[Arlo to Dan]
I'd say that seeing "free will" as some existential "out there" thing
that floats around and controls experience is certainly an illusion. But
the concept of "free will" is an intellectual pattern of value, a way we
explain and make sense of our experience.
[Steve]
I agree, but I wonder if you'd agree with me that in your second way of
understanding free will as a useful or not useful concept, it no longer
makes much sense to wonder if we _have_ it.
[Arlo]
I'll preface my answer, Steve, in saying that I find little value in the
"free will/determinism" concepts. As I said, personally, I find the
concepts of "agency/structuration" better in explaining experience (they
capture more of the flavor of Buddhistic 'interdependent arising'), and
I usually think of these concepts via that lens.
Having said that, and that the concept of "free will" is an intellectual
pattern we have created to explain experience, then no, "Free will" is
not something we "have" as a possession (or has "us" as a possession),
any more than we "have" an ego or "have" ADD. Free will is a theory of
human behavior (which is one reason I find "agency" more compelling, it
(mostly) does not separate the "free will" of humans from a mechanistic,
deterministic cosmos).
My personal opinion is that "free will", "agency" began as attempts to
describe the result of assimilating a temporal symbology; a language
that allows us to symbollically archive experience for both latter
contemplation and the orientation of future behavior. Indeed, it is this
very symbology that allows us to contemplate that we "could've" acted
differently, and then use this as an orientation mechanism as we
encounter perceived similar experience in the future.
[Steve]
Once we reject the first sense of an existential free will, what is left
to debate in the old free will-determinism controversy?
[Arlo]
Little, personally. But I think we can (and are) continuing to improve
our explanations of experience.
[Steve]
What could it mean for, say, dmb to insist that he "has free will" in
this second sense of the term "free will"?
[Arlo]
I'd only be speculating at what DMB means, and to be honest I haven't
read every post in that thread, so I'm not sure what value my
speculation could even bring. I'll only say that "has free will" is a
convention of speech, like I said in the same we would say that "Amy has
ADD" (ADD is an attempt to describe Amy's behavior, often by a series of
inquiries into biology and sociology), there is no existential ADD
floating around out there that Amy possesses. (And, I'd add, "Amy" is a
descriptive pattern as well, not an existential, autonomous agent that
possesses "things", just to point that at lest I be accused for
championing homunculii...)
So I think I understand the language, I too often say "we have agency"
to mean (more or less) that at any given point in the stream of
experience our actual response is one of a repertoire of potential
responses (and this repertoire is a description made possible by a
temporal symbology).
In many ways, it is impossible to avoid some degree or manner of
recursion, as we are using a mirror to describe a mirror, as it were.
Does that answer your questions?
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