Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
anyway.

What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:

>Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>anyway.
>
>What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?

I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
Libet (he of the famous experiments):

"The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
abort, with no act appearing.

This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."

That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
something that our instincts don't want us to do.

The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.

On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?

I would say that it is a continuum, not a dichotomy. I'd say that you have free will to the extent that the causes for your actions reside within you rather than outside you.
>
> --
> Mark Isaak
> "Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
> doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 4:43:12 PM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>
> >Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> >arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> >anyway.
> >
> >What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>
> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
> abort, with no act appearing.
>
> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>
> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>
> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
So you are free to the extent that you go against your natural inclinations.. Is that what you mean?

On 2/15/24 12:19 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>
Not having free will means you never need apologize.

On Friday 16 February 2024 at 00:13:11 UTC+2, erik simpson wrote:
> On 2/15/24 12:19 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
> > Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> > arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> > anyway.
> >
> > What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
> >
> Not having free will means you never need apologize.
>
But you might occasionally apologize anyway despite there are no point.
If you do it or not is decided by scenario, you have no will to alter it.

On 2024-02-15 4:10 PM, erik simpson wrote:
> On 2/15/24 12:19 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>
> Not having free will means you never need apologize.
>
You may not *need* to, but never the less, given the appropriate
history, you will do so.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>
> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>
> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
> abort, with no act appearing.
>
> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."

The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
conscious may not be.

> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>
> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.

That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
are the same. But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
struggle mightily to break that habit?

Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
axons and their various activating potentials?

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On 2/15/24 1:44 PM, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>
> I would say that it is a continuum, not a dichotomy. I'd say that you have free will to the extent that the causes for your actions reside within you rather than outside you.

Even if everything within you came from outside you?

--
Mark Isaak
"Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On 2024-02-15 3:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>
> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>
> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
> abort, with no act appearing.
>
> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>
> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>
> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>
And how would one determine otherwise? I'm really having difficulty
coming up with any way of distinguishing the free will/no free will
positions. At least the 'no free will' position doesn't screw up physics.
--
--
Don Cates ("he's a cunning rascal" PN)

On 2024-02-15 19:21, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/15/24 1:44 PM, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free
>>> will?
>>
>> I would say that it is a continuum, not a dichotomy. I'd say that you
>> have free will to the extent that the causes for your actions reside
>> within you rather than outside you.
>
> Even if everything within you came from outside you?

'Free will' happens when your choices seem to be the result of your
decisions rather than the result of external forces. This is true even
when your choices are the result of purely deterministic external forces.

IOW, it's not a particularly useful concept except when talking about
our specific attitudes towards our decisions.

André

--
To email remove 'invalid' & replace 'gm' with well known Google mail
service.

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:10:26 -0800, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by erik simpson
<eastside.erik@gmail.com>:

>On 2/15/24 12:19 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>
>Not having free will means you never need apologize.
>
Even more, you can never be guilty of anything. The perfect
philosophy for a sociopath! :-(
>
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 14:10:26 -0800, erik simpson
<eastside.erik@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 2/15/24 12:19 PM, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>
>Not having free will means you never need apologize.

That would be love, not free will:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APMHp9sZyME>

--
To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge

Mark Isaak <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
> On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>
>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>
>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>
>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>
> The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
> conscious may not be.
>
>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>
>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>
> That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
> are the same. But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
> struggle mightily to break that habit?
>
That could be related to procedural memory. It takes great effort to learn
stuff. Over time things that took deliberatively taxing mental effort
become “second nature”. But when circumstances change it then takes effort
to unlearn such automatisms.
>
> Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
> of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
> that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
> axons and their various activating potentials?
>
The art of placing commas, sentence construction(,) or grammar are
typically nonconcious. One can override autopilot and edit what has been
written. Here’s the rub, following the late Daniel Wegner we tend to claim
volitional authorship over actions that are happening outside awareness. We
plagiarize our brain activity. This tendency may be adaptive per Wegner as
it has social utility. We signal intention and take responsibility for
actions stemming from our brain, though being outside the causal chain.

Dennett eschews libertarian free will, which should be the end of the
story, but responsibility is too important to him to throw the volitional
baby out with the spooky libertarian bathwater. He notes how we at some
developmental milestone typically become mature enough to be deemed
responsible adults. This is a Sorites problem so things like age of
majority are arbitrary boundaries. But without deeming social
responsibility how could we recognize and enforce contracts and
oaths/affirmations, the former have notarial language the explicitly
declare freewill exists, and penalize breakers of such documents?

His compatibilism relies on stuff like people being reasons responsive,
persuadable but not naive or manipulable, Machiavellian to the degree of
knowing what to convey vs conceal, be unpredictable, be able to make action
justifications by evaluation of probable outcomes, have well ordered
desires (he seems to channel Harry Frankfurt’s desirability of desires
here), and to have deliberative self-control. The last one is pretty much
what I think “free will” boils down to. Deliberation turns murder into a
capital offense.

Pat Churchland focusses more on the delay of gratification and impulse
control. Also the cancellation of action which seems to be Libet’s free
won’t.

Yet impulse control could be deconstructed as a hierarchy of higher and
lower impulses sorta like Frankfurt did with desires, no? The impulse to do
the right or responsible thing could be a matter of fallible second nature.

All the things that make up “free will” make it a suitcase word as Minksy
(cringe) called consciousness.

Mark Isaak <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> anyway.
>
> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>
Not having the capacity to mull decisions over an extended period of time?
Not solely living in the now or on autopilot?

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 13:48:14 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
<brogers31751@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 4:43:12?PM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>
>> >Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> >arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> >anyway.
>> >
>> >What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>
>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>
>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>>
>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>
>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>So you are free to the extent that you go against your natural inclinations. Is that what you mean?

I don't like your "to the extent that" qualifier. I think that free
will is one of those things that is difficult if not impossible to
*define* in simple terms but whose characteristics can be *described*.
What I have given above is a description, not a definition; it is one
of many possible descriptions but I think it does capture a key
characteristic.

Martin Harran <martinharran@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>
>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> anyway.
>>
>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>
> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>
> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
> abort, with no act appearing.
>
> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>
> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>
> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>
Libet’s experiment is taking things down to a very tight time scale
(milliseconds) and to a very mundane nature (watching a clock) to help the
notion of free will much. Plus more advanced brainscanning places the
neural causal chain even further back per preceding brain activity.

Free will involves deliberation over longer time scales about meaningful or
impactful decisions. Say you want to buy a car. You could impulse buy the
first one you see, which still takes longer than the timeframe of Libet. Or
you could jot down multiple candidate cars and read Consumer Reports and
game out your longer term financial prospects and then eventually come to a
decision. Maybe you narrow it down to two cars and become Buridan’s ass
leaving it to some intangible subjective impulse to break the tie. You trot
into the dealership and note some notarizable documents allude to your
signing of your own free will. That’s part of what will make you
accountable in the future to hold up to your end of the deal. Free will is
more or less a legally binding social construction for enforcing contracts.
In reality it breaks down to whether you were instead acting out of
coercion, whether you could be duped into a bad decision, or if you
exercised due diligence from your POV in terms of self-interest. Outside of
the acknowledgment language in the contract “freewill” may have no
ontological standing in itself. As more became known about how we think
about what to do, there are perhaps more grounded terms we could use that
capture aspects of what is a problematic libertarian ( philosophical not
political sense) term.

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:19:51 -0800, Mark Isaak
<specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:

>On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>
>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>
>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>
>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>
>The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
>conscious may not be.

The controversy reminds me somewhat of Ron Dean taking some of Gould
and Eldredge's results and using them to argue a conclusion that is
the opposite of what G&E themselves concluded about the impact on the
ToE.

>
>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>
>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>
>That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
>are the same.

Not quite sure how you get to that.

>But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
>struggle mightily to break that habit?

I can't see your issue with that. A habit is our body in control of
what we do; deciding to break the habit is an exercise of free will.
For example, I started smoking when I was 16 - that was a free will
decision, nobody or nothing forced me. Nicotine then took charge and
my body demanded a regular supply for the next forty years. After
those 40 years, I made a decision to quit. My body didn't like that
decision at all and there was an ensuing battle for quite some time
between my mind and my body. Seventeen years later, that battle has
still not entirely abated, I still get the occasional yearning for a
cigarette or cigar.

There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
but still a decision made by myself.

By coincidence, I have just started reading 'Determined A Science of
Life without Free Will' by Robert M. Sapolskyby; I'm only a couple of
chapters into it so too early to draw conclusions but he seems to base
his argument largely on these external influences being deterministic.

>
>Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
>of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
>that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
>axons and their various activating potentials?

I have a pin here, would you care to count the angels on its head?

On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 20:54:05 -0600, DB Cates <cates_db@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>On 2024-02-15 3:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>
>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>
>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>
>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>>
>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>
>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>>
>And how would one determine otherwise? I'm really having difficulty
>coming up with any way of distinguishing the free will/no free will
>positions. At least the 'no free will' position doesn't screw up physics.
>--
There is a whiff of scientism about that final remark!

broger...@gmail.com <brogers31751@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 4:43:12 PM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>> anyway.
>>>
>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>
>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>
>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>>
>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>
>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
> So you are free to the extent that you go against your natural
> inclinations. Is that what you mean?
>
I think he means more along the lines of impulse control, to not be a
brute. But there are habits (second nature), and social idols. Philosophize
with a hammer. Belief in free will is a socially constrained ideology. So
we may act against our instincts yet act in accord with social stricture.
Whether one believes in free will or not is a matter of birth as is one’s
religion. Strict Calvinism seems a matter of the elect being preordained so
personal choice is irrelevant. Some forms of Islam hold to the tablet in
heaven or scroll of life concept. And beyond whether belief in free will is
a matter of upbringing, other behavior influencing beliefs are social
constructs and not brute facts. There is social determination. The Ten
Commandments are socially constructed influencers of actions. There are
some 613 influencers of actions down to allowable clothing fabric. Abiding
by such stricture becomes second nature.

On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 9:23:12 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/15/24 1:44 PM, broger...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Thursday, February 15, 2024 at 3:23:11 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> >> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> >> anyway.
> >>
> >> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
> >
> > I would say that it is a continuum, not a dichotomy. I'd say that you have free will to the extent that the causes for your actions reside within you rather than outside you.
> Even if everything within you came from outside you?

Not sure exactly what you are getting at. Of course every atom that composes you came from outside you at some point, but I don't see that as a problem. You could reasonably say that if someone slipped you a mind-altering drug that that cause of some of your actions resided outside you, even though the psychoactive molecules were inside your brain at the time of interest. Still, I think my formulation is generally pretty reasonable.
> --
> Mark Isaak
> "Wisdom begins when you discover the difference between 'That
> doesn't make sense' and 'I don't understand.'" - Mary Doria Russell

On Friday, February 16, 2024 at 5:33:11 AM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:19:51 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>
> >On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
> >> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> >>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> >>> anyway.
> >>>
> >>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
> >>
> >> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
> >> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
> >> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
> >>
> >> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
> >> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
> >> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
> >> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
> >> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
> >> abort, with no act appearing.
> >>
> >> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
> >> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
> >> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
> >
> >The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
> >conscious may not be.
> The controversy reminds me somewhat of Ron Dean taking some of Gould
> and Eldredge's results and using them to argue a conclusion that is
> the opposite of what G&E themselves concluded about the impact on the
> ToE.
> >
> >> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
> >> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
> >> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
> >>
> >> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
> >
> >That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
> >are the same.
> Not quite sure how you get to that.
> >But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
> >struggle mightily to break that habit?
> I can't see your issue with that. A habit is our body in control of
> what we do; deciding to break the habit is an exercise of free will.
> For example, I started smoking when I was 16 - that was a free will
> decision, nobody or nothing forced me. Nicotine then took charge and
> my body demanded a regular supply for the next forty years. After
> those 40 years, I made a decision to quit. My body didn't like that
> decision at all and there was an ensuing battle for quite some time
> between my mind and my body. Seventeen years later, that battle has
> still not entirely abated, I still get the occasional yearning for a
> cigarette or cigar.

I'm not sure your example here is very clear cut. When you were addicted to nicotine, you followed a very natural inclination to avoid discomfort - low blood nicotine levels made you uncomfortable and you raised them. When you quit, you also followed a natural inclination to avoid discomfort, whether the discomfort was the thought of death by COPD or lung cancer or heart attack (as you say below), or social ostracism (depending on how out of favor smoking was around you at the time). Eventually the impulse to avoid the smoking associated discomfort became stronger than the impulse to avoid the low-blood-nicotine discomfort. You quit smoking. You weighed conflicting inclinations and the stronger one won - for me that's a free decision, regardless of whether you clearly articulated the reasons in your internal monologue (assuming you have one) or whether you just did it.
>
> There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
> smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
> thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
> that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
> my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
> parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
> schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
> came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
> long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
> was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
> but still a decision made by myself.

I agree with you that external influences are not deterministic. The reasons for your decision are a combination of factors within and outside of yourself. Nobody threatened to burn you at the stake if you became an apostate. You decided on your own to stick with it.
>
> By coincidence, I have just started reading 'Determined A Science of
> Life without Free Will' by Robert M. Sapolskyby; I'm only a couple of
> chapters into it so too early to draw conclusions but he seems to base
> his argument largely on these external influences being deterministic.

If you imagine yourself as an immaterial homunculus housed in the pineal gland, almost everything can be made external to "you" and therefore the deterministic nature of the external factors will be a threat to free will. If you identify yourself with your whole body and brain, your free will remains intact.
> >
> >Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
> >of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
> >that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
> >axons and their various activating potentials?
> I have a pin here, would you care to count the angels on its head?

On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 03:32:17 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
<brogers31751@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Friday, February 16, 2024 at 5:33:11?AM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:19:51 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>
>> >On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> >> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>> >>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>> >>> anyway.
>> >>>
>> >>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>> >>
>> >> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>> >> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>> >> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>> >>
>> >> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>> >> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>> >> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>> >> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>> >> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>> >> abort, with no act appearing.
>> >>
>> >> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>> >> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>> >> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>> >
>> >The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
>> >conscious may not be.
>> The controversy reminds me somewhat of Ron Dean taking some of Gould
>> and Eldredge's results and using them to argue a conclusion that is
>> the opposite of what G&E themselves concluded about the impact on the
>> ToE.
>> >
>> >> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>> >> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>> >> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>> >>
>> >> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>> >
>> >That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
>> >are the same.
>> Not quite sure how you get to that.
>> >But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
>> >struggle mightily to break that habit?
>> I can't see your issue with that. A habit is our body in control of
>> what we do; deciding to break the habit is an exercise of free will.
>> For example, I started smoking when I was 16 - that was a free will
>> decision, nobody or nothing forced me. Nicotine then took charge and
>> my body demanded a regular supply for the next forty years. After
>> those 40 years, I made a decision to quit. My body didn't like that
>> decision at all and there was an ensuing battle for quite some time
>> between my mind and my body. Seventeen years later, that battle has
>> still not entirely abated, I still get the occasional yearning for a
>> cigarette or cigar.
>
>I'm not sure your example here is very clear cut. When you were addicted to nicotine, you followed a very natural inclination to avoid discomfort - low blood nicotine levels made you uncomfortable and you raised them. When you quit, you also followed a natural inclination to avoid discomfort, whether the discomfort was the thought of death by COPD or lung cancer or heart attack (as you say below), or social ostracism (depending on how out of favor smoking was around you at the time). Eventually the impulse to avoid the smoking associated discomfort became stronger than the impulse to avoid the low-blood-nicotine discomfort. You quit smoking. You weighed conflicting inclinations and the stronger one won - for me that's a free decision, regardless of whether you clearly articulated the reasons in your internal monologue (assuming you have one) or whether you just did it.

FWIW, my decision was made on account of my wife and children. They
were very worried about me and my health - I hadn't actually had a
heart attack but 5 of my brothers had had at least one. I figured that
I had always said that I would do anything to protect my family from
harm but if I continued to smoke, I would actually be causing them
harm. There obviously was a lot of pressure on me to make the decision
but ultimately it was my own decision, made freely by myself. Just as
comparison, one of my brothers who suffered a heart attack, a few
years later required a stent and a couple of years after that had
prostate cancer (fully recovered) but despite family pressures, he
continues to smoke. He was under the same pressures and influences as
me but he made his own decision, different from mine. We shouldn't
draw conclusions from one example but I think the fact that we are
siblings making different decisions in similar circumstances points to
free will being an individual thing.

>>
>> There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
>> smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
>> thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
>> that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
>> my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
>> parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
>> schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
>> came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
>> long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
>> was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
>> but still a decision made by myself.
>
>I agree with you that external influences are not deterministic. The reasons for your decision are a combination of factors within and outside of yourself. Nobody threatened to burn you at the stake if you became an apostate. You decided on your own to stick with it.

I think we are close to violent agreement here - not a bad thing in
your final days on TO :)

>>
>> By coincidence, I have just started reading 'Determined A Science of
>> Life without Free Will' by Robert M. Sapolskyby; I'm only a couple of
>> chapters into it so too early to draw conclusions but he seems to base
>> his argument largely on these external influences being deterministic.
>
>If you imagine yourself as an immaterial homunculus housed in the pineal gland, almost everything can be made external to "you" and therefore the deterministic nature of the external factors will be a threat to free will. If you identify yourself with your whole body and brain, your free will remains intact.
>> >
>> >Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
>> >of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
>> >that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
>> >axons and their various activating potentials?
>> I have a pin here, would you care to count the angels on its head?

On Friday, February 16, 2024 at 7:03:12 AM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Feb 2024 03:32:17 -0800 (PST), "broger...@gmail.com"
> <broger...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Friday, February 16, 2024 at 5:33:11?AM UTC-5, Martin Harran wrote:
> >> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:19:51 -0800, Mark Isaak
> >> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> >On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
> >> >> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
> >> >> <specime...@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
> >> >>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
> >> >>> anyway.
> >> >>>
> >> >>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
> >> >>
> >> >> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
> >> >> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
> >> >> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
> >> >>
> >> >> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
> >> >> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
> >> >> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
> >> >> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
> >> >> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
> >> >> abort, with no act appearing.
> >> >>
> >> >> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
> >> >> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
> >> >> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
> >> >
> >> >The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
> >> >conscious may not be.
> >> The controversy reminds me somewhat of Ron Dean taking some of Gould
> >> and Eldredge's results and using them to argue a conclusion that is
> >> the opposite of what G&E themselves concluded about the impact on the
> >> ToE.
> >> >
> >> >> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
> >> >> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
> >> >> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
> >> >>
> >> >> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
> >> >
> >> >That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
> >> >are the same.
> >> Not quite sure how you get to that.
> >> >But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
> >> >struggle mightily to break that habit?
> >> I can't see your issue with that. A habit is our body in control of
> >> what we do; deciding to break the habit is an exercise of free will.
> >> For example, I started smoking when I was 16 - that was a free will
> >> decision, nobody or nothing forced me. Nicotine then took charge and
> >> my body demanded a regular supply for the next forty years. After
> >> those 40 years, I made a decision to quit. My body didn't like that
> >> decision at all and there was an ensuing battle for quite some time
> >> between my mind and my body. Seventeen years later, that battle has
> >> still not entirely abated, I still get the occasional yearning for a
> >> cigarette or cigar.
> >
> >I'm not sure your example here is very clear cut. When you were addicted to nicotine, you followed a very natural inclination to avoid discomfort - low blood nicotine levels made you uncomfortable and you raised them. When you quit, you also followed a natural inclination to avoid discomfort, whether the discomfort was the thought of death by COPD or lung cancer or heart attack (as you say below), or social ostracism (depending on how out of favor smoking was around you at the time). Eventually the impulse to avoid the smoking associated discomfort became stronger than the impulse to avoid the low-blood-nicotine discomfort. You quit smoking. You weighed conflicting inclinations and the stronger one won - for me that's a free decision, regardless of whether you clearly articulated the reasons in your internal monologue (assuming you have one) or whether you just did it.
> FWIW, my decision was made on account of my wife and children. They
> were very worried about me and my health - I hadn't actually had a
> heart attack but 5 of my brothers had had at least one. I figured that
> I had always said that I would do anything to protect my family from
> harm but if I continued to smoke, I would actually be causing them
> harm. There obviously was a lot of pressure on me to make the decision
> but ultimately it was my own decision, made freely by myself. Just as
> comparison, one of my brothers who suffered a heart attack, a few
> years later required a stent and a couple of years after that had
> prostate cancer (fully recovered) but despite family pressures, he
> continues to smoke. He was under the same pressures and influences as
> me but he made his own decision, different from mine. We shouldn't
> draw conclusions from one example but I think the fact that we are
> siblings making different decisions in similar circumstances points to
> free will being an individual thing.

He was in a similar situation - conflicting impulses to avoid different sorts of discomfort and in his case the impulse to avoid the discomfort of nicotine withdrawal was stronger. SImilar, but not identical individuals in similar but not identical situations make different decisions.
> >>
> >> There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
> >> smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
> >> thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
> >> that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
> >> my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
> >> parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
> >> schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
> >> came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
> >> long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
> >> was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
> >> but still a decision made by myself.
> >
> >I agree with you that external influences are not deterministic. The reasons for your decision are a combination of factors within and outside of yourself. Nobody threatened to burn you at the stake if you became an apostate. You decided on your own to stick with it.
> I think we are close to violent agreement here - not a bad thing in
> your final days on TO :)

Yes, we seem to be in agreement. Although that may be because I've been emphasizing the free will part of my "free will is compatible with determinism" compatibilism. I certainly agree that we make our own free choices and are responsible for them - even though I'd hold that under exactly identical circumstances we (also assuming we are exactly identical to who we are) could only make the choice that we actually made (leaving aside any hypothetical effects of quantum randomness which, in any case, would not add anything to our freedom). For us to have made a different choice either we, or the circumstances, would have to be at least slightly different.
> >>
> >> By coincidence, I have just started reading 'Determined A Science of
> >> Life without Free Will' by Robert M. Sapolskyby; I'm only a couple of
> >> chapters into it so too early to draw conclusions but he seems to base
> >> his argument largely on these external influences being deterministic.
> >
> >If you imagine yourself as an immaterial homunculus housed in the pineal gland, almost everything can be made external to "you" and therefore the deterministic nature of the external factors will be a threat to free will. If you identify yourself with your whole body and brain, your free will remains intact.
> >> >
> >> >Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
> >> >of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
> >> >that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
> >> >axons and their various activating potentials?
> >> I have a pin here, would you care to count the angels on its head?

Martin Harran <martinharran@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 18:19:51 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>
>> On 2/15/24 1:41 PM, Martin Harran wrote:
>>> On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 12:19:13 -0800, Mark Isaak
>>> <specimenNOSPAM@curioustaxon.omy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Lacking any creationism subjects to argue about, I bring up something
>>>> arguably off topic, but on a topic which comes up here plenty of times
>>>> anyway.
>>>>
>>>> What is the difference between having free will and not having free will?
>>>
>>> I posted this earlier today in a response to Burkhard in the
>>> 'Masterclass' thread but I think it's worth repeating here. Benjamin
>>> Libet (he of the famous experiments):
>>>
>>> "The role of conscious free will would be, then, not to initiate a
>>> voluntary act, but rather to control occurrences of the act. We may
>>> view the unconscious initiatives for voluntary actions as "bubbling
>>> up" in the brain. The conscious-will then selects which of these
>>> initiatives may go forward to an action or which ones to veto and
>>> abort, with no act appearing.
>>>
>>> This kind of role for free will is actually in accord with religious
>>> and ethical strictures, which commonly advocate that you "control
>>> yourself" Most of the Ten Commandments are "do not" orders."
>>
>> The whole controversy over Libet's results, though, is that what appears
>> conscious may not be.
>
> The controversy reminds me somewhat of Ron Dean taking some of Gould
> and Eldredge's results and using them to argue a conclusion that is
> the opposite of what G&E themselves concluded about the impact on the
> ToE.
>
>>
>>> That hits the spot for me - free will is the ability to decide not to
>>> do something that our instincts want us to do or decide to do
>>> something that our instincts don't want us to do.
>>>
>>> The absence of free will would be us just following our instincts.
>>
>> That summary implies that learned behavior and behavior from free will
>> are the same.
>
> Not quite sure how you get to that.
>
>> But what about someone who learns a habit and then has to
>> struggle mightily to break that habit?
>
> I can't see your issue with that. A habit is our body in control of
> what we do; deciding to break the habit is an exercise of free will.
> For example, I started smoking when I was 16 - that was a free will
> decision, nobody or nothing forced me. Nicotine then took charge and
> my body demanded a regular supply for the next forty years. After
> those 40 years, I made a decision to quit. My body didn't like that
> decision at all and there was an ensuing battle for quite some time
> between my mind and my body. Seventeen years later, that battle has
> still not entirely abated, I still get the occasional yearning for a
> cigarette or cigar.
>
> There are, of course, external *influences* - my decision about
> smoking was made lying in coronary care awaiting a by-pass which
> thankfully was avoided with multiple stents. I don't believe, however,
> that external influences are deterministic. To take another example,
> my Catholic faith originated in being born to committed Catholic
> parents, in a strongly Catholic community and education in Catholic
> schools. Many - probably most - of my peers (including siblings) who
> came through the same religious/cultural and education background have
> long discarded their religious beliefs; my decision to stay with them
> was a personal decision, made after considerable study and reflection,
> but still a decision made by myself.
>
> By coincidence, I have just started reading 'Determined A Science of
> Life without Free Will' by Robert M. Sapolskyby; I'm only a couple of
> chapters into it so too early to draw conclusions but he seems to base
> his argument largely on these external influences being deterministic.
>
Determinism need not rule out free will, I just think the various things
Dennett puts forward in response to Sapolsky should merely be kept as those
things and maybe jettison an archaic problematic concept.

Dennett v Sapolsky:
https://youtu.be/aYzFH8xqhns?si=c2yVc04ntmCfMYif
>
>>
>> Or more to the crux of the matter, I just chose to put a comma instead
>> of a colon before that last "I". How can anyone (myself included) know
>> that that decision was not ordained ineluctably by the arrangement of my
>> axons and their various activating potentials?
>
> I have a pin here, would you care to count the angels on its head?
>
Not close to the same thing.