Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 15:50, 20 November 2012

This article has not yet been rated on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Philosophy: Metaphysics / Ethics / Social and political High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Misplaced Pages.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Associated task forces: /  Metaphysics Ethics Social and political philosophy Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Neuroscience Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Neuroscience, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Neuroscience on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.NeuroscienceWikipedia:WikiProject NeuroscienceTemplate:WikiProject Neuroscienceneuroscience Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Please add the quality rating to the {{WikiProject banner shell}} template instead of this project banner. See WP:PIQA for details. Religion High‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Religion, a project to improve Misplaced Pages's articles on Religion-related subjects. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.ReligionWikipedia:WikiProject ReligionTemplate:WikiProject ReligionReligion High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. Template:WikiProject Libertarianism

	Free will is a former featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, check the nomination archive) and why it was removed.
	This article appeared on Misplaced Pages's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 21, 2004.
Article milestones Date Process Result January 19, 2004 Refreshing brilliant prose Kept August 26, 2006 Featured article review Kept June 8, 2008 Featured article review Kept May 12, 2012 Featured article review Demoted Current status: Former featured article

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

Template:WP1.0

This article has been mentioned by a media organization: Travis Kriplean, Ivan Beschastnikh, David W. McDonald, Scott A. Golder (November 2007). "Community, Consensus, Coercion, Control: CS*W or How Policy Mediates Mass Participation" (PDF). University of Washington.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

To-do list for Free will: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2012-12-20 Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Cleanup : According to Tesseract2 (talk · contribs), since September 2010 "There is excess information - links and briefer summaries are needed" Expand : *Lead Other : *Balance of religious material okay? Mention the argument from free will in the article? Seek external peer review and feedback Diagram accurate? Beyond this article: Work on subarticles such as free will in theology A page on Wikiquote might be appropriate Disambiguation suggestion: the 1993 film "Free Willy"

Template:Maintained

Archives

Archive to Dec 2004 Archive to Apr 2006 Archive to Sept 2006 Archive to Jan 2007 Archive to Sept 2007 Archive to Sept 2008 /Archive 7 /Archive 8 /Archive 9

This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 5 sections are present.

A Futurama episode about free will

The ninth episode of the seventh season of Futurama deals pretty well with the free will theme. Several interesting quotes developp the idea that free will is perfectly compatible with determinism. Such as:

« Our decisions do matter. The fact that they are predetermined makes them no less important »

Also at the end the link between lack of knowlegdge of the futur and free will is subbtely introduced with a clever placebo-like "free will unit" device with a claimed quantum incertity feature. I don't know where exactly such reference could fit in the article, but I guess it could somewhere. In a "free will in fiction" or something. --Grondilu (talk) 09:36, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Relevance of mind-body problem

This edit removed the paragraph about the mind-body problem with the suggestion: "the mind-body problem is only relevant to a libertarian view of free will; not sure it deserves its own section either".

The libertarian view is that human actions lie outside of the deterministic part of the universe. But the mind-body problem is not limited to the suggestion that this separation is the case, but rather, includes the larger problem of whether such a separation exists or not. From this stance, the mind-body problem includes both the case that separation is valid and the case that it is not.

The mind-body problem in this general sense includes as a special topic all the questions about free will, and depending upon the answer to the mind-body problem one chooses, any of the possible versions of free will in this article are subsumed as subtopics of the mind-body problem.

On this basis, which certainly can be discussed further here if need be, I restored the deleted section on the mind-body problem. Brews ohare (talk) 06:04, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

These questions are somewhat linked, but I agree with the reverter that the problem of free will is more cleanly presented without discussing the mind-body problem. In the added section, the proposition "This dualism allows humans free will, because associated brain activity only is correlated with human action, and is not its cause" is stated in Misplaced Pages's voice, but this is just one POV. For example, Simon Blackburn argues (very convincingly) in Think that the dilemma of determinism also applies to non-physical cuasation, so I'm fairly certain many philosophers would disagree that monism/dualism is at all relevant to the free will debate. Vesal (talk) 09:34, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Vesal: The quoted sentence is just one POV, as you state. However, the "dualism" referred to is not the "mind-body" problem, but Cartesian dualism which is only one of many proposals about the mind-body problem.

I believe that you have identified a possible misreading of this paragraph, which I hope a modified text can make more clear. Brews ohare (talk) 13:40, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Among other changes, the revision splits epistemological pluralism and cognitive naturalism into two separate paragraphs to emphasize that there are several POV's involved in the mind-body problem. Brews ohare (talk) 13:58, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

To emphasize further the importance of cognitive naturalism, I've added links to various articles related to this view, for example, there are important questions about addiction and its relation to free will. Brews ohare (talk) 14:31, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I believe the modified section on the mind-body problem provides a good introduction to later developments in Free will. It parallels the developments in this article that cover both the various logical possibilities and the empirical observations. Brews ohare (talk) 16:22, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

Growing bias toward incompatibilism, disorganization

I believe User:Brews ohare's recent edits (as well as the mind-body problem ones in the section above) are introducing a subtle bias toward incompatibilism in the organizational structure of the article. I attempted to mitigate that in response to the most recent edits, but he reverted that. WP:BRD would have us roll back to the last stable version before the contested edits while we discuss this, but I think they did add something of value so I'm about to roll back to my attempted compromise instead, to be charitable.

My problem with these latest edits are that they introduce the list of positions regarding free will be discussing different combinations of free will and determinism. This article is not exclusively about free will and determinism and it would bias the article toward incompatibilism to frame all positions on free will as having to do with determinism. Determinism is only relevant to incompatibilist positions; as the new copy itself says, compatibilist positions can occupy any of the nine positions in the table Brews added, because they do not necessarily see any conflict between determinism and free will.

Thus, I moved the new table to the bottom of the Incompatibilism main section, and fixed the other problem Brews introduced: outdenting all of the incompatibilist positions to the same outline level as the section on incompatibilism itself, while leaving all the compatibilist positions nested under compatibilism. That is an extremely biased way of organizing the article, giving all incompatibilist positions top billing and then lumping all compatibilist positions together as subheadings under compatibilism; that would be like composing a list of religions listing Christianity, Protestantism, Catholicism, Orthodox, and "Pagan", with subheadings therein for Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, etc.

A neutral list would lump Protestantism, Catholicism, and Orthodox together under Christianity instead, and really ought to ungroup "Pagan" as well. I'd say from an ahistorical perspective the compatibilist positions would likewise deserve to be ungrouped, as they each have a different fundamental conception of free will, while all the incompatibilist positions are arguing about the implications of one conception of free will (being unrestrained by determinism). But, per WP:UNDUE, the fact that incompatibilism is such a prominent position in field field does I think warrant keeping the compatibilist positions grouped together; but ungrouping the incompatibilist positions goes too far in the other direction, and makes all compatibilist positions a mere footnote to the incompatibilist ones.

If Brews wants to move his new copy closer to the top of the incompatibilism head section, I don't think I would object to that, but I put it at the bottom because it, as he says, introduces the following positions. But it does so from a decidedly incompatibilist perspective, and so needs to be placed in that context. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:17, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: I don't understand how a table presenting all conceivable 9 positions involving any two choices of true, false, or undecided for determinism and/or free will in any way presents a particular choice. The table, of course, is not biased in any direction because it includes all the possible choices. Your discussion here seems to me to be contradictory to the logic just outlined, so I do not understand what you are after. Brews ohare (talk) 18:13, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Brews: My objection is to framing all possible positions solely in terms of how they relate free will to determinism, where there is a large group of notable positions which says that that is an irrelevant issue. That relationship is only of interest to incompatibilists, and with respect to them yes it is neutral; to compatbilists though, framing all positions on free will in terms of determinism gives determinism undue relevance in the issue, since the compatibilist position is that determinism is not relevant to free will.

To modify the analogy above, it would be like categorizing religions by how they take the relationship of Jesus to the God of Abraham; Christians say he is the God of Abraham incarnate, Muslims say he's just a prophet of the God of Abraham, and Jews say he was just some guy with no special relation to the God of Abraham; and then there's those heathens who don't believe in the God of Abraham at all and so don't care what Jesus' relation to him was. Placing all the Abrahamic religions on one level and then lumping all non-Abrahamic religions together under one grouping on that same level is biased toward Abrahamic religions, and framing the question in terms of the relationship between Jesus and the God of Abraham likewise.

Similarly, placing all incompatibilist positions on one level and lumping all compatibilist positions together under one grouping on that same level is biased toward incompatibilist positions, and framing the question in terms of the relationship between free will and determinism likewise. --Pfhorrest (talk) 01:19, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: I don't follow your example. I'd say the analogy is more like this: one can say there are (i) those that believe in God, (ii) those that don't and (iii) those that are undecided. That is all the possibilities, and has the same role as the table in the article, which also lists all the possibilities. Your view is that to present all the possible attitudes is prejudicial because it appears to put them all on the same level of importance. However, that position is unwarranted. Stating the possibilities is in no way an assessment that they are all equal. Some may be more or less logical, some more or less commonly held, some more or less supported by evidence, or whatever. Just stating what are the possibles in no way reflects upon their interest or importance. It is just an enumeration. Brews ohare (talk) 17:07, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

My point is that positions on the relationship between free will and determinism are not coextensive with positions on free will simpliciter. As your own text says, compatibilists positions can be any of those nine combinations of free will and determinism, because compatibilists say "determinism has nothing to do with free will; you can have any combination of one or the other, it doesn't matter" -- so the whole chart is irrelevant to any compatibilist, and using it to introduce "all" positions on free will is thus biased toward incompatibilists.

The logical top-level organizational division on positions about free will starts with "what is it to have free will?". There are numerous answers to that question: it is to be (metaphysically) undetermined, it is to be (epistemically) unpredictable, it is to be (physically) unimprisoned, it is to be (socially) uncoerced, it is to be (psychologically) uncompelled, and so on. Because the first one of those is such a prominent opinion, we've tended to split positions up into two broad categories: the first of those positions and all of its varieties (incompatibilism), and all the rest (compatibilism). As your chart is only about the relation between free will and determinism, it is only of relevance to people who hold to the first position, incompatibilism. Anyone who holds to any of the other positions, which we lump together into "compatibilism" for historical reasons, would say that that relation is irrelevant. --Pfhorrest (talk) 21:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: Insofar as there may be those that never even considered that their view is not the only one, any list of alternatives undermines their position. A table of possible positions is in fact prejudicial to each of the positions listed in the table, because it suggests alternatives that never entered the minds of the unimaginative who thought there existed only their position and no other? Encountering alternatives, now they must marshal reasons for keeping their idea instead of switching to one of the others. Is that the basis for your de-emphasis of the table? Brews ohare (talk) 00:20, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

No, the basis of my de-emphasis is that it is not a table of all possible positions on free will, it is a table of all possible positions on the relationship between free will and determinism. That relationship is only of interest to varieties incompatibilism, because every other position on free will (which we lump together as "compatibilism") finds that relationship completely irrelevant.

Imagine an alternate universe where the most popular definition of free will was something like Frankfurt's: free will is the ability to control which of your desires are effective upon your actions, in effect something like rational self-control. Now imagine some people objected that that kind of rational self-control was only possible if people were not passionately moved by anything. A huge debate rages for centuries over whether people were all creatures of passion or whether they really had rational self-control, i.e. free will -- nobody is talking about determinism here, just psychology. We could then draw a table of positions on the relationship between passion and free will, with T, F, and ? in each column. But some people say that passion has nothing to do with free will -- they say free will is about being undetermined, or unimprisoned, or a bunch of different things ike that. Where do their positions fit on that table of the relationship between passion and free will? Wouldn't such a table be inherently biased toward this Frankfurt-like conception of free will?

That's what I'm saying is the problem with your table. It is a good overview of the possible relationships between determinism and free will, but only people who hold to an incompatibilist conception of free will care about that at all. Every different kind of compatibilist position could fit in to any of the boxes in that table, as your own copy states, so it does not serve to introduce their positions at all. --Pfhorrest (talk) 04:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: We agree that the table provides "all possible positions on the relationship between free will and determinism". Positions 3 (D,FW both true), 5 (D true and FW maybe), 8 (FW true and D maybe) in the table are not incompatibilist positions, because that position (of course) is that D and FW are not compatible at all. On that basis, the table goes beyond the incompatibilist position to look at three others. The breadth of the table therefore extends beyond incompatibilism and so is of wider interest than "only people who hold to an incompatibilist conception of free will."

We two also agree, as does Strawson (the original user of this table) that all the boxes in the table form one or another position taken as compatibilist. As such the table provides an introduction to nine "flavors" of compatibilism, so it indicates the wide variety of positions held within compatibilism. Consequently, I'd say the remark that "Every different kind of compatibilist position could fit in to any of the boxes in that table, as your own copy states, so it does not serve to introduce their positions at all." has a correct premise, but a wrong conclusion.

For the above reasons, it looks to me like the table has wide usefulness, introducing the restrictions of incompatibilism and the flavors of compatibilism. Perhaps you will reconsider? Brews ohare (talk) 12:46, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Proposal

With the above discussion in mind, how about moving the table back to the start of the section and using it as an intro to all the subsections of the header "In Western philosophy" along with a preamble to clarify its role. Here is a possibility for this introductory material under the header "In Western philosophy":

In Western philosophy

In Western philosophy there are a number of different positions regarding free will and its opposite, determinism. For example, one may define these terms so they are logically incompatible, so one is faced with an either-or distinction. Or one may define them so they can co-exist in one form or another, a matter of degree or of range of applicability, rather than being logically opposed. Then the issue is whether free will or determinism do or do not exist in these forms, together or separately. One way to sort through the various points of view is with a table. Using T, F for "true" and "false" and ? for undecided, there are exactly nine positions regarding determinism/free will that consist of any two of these three possibilities:

Incompatibilism may occupy any of the nine positions except (5), (8) or (3), which last corresponds to soft determinism. Position (1) is hard determinism,and position (2) is libertarianism. The position (1) of hard determinism adds to the table the contention that D implies FW is untrue, and the position (2) of libertarianism adds the contention that FW implies D is untrue. Position (9) may be called hard incompatibilism if one interprets ? as meaning both concepts are of dubious value. Compatibilism itself may occupy any of the nine positions, that is, there is no logical contradiction between determinism and free will, and either or both may be true or false in principle. However, the most common meaning attached to compatibilism is that some form of determinism is true and yet we have some form of free will, position (3). Below these positions are examined in more detail.

'References

1. ^ Galen Strawson (2010). Freedom and belief (Revised ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 6. ISBN 0199247501.
2. John Martin Fischer (2009). "Chapter 2: Compatibilism". Four Views on Free Will (Great Debates in Philosophy). Wiley-Blackwell. pp. pp.44 ff. ISBN 1405134860. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)

---

I think this introduction works because all the positions are described below with their own sub-headers. Do you all have any suggestions that might make this proposal work? It seems desirable to have some kind of introduction before launching into all the possibilities. Brews ohare (talk) 02:32, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I have mostly stayed out of this because my own views are so at variance with the published literature that it's hard for me to say anything sourceable. But I question the statement that most compatibilists believe in some sort of determinism -- I think that many simply feel that the idea that free will means making decisions by rolling dice is absurd, end of story. Looie496 (talk) 02:42, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

The problem I am objecting to is right there in the first sentence of your proposed new copy: "In Western philosophy there are a number of different positions regarding free will and its opposite, determinism." Emphasis added. Compatibilists say that free will and determinism are not opposites, any more than apples and oxygen are opposites. They are unrelated issues as far as compatibilists are concerned, and to frame the entire range of positions on free will as having to do with the relationship between them is to frame it in a way implicitly favoring the incompatibilist conception of free will; even if, within the range of positions on that relationship, one of them is "or maybe they're not incompatible at all".

Omitting for simplicity the ? values in the table, it has four positions: TF = metaphysical libertarianism (incompatibilist), FT = hard determinism (incompatibilist), FF = a variety of hard incompatibilism (incompatibilist, obviously), and one possible position that any compatibilist theory could (but doesn't necessarily) take, TT = soft determinism.

The notion that free will and determinism are opposites is lucky to be given the prominence it is here due to the historical significance of that concept. If we were to organize things here logically without regard to the historical importance, we would have something more like:

• Free will as lack of metaphysical determination:
  • Metaphysical libertarianism
  • Hard determinism
  • Hard incompatibilism
  • Etc
• Free will as lack of epistemic predictability
  • Positions within this concept of free will
• Free will as lack of physical restraint
  • Positions within this concept of free will
• Free will as lack of social coercion
  • Positions within this concept of free will
• Free will as lack of psychological compulsion
  • Positions within this concept of free will

Etc. Logically structured, all the different incompatibilist positions would be grouped together under their shared concept of free will -- as lacking metaphysical determination -- and every other conception of free will would get equal billing with that whole group. But since historically that conception of free will has been so prominent, we give things due weight by lumping all the alternative conceptions together as "compatibilism". But to maintain neutrality, we have to respect all those other alternate conceptions of free will, and can't frame the issue as free will and determinism being necessarily opposites or even related at all, outside the context of "...according to incompatibilist conceptions of free will". --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:24, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: Thanks for your explanation. For some, the contrast of free will with determinism is a logical distinction. If that logical contrast is abandoned, both can coexist or not. At that point one can attempt to answer to what extent do we have free will, or the perfectly identical question to what extent are our actions determined. Words like "predictability", "restraint", "coercion", are equally meaningful from either perspective.

Assuming this point, your formulation is a suggestion about what constitutes good presentation, the proposal that the article on free will is better understood if presented without the idea of determinism. That will work, but so does the other approach, which is more common in the literature. Brews ohare (talk) 15:34, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not clear if you're claiming it is, but I want to re-emphasize the point that it is not NPOV to claim "to what extent do we have free will" is a "perfectly identical question" to "to what extent are our actions determined". Compatibilists would disagree that those questions are identical. That is the whole issue at contention. All incompatibilists share a certain concept of what free will is, and argue about whether and how we have it or not. Compatibilists all disagree with that very concept of what incompatibilists say free will would be if we had it. So to maintain neutrality we cannot privilege the incompatibilist concept of free will, that of "not being determined", and frame all positions on free will as positions on whether or not we are. Compatibilists disagree with each other not over whether or how we are determined, but by what it means to have free will at all -- their only agreement that it doesn't mean "not being determined".

That said, I am not proposing "that the article on free will is better understood if presented without the idea of determinism". I am proposing that issues dealing with determinism need to be couched in the context of the set of positions which consider that relevant, namely incompatibilism. That is historically the dominant issue in the literature though, as you say, and we give that fact due weight by giving that position first billing and top-level billing while grouping all alternatives to it together in one second category. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:15, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: There seem to be some subtleties at work here that need to be elaborated. You say: “it is not NPOV to claim "to what extent do we have free will" is a "perfectly identical question" to "to what extent are our actions determined".” I can agree with this point if you are drawing a distinction between will and action, which are not the same thing. However, this distinction has not come up before. Is that your point? Brews ohare (talk) 13:13, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I am in complete agreement with Pfhorrest here. Placing every possible point of view on a subject on level is actually introducing a hidden bias and is therefore compromising neutrality. As far as I am aware, the idea behind wikipedia is to present ideas with respect to their prominence in the literature. Furthermore, the categorisation (compatibility of free will and determinism) is only relevant to incompatibilism. Compatibilist free will is in fact disconnected from the determinism/indeterminism debate (for all intensive neurological purposes), and their claim stands irrospective of the fact some (eg hard incompatibilism) might wish to argue indeterminism undermines their position. The simplified taxonomy remains as it represents the historic/dominant free will positions, which so happen to be categorisable based on determinism.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 17:33, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

"Placing every possible point of view on a subject on level is actually introducing a hidden bias and is therefore compromising neutrality." If the listing of the options "Republicans are jerks" and "Republicans are not jerks" is so silly that any amount of discussion of one of the alternatives is too much, maybe a listing is prejudicial. But because all the positions on free will/determinism are discussed at some length, that is not the case here, and the argument about prominence in the literature is a non-starter as all views have reams of discussion.

The compatibility of free will with determinism can be viewed as a discussion of how we reconcile various ideas about mind with cognitive naturalism, and IMO that subject is the only one worthwhile. Brews ohare (talk) 18:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

There are an infinite number of possible points of view on a subject. But presuming just a sample of those are taken (those mentioned in the literature); for wikipedia to list all of them in the introduction with equal spacing is not representative of the literature. This is not the sum of all human knowledge, it is perhaps the normalisation of all human knowledge.

Points 1 to 9 are not discussed at some length, some are not even properly defined (the interpretation of the question mark is arbitrary - "it doesn't matter", "it is not known", etc). They are all certainly not discussed at length in the literature. Even if they were; they would certainly not be discussed at the same length.

That is an interesting discussion indeed ("reconcilation of mind with cognitive naturalism"), but this pertains to philosophy of mind, not free will.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 05:35, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It was not my intention with that comment to draw a distinction between will and action. I do maintain there is such a distinction, but I'm not sure what you take its relevance to this specific debate to be.

The point I keep trying to reiterate is this:

• There is a first question: "what would it mean to have free will?".
• That question has numerous notable answers. But one of those answers is so popular it is taken for granted by many people, apparently including you: "to have free will would mean, at least, to be not determined".
  • Among such people, there is a secondary question: "are we determined or not, and consequently, do we have free will or not?".
  • Every position on that second question, every position that agrees with the answer to that first question, is an incompatibilist position.
• Then there are positions which disagree about that first question. They get lumped together, from the viewpoint of the many who agree on the one answer to that first question, into "compatibilism", even though compatibilist positions disagree with each other on a more fundamental level than any incompatibilist positions disagree with each other.

Your chart lists positions by how they answer the second question, thus presuming an answer to the first question, and thus presuming an incompatibilist point of view. Even though it has positions which include "we might both have free will and be determined" (TT and any position with a ? in it), the way it frames the question is biased: to someone who answers the question like that, the question itself sounds presumptuous. It asks "which of these relationships between free will and determinism is correct?" and the compatibilist replies "there is no relationship", or at least "it doesn't matter". It's as if someone asked "Do you like rock music or are you drug-free? YN, NY, NN, YY?" And a drug-free rocker replies "Yes to both. What the hell are you implying about rockers and drugs by even asking that?" --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

The mind-body problem (dualism)

NB This first paragraph is referring to cartesian dualism - not non-reductive physicalism. In its new form, it is no longer mutually exclusive with the next paragraph on "cognitive naturalism" (which really should be generalised to "physicalism", as its diagram has correctly been labeled). I have therefore restored this first paragraph to its original form.

I appreciate your efforts in trying to bring everything together (encapsulating all mind-body problem approaches), but am strongly inclined towards your original categorisation. I have made some futher clarifications to my original updates, such that it is clear how these approaches differ (physicalist incompatibilism, non-physicalist incompatibilism, compatibilism). It is important in this section to clearly connect everything back to free will, as highlighted in my original updates - all mind-body arguments should be addressed in the context of one or more explicit free will models.

Thanks again for adding this section on the mind-body problem - it is a long needed overview.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 05:00, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

NB cartesian dualism is not epiphenomenalism - is the Peruzzi reference relevant?

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 07:03, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I appreciate you are trying to make some nice distinctions in this paragraph, but I find it very opaque and seemingly self-contradictory. For example, the sentence

"They are also forms of what is called epistemological pluralism, that is the notion that the mind-body problem is not ontologically reducible to the concepts of the natural sciences, although alternate forms exist with adherence to causal reducibility and therefore physicalism (e.g. non-reductive physicalism)."

is full of jargon and requires the reader to go off to two or three other articles to make any sense out of it. Can it be fixed? Brews ohare (talk) 16:02, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

I have deemed this jargon relevant to this section on the mind-body problem (in its current form) as libertarian free will models are not restricted to cartesian dualism. Epistemological pluralism {as it was defined} is not specifically relevant to cartesian dualism (cartesian/substance dualism is just one form of dualism - there are others like property dualism), so I had to expand this to make it clear cartesian dualism has no monopoly on epistemological pluralism {as it was defined}. I suggest removing the epistemological pluralism sentence entirely, or retaining it in an expanded form to take into account other dualist perspectives (eg like I have already done) {see my edit 06:31, 19 September 2012‎ for resolution to this problem: "The mind-body problem - epistemological pluralism is indeed likely limited to substance dualism/pluralism, although it implied the opposite based on how it was originally defined here"}.

In opposition to your claim, I really think the modifications you have made today 15:57, 18 September 2012‎ / 15:46, 18 September 2012 have further clouded the relationship between cartesian dualism and its resultant form of indeterminism (along with its corresponding incompatibilist model of free will). I think that "because associated brain activity may be only correlated with human action, and not its cause" should be reverted to "because associated brain activity only is correlated with human action, and is not its cause". Even this I would argue is slightly vague, as the concept of "correlation" is terminology commonly used in ephiphenominimalistic models (e.g. correlation between by-product mind and brain activity). Rather, cartesian dualism refers to brain activity/bodily action being product of an external mind, and requires some kind of break in the causal closer of the physical universe (hence my "non-physical" clarification you have since removed); else mind apparently becomes overdetermined again and we would again be admitting ephiphenominalism/property dualism - the problem Popper is trying to avoid. On this note, although I respect Poppers critque here a better ways to avoid overdetermination than to accept cartesian dualism - and so I am certainly not inclined to overemphasise this philosophy of mind, even if I were at liberty to do so.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 17:28, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter: I had struggled further with this section before I read your comments here. It will take some time for me to digest your remarks, and I do not have time just now. I'll return to our discussion later. Thanks for your interest. Brews ohare (talk) 19:48, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter: I've read your present version, which reads pretty well. You removed the discussion of non-reductionist physicalism and its relation to supervenience and emergence and biological causality, a position entertained by many, so one could argue incompleteness. However, I regard this stance as misleading if not complete nonsense, so its omission is fine with me even though it is contrary to WP policy regarding a fair presentation of all viewpoints. Brews ohare (talk) 12:19, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

One approach to the emergent explanations is via the concept of order parameter, a term originally introduced in connection with phase transformations (see

I deleted the non-reductive physicalism (eg anomalous monism) reference because it is not relevant to the section (non-physical mind / cartesian dualism). It could perhaps be added as a subset of the physicalism section (in fact it is implied in all incompatibilist models that assert the existence of physical mind).

I think this is an interesting concept you have presented (regarding additional emergent explanations) - perhaps this could be added to a philosophy of mind wikipedia article (e.g Dualism/Property Dualism)?

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 16:36, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

The mind-body problem - irrelevant text?

I suggest moving all of this text out of the mind-body problem section, as it appears irrelevant (i.e, it is only relevant to either the mind-body problem or free will - not both):

1. Stemming from Cartesian dualism, a formulation sometimes called interactionalist dualism suggests a two-way interaction, that some physical events cause some mental acts and some mental acts cause some physical events. One modern vision of the possible separation of mind and body is the "three-world" formulation of Popper. Cartesian dualism and Popper's three worlds are two forms of what is called epistemological pluralism, that is the notion that different epistemological methodologies are necessary to attain a full description of the world. Epistemological pluralism is one view in which the mind-body problem is not reducible to the concepts of the natural sciences.

2. Studies of the timing between actions and the conscious decision to act also bear upon the role of the brain in understanding free will. A subject's declaration of intention to move a finger appears after the brain has begun to implement the action, suggesting to some that unconsciously the brain has made the decision before the conscious mental act to do so. Some believe the implication is that free will was not involved in the decision and is an illusion. The first of these experiments reported the brain registered activity related to the move about 0.2 s before movement onset. However, these authors also found that awareness of action was anticipatory to activity in the muscle underlying the movement; the entire process resulting in action involves more steps than just the onset of brain activity. The bearing of these results upon notions of free will appears complex.

Some argue that placing the question of free will in the context of motor control is too narrow. The objection is that the time scales involved in motor control are very short, and motor control involves a great deal of unconscious action, with much physical movement entirely unconscious. On that basis "...free will cannot be squeezed into time frames of 150-350 ms; free will is a longer term phenomenon" and free will is a higher level activity that "cannot be captured in a description of neural activity or of muscle activation..." The bearing of timing experiments upon free will still is under discussion.

3. Alternative to the above views, in violation of Cartesian dualism and possibly also cognitive naturalism, the view of some is that mind and neurological functions are tightly coupled in what is called circular causality, a situation where feedback between collective actions (mind) and individual subsystems (for example, neurons and their synapses) jointly decide upon the behavior of both. The adjective "circular" is intended to separate this interactive causation from simple stimulus-response and to express an extension of traditional feedback theory to cases where no obvious feedback loops can be identified. An analogy is drawn between mind and some emergent behavior seen in inanimate nature, such as Rayleigh–Bénard convection.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 06:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I believe your view that these three items of text are not connected to free will is incorrect.

The clearest example is the text label #2, which explicitly refers to free will several times, and talks about Libet's observations (and others) much talked about in popular literature as to its implications for free will. It is hard to avoid the impression that if motor control entirely anticipates the conscious act of deciding to move, then the will to move is irrelevant and the causal efficacy of intention is nil, there is no free will.

The text labeled #3 also addresses the notion of causality, and its practitioners have a variety of opinion. Some believe emergence supports mind as in control of the body (clearly germane to free will) and some would argue the situation is more murky, hoping that free will has a role by analogy with the role of order parameters in collective phenomena. This area is part of the consideration of whether "causality" in the stimulus-response sense is what free will exercises, or some other "circular causality".

The text labeled #1 is a very sketchy outline of Popper's views and the realm of "epistemological dualism". There is little doubt that free will is part of this discussion, and some of this can be found in WP's article on Karl Popper.

These more recent discussions of free will tend to put out to pasture the historical free will debates over hypothetical logical positions, and replace them with ideas having practical implications for neurology, artificial intelligence, evolutionary theory and so on. Brews ohare (talk) 09:51, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It might be worth re-reading what I wrote, as I don't think you understood me correctly. Content in this section should be relevant to both free will and the mind-body problem (not one or the other). If the references contain relevant content, then this should be added. It is great material of itself, there is nothing wrong with it, just perhaps its position.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:37, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that both mind and brain are involved in all three items of text, as you require. Perhaps a rewrite to make the connection more obvious is in order? Brews ohare (talk) 17:09, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I suggest being careful not to fog this article on free will with a) irrelevant and b) unclassifiable content.

a) eg "Popper takes the dualist view that the outside world (World 1) affects thoughts (World 2) and vice versa, but adds theoretical creations (World 3) as an additional reality interpreted by World 2, and would express the view that radio, for example, is a clear example of World 3 affecting World 1 by the intermediary of World 2."

b) eg All references/arguments added to the article on free will should be placed in the context of compatibilism/incompatibilism or else it is confusing for the reader.

Thirdly, please don't delete existing content unless you have a good reason to do so - I can't speak for all/any editors here, but from my perspective it takes an unnecessary amount of time to restore content after consecutive rewrites.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 03:35, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Distinction between freedom of action vs will

In this edit the observation that " Freedom of will and freedom of action are not the same thing" was deleted with the in-line comment: "current text regarding distinction between freedom of action vs will is not verifiable".

This distinction is first of all a logical distinction, and so needs no empirical verification. Secondly, there are clear barriers to the imposition of one's will.

""Philosophers who distinguish freedom of action and freedom of will do so because our success in carrying out our ends depends in part on factors wholly beyond our control. Furthermore, there are always external constraints on the range of options we can meaningfully try to undertake. As the presence or absence of these conditions and constraints are not (usually) our responsibility, it is plausible that the central loci of our responsibility are our choices, or “willings.” Timothy O'Connor, Free Will The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition)

The phenomenon of addiction demonstrates an empirical distinction between will and action, as addicts often express a desire to escape their addiction and yet have great difficulty or perhaps cannot break their addiction.(as I can personally attest to with regard to stopping smoking). The will has become decoupled from the ability to act, an observation correlated in brain imaging and attributed to hijacking of the production and distribution of dopamine.

I suggest this distinction be put back into the article. Brews ohare (talk) 12:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the reference - I think it should be placed back into the free will article also (with your excellent reference), although I am not sure if it relates directly to the mind-body problem. If you believe it relates to the mind-body problem, then perhaps it could be appended to the end of this paragraph (or a new paragraph), rather than being used as a replacement of the paragraph opening sentence of 'cognitive naturalism'. I have designed this opening sentence to clearly highlight the connection between compatibalist free will and physicalist philosophy of mind (an implication of commonly accepted neurological determinism).

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 16:15, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure where it best belongs, but I concur that freedom of will vs freedom of action is very important. It is especially important in Frankfurt's compatibilist theory (where freedom of action is being able to do what you want to do, and freedom of will is analogously being able to will what you want to will, where "to will" is to have a want effect what one tries to do), and in distinguishing some compatibilist conceptions of free will (e.g. Thomas Paine's "not imprisoned and in chains" conception of "freedom of will" would be called mere freedom of action by other types of compatibilists, and in fact Paine himself says something to the effect that freedom is not applicable to the will per se but rather to the man who wills). --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:28, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I am finding some of your latest changes Brews to the introduction difficult to understand:

1. The quotation attempting to distinguish between freedom of action and freedom of will, and the description of it

This quotation may bear some weight in the explanation of specific definitions of compatibilist free will (eg freedom to overcome constraints that are against one's will/desire), however the textual dominance of this problem in the introduction is questionable.

a) this distinction is potentially irrelevant to either category proposed (both compatibilist and incompatibilist models). e.g. the statement "I didn't will it" is arbitrary; it could mean either internal (eg subconscious) or external (eg dictator) constraints - neither of which necessarily have any bearing on an incompatibilist or compatibilist model.

b) This kind of analysis (in its general sense) is dependent upon one's philosophy of mind / the mind body problem - e.g the external constraints of the hard determinist/indeterminist (brain) may been seen as internal (mind) and hence irrelevant from another's perspective (the compatibilist). It therefore introduces an unnecessary bias in the definition/presentation of "freedom of action" - one which is limited to the physical world, and will later be contradicted in the article when discussing incompatibilism.

c) The phrase "freedom of choice is logically separate from freedom to implement that choice" needs to be clarified. "Freedom of choice" is not "free will". One can have both "freedom of choice" and the lack of "freedom to implement that choice", and still not have any free will (hence the compatibilist/incompatibilist debate). Secondarily, "Freedom of choice" can be misinterpreted here as "Freedom to choose something that would otherwise be prevented by external conditions", in which case it is equivalent to "freedom to implement that choice" (for the purposes of separating freedom of will/action).

2. "As a question of what actually is going on, rather than as a debate over hypothetical possibilities and logical distinctions"

informal

3. "the existence of free will can be cast in terms of how or whether conscious intention is a correlate of activity in the brain (seen as a physical construct of neurons, synapses, and their dynamical interactions), or is dictated by subconscious activities in the brain"

this is incorrect, the interpretation of these results are dependent upon (and may have implications for) one's model of free will (compatibilist/incompatibilist), but no researchers propose that free will is defined (cast) in terms of this correlation (unless you have a reference?)

4. "or how or whether intention exerts a causal influence over activity in the brain."

this is a completely different subject, and describes the problem proposed by incompatiblism (without declaring this fact, and therefore its connection with prior introductory text)

5. "These topics fall under the later discussion of the mind-body problem."

This is incorrect: they happen to do so currently however because the mind-body problem has been filled with irrelevant text (ie text not specifically relating to both the mind-body problem and free will).

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 03:35, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't have the energy right now for a point-by-point reply but I'd like to just say that in general I concur with Richard here. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:37, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Cartesian dualism

The article summarizes Cartesian dualism as follows:

"Under Cartesian dualism however, the higher order functions of the mind are only correlated with occurrences in the brain, and external mind is responsible for bodily action. Cartesian dualism results in a form of physical indeterminism (where-by physical events can be determined by external mind), and provides a direct interpretation of incompatibilist free will."

I believe that this summary is broadly correct, but the suggestion of a correlation between mind and body may be too modern a statement, and the implication of a very particular mind-body interaction may be misleading. In its most primitive form, Cartesian dualism simply divides nature into res cogitans and res extensa, mind and matter, "two distinct and reciprocally autonomous levels of reality".

If one ventures beyond this simple separation into two worlds, there are many different approaches to the way the mind and body interact, and it becomes rather confusing to include such matters under the rubric of Cartesian dualism because there are many versions of this interaction all falling under this name. A rather lengthy discussion of various treatments of the interaction issue is found here. Brews ohare (talk) 13:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

This issue has been discussed here at free will Talk at length (around 2 years ago), and can be explained in one or two logical steps. Assuming one accepts substance dualism, if external mind has no influence on the body, then it is better classed as epiphenomenalism (or psycho-parallelism). An alternate approach being: if external mind has no representation in the brain (i.e. substance dualism), then one must explain its action on physical memory / bodily function. Thirdly, for external mind to be aware of its bodily surrounding, body must perform action on mind. Therefore cartesian dualism implies causal interaction. If there is dispute over the definition of cartesian dualism, then this should be addressed and referenced, though almost certainly not in the free will article.

The central claim of what is often called Cartesian dualism, in honor of Descartes, is that the immaterial mind and the material body, while being ontologically distinct substances, causally interact

Dualism (philosophy of mind)

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 17:05, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I have attempted to fix this discussion; see what you think. Brews ohare (talk) 18:33, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Some of your changes I judge less severe (for example the continued removal of any text relating Compatibilism to the mind-body problem)

However your attempt to redefine cartesian dualism is wrong and needs to be corrected. I am not keen on spending more time here, as I am concerned my modifications will be destroyed entirely with "have another go", "rewrite", "try again" etc.

How is inert "cartesian dualism" relevant to free will? Fortunately there are only three options (for inert substance dualism), neither of which are cartesian dualism; epiphenomenalism, psychophysical-parallelism, or mindless zombies.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 05:49, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Relation of Cartesian dualism to indeterminism and incompatibilsm

In this section it is stated:

"Cartesian dualism implies a form of physical indeterminism in which external mind controls (at least some) physical events, providing an interpretation of incompatibilist free will."

This sentence is unclear, confusing, and quite possibly incorrect.

The term incompatibilism is the position that one must choose between determinism and free will, presumably because they are logically (not just empirically) exclusive. Now Cartesian dualism proposes that mind sometimes controls matter. If mind incorporates free will, then this suggestion is that free will controls matter, or one might say free will exists and can influence the activity of the brain. It would seem then that one must accept free will, which is one choice of incompatibilism, but one also accepts causality as applicable not only within the sphere of the brain but also to the interaction of mind and brain. That is a middle ground, not an incompatibilist position. So the quoted sentence is a non-sequitor.

The term indeterminism does not have a section describing it in Free will. According to the article indeterminism, it is a doctrine that not all events are due to prior causes. To say that Cartesian dualism implies this doctrine appears to me unwarranted - Cartesian dualism posits mind and body are separate, and mind sometimes controls matter, but it is an extension to claim that an assertion that mind controls some of matter implies a failure of causality. This extension presumes that mind and by implication free will lies outside of causality, when all that is required by dualism is that the causes in the mental sphere be separate (at least to some degree) from those in the brain. In fact, this question of in what sense mind might control matter and vice versa is a much debated issue and seems compatible with Cartesian dualism.

At a minimum the quoted sentence is a conundrum requiring elaboration. At worst it is incorrect and should be deleted. Brews ohare (talk) 16:53, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

...

The term incompatibilism is the position that one must choose between determinism and free will, presumably because they are logically (not just empirically) exclusive. Now Cartesian dualism proposes that mind sometimes controls matter. If mind incorporates free will, then this suggestion is that free will controls matter, or one might say free will exists and can influence the activity of the brain. It would seem then that one must accept free will, which is one choice of incompatibilism, but one also accepts causality as applicable not only within the sphere of the brain but also to the interaction of mind and brain. That is a middle ground, not an incompatibilist position. So the quoted sentence is a non-sequitor.

"incompatibilist free will" (ie, metaphysical libertarianism) has been specified not "incompatibilism"

"physical indeterminism" has been specified not "indeterminism". The question of the internal determinism/causality of external mind is not addressed here. This problem has been discussed at Free will Talk before (was it Vesal who raised it?), and it may indeed prevent such a free will from being realised in practice. Regardless, the model would still be classifiable as a form of incompatibilist free will, and certainly does not negate the logical possibility thereof (hence "providing an interpretation of").

The term indeterminism does not have a section describing it in Free will. According to the article indeterminism, it is a doctrine that not all events are due to prior causes. To say that Cartesian dualism implies this doctrine appears to me unwarranted - Cartesian dualism posits mind and body are separate, and mind sometimes controls matter, but it is an extension to claim that an assertion that mind controls some of matter implies a failure of causality.

Again, "physical indeterminism" has been specified not "indeterminism"

If an external object (of system 2, eg CD mind) influences a local object (of system 1, eg CD matter), then no internal law can be given for system 1 that is deterministic.

This extension presumes that mind and by implication free will lies outside of causality, when all that is required by dualism is that the causes in the mental sphere be separate (at least to some degree) from those in the brain. In fact, this question of in what sense mind might control matter and vice versa is a much debated issue and seems compatible with Cartesian dualism.

Cartesian dualism asserts interaction (please see its definition again)

Cartesian/interactionalist dualism allows for incompatibilist free will - ie, freedom from physical determinism.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 17:33, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Looks like hairsplitting to me. In any event, making a simple matter into an argument over technical terms with fine differences in meaning denoted by small name changes or a string of indigestible adjectives seems not to be the path to clear exposition. Can't we do better? Brews ohare (talk) 01:35, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

False dichotomy

This edit removed reference to a false dichotomy with the in line comment " false dichotomy needs to be attributed for neutrality". There was already a source provided. I have restored this observation with yet another source. If there is further objection to this statement, please provide a better description of the objection and possibly a source to contradict the statement, preferably a recent source and not one harkening back to the hoary past. Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

My edit didn't move the reference, it moved it into a different sentence to attribute the view that it is a false dichotomy to compatibilists. Incompatibilists would disagree that it is a false dichotomy (their whole point is you really can only have one or the other, not both; that's what makes them incompatibilists), so the article can't state in its own voice that it is without being biased against them. Attribution is a different thing than citation.

Also, your citation was only supporting the claim that some random NYT article calls that dichotomy "naive dualism". I removed that in my edit because it seems like undue weight to care what some random newspaper editorial calls something which not even all serious scholars would consider a false dichotomy. I've left it in there after my more recent edits fixing some more biased phrasing and organization you introduced, but I really think it should be stricken, at least from the lede. (Your comment about "a recent source and not one harkening back to the hoary past" concerns me as well; a 400-year-old paradigm-setting text from a prominent philosopher studied in every philosophy program everywhere is far, far more valuable a reference than yesterday's newspaper editorial. Age has no impact on the value of a source; notability does). --Pfhorrest (talk) 17:44, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

"for instance" and "e.g."

It is my understanding that use of "for instance" is preferred in WP to the use of e.g., the latter being viewed as a less understood form, and quite possibly an archaic pedantry. So I replaced e.g. with "for instance", only to be reversed and rebuked by Pfhorrest as being unaware that the two have the same meaning. Brews ohare (talk) 15:36, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

This is basically a style issue, where no hard rule applies. "For instance" is less obscure, but "e. g." is shorter and therefore clutters the text less, especially when repeated. Note though that many style guides require "e. g." to be followed by a comma. Looie496 (talk) 16:07, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

What Looie said, plus I was lead to believe that Brews thought it meant something different because he didn't change all of them, apparently being fine with "e.g." on the third disjunct of that list. I would not strongly object to changing all three to "for instance", though I think that is a worse style because it makes an already long sentence needlessly longer. --Pfhorrest (talk) 17:47, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Freedom of will and freedom of action

I placed O'Connor's quote early in the introduction as I find this to be logical distinction that colors the entire discussion. I later discovered that this quote was placed in the section Free will as illusion, which is not where it belongs, as it is quite a different matter to logically separate will and action and to claim that free will is an illusion.

The questions of addiction, brain washing, behavioral programming and so forth are empirical matters that reflect upon restrictions affecting the ability to act, not on the question of the will to act. Brews ohare (talk) 14:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I've placed the discussion of Steiner's views under a separate header and removed this discussion from the Free will as illusion section where his views do not fit. I removed the repetition of O'Connor's quote, leaving it in the Introduction. Brews ohare (talk) 14:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Indeterminism and quantum events according to Kane

This revision accompanied by the in-line comment "the indeterminism is proposed as resultant of quantum, not system complexity" referring to the observations by Robert Kane is a misreading of this author. On page 38 Kane discusses chance in general terms, and does not refer in any way to quantum events. The quote taken from p. 39 refers to obstacles to exercising one's choices and their role in summoning the will to overcome them. Again, nothing to do with quantum events. His discussion of quantum events is on p. 9, where he pooh-poohs their significance.

In The Significance of Free Will p. 128, Kane says: "Our efforts of will most likely correspond to complex processes in our brains that are macro processes involving many neuron firings and connections. Since we know that the effects of quantum fluctuations are usually negligible at the macro level..." In some other work, Kane has suggested that perhaps chaos theory provides a mechanism (the butterfly effect) to amplify these random quantum events, and elsewhere he has noted emergence and nonlinear mechanics as possible sources of free will. So he is all over the map and has no clear idea of what is going on.

I don't think this reversion has actually instated the wrong impression conveyed by the in-line edit comment, so no harm is done. However, it would be well if we all read this author correctly. Brews ohare (talk) 05:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Chaos theory is deterministic (the fact we cannot predict the future using our limited computational power is irrelevant). Even our inability to measure in the input variables (eg as product of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) does not imply indeterminism in of itself. Quantum events (and therefore their amplification via for example chaos theory) are perhaps intrinsically indeterministic - noting that hidden variable/multiple world interpretations have not (yet) been ruled out. Hence, "the indeterminism is proposed as resultant of quantum, not system complexity". The free will proposed may be resultant of the combination thereof, but not the indeterminism.

"It is notoriously difficult to predict how future science will turn out, and it might be useful to have an answer to the question in advance of the scientific issues getting sorted out. Second, even if the universe were not fully deterministic, determinism might hold locally (either as a matter of how local spacetime is constructed, or as a matter of how the physics for non-quantum physical objects operates)." (p2)

"The problem that provokes this widespread skepticism about the existence of libertarian free will has to do with an ancient dilemma: If free will is not compatible with determinism, as libertarians contend, free will does not seem to be compatible with indeterminism either (the opposite of determinism). Events that are undetermined, such as quantum jumps in atoms, happen merely by chance. So if free actions were undetermined, as libertarians claim, it seems that they too would happen by chance. But how can chance events be free and responsible actions? Suppose a choice was the result of a quantum jump or other undetermined event in a person\u2019s brain. Would this amount to a free and responsible choice? Undetermined effects in the brain or body would be unpredictable and impulsive \u2013 like the sudden emergence of a thought or the uncontrolled jerking of an arm \u2013 quite the opposite of what we take free and responsible actions to be. It seems that undetermined events in the brain or body would occur spontaneously and would be more likely to undermine our freedom rather than enhance it." (p9)

"Perhaps the nervous twitches or brain crosses are brought about by actual undetermined quantum jumps in our nervous systems. We can thus imagine that Austin’s holing the putt is a genuinely undetermined event. He might miss the putt by chance and, in the example, does miss it by chance. (Likewise, the assassin might hit the wrong target by chance and I might press the wrong button by chance.)... But even more important, since the outcome of this putt was genuinely undetermined, he might well have succeeded in holing the putt, as he was trying to do" (p17)

"To cite an example mentioned earlier, if a choice occurred by virtue of a quantum jump or other undetermined event in one’s brain it would seem a fluke or accident rather than a responsible choice. Such undetermined events occurring in our brains or bodies would not seem to enhance our freedom and control over our actions, but rather diminish our freedom and control." (p23)

"But some scientists have suggested that a combination of chaos and quantum physics might provide the genuine indeterminism one needs. If the processing of the brain does “make chaos in order to make sense of the world” (as one recent research paper puts it), then the resulting chaos might magnify quantum indeterminacies in the firings of individual neurons so that they would have large-scale indeterministic effects on the activity of neural networks in the brain as a whole. If chaotic behavior were thus enhanced in these neural networks by tension-creating conflict in the will, the result would be some significant indeterminism in the cognitive processing of each of the competing neural networks." (p29)

Be careful to read content exactly, to ensure that your interpretations are correct. Something that is 10% wrong is still wrong, but something which comments on only 10% of a subject is not necessarily wrong.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 15:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Kane The Significance of Free Will, p. 17: "Thus, in Part II, as part of the task of making sense of free will, I suggest some physical modeling in the brain with reference to neural network theory, nonlinear thermodynamics, chaos theory and quantum physics. This approach is in line with the general goal of putting the free will issue into greater dialogue with developments in the sciences and other disciplines." In sum, a grab-bag of non-specific speculations about the eventual content of theories that are still very uncertain. Brews ohare (talk) 15:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Popper

Richardbrucebaxter: The recent deletion of comments about Popper simply explain the background of his 3-world picture. The connection to free will and to the mind-body problem is apparent in his work and the links provided, but is rather lengthy. Is it your position that all this must be presented to justify the inclusion of a link to this work with some context to guide the reader? Brews ohare (talk) 15:38, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

A philosophy of mind article is warranted

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 16:09, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Libet's experiments

This edit moved the discussion of Libet's experiments and published commentary about them from the section on Mind-body with the observation "move non mind-body + free will specific content to section Neuroscience". In my mind the connection between the brain and free will is obvious in this material, and is very commonly discussed by published work in connection with the free will and mind-body problem. So I'd like some explanation of this change.

Perhaps the subsection Neuroscience should be made a subsection of Mind-body problem? Brews ohare (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Much in this article is related to the mind-body problem - although not specifically dependent upon it. Where discussion on free will can be viewed independent of the mind-body problem, it should not be in the mind body section.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:11, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter, here is the material. I've underscored words related to both "free will" and "body", indicating that this material is indeed discussing free will within the context of the mid-body problem.

Studies of the timing between actions and the conscious decision to act also bear upon the role of the brain in understanding free will. A subject's declaration of intention to move a finger appears after the brain has begun to implement the action, suggesting to some that unconsciously the brain has made the decision before the conscious mental act to do so. Some believe the implication is that free will was not involved in the decision and is an illusion. The first of these experiments reported the brain registered activity related to the move about 0.2 s before movement onset.

Benjamin Libet; et al. (1983). "Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential)" (PDF). Brain. 106: 623–642. {{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |author= (help)

However, these authors also found that awareness of action was anticipatory to activity in the muscle underlying the movement; the entire process resulting in action involves more steps than just the onset of brain activity. The bearing of these results upon notions of free will appears complex.

Lars Strother, Sukhvinder Singh Obhi (2009). "The conscious experience of action and intention" (PDF). Exp Brain Res. 198: 535–539. doi:10.1007/s00221-009-1946-7.

A brief discussion of possible interpretation of these results is found in Rosenbaum.

David A. Rosenbaum (2009). Human Motor Control (2nd ed.). Academic Press. p. 86. ISBN 0123742269.

There is also this:

Some argue that placing the question of free will in the context of motor control is too narrow. The objection is that the time scales involved in motor control are very short, and motor control involves a great deal of unconscious action, with much physical movement entirely unconscious. On that basis "...free will cannot be squeezed into time frames of 150–350 ms; free will is a longer term phenomenon" and free will is a higher level activity that "cannot be captured in a description of neural activity or of muscle activation..."

Shaun Gallagher (2009). Susan Pockett, William P. Banks, Shaun Gallagher (ed.). Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?. MIT Press. pp. 119–121. ISBN 0262512572. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |chpater= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

The bearing of timing experiments upon free will still is under discussion.

Richardbrucebaxter, I find this material satisfies your criteria that it refer to free will within the context of the mind-body problem. Can you explain why your objections apply here in more detail? Brews ohare (talk) 17:45, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The interpretation of a conscious mental act as necessarily non-physical (or having a component thereof) is dependent upon philosophy of mind, and so this content does not necessarily relate to the mind-body problem.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 18:09, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The above text doesn't suggest that a " a conscious mental act is necessarily non-physical". I believe our discussion is somehow talking past each other. I'm tempted to view this problem as follows: you approach free will from the stance of terms like "compatibilism" and so forth. That is an historical position that carries on even today, but which I see as largely archaic. On the other hand, I see free will as a discussion of the autonomy (or not) of our decisions, and whether or not recent experimental results have a bearing upon this question. Although one can fit the autonomy (or not) of our decisions into the old philosophical terminology, that is not the most transparent way to do it.

The question arises: Are you at all interested in such a formulation? Do you see any reason to attempt that? Brews ohare (talk) 19:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I am not suggesting that it does, and this therefore makes me suspect you have missed my point entirely. Even if this content assumed some position on philosophy of mind, and by implication of this position was related to the mind-body problem in some way, it would still not necessarily belong here. Furthermore, the fact it (the neuroscience) makes no comment on the mind-body problem again highlights its irrelevance to this section.

Regarding the general approach of the article, I think this is an interesting question you have raised, and perhaps it should be addressed below in "What is this article about"?

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 21:51, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Introductory paragraph for mind-body problem

The deletion from the introduction of this paragraph introducing the material in the mind body problem:

As a question of what actually is going on, rather than as a debate over hypothetical possibilities and logical distinctions, the existence of free will can be cast in terms of how or whether conscious intention is a correlate of activity in the brain (seen as a physical construct of neurons, synapses, and their dynamical interactions), or is dictated by subconscious activities in the brain, or how or whether intention exerts a causal influence over activity in the brain. These topics fall under the later discussion of the mind-body problem.

appears unwarranted to me. This material is described in the article, so some indication of its presence in the Introduction seems warranted. Brews ohare (talk) 15:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

See our talk page edits above, eg Pfhorrest (talk) 06:37, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 16:07, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter: The discussion you refer to is not about this paragraph. This paragraph simply refers to later discussion, which is the normal use of a paragraph in the Introduction, and so seems unobjectionable to me. Perhaps you would address this paragraph directly? Brews ohare (talk) 17:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

? The talk entry directly addresses this text, line by line.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 18:12, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Choice versus its implementation

The removal from the Introduction of the material describing the logical distinction between choice and its implementation:

It should be noted that freedom of choice is logically separate from freedom to implement that choice, although not all writers observe this distinction:

"Philosophers who distinguish freedom of action and freedom of will do so because our success in carrying out our ends depends in part on factors wholly beyond our control. Furthermore, there are always external constraints on the range of options we can meaningfully try to undertake. As the presence or absence of these conditions and constraints are not (usually) our responsibility, it is plausible that the central loci of our responsibility are our choices, or “willings.”" –Timothy O'Connor, Free will

References

1. ^ Timothy O'Connor (Oct 29, 2010). Edward N. Zalta, ed (ed.). "Free Will". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition). The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. {{cite web}}: |editor= has generic name (help)

appears to me to seriously degrade the article content. A major topic in "free will" is exactly this point, and it bears on an enormous amount of discussion concerning free will and responsibility (moral and legal), concerning free will and developmental psychology, and concerning free will and addiction/mental disorder. To remove this logical distinction from the introduction emasculates the entire proceedings. Brews ohare (talk) 16:06, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The distinction is still mentioned in the introduction (in context of the compatibilist models it relates to), and the reference remains; it is just not as blatant. Do you suggest adding here quotations identifying all conflicting positions on free will?

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

This distinction is now shoe-horned into a discussion where it does not belong, and the very clear description of the issue in the quote by O'Connor has been dropped. The whole point is now obscure and likely not to register. Why do you do this? Pfhorrest moved it to its present position in the lede, which seems a good place for it to me. Brews ohare (talk) 18:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I noted this anomaly also, and have since moved the quotation to section Compatibilism .

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 18:16, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

What is this article about

Perhaps it is time for some general discussion about the orientation of the article Free will?

Although there is a long history of the subject of Free will, I myself don't think this article should be restricted to these historical debates. The modern relevance of this issue is as to exactly what actually is going on when decisions are made and implemented, and is not upon "nice" distinctions between hypothetical positions and possible definitions. This article should attempt to present these historical points from a modern perspective, and not simply regurgitate things from their original perspective.

The historical issues of Chrysippus in trying to reconcile "fate" with the obligation to think through one's actions find echos in the dualism of Descartes, Kant, Popper and others. They all boil down in modern terms as to just what the role of intention is in our lives. Is it the cause of our actions, or is it a correlate of our actions, or is it merely a consequence of evolutionary programming boiling up from our subconscious mental activities? These are the issues (still unresolved at the moment, but better understood), and the presentation should present the historical debates from these viewpoints with the modern developments.

The article contains a lot of good material, but it is (in my mind) mostly presented in an archaic manner, and therefore its relevance beyond academic and dusty old discussions is buried. Brews ohare (talk) 16:24, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

While I welcome the inclusion of newer material in this article, the "historical" material about "distinctions between hypothetical positions and possible definitions" is still important for maintaining neutrality because people still hold this wide variety of positions, and still argue about which is correct.

My main concern with the overall pattern of your edits here is that you seem to operate from the viewpoint that the incompatibilist definition of free will is correct, and when making edits that add otherwise useful material let that bias slip through constantly, disrupting the carefully developed neutral introduction to the subject we developed over quite some time here, especially in the lede. Any material which goes beyond these definitional issues will be assuming a definition and so needs to be couched in the context of that, controversial, definition, or else it will imply that the others are wrong, in the article's own voice, violating WP:NPOV

The old consensus that has stood in the lede for quite some time was to introduce what free will is neutrally by briefly introducing what questions there are about it and the proposed answers to those question. In outline form, that structure is this:

• Free will is some kind of lack of constraint from something, but what that something is and whether we are unconstrained by it is debated.
  • The most popular value of 'something' is metaphysical determinism, and the two most popular (incompatibilist) positions are thus:
    • That we are not determined and are thus free. (Libertarianism)
    • That we are determined and are thus not free. (Hard determinism)
  • But there are a bunch of other proposed (compatibilist) values of 'something', like:
    • Physical restraint (e.g. Hobbes)
    • Social coercion (I think we used to have something about this that got deleted or refactored, maybe Rousseau?)
    • Psychological hangups (e.g. Frankfurt)

This is in essence one long (but the shortest possible neutral) answer to the question "what is free will?", which is the first thing an article on free will needs to state. You keep adding other material -- which is good, and belongs here somewhere -- into the middle of this, breaking the logical connections between the different parts of it, e.g. turning the summary of compatibilist definitions of free will into "digressions" on other things which may impede the exercise of free will (which also seems to have a bias toward the incompatibilist definition of free will, again). Likewise you're adding other (good, valuable) material to other places in the article, but in poorly chosen places that disrupts the structure of the article. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: Thanks for your reply. I get the drift, but my reaction is a bit different from yours. In my mind, hard determinism and libertarianism are positions based upon definitions that have next to nothing to do with what actually is. Of course, one is free to invent definitions and construct what amounts to a mathematical formalism based upon those definitions, but whether that beautiful construction applies to the real world is a separate question. My opinion is that beautiful and simple as it is, this debate over idealisms has no bearing at all upon the real world, and so is a form of philosophical amusement.

I don' t think it will surprise you that this is my opinion, and I won't be surprised if your view is "so what". However, I do think that the position of hard determinism and that of liberalism can be presented within a completely NPOV as two possible models out of dozens. With all the possible models in front of us the evidence or its lacking can be presented for each of the views, which is a perfectly NPOV. The reader can then decide for themselves which of the views is more supported and which questions are likely to lead to progress. IMO, of course, continuation of hypothetical arguments, about which definitions imply what, are less fruitful than looking at what we actually do know about the mind-body problem, and which definitions suggest useful inquiry. A NPOV would allow this position of mine an equal footing to the fun & games of the past. Brews ohare (talk) 22:50, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Brews,

I don't think we've met. I haven't dropped by here since Syamsu got his indef block. I haven't been following these edits closely at all, but a couple of points in your response jumped out at me. I think you're bringing a very different mindset to this article, and I would like a better understanding of that mindset (or better yet, figure out that I misunderstood what you were saying).

Zooming in on two sentences: With all the possible models in front of us the evidence or its lacking can be presented for each of the views, which is a perfectly NPOV. The reader can then decide for themselves which of the views is more supported and which questions are likely to lead to progress.

The first thing that struck me about that was its similarity to creationist "teach the controversy" arguments: there are several competing schools of thought, so present all of them and let the student (however ill equiped she may be) decide which one is best. I have no argument with this as a rhetorical technique, but when the rubber hits the road that's not how we make decisions in biology, mathematics, or (I'll argue) philosophy.

Then there's the comment about "progress": I think it's an arguable point whether philosphy does, should, or even can progress (as it's just footnotes to Aristotle — I'm kidding. A little.), but I don't think it's a stretch to say that progress as a goal in philosophy is a minority point of view.

The composite picture I take from this — and I want to emphasize that I may have utterly misread you and welcome correction — is that you're imagining a reader who comes to this article hoping for a neutral presentation of existing theories of free will so she can go about choosing the best one. That's an interesting and valuable approach and I can imagine several articles where it would be ideal, but I'm not convinced that it's appropriate for this article.

Let me give you a different model. Philosophy is conversation, and as part of that conversation there has been a two-thousand-odd year discussion about free will. As in any coherent conversation, what can be said (intelligibly) is constrained by what has been already spoken. Coming into this conversation now makes for a baffling experience unless you have a scorecard of where the discussion has been, who said what and why, and where the conversation is going. This article, in my opinion, should be a condensed version of that scorecard.

If you'd like the article to go in a different direction, then by all means let's discuss that.

Best,

GaramondLethe 04:12, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Garamond: You raise some interesting points. I don't think I want to be quite as radical as to leave everything up to the reader. The fact is that this topic has been around at least 3 or 4 thousand years and its far from settled even today. SO I guess this little Talk page is not going to break new ground. My feeling is the present article is very tied to a bunch of fuddy-duddy stuff and can be made to address some actually interesting aspects of the topic. Whether WP is the place to do that depends very much upon who is assembled here now, and whether it lasts depends upon how persuasive it appears to those that come later. Maybe I should just find something better to do, eh? Or maybe I should write a User space article on Free will that seems to me more digestible and interesting and see how it is received? Or, maybe I should look at some other articles and let Free will sit smugly in its little corner? At the moment I can say some useful additions and changes here have been accomplished, but I'm doubtful that further piecemeal attempts will accomplish anything more. Any advice? Brews ohare (talk) 06:07, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I spent some time reading your user page as well as the arbcom case you linked to. (Leaving that up isn't doing you any favors.) Then I spent some time reviewing your edits. I'll call out this in particular: "As a question of what actually is going on, rather than as a debate over hypothetical possibilities and logical distinctions....". That's the thinking of a physcist who has read a few books on philosophy, not a philosopher.

As to advice: start an article (perhaps Neurological views of free will and put the cool stuff in there. You're approaching free will as an engineering problem: that's perfectly interesting and legitimate, but it's a topic in its own right distinct from (albeit related to) the philosophical question. If you don't think there's enough for an article then put this in its own section here.

As an aside, Eric Kandel's fifth edition of Principles of Neural Science is due out soon. It's the actual science that Dennett only alludes to. Note that you will need a license to carry a book that large in rural Georgia. Kidding. Seriously, grab the fourth edition out of the library and start pounding through it. I think you'll like it as much as I did.

Two other book recommendations: Jaegwon Kim's Physicalism, or Something Near Enough is a limpid history of how philosophical ideas of free will have reacted to (or been steamrolled by) scientific advances. And Samir Okasha's Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction is good enough that I'll be using it as a textbook.

One last thought: the Philosophy of Computer Science article is wide open and I think it's not going to be too difficult to improve on the SEP article. I'm slowly pulling together a bibliography. Let me know if you're interested.

GaramondLethe 21:41, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Garamond: I gather that your advice is to go somewhere else. I don't think there is an alternative, as there is no way to engage a thought process here. I am somewhat bemused by those here assembled that take a view that "free will may exist to some degree" is not a neutral point of view, when actually it encompasses all other views just by sliding the pointer from one extreme to the other, from some degree = 0% to some degree = 100%. It's an interesting perspective upon "neutral". Brews ohare (talk) 04:31, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

That's the tragedy of expertise: if you want to convince experts that your idea might be better than theirs you have to first learn their language in order to convince them. So one way of "engag a thought process here" would be to go off and read Kim and Okasha and come back and make your point using the domain-specific language. If that's too much of a time investment then you're more than competent to do run-of-the-mill editing here, but I don't see a good way forward for your major reorganization of this article until you're able to present your point more effectively. (If I was trying to reorganize an article in your field I expect you would be telling me the same thing.)

Let me give you a concrete example: Libet's experiments that you discussed above are certainly interesting from a neurological standpoint, and it's certainly understandable that neurologists would think they invalidate the idea of free will. However, when a philsopher looks at that data the conclusion is that "free will is essentially non-conscious". Is that moving the goalposts? Well, maybe, but a successful argument that goalposts were moved will be a philosophical argument, not an argument about the data. (This article has been cited heavily; you might want to have a go at it and see how you would pick it apart.)

In fewer words: no, I'm not trying to run you off, but I do disagree with a few of your ideas for the direction of the overall article; one way of getting those ideas out in the world is to put them in their own article. GaramondLethe 05:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Garamond: I am not feeling you want to "run me off". I appreciate your interest.

I looked over your suggested article "Free Will in the Light of Neuropsychiatry", which is an accurate title. The lead sentence of the abstract "If the notion of free will is to be retained by philosophers, psychiatrists and psychologists, then it will be a free will which is essentially non-conscious." is a narrow neurological viewpoint to the exclusion of all else. Of course, it is obvious to one and all that "free will" is consciously intuited, so it is not non-conscious; using this conscious intuition as the meaning of free will, the author's conclusion is it has no causal importance.

The author suggests there is no role for consciousness in decision making, which I think goes beyond the evidence and may be a consequence of a methodology that is orthogonal to the investigation. All such subjective states that are conscious intuitions are unavailable to direct third person observation: at best neurological correlates can be found, and even that is not always available. Libet's experiments indicate some actions of motor control are temporally complex, with some neurological precursors to conscious awareness, but with awareness occurring before actual action takes place. Whether this has any bearing upon free will as applied to motor control is undetermined, and whether motor control is germane in any way to free will is even less clear, as free will may well have much longer time constants and be related to other parts of the brain. For example, we know subjectively that recollection and assessment can take minutes or more, not milliseconds. The jury is out as to what the neurological correlates of free will are, and even less clear about the role of subjective states (if any) in the decision process.

I wonder if that is your view as well? Brews ohare (talk) 11:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

In any event, these considerations and those of the cognitive sciences are much more germane to the significant issues of free will like reforms of the legal system, improvement of the treatment of addiction and mental disorder, teaching of the young, and leave arguments over "hard determinism" versus "hard compatibilism" on some dusty shelf in the stacks. Brews ohare (talk) 11:58, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

A bad dynamic developing here

I'm concerned about the amount of reverting recently; let me explain why. Most Misplaced Pages articles try to avoid synthesis and follow the mainstream of thought, focusing on the sources that are considered most reputable. There are some topics, though, where there is no identifiable mainstream, and where the most reputable sources wildly contradict one another. This is one of them. When that happens, it is impossible to have a good article without adding some synthesis -- otherwise you just end up with an incoherent list of contradictory views. But it's impossible to synthesize the material usefully if editors fight with each other. There is no way to make this process work if the editors who are contributing don't make a basic commitment to avoid fighting. Looie496 (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Looie: I don't think there is any ill will here. Perhaps changes could be discussed on the Talk page more, but things are evolving OK. Brews ohare (talk) 17:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Problems with exposition

Earlier on this Talk page Garamond Lethe has raised the topic of "the tragedy of expertise", suggesting that this article is beyond improvement by a layman because its editors-in-residence speak a "domain-specific language", and without adopting this jargon it is impossible for any argument of reform to proceed effectively.

I'd like to suggest that even the experts might find some of the article Free will indigestible, and might excuse a reader developing a sense of vertigo. As various popular books on this subject show, like (just for example) Sam Harris' Free will, this situation is not necessary to the subject, but a choice of style.

The article has adopted the view that free will should be couched in terms of long-standing and unending philosophical debate like "determinism", "hard determinism" "incompatibilism", "hard incompatibilism", "compatibilism", "physicalism", "libertarianism", "metaphysical libertarianism". Even very simple ideas can be made indigestible when these terms are introduced.

An example of turgid exposition is the following paragraph:

Incompatibilism requires a distinction between mental and the physical, being a commentary on the incompatibility of (determined) physical reality and one's presumably separable sense of will. Although substance dualism offers such a distinction, a lesser form of naturalism known as non-reductive physicalism may also suffice, the idea that although physical states do cause mental states, they are not ontologically reducible to them. In one such construction, mental events supervene on physical events, describing the emergence of mental properties as correspondent (causally reducible) to physical properties. Non-reductive physicalism is therefore often categorised as property dualism rather than monism, yet other types of property dualism do not adhere to the causal reducibility of mental states – such as epiphenomenalism, often considered an inert substance dualism.

There is of course a certain pleasure for an English speaker in reading French and enjoying one's ability to understand a second language acquired after some effort, failing a better description, a certain je ne sais quoi. But is this the way to write a WP article intended to be useful to the general reader?

A more useful exposition, perhaps lacking in cachet being simple English, would point out simply that "although one might suppose that mental states and neurological states are completely different in kind, that does not rule out the possibility that mental states are associated with certain neurological states, and may cause them or vice versa, or instead, that they might act in concert to determine events."

This statement doesn't exactly capture the nice attempt of the existing paragraph to embroil the reader in academic hairsplitting, but it is understandable, and provides a basis for continuing an intelligible discussion.

What this example is intended to suggest (whatever its success in doing that) is that a great deal of the article Free will could be made more digestible (and a lot shorter). The article Free will doesn't have to be devoted to a rather poorly presented and exhaustive dictionary entry describing differences in jargon that is not interesting or even understandable to the general reader. Free will deserves better. Brews ohare (talk) 14:52, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Several good points here, and put elegantly, too.

I'll grant you that Sam Harris wrote a very clear, readable book, but he also made several basic errors that might have been avoided if he had been more familiar with the existing literature. So no, I don't take that as a useful model.

Yes, the paragraph you mentioned can certainly be improved. That's not controversial. I believe we're disagreeing over how much technical jargon to keep. As I use wikipedia (in part) to learn how experts think about a topic, I'm going to to be biased in favor of keeping the jargon that experts use. Other reads will have different preferences, of course.

OxfordUP has published Free Will: A Very Short Introduction. I've found that series to be broadly similar to wikipedia in terms of putting together a breif introduction to technical topics. I'll grab the kindle edition and skm it and see how they approach the problem.

GaramondLethe 21:19, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

A quick skim of chapter 1 of FW:AVSI confirms it's following a similar path in terms of using the technical vocabulary (although in a much more readable way). GaramondLethe 08:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Readability of the article could be improved if technical jargon were first defined in everyday terms at the beginning and then used sparingly, rather than using these terms like leitmotifs to construct a Wagner opera. It should be possible to replace the occurrence of a piece of jargon with its definition and have a perfectly clear sentence without the jargon, which is only a shorthand analogous to an ACRONYM. It might be a useful exercise to try and rewrite the porridge quoted above in clear manner. Brews ohare (talk) 14:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The dozen or more pages of Free Will: A Very Short Introduction available on line discuss the question of free will largely without the jargon of the WP article. The term determinism shows up first on p. 13 as casual determinism, not the determinism of the WP article. Incompatibilism also shows up first on p. 13 and is defined simply as the view that "freedom is incompatible with causal determination". Libertarianism shows up on p. 13 too, as incompatibilism "combined with the further belief that we have control over how we act". Although my opinion is that the discussion of Free Will: A Very Short Introduction is irrelevant and outmoded, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction makes a very clear case that most of the technical jargon in the WP article can be avoided and still allow one to describe the archaic points that are the subject of Free Will: A Very Short Introduction. Brews ohare (talk) 16:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

"Compatibilism" occurs on pages 18-19 and 43-72. "Naturalism and compatibilism" occurs on pages 44-5, 55-6, 65-72 and 109-10. "Rationalism and compatibilism" occurs on pages 43-9 and 118-19. "Incompatibilism" on pages 13-14 and 16-18.

I'm not going to conclude much more than OxfordUP thinks an introduction to the topic for a lay audience can be sold profitably with at least that much jargon. That may or may not be a useful data point in the discussion here.GaramondLethe 21:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

The hang-up with Free Will: A Very Short Introduction is that it uses introspection and intuition as evidence, begging the questions it raises, it does not clearly distinguish between definitions and models and what is really "out there" (similar to the failure of old to distinguish mathematics from physics), it ignores the basic question of how to test models of mental activity, which is a topic of current interest, and although in its discussion of Kant and Hobbes (p. 70) the issue is raised that the "causally determined Hobbes world, the world as we experience it to be, is not the whole truth", it glosses over the causality issues, and the role of feedback in complex systems, which are an active developing area. The problem of free will has not been solved, and arguments like those in Free Will: A Very Short Introduction cannot resolve the issues which must await further developments in neuroscience and the treatment of complex feedback systems.

I realize that these are mere pronouncements of mine as I have presented them. But the fundamental failure so far to resolve the conundrum of free will can be fleshed out with sources. Of course, within a NPOV, this position remains only one of several in vogue today. Brews ohare (talk) 16:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm probably closer to your position than you might think, but that's neither here nor there for the purposes of this article. I agree that the view you outlined is one among many, and I have no problems add/amplifying it in the article as you find good sources. GaramondLethe 21:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Garamond: Thanks for the encouragement. I think the section on Free will#The mind-body problem pretty much covers my view of the present-day dilemma. Unfortunately, the last paragraph of this section takes this quite clear exposition and reinserts it into the mud of the rest of the Free will article. I therefore have removed this paragraph and hope that it does not return. If it does return, presumably to cast modern views in the tendentious vocabulary of old, it would be helpful if it were accessible to the everyday WP reader, and if it were made clear that this translation is an aside for devotees of jargon, and adds nothing consequential to the section. Brews ohare (talk) 14:18, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to think that sometime this weekend I could carve out enough time to un-porrige that paragraph, but it's pretty far down on my list. On the other hand, it did occur to me that you'd probably enjoy Robert Sapolsky on the behavioral aspects of Huntington's disease (transcription here). It's his talk on receiving a reward from the Freedom From Religion foundation. (I've never cared much for his books, but he's a compelling lecturer.) Here's a sample:

"Here's a scenario: 40-year-old guy, 20-year happy marriage, white-collar job, living in the suburbs, utterly colorless, stable life. One day, from out of nowhere, he punches somebody in the face at work, in his office, some guy at the water cooler who had made some comment about a sports team. This guy hasn't had a fight since junior high school. Utterly bizarre, unprecedented. Three months later, his wife of this 20-year marriage discovers he's been having an affair with a 17-year-old kid at the checkout down at the supermarket. Totally bizarre. Three months later, he's arrested for drunken brawling in a bar--and he never even used to drink. Three months later, he embezzles the funds from his workplace, disappears, and is never seen again.

"How can we explain this guy?

"Explanation number one: the guy is no damned good.

"Explanation number two: he's having the world's most dramatic and childish midlife crisis.

"Explanation number three: it's a neurological disease; he has a single-gene defect that makes him do this."

I don't see a natural fit for lecture in this article, but it might be a good lead into the neurological literature.

GaramondLethe 00:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Revision of a paragraph in mind-body section

The following paragraph appears in the section on mind-body problem

Incompatibilism requires a distinction between the mental and the physical, being a commentary on the incompatibility of (determined) physical reality and one's presumably distinct experience of will. Although substance dualism offers such a distinction, a less extreme form of naturalism known as non-reductive physicalism may also suffice. Although one might suppose that mental states and neurological states are different in kind, that does not rule out the possibility that mental states correspond to neurological states. Under non-reductive physicalism, although physical states do cause mental states, they are not ontologically reducible to them. In one such construction, mental events supervene on physical events, describing the emergence of mental properties as correspondent to physical properties. This relationship is known as causal reducibility. Non-reductive physicalism is therefore often categorised as property dualism rather than monism, yet other types of property dualism do not adhere to the causal reducibility of mental states - such as epiphenomenalism.

I understand the urge to recast the preceding discussion in a form more similar to the rest of the article. But I don't find this paragraph, although superior to its predecessor, has quite made the grade. I'd like to try to do this in a manner reverse to that of the paragraph; that is, go from the simple viewpoint to the technical rather than vice versa. A single paragraph won't do it. Here is a possible substitute (please take it as a suggestion to be tinkered with):

One may choose as a starting point the point of view that mind and matter constitute different things. One may then take several views about how or even whether they interact. At one extreme there is no interaction at all. At another extreme, mind completely controls matter or the other way around. In between, one may say mind and matter each influence each other to a degree, in some cases one is more in control and sometimes the other.

We might attempt to establish which of these choices is best, but that seems to be out of reach at the moment. Instead, we will simply connect these possibilities with various identifying labels of historical importance.

If one takes the extreme view that mind completely controls matter, or vice versa, in effect the controlled aspect is simply an appendage of the controlling aspect, and may be considered simply as a property of the controlling aspect. The two substances are then simply one, albeit perhaps with some additional attributes, and this viewpoint is called monism, which takes on several forms as described in that Misplaced Pages article.

An example is epiphenomenalism, that mind is just a peculiar side effect of matter. Thomas Huxley described the relation between mind and matter as follows:

The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral of its working, and to be completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery.

— TH Huxley, Animal automatism, p. 201 in Collected essays, Volume 1

Huxley goes on to say he sees no difference from humans in this regard. Very similar to this point of view is reductive physicalism adopted by some neuroscientists:

...consciousness is a biological process that will eventually be explained in terms of molecular signaling pathways used by interacting populations of nerve cells...

— Eric R. Kandel, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind

The view that mind and matter are different is called dualism, and it again takes on several forms described in that Misplaced Pages article. Within this description are various degrees of control of one entity over the other, ranging from complete autonomy of one or both entities, to some degree of interdependence. Considerable interest attaches as to what forms of interdependence might arise.

For example, even if mental states and neurological states are different in kind, that does not rule out the possibility that mental states bear some correspondence with neurological states. Under non-reductive physicalism, physical states do cause mental states, but they are not ontologically reducible to them. In one such construction, mental events exhibit emergence from physical properties, and in one view, supervene on physical events. One term for such a relationship is circular causality, a generalization of the idea of feedback to complex, nonlinear interacting systems. The distinction between circular causality and simple feedback is detailed as follows::

But add a few more parts interlaced together and very quickly it becomes impossible to treat the system in terms of feedback circuits. In such complex systems, ... the concept of feedback is inadequate. there is no reference state with which feedback can be compared and no place where comparison operations are performed An order parameter is created by the correlation between the parts, but in turn influences the behavior of the parts. This is what we mean by circular causality.

— JA Scott Kelso, Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior

A further example of this term taken from the field of complex feedback systems is the "slaving principle" (a generalization from analysis of lasers), detailed as follows:

Note we are dealing here with circular causality. On the one hand the order parameter enslaves the atoms, but on the other hand it is itself generated by the joint action of the atoms...Over the past years, it has been shown that these concepts apply to a large number of quite different physical, chemical and biological systems.

— Hermann Haken, Information and Self-Organization: A Macroscopic Approach to Complex Systems

There are differences of opinion regarding this circular feedback mechanism, with some regarding the emergent mind as controlling its generating neurons, and others regarding mind as determining the response of the brain in consort with the neurons. It appears that the notion of cause and effect becomes complicated in such situations, where the ultimate effect is a non-obvious result of the system dynamics in response to its environment. In one view:

...Circular causality departs so strongly from the classical tenets of necessity, invariance, and precise temporal order that the only reason to call it that is to satisfy the human habitual need for causes. The most subtle shift is the disappearance of agency, which is equivalent to loss of Aristotle's efficient cause...The very strong appeal of agency to explain events may come from the subjective experience of cause and effect that develops early in human life, before the acquisition of language...the question I raise here is whether brains share this property with other material objects in the world.

— Walter J. Freeman, "Consciousness, intentionality and causality" in Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?

References

1. An extended quotation can be found in William James (2007). The Principles of Psychology, Volume 1 (Reprint of 1890 ed.). Cosimo, Inc. p. 131. ISBN 1602062838.
2. This quote is from: Eric R. Kandel (2007). In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind. WW Norton. pp. p. 9. ISBN 0393329372. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help) However, the same language can be found in dozens of sources. Some philosophers object to the unsupported statement of such conjectures, for example, observing that consciousness has yet to be shown to be a process at all, never mind a biological process. See Oswald Hanfling (2002). Wittgenstein and the Human Form of Life. Psychology Press. pp. pp. 108-109. ISBN 0415256453. {{cite book}}: |pages= has extra text (help)
3. J. A. Scott Kelso (1995). Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior. MIT Press. pp. 9, 16. ISBN 0262611317.
4. Hermann Haken (2006). Information and Self-Organization: A Macroscopic Approach to Complex Systems (3rd ed ed.). Springer. pp. 25–26. ISBN 3540330216. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
5. Walter J Freeman (2009). "Consciousness, intentionality and causality". In Susan Pockett, WP Banks, Shaun Gallagher, eds (ed.). Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?. MIT Press. pp. 4–5, 88–90. ISBN 0262512572. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

My primary response to this suggestion would be that there is more than one article on Misplaced Pages, and that the Free will article is not the place to start a discussion about philosophy of mind to its nth degree.

Secondarily, I think there are a number of highly questionable points made in your summary;

One term for such a relationship is circular causality, a generalization of the idea of feedback to complex, nonlinear interacting systems.

Feedback/circular causality etc itself is irrelevant to physicalism (reductive and non-reductive): either the system can be described to function by the laws of physics or it can't. Hence arguments regarding overdetermination (ie, how could mental properties possibly influence the system in order to be anything but redundant). This problem cannot be hidden behind "system dynamics". Furthermore, any discussion regarding feedback in the context of physicalism is either not causally relevant (and therefore not feedback in any meaningful sense), or is referring to a physical subsystem that does not require any mental explanation (eg subconscious-conscious interaction). Note again that conscious activity is not (exclusively) non-neurological under (non-reductive) physicalism.

We might attempt to establish which of these choices is best, but that seems to be out of reach at the moment

This might be true, but you don't find many academics ascribing to a model of mind which cannot be described to operate by the laws of physics (and therefore has at least a physical representation in the neural system; assuming it is not reduced to the neural system). As you know, scientists tend to accept the causal closure and/or causal self-sufficiency of the observable universe for the purposes of their research - and this assumption is increasingly supported (as far as brains/minds are concerned) based upon neurological research.

Again, you have removed any reference to free will as described in this article (ie in/compatibilism), and so it leaves the reader completely uninformed as to whether the various modes of causality discussed are relevant to a particular definition of free will (if any). When I previously sorted this material on modes of causality (the quotations) into section Compatibilism, you moved it to section 'Free will and causality'. However, the only material which could perhaps have implications for incompabilist free will is that which has implications for physical causality (ie, the quantum/Bohr references regarding the intrinsic difficulty in establishing causality due to experimental contamination of observation - let alone the Copenhagen interpretation whereby the physical system is not defined without observation/collapse of the wave functions). Material in this section will have to be clarified (if not removed) at some stage.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 03:41, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter: Thanks for the considered response. I'd like to engage further with your remarks:

• Feedback/circular causality etc itself is irrelevant to physicalism (reductive and non-reductive): either the system can be described to function by the laws of physics or it can't.

I've questions about these remarks. The "circular causality" position of Freeman is clearly the view that "circular causality" is not causality as it is ordinarily thought of. That would seem to place him in the non-reductive camp. On the other hand, the "circular causality" defined by Kelso seems to be on the fence, stating that a system like the brain defies the traditional theory of feedback, but seems to leave the door open that a better theory might work. The view of "circular feedback" by Haken is smack in the middle of the engineer's view that "circular feedback" is a reference to a description in terms of cooperative action that can be reduced to subsystem properties, but one would sacrifice understandability by using that vocabulary. So it would seem to me that "circular causality" proponents are all over the map on this one. Why do you disagree?

• you don't find many academics ascribing to a model of mind which cannot be described to operate by the laws of physics (and therefore has at least a physical representation in the neural system; assuming it is not reduced to the neural system).

I'm not too interested in doing the statistics here on how many academics believe which option. It seems clear that neuroscientists favor this view, but there seems to be a school of academics that do not. I'd guess everybody believes that the brain is a physical system, but mind is not so clear. As above, some think its a phenomenon only correlated with some brain activity, some think it causes some brain activity, and some think it is an internal perception of brain activity that has no translation in the realm of neurology. Why should one school of academics have a favored position in this subsection?

• you have removed any reference to free will as described in this article (ie in/compatibilism), and so it leaves the reader completely uninformed as to whether the various modes of causality discussed are relevant to a particular definition of free will.

I'd say that connecting modes of causation to definitions of free will is desirable, but has yet to be accomplished here.

• the only material which could perhaps have implications for incompabilist free will is that which has implications for physical causality. ... Material in this section will have to be clarified (if not removed) at some stage.

I'm unsure of what you're saying here. It seems as though you think Bohr's views are pertinent to the incompatibilist position, but they should be deleted? My view is that Bohr's view probably is largely correct: it is fruitless to try to connect internal monitoring of mental processes (mind) to external observations that muck up these processes. That is also Northoff's view, but arrived at differently.

It seems clear to me that you approach this topic from a different angle than I do, and I'd like to understand your perspective better. Brews ohare (talk) 19:32, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Brews Ohare: I remain pretty adamant at present with respect to your suggestion (although it is very polite, and appreciate your efforts in explaining yourself thoroughly)...

The "circular causality" position of Freeman is clearly the view that "circular causality" is not causality as it is ordinarily thought of. That would seem to place him in the non-reductive camp.

If material is explicitly classified as non-reductive physicalism by the author and is a mainstream enough interpretation to be considered important enough to be placed side by side with anomalous monism on a summary of the mind-body problem, then perhaps it belongs to this paragraph. Secondarily, if material has implications for physical determinism then it relates to incompatibilism and must be clarified with respect to this. If material does not have implications for physical determinism, then it can only relate to compatibilist free will (if any).

As above, some think its a phenomenon only correlated with some brain activity, some think it causes some brain activity, and some think it is an internal perception of brain activity that has no translation in the realm of neurology.

The issue I am highlighting here is not whether or not mind affects brain (your options 1, 2, and 3 you have articulated nicely), but whether the laws of physics are compromised in the process. This is what is contentious of your statement "We might attempt to establish which of these choices is best, but that seems to be out of reach at the moment" in your proposed summary of the mind-body problem.

I'd say that connecting modes of causation to definitions of free will is desirable, but has yet to be accomplished here.

If the modes of causation described a) do not specify any bearing on physical determinism (and therefore either incompatibilism or at best compatibilism as a psychological theory of sorts), and b) do not explicitly reference/define models of free will, then the material is unclear, and possibly irrelevant.

I'm unsure of what you're saying here.

My suggestion should be read as follows (a satisfactory implementation thereof); the Bohr material in the section 'Free will and causality' perhaps has a bearing on incompatibilism. If any 'circular causality' material from either a) that section or b) your above draft summary imply that the laws of physics do not hold in all cases, then they perhaps have a bearing on incompatibilism also. Material which perhaps has a bearing on incompatibilist free will should be clarified as such and moved to section Incompatibilism (if not deleted). Any remaining circular causality material (ie, that which imply the laws of physics hold in all cases or do not suggest otherwise) does not have a bearing on incompatibilism - unless it also explicitly asserts indeterminism. Material which does not have a bearing on incompatibilism should be clarified as such and moved back to section Compatibilism (if not deleted). If you are unable to establish whether the references compromise physical determinism (please do not ignore the adjective), then I would recommend removing it from this article on Free will, as it unclear how it relates to any free will model defined here - unless the author explicitly discusses free will. If so, then their model should be added under "Other views".

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 02:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Freeman

I have chosen to begin discussion with Freeman, just to keep some focus. Here are your comments about his work:

Brews Ohare: I remain pretty adamant at present with respect to your suggestion (although it is very polite, and appreciate your efforts in explaining yourself thoroughly)...

The "circular causality" position of Freeman is clearly the view that "circular causality" is not causality as it is ordinarily thought of. That would seem to place him in the non-reductive camp.

If material is explicitly classified as non-reductive physicalism by the author and is a mainstream enough interpretation to be considered important enough to be placed side by side with anomalous monism on a summary of the mind-body problem, then perhaps it belongs to this paragraph. Secondarily, if material has implications for physical determinism then it relates to incompatibilism and must be clarified with respect to this. If material does not have implications for physical determinism, then it can only relate to compatibilist free will (if any).

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 02:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, Richard. Let's notice that Walter J. Freeman's chapter: "Consciousness, Intentionality, and Causality" is Chapter 5 in the book Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? Apparently these editors think his work is relevant to the topic "free will" that occurs all through this book, Freeman himself mentions free will on p. 89 where he says consciousness is "commonly but mistakenly attached to free will..." He says on p. 90 "It is absurd in the name of causal doctrine to deny our capacity as humans to make choices and decisions regarding our own futures, when we exercise the causal power that we experience as free will." Having thus completely muddied the waters he concludes on p. 102 by saying:

"It is paradoxical to assign linear causality to brains, and thereby cast doubt on the validity of causal agency (free will) in choices in and by humans, just because they are materialized in phase transitions in their brains."

What can be said about the relevance of Freeman to this article on free will? Well, one can say that Freeman thinks he is talking about free will, so maybe WP should grant him that.

Does Freeman "explicitly classify his work as non-reductive physicalism"? No, in fact, the word "physicalism" does not appear in his chapter.

Lastly, you would like Freeman's position to be place in the context of physical determinsm and compatibilism. I'd say myself that the quotes above indicate that Freeman would place determinism and compatibilism both in limbo because they are concerned with causality in a sense (a meaning) that Freeman considers to be irrelevant to the issue of free will altogether, namely these ideas refer to "linear causality", not "circular causality"..

Is Freeman's view "mainstream enough" to warrant inclusion? Well, there certainly are many exponents of the "emergent" school of thought about mind to warrant its mention. Maybe Freeman is not the best exponent of this view, but the editors of Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? thought his viewpoint significant enough to warrant inviting him to contribute to their book.

I am not particularly an advocate of Freeman's views. But it seems to me that Freeman's views fit into this article, but do not fit into the philosophical framework laid out in the WP article Free will. Freeman's claims (in my words) are that these categories are a Procrustean bed that should be abandoned. That's my take on Freeman - you may read him differently?

Richard, what more would you say? Brews ohare (talk) 20:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

It is evident from your analysis that this content;

a) does not belong to this paragraph (it certainly is not an explicit description of non-reductive physicalism)

b) does not belong to the mind-body problem section (it does not represent a mainstream philosophical model of mind as represented in the literature, if it does represent one at all)

c) appears to belong to section "Other views".

I suggest dissolving section Free will and causality and categorising its content appropriately as previously discussed.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 01:51, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Richard, help me out here.

(a) According to this source, for example, "Nonreductive physicalism claims that although the mind is physical (in some sense), mental properties are nonetheless not identical to (or reducible to) physical properties. This suggests that mental properties are, in earlier terminology, emergent properties of physical entities." I'd suggest that this view is pretty much what Freeman is talking about. So your point (a) seems wide of the mark. Can you explain further?

(b) It appears from this source again that this "emergent properties" view of Freeman's is in fact an ancient one well within the scope of the mind-body problem and free will, and hardly an outlier in the space of opinions.

(c) I don't see why Freeman's school of thought should be classified among "other views" as it belongs quite well where it is as a topic in the mind-body problem and its relation to free will. If my "Procrustean bed" interpretation of Freeman is accurate, I'd say that Freeman's form of "nonreductive physicalism" achieves its nonreducibilty by introducing a different realm of causality for the effects of intention (his "circular causality"), which is hardly a new idea although his attempts to relate it to "phase transitions" and "order parameters" dresses it in new vocabulary akin to condensed matter physics, but (I'd say) with a bit of a mystical element. Northoff introduces still other concepts of causality, achieving the same purpose of nonreducibility. Bohr achieves nonreducibility as well, by saying that "...any observation necessitates an interference with the course of the phenomena, which is of such a nature that it deprives us of the foundation underlying the causal mode of description." and further " the freedom of the will must be considered a feature of conscious life that corresponds to functions of the organism that not only evade a causal mechanical description,"

I'd like some more from you about your points above. Further discussion on this Talk page is needed. Personally, I do not agree with your rewrite and reorganization expressed here and here. Brews ohare (talk) 03:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding a) and b), it might possibly be classifiable as such, but it does not therefore mean this content belongs to a Mind-body problem summary (on a non-mind body problem article). I can't help further on c) at this point in time other than redirecting you to my previous argument (Revision of a paragraph in mind-body section).

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 04:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Richard: You say "it might possibly be classifiable as such, but it does not therefore mean this content belongs to a Mind-body problem summary (on a non-mind body problem article)" The classification of Freeman, Northoff, Kelso, Bohr as advocating "nonreductive physicalism" is simply an aid to those wanting to understand where this work fits into the terminology of old philosophical debate. The reason why Freeman's work belongs in an article on free will is that Freeman is explicitly addressing free will, his article is titled "Consciousness, Intentionality, and Causality", and it was selected by a group of editors to appear in the work Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?. I do believe the relation between intention and causality is the crux of the problem of free will, don't you? So how can Freeman's work be considered not pertinent to WP's article on Free will?

It seems to me, Richard, that you are placing your judgment of the value and relevance of this work above that of published authors and scholars. Brews ohare (talk) 12:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

On second thought, Richard, I've changed my mind about my above remarks. The real problem with this article is that it is a mish-mash and needs better organization. The leading figures aren't helpful. Only some dimensions of the problem are presented in the Intro, and not others. It's a big mess. Brews ohare (talk) 15:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Better introduction

The present introduction does not cover the dimensions of the problem. The leading figures are not helpful.

I'd keep the lead sentence:

Free will is defined as the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. Whether free will is a mere perception or an actuality, and what constraints might apply to it, has long been debated in philosophy.

From here one might describe some known constraints:

Certain constraints are known to apply, such as physical constraints (e.g. chains or imprisonment), social constraints (e.g. threat of punishment or censure), or psychological constraints (e.g. compulsions or phobias).

We also know about certain observations suggesting a large amount of subconscious brain activity underlies much of what we do:

In several brain-related conditions, individuals cannot entirely control their own actions. Though the existence of such conditions does not directly refute the existence of free will, the study of such conditions, like the neuroscientific studies above, is valuable in developing models of how the brain may construct our experience of free will.

The implications of evolution, self-programming robots, and so forth have a place:

In some generative philosophies of cognitive sciences and evolutionary psychology, free will is assumed not to exist. However, an illusion of free will is created, within this theoretical context, due to the generation of infinite or computationally complex behavior from the interaction of a finite set of rules and parameters.

Once the general layout of the article is established, it seems to me that a subsection can try to classify these ideas according to the various philosophical labels. Formal classification according to logical categories may have its merits but jargon doesn't do much for the average reader. Brews ohare (talk) 16:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The above excerpts from the article are not intended to be the new Intro, but just to show some of the range of the article that the Intro just does not attempt to introduce. Brews ohare (talk) 16:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Use of the word "extreme"

In a recent reversion, objection was raised to use of the word "extreme" as " 'extreme' phasing is biased against incompatibilists". Of course, stating that hard determinism and libertarianism are extreme positions was not intended pejoratively, but merely as a description that these views are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Nonetheless, to avoid any misconception, in reverting this edit I have removed the word "extreme" as a descriptor of these positions.

I believe characterizing hard determinism and libertarianism as "the two main positions within that debate" is not a NPOV, as the compatibilist stance is quite possibly more prevalent and equally important.

Likewise, suggesting that compatibilists view determinism as "irrelevant" is inaccurate if one uses the term "determinism" in its everyday language sense that one thing determines another i.e. determinism is not he same thing as strict determinism. Compatibilists certainly would agree that many aspects of what we decide to do are set by factors other than our will, and that our will is often impotent. For this reason, instead of the term "irrelevant" I'd prefer the statement that compatibilists limit the role of determinism and prefer to phrase matters in terms of constraints of various kinds. Brews ohare (talk) 14:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

It seems like you are still framing the issue in a biased way. Compatibilism is not a stance on the debate between whether or not we have free will in the sense that our actions are not metaphysically determined; there is not just a unidimensional spectrum which has hard determinism on one end and libertarianism on the other, as you keep trying to frame it (making "extreme" useless even as a purely descriptive adjective). Compatibilism is beside that debate entirely and say it is founded on a faulty premise; that free will is not just the absence of metaphysical determination, but rather it is the absence of something (varying by theory) much more specific; that we can be determined, in the broad metaphysical sense that present circumstances including our actions are completely and necessarily entailed by past circumstances, and still have free will if the specific way that our actions were determined lacked some particular especially egregious influence the presence of which would negate free will. That is the sense in which determinism is "irrelevant" to compatibilists; they are not partaking in the argument over whether or not we are determined and consequently whether or not we have free will, rather they are questioning what in particular we must not be determined by (not just whether our actions can be determined in general) in order to have free will.

For Hobbes, that was physical restraint: if you were not physically forced into action or inaction, then you acted of your own free will, even if there is no way you could have done other than that given some past circumstances and the laws of nature. For others (I think Rousseau was an example but I'm disappointed this material seems to have been lost from this article), that is social coercion: if nobody is holding a gun to your head (or less extremely threatening you somehow, e.g. with the law), then you act of your own free will. For some like Frankfurt, it is psychological hangups: if you are not suffering any compulsion or phobia or other lack of effectiveness of your own self-control, but rather you do what you do because you want to do it and you want to want to do it (if your desires about what desires are effective, are effective), then you act of your own free will. And so on.

I wonder though if this may be just an issue of terminology. In the article prior to your edits, the old consensus that we struggled to establish here a long time ago, we settled on the word "constraints" to refer to whatever it is that we must be free of to have free will, without saying "determinism" as that is generally understood in discussions of free will to refer to what you seem to want to call "strict" determinism. It seems like you want to use the word "determinism" to mean what we say by "constraints" here. I wonder if adding a qualifier to the use of "determinism" as the article stood prior to your edits would make things clearer for you; something like "nomological determinism". To be clear, this means the view that every moment is necessarily entailed by previous moments and the laws of nature, that everything is in principle predictable and nothing is random or uncertain, and everything everyone will ever do is already and has always been predetermined by the first events.

• Incompatibilists say that free will is (or at least requires) the absence of that. But among them, they disagree on whether that is the case, and thus whether we have free will; the two sides in that disagreement are libertarianism and hard determinism.
• Compatibilists on the other hand say it doesn't matter whether or not that is the case, we can have free will either way, so long as other much more specific things do not obtain; each then goes on to list their more specific thing.

My main objection to your edits to the lead recently have been on breaking the chain of that explanation: "Free will is lack of some kind of constraint. Many people think it's lack of that constraint (nomological determinism), and then argue about whether that constraint is really in effect. Others think it's not that constraint, and then argue about what constraint it is." Of course in the article that needs to be fleshed out more encyclopedically and thus more verbosely, and each sentence turns into a paragraph, but the way we had it before it was a cohesive flow of things into each other, and your edits keep breaking it up and losing the connection between the different parts.

I'm going to partially revert your edits again, keeping the sources you've added and adding that "nomological" qualifier, while we continue to discuss this here, per WP:BRD. --Pfhorrest (talk) 17:27, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: You have provided an outline of how the introduction is supposed to be understood:

• Incompatibilists say that free will is (or at least requires) the absence of that. But among them, they disagree on whether that is the case, and thus whether we have free will; the two sides in that disagreement are libertarianism and hard determinism.
• Compatibilists on the other hand say it doesn't matter whether or not that is the case, we can have free will either way, so long as other much more specific things do not obtain; each then goes on to list their more specific thing.

It is useful to have this outline. I'd make a few observations:

1. I don't think the intro succeeds in getting this across. It has elements of what you say in it, but it isn't clear.
2. While this outline covers a particular topic, it hardly covers the article content. See this, for example.
3. The topic covered by the outline in my mind is confusing in this way: there are two separate matters involved in the compatibilist-incompatibilist brouhaha. There is (i) the logical distinctions, and (ii) the question of whether any of these positions actually obtains "out there". These two different issues should be sharply separated and discussed individually. Brews ohare (talk) 15:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I like this response, it's very clear and makes me hopeful that we might reach some kind of understanding here.

To your point 1, I am very open to suggestions on how to better convey what I outlined here. I am only resistant to changes that seem to me to make that message less clear, which many of yours seem to do.

To your point 2, I am also completely open to the lede containing more information on other parts of the article that you want emphasized. But the very first part of an article is supposed to be a definition. On an article like this, where the definition is itself contentious, the best we can do is to state what little the contending parties agree on (free will is some kind of freedom, of the will, from something that would otherwise constrain it), and then state briefly what the different contentious positions are. On a non-contentious subject, we would just say "Subject is X", but here we have to say "Subject is some kind of X; many say it's this kind of X, others say it's various other kinds of X like A, B, or C."

Then, for various reasons, that statement has gotten a lot of basically parenthetical asides thrown into it: First of all it's not clear to everyone that we're not claiming Subject exists in stating a definition of what it would be if it did exist, so we immediately say that its existence is contentious in the same breath as saying that people disagree about what kind of X it would be if it did exist. Then, since we're basically listing some major positions A, B, and C, we also mention that those many who agree that it would be the first kind of X disagree about whether that kind of X obtains in fact. So that sentence at the end of the previous paragraph becomes even longer: "Subject is some kind of X. Whether it exists and what kind of X it is a subject of disagreement. Many people think it's this kind of X, and then argue about whether that kind of X exists. Others think it's not that kind of X, and argue about what kind of X it is, like A, B, or C."

The first two paragraphs of the article are basically that, with the variables filled in for free will in particular, and naming the different positions thereby described as they are introduced. The current third short paragraph is a brief postscript to that on a handful of other positions that don't fit neatly into asides to our opening definition. The current fourth paragraph is the only part of the lede that is not just an opening definition, or an aside crammed into it to address one objection or another. I would be happy to see more paragraphs added summarizing other parts of the article as well, and I think that would be a more productive place for you to contribute the things you want to contribute.

To your point 3, I could see what we have being reorganized along those lines, and in many ways I would personally like that, although I anticipate possible objections from incompatibilists that we would be giving compatibilism undue weight if we did so. We could say:

Free will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long been debated in philosophy. Historically, the constraint of dominant concern has been the metaphysical constraint of determinism (the notion that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events), but other kinds of constraints have also been proposed, such as physical constraints (e.g. chains or imprisonment), social constraints (e.g. threat of punishment or censure), or psychological constraints (e.g. compulsions or phobias).

Positions that hold that nomological determinism must be false in order for free will to be possible are classed as incompatibilist. Such incompatibilists then debate whether nomological determinism is true or false, and thus whether free will is possible or not. The two main positions within that debate are metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that nomological determinism is false, so free will is at least possible; and hard determinism, the claim that nomological determinism is true, so free will does not exist. Hard incompatibilism, while still holding that determinism is an obstacle to free will, holds that indeterminism is likewise an obstacle to free will, and concludes that free will is thus impossible in either case.

Positions that deny that nomological determinism is relevant, saying that we could have free will either way, are classified as compatibilist, and offer various alternative explanations of what constraints are relevant. Such compatibilists thus consider the debate between libertarianism and hard determinism a false dilemma. Some compatibilists assert that determinism is not just compatible with free will, but actually necessary for it; that the randomness of indeterminism is a greater obstacle to free will.

Most of the things you seem to want to talk about, e.g. neuroscience issues, seem to be things that take some kind of compatibilist definition of free will for granted (mostly it seems to be a psychological one ala Frankfurt but I'm not clear on that), and then do science to see if those constraints do in fact obtain, e.g. if there are actual neurological feedback mechanisms which allow for desires to have certain desires be effective on our actions to be effective on what desires actually are effective on our actions. That makes them basically the compatibilist equivalent of incompatibilists arguing over whether or not determinism is true, so if you think you could write a few sentences summarizing the state of knowledge in that field, I think it could fit well after the third of the above paragraphs I've just suggested. --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: I am confident we can work out a good approach to the article. I'll be away for a while, so I'm unsure how much time I can spend at this right now. Just speaking of my own perception of this issue, which is far from settled, it seems to me that a scientist is likely to take the view that "free will" means that mental intention can determine some state of the brain, at least in some cases, and from there you have several reactions. One view is that cannot happen, and "free will" is an internal percept without objective function. Another view is that intention is a descriptor that applies in a subjective realm that is in fact completely disjoint from neuroscience. A third view is that intention is a descriptor that ultimately will be accepted by neurosciemce as more than a correlate of some brain activity, somewhat in the manner that temperature is a useful concept in describing gases, even though it has only a statistical connection to atomic motions.

These different ideas can be sorted using various philosophical terms like "hard determinism" etc., and that may be useful. However, in understanding where the free will debate among scholars goes from here, I'd guess that it is going to be phrased in terms of the limitations of neuroscience and of artificial intelligence, and not be seen as a battle over terminology and different intuitions in the cogito ergo sum tradition.

I'd say we can work this out and it may well be a beautiful thing. Brews ohare (talk) 02:11, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

For reference, although I don't dispute the latest changes by Pfhorrest, I don't understand what was/is unclear about the introduction or the definition of determinism in this context. I also don't understand the primary difference between the various reactions been considered. View 2 "completely disjoint from neuroscience" implies view 1 "without objective function". View 3 appears to imply view 1 also (subject to one's philosophy): what is the objective function of temperature? Is not temperature a correlate of motion/kinetic energy? Higher order phenomena are based on their lower order counterparts: an object is more than its sum parts - argued since antiquity - but even a more complex analogy such as a biological system can be causally reduced thereby retaining no clear objective function. Basically it ("objective function") comes down to one's opinion on the independence of mind from (determined) physical reality (compatibilism/incompatibilism: those that argue independence is not important/important respectively), hence the historic debate. Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 04:03, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Ninja'd by Richard

My first thought reading your scientists-likely-view is "what exactly do we mean by 'intention'"?

On your 'third view', or the closely related purely reductivist view that an intention just is some kind of brain activity (I don't see why the "more than" is necessary for our purposes there), you're basically talking about Frankfurt-style compatibilism in neurological terms. Frankfurt's theory is not explicitly physicalist, and could in theory be applied to the function of some immaterial substance which then intervenes in the physical brain's function, but a purely physical implementation of the function which Frankfurt identified with free will would be whatever particular brain states we describe as "intentions" being able to determine particular other brain states (namely, other intentions). It's like asking "Do I have enough influence over this person to convince or condition or otherwise somehow affect him in a way that changes his desires or at least which desires he acts on?", but in the special case where "this person" in question is oneself, and where the interaction is thus between brain-states and not separate organisms; it's asking "if I wanted to want something other than I do want, would that make me want it?"

Sticking to physicalism still, your 'second view' would simply seem to be a 'no' answer to this question: I may regret the desires I have and wish I didn't have them, but that's not going to change my having them; I subjectively perceive a self-judgement of my own actions and approval or disapproval of them, but that's always after the fact of the action and has no effect on what actions I take. And your 'first view' seems to me to be answering the question before establishing what is being asked; we haven't established what an 'intention' is and whether we are even asking a scientific question yet (e.g. we could be asking if Cartesian mental substances are causally effective on physical brains for all we know at this point).

I'm kind of rambling off-topic now, so to get back to the article itself: I'm thinking that perhaps a better way to organize the entire article may be to stop isolating the science from the philosophy. I'm still very adamant that at every point we need to be clear about exactly what concept of free will is being discussed, so I want to keep a structure similar to that of the "In western philosophy" section, but I think the scientific topics can be integrated into there, both will benefit from it.

I'm thinking we have the article mainly organized into sections on one concept (or definition) or free will each, and then everything, philosophical, religious, scientific, etc, discussing that concept of free will, organized within that section.

• Our first section would be on free will as lack of (nomological) determinism, and would discuss the debate between libertarians and hard determinists, the physics of whether the universe is deterministic or not and whether and how any nondeterministic effects may manifest on the macroscopic scale of human behavior, religious issues about God's supposed foreknowledge and what effects that would have on this kind of free will, etc.
• We could then have sections on conceptions closely related to lack of nomological determinism, such as free will as lack of predictability, two-stage models that require both some indeterminism and some indeterminism, perhaps the new "variations of causality" section (though honestly that sounds like it should go in the "as a psychological state" section, as it sounds remarkably similar to Frankfurt, identifying free will with a kind of reflexivity).
• Then we could have a section free will as lack of physical restraint, covering the 'classical compatibilists' like Hobbes, and criticisms of this conception involving the distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action.
• Then we have a section on free will as a psychological state (or condition or function), which can discuss both the philosophical arguments that this is the correct conception of free will, as well as the large variety of scientific issues that seem to assume a conception something like this, including issues of genetic and environmental conditioning, neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, etc.
• Then sections on the different 'other views' not yet categorized.

Basically, create "boxes" for each different concept of free will. Then go through the article and sort every part of it into the right box according to what concept of free will they're talking about. Then organize each box individually according to what kinds of things are in it (e.g. the 'lack of determinism' box will have physics and theology sections that most other boxes won't, whereas the 'psychological function' box will have all kinds of bio/neuro/psycho/socio science sections that most other boxes won't).

Thoughts? --Pfhorrest (talk) 04:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: I'm in transit, so can't say a bunch. The box idea is a good start, combining philosophical categories with their neuroscientific, psychological, and evolutionary aspects. One additional aspect is the impact of advances in cognitive robots and artificial intelligence; there is both scientific and literary interest (remember Hal and the Terminator?) in things like the extent to which an adaptive robot can actually modify its fundamental goals all by itself as well as modifying its strategies toward reaching those goals. How close is the analogy of a computer algorithm selecting an optimal strategy to the idea of its apparently having free will? Brews ohare (talk) 17:41, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

No worries about not having time much, I'm slammed with work and life and won't be doing much around here on my own.

Anyway, yes I agree that AI fits perfectly in with some variety of the "psychological functional" sense of free will. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

(Again, for reference) There is a strong connection between sense of self and freedom. When we feel capable of acting in accordance with this belief/trust in self; if necessary overcoming/contravening our programmed (eg subconscious) reality. T2 goes further by highlighting/hinting a relationship between sense of self and sense of other - one which is perhaps even an educational process. There should be more references for this "psychological function" variant of compatibilism. Eddy Nahmias has noted that when peoples actions are framed with respect to their beliefs and desires (rather than their neurological underpinnings) they are more likely to dissociate determinism from moral responsibility. Adam Feltz and Edward Cokely found that people of an extrovert personality type are more likely to dissociate belief in determinism from belief in moral responsibility.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 03:57, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The moral/legal concept of free will is absurd since social pressure to blame and justify makes free will impossible.

As shown by Kurt Fischer, Christina Hinton et al. in "Mind, Brain and Education", extreme cases of neuroplasticity, such as mental recoveries from brain damage that mainstream psychology considers impossible, are linked to tolerant environments. This can be explained by the fact that social pressure to blame on others leads to making up putative mental limitations to blame on, and social pressure to justify leads to justification which paralyses self-correction. The tolerance factor also solves the by research proving the existence of rapid evolution highlighted contradiction between biological explanations of individual psychiatry and sociological explanations of ethnic differences. Since rapid evolution means that divergent pressure can quickly turn individual differences into group differences, the fact that most studies support the contradictory view must be because there is a methodological difference, a missing environmental factor taken into account by ethnic studies but overlooked by studies of individual psychiatry. Since racist discrimination is a form of intolerance, the tolerance factor is a good candidate for being the missing environmental factor. So the concept of free will as a basis for moral/legal responsibility is exactly what through much of society prevents free will from existing. The way to make will free is by abolishing all social pressure to blame and justify, which makes the question of what constitutes responsibility irrelevant. 109.58.101.110 (talk) 09:01, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Martin J Sallberg

Martin: These issues of the social ramifications of different beliefs in free will is an important topic with many aspects including the effect of these beliefs upon the treatment of antisocial behavior. As an instance, it is apparent that the facts of addiction as determined by neuroscience have important implications for rehabilitation that are ignored by the judicial system in most if not all countries. It is equally clear that much of education of the young ignores the established neurological foundations of the learning process, with undue emphasis upon the student's exercise of their "free will" in undertaking studying and desiring to learn. Perhaps you have some suggestions for treating these topics? Brews ohare (talk) 19:40, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Free will Concepts Based On Determinism Views

What do you guys think of this figure for section Hard Determinism?

NB I wasn't sure about the definition/name of theology that rejects destiny (currently it stands as 'Theological Libertarianism').

I have ordered the figure such that, in general, the higher levels of freedom require their respective lower levels of freedom. I.e. if one is not determined by destiny then they cannot be determined by nature; if one is not determined by nature then they cannot be determined by their subconscious; if one is not determined by their subconscious then they cannot be determined by their genetics/environment; if one is not determined by their genetics/environment then they cannot be determined by society.

The psychological determinism category assumes orectic psychological determinism as indicated - noting that rational psychological determinism would equate to compatibilism with respect to this form of determinism.

Regarding the instances of compatibilism in this figure (psychological indeterminism, biological indeterminism, and cultural indeterminism), there is a pseudo correspondence with the forms of compatibilism discussed in this article (ie Free will as a psychological state, Free will as unpredictability, and Free will as lack of physical restraint respectively) - but it is weak.

Cheers,

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Richard: The figure doesn't really help much with the understanding of the terminology. For example, the figure shows Compatibilism has three divisions: psychological, biological and cultural. That information is more readily understood as a statement, or better, using headers and subheaders in the text:

Compatibilism

Compatibilism can be viewed as allowing free will in the presence of any of three major subdivisions of determinism as described below:

Psychological determinism

Psychological determinism subsumes two further subdivisions, orectic psychological determinism and rational psychological determinism... .

Biological determinism

Biological determinism is closely related to genetic determinism ...

Cultural determinism

Cultural determinism can be contrasted with environmental determinism ...

and so forth. I don't agree with this structuring of compatibilism, but if that is what one wants to do, a revision of the text would be more helpful than addition of this figure. Brews ohare (talk) 19:27, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback Brews.

The intention of the figure is not to capture all possible forms of compatibilism - it does not even represent those in the text (there is only a weak correspondence as above). The intention is to demonstrate how free will can been be seen in the light of different conceptions of determinism - and the relevance of incompatibilism/compatibilism to each. I am not aware of compatibilism having three major divisions: psychological, biological and cultural (it would be pure coincidence if it did). The figure could even be modified such that environmental/genetic determinism was broken down thereby creating four relevant categories of compatibilism; but this seemed to overweight compatibilism (and would mean removing an important category: biological determinism). A major point of the figure is to demonstrate that incompatibilism/metaphysical libertarianism is only relevant to (dependent on) one form of determinism: physical/causal/nomological determinism. NB incompatibilism is only relevant to theological determinism in so far as it asserts that (presuming the existence of a creator deity) freedom from destiny requires physical indeterminism.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 03:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

An error in the definition of hard determinism appears to have been introduced to wikipedia:

00:41, 7 February 2012 / Peterdjones / "clarify"

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Hard_determinism&oldid=470320977

Hard determinism (or metaphysical determinism) is a view on free will which holds that that determinism is true...

->

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Hard_determinism&oldid=475490890

Hard determinism (or metaphysical determinism) is a view on free will which holds that that some form of determinism is true...

01:04, 7 February 2012 / Peterdjones / "Hard determinism: expand a little"

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Free_will&oldid=475488145

->

Hard determinism is a view on free will which holds that that some form of determinism is true, and that it is incompatible with free will...

http://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Free_will&oldid=475494487

I have updated the figure accordingly, along with the wikipedia articles.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 04:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not super thrilled with this figure, if anything it seems more confusing then elucidating. On several levels.

First and more trivially, I don't understand the reason behind the sort of ordering you've put things in. If I were to do a chart like this, I would have put it destiny -> physics -> (psychology = biology & society) -> coercion -> chains.

• If certain events are just fated, and God is going to make them happen no matter what, physics be damned he'll suspend the laws of nature and perform a miracle if he has to, then that's beyond even hard determinism, that's fatalism.
• Sans that, physical, causal, nomological determination would encompass all of the biological, psychological, and social processes within the determined history of the universe; if such physical determinism exists and is sufficient to rule out free will (the incompatibilist position), then there's no point in worrying about the details of what biological, psychological, or social processes are impeding our free will, as there was never any chance for them not to, there are merely the mechanisms by which our unfree actions are determined, and any alternate mechanism would be equally deterministic.
• If it's possible to have free will despite physical, causal, nomological determinism (the compatibilist position), then we start looking at the particular processes by which our actions are caused and whether those are sufficient to constitute free will or not. This is where both biological and cultural determinism are relevant. If we are merely programmed by genes and memes, genetics and environment, nature and nurture, and do not have any kind of self-control of our own mental processes, any ability to self-reprogram, then we do not have free will in the psychological sense popular with modern compatibilists.
• But then there are older senses of free will popular with classical compatibilists, where even if you don't have that kind of psychological freedom, you are still free so long as your actions are not being coerced, e.g. so long as somebody's not pointing a gun at you and you can do what you want without retaliation, you're free in that sense. Modern compatibilists would say that that is political freedom, and is something different from freedom of will; that you could have either without the other, they're not the same thing.
• And then there's the oldest compatibilist sense from Hobbes, where even if someone is holding a gun to your head, so long as they are not literally forcing your hand, but you are performing actions under your own motor control as you want to, coercion and psychological compulsion and physical determination be damned, you are still "free" to act or not. Modern compatibilists would say that this is "freedom of action", and is also something different from "freedom of will".

Secondly and more prominently... the various positions on free will just don't fit accurately into a two-dimensional chart like this, and trying to make them fit is just confusing. I threw together a more accurate chart of sorts (still pretty simplified, missing all the unpredictability and two-stage and other semi-incompatibilist positions, as well as hard incompatibilism, but it gets the point across well enough): external link because I don't intend this to be used in the article and so won't upload it here.

The closest to this I could see being useful would be just a graphic of the different kinds of determinism without the second column, but then I don't see why we'd want that to be a graphic. Much more useful might be some kind of Euler diagram. It would be a really complicated one though (intersections of different kinds of determinism and different definitions of free will, each of which would be pretty complicated on their own), and so I would question its usefulness as well. --Pfhorrest (talk) 09:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

That is a great figure, and a very good explanation. I accept your primary argument. I agree that it would be more important at this stage to have a figure outlining the different forms of compatibilism as discussed in the article/literature than a figure identifying the relevance of compatibilism/incompatibilism to different forms of determinism (as the figure stands).

Regarding your minor points;

1. I chose this ordering because I was dealing with responses to determinism only (as identified in section hard determinism), not with all forms of compatibilism (for which I like your ordering: destiny -> physics -> -> coercion -> chains).

2. Freedom from theological determinism (destiny) still requires physical indeterminism (hence its relevance to incompatibilism and choice of red) as a necessary but insufficient condition - again noting the presumption of a creator deity (ie, freedom from more general "fatalism" perhaps does not). NB I purposely stated that higher levels of freedom require their lower levels of freedom (not that higher levels of determinism require their lower levels of determinism). In any case, the figure does not assert any basis behind the ordering, and I added the "in general" clause to deal with exceptions (way to go subconscious anticipation...)

3->5. Everything else makes perfect sense, and thanks for laying it out so nicely.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 13:00, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

One positive result of your figure, Richardbrucebaxter, is that it resulted in the presentation by Pfhorrest above, which should be the introduction to this article. It lays matters out in a very clear manner and would make it possible for 98% of readers of Free will to stop at its end and leave with a grasp of the matter. Aficionados of splitting hairs and disputing definitions could proceed further, to enjoy their particular amusement.

In any event, to underline the conclusion here, it is revision that is needed, not this figure. Brews ohare (talk) 13:30, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest's flowchart

For purposes of structuring a revision of this article, an outline could be based upon Phorrest's flowchart, presented with minor modifications below:

------------------

Are some events fated to happen, no matter what else happens?

Yes → Fatalism

No → In principle, if all events are necessitated by prior events, is free will possible?

No → Incompatibilism

→ In fact, are all events necessitated by prior events?

Yes → Hard determinism

No → Libertarianism

Yes → Compatibilism

→ In principle, if all our actions are determined by nature/nurture etc., is free will possible?

Yes → Classical compatibilism

→ In fact, if others coerce our actions, is free will possible?

No → For example, see Rousseau

→ In fact, if others physically force or restrain our actions, is free will possible?

No → For example, see Hobbes

No → Modern compatibilism

→ In fact, are our actions determined by nature/nurture etc.?

Yes → Psychological determinism; Nurture → Cultural determinism; Nature → Biological determinism

No → For example, see Harry Frankfurt

------------------

Can a revision, at least in part, be based upon this outline? What adjustments are necessary? Can neuroscience and mind-body problem be explicitly incorporated? Can the case be fit in explicitly that only some events, not all of them, are predetermined? Brews ohare (talk) 15:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Wow, I'm pleasantly surprised at the positive reaction to my little chart.

As to your first question there (actually, all of them except the last, which I don't quite understand), this is exactly what I was proposing earlier. We divide the article up into sections on the different senses of free will, and then put all material, be it scientific, philosophical, or whatever, that talks about free will in that sense, in that section.

Off the top of my head, we would have sections with contents like this (not particularly well-organized here, I'm in a rush):

• Incompatibilism (free will as lack of nomological determination)
  • Distinguishing determinism from fatalism
  • Philosophical arguments for why this is the correct sense of free will, including descriptions of the positions:
    • Metaphysical libertarianism
    • Hard determinism
    • Hard incompatibilism (may deserve its own section or at least subsection as it adds another criterion to the sense of free will)
  • Physical findings on whether or not nomological determinism in fact is the case
  • Theological discussions about reconciling God's omniscience with free will
• Compatibilist senses of free will still concerned with something like nomological determinism (unpredictability, two-stage models, etc; may be better split into several sections)
  • Philosophical arguments for why this or that is the correct sense of free will
  • Mathematical limits of prediction, etc
• Classical compatibilism of the Hobbesian variety
  • Overview of Hobbes' view
  • Criticism and distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action
• Classical compatibilism in the Rousseau sense (or not, as we seem to be missing whatever we used to have on this sense)
• Modern compatibilism of the Frankfurtian variety
  • Philosophical arguments for why this is the correct sense of free will
    • Biological arguments about whether biology permits us to have free will in this sense
    • Sociological arguments about whether culture permits us to have free will in this sense
    • Psychological and neurological arguments about whether our minds and brains are set up in a way to permit us this sense of free will
• Other discussions of free will (as useful, as an illusion, etc -- maybe multiple sections, maybe integrated into other sections)

That's the general idea, but it needs a lot of refinement. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

New outline by Pfhorrest

Below I have annotated the new outline provided by Pfhorrest. Of course, it is easier to pick at an outline than to construct one, and I hope my annotations are viewed as a step in the evolution of the outline, and not viewed as some form of refutation of this evolutionary process.

I hope my comments will be addressed to help me come closer to what Pfhorrest has in mind.

• Incompatibilism (free will as lack of nomological determination)
  • Distinguishing determinism from fatalism
  • Philosophical arguments for why this is the correct sense of free will, including descriptions of the positions:
    • Metaphysical libertarianism
    • Hard determinism
    • Hard incompatibilism (may deserve its own section or at least subsection as it adds another criterion to the sense of free will)

→ Here the use of "the correct sense of free will" is a contentious phrasing. Definitions are not "correct" or "incorrect". One can classify the logical relationship drawn between definitions as "logically correct" or "logically incorrect"

→ It is contentious to suppose that these "all or nothing" definitions exhaust the repertoire of possible definitions for free will.

• • Physical findings on whether or not nomological determinism in fact is the case

→ I doubt that there are any such physical findings. The physical findings like studies of the addicted brain, or studies of behavioral modification using "brainwashing" or "advertising" or psychological counseling show only that in some prescribed circumstances a modicum of determinism is introduced into decisions and behavior.

• • Theological discussions about reconciling God's omniscience with free will

→ One can introduce theology into the matter, and historically that has been very significant. However, I suspect that theology is not logically separate from secular views of the matter.

• Compatibilist senses of free will still concerned with something like nomological determinism (unpredictability, two-stage models, etc; may be better split into several sections)

→ Compatibilism, in a broad sense, is not concerned particularly with "nomological determinism" if that means the view that everything is determined. Rather, it is concerned with what aspects of mental life are determined and to what degree.

• • Philosophical arguments for why this or that is the correct sense of free will

→ Again, there is no "correct sense" of free will to be found by analyzing hypothetical formulations. The correctness of any definition is an empirical matter, to be established by how well that definition squares with observations, however one classifies observations. It is (I'd hazard) extremely unlikely that any definition can be shown to be completely correspondent with observations, and so no definition will be correct in every situation.

• • Mathematical limits of prediction, etc

→ Mathematics has no power of prediction. When a theory is introduced that incorporate relations between a mathematical formalism and observations, that theory may have limited value for prediction. But, for example, geometries (of various kinds: Euclidean, spherical, Riemannian) are autonomous creations, and have application to such things as surveying, navigation, and so on only for certain domains of experience. It is the application of geometry that is correct or not; it is not the geometry itself.

• Classical compatibilism of the Hobbesian variety
  • Overview of Hobbes' view
  • Criticism and distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action

→ This distinction is, I believe, extremely crucial and should be raised in importance in the article. Per Timothy O'Connor (Oct 29, 2010). Edward N. Zalta, ed (ed.). "Free Will". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition). The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. {{cite web}}: |editor= has generic name (help) - "Philosophers who distinguish freedom of action and freedom of will..."

• Classical compatibilism in the Rousseau sense (or not, as we seem to be missing whatever we used to have on this sense)
• Modern compatibilism of the Frankfurtian variety
  • Philosophical arguments for why this is the correct sense of free will

→ Again, the use of "correct" is inadvisable, confusing logical constructions with the applicability of theoretical constructions to observations of the world.

• • • Biological arguments about whether biology permits us to have free will in this sense

→ Again, biology does not "permit" a "sense" of free will, but offers evidence as to whether a particular sense of free will has any utility in the real world. The type of observation accepted in biology is subject to evolution - for instance, brain scans were not available in early times. Also, there is reason to doubt that biological observations are applicable to some of the issues involved here, as noted by Georg Northoff (2004). Philosophy of the Brain: The Brain Problem (Volume 52 of Advances in Consciousness Research ed.). John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN 1588114171., and differently, by Bohr, also discussed here.

• • • Sociological arguments about whether culture permits us to have free will in this sense

→ Again, sociology so far as this is a science doesn't "permit" a "sense" of free will, but offers evidence as to its utility in a particular (possibly severely proscribed) arena.

• • • Psychological and neurological arguments about whether our minds and brains are set up in a way to permit us this sense of free will

→ Just which "sense" is being compared with just what observations of mind and brain? Many senses of "mind" have yet to be placed in correspondence with the kind of observations accepted in biology, and some would argue that such a correspondence between the subjective and objective is impossible in principle. Some would argue that such correspondence awaits the development of a more general theory of complex non-linear feedback systems which will introduce new concepts more readily associated with the subjective experiences of mental life. (As an aside, it might be noted that not all concepts of a theory have to be observable (the stance of the verificationist school): only that the theory has to predict observable consequences.)

• Other discussions of free will (as useful, as an illusion, etc -- maybe multiple sections, maybe integrated into other sections)

→ The discussion of free will as a "useful" concept should be, in my view, a major aspect of this article that can be ranked right up there with the historical background and the various definitions. The various definitions must be related to usefulness in order that their discussion be more than an amusement. Brews ohare (talk) 16:01, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

→ In this connection, it might be noted that a lot of discussion of free will is related to its practical implications for law, medicine and education. In particular, a belief in "free will" underlies the apportionment of legal punishment on the basis of whether one was "in control" of one's actions, or a victim of ungovernable emotion. The law's application of punishment or treatment for addiction depends upon one's views about an individual's ability to "will" going cold turkey. And so forth. These are not academic issues only. Brews ohare (talk) 16:21, 5 November 2012 (UTC)

It should be noted that this new outline has abandoned to a degree one aspect of the previous flowchart, namely the attempt to inter-relate the various approaches as branches of a tree of various logical alternatives. Maybe the tree structure has some merits? Brews ohare (talk) 13:09, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

→ Here the use of "the correct sense of free will" is a contentious phrasing. Definitions are not "correct" or "incorrect". One can classify the logical relationship drawn between definitions as "logically correct" or "logically incorrect"

→ Again, there is no "correct sense" of free will to be found by analyzing hypothetical formulations. The correctness of any definition is an empirical matter, to be established by how well that definition squares with observations, however one classifies observations. It is (I'd hazard) extremely unlikely that any definition can be shown to be completely correspondent with observations, and so no definition will be correct in every situation.

→ Again, the use of "correct" is inadvisable, confusing logical constructions with the applicability of theoretical constructions to observations of the world.

I don't mean to have the article state in its own voice which sense of free will is the correct one. And I have some sympathy for your apparent position that what matters is we just be clear about what sense we mean. Nevertheless philosophers do notably argue that one particular formulation of the concept of "free will" better matches our common (informal) use and intuition of the concept, and we need a space to include that content.

For a prominent contemporary example, incompatibilists like to appeal to the principle of alternative possibilities as a necessary condition of any formulation of the concept of free will (and then show that determinism would run counter to that principle and so is incompatible with free will), but Frankfurt counterexamples intend to show that there are conditions where, determinism or not, the principle of alternate possibilities clear does not hold true, but we nevertheless intuitively want to say someone still acted of their own free will.

And I'm not sure what you're on about regarding empirical verification of definitions. That makes no sense. A definition is not in itself a position on whether or not free will actually exists; it's just a claim of what exactly this free will thing we're talking about would be if it existed. Definitional issues are about clarifying the question, not about coming up with their answers; that comes afterward.

For an example you're likely to agree with: Hobbes said that by "free will" all we can really sensibly mean is unimpeded action, the freedom to do what we want, unbound by chains and the like. You and I will both agree, I think that that is a bad definition of free will; that is the definition of freedom of action, and freedom of will is something else entirely. The argument between compatibilists and incompatibilists is like that: they're not arguing about facts of the world, they're arguing about what facts are relevant in the question "do we have free will?". They're arguing about what we really mean when we ask that question. And we need a place to include their arguments that "This is what we mean when we ask whether we have free will, and here's why we have to mean this...".

→ It is contentious to suppose that these "all or nothing" definitions exhaust the repertoire of possible definitions for free will.

I think you misunderstood my use of the definite article. I did not mean that to be an exhaustive list of all positions on free will -- not "THE positions on free will". I meant it to be a list of some positions on free will, specifically those three (incompatibilist ones); like if I said "bring me the ex-presidents Bush and Clinton", I would not mean that those are all of the ex-presidents, but that I want some ex-presidents and the ones I want are those two.

Within an incompatibilist sense of free will though, those positions are exhaustive. Incompatibilists all agree free that "free will" means something which requires indeterminism. So within that framework, either determinism is true and therefore there is no free will (D .: ~F, hard determinism), determinism is false and we do have free will (metaphysical libertarianism), or determinism is false but for other reasons we still don't have free will (hard incompatibilism). Incompatibilism states, in short, "~(D & F)", which leaves open the possibilities "D & ~F" (hard determinism), "~D & F" (metaphysical libertarianism), and "~D & ~F (hard incompatibilism).

Of course compatibilists go on to dispute that "~(D & F)", and argue that free will is something unrelated to the relationship between D and F. So there are more positions besides those three, but within incompatibilism those three are logically exhaustive.

→ I doubt that there are any such physical findings. The physical findings like studies of the addicted brain, or studies of behavioral modification using "brainwashing" or "advertising" or psychological counseling show only that in some prescribed circumstances a modicum of determinism is introduced into decisions and behavior.

I was thinking of findings in physics there, when I said "physical findings". You know, things like all this indeterminism stuff physicists have been going on about since Heisenberg, Schrodinger, et al. As far as contemporary physics is concerned, nomological determinism is false; the universe is indeterministic and we have very strong empirical evidence to support that assertion. This is very relevant to incompatibilism, as unless refuted it narrows the possibilities down to metaphysical libertarianism or hard incompatibilism, and the close examination of indeterminism and its relationship to randomness starts to give strong credence to hard incompatibilism between the two, or else more compatibilist views (e.g. we don't want to say that an electron has free will, but its behavior is indeterministic, so by an incompatibilist sense of free will why shouldn't we? is there something more that's required for free will besides indeterminism? is there such a thing as too much indeterminism? Then we get into two-stage models and the like...)

→ One can introduce theology into the matter, and historically that has been very significant. However, I suspect that theology is not logically separate from secular views of the matter.

Agreed that the conclusions are going to be the same either way, but there are whole bodies of literature which deal with the problem of determinism as caused by God having perfect knowledge and control of every event that will ever happen, rather than the problem of determinism as caused by there being rigorous impersonal laws of nature which permit no randomness into the inevitable progression of one moment to the next. There is a lot of general material that applies to both, but then there's a lot of material talking specifically about physical, causal determination (like the section above) and a lot of other material talking specifically about divine foreknowledge, so I think they could each deserve their own subsections if we have material on them both.

→ Compatibilism, in a broad sense, is not concerned particularly with "nomological determinism" if that means the view that everything is determined. Rather, it is concerned with what aspects of mental life are determined and to what degree.

True on the first sentence, but the second only describes some varieties of compatibilism. Compatibilism is not a monolithic thing like incompatibilism where everyone agrees on the definition of free will; it's only united by disagreeing with the incompatibilist definition.

What I meant here was that there are other compatibilists which, being compatibilist, say that free will can coexist with nomological determinism, but still say that the important factor in free will is something very much like nomological determinism. Specifically, I'm thinking of two-stage models which say that some indeterminism is necessary but also that some determinism is necessary, which are almost a direct outgrowth of the concerns that would otherwise lead people to hard incompatibilism ("too much" of either would undermine free will); and of Dennett's sense of free will as unpredictability, which says that even if the past and the laws of nature do strictly necessitate specific future actions and people can't do otherwise, we have no way even in principle of predicting what those actions will be before they occur (for a variety of reasons), so for all intents and purposes the universe might as well be indeterministic, even if it's really not.

These views are strictly speaking compatibilist, but they are very close to incompatibilism in their definition of what "free will" is. Instead of saying free will requires indeterminism, they say it requires some but not too much indeterminism, or that it requires unpredictability. In contrast, other compatibilist senses of "free will" work fine even if there is complete nomological determinism and complete predictability; they say it's not a matter of "how much" something is determined (there doesn't need to be any random input to the system at all), or whether we can determine (i.e. predict) the outcome, but about what specifically determines what, about how outcomes (people's actions) are determined, by what process.

→ Mathematics has no power of prediction. When a theory is introduced that incorporate relations between a mathematical formalism and observations, that theory may have limited value for prediction. But, for example, geometries (of various kinds: Euclidean, spherical, Riemannian) are autonomous creations, and have application to such things as surveying, navigation, and so on only for certain domains of experience. It is the application of geometry that is correct or not; it is not the geometry itself.

I was speaking not of the ability of mathematics to make predictions, but on limits imposed by mathematics on our ability to generate predictions from mathematical models. This is related to Dennett's sense of free will as unpredictability. Issues with computational complexity and chaos impose not just practical but even theoretical limits on our ability to compute sufficiently detailed simulations of the world faster than the events we're simulating occur. So even if there is some distinct fact about what a particular person will do at a particular time, given the past and the laws of nature, and even if we somehow knew the past and the laws of nature perfectly, it may (and probably is) the case that we simply cannot, even on a perfect ideal optimal computer, do the computations necessary to predict that that person will do, before they do it. We could cut corners and get a less accurate prediction faster, but then that inaccuracy lets unpredictability slip in again.

I meant for this subsection to be an area to discuss computational complexity and chaos theory, within the section on this sense of free will as unpredictability. Just like we'd have a subsection on quantum indeterminism within the section on incompatibilism. They're scientific or mathematical issues relevant to that sense of free will and so deserve a summary at least in the relevant section.

→ This distinction is, I believe, extremely crucial and should be raised in importance in the article. Per Timothy O'Connor (Oct 29, 2010). Edward N. Zalta, ed (ed.). "Free Will". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition). The Metaphysics Research Lab Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. {{cite web}}: |editor= has generic name (help) - "Philosophers who distinguish freedom of action and freedom of will..."

I personally agree that it's an important distinction, but it's not one that everyone makes, and there are other important distinctions that not everyone makes too. I think it's an issue of "what exactly do or do not we mean by 'free will'" exactly like the definitional issues surrounding compatibilism vs incompatibilism, and so belongs in this section among discussion of the validity of this sense of free will. Just like compatibilists tell incompatibilists "free will is something different from just indeterminism; indeterminism is not the same thing as, and is not enough for, free will" -- likewise you and I and most modern compatibilist say "free will is something different from just freedom of action; freedom of action is not the same thing as, and is not enough for, free will".

Your second sentence there seems a little strange, I'm not sure exactly what you were trying to say.

→ Again, biology does not "permit" a "sense" of free will, but offers evidence as to whether a particular sense of free will has any utility in the real world.

→ Again, sociology so far as this is a science doesn't "permit" a "sense" of free will, but offers evidence as to its utility in a particular (possibly severely proscribed) arena.

Note that I said "society", not "sociology"; the object of study, not the field which studies it. Likewise, I meant "biology" in the sense of the stuff biologists study (organisms, genes, etc), not in the sense of the activity that biologists do (which is to study that stuff).

That is to say, by "whether biology permits" and "whether society permits", I mean that in these sections we discuss issues of biological and cultural determinism, and look at the scientific evidence for whether our behavior is completely fixed by our genetics/upbringing/etc, or if there are feedback mechanisms which meet the definition of free will in this sense (being able to want what you want to want, and to change which of your desires are effective on your behavior, rather than just wanting what you've been programmed to want and inevitably acting on whichever of those desires is strongest).

→ Just which "sense" is being compared with just what observations of mind and brain? Many senses of "mind" have yet to be placed in correspondence with the kind of observations accepted in biology, and some would argue that such a correspondence between the subjective and objective is impossible in principle. Some would argue that such correspondence awaits the development of a more general theory of complex non-linear feedback systems which will introduce new concepts more readily associated with the subjective experiences of mental life. (As an aside, it might be noted that not all concepts of a theory have to be observable (the stance of the verificationist school): only that the theory has to predict observable consequences.)

I'm not entirely sure what your objection here is. All I meant was "in this section we will discuss psychological determinism".

It should be noted that this new outline has abandoned to a degree one aspect of the previous flowchart, namely the attempt to inter-relate the various approaches as branches of a tree of various logical alternatives. Maybe the tree structure has some merits?

I meant for this to read like a narrative version of the tree structure. Let me maybe outline it again with more verbiage to make that clear:

• (Incompatibilism) Some people say that free will is incompatibile with nomological determinism.
  • They argue that it must be so because .
  • But they disagree about whether determinism is true:
    • (Hard determinism) Some say it is
    • (Metphysical libertarianism) Some say it's not
  • Theologians have argued about whether God's omniscience entails determinism and what that means for free will...
  • Physicists used to think determinism was true because , but modern physicists now think determinism is false because , however , etc...
  • (Hard incompatibilism) Some of these people say that free will is also incompatibile with indeterminism, so any way you slice it, we don't have it.

But other people say that determinism is not incompatible with free will...

• (Two-stage models) Some people say that free will requires some determinism, but not too much...
  • They argue that it must be so because .
• (Unpredictability) Other people say it doesn't matter whether or not or how much you're determined, but whether or not you're predictable.
  • They argue that it must be so because .
  • Mathematical results tell us that even theoretically deterministic systems can be unpredictable even in principle because

Others say that it doesn't matter whether or not or how much you're determined or predictable, but about what specific limits there are on your abilities.

• Some say that your will is free so long as you are not imprisoned or in chains.
  • They say that it must be so because But others say that free will has nothing to do with that, that's just freedom of action.
• Other say that your will is free so long as nobody's pointing a gun at your head.
  • They say that it must be so because But other say that free will has nothing to do with that, that's just political liberty.
• Still others say that your will is free so long as you have a psychological feedback mechanism which allows your wanting to want something different to cause you to want something different, etc.
  • They say that it must be so because .
  • Various influences on our behavior jeopardize the possibility of such feedback mechnisms:
    • (Biological determinism) Genetics
    • (Cultural determinism) Upbringing and conditioning
    • (Psychological determinism) Other psychological issues

Etc. Is the tree structure more evident there? I don't think we want to nest section within section within section or else most of this article is going to be 4 or 5 sections deep and all buried within a 2nd-level section on compatibilism.

I'm very tempted to split it into four major sections:

• Incompatibilism
• Incompatibilist-like compatibilism (two-stage and unpredictability models)
• Classical compatibilism (freedom of action and political liberty)
• Modern compatibilism

But I fear that might be original research.

--Pfhorrest (talk) 06:54, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: There is a lot to think about in your reply, and I'll take some moments to think it over. The OR concern is a bugaboo of WP that I've encountered mostly as flack from contributors who don't want to hear about something like A→B + B→C means A→C. I suspect that the organization of a WP article is necessarily OR as it doesn't exist anywhere else, cannot be cited, and if it could, would be challenged as violating NPOV because lots of other organizations of material could be envisioned that stress some aspects differently. One has to hope (perhaps vainly) that common sense has some role on WP. Live in optimism! Brews ohare (talk) 14:45, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Revised outline on incompatibilism

Phorrest: Below I will annotate the beginning of your new proposal to continue our discussion.

• (Incompatibilism) Some people say that free will is incompatibile with nomological determinism.

→ It is helpful here to be clear whether this incompatibility is a matter of logic or one of fact.

• • They argue that it must be so because .

→ The article Alternative possibilities suggests this principle is about moral responsibility, which introduces a bevy of other complications not about the definition of free will. Perhaps you intend to replace:

""a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise."

with:

"a person has free will to do something only if he could have done otherwise."

To me, this last is a clear attempt at a logical definition of free will; the first is not. One can now delve into a logical parsing of "could have done otherwise".

One also can go into a factual (empirical) examination of "could have done otherwise", for example, at what point in in an addict's descent into addiction has their brain's dopamine production been so compromised that they cannot exercise the will to desist? Can psychotherapy create alternative mechanisms in the brain to compensate for the damage to the brain? To exercise this program, one will have to develop criteria to evaluate the presence of will: is a patient's say-so sufficient indicator? Is there some correlate of willing to desist that can be observed without relying upon the patient's subjective observations of themselves?. The proper posing of these issues is a moving target, and while these issues can be raised here, that is all.

What I need from you here is some elaboration of your meaning. Brews ohare (talk) 15:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

• • But they disagree about whether determinism is true:
    • (Hard determinism) Some say it is
    • (Metphysical libertarianism) Some say it's not

→ Perhaps these are statements about theories in physics à la Laplace. Then they are questions about the logical implications of these theories, which can be readily assessed and shown to be misinterpretations without practical consequence. See this. Otherwise they are intended as more general factual assertions about what is "out there". A dichotomy is proposed that either everything is determined or it is not. Obvious alternatives are ignored entirely: that maybe some things are determined and others are not, or that it is presumptuous to suppose this is a provable proposition because one can never (even in principle) establish where identical circumstances appear. That is true for the weather and even for celestial dynamics.

→ In my opinion, hard determinism is a purely logical position which is empirically unprovable in principle, and so has no standing as a statement of fact about the real world. I believe plenty of literature establishing this point is out there, and so this position really deserves very little attention aside from its historical interest and a certain awe that so much blather has been written about it.

This is a good place to continue. The rest of the outline also deserves attention, but one has to start somewhere, eh? Brews ohare (talk) 15:59, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

There may be subtlety involved here: the distinction between ontology and epistemology, the difference between what a thing is and how we know it. Perhaps this difference has to be introduced? Brews ohare (talk) 16:55, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

As a point of clarification, I'm a subscriber to Model-dependent realism which has a Popper's three worlds cast - involving feedback between theory, fact, and the brain. Brews ohare (talk) 17:48, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxer: Incompatibilism does not assert the non-applicability of nomological determinism

The above assertion is made by Richardbrucebaxter in removing the phrase "Many hold that nomological determinism must be false in order for free will to be possible" and replacing it with "One can debate whether, as a matter of fact, nomological determinism actually applies". In fact, inasmuch as nomological determinism suggests (according to this article, though probably not in fact) "that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events" it seems logically irrefutable that free will is not possible if one accepts this proposition. That leaves open only the question of whether this proposition applies to reality. The original statement has some content if one agrees that nomological determinism has many varieties, including physical, psychological, religious or theological determinism, spatio-temporal (relativity theory) determinism, so one might be a bit vague about the relation of nomological discussion to free will.

I'd say this revert is perhaps too succinct.

A further change in this revert is to replace the phrase: "Positions that deny that nomological determinism is logically relevant, stressing other options, are classified as compatibilist to replace it with "Positions that deny that nomological determinism is relevant, saying that we could have free will either way, are classified as compatibilist

The primary change it would seem is to delete the adjective "logically", apparently suggesting that it is not a logical distinction at stake, but a broader consideration of relevance that is important. However, the compatibilist position is firstly a logical one, that the truth or falsity of nomological determinism is a false dilemma. If that position is accepted as one of logic (that is, there are other possible positions), it opens the door to the possibility that the real world does not obey this dichotomy and so discussion of constraints instead of discussion of nomological determinism makes sense.

The literature appears to take the view that compatibilism is the view that free will is compatible with determinism, and incompatibilism is the view that it isn't. This compatibility argument is first an argument over definitions of free will and their logical implications, and until that is settled they are not arguments over what actually applies in fact. It doesn't appear historically that this debate has taken the form of arguments over facts, like the consequences of dopamine production in the brain, but over abstractions, (for example) whether determinism is actually a provable proposition in principle given that it requires an impossible (at least if one omits theology) omniscient observer. In any event, the in-line explanation for this reversion as "Incompatibilism does not assert the non-applicability of nomological determinism" seems irrelevant to what was actually changed here.

What should be done here is not a revert, but a rewrite. Brews ohare (talk) 18:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Brews Ohare - thanks for detailing your explanation. I have commented on sections of your reply;

In fact, inasmuch as nomological determinism suggests (according to this article, though probably not in fact) "that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events"

The whole point of Pfhorrest's (arguably unnecessary) clarification of "Determinism" with "Nomological Determinism" in the introduction was to make it absolutely clear that is the definition of determinism in this context. Besides, how can a definition change based upon fact? If we are academically rigorous about it, things become false, we don't change their definition (perhaps one could do a thesis on variation of definition based upon social/corporate consequence - particularly in the legal realm).

In fact, inasmuch as nomological determinism suggests "that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events" it seems logically irrefutable that free will is not possible if one accepts this proposition

This is not the case for compatibilists. (Perhaps less intuitive - but even this is disputed, eg see section Believing in free will)

That leaves open only the question of whether this proposition applies to reality.

Presumably you are suggesting that the proposition is not making any statement for which assumptions are not held by anyone in reality, and it is therefore irrelevant. That is certainly true if it is "logically irrefutable that free will is not possible if one accepts this proposition".

However, the compatibilist position is firstly a logical one, that the truth or falsity of nomological determinism is a false dilemma

I don't think anyone is arguing that a hypothesis, presumption, or yet-to-be-established-truth of physical "determinism" or "indeterminism" in the universe is a false dilemma (they are mutually exclusive); the application of such to free will has perhaps been considered thus.

Regarding the edit summary, I had limited characters and it should read "incompatibilism does not assert that FW requires the non-applicability of nomological determinism (but rather that its existence negates the possibility of FW)".

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 06:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi guys, still don't have time for a long reply, but just for the sake of mediation: I mostly agree with what Richard is saying here in response to Brews' comments on the talk page here, but my interpretation of Brews' edits to the article was that "applies" was intended to mean "is the case", i.e. incompatibilists, though agreeing with each other that nomological determinism makes all the difference in the question of whether we have free will, then debate with each other about whether nomological determinism is true; those who say it is are Hard Determinists, those who say it's not are Metaphysical Libertarians. Compatibilists disagree with them both, in saying that that is not the important question on which the issue of free will turns at all; it could be either way and we could still have free will or not depending on other factors.

That's all for now. --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

It does look like we need a lot of semantic clean-up. I guess I haven't been very clear. For the record, I take the view that there are logical constructions made up of definitions and their logical consequences, like geometry, and there is the question of how to involve these constructions in a theory with application to reality, like surveying or astronomy. I think everybody here agrees with this distinction. I just want to be clear that I do too. Brews ohare (talk) 20:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

In this connection the words "true", "applies" and so forth are unclear unless one knows which context is in mind. So "true" might mean a logical tautology or it might mean that experimental observations support the assertion. In the case of compatibilism both meanings might be used so it is clearest if we keep the adjectives "logically" and "empirically" close at hand to keep the argument straight. Brews ohare (talk) 20:19, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Queries to Richardbrucebaxter

Below I'll quote the comments by Richardbrucebaxter so I can intersperse some clarifications of my words. I hope further commentary will be forthcoming. Here are the comments and the interspersed clarifications:

Brews Ohare - thanks for detailing your explanation. I have commented on sections of your reply;

In fact, inasmuch as nomological determinism suggests (according to this article, though probably not in fact) "that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events"

The whole point of Pfhorrest's (arguably unnecessary) clarification of "Determinism" with "Nomological Determinism" in the introduction was to make it absolutely clear that is the definition of determinism in this context. Besides, how can a definition change based upon fact? If we are academically rigorous about it, things become false, we don't change their definition (perhaps one could do a thesis on variation of definition based upon social/corporate consequence - particularly in the legal realm).

Richardbrucebaxter: I would not suggest that 'a definition can change based upon fact'; my suggestion here is that this definition of nomological determinism is too narrow to cover its actual usage in some discussions of nomological determinism. Perhaps the defintion provided is actually for ontological determinism? Brews ohare (talk) 16:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Brews Ohare: the definition is a standard understanding of determinism ("that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily... etc"), and certainly with respect to how it is understood for incompatibilism. The use of "nomological determinism" may possibly be in error - Pfhorrest could comment further perhaps if he has time, though not what it is trying to represent here.

In fact, inasmuch as nomological determinism suggests "that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events" it seems logically irrefutable that free will is not possible if one accepts this proposition

This is not the case for compatibilists. (Perhaps less intuitive - but even this is disputed, eg see section Believing in free will)

Richardbrucebaxter: If "every occurrence results inevitably from prior events" is viewed as an axiom, then it is logically irrefutable that free will is not consistent with this axiom. Compatibilists do not argue this point. What they argue is that this axiom is inapplicable to reality. For example, this. Brews ohare (talk) 17:28, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Brews Ohare: This is not a good example of compatibilism - a philosophy that relies upon the inability to establish (neurological) determinism sounds a lot like incompatibilism.

Perhaps not all compatibilists make this argument. It seems some wish to redefine free will so it is logically compatible with strict determinism (Dennett?), a possible approach, but convoluted if one wants consistency with the common-sense understanding of "free will". See Harris "They trade a psychological fact - the subjective experience of being a conscious agent - for a conceptual understanding of ourselves as persons." Brews ohare (talk) 17:05, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Brews Ohare: Not all compatibilists (if any) would argue that that determinism as currently defined in the introduction is a threat to the validity of such an experience (of being a conscious agent). Again, it may come down in no small part to the way one separates their mind from their body, and this operation can even be influenced experimentally - see again section believing in free will.

That leaves open only the question of whether this proposition applies to reality.

Presumably you are suggesting that the proposition is not making any statement for which assumptions are not held by anyone in reality, and it is therefore irrelevant. That is certainly true if it is "logically irrefutable that free will is not possible if one accepts this proposition".

Brews Ohare: It is better just to say a proposition is irrelevant to begin with (I was attempting to find a correct meaning for "applies to reality": basically if a statement is implying/"assuming" something held by everyone, then it draws an obvious conclusion and so cannot possibly distinguish between two commonly held opinions - this is what I gather you were arguing).

Richardbrucebaxter: I can't untangle this sentence. Brews ohare (talk) 16:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

However, the compatibilist position is firstly a logical one, that the truth or falsity of nomological determinism is a false dilemma

I don't think anyone is arguing that a hypothesis, presumption, or yet-to-be-established-truth of physical "determinism" or "indeterminism" in the universe is a false dilemma (they are mutually exclusive); the application of such to free will has perhaps been considered thus.

Richardbrucebaxter: The false dilemma is the supposition that the universe of logical alternatives is that either everything is determined or it is not. This dilemma is false because of the word "everything", which limits choice to exclude a formulation like "some things are determined and some things are not". An even more open formulation is that "some things are constrained and some are not." I'd like to hear more from you on the technicalities of this point. Brews ohare (talk) 16:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Brews Ohare: I will ignore the use of "nomological determinism" here but rather focus on the definition provided in the introduction (see above). It is clear that physical determinism (which is what is claimed as incompatible with free will for incompatibilism) implies that everything physical is determined on some level. One is free to deny physicalism here, however it is not going to help as for non-physical objects to have any influence on the construct that construct cannot be deterministic. Considering the subject is free will, the ability to influence physical reality is rather important for a non physical object. But it is unclear what you are actually implying here - is it perhaps that a deterministic universe can contain undetermined events?

Regarding the edit summary, I had limited characters and it should read "incompatibilism does not assert that FW requires the non-applicability of nomological determinism (but rather that its existence negates the possibility of FW)".

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 06:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps with these clarification we agree? Brews ohare (talk) 16:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I am not so sure... Is it possible you have tried to unravel "nomological determinism"? But I don't understand why you would be attempting to do this based upon when it was introduced. But I thank you for your additional clarifications. Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 00:38, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Note I have done some research into nomological determinism, and its usage seems very appropriate for this article (/incompatibilism). If there are any problems with it, then the article on determinism should be a first point of concern. Personally, if I thought clarification was required, I would have opted for "physical determinism" or "causal determinism", as it is more direct in its description (but that is not what has been chosen in this reference). A second concern was whether "that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events" is representative of nomological determinism (or is too narrow). I can't see any problems with this either - although the explication of "necessarily" and "inevitably" doesn't seem to add meaning to the article. Cheers - Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 07:26, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

The indentation in the above is confusing so I'm not always sure who's saying what, so I'm going to reply to everything down here for now. If you guys could could tidy it up so that your responses are always exactly one colon deeper than the section you're responding to, including evenly indenting each paragraph of a multi-paragraph response, that would help a lot.

Anyway, what I labelled "nomological determinism" has several common names in the field, and James' ontological determinism is pretty much the same thing. It is the proposition that everything is completely determined by whatever exists at any given time (hence the "onto", 'being') plus whatever the laws of nature are (hence the "nomo", 'law'). Given the total state of the universe at any one time, and the laws of the universe, the total state of the universe at any other time is logically entailed.

A similar kind of determinism, "logical determinism", holds merely that every possible question about anything at any time has an answer which is equally true at every other time; including, notably, that questions about the future, like "what am I going to eat for breakfast tomorrow?", all have answers which are already true now, and have always been true. This is only different in that it doesn't entail that you will do whatever you will do because of how things are now plus the laws of nature (moments might not necessarily succeed each other in any kind of law-like fashion), but it still entails that whatever you are going to do, there is already a fact which is true right now about that, before you do it or even decide to do it. (This distinction might be a concern, for instance, if there is a God who knows the entire future, but who also intervenes in history with miracles, meaning that you couldn't tell the future from the present because God might intervene along the way, but that God still knows exactly what's going to happen because he knows what he's going to do, too -- which, yes, raises interesting questions about God's free will, but that would be a long irrelevant tangent here).

I'm not sure off the top of my head if there's an all-encompassing technical term which captures both of these, but when people discussing the incompatibilist sense of free will just say "determinism" without qualifiers, it is pretty universally understood that this is what they mean. The past, present, and future are all set in stone. Anything that ever happens was always going to happen. (But I'm notably not saying "and there's nothing you can do about it". That would be fatalism. The important difference from fatalism is that whatever will happen in the future will happen in part because of whatever you do about it, but that there has always already been a fact about what you will do, a fact which might or might not be entailed by the past and the laws of nature but which either way has always been true).

Anyway. Yes, there are plenty of possible steps in between the above (lets just call it "D") and "the universe is completely and totally random with no patterns or laws to its events". But the dichotomy between metaphysical libertarianism and hard determinism is not a dichotomy between those two extremes, and compatibilism isn't defined by falling somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. The dichotomy between the two mainstream incompatibilist positions is one over the question of whether "D" is true or not. Metaphysical libertarians could fall anywhere on that spectrum of possibilities except the extreme at one end of it (where "D" is), though they usually fall closer to that end than the other (most libertarians will agree that the universe as a whole behaves in a fairly predictable and determinate way, just that some parts -- namely people -- do not). It doesn't matter that proving or disproving "D" may be impractical or even impossible, that's never stopped people from speculating and arguing about their speculations before. (And both medieval theology and modern physics gave them some ammunition to throw at each other on this matter).

Both of those positions are incompatibilists because they agree that if "D" is true, then the statement "free will exists" (lets call that proposition "F") cannot be true. They try to argue from the very definition of free will that F and D are logically incompatible. This is where issues of definition come up, and where compatibilists come in, and why compatibilists are not just somewhere else on that spectrum of "how much determinism is there". Compatibilists say, in one way or another, that the definition of free will that incompatibilists are using is a faulty one that does not track with our ordinary usage of the term, and they try to show that we usually say people have free will or not in this or that circumstance based on considerations wholly other than "could we, in theory, have calculated what they were going to do centuries ago?". They say that it doesn't matter whether or not D is true -- the truth of F hinges on something else completely, and it is a confused understanding of what "free will" means which leads people to think there is a dichotomy between it and determinism.

So incompatibilists argue amongst each other over the factuality of D, and agree on the definition of F; meanwhile, compatibilists argue amongst each other and against incompatibilists over the definition of F, and don't care about the factuality of D. And the approaches that different compatibilists take are are as radically different from each other as any of them are from incompatibilism.

Some compatibilists, like Dennett, argue that it doesn't matter whether or not things are strictly determined, but that it does matter whether or not we can determine them, in the sense of predicting them. He argues that, even setting aside the huge issues of somehow knowing the complete state of the universe at any given moment and knowing the true fundamental laws of nature, even if we could do those implausibly difficult things somehow, mathematical chaos and complexity makes it impossible even in principle to calculate precisely what will happen in the future faster than it actually happens; so complex systems like people are fundamentally unpredictable, even if they are strictly determined, and that's "good enough" for free will in a sense very similar to the incompatibilist one.

Other, mostly older, compatibilists, like Hobbes, argue that free will is nothing more than freedom of a more familiar sort, like what we would now call freedom of action. You can see most clearly here the way in which compatibilists completely sidestep the issue of determinism. Brews, surely you would agree that even if every action everybody will ever take has always been fixed in stone since the dawn of time, there is still a sense in which we can talk about whether someone has freedom of action, yes? They are unrestrained, and so free to do whatever they want. There may be a fact about what they will want, and whether they will be free to do it, and so whether or not they will do it; but it still makes sense to ask "in the determined future, will they be free to do this?", in the sense of asking "will they be restrained and prevented from doing what they want?". There might be a determined answer to that question, but if we took "free will" to mean, as Hobbes did, freedom of action, then there would be a determined answer to whether or not the person in question would have free will at some time in the future. Stick that in your incompatibilist pipe and smoke it. (That's just friendly rhetoric there, no hostility intended).

Still other, more recent, compatibilists, like Frankfurt, argue that free will is a functional ability of actors, and so compatible with determinism in the same way that Hobbes' definition is, but something much more subtle than just freedom of action. Freedom of action is the ability to do what you want to do. Your will is whatever 'want' you have which moves you to do whatever you do. Freedom of will is then the ability to will what you want to will; to exercise control over which of your wants are effective in moving you to act. In programming terms, it's the ability to reprogram yourself. In broader cybernetics terms, it's a feedback loop or a control mechanism. Whether or not you have such a mechanism functioning in you, and thus whether you have free will, is a physical fact about you, just like whether you are in chains and thus have freedom of action is a physical fact about you. Those facts, and the other facts which feed into that system and the facts about your actions which are the output of it, may have always been set in stone since the dawn of time; but nevertheless if you do in fact have such a mechanism functioning in you, you have free will by this definition, even if you having free will was determined.

That last sense seems to be the operational definition of free will which most people working in the various physical sciences operate under. Neurologists and biologists looking at whether or not the human brain has nerve pathways that would function as such a mechanism, or whether brain structure is malleable enough for such a mechanism to even possibly exist in it; psychologists and sociologists looking at whether people's intentions to change their patterns of behavior can be effective on changing their behavior, or if all such changes in behavior have to come from outside conditioning (if the brain is even malleable enough to allow for any such change at all). All of these areas of investigation are asking what determines (i.e. influences, directs) a person's behavior, under the assumption that the universe is at least macroscopically law-like and deterministic enough for such causal relations to be discovered, and that if a person's behavior is determined entirely by some particular mechanism (like genetics or social conditioning) then they don't have free will, while if it's determined some other way (like some such feedback loop or control mechanism) then they do or at least could have free will. These different possibilities are all called different types of "determinism" (biological, cultural, psychological, etc), but nobody is asking whether or not the whole universe is completely deterministic or even "how deterministic" it is (though I think some neurologists are asking how much microscopic randomness gets chaotically amplified by the brain, apparently operating under an incompatibilist definition of free will there). They're asking whether certain specific things causally determine certain specific other things, which is not a question about whether "determinism" simpliciter is true or not at all.

I'm not really sure where I was going with this from here when I started, so I'm going to stop now, but I hope this helps clear at least some things up. Oh, and to tie this back to my suggestions for the article: I was suggesting that we divide it up into sections for each different definition of free will. Incompatibilism would all fall under one such definition, and in that section would be not only the incompatibilist philosophical arguments for why that is the right definition of free will that tracks our ordinary usage, but also discussion from physics and theology about whether or not determinism is factually true. Another section would discuss views like Dennett's, that it's predictability, not determinism, which threatens free will. Another section would discuss the classic compatibilism of Hobbes et al, and among the criticisms of that would be that freedom of action and freedom of will mean different things. Then another section would discuss the modern compatibilism of Frankfurt et al, and most of the science topics would go under there as they seem to take that as their operational definition while they investigate factual issues of biological, cultural, and psychological determinism, etc. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:36, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: Thanks for the discussion. It's pretty long, and I'd like to take up a few points I found germane to my own questions on this issue.

"So incompatibilists argue amongst each other over the factuality of D, and agree on the definition of F; meanwhile, compatibilists argue amongst each other and against incompatibilists over the definition of F, and don't care about the factuality of D."

1.) So it is incompatibilist to suggest that "D" is not factual. On that basis is it incompatibilism to point out that physics requires omniscience to verify "D" even within its peculiar domain, so while "D" might be true of the universe, that proposition is not testable. The most that can be tested in practice is to predict events within some error bar of uncertainty, an error bar that is enormous in fields like weather prediction, and not so good for predicting asteroid behavior either (the good old insoluble many-body problem). Thus, it would seem, those that hold "D" to be factual are way out on a limb, much further than their willingness to argue would suggest.

2.) From Bohr's standpoint, cause and effect can be established only to the degree that the "effect" can be separated from the "cause". So where observation of a phenomenon severely disturbs the phenomenon under observation, cause and effect become inseparable. He's on solid ground at an atomic level. However, he says that observing mental causation (free will) is not possible for this reason. Thus it is not that "D" is not factual but that "D" is not a useful concept in some arenas. Would you place the discussion of applicability of the terms "cause" and "effect" under the "arguments over the definition of free will" camp, that is, as a branch of compatibilism?

3.) Other authors also suggest "cause" and "effect" need re-examination in this context. Is it useful to classify discussions of cause and effect under "compatibilism".

4.) Isn't "compatibilism" departing from any useful distinction and becoming an et cetera category?

5.) As you suggest, it would be a more useful structure for the article to build it around definitions of free will than to stick it in its present narrow confines of determines vs. everything else. That organization might contain more topics than you have itemized. Brews ohare (talk) 15:50, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Something to straighten out

It is not your responsibility to educate me, but maybe that effort will also benefit the article Free will. Here is my dilemma:

The compatibilism-incompatibilism stances don't seem to me to be the whole story. Here is a stance that I'd like to have fit into the Free will framework:

Some things may be determined on the basis that physical theory suggests the future is determined by the past, at least on a macroscopic level coarser than atomic theory. There are, however, two caveats in this supposition: (i) even according to theory, an omniscient observer is needed, because infinitely precise description of all details of the past and present are necessary to predict the future, and so the claim that the future is determined by the past cannot be tested, and (ii) it might be that some things escape the grasp of physical theory and cannot be presumed to be subject to such theory.

Given these observations, it seems a tenable hypothesis that despite determinism in the sense of physical theory, it is entirely able to co-exist alongside an hypothesis that the matters of free will lie outside its grasp.

One might take this view as one more version of the division of reality into separate camps where different rules apply.

One such view is that of Bohr, that these are two facets of reality with different descriptions necessitated by the inability verify a prediction when the observation itself affects the outcome. Thus, in his view, any observation of free will "causing" an event is not possible.

I would appreciate some rambling about how these ideas can be fit into the article. Brews ohare (talk) 01:24, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

1. Nahmias, Eddy (2007-09-01). "Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Mechanism: Experiments on Folk Intuitions". Midwest Studies in Philosophy. 31 (1): 214\u2013242. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4975.2007.00158.x. ISSN 1475-4975. Retrieved 2011-04-29. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
2. Feltz, Adam (2009-03). "Do judgments about freedom and responsibility depend on who you are? Personality differences in intuitions about compatibilism and incompatibilism". Consciousness and Cognition. 18 (1): 342\u2013350. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2008.08.001. ISSN 1053-8100. PMID 18805023. Retrieved 2011-04-29. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
3. Arguments for Incompatibilism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

• All unassessed articles
• A-Class Philosophy articles
• High-importance Philosophy articles
• A-Class metaphysics articles
• High-importance metaphysics articles
• Metaphysics task force articles
• A-Class ethics articles
• High-importance ethics articles
• Ethics task force articles
• A-Class social and political philosophy articles
• High-importance social and political philosophy articles
• Social and political philosophy task force articles
• A-Class neuroscience articles
• Mid-importance neuroscience articles
• A-Class Religion articles
• High-importance Religion articles
• WikiProject Religion articles
• Misplaced Pages former featured articles
• Featured articles that have appeared on the main page
• Featured articles that have appeared on the main page once
• Misplaced Pages controversial topics
• Misplaced Pages pages referenced by the press
• Misplaced Pages pages with to-do lists