An Abductive Argument For Free Will
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- Опубліковано 15 січ 2025
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Full Video:
• A Case For Free Will
Sources:
A Pragmatic Approach to Libertarian Free Will - John Lemos
Free Will: Sourcehood and its Alternatives - Kevin Timpe
The Oxford Handbook of Free Will - Robert Kane (ed)
How Reason Can Lead to God - Joshua Rasmussen
Autonomous Agents - Alfred R. Mele
Mind, Brain, & Free Will - Richard Swinburne
Freewill and Determinism - R. L. Franklin
Agent-Causation Revisited - Thad Botham
Persons & Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will - Timothy O’Connor
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"Relative to what I know, it is possible it may rain tomorrow." Just because you have incomplete knowledge doesn't mean that whether it will rain tomorrow or not is indeterministic.
Sure, we have evidence showing how rain occurs and ways to predict it, but if I just invent an invisible rain genie in my head who makes it rain and decide it is real, then it's actually simpler to assume that's why it rains rather than a bunch of complicated processes so it's actually right to say whether it will rain or not is indeterministic. It's not like we've seen all rain ever, maybe the rain genie does exist and made some rain appear magically somewhere at some point with no prior causes, way more complex and unsubstantiated to make the assumption that rain universally has a cause (because I know the rain genie is real)
Yeah, that was an example of an epistemic possibility. I never suggested that it was indeterministic. Were you even listening?
@@faithbecauseofreason8381 Honestly, it was late. Removing deterministic relations does not make an ontology simpler because you have replaced a relationship that could be discovered with one that can not be. Ignoring entities does not mean there are fewer. A tree you can traverse is simpler than a tree you can not. At ua-cam.com/video/_q6l6qLyHzo/v-deo.html I believe you make some assertions about consciousness and indeterminism that haven't been proven (or even discussed) throughout the video.
@@strachian I haven't suggested any replacement. You'd have to argue that indeterminism entails a replacement.
@@crypt5129 Like Arthur C Clarke's Three Laws:
1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
At 13:35, in the model of deliberate choice, i don't think deliberation has sufficient causal explanation. Every time i am making a conscious choice, what i am doing is actually weighing the options in face of my desires. However, those desires are not chosen by me, they are determined by prior factors. In order to explain this observation, determinism must be the best explanation.
For example, if have to choose between eating a broccoli or a cookie, i will consider the option that maximizes my pleasure. After some deliberation, i conclude that eating the broccoli will maximize my pleasure, because it is a healthy food, and i will fell good because of it.
Notice that many prior factors explain my choice. 1) my prior experience with both foods.
2) my knowledge of nutrition.
3) the desire to maximize my pleasure.
However, i never chose to have the desire to maximize my pleasure, it is simply something that i have as human.
Also, your analogy of the billiards balls has a possible flaw. As temporal beings, we can only perceive a succession of moments. But a higher dimensional being (5D or more) would perceive our 4D space-time as a single prism of immobile objects. He would perceive the balls as a single entity that changes form along the temporal dimension/axis. So, it is possible that all time was created at a single point, and everything in the future already exists and already is determined. But as we are limited beings, we cannot perceive this.
You can do what you will, but you cannot will what you will
@@crypt5129 that's from Schopenhauer
@@gabri41200 Never knew that. True regardless
Determinism cannot explain the first move, and things are truer the closer they are to the beginning, because what could possibly be truer than the first thing to be. What is truer: a chair or math? Any chair will be gone sooner rather than later whereas math is eternal; it will always be, and has always been, true for all simultaneously. Ergo determinism is false. Another point: If the beggining cannot be explained by determinism then it is an indeterministic action, and since that is the case than where is the ensurance that anything else has to be deterministic since the first thing isn't? I.e. we, at most, live in an universe with the apearance of being deterministic.
@kefascastagnahaasper251 first, in order for determinism to need to explain an observation, the observation needs to be made in the first place. There is no observation of the first movement, so there is nothing to explain.
Second, your definitions of "truer" and trueness are completely subjective. Math is dependent on axioms, and those axioms have to be taken by faith. There is no objective truth.
Good video. One of the best arguments for lfw I have heard.
You take the position that we take actions because we believe they will have causal effect on the world.
This seems to undermine LFW. It is your belief in your actions having causal effect that is causing your action. Did you choose whether or not to have that belief?
Ultimately, I reject lfw based on my own first order experience which outweighs the philosophical arguments. To the extent I think prior to taking an action at all (a relatively rare occassion among all of my actions), I do not get to choose the thoughts that enter my mind. And those thoughts dictate what I do.
Why do you think that thoughts cause actions?
I don't think the argument is for LFW. It's an argument primarily for indeterminism.
@coltoncarlson6334 but indeterminism is a critical element of LFW so my argument would be supportive of an important part of LFW.
@@faithbecauseofreason8381 Obviously. I am just noting that your argument shouldn't be seen as a sufficient argument for LFW. Perhaps a necessary argument, but not sufficient.
@@coltoncarlson6334 agreed
This seems off to me. We are easily aware of times where we need to add external causes to our internal decisions to understand why those decisions were made. There are piles of data demonstrating this.
P1. Whenever we investigate if there are external causes that lead a person to make a choice, we either conclude that there is an external cause or we conclude that we do not have enough information to claim that the cause was external or self-actualized.
P2. As our scientific data increases, more and more investigations occurring in P1 affirm an external cause than conclude that no conclusions can be drawn as to the cause of the action
P3. All things being equal, it is more useful to make predictions about what will happen in the future to assume the future will resemble the past unless there is a reason to believe otherwise
C. It is more useful to assume that any unknown cause for a choice is more likely to be an external cause than a self-actualized cause
Who is the "we" in this argument?
First wanted to say, great video, and really well laid out.
That said, I object to your line of argument being so focused on C3 Simplicity. I think the added complexity in the assumption of Determinism is justified because it offers much more of C1 Explanatory Power.
If I ask you why you made this video you will give/have reasons and without those reasons you wouldn’t have made the video. The human mind seems to always do this because it gives explanatory power helping us to make sense of reality.
We consistently trace these psychological phenomena back to brain chemistry and genetics with testable repeatable experiments.
As Hume points out, our only criteria for knowledge is repeatable observation.
What I’m getting at is that the very existence of psychology as a field of study and the correlative consistency with brain chemistry and genetics fly in the face of independent causal agents.
Indeterministic causes to choices cannot make sense of these consistencies because numerous consistencies indicate causal relationships.
All that is to say that even if determinism is false it still doesn’t leave room for independent free will.
I “chose” to marry my wife but i never chose to find her attractive. I didn’t choose to fall in love with her or even to want to propose with her. Even if all these highly correlative phenomenon are indeterminate, I am still not the one in control of or choosing these feelings and without those feelings I 100% wouldn’t have married her.
Free will still might be real, but its only basis appears to be conflicting intuitions and faith.
No doubt that certain makes our “choices” all the more special and significant to us. 🙂
I don't think that determinism has explanatory power. I think that you were confusing different types of reasons. Motivational reasons or not causal reasons. The former are compatible with indeterminism.
We can do what we will, but we cannot will what we will. Hence, we do not have free will, as every choice we make is only made because of desires we cannot control. You desired your wife as a wife, so you proposed. I desired to write this comment, so I did. You did not choose to desire your wife, I did not choose to desire to write this comment, if I chose not to write it then it would have to be because of some other desire, a desire to not waste time writing a lot of shit no one will read, a desire to be lazy and do nothing, a desire to do something else instead, a desire to not die because some guy is pointing a gun at my head and demanding I not type this comment, it all comes down to shit we cannot control that is determined by our neurology/biology and how it interacts with itself and our environment
@@crypt5129 twas worth it because I read your comment.
@@faithbecauseofreason8381 I don’t see how you are justifying the distinction. Regardless of determinism, we cannot will what we will and what we will determines what we do. Hence the individual does not have control.
@@faithbecauseofreason8381
[I don't think that determinism has explanatory power.]
Why not given the observable causal chains?0
I reject your argument on the basis of such NOT being reflective of what is actually known. I can accept the idea of the simplest explanation being the best explanation SO LONG AS such actually encompasses the data that is known and is itself known to be an aspect of reality. I will grant that a data set can be compatible with ideas which are not shown to be an aspect of reality, but ANY supposition of an unsubstantiated idea is inherently questionable and thus pragmatically false.
Your argument does NOT seem to address the following and is thus missing details known of reality.
P1: Our cognitive abilities reside in our brain.
P2: The brain is a process of chemical reactions.
P3: Chemical reactions are deterministic.
C: Thus, our cognitive abilities are deterministic.
I see no basis to conclude that we are anything other than a deterministic process given what is actually observed with regard to our cognitive faculties at every level of review wherein there is sufficient detail by which to make a conclusion. Thus, I will grant that there are aspects of what occurs wherein there are unknown linkages, but the inference based on the available data is that the whole of it is deterministic.
This is further bolstered by the understanding that we have no actual state of randomness of the sort required to give support to there being some actual state of indeterminacy in reality as opposed to being an issue of our limitations of knowledge. The issue being that the term random has always represented a state which was beyond our ability to predict, but was never an issue of such being non-deterministic.
My idea of an actual random - given some particular state S there is any number of potential outcomes, such that a one to one relationship of a particular state to a particular outcome cannot rationally be claimed. However, it is the case that for every state S wherein there is sufficient capacity to review all relevant factors we have a particular outcome, we find that such always has an invariant relationship. This allows that every set of particular causes entail a set of particular effects. I will immediately grant that this is an inference (since an actual something allowing what I denote as an actual random is not off the table philosophically, but seems to have no basis for support within the context of reality), but it is an invariant inference insofar as we know such that it is also reasonable conclusion that this is a state of fact with regard to such linkages until such time there is grounds for some other consideration.
--
Further, it would be useful for you to present a slide defining indeterminism like was done for determinism.
P1 of your argument is false if it is meant to include all cognitive abilities
@@faithbecauseofreason8381What cognitive abilities do not reside in the brain? The term cognitive is literally a term that describes mental processes, as in processes that happen in the brain
@crypt5129 I'm a substance dualist, not a physicalist so I reject that definition.
@@faithbecauseofreason8381 How does that relate to what I said?
@@crypt5129 I do not agree with you that mental processes reside within the brain
I would like to provide a small critique to this argument. I certainly think an abductive argument is the right way to go about it but I think you have not applied it thoroughly enough. The part you need to focus on is the fact that as you mentioned, determinism asserts that it is not only sometimes the case, but universally the case that antecedent factors determine the entirety of a persons decisions in every single case. Not just partially or in some cases. The determinist has absolutely no grounds for this universal claim. There can be some instances where antecedent causes do cause us to make decisions and some where they don't. Since asserting the existence of free will in at least some cases does not invoke any more universal claims than the determinist but that the determinist establishes a universal which is not proven in order to argue for determinism.
In your argument, you say that until evidence is provided for determinism, then we can't affirm it. But certain inductive arguments based on certain particular experiments have been provided. It is only by understanding that determinism is a universal claim beyond the scope of observation, that we can say that determinism still requires more moving parts and thus cannot be established based on the current evidence because it makes to many assumptions which are universal in their scope and therefore highly uncertain.
Well in the full video (of which this only a segment) I consider neurological experiments which purportedly support determinism and argue that they do not actually support this proposition. But I agree with you that this would, in principle, be a legitimate counter to my argument. I just don't think that it actually works.
Everything we do relates back to some desire (excluding instances of force), otherwise we would not do it. You desired to write your comment, so you did. You did not choose this desire. You desired it because of the kind of person you are, which you cannot control outside of making decisions that also come down to desire or force. You did not spontaneously decide to write this comment, had you been in different circumstances but been on this video regardless, you would not have commented, or you would've said something else. When a character in media does some random shit for no reason that doesn't make sense given their character, people get pissed and say it's unrealistic and nonsensical, because that's just not how things work, our decision-making process has been studied, our decisions to do certain things don't just pop up independent of preexisting factors.
There is evidence in favor of determinism, both physical and just logical, not definitive because, as you said, this is beyond the scope of observation, but the evidence highly suggests it to be accurate. There is, however, no evidence for indeterminism that I can think of that doesn't rely on believing other things that cannot be proven. It is simpler to believe our decisions come from cognitive processes in the brain because this is what has been demonstrated, it is comparably more complex to make up some shit to try to prove that things just kind of happen sometimes
@@crypt5129 Your argument assumes that there is a liniar line of causation going from our desires to our choices which is begging the question. You have not accounted for non liniar or non standard forms of causation such as for example retro causality which is one of the theories of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics being the thing that introduces indeterminacy and non standard forms of causation into the sciences. There have been biology papers published which talk about retrocausal brain waves being a possibility for how free will could form. Free will in any for would have to be a nonstandard causal process. To assert liniar causality here would be to beg the question.
@@adenjones1802 How can we make decisions independent from our desires? Our desires are what drive us, without desire there is nothing. Not a lack of doing things, literally nothing, because to do nothing would mean a want to do nothing or a want to not do something. Without a drive to do, there is no doing, that's kind of the point. All human decisions can be explained this way, and it has been shown that this is how the brain operates.
I haven't done much research into retrocausality so I'm just working off of google's definition which says that an effect may occur prior to its cause. This means there is still a cause, hence it is determined. You cannot choose this cause to occur, this cause has caused your actions despite not having occurred yet, hence your actions are determined by something outside of your control, hence there is no free will
[The determinist has absolutely no grounds for this universal claim.]
P1: Observance allows a determination of correlation.
P2: Causation is a particular type of correlation where relevant variables are for a particular cause/effect are known.
P3: Any claim outside of what is known cannot rationally be claimed as being the case.
C: Determinism is grounded in that which is observed to be the case.
What would be grounds for thinking that some particular cause/effect linkage would or even could be different elsewhere wherein such is substantiated as opposed to being an assertion/speculation in need of substantiation?
Let's say that I didn't know that billiard balls caused other billiard balls to move on a pool table. Given your argument, the best explanation for their movement would be indeterminism until someone showed me otherwise. This seems incredibly strange... that the plausibility of indeterminism is dictated by our ignorance of a phenomenon.
It gets even stranger, given that you concede determinism for the majority of phenomenon in the universe, and selectively choose indeterminism for things where antecedents aren't obvious. It's as if the universe is conspiring to choose determinism and indeterminism based on our current knowledge, and when we learn of new antecedents, a previous indeterministic phenomenon gets pushed into the deterministic group. If simplicity is the goal, wouldn't it be much simpler to suppose that everything is deterministic, and that my ignorance of a phenomenon has no effect on the world? To me, a world that is split between deterministic and indeterministic processes based on our current level of understanding is the least simple thing imaginable.
And to top it all off, mental states DO have antecedents. To say that they don't is to ignore pretty much all of neuroscience. Mental states are preceded by brain states full stop. Just look at the latest developments in Neuralink. People can play computer games by thought alone, and the only way to accomplish this is to read brain states.
Even if you were able to justify indeterminism for mental states, you would still be left explaining how a non determined mental state could result in something we intended to happen. The origin of every choice, given that it's not determined, would need to be random, which doesn't sound like free will to me.
I think you’re misunderstanding my argument in various ways.
“Let's say that I didn't know that billiard balls caused other billiard balls to move on a pool table. Given your argument, the best explanation for their movement would be indeterminism until someone showed me otherwise.”
But I did show otherwise or, at least, I attempted to. I explained that the movement only occurs when contact is made between billiard balls moreover the movement is in a trajectory and a t a velocity which is determined by the angle at which the contact is made. These factors help to explain why causation is the best explanation for the movement.
“This seems incredibly strange... that the plausibility of indeterminism is dictated by our ignorance of a phenomenon.”
Yeah, that’s a simple misstatement of the argument. The justification arises from the simplicity of the hypothesis (all else being equal). It doesn’t arise from ignorance.
“It gets even stranger, given that you concede determinism for the majority of phenomenon in the universe, and selectively choose indeterminism for things where antecedents aren't obvious.”
Granting determination in some cases is not granting determinism. Determinism, by definition, is an exhaustive thesis.
“If simplicity is the goal, wouldn't it be much simpler to suppose that everything is deterministic, and that my ignorance of a phenomenon has no effect on the world?”
That would not be simpler since it would commit you to a host of unevidenced determinition relations.
“To me, a world that is split between deterministic and indeterministic processes based on our current level of understanding is the least simple thing imaginable.”
How? A world which is indeterministic entails fewer relations than a determinsitic world. Erog, an indeterministic world is simpler since it contains fewer total entities. This is simple math, my friend.
“And to top it all off, mental states DO have antecedents. To say that they don't is to ignore pretty much all of neuroscience. Mental states are preceded by brain states full stop.”
I never denied that certain mental states have physical correlates or even causes. IDK why you’re acting like I did. My position is that deliberate decisions are not sufficiently determined by anything. That’s what you would need to demonstrate and nothing in contemporary neuroscience even comes close to demonstrating this.
“Even if you were able to justify indeterminism for mental states, you would still be left explaining how a non determined mental state could result in something we intended to happen.”
Well I did explain this. My view is that the causation is direct. There is no intermediary mechanism. But I don’t actually have to explain this because one can know that something is the case without knowing how or why it is the case.
“The origin of every choice, given that it's not determined, would need to be random, which doesn't sound like free will to me.”
I already dealt with this objection in another video.
I couldn't listen to this. It was way too tedious, I being a "bear of little brains" thought it was needlessly muddled. I don't buy the idea of free will. What mechanism could possible cause uncauses thoughts?
Who has said that a mechanism causes uncaused thoughts?
@@faithbecauseofreason8381
//Who has said that a mechanism causes uncaused thoughts?//
- Our thoughts are either determined by influencing factors, that we do not cause, or
- Our thoughts are caused by mechanisms other than determining influences, that we do not cause [some unidentified mechanism that is separate from the activity of our brains].
I did not quote anyone. It is my question. What mechanism causes "uncaused" thoughts, i.e thoughts that are not influenced or contingent on prior factors; thoughts that are independent of prior influencing experiences or brain chemistry].
Our thoughts arise from brain activity into our consciousness. And our brain activity is based on prior influencing experiences and factors, like brain chemistry and the laws of physics.
Do the Muses cause your thoughts? or demons or angels? Or maybe, do you think thoughts before your brain thinks them??!
We can do what we will, but we cannot will what we will. If I decide to do something, it is because I desire to do so, or because I desire something else and therefore do so to fulfill a different desire. I only desire the things I do because of the person I am, and I am the person I am because of my environment and how my biology/neurology interact with it, and I cannot change my environment without the desire to do so which I must also get from the things I just listed. I am autistic, this greatly alters my thought processes and makes me behave in ways I would not if my brain had been wired differently, hence my decisions are controlled by a factor I had no control over, hence all of my decisions are determined by my autism and how it makes me interact with the world around me. I cannot simply choose to not be autistic, I cannot simply choose to want to commit mass murder, I cannot choose to not want something that I can only get via mass murder
David! Free Will for the win
No
P1: If will is tethered to anything it is not free.
P2: Will is tethered to experience, genetics, values, and more
C: Will is not free.
@@crypt5129 someones mad
@@Jodogio Who
@@crypt5129 the determinist whos seething with rage in the comment section (you)
You're speaking from the proximate context of your experience. The ultimate context of reality when considered from a logical standpoint would tell you (a Theist) that there has to be a prime mover, even when we make choices and decisions. To argue that the agent is uncaused in the process of choice and decision making is to argue that man, like God, posseses aseity of mind.
Aseity of mind is strictly a Divine property on the same level of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. It is incommunicable to contingent beings.
Incommunicable: incapable of being communicated or imparted.
Contingent: dependent on certain conditions or circumstances that occur or do not occur.
Only God is the Unmoved Mover/Uncaused Causer. Only God possesses aseity of mind (incipiency of the will).
The incipiency of the will is the claim made by free will proponents that man has the ability to originate his own choices and decisions regardless of any internal or external factors or conditions.
Logic dictates that so-called “free-will-actions” by necessity cannot have any first (ultimate) causes beyond the agent.
True. I think the only consistent position for a theist is determinism
@@gabri41200 I mean, I wouldn't call that consistent, but at the very least the most consistent
@@gabri41200 depends on the god(s) the theist believes in. Thor? Maybe not. An all-knowing Creator God...Probably.
My understanding of thought demands that such is a process. If thought is a process, then this entails that such is contingent upon whatever details of the process. This would preclude thought of being foundational. Thus, the question of *what is thought on your view wherein such could be ascribed to a "first mover"?*