Determinism and free will

[rainbow]

"Most philosophers." We have a consensus. This is settled philosophy.

[Scott1328]

Free will is:
The ability of an agent to predict, on occasion, and evaluate the possible outcomes of various alternatives and behave according to that evaluation. This then indicates that there are degrees of freedom; the better an agent's ability to predict and evaluate the more freedom it has. Sometimes, though all the prediction and evaluation in the world will not help if there are no alternatives, in such cases there is no free will. This is the gist of Dennett's argument in Freedom Evolves.

Whether or not the universe is deterministic or non-deterministic is orthogonal to the issue of free will.

[JimC]

The one aspect of the above post that I might take issue with is the argument:
"the better an agent's ability to predict and evaluate the more freedom it has"

If an agent has perfect prediction, and optimum evaluation, there may in fact only be one possible course of action, which does not seem to me to be an increase in freedom. If we have a modest amount of predictive and analytical power, and flounder (to a degree) with a murky range of OK to reasonable possible courses of action, then more freedom may accrue (in the sense that a sample of agents in such a position may choose a wider variety of actions than Mr Perfect Agent...)

[Scott1328]

But no agent has perfect predictive capabilities. Also a perfect predicter is still free to make wrong choices he just knows perfectly well the consequences of the choices.

[pErvinalia]

Free will is:
The ability of an agent to predict, on occasion, and evaluate the possible outcomes of various alternatives and behave according to that evaluation. This then indicates that there are degrees of freedom; the better an agent's ability to predict and evaluate the more freedom it has.

That's a pretty nonsensical definition of free will. What should prediction have to do with free will? And in any case, what if your prediction (and subsequent choice) of what is going to happen is influenced by some conditioned behaviour?

[Scott1328]

It is your notion of free will that is incoherent. All choices are influenced by antecedents and by predictions of outcomes.

[pErvinalia]

All choices are deterministic. There is no freedom.

So answer the question: What does prediction have to do with freedom, and what of conditioned behaviour?

[JimC]

Free will is:
The ability of an agent to predict, on occasion, and evaluate the possible outcomes of various alternatives and behave according to that evaluation. This then indicates that there are degrees of freedom; the better an agent's ability to predict and evaluate the more freedom it has.

That's a pretty nonsensical definition of free will. What should prediction have to do with free will? And in any case, what if your prediction (and subsequent choice) of what is going to happen is influenced by some conditioned behaviour?

What Dennett was getting at, I think, was that the more possibilities can be seen as an organism uses its cognitive abilities to explore alternatives, the greater the number of possible actions accrue to it. Having a wider variety of possible actions at least approximates a greater degree of freedom. In comparison with humans, a creature whose behaviour is largely hard-wired has vastly less freedom, in terms of possible future actions. A prisoner has less possible choices than a non-prisoner, and a woman in Saudi Arabia has less choices than a woman in Australia.

Of course, hard-line opponents of this rather relaxed view of "fee will" would say that, no matter how many options we might toy with at a particular point in time, all the myriad details of our unique biology and particular set of experiences lead to only one choice actually being available, although it will not seem so at the time. But, in an existential sense, perhaps "what it feels like at the time" is the only thing that actually matters...

[Scott1328]

All choices are deterministic. There is no freedom.

So answer the question: What does prediction have to do with freedom, and what of conditioned behaviour?

It is undecidable that the universe is deterministic. Although evidence seems to favor no deterministic.

Regardless, it is enough to say deterministic or not NO ONE knows the outcomes of any choices whatever their causes or motivations. We judge people and hold them responsible for the CHOICES they make and the consequences of those choices.

[JimC]

All choices are deterministic. There is no freedom.

This is where I might disagree with both Scott and Dennett, in asserting both that our universe is not fully deterministic, and that this may not be "orthogonal" to the issue of free will. There is mounting evidence that many non-linear systems (including neural networks) are non-linear in nature, and can exhibit chaotic behaviour, given the variation in initial conditions provided by quantum uncertainty. To me, what that ensures is that given sets of genetic and environmental causes may not mechanically lead to the same exact choice by a human agent. These "pre-causes" may generate probabilities of future choices, but not the certainties demanded by a Lagrangian philosopher.

Dennett does not assert that the universe is deterministic, he just asserts that whether it is or not does not affect the variety of free will he says we have developed by both biological and cultural (mimetic) evolution. I might be accused of wanting both belt and braces, I suppose...

[pErvinalia]

Free will is:
The ability of an agent to predict, on occasion, and evaluate the possible outcomes of various alternatives and behave according to that evaluation. This then indicates that there are degrees of freedom; the better an agent's ability to predict and evaluate the more freedom it has.

That's a pretty nonsensical definition of free will. What should prediction have to do with free will? And in any case, what if your prediction (and subsequent choice) of what is going to happen is influenced by some conditioned behaviour?

What Dennett was getting at, I think, was that the more possibilities can be seen as an organism uses its cognitive abilities to explore alternatives, the greater the number of possible actions accrue to it. Having a wider variety of possible actions at least approximates a greater degree of freedom. In comparison with humans, a creature whose behaviour is largely hard-wired has vastly less freedom, in terms of possible future actions. A prisoner has less possible choices than a non-prisoner, and a woman in Saudi Arabia has less choices than a woman in Australia.

Of course, hard-line opponents of this rather relaxed view of "fee will" would say that, no matter how many options we might toy with at a particular point in time, all the myriad details of our unique biology and particular set of experiences lead to only one choice actually being available, although it will not seem so at the time. But, in an existential sense, perhaps "what it feels like at the time" is the only thing that actually matters...

The amount of choices seems to me to have pretty much zero to do with free will, other than having at least one choice available to make.

As i was saying earlier, Dennett is talking about political philosophy, not the metaphysical concept of free will.

[pErvinalia]

All choices are deterministic. There is no freedom.

So answer the question: What does prediction have to do with freedom, and what of conditioned behaviour?

It is undecidable that the universe is deterministic. Although evidence seems to favor no deterministic.

Regardless, it is enough to say deterministic or not NO ONE knows the outcomes of any choices whatever their causes or motivations. We judge people and hold them responsible for the CHOICES they make and the consequences of those choices.

That didn't answer my questions.

It's pragmatic to hold people responsible for their choices. That doesn't mean there is free will.

[JimC]

But no agent has perfect predictive capabilities. Also a perfect predicter is still free to make wrong choices he just knows perfectly well the consequences of the choices.

Even if there are no "perfect predictors", I'm not sure that the assertion "better predictors have more freedom than poorer predictors" makes sense. I would replace "better predictors" with "able to see a wider range of possible consequences to a given action", which is not really the same thing...

Mind you, in some situations, seeing a wider range of possibilities can make choice harder rather than easier...

[pErvinalia]

All choices are deterministic. There is no freedom.

This is where I might disagree with both Scott and Dennett, in asserting both that our universe is not fully deterministic, and that this may not be "orthogonal" to the issue of free will. There is mounting evidence that many non-linear systems (including neural networks) are non-linear in nature, and can exhibit chaotic behaviour, given the variation in initial conditions provided by quantum uncertainty.

Do you have any examples of what you are talking about?

[JimC]

Enough is known about chaotic behaviour, in a wide variety of systems, to be sure that it is not rare, but frequently occurs in non-linear systems. Neural networks will not always generate the same output from different inputs that, as far as our measurements suggest, are the same. (Can't give you a reference, but I have read accounts of such phenomena in a variety of books and New Scientist articles over the years). To me, this allows for some "wiggle room", not just for Dennett's version of free will (which can have a political dimension, but is not purely that) but also for a more classical version of free will.