Do I have a choice? (determinism vs libertarianism vs compatibilism)

How funny - we've both started threads that deal with free will pretty much simultaniously. I'd love you to come over to my thread and have a look at it. If you're interested I'd love you to comment on it.We have different outlooks on this issue. I'm pretty much at home with hard determinism. I don't see how free will could fit into the picture really, but I'm always open to suggestions.So in answer to your question, my gut instinct is that it was inevitable that you would post your OP. All you process of deliberation, conscious and unconscious was an unfolding that lead to an inevitable result.You say that you can't hold people responsible for their actions if hard determinism is true. I think I agree, but you aren't stopped from doing things that you hope will stop them (realising of course that your actions too are inevitable!). The best analogy I can think of is that you don't hold lightning responsible for striking people occasionally - you just take sensible precautions to try to avoid it happening.I'm just going to wander off topic a moment, I can't resist. I bet you didn't know that I lived on Walmgate, just along from the Spread Eagle a couple of years ago. I was at York University and I was living in halls there. York is such a great city, I had a fantastic year. Anyway.

(re: York - I have a fond memory of walking all the wall in one day, and stopping off here and there. Pubs.)I'd better start by confirming that I don't argue that I have any proof that hard determinism is true (It would be so cool if I did!). It just feels right to me. I accept that it could be the wrong position. I also hear what you say about it being largely theoretical. All the time we act as though we have choice. I seem to do so on many occasions throughout the day. Why is this, if I don't think I believe free will can exist?It could be because I was raised to believe in free will. Its like the free will Jesuits got me basically, and I can't easily unlearn what I was raised with. Also, it wouldn't make much sense to those around me if I was to suddenly make a concious effort to deny free will. We constantly reinforce each other's sense that free will exists as others told us that it was real. But in a way, if I was to argue this I would be capitulating and saying that there was an inherent contradiction between the way I believe I work (hard determinism) and the way I act (free willy).You could answer the problem another way. Just as Freud caused a stir when he suggested that the strings of each individual were being pulled by a subconcious that lurked off stage, someone who believes that hard determinism sounds reasonable is merely going a step further in placing the string puller (not necessarily a sentient one I hasten to add!) outside the human body.I don't think its very hard for someone to accept that they have desires and inclinations, and that they act upon these feelings, but that these desires and inclinations are not self-caused but have occurred as a result of external stimulii - or rather for reasons external to the concious or unconcious will.Doesn't this offer a way of reconsiling what appears to be an individual's act of choosing with the fact that I don't believe there is room for free will in the world?

Okay, this is helping me understand compatablism obviously... I thought I totally disagreed with it.Either everything is arbitrary (which from casual observation doesn't seem to be the case), or everything is caused by previous events - which I'd be at home with, or some things are caused and some things are arbitrary? Also that sounds okay. I don't see any room for 'choice' - that is that a person could choose to do two different actions at a particular point if you reran the tape of history. I don't think that could ever happen and that's the only way I can see choice as being meaningful.I think that freedom as uncaused randomness doesn't sound like freedom at all. If choices are arbitrary then they can't be meaningful and if they can't be meaningful there doesn't seem to be any way in which the freedom is meaningful. Maybe that makes me sound like a compatablist?But I think that I disagree with compatablists if they say that when people make an unconstrained choice that can be called freedom. I simply don't think that there is such a thing as an unconstrained choice. I cant choose to fly and I won't be able to choose to come back to life when I die, and I don't believe that I could ever choose to do something other than what I have done and will do. However many times you played history back I think I'd do the same, so I don't think I have the ability to make two different meaningful choices, and so I don't have freedom.Does that make sense?

No, I don't mean that choice would only be meaningful if two different choices were made at the same instant... clearly that isn't going to happen in this universe (unless Groundhog Day happens!). I'm asking how anyone could make a different choice at a given instant given the personal circumstances that lead up to that choice.It seems to make a mockery of reason to say that someone could take the same past experience and evidence that is available to them at any given moment and come to two diffenent conculsions with it. If you could do something different gven all the circumstances leading up to the moment of choice, it would suggest that reason lead you to arbitrary choices... and to me arbitrary choices don't seem free... they just seem arbitrary.This isn't to say that our ability to reason is perfect. We can just work with what we have, imperfectly.Its not your concious mind's ability to reason that I'm talking about, its also unconscious mind's ability to reason that I would expect to produce the same result however many times you played the tape of history back (sorry I keep using this phrase, it just seems appropriate)... given the individual's past experiences. And if the choices are inevitable, then I don't see how they can be considered free by any stretch of the imaginiation.Maybe I wasn't being explicit enough when I was talking about choosing not to fly and stuff... what I was trying to say was that I think that we are constrained in all these different ways: by the laws of physics etc... and I think the constraint produced by our past experiences+our ability to reason (consciously and unconsciously) are just as unyielding. I do believe that what we are going to do is mapped out in some way. I think that some of it is probably predictable, and some of it might not be predictable. But at no time do I think that meaningful choices happen. I can't prove it but I just can't see where there is room for some ability to make choices. It seems to me to come back to the choice between either saying that all choices are pre-ordained or arbitrary - neither of which seem free in any way.Basically I envisage everyone's lives unfolding before them on rails comprised of predetermination and arbitrariness, though I don't know the proportion. Because no-one can calculate what the map of their future actions is, then I don't see it as that much more constraining than a libertarian idea of free will.The libertarian free basically seems to me to be like rolling a die whenever a choice comes up, and deciding to follow the result of the die, whatever it is. That doesn't seem free to me. You could argue that you could exercise your free will to not do what the die tells you, but I would argue that this decision would be the result not of free will but instead of your past experiences acting on the moment and telling you whether you should do this particular thing or ignore the die in this instant.So to me libertarian free will seems meaningless and hollow. I real choice to me seems as though it should be a moment when you could do either one thing or another, and that either one could happen. Given past experience, I don't see how something like this could happen unless if was purely arbitrary.I think it is possible that things happen, in some circumstances, truly arbitrarily. If the outcome of these things can't be predicted, and these affect things that are so regular that they can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy, then it isn't possible to say how far in advance things can be predicted. However, with this slow-dance between the truly arbitrary and the reliably predicatble, I don't see any room for 'choice'.By the way, I'm not sure that some things are truly arbitrary, I'm just acknowledging that this might be the case with some things. As I see it, it might be possible that there is no such thing as arbitrariness at all, and everything may be necessarily caused. I see free will as something that relates not to the universe as a whole but to a very specific subset of the whole - beings with the ability to reason.I feel like I'm woofing up the wrong willow here... is this making sense? Is my definition of choice one that is in line with yours?

I'd just like to emphasise how grateful I am that you're taking the time to go through this with me here; stay with me if you can bear it!I don't think you quite got what I was saying when I was talking about reasoning (I have to admit to drink-posting on Sunday which probably didn't help). I am not JUST talking about conscious reasoning, but all mental processing, conscious and unconscious that leads to a choice.In your tea/coffee example I'd say that because your preferences and beliefs - established over a lifetime - are so finely balanced, that your ultimate decision is being swayed by subconcious factors that you aren't aware of so it feels arbitrary but in fact it is determined. (ABE - If, hypothetically there could be a circumstance where you felt so equally balanced about the choice that it really was 50/50, then I guess it could be described as truly arbitrary.. but I don't see that as free)In the ice cream example, I'd say that your preferences and beliefs, established again by the unique interaction between your sensory input and your mind over a lifetime, have led you a long way down the (dark) path to pistachio. If you tossed a coin, it would be arbitrary. But if you think that "freedom from coersion" gives choice any more meaningful than that, I'd disagree. Given the choice, you're nearly always going to choose pistachio. This is as a result of your memory and your biological inheritance. Your previous experience is decisively influencing you as a chooser. Very occasionally, you might choose strawberry. But I'm saying that there's going to be a very good reason in this case, brought about by cirumstances, that wouldn't have allowed any other choice. Because we don't know how circumstances influence us fully, it isn't possible for anyone to make accurate predictions of their own or other's behaviour. But just because you can't predict it doesn't mean that it isn't devoid of meaningfully free choice.For example, next time you get the choice between a delicious bowl of strawberry and some of that nutty stuff you might think to yourself consciously or unconsciously "That Tusko! I'll show him! I'll choose the one I don't like very much just to demonstrate how free I am!"This wouldn't be a meaningfully free choice, though I would agree that it would be a choice made free from obvious external coercion. Your choice would have been prompted by our exchange + your desire to be right + numerous other learned and inbuilt factors. In other words this exchange made it happen, and it would not be "free" in a meaningful sense. I'm just saying that all choices are like this.In both these examples I seem to be making a bald assertion: that anything choice that is made is dictated by circumstances and so inevitable. Maybe I am. However, what it looks like to me is that I'm just applying the belief that circumstances constrain us more consistently.To return to my previous example, you accept that you can't choose to fly, because you can't choose to break physical laws. But when it comes to choice, you arguing as a compatablist, say that freedom to be ruled by our biological hard-wiring or our past experience imparts a meaningful freedom. I'd say we just have the freedom to do what we have learned is right... which doesn't give much by the way of meaningful choice.To put it another way, It seems to me that compatiblists are ignoring previous experience and biological inheritance - two luminous flashing elephants - when talking about freedom from coersion. Sure those factors aren't conscious agents, coercing you like a naked man with a whip and an uncannily life-like Horus mask might, but to me they are inherited circumstances as insurmountable as physical or chemical laws.Edited by Tusko, : No reason given.Edited by Tusko, : little grammarEdited by Tusko, : No reason given.Edited by Tusko, : sorry! I really should have checked this grammatically before posting!Edited by Tusko, : added a bit of clarification about the tea coffee example

Yes - argg - I knew I should have made myself clearer. I don't think they "coerce" because they aren't concious agents. I do think that they determine the outcomes though and so prevent meaningful choice... so a compatiblist may say you are free if free from coercion. I say that you would be free if you could be free from all determining factors, external (coercion) and internal (memory, biology). I don't think that kind of freedom can exist though.

My response to freedom in the compatiblist sense is: "whoop-de-do!" To me that isn't freedom in any sense. So I guess I agree with compatiblism, but I don't agree that it should be called freedom. I don't draw a distinction between external coercion (people with guns), external scientific laws (gravity), and internal constraining factors (my biological inheritance, my lifetime of experience and their effect on me). To do so seems artificial. EVERYTHING is effecting me, pushing me towards making a certain decisin at every instance. If there isn't a man with a gun telling me what to do, then there is some alliance between my brain cells, memory and concious ability to reason in my mind. I'm not saying thats BAD. The only alternative is arbitrariness, and that seems even less attractive. At least this way we do things for reasons.But I'm failing to see how we can ever be said to have choice, and thats the only way I'm able to understand freedom.

Thanks - I hope this gets to the heart of it.I'm feeling increasingly like I'm proposing something really wacky. Just a week ago i thought my views on free will were pretty run of the mill - even that they made sense!My definition of 'meaningful freedom' would be if you could rerun history twice and a person would make two different choices on two different occasions, even though all the run up had been the same.I don't see how this could happen, unless it was determined arbitrarily - and I don't think that would be free either.But if it could happen without it being arbitrary, then that would be meaningful freedom to me. But that's the only kind of freedom that I can think of.So I don't see how we could be free. The idea of freedom doesn't really make sense to me, like the idea of an omnipotent, omni-benevolent, omni-everything god doesn't make sense to me.To me the outcome of every choice is the result of previous circumstances (experiences, biology, chemistry, physics). I don't think there's much to pick between internal and external 'constraints' - because other people's internal constraints easily become other people's external ones (so a man who abuses children and takes away their compatiblist freedom abuses them because of his internal constraints, which were put in place by someone who abused him... I'm not saying that all people who are abused are going to abuse others by the way).Is this helping?

So maybe this is where I'm being weird? It still seems to make sense to me.Obviously I'm happier about doing things that I choose to do than things I'm forced to do by other people, especially if the things that I'm forced to do inflict pain or suffering on anyone (especially myself!) so they are different in that way. But what I'm saying is:am I any freer if I do what I want than if I do what someone else wants?I don't think I'm given more choice if I do what I want, because there is only one thing that I do want, given two options. And isn't freedom having choices?Maybe an example would help. You have an apparent choice when you choose between pistachio and strawberry. But given the circumstances (previous memories, biological factors) you can only reach one decision. You are constrained by yourself: by all those factors mentioned previously.If Javaman is holding a gun to my head and asking me to microwave my puppy, then I have an apparent choice to have my head blown open or to melt the mutt. But given the circumstances (my history of cowardice, the stress hormones in my bloodstream etc...) I can only ever reach one decision. I am constrained by all those factors mentioned previously.Is this sounding odd? I'm not saying that because we can only do one thing at any juncture thats not freedom (I hope not anyway) I'm saying that the decisions that we do make at any one juncture seem to result entirely or almost entirely from past happenings.ABE - and by the way, you are being eminently reasonable and i'm not feeling at all picked on. I just want to sound friendly and open to your ideas. I want to underline that I'm not defending my position from a bunker of ego - I'm quite happy to change my view if someone can explain just what it is that I'm getting all twisted (if I am!).Edited by Tusko, : ABE noted at endEdited by Tusko, : No reason given.

Ive got to be ultra fast here... so apologies.I agree that it is impossible for anyone to be ulitmately responsible for their nature... so this leads me to think that there can't ever be meaningfulchoice - only apparentchoices. It might feel like a choice, but you're only going to do the thing that your mind decides is the best course of action... and what your mind determines is the best course of action is derived from previous happenings (physical, biological etc..)... and so is predetermined.I don't think the idea of freedom as offered by anyone is internally consistent, like I don't think an omni- everything god makes sense. I'm not necessarily viewing the constraints as BAD. The ability to reason and past experience is great and it throws up relevant considerations when it comes to making any decision. Its great, but it also makes whatever it is that we will do kind of inevitable.Or at least it seems that way to me?

I'm sorry if this seems like it is going on a bit... I'm hoping that I get to the bottom of this soon. If its any consolation, I'm finding this invaluable for seeing what my ideas are on this subject.I don't think meaningful choices as I was describing them happen. I don't think they could happen. They don't make sense. A meaningful choice wouldn't be predetermined, and wouldn't be arbitrary. I don't think this is possible. I guess if it could happen, the super-being who did it would look at two possibilities and they really could do either, so they could freely choose to do one. I don't think humans, or indeed any being I can imagine could do that.That's why the idea of free will doesn't make sense to me. I basically agree with compatiblists it seems, except I deny that what's left can really be called freedom. If I could know all the predetermining factors that affect you at any moment when you have to make a decision - and I mean all of them - then I would be able to accurately predict the decision you would make. If I can accurately predict the decision you are going to make, then it seems predetermined. If it is predetermined then it's inevitable. If its inevitable before it happens then I don't really see room for free will.This is hypothetical because no one could ever predict accurately what someone would do like this (at least not with today's technology!)I don't think its particularly downbeat either - because we get to exercise our ability to reason, and that's a wonderful thing that screwdrivers and trees never get to do. I'm just not drawing a distinction between the predispositions of others who may want to control me, and my internal predispositions to do certain things. They all reduce the range of possible choices that can be taken by anybody to one at each moment of choice.Is that a better way of describing it?It occurs to me that I might be arguing for a shatteringly banal truism, like wood is wood or something, which is a bit disheartening because its been my attitude towards free-will for years. What do you think?Edited by Tusko, : making it make more senseEdited by Tusko, : NOW it makes more sense!

I'm pretty sure that what I'm saying is either stupid or, more likely, is just really underwhelming. I think it must come down to definition somewhere.I'll have a go at explaining why I think it makes sense to me - because it still does. Please let me know your reaction if you can. If my belief doesn't make sense I'd be most happy if someone could help me cast it off!I think the key is that you acknowledge that if you hate vanilla then your choice of chocolate is forced. I think we both agree that this would be because if you hate vanilla, it's as a result of loads of pre-determined factors to do with previous experiences, and the physical circumstances of your brain too. When you step into the shop, prior to accosting the counter staff, it could be determined from your brain state that you would never choose vanilla if presented with the choice between vanilla and chocolate (if we had magic scanning technology and super-duper-computers). We agree that in a way, you would not be able to choose vanilla; that your choice of chocolate would be 'forced' in your words.Where you disagree with me, and I'm having trouble seeing why, is when you say that this wouldn't work if the feelings were a bit less extreme. Say you mildly disliked vanilla, and found chocolate quite nice. And even a bit less extreme than that. And actually, pretty finely balanced (though still not identical, so that you still preferred chocolate).I'd argue that the actual feelings that you have for vanilla and chocolate - largely positive in both cases, though derived from different experiences - can be compared in the same way as the strong feelings of dislike for vanilla and the positive feelings about chocolate we were just looking at.If we had the super brain scanner we could check out the regions of your brain where those fairly nice memories that you had about vanilla are stored, and we could check out the chocolate memories, and if you can know enough about how you work (more so than any technology invented in the next ten thousand years would be able to discover) then you will be able to predict which one you will choose from observing the evidence before you yourself have consciously addressed the problem of which flavour you are going to have.The only case I can see where it wouldn't be predictable was if, for the sake of argument, the feelings for vanilla and the feelings for chocolate were so similar, so finely balanced, that tiny random factors, if they exist, creep in at a molecular level in the brain and determine the choice. I don't think that would be a free, meaningful choice either.ABE - I'm trying to work out why we look at it so differently. I'm wondering if the distinction between our ways of looking at it is because you draw a destinction between biases that you are conciously aware of (you hate chocolate), and biases that you aren't conciously aware of (you have an infinitesimal preference for chocolate in a given situation). I don't do that, and see it as all the same. I'm not saying I'm right of course!Edited by Tusko, : I altered the "Where you disagree with me" paragraph to be more explicit I hopeEdited by Tusko, : Final thought added because it occurred to me laterEdited by Tusko, : "and [perhaps] the physical circumstances..."

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"you would never choose[ing] vanilla..."

I agree - I don't think that a oxymoronic freedom is one worth having. And even if I did, it would be a waste of effort wishing for something unachievable!I reject the idea of freedom. To me it doesn't seem helpful; it just seems misleading. That's a seperate issue from the fact that I don't want anyone to be hurt emotionally or physically.If someone chains me up, or rapes me, or shoots me in the stomach, I'm not pissed off at them for taking away my freedoms. I'm pissed off that I'm in pain. If they're going to kill me against my will, I'm pissed off that I soon won't have the abilty to experience life any more. From my perspective I don't think its possible to believe in moral responsibility so I think it would be pointless to be angry at them personally, or to call them evil (I can't see how 'evil' exists, like I can't see how 'freedom' exists). But I don't want to have bad things happen to me. I want to avoid them and have an interesting, pleasurable and long life.I think it would be as worthwhile getting pissed off at my captor/entrapper/torturer for 'taking away my freedoms' as it would be to getting pissed off at gravity for denying me the freedom to float up out of my chair right now.That isn't to say that I might not try to escape if I was a captive, or be emotionally traumatised by my captor. I don't see myself as an impassive robot, faultlessly stoic; that would be silly.I just don't think that something that doesn't exist can be taken away.

During the course of the afternoon three more random thoughts have occurred to me that may or may not be helpful -1) You seem to be very concerned with the idea or a "freedom that is worth having". I'm not really understanding this. Please let me use an unnecessary crudity to demonstrate why it isn't clear what you mean - Now I thought of it I'm proud of it!I believe that a bumhole that can clench coal into diamonds would be a bumhole worth having, but if it isn't physically possible then it doesn't really matter how attractive it is.2) Maybe there is a more palatable way of me saying what I am saying. Let me try it out. Because I don't believe that there can ever be a real choice, there is no moment when a choice is made, though it looks like there is. When something is done by a person (or indeed a salmon), it is being done because it has already been predetermined by the brain state.3) This isn't really in any way related in any way, but I'm just going to write it down anyway. I thought of an analogy for all those people why say "ah well, if my life's all predetermined anyway, what's the point? I might as well not bother."To me that makes as much sense is if they get given a parcel, but they never open it, arguing, "that there's no point because whatever it is in there isn't going to change between now and when I look inside."Just a random off topic thought!Edited by Tusko, : No reason given.

I'm not convinced that somehow I'm not just playing word games with all this somehow.To address your points though: I'm arguing that there isn't really free will, so I don't understand why you would think I would be trying to justify its worth. I don't think its possible to not choose to behave rationally. I think we as individuals are essentially compelled act rationally, if acting rationally is to enact learned responses to given stimuli. This is the part of your post I've found it hardest to understand. I'm having trouble because I think it suggests that I haven't made myself properly understood. I don't think that I require that I 'would' have chosen otherwise, though I can't be sure if I understand you.How 'could' you have chosen otherwise if your brain and your ability to reason, and your circumstances are all leading you to a particular decision? What appears to be the exercising of free will to you just seems to be the final filter on possible actions through which only one can emerge.Here's a wacky example that might help:Imagine it were possible to make a brain physically identical to yours at 1413 and 13 seconds today in a biotech lab, and then boot it up, sustain it and feed it sensory input so that it thought it was just you having a normal day.If the scientists studying it knew enough about it - and I mean exactly how it worked - then they could accurately predict what it would do in any subsequent situation.* They would know what it would choose to do. You would know this because you would have the banks of memory and experience that it draws its understanding of the world from, and they would know how it would interpret them and use them.You are saying, if I'm understanding you correctly, that whenever your brain-clone was faced with the free choice between vanilla and chocolate ice-cream in a pretend ice cream parlour in its synthetic reality, it could exercising its free-will to choose one. I am saying that this doesn't seem right to me because the scientists studying your brain-clone would know what it would choose as it walked through the door of the ice-cream parlour, before it even knew what ice-creams were on sale.They would know its preferences and the memories they were based on, and consequently the brain couldn't surprise the scientists.(Well, as I suggested in the footnote, actually it could surprise them - but only if some part of the cognitive process was random - and so as a consequence wouldn't be free.)I’d be grateful if you could explain two things:1) Assuming cognitive randomness can be conclusively proved to be banished, how could your brain-clone be described as making a free choice given that the scientists can't ever be surprised?2) ABE - if you think this isn't a fair thought experiment, How does the situation of your brain-clone differ from our situation?* This is assuming that arbitrariness can't creep in at some molecular level, which would also lead to unfree choice.Edited by Tusko, : "just [me] having a normal day" ... but its nwr's brain now!Edited by Tusko, : "free choice [of icecream] given " lets make this more general!Edited by Tusko, : 2) isn't really necessary if s/he agrees