On Nov 26, 6:31 am, Rex Allen <[email protected]> wrote: > On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 4:20 PM, 1Z <[email protected]> wrote: > > > On Nov 21, 6:35 pm, Rex Allen <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Fri, Nov 19, 2010 at 7:28 AM, 1Z <[email protected]> wrote: > >>> On Nov 18, 6:31 am, Rex Allen <[email protected]> wrote: > >>>> If there is a reason, then the reason determined the choice. No free > >>>> will. > > >>> Unless you determined the reason. > > >> How would you do that? By what means? According to what rule? Using > >> what process? > > >> If you determined the reason, what determined you? Why are you in the > >> particular state you're in? > > >> If there exists some rule that translates your specific state into > >> some particular choice, then there's still no free will. The rule > >> determined the choice. > > > And if there isn't...you have an action that is reasoned yet > > undetermined, as required > > If there is no rule that translates your specific state into some > particular choice, then what is it connects the state to the choice?
What needs to? Actions need to be connected to reasons, and they can be. That you cannot trace reasons back in an infinite chain doesn;t affect that. > The state occurs. Then the choice occurs. But nothing connects them? > That is accidentalism isn't it? > > >>> I.1.v Libertarianism — A Prima Facie case for free will > > >> As for the rest of it, I read it, but didn't find it convincing on any > >> level. > > >> RIG + SIS <> Free Will > > >> A random process coupled to a deterministic process isn't free will. > >> It's just a random process coupled to a deterministic process. > > > If you insist that FW is a Tertium Datur that is fundamenally > > different from both determinism and causation, then you > > won't accept a mixture. However, I don;t think Tertium Datur > > is a good definition of DW sinc e it is too question begging > > It seems to me that when people discuss free will, they are always > really interested in "ultimate responsibility" for actions. > > Any defense of "free will" must allow for ultimate responsibility for actions. Mine does > I say that ultimate responsibility is impossible, because neither > caused actions nor random actions nor any combination of cause and > randomness seems to result in "ultimate responsibility". That is the essence of the libertarian's claim to be able to provide a stronger basis for our intuitions about responsibility than any variety of compatibilist. The missing factor the libertarian can supply is origination. Responsibility lies with human agents (acting intentionally and without duress) — the "buck" stops with them — because that is where the (intention behind the) action originated. An indeterministic cause is an event which is not itself the effect of a prior cause. Thus, if you trace a cause-effect chain backwards it will come to a halt at an indeterministic cause; the indeterministic cause stands at the "head" of a cause-effect chain. Thus, such causes can pin down the originative power, of agents. There are two important things to realise at this point: Firstly, we are not saying that indeterministic causes correspond one- to-one to human decisions or actions. It takes(at least) billions of basic physical events to produce a human action or decision. The claim that indeterminism is part of this complex process does not mean that individual decisions are "just random". (As we expand in (Section III. 1)). We will go onto propose that there are other mechanisms which filter out random impulses, so that there is rational self-control as well as causal originative power, and thus both criteria for UR are met. Second, we are also not saying that indeterminism by itself is a fully sufficient criterion for agenthood. If physical indeterminism is widespread (as argued in section IV.2), that would attribute free will to all sorts of unlikely agents, such as decaying atoms. Our theory requires some additional criteria. There is no reason why these should not be largely the same criteria used by compatibilists and supercompatibilists — rule-following rationality, lack of external compulsion, etc. Where their criteria do not go far enough, we can supplement them with UR and AP. Where their criteria attribute free will too widely to entities, our supplementary criteria will narrow the domain. It is worth mentioning some of the exaggerated, perhaps supernatural ideas that can get confused with indeterminism-based Origination. One is "causa sui", the idea of an entity creating or causing itself out of nothing. Naturalistically this is impossible — an entity has to exist in the first place to cause something. Associating self- determination with self-causation is a route to a superficially convincing argument against free will, but the two/o ideas are really distinct. Self-determination — self-control — is not just naturalistically acceptable, it has its own branch of science, cybernetics. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
