A chellange to anyone who think free will exists

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Well the topic really only deals with hard-determinism, so basically counts out any of the agents you listed without free will.



I said that animals had free will and were not necessarily rational... that does not mean I am stating that animals are necessarily irrational.



If we are talking about hard determinism based on the laws of physics and the dictates of evolution... it is not a given that the being is rational.



The decision is not arbitrary if it comes as a product of the probability calculus. When the factors are put through the Baysean probability calculus (Formula P(R/F&E) ) the result is <.5 which is pretty much a defeater (see page 3).

Some good basic info on the subject (note, it uses the EAAN):
http://philosophy.nd.edu/people/all/pro ... 773073.pdf

Irrelevant. I am talking about free will and you are trying to argue that RATIONAL agents cannot arise as a result of evolution. In particular, are you saying that your 'rational agent with free will' will beat a super computer designed by god?

I did not say this I stated that it was less likely that our faculties would be reliable if they are the products of incompatibilist hard-determinism.



Umm.... not sure where you got that from.

The question is valid though, because the computer IS a determinist epistemic agent. So, because you are trying to say "naturalism vs supernaturalism", binary here is just making this supernatural free will vs supernatural determinism so that way you actually are pinned down on the real question.

I do not doubt that the concept is logically coherent. A deterministic computer designed by God most likely could find more truth than a ration agent like ourselves. My argument is that the laws of physics, which on hard determinism govern the mind to the exclusion of the possibility of free will do not exist in a way that would naturally establish a rational agent with reliable cognitive faculties. Considering the sheer number of combinations of those laws and that the values of forces can have all sorts of values, the likelihood that the cognitive faculties on hard-determinism being reliable is so tiny as to remove all but all epistemological warrant.

Ok, but "laws of physics" isn't relevant, as they don't say anything about the logical structure of cognition. Everything you have worthwhile to say about science and cognition would actually fall under the EAAN, and that's irrelevant to the entire situation. I mean, the real issue here is that free will or no free will isn't actually the major factor in whether a person can access the truth, even if evolution came across some form of quantum computing that allowed for free will, the comments about the laws of physics, would remain constant, thus be irrelevant to the real problem. You're conflating different debates by failing to hold things constant as much as you can.

Some philosophers of physics have argued that the Bell arguments concerning EPR-Bohm systems already call into question the presumption that causation is strictly bottom up (reductionism). The argument put forward, as I understand it, is that if such microphysical systems themselves can have properties not possessed by individual parts (existence of holistic relations), so might any system composed of such parts. So you can have a type of top-down mental causation (that may allow for the possibility for free will, etc). Read page 133-134 of this pdf paper:

http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/H/James.A.H ... s_Toll.pdf

"The classical picture offered a compelling presumption in favor of the claim that causation is strictly bottom up-that the causal powers of whole systems reside entirely in the causal powers of parts. This thesis is central to most arguments for reductionism. It contends that all physically significant processes are due to causal powers of the smallest parts acting individually on one another. If this were right, then any emergent or systemic properties must either be powerless epiphenomena or else violate basic micophysical laws. But the way in which the classical picture breaks down undermines this connection and the reductionist argument that employs it. If microphysical systems can have properties not possessed by individual parts, then so might any system composed of such parts."

Something seems to be wrong with wrongplanet today my post did not go through the system.

Well, I think you are being a bit simplistic here. If one gives up free will then the idea that one can hold an opinion based upon good reasons is pretty much dead. Without free will the process of adjudicating between beliefs can only be left to something like Dennett's 'avoider' conception which only produces rationality as a byproduct of a different system. Considering how many logically possible systems there are, the chance of having one that produced rationality is very low.

Uh.... but who says that WITH free will holding an opinion based upon good reasons is alive? After all, with free will, the choice of an opinion isn't determined by reasons, it's determined by an uncaused notion.

Even further, isn't Dan Dennett's "avoider", actually a notion of free will? He presents it as such. So, I get the feeling that you are just somehow deeply confused somewhere. After all, you're rejecting a notion of free will as free will without argument (even though in the past you've presented this as free will). Also, you're trying to say that free will is a rational process, but there is no procedure. How would you know that free will is a rational process at all? Without a procedure, you can produce any outcome. Without a procedure, you have no right to say what outcomes are more likely than others. Thus, without a procedure(as procedures are deterministic), we have little to no reason to believe that we have truth.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 17 May 2011, 6:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

the temperature of an ensemble of molecules is a property of the ensemble, not any of the constituent molecules. Ditto for entropy.

ruveyn

Indeed, what does 91 mean by a rational agent?

Not my concern. It isn't the matter of "rational agent". 91's never really shown that rational agent + free will is better than rational agent alone. He can quibble on what is required to be an agent, but he's not given reason to think that free will actually improves epistemic processes. If he had a reason, he could show how free will, as a mechanism, makes the processes better.

Surely the issue is not is + free will better than - free will? Is not the question does free will accurately and adequately account for the observed reality?

91 claims that free will is needed to trust a person's own beliefs. I don't really accept the kind of argument he's presenting as valid, HOWEVER, I don't think it comes close to working in this situation.

91's only going this direction though BECAUSE he doesn't want to deal with observed reality. Basically, nobody goes meta-debating unless they've already lost the debate.

Lol... way to fail.



He certainly does present it as such. However, it does not allow for a rational person to weight two options and chose the better.



Still failing... Free will is by definition a rational process. It the ability of a mind to chose one option over another by its own will.



During our last discussion on the subject I posted a great deal of neuroscience journal articles that show free will is most likely at work in the mind. This is just intellectually dishonest, I do not expect Philologos to be aware of that discussion by you were in it... however, knowing your notorious selective memory, you have probably forgotten.

Not really.


Except it does. It just doesn't in the manner that you want it to.


No, you're still failing. First of all, how is it by definition a "rational process"? I mean, when I think "rational process", I think something that follows epistemic virtues by it's nature. What mechanism drives free will to follow epistemic virtue. If there is a mechanism, isn't it no longer free? If there is no mechanism, what's to say that the nature of free will is to be "rational"?

In any case, free will is poorly thought-out hogwash. It's a little bit of nonsense that idiots like to trot out because the substance is so sorely lacking that the substance just seems deep.


Except it isn't. First of all, neuroscience doesn't come to that conclusion. Second of all, if we hold free will in a notion that excludes ideas like Dan Dennett's "avoidance", it probably *can't* come to that conclusion. Third of all, you're the king of intellectual dishonesty here.