Free will is the determination of ends(purposes) by reason in and for itself. — Heiko

You do not really want the act in itself but you want what the act achieves. — Heiko

So... what is it rational to want? Do I smell Kant?

Why not? I think this was an ingenious answer.

So... what is it rational to want? Do I smell Kant? — Banno

The good, of course :grin:

Ah. Well, that's an end to that, then.

Ah. Well, that's an end to that, then. — Banno

Do I smell resentment?

Freewill IMHO is not "the end justifies the means".
I believe ultimate freewill is a product of spontaneity, making your own decisions, and the FREEDOM and OPPORTUNITY to do what you choose. Non-conformity would have to be important, as any ready guide that one follows blindly cannot be considered true freewill. Some might argue that blindly conforming is a choice itself; but you don't know the edict until it has been told to you, so it is the "choice" of someone else that you must wait on.

So... what is it rational to want?
— Banno

The good, of course — Heiko

I like where you’re going with your groundwork here, but do you see where THE good, if taken as a transcendental principle, cannot be that which is “rational to want”, that being merely A good, or some good or another, as a practical end?

Yes, but there is also the spirit, temperament or mood is made up of the continuum of 2.

Want is an active effect of heart whilst believing is passive effect of mind.

Think of them selflessly, in rhythmic proceudure.

I like where you’re going with your groundwork here, but do you see where THE good, if taken as a transcendental principle, cannot be that which is “rational to want”, that being merely A good, or some good or another, as a practical end? — Mww

But that is exactly the point why it has to be "the good". This is simply a question of intension and extension. You can always mistake a fungus for a plant.

I can't see any way to disprove the idea that we may have free will in the following sense:

We have a will which is able to choose between two or more options, without that choice being determined by anything else.

However, when you think this through, it seems that the choice is arbitrary.

Imagine you are faced with competing choices. One in what you desire to do. The other is what you think you should do, or that you believe you have reason to do, or whatever.

If you recognise that one choice is the rational one etc., then presumably you will do it if you are rational, see that you have the most compelling reasons to do it, etc. It might be said that you still have the option of doing the other thing. But how could you then be said to be rational etc.?

Now imagine you simply do what you desire. The above dilemma assumed that this wasn't the choice that it made sense or you had reason to do. But then you must have been more drawn to doing that than being rational. Maybe you could say that you still had the option of being rational.

But how do you decide whether you are going to be a rational person, or a person who acts on their desires, whatever reason says? Well, if this is even something that you can decide (and maybe it's not) then you need to decide on some basis, or else on no basis, which would be arbitrary. But if you decide on some basis, then it would not make sense to say you still have the option of choosing to be the other kind of person. As if you did choose the second option, you would not be choosing on what you take to be the basis of the first option - as that would lead you to take the first option. So you are either choosing on some basis which supports the second option, or else though you want to choose the first option, some other aspect of your psychology is getting in the way and you end up choosing the second option.

Now if the choice between the two options is arbitrary, then you can choose either, and, if you have free will as described above, then your choice isn't determined by anything beyond your caprice. But then you aren't choosing either on any basis. But if you can think of a basis for one or the other, then if you accept that basis, and you don't get deflected by some other part of your psychology, then you will act on that basis. If you can think of a basis for either choice, then you can either evaluate those bases comparatively, or not. But if you can evaluate them comparatively, then you will go for the one which wins out in the comparison, unless something throws you off course. And if you can't evaluate them comparatively, then the choice between them lacks any deciding basis, and hence is in a certain way arbitrary. If you have free will, you can then decide for either, but there won't be anything counting for one or the other distinctly (it might be that both have something going for them, but we furthermore need a way to arbitrate between them).

If I remember, Sartre's view of freedom was very similar to this, and the criticism was much along these lines, as free will ends up bring arbitrary. I guess what I think is that Sartre's view was correct, if free will exists, but it suffers from the kinds of criticisms pointed out at the time. What people want of course is for us to have free will and be morally culpable for doing the right thing or the wrong thing. But I think these things come apart and can't be essentially connected.

If a person recognises the reason for doing the right thing, but ends up doing the wrong thing, that can either be because their motivation to do the right thing was stymied by some other aspect of their psychology (weakness of will), or because they decided there was more reason to do the wrong thing (i.e. they aren't a good person), or because they chose arbitrarily. If we move the choice one stage back, and ask them to chose between the reasons to be righteous, and the reasons not to be, then either they compare them on a common scale and chose one which wins out, or they chose one but chose it for no overall reason, i.e. an arbitrary reason. If they end up being a bad person at the end of all this, I think it is fine to call them that, but we can't then say they are ultimately choosing badness because they are bad, because they either see badness as having the most considerations behind it, or because they have chosen it arbitrarily and not because it is bad.

Sorry if this is more verbose than it should be. I guess this is a forum.

If you attribute some doing to anything else but the rational decision, there is no choice and hence no freedom. You cannot be free in doing other than you think you should do.

a question of intension and extension — Heiko

Oh. Ok. Never mind.

I firmly believe we possess free will. Determinism and randomness are our explanations of events, but only because they can be understood logically. This does not exclude the possibility of free-standing casuality, as in the case of free will. Just as a book has an author, thoughts are authored as well.

Just as a book has an author, thoughts are authored as well. — Cidat

The problem I see here, is, that a rational decision must be based on thoughts. If a decision is required to think a particular way that decision cannot be based on reason. And hence not be free.

Things are genuinely created in the universe. The universe itself was created. It didn't "just happen".

Things are genuinely created in the universe. The universe itself was created. It didn't "just happen". — Cidat

I am not into religion. Sorry.

It's not religion. It's philosophy.

It's not religion. It's philosophy. — Cidat

Paradox as it may seem: I am not into philosophy either.

I like music.

By imagining a thing that you call "The Good" you closed off the interesting line of thought here. Reification does that.

I like where you’re going with your groundwork here, — Mww

It'll come out as something like "It's rational to want the good because the good is what it is rational to want"

Not all that helpful.

Because we don’t know what is ‘good’ and so rationally we should be cautious about assuming that one thing is ‘good’ and another ‘bad’ with absolute certainty. So really it may be more rational to say we can expect, in our clumsy way, to have what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ partially revealed to us through life if we’re attentive to change and perspective (a ‘rational’ use of our hindsight and foresight).

It’s a bit of a tail eater, which generally says to me ‘be cautious’ and ‘don’t be in search of an iron-cast conclusion’.

Your definition seems more like a position that denies time-travel. Free-will is a bit like Love. It is a term that splays itself far and wide, and can be applied in a variety of ways in colloquial speech that makes it difficult to assess in any universal sense.

I find the subject to be so popular because it touches so many non-intuitive aspects of human cognition, poking at numerous possible contradictions within our limited use of language. Some people even argue that ‘the hard problem’ is merely a repercussion of how we use language, personally I think it is probably to do with a lack of common concepts in our current language rather than ‘language’ itself creating an illusionary problem.

The free will debate is masturbation so people can feel security by believing their actions are beyond their control, freeing them from moral responsibility. On the other hand, by believing in free will you believe you have the power to steer your behavior in a positive direction, away from criminal abuse. If we don't have free will, we can never make any mistakes in our lives, since we could never have done anything any differently.

Not all that helpful. — Banno

Right. Still, my smell-er reports something very different, so I’m not stymied by such irreconcilable circularity.

By imagining a thing that you call "The Good" you closed off the interesting line of thought here. Reification does that. — Banno

I would not call the idea a thing.

The free will debate is masturbation so people can feel security by believing their actions are beyond their control, — Cidat

It is not me who postulates there must be something beyond the rational decision...

On the other hand, by believing in free will you believe you have the power to steer your behavior in a positive direction, away from criminal abuse. If we don't have free will, we can never make any mistakes in our lives, since we could never have done anything any differently. — Cidat

The question then is just if you are sick or just a criminal.
Criminal if it is a free decision, sick otherwise. No reason to believe.

Free will is the idea that we have multiple options to choose from regarding the outcome of a particular situation. Thus, free will implies that freely willed actions could have been chosen differently. Free will implies that the world could have looked radically different if we had just exercised our free will differently.

Determinism is an assumption as well. Likewise the assumption that death is the permanent end for a soul, or that consciousness ceases to exist upon biological death. But the universe is far more complex than that.

Free will is the idea that — Cidat

That doesn't help; this is just the 7th grader overview. I'm looking for the bees knees of the meaning of the thing.

we have multiple options to choose from regarding the outcome of a particular situation. — Cidat

Let's take a chess playing AI program. On the first move, it can open D4. Or, it can open E4. It cannot open E5. It has "multiple options to choose from regarding the outcome" (e.g., D4 and E4; but not E5) "of a particular situation" (start of a game).

Thus, free will implies that freely willed actions could have been chosen differently. — Cidat

Take the same program. Suppose it does indeed open E4. That "action" (opening E4) could have been chosen as D4. It couldn't have been E5, mind you, because that's an impossible move. But it could have been D4.

Free will implies that the world could have looked radically different if we had just exercised our free will differently. — Cidat

...the game could have looked quite different had the chess program opened with D4.

So it sounds like you're telling me that chess playing programs have free will. Is that what you mean?

Oh, since you engaged me, let's destroy this real quick:

so people can feel security by believing their actions are beyond their control, freeing them from moral responsibility — Cidat

This is an appeal to motive. It's also a bit of a straw man; the main personal psychological appeal to rejecting free will is that it tends to grant you freedom from being responsible; there are less extreme situations, such as a person who is terrified that anything they do is wrong. The main personal psychological appeal to accepting free will is that it tends to grant you the feeling that you are in control; that your actions matter and that you can avoid bad things. The main interpersonal psychological appeal to rejecting free will is that it avoids holding people to standards you believe they can't realistically live up to. The main interpersonal psychological appeal to accepting free will is that it promotes people taking responsibility for their actions; e.g., if something bad happens and someone else did it, that makes it their fault (note that the interpersonal appeal may actually be used to avoid personal responsibility, ironically).

None of this has to do with what philosophers should be worried about, which is, what is the truth? So, your biased account of biases should be summarily ignored, especially here.

Argue against or for free will all you want, but don't question my definitions. I'm just trying to make him understand what we're talking about. And no, computers are inherently deterministic machines, they produce the same output for the same input, so they cannot have free will.

no if your into determinism, also no if your not, the truth is your biology and the structure around you cancels out free will

Argue against or for free will all you want, but — Cidat

I believe I did both.

don't question my definitions. I'm just trying to make him understand what we're talking about.

"Him" is me. So if you're really "just trying to make him understand what we're talking about", how about addressing the question "him" asked you instead of literally whining about the fact that he asked you a question.

And no, computers are inherently deterministic machines, they produce the same output for the same input, so they cannot have free will. — Cidat

But if we take "choice" in a looser sense, this fits entirely with your definition. So if you want to have this discussion, I want to keep a thumb here. You don't want to call this free will, but, it does match everything you say, with a looser sense of choice; a perfectly sane one, but looser one. I'll just grant that it's fake; so we'll just call this fake free will, or FFW.

But as a side note, chess playing programs don't produce the same output for the same input, at least within the universe that is the game play board (that is, they don't move the same in the same game state). If they did, they would be useless, because it would be trivial to "solve" a chess playing program that played the same moves (that is, to find a game that wins, and to always play that game). Computers introduce entropy in basically two ways; they can use a PRNG or a TRNG. The former is deterministic, but just hard to predict; it maintains a state and usually has an entropic seed (like, the former state, or, the current time). But regardless of the source of entropy, the chess playing program only ever winds up playing a specific move. So in our case, it played E4 in this game. So E4 is the only actual game state that is ontic. This is true even if E4 was the result of a TRNG; the precise difference between the PRNG and TRNG isn't whether or not D4 is ontic, because D4 will never be ontic, because it will never happen; you cannot claim a thing to be ontic if it never is. The precise difference, rather, is whether the move E4 is the inevitable consequence of a prior universe state or independent of prior universe states.

So basically, you were saying that determinism doesn't really count as a choice (though there is definitely something at least analogous to choice that's going on here; after all, it's a perfect match to your description if we don't appeal to the unmentioned properties of choice you're now being asked to elucidate). So, okay. Stage 2. Let's toss the PRNG out, and use a chess playing program with a TRNG. Problem solved. Now does it have free will?