can you say you have free will if you can't even wake up when you want? The clock rings at 5, 6 or 7.. and you rush to work, which you hate..

 

Well you could choose to become homeless, it's much easier and better for your soul than to drown in a sea of money. 

[Eise]

On 11/12/2023 at 1:07 PM, dimreepr said:

If philosophy can determine just how much free will we actually have ...

It can't. Philosophy can help by giving a workable definition of free will, only then, theoretically, it possibly could turn into an empirical question. Do not forget: philosophy doesn't answer empirical questions, for that we have the sciences. Philosophy can help to clarify concepts, find possible alternatives, unmask false arguments, reconstruct presuppositions etc.

On 11/12/2023 at 1:44 PM, dimreepr said:

Yes, philosophy determined a way to think without bias

Really? I studied philosophy, and as said above, philosophy can help clarify questions and concepts, and so make one a little bit more rational. But philosophers are at least as biased as scientists are. Even philosophers are still humans...

On 11/12/2023 at 5:31 PM, Sensei said:

..the founders of philosophy were slave owners.. they raped the women and men which they just bought in the slave market.. occasionally killing them for fun..

Newton spent his time mainly on alchemy and theology. And he also made a major contribution to natural philosophy. Just as relevant as your remark.

On 11/12/2023 at 7:05 PM, Bufofrog said:

I can choose to do anything that is physically possible, the result of my choice may have dire consequences, but I am certainly free to make that choice.

With that 'physically possible' you put yourself into trouble. A determinist would say that given the initial conditions and the laws of nature there will be only one thing physically possible. Except if you think that the possibility is given because of quantum physics (which indeed makes the future unpredictable. But are your actions the result of the throwing of a quantum die? You could use the Quantum Decision-Maker, makes life much easier...)

On 11/13/2023 at 4:52 AM, geordief said:

You just couldn't resist ,could you?

+1. A bit of humour is always enlightening 

On 11/13/2023 at 6:53 AM, Sensei said:

Philosophical discussions can be shortened to the statement "I know that I know nothing"..

You know what is discussed in modern academic philosophy, don't you? No, you don't. I reveal you at least one philosophical secret: philosophers tend to give arguments for their statements.

On 11/14/2023 at 3:13 PM, Sensei said:

Look at Swansont's minature - "resistance is futile"..

If you thought to refer to the borg... Nope, Swansont's avatar is not a borg.

On 11/14/2023 at 3:18 PM, studiot said:

The thing I have against formal philosophers is that they have been debating for thousands of years, yet Philosophy has no developed a growing and increasingly coherent body of a subject. As each generation discards what went before they are no further forward than they were millenia ago.

Ah! Those stupid philosophers! Reflecting on thinking (in sciences, about culture, in ethics) they should stick to some dogmas? (sorry, I realise I become cynical, but you should know me by now, and that I already wrote several postings about what (modern) philosophy is. The times they are a'changin, and therefore philosophy too.

On 11/16/2023 at 3:44 PM, studiot said:

The first three names I mentioned, Plato in particular, wanted to strip philosophical analysis of all such experience and replace it with dreamt up  ideals.

Yes, and a mass that is twice another mass falls twice as fast. Aristotle said so, and he was (also) a physicist!

On 11/19/2023 at 2:10 AM, Bufofrog said:

That is a weird thing to say unless you define free will differently than me.  How do you define free will.

That would be possible, isn't it? In this case, it is all about definitions.

On 11/19/2023 at 2:07 PM, Bufofrog said:

I thought this was about free will as opposed to a deterministic future.  I see I am wrong and this is a discussion that is going down several philosophical rabbit holes.  

Yup. But if you do not like to dive into the rabbit hole, why do you do as if you know what is in there?

For those I did not make angry, I wrote a short overview here:

@dimreepr: the examples I gave at the end might interest you. 

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Eise

[sethoflagos]

2 hours ago, dimreepr said:

but what's it got to do with the question asked?

Merely a futile attempt to establish some mutual understanding of what you mean by 'free will'.

I invested some time in it, but lesson learnt. 

[Eise]

 I once wrote a small exposé about philosophy. I think it is necessary to copy it here completely:

On 10/28/2014 at 5:40 PM, Eise said:

It should be clear that philosophy does not solve any scientific problem. If it did, then it would be part of a science. If it solves any problem, then it could be called an intelligibility problem. That means that philosophical problems can arise everywhere where people think.

Obviously, normally thinking is no problem. Science was already progressing before philosophy tried to find out how, and why science progresses. But philosophy can clarify this by trying to find out when e.g. in science a statement or theory is accepted. And that is not the sociological question (when does a group of scientists accept a theory) but the methodological question: when is it justified to accept a theory.

Such questions become important when people, or society in general, ask themselves what they should accept as truth. Methodologically philosophy is hardly important for the scientists themselves. It partly explains the disdain scientists have for philosophy. They think that philosophy thinks that it says to scientists how they should do their work. Occasionally some philosophers also really do this, which is mostly distorting for philosophy's reputation.

Also in morality people know very well what to think. But to find out how they think might again be a task for philosophers. Again, not the sociological question, but the question which kind of thinking leads to a justified morality. This job is of course for ethics: to find and reflect on the criteria we use, or should use, in our moral thinking if we want to be consistent.

There is also a class of problems that arise from our daily thinking. One example is the problem of free will. Where nearly all people experience they have free will, it seems that science, based on the idea that laws of nature are in general deterministic, denies that we have free will. It is a task for philosophers to show how the daily use of the concept of free will differs from the concept that scientists use, and show that there is in fact no such free will problem at all. It is all based on some wrong pre-concepts that confuse the discussion.

So if there is some positive result from philosophy, it is intellectual clarity. If a problem disappears under this intellectual clarity, then it could be called 'solved'.

But intellectual clarity definitely doesn't solve empirical or in general scientific problems. That is just a false expectation.

 

[dimreepr]

21 minutes ago, Eise said:

It can't. Philosophy can help by giving a workable definition of free will, only then, theoretically, it possibly could turn into an empirical question. Do not forget: philosophy doesn't answer empirical questions, for that we have the sciences. Philosophy can help to clarify concepts, find possible alternatives, unmask false arguments, reconstruct presuppositions etc.

Indeed, but science can at least get us a step closer to asking the right question's... 

[studiot]

4 hours ago, Eise said:

Yes, and a mass that is twice another mass falls twice as fast. Aristotle said so, and he was (also) a physicist!

Is that incompatible with what I said ?

 

4 hours ago, Eise said:

The times they are a'changin, and therefore philosophy too.

Glad to hear it.

We need We need philosophers to ruminate, but it is better if they chew on what we know rather than guessing, of if and when they do guess then they cary out testing of their guesses.

[dimreepr]

23 hours ago, Eise said:

the examples I gave at the end might interest you. 

They do indeed, but I must say that none of them, nore a combination of, resonated exactly with my thinking.

• Quote

   

  • None compatibilist determinists thinking that we should not punish criminals, but therapise them, because without free will they are not responsible
  • None compatibilist determinists saying that for our daily life it makes no difference at all: in the end, society and its judges are just as determined as the criminal
  • Libertarians defending that every individual is completely responsible for his life: if people are poor, then they made the wrong choices in their lives, no need to help them, independent of the country or culture they come from
  • People who think their their lives have no meaning if they have no free will (eh.. which concept of free will?)
  • Compatibilists taking as default position that people have free will, but there are people whose circumstances are so extreme that they cannot be held responsible; or they miss one of the necessary capabilities for free will, e.g. to rationally evaluate their options for actions (maybe Down syndrome as an example?)
  • None compatibilist determinists who say that their position leads to more tolerance to others, and lift the heavy burden of absolute responsibility, like that concept of responsibility that can be found by especially the French existentialists. I have known people falling more or less in a depression because of those views.

   

  My thinking is more akin to Rudolf Steiner's as it pertains to the differently abled.

• Edit, none of the other shit he espoused BTW. 😣

23 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Merely a futile attempt to establish some mutual understanding of what you mean by 'free will'.

I invested some time in it, but lesson learnt. 

Sorry, it was an interesting and well presented post, worthy of it's own topic; what I mean by free will, I'd say we have a limited amount of it that varies from person to person.

Edited November 21, 2023 by dimreepr

[dimreepr]

It's like we're playing wac-a-mole from both end's of the game...

[sethoflagos]

4 hours ago, dimreepr said:

what I mean by free will, I'd say we have a limited amount of it that varies from person to person.

Does that observation increase our understanding of what free will actually is?

Personally, I would reject @Eise's Quantum Decision Maker as an agent of free will not on the grounds that it (potentially) confounds determinism, but that it is indistinguishable from taking actions based on false premises.

The popular understanding of the concept would be along the lines of choosing to get out of bed when you felt like it, not when someone else told you to. Do we have any more sophisticated definition to work with? If not, then such a decision is arguably just a balance of pleasure/pain responses and no more an example of free will than a peckish amoeba wandering off in search of its next meal. Easy prey for the determinist camp.

I'm tempted toward an atheist position on both free will and determinism, though remain open to harder definitions of free will and less evangelical revelations of determinism.

If free will does not exist, then the validity of the OP is moot. Kind of like asking what unicorns prefer for breakfast.     

[iNow]

2 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Kind of like asking what unicorns prefer for breakfast.   

Lucky Charms. They’re magically delicious 🦄 

[dimreepr]

17 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Does that observation increase our understanding of what free will actually is?

Personally, I would reject @Eise's Quantum Decision Maker as an agent of free will not on the grounds that it (potentially) confounds determinism, but that it is indistinguishable from taking actions based on false premises.

The popular understanding of the concept would be along the lines of choosing to get out of bed when you felt like it, not when someone else told you to. Do we have any more sophisticated definition to work with? If not, then such a decision is arguably just a balance of pleasure/pain responses and no more an example of free will than a peckish amoeba wandering off in search of its next meal. Easy prey for the determinist camp.

I'm tempted toward an atheist position on both free will and determinism, though remain open to harder definitions of free will and less evangelical revelations of determinism.

If free will does not exist, then the validity of the OP is moot. 

   

The premise of the OP is, we do understand free will well enough to be able to quantify it. How can the thought experiment be moot? Unless you can provide evidence of the futility in seeking to understand it; so, again your post is off topic.

18 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Kind of like asking what unicorns prefer for breakfast.     

No it isn't, you're conflating a notion of God, with the notion of free will.

Free will is self evident, as described by Descartes and my decision to answer your post, what's in question from that perspective is the degree of freedom; like playing wac-a-mole with varying levels of difficulty.

 

[sethoflagos]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

The premise of the OP is, we do understand free will well enough to be able to quantify it.

Western philosophy has failed to produce concensus on either the definition of, or even the existence of free will since at least the time of Aristotle. Therefore the premise is false.

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

How can the thought experiment be moot?

Because we need some prior concensus on a working definition of free will before we say anything meaningful about it.

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Unless you can provide evidence of the futility in seeking to understand it; so, again your post is off topic.

Where did I say the search for understanding is futile? Far from it. Your deduction is false (arguably lazy and insultingly dismissive)

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

No it isn't, you're conflating a notion of God, with the notion of free will.

Quite the opposite. In an increasingly godless world It appears that the role of an all-powerful, omniscient being is being usurped by materialist determinism. Scientific determinism succeeds theological predeterminism and whether or not they are flip sides of the same coin, the assault on the existence/reality of free will appears identical. 

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Free will is self evident

Says who?

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Descartes

Spinoza says no.

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

like playing wac-a-mole

wtf?

 

Edited November 22, 2023 by sethoflagos
sp

[dimreepr]

39 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Western philosophy has failed to produce concensus on either the definition of, or even the existence of free will since at least the time of Aristotle. Therefore the premise is false.

That's like saying Einstein was wrong to imagine what it's like to be a photon... 🙄

39 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Quite the opposite. In an increasingly godless word It appears that the role of an all-powerful, omniscient being is being usurped by materialist determinism. Scientific determinism succeeds theological predeterminism and whether or not they are flip sides of the same coin, the assault on the existence/reality of free will appears identical. 

Are you a madman?

Quote

 

Parable Of The Madman

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning
hours,
ran to the market place, and cried incessantly:
"I seek God! I seek God!"
As many of those who did not believe in God
were standing around just then,
he provoked much laughter.
Has he got lost? asked one.
Did he lose his way like a child? asked another.
Or is he hiding?
Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?
Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes.
"Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you.
We have killed him—-you and I.
All of us are his murderers.
But how did we do this?
How could we drink up the sea?
Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?
Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?
Away from all suns?
Are we not plunging continually?
Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions?
Is there still any up or down?
Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?
Do we not feel the breath of empty space?
Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?
Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?
Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers
who are burying God?
Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition?
Gods, too, decompose.
God is dead.
God remains dead.
And we have killed him.

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?
What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled
to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?
What water is there for us to clean ourselves?
What festivals of atonement, what sacred gamesshall we have to invent?
Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?
Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -
For the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all
history hitherto."

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners;
and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment.
At last he threw his lantern on the ground,
and it broke into pieces and went out.
"I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet.
This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering;
it has not yet reached the ears of men.
Lightning and thunder require time;
the light of the stars requires time;
deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard.
This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -
and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day
the madman forced his way into several churches
and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo.
Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing
but:
"What after all are these churches now
if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"

 

 

39 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Says who?

Says you...

 

39 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Spinoza says no.

No he doesn't, he just argued that he said it wrong... 

39 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

wtf?

Think about it... Your libido says yes, but your boss is in the building; you'd better find a way to wac that mole down, or you lose the game... 😝

Edited November 22, 2023 by dimreepr

[sethoflagos]

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

That's like saying Einstein was wrong to imagine what it's like to be a photon... 🙄

Except no one worth minding doubts the existence of photons.

Though in passing, last time I asked @Mordred advised me that it was an invalid frame of reference. 

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

Are you a madman?

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach'ya bout the raisin of the wrist. 

Or so I heard.

1 hour ago, dimreepr said:

No he doesn't, he just argued that he said it wrong...

I thought Spinoza's line was that since his god was the only causeless being, his was the only truly free will. 

Did I get him confused with someone else? Very long time since I read into this stuff. 

The point is that we seem to lack undisputable evidence of conscious choice that is not wholly contingent on prior events. 

 

The major benefit of understanding free will and therefore one answer to your OP, would be definitive evidence of its existence. 

Edited November 22, 2023 by sethoflagos
coda added

[TheVat]

17 minutes ago, sethoflagos said:

Except no one worth minding doubts the existence of photons.

David Bohm, among others.  And more recently, this fellow...

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14319392-200-science-do-photons-really-exist/

 

[sethoflagos]

10 minutes ago, TheVat said:

David Bohm, among others.  And more recently, this fellow...

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg14319392-200-science-do-photons-really-exist/

Thanks for that. Are they worth minding? I'd got sort of comfortable with TI.

[TheVat]

10 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Thanks for that. Are they worth minding? I'd got sort of comfortable with TI.

I am far from qualified to say.  Somewhere around here there may be an old thread or two on the reality of photons.  

I like Cramer's interpretation, too.  Partly because Wheeler is its godfather, and I much admire him.  Not a terribly scientific reason I'd have to admit.  

Sorry for the derailment.  

[Eise]

On 11/20/2023 at 6:52 PM, studiot said:

Is that incompatible with what I said ?

No. It is just as irrelevant.

On 11/20/2023 at 6:52 PM, studiot said:

We need philosophers to ruminate, but it is better if they chew on what we know rather than guessing,

I would suggest you read my exposé again. If you still wonder what philosophy is, then just ask.

The short reaction is: philosophy does not have the same subject as the sciences, so it definitely is not an alternative method to reach empirical truths. 

On 11/21/2023 at 1:45 PM, dimreepr said:

• My thinking is more akin to Rudolf Steiner's as it pertains to the differently abled.

• Edit, none of the other shit he espoused BTW. 😣

Then please point to passage where you agree with. I know who Rudolf Steiner was, and I agree with your second bullet point. Just as an aside: Steiner is not taught in academia philosophae... Justified.

On 11/21/2023 at 7:31 PM, sethoflagos said:

If free will does not exist, then the validity of the OP is moot.

You mean: if no usable definition of free will can be found...

18 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Western philosophy has failed to produce concensus on either the definition of, or even the existence of free will since at least the time of Aristotle. Therefore the premise is false.

Well, yes, philosophers still discuss this again and again. I my my eyes, because there are still too many people (and there are even such kind of philosophers) who still stick to the logically absurd idea of libertarian free will.

20 hours ago, dimreepr said:

The premise of the OP is, we do understand free will well enough to be able to quantify it.

Where I think we cannot exactly quantify free will ("Sir, he has only a free will of 37 Scoville!"), in our daily life we definitively can recognise how some people are freeer than others. And it is an essential factor in assessing how guilty somebody is in a criminal case. So this is the place to look for, at least trying to, investigate if we can design some scale of 'coerced - completely voluntary' where we can all more or less agree with.

Neurology and even worse physics, have nothing to say about free will in daily life. A speculation of mine is that neurology might once be able to: but not because they discover some indetermined process in the brain, but because they are able to map the different states of the brain of people who make free decisions on one side, and people who are coerced to do an action.

17 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I thought Spinoza's line was that since his god was the only causeless being, his was the only truly free will. 

That is nearly correct. Spinoza defines 'free' as (definition 7):

Quote

That thing is called free, which exists solely by the necessity of its own nature, and of which the action is determined by itself alone. On the other hand, that thing is necessary, or rather constrained, which is determined by something external to itself to a fixed and definite method of existence or action.

But 'God' as ±'nature', is the only thing not constrained by 'something external to itself', God is the only one from who (what) can be said that it is free.

[Eise]

To add to this: Spinoza said that, if a stone falling to the ground would be conscious, it would think it acted freely. Schopenhauer later added that the stone would be right. In the end, 'free will' is not to be able to want what you want, but to be able to do what you want. Sounds familiar?

[studiot]

4 hours ago, Eise said:

No. It is just as irrelevant.

As irrelevant as what ?

Or did you really mean soemething else ?

4 hours ago, Eise said:

I would suggest you read my exposé again. If you still wonder what philosophy is, then just ask.

The short reaction is: philosophy does not have the same subject as the sciences, so it definitely is not an alternative method to reach empirical truths. 

 

Here is a quote from a famous Philosopher

Pray tell me what it means

 

Quote

Now the best bond is one that really makes a unity of itself together the things bonded by it, and this is the nature of things best accomplished by proportion. For whenever of three numbers which are either solids or squares, the middle term between any two of them is such that what the first term is to it, it is to the last, and conversely what the last term is to the middle it is to the first, since the middle term turns out to be both first and last, and the last and first both  likewise turn out to be middle terms, they will all of necessity turn out to have the same relationship to each other. and, given this, all will be unified.

 

Here is a piece from a famous scientist

 

Quote

The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyonf this they have no legitimacy. I am convinced that have had a harmful effect on the progress of scientific thinking in removing certain fundamental concepts from the domain of empiricism, where they are under our control, to the intangible heights of a priori.

 

[sethoflagos]

3 hours ago, Eise said:

You mean: if no usable definition of free will can be found...

That's a better proposition. I did seem to execute that side step in my subsequent post.

3 hours ago, Eise said:

Well, yes, philosophers still discuss this again and again. I my my eyes, because there are still too many people (and there are even such kind of philosophers) who still stick to the logically absurd idea of libertarian free will.

Is the gulf between Dennett & Kane so vast? 

For me, the immediate macroscopic environment contains more than enough entropy and non-linearity to stimulate ideas of as many alternate courses of action simultaneously in the mind as any compatibilist could wish for, which seems to place me somewhat in the Dennett camp. But strangely, for much the same reasons, I have more sympathy for Kane's self-forming actions than Dennett does. Yes. If ultimate personal responsibility didn't exist, then I think it might be necessary to at least pretend that it did. Might have to dwell on that for a month or two.

 

[dimreepr]

23 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Except no one worth minding doubts the existence of photons.

Though in passing, last time I asked @Mordred advised me that it was an invalid frame of reference. 

Another point well missed... 🙄

23 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

I thought Spinoza's line was that since his god was the only causeless being, his was the only truly free will. 

Did I get him confused with someone else? Very long time since I read into this stuff. 

The point is that we seem to lack undisputable evidence of conscious choice that is not wholly contingent on prior events. 

TBH I don't care, it's got nothing to do with the topic at hand. 😪

23 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

The major benefit of understanding free will and therefore one answer to your OP, would be definitive evidence of its existence. 

The one time you engage with the question, and you answer with a meaningless tautology, gee thanks... 🥱

6 hours ago, Eise said:

I know who Rudolf Steiner was, and I agree with your second bullet point. Just as an aside: Steiner is not taught in academia philosophae... Justified.

I worked as a house father in a Steiner home (they rammed it home, but his attitude to schooling is specious) for the differently abled, his attitude to their care, resonated strongly with me, but his philosophy has so many contradictions. 

I'd be horrified if academia did take him seriously.

6 hours ago, Eise said:

Then please point to passage where you agree with.

 

On 11/21/2023 at 12:45 PM, dimreepr said:

• None compatibilist determinists thinking that we should not punish criminals, but therapise them, because without free will they are not responsible
• None compatibilist determinists saying that for our daily life it makes no difference at all: in the end, society and its judges are just as determined as the criminal

I nearly agree with these two.

[studiot]

I am sorry line 2 of my second quote above should have read

...I am convinced that philosophers have had a harmful effect.....

...I am convinced that have had a harmful effect...

 

My apologies for that important omission, and the spelling mistake in the first quote, my typing degenerates as the day wears on.

[Bufofrog]

What's the benefit of understanding our free will?

Just the obvious that we are responsible for our own actions.