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Go to: Free Will

RH's Avatar Jump to comment 242 by RH

Comment 239 by Peter Grant :

It is generally argued that our experience of free will presents a compelling mystery: On the one hand, we can’t make sense of it in scientific terms; on the other, we feel that we are the authors of our own thoughts and actions. However, I think that this mystery is itself a symptom of our confusion. It is not that free will is simply an illusion—our experience is not merely delivering a distorted view of reality. Rather, we are mistaken about our experience. Not only are we not as free as we think we are—we do not feel as free as we think we do. Our sense of our own freedom results from our not paying close attention to what it is like to be us. The moment we pay attention, it is possible to see that free will is nowhere to be found, and our experience is perfectly compatible with this truth. Thoughts and intentions simply arise in the mind. What else could they do? The truth about us is stranger than many suppose: The illusion of free will is itself an illusion.

Sam Harris

I love Sam Harris (he's perhaps my favorite writer for non-fiction) and there is certainly some insight and wisdom in that quote.

However, the general problem I've had with Sam's view of consciousness and free will remains implicit in that quote: Sam, to me, is "making us small." That is, he still wants to locate "me" only in the very (apparent) moment of consciousness for any decision, rather than consider all the processing for that decision as "me" as well. Which is why he decides that, if it were made pre-consciously, then "I" didn't really make the choice. Which I think is a choice Sam makes about identity, but I don't see compelling reasons to make ourselves that "small." (Following Dennett...)



Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:56:20 UTC | #925669

Go to: Free Will

RH's Avatar Jump to comment 241 by RH

Comment 238 by Schrodinger's Cat :

Comment 235 by RH

I can only move forward in explaining my view if you will answer certain questions relating to the premises. (That way we could actually see if you have good reasons for rejecting the conclusion).

But the questions pre-suppose the conclusions. My response to the 'How do you explain X ?' type questions is that there isn't anything to explain.

So if someone came to you and asked you to tell them about the properties of water, or to tell them why water seemed to evaporate in X instance, but remained liquid in Y instance (which is what I was asking), your answer is merely "there's nothing to explain."

I couldn't have a more explicit example of the problem in many incompatibilists arguments than that. Bye-bye science, knowledge, etc.

Of course you actually wouldn't feign such ignorance in real life when it came to describing and predicting phenomena, but only make such a weird move when trying to defend the incompatibilist viewpoint. Which, again, shows both the incoherence and the inconsistency I keep encountering.

Also, the 'Death in Damascus' story is wonderful (a classic), but as I've already said it is saying nothing new to me or that is not already accepted by the compatibilist. Incompatibilists just can't seem to grasp that compatibilism really, really does accept full determinism as a starting point, so every possible story or instance like the above will only bring a yawn and "I know, I when can we start talking about how to describe our choices, GIVEN determinism?"

The compabilists version points to real things happening, and derives consistency with how we talk about all of nature. The incompatibilist response, at least as exemplified by a number of folks like yourself, throws up it's hands and says "well, there's no need for consistency, whatever we describe about nature is white noise, an illusion...there's "nothing to explain...."

I have to wonder if you aren't answering the question because, if you DO start trying to describe the properties and nature of water, it will become obvious you rely on the same logic I have given for describing the phenomenon of human choice-making, making the double-standard explicit to see. ;-)


Fri, 09 Mar 2012 17:41:02 UTC | #925665

Go to: Free Will

RH's Avatar Jump to comment 236 by RH

Hi Peter,

Comment 231 by Peter Grant :

Comment 222 by RH

When you say to anyone "you should do X" or "ought to do Y" or recommend any action, explain how that makes sense IF you hold to the notion "we could not have done otherwise."

I think it's got something to do with how we experience time. For example, "you should have done X" is completely nonsensical, whilst "you ought to do Y" might actually cause Y to happen at some point in the future.

First, unfortunately that doesn't answer the problem for the reasons I explained when I asked it. "If I say X to you it might cause you to do something" doesn't answer whether the "X" is good reason or argument to do something.

If I suddenly shout in your ear, no doubt it will cause you to do something. But that doesn't mean my shouting is a "good argument." Likewise, plenty of bad arguments, that make no sense, cause people to do things all the time: "Evolution didn't happen because that's not how the bible says we were made" and "I know the bible is true because it tells me it's true" have certainly caused various behaviours...but of course that doesn't speak to their being good reasons, good arguments.

So "Y might cause you to do something" just leaves it hanging whether "Y" is a good argument.

Second, I'd disagree that "you should have done X" is nonsensical. I mean, I'm pretty sure you are getting at the fact you can't change the past, and if you consider the prescription in that sense you might say it's nonsensical. But determinism holds that the future is as determined/fixed as the past, insofar as only one outcome is ever "really" possible for any action. So to say "you ought to do X" is still nonsensical, in that sense, if you think there is ultimately no "either/or" action available, in reality.

(And, again, simply pointing out that your prescription may be causally efficacious in someone's chain of behavior does not answer this problem, for the reasons already given).

But in another very important, practical sense, it certainly is reasonable to say "You ought to have done X." Such statements are descriptions of reality, of the "nature" of things. For instance, if I were disappointed by my fish having spoiled on the counter, you could point out: "You ought to have put that fish in the fridge (where it wouldn't have spoiled)."

It's like the example of the golf putt: What are you drawing on, what is your basis for making that claim about the fish? Answer: Our previous empirical experience with similar fish going bad when kept at room temperature, vs similar fish being kept fresh in a fridge. That was REAL experience. And we extrapolate general rules about the nature of things from real, past experience. So the general insight we have taken from past experience is that it's the nature of fish that it will spoil if left at room temperature, and keep fresh when kept cool in a fridge. And hypotheticals are important in our conception, because we take specific experiences (all the separate fish experiences) and apply that rule, hypothetically, to talk about the nature of the fish. IF you had put THAT fish in the freezer, it WOULD NOT have spoiled. If we can not say that we are elucidating something REAL about the nature of fish when we do that, then we have just thrown out all of science, and all descriptions of the world.

And it doesn't matter if you are applying this hypothetical, generalized insight about the nature of fish backward to the past or to predict the future. In determinism, BOTH are just as "fixed" insofar as they outcomes are determined. But that doesn't mean that we aren't talking about something "real" about the nature of fish, when we say "IF you keep it at room temperature it will spoil; but IF you put it in the fridge, it will stay fresh."

So, prescriptions, like descriptions, are expressions of knowledge no matter which way you point them, backwards or forwards.

And if that's not the case, then we don't "know" anything at all, and we invalidate all our talk of the world. Humans physically making choices ("I COULD have chosen the burger over the hot dog if I'd wanted to" = "The water COULD have boiled if the flame were turned on the pot" are exactly the same in respect that they are statements claiming knowledge about the powers and potentials of an entity. There is no exception, no dividing line between us and how we speak about the rest of reality. And, ask yourself: If generalised insights from particular past experiences did not constitute knowledge of something "real," how then has this type of reasoning allowed us to predict the real future behavior of things? (E.g. fish spoiling, water boiling over flame, etc)? So to say "I CAN choose between the hamburger and the hot-dog" and "I COULD HAVE chosen otherwise" are functionally equivalent statements of knowledge about my real powers, like any other statement of any other physical/determined entity. If that's not true in the context of determinism, then nothing else we say about nature is true, given determinism.

And that's the irony I continually face when discussing this with people vehemently disposed to keep all talk of "free will" out of their garden. They think that compatibilism is making the exception for humans, when it is the reverse: the incompatibilists are making the exception for humans, clearly thinking it's fine to employ (as science does) hypotheticals and generalized inferences about the natures of things and their powers, but suddenly denying the exact same reasoning when applied to our physical powers of choice, while offering no reason for making this special pleading exception.

Over 'n out...


Fri, 09 Mar 2012 03:24:17 UTC | #925530

Go to: Free Will

RH's Avatar Jump to comment 235 by RH

Schrodinger's Cat,


But since you see no sense in doing this, only calling everything I write "bogus,"'s become obvious there's nowhere fruitful to go in this conversation.

Ah well...I'm sure there's a heck of a lot more that we actually agree on.



Fri, 09 Mar 2012 02:36:11 UTC | #925521

Go to: Free Will

RH's Avatar Jump to comment 225 by RH

Comment 224 by Schrodinger's Cat :

Comment 222 by RH


But who cares what the mangled semantics say ? Nature is not compelled to comply with our semantics about it.......that is the major lesson of science.

No one is asking nature to conform to our language. The issue is having our language conform to nature, so we can sensibly talk about nature. (I note that you did not show that anything I pointed to was actually "not real.")

At this point you essentially admitted that (given your deterministic conclusion) you have no coherent, consistent, sensible way to talk about the nature of anything. Which is the equivalent of saying "I have this conclusion, which means you don't need to take seriously anything more I say about morality, or prescriptions, or my claims about the world, or anything I say scientifically. Because it's all nonsense. But that's fine, because who ever said nature owes us coherence?"

I'm sure you really don't want to say that. But at this point, it is essentially where you have sat yourself.

But I'll try one last time to get the point across, with a question:

Do you think there is anything REAL that we need to, or could, describe about the nature of...say...water?

Take a pot of water. Let's say you boil it into water vapor. It is perfectly normal, and uncontroversial to say that the water COULD have remained in a liquid state (if you didn't turn on the heat) or COULD have turned solid (if you had frozen it). Why do we say this? Answer: Previous experiences with water doing those things. Now, even though in a strict deterministic sense, if we'd seen water freeze in a specific instance in the past, well that's what it was determined to do and that particular bit of water never "really" could have done otherwise. Nonetheless, we extrapolate from past observations of water turning into various states, and use it to talk about the nature of water (it's potentials) and understanding the nature of water helps us understand how water will act in the future (if it is heated, if it is cooled, etc).

Now, do you think such talk about the nature of water (and apply what we have learned to understand how any particular bit of water might act) is not "really" legitimate? That such talk is only dealing in "illusions." you think that there is something REAL about water that we get at. Something real we have to be able to describe about the nature of water by such talk?

The fact that our brains can present us with alternate scenarios is itself part of the deterministic outcome. This is the most crucial part of determinism that compatibilists fail to grasp.

No, what is happening is you have failed to grasp compatibilism. The startling facts you keep presenting were accepted long ago by compatibilism. It has moved on from there to look at what are sensible ways of talking about human choice GIVEN full determinism. For just the same reasons we have to have sensible, intelligible ways of describing every other natural phenomenon.

It's just bizarre to have to explain this over, and over, and over to people who argue against compatibilism without ever understanding what they argue against.


Thu, 08 Mar 2012 04:15:02 UTC | #925274

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