Talk:Free will/Archive 13

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Pfhorrest's flowchart

For purposes of structuring a revision of this article, an outline could be based upon Phorrest's flowchart, presented with minor modifications below:

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Are some events fated to happen, no matter what else happens?

Yes → Fatalism

No → In principle, if all events are necessitated by prior events, is free will possible?

No → Incompatibilism

→ In fact, are all events necessitated by prior events?

Yes → Hard determinism

No → Libertarianism

Yes → Compatibilism

→ In principle, if all our actions are determined by nature/nurture etc., is free will possible?

Yes → Classical compatibilism

→ In fact, if others coerce our actions, is free will possible?

No → For example, see Rousseau

→ In fact, if others physically force or restrain our actions, is free will possible?

No → For example, see Hobbes

No → Modern compatibilism

→ In fact, are our actions determined by nature/nurture etc.?

Yes → Psychological determinism; Nurture → Cultural determinism; Nature → Biological determinism

No → For example, see Harry Frankfurt

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Can a revision, at least in part, be based upon this outline? What adjustments are necessary? Can neuroscience and mind-body problem be explicitly incorporated? Can the case be fit in explicitly that only some events, not all of them, are predetermined? Brews ohare (talk) 15:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Wow, I'm pleasantly surprised at the positive reaction to my little chart.

As to your first question there (actually, all of them except the last, which I don't quite understand), this is exactly what I was proposing earlier. We divide the article up into sections on the different senses of free will, and then put all material, be it scientific, philosophical, or whatever, that talks about free will in that sense, in that section.

Off the top of my head, we would have sections with contents like this (not particularly well-organized here, I'm in a rush):

• Incompatibilism (free will as lack of nomological determination)
  • Distinguishing determinism from fatalism
  • Philosophical arguments for why this is the correct sense of free will, including descriptions of the positions:
    • Metaphysical libertarianism
    • Hard determinism
    • Hard incompatibilism (may deserve its own section or at least subsection as it adds another criterion to the sense of free will)
  • Physical findings on whether or not nomological determinism in fact is the case
  • Theological discussions about reconciling God's omniscience with free will
• Compatibilist senses of free will still concerned with something like nomological determinism (unpredictability, two-stage models, etc; may be better split into several sections)
  • Philosophical arguments for why this or that is the correct sense of free will
  • Mathematical limits of prediction, etc
• Classical compatibilism of the Hobbesian variety
  • Overview of Hobbes' view
  • Criticism and distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action
• Classical compatibilism in the Rousseau sense (or not, as we seem to be missing whatever we used to have on this sense)
• Modern compatibilism of the Frankfurtian variety
  • Philosophical arguments for why this is the correct sense of free will
    • Biological arguments about whether biology permits us to have free will in this sense
    • Sociological arguments about whether culture permits us to have free will in this sense
    • Psychological and neurological arguments about whether our minds and brains are set up in a way to permit us this sense of free will
• Other discussions of free will (as useful, as an illusion, etc -- maybe multiple sections, maybe integrated into other sections)

That's the general idea, but it needs a lot of refinement. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:34, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for creating this list. My only recommendations are as follows:

I think it would be important to maintain a chosen order, as some forms are more restrictive than others. I would recommend roughly the same order I identified in talk section 'Free will Concepts Based On Determinism Views' [i.e that used in your flowchart response [1], and replicated by Brews above].

1. free will with respect to higher order/logical/theological determinism. Split up into sub sections. I would recommend including the following in discussion;

a) fatalism "there's nothing you can do about it" is not necessarily implied by any form determinism. [A combination of both belief in destiny and lack of belief in free will (incompatibilist or compatibilist) leads to fatalism - references required], and;

b) [Destiny as implied for example by] omniscience places a restriction on the influence of free will if existent to lower order creation - eg physical reality [i.e. definition of "free will" is restricted to the ability of a higher level component to influence a lower level component in the overall determined system - references required].

2. free will with respect to nomological determinism ("Incompatibilism" above). Discuss the limitations of alternate possibility without origination. Split up into sub sections (NB I definitely recommend separating out hard incompatibilism into its own sub section as you have done).

3. free will with respect to predictability/deterministic selection from pseudo random possibilities ("Compatibilist senses of free will still concerned with something like nomological determinism" above). Split up into sub sections.

4. free will with respect to cultural/biological/psychological determinism ("Modern compatibilism of the Frankfurtian variety" above). Split up into sub sections.

5. free will with respect to action/coercion ("Classical compatibilism" above - including both freedom of action and freedom from coercion eg Hobbes and Rousseu). Split up into sub sections.

6. other

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 23:30, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

For reference, I have regenerated the outline with respect to my recommendations;

• 1. Free will with respect to higher order/logical/theological determinism (including "Theological discussions about reconciling God's omniscience with free will" above)
  • Determinism (various kinds)
  • Destiny (including omniscience)
  • Fate (fatalism/predeterminism)
• 2. Free will with respect to nomological determinism ("Incompatibilism" above).
  • positions:
    • Metaphysical libertarianism
    • Hard determinism
    • Hard incompatibilism
  • Issues:
    • Physical determinism
    • Alternate possibility without origination (eg two stage models)
• 3. Free will with respect to predictability/deterministic selection from pseudo random possibilities ("Compatibilist senses of free will still concerned with something like nomological determinism" above).
  • Positions:
    • Predictability
    • Deterministic selection from pseudo random possibilities (non-incompatibilist two stage models)
  • Issues:
    • Mathematical limits of precision
    • Prevented at the last moment by neuroscientific demons from "doing otherwise" (eg two stage models)
• 4. Free will with respect to cultural/biological/psychological determinism ("Modern compatibilism of the Frankfurtian variety" above).
  • Positions:
    • Biological arguments about whether biology permits us to have free will in this sense
    • Sociological arguments about whether culture permits us to have free will in this sense
    • Psychological and neurological arguments about whether our minds and brains are set up in a way to permit us this sense of free will
• 5. Free will with respect to action/coercion ("Classical compatibilism" above - including both freedom of action and freedom from coercion eg Hobbes and Rousseu).
  • Positions:
    • Classical compatibilism of the Hobbesian variety
    • Classical compatibilism in the Rousseau sense
  • Issues:
    • Criticism and distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action
• 6. Other ("Other discussions of free will" above)

[including bracketed edits in previous post above] Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 07:14, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Version 2 of "new introduction"

A revised version for discussion purposes:

Free will is the ability of agents to make choices. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long been debated in philosophy. It is a universal subjective perception that we can make choices, and historically there has long been argument over the reality of this perception, going back to early Greek efforts to square notions of fate with those of personal responsibility. That conflict can be seen as part of the struggle to reconcile models of external reality (fate in this instance) with subjective experiences of reality (free will).

A successor to the notion of fate is nomological determinism, the notion that, in fact, the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events. On this basis one might assert that an agent cannot make choices, there is no "free will", a position called hard determinism. The opposite view, that nomological determinism does not encompass free will, is that of metaphysical libertarianism. This framing of the question of free will is a particular form of the more general question of whether free will is an assertion about objective fact (viewed by hard determinists as supporting determinism), or lies outside it (as suggested by metaphysical liberalists). Both these positions are designated as incompatibilist, an "either-or" formulation of the question.

More shaded views of the question are designated as compatibilist. Some take compatibilism as limited to the view that determinism is compatible with free will. One way to arrive at such a position that is agnostic about the validity of determinism is to suggest that some subjective personal experiences like free will do not fall squarely into the realm of objective fact, but nonetheless have implications that can be objectively verified. An analogy is the experience of pain, an entirely subjective matter, but one that can be related to the objectively observable operation of receptors, communication channels and brain activity. The consequence is that the subjective sense of free will is empirically connected to observable actions, but constraints upon free will do exist, examples being addiction and psychological disorders, and one may discuss the nature of such constraints, the mechanisms by which they affect our decisions, and the role of programming upon agent response, such as psychiatric treatment, conditioning, and evolutionary limits. This complex of issues addresses the point that "free will" is less free than everyday subjective observation might suggest to us.

The above focus upon constraints avoids debate over whether subjective free will actually exists in an objectively verifiable way, and instead looks for the connections between subjectively experienced free will and observable events. It ducks the interesting questions of mental causation and the hard problem of consciousness. It takes the view that translation of subjectively reported free will into intention and into behavior has observable limitations, and leaves to the future a determination of how severe these limitations may prove to be. It might evolve with further observation that our "free will" is largely illusory, or that it extends only to long-term decisions; future developments will tell the story.

Notes

_______________

Comments

No offense but this seems to be wandering all over the place on at best tangentially-related topics that don't warrant placement right in the lede. And you still seem to be wanting to write about incompatibilism from a compatibilist point of view, even if you are trying to be more charitable to it here; but that's not enough for NPOV still. To use the theism analogy again, it would be like writing about monotheism as a stepping stone on the way from polytheism to atheism, or perhaps more broadly writing of religion as having been the best method of explanation people had before they found science; even if you're being a little complementary to it, you're still discounting its present proponents as wrong, which we can't do in the article's own voice. (We could attribute such a line of thought to someone else, if someone notable has made such comments, but putting that up in the lede rather than in the relevant part of the body would still be biased from undue weight).

Perhaps you could just say what you think the problem with the article as it stands is? Because this is starting to look like a solution in search of a problem to me. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:31, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

To make things more specific, do you have objections to this paragraph, which in my mind is completely uncontroversial and adds about 3 millennia to the history of this topic:

Free will is the ability of agents to make choices. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long been debated in philosophy. It is a universal subjective perception that we can make choices, and historically there has long been argument over the reality of this perception, going back to early Greek efforts to square notions of fate with those of personal responsibility. That conflict can be seen as part of the struggle to reconcile models of external reality (fate in this instance) with subjective experiences of reality (free will).

Note

Brews ohare (talk) 20:39, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't object to mentioning the Stoics' contemplation of the issue, and it could be a good start for a paragraph summarizing the historical significance of this issue, which could be fitting for the lede somewhere, or also deserving its own section. (Actually I think that would be a good idea regardless, and would free us up to organize the sections on different definitions by their prominence or logical relation rather than chronology, which can be covered in its own section). --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ Good. Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's fitting where you've put it, which disrupts the flow of the "Free will is... something like this, or like that, depending on who you ask" solution we've got to use since we can't give a straightforward definition. ("Free will is the ability of agents to make choices" isn't an uncontroversial definition by itself; some positions say "sure, we make choices, but since we couldn't have made any other choices, we didn't make them freely and so we don't have free will"; that's why the "free from certain kinds of constraints" that's in the present first sentence is important, but then begs immediate followup explanation of what kinds of constraints we're talking about). --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ The ability to make choices when you cannot make any other choice is a self-contradictory statement. The ability to make choices between limited alternatives is subsumed under "choice", as a special case of "choice", namely "choice under constraint". In other words, the ability to "choose among alternatives" is what choice means, and if the alternatives available are a subset of the possible, that is limited choice. So this argument appears to me incorrect. Perhaps you could elaborate? Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not defending the position, just putting forth that some people hold it. Our purpose here is not to argue about what positions are correct or incorrect, but just about what positions are out there, and how to present them. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

→ → Pfhorrest: It seems difficult to hold a position that contradicts a definition of choice. It seems more likely that they aren't proponents of logical error, but redefine choice, or are arguing over a subset of alternatives for choosing between. Can you suggest where I might find more detail? Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

It is about the definition of choice, as you say. Closely related to the difference between having a will simpliciter, and having free will. Hard determinists would not deny that people deliberate upon their actions and choose which one to do out of the various actions they would be physically able to do if they so chose, but they say that since what choice they would make is determined (because the deliberation by which they make that choice is a deterministic process), their choice is not free. People "choose" their actions the way a curve-fitting algorithm "chooses" the best curve to a set of data, according to hard determinists.

At the risk of confusing rather than clarifying, here's an analogy: you can have the political liberty to live a certain lifestyle, yet lack the economic means to live that lifestyle. That lifestyle is free for the living, you've just got to go live it (analogous to the alternate choices laid out for you to choose actions from); but economic circumstances prevent you from living any lifestyle other than the one you're in (analogous to determinism preventing you from making any choice other than the one you will make). If this paragraph is confusing then just ignore it, I'm not completely confident in this analogy.

Anyway, the point is that there is a difference of definition here again. Most compatibilists would define choice as you do, and say that if you have a choice you are by definition free to some degree, and free will is nothing more than that ability to make choices, to undergo that deliberative process, deterministic though it may be or not. Many incompatibilists disagree and say that certainly people choose in the sense of come to conclusions after a deliberative process, but that whether those choices are freely made or not depends on whether that deliberative process is deterministic or not. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Aside from also interrupting the flow of the definitional sentences which should come first, "It is a universal subjective perception that we can make choices" sounds like an intuition pump, and as such is not encyclopedic in tone (I'd certainly agree to it in an argumentative essay, but it doesn't sound right in an encyclopedia article). --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ This statement can be quoted verbatim from many sources - would that help? It is not an essential segue in any case and could be rephrased. Care to offer an alternative? Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ Here's an example: "We live our lives under the practical assumption that we are free to make our own choices." Here's another one: "One of the strongest supports for the free choice thesis is the unmistakable intuition of virtually every human being that he is free to make the choices he does and that the deliberations leading to those choices are also free flowing." Brews ohare (talk) 16:23, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ Here's another example: "Most people feel that they possess free will, in the sense that they can freely choose what to do from a number of options. As Dr. Samuel Johnson said to Boswell, ‘We know our will is free, and there's an end on't’ " Brews ohare (talk) 16:47, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

That helps establish that that is a notable position to be included in the article, attributed to those who hold it, but it still sounds wrong to say it in the article's own voice and with that force. I might be OK with just adding some qualifiers cited to some quotes like that, a la "Many {authors|positions|something} do not question the existence of a widespread subjective experience of the ability to make choices[1][2][3]" or some such. But I still don't think the first paragraph is the place to have that sentence, and a better place doesn't immediately jump out at me; possibly somewhere in the section on hard determinism or hard incompatibilism (preceding doubts about whether we really have free will despite those perceptions), in the section on free will as an illusion, or discussing the position (I'm not sure we've got material on this in the article right now or not, might be somewhere under metaphysical libertarianism) that we can know from introspection that we do in fact have free will. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

→ → I guess the inclusion or not of this kind of remark is a matter of taste, as many authors have done this and many have not. Personally, I think the reader coming to the article will find that they agree with these quotations, which are not assertions about the validity of these subjective notions, but simply suggesting it is these ideas that have led to further exploration of this subject for millennia. That might encourage reading the article to see what has been said about this notion. Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

"That conflict can be seen as part of the struggle to reconcile models of external reality (fate in this instance) with subjective experiences of reality (free will)" likewise interrupts the flow of definition where you've placed it, but is also a digression away from the subject matter entirely, into an area that sounds like original research. --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ It isn't original research to say the central issue of Stoicism is the reconciliation of fate with the individual's choice. Here is a source. Will that help? Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure, but connecting that to a larger "struggle to reconcile models of external reality with subjective experiences of reality" seems like OR to me, and if not then at least undue weight at this prominent location in the article. The digressive nature of it is my main objection; it's getting away from what should be the point at this place in the article, stating what free will is [held to be by different people], and further still digressing from talking about free will itself to that issue's place in some larger issue. If that's a notable opinion then it could deserve a mention somewhere, but not in the first paragraph. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

→ → All that is going on here is to point out that the notion of free will and its conflict with the ways of the world goes 'way back. The line: "struggle to reconcile models of external reality with subjective experiences of reality" does indeed place free will in a wider context, which is IMO a valid context. It is why the mind-body problem is relevant. Why do you object to this? Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Even if there are notable scholarly opinions on this, it doesn't belong in the lede, and I'm not sure where in the article structure it would belong; it seems a digression much like that of the mind-body problem material you've been adding, and could maybe go in a section with that on the relationship between free will and other philosophical issues or some such. --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ Inasmuch as the entire topic of free will is about the ability to make choices, and the article presently suggests determinism is the major issue conflicting with this notion of free will, I cannot understand why the Stoic's formulation is fundamentally different except that they did not spell fate out in Laplace's terms, based upon laws phrased in second-order time derivatives, but as a sophisticated variation of "que sera, sera". Do you not see the parallel here? Why is this a digression? Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

See above. It's not the part about the Stoics that I'm objecting to (though that would be a digression at this place in the article too, but maybe not at the start of a historical paragraph later in the lede), it's connecting that to some broader objective vs subjective project. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

→ → Isn't your stance merely an arbitrary curtailing of the context for the issue of free will? It may be, as you say, that this history does suggest that there is a connection to a "broader objective vs subjective project". If that is the wider context for free will, and I'd guess that it is indeed, why do you object to pointing that out? Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I am beginning to come around to the idea of a section in the article dedicated to discussing the broader philosophical context of the problem of free will, and a corresponding paragraph in the lede summarizing that. I am thinking it might be worked in as part of a first "Overview" section (incorporating everything currently in the mind-body problem section as well), to be followed by the "History" section discussed above, and then a large, subdivided section on the different positions and issues relevant to them. Since those seem to be your main areas of interest, I would be happy to see you be bold and start developing them. But I still object to the changes to the present lede structure you are suggesting. Additions are good, new sections of the body, new paragraphs of the lede, but I still think many of your proposed changes to what's already there are firstly unnecessary and also lose something in the process. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

If you've looked at the above paragraph, how about the second:

A successor to the notion of fate is nomological determinism, the notion that, in fact, the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events. On this basis one might assert that an agent cannot make choices, there is no "free will", a position called hard determinism. The opposite view, that nomological determinism does not encompass free will, is that of metaphysical libertarianism. This framing of the question of free will is a particular form of the more general question of whether free will is an assertion about objective fact (viewed by hard determinists as supporting determinism), or lies outside it (as suggested by metaphysical liberalists). Both these positions are designated as incompatibilist, an "either-or" formulation of the question.

Note

I don't think there is much to complain about here either.

The next paragraphs may deserve more discussion. Brews ohare (talk) 03:40, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't know that I'm comfortable flatly stating that nomological determinism is "a successor to the notion of fate". A related concept certainly, but I don't know of anything establishing a chronological relationship between the ideas. --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ I think this is a stylistic issue - the analogy could be made more elaborately. Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

"On this basis one might assert" sounds speculative and so not encyclopedic in tone; we'd need to say (as the article currently does) that some specific parties do assert that nomological determinism is true and that it contradicts the existence of free will.--Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ No problem. Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Describing metaphysical libertarianism as the view "that nomological determinism does not encompass free will" just doesn't make any sense to me. Metaphysical libertarianism is the position that we do in fact have free will and that that contradicts determinism.--Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ I provided a source and a quote. The issue is that if one is to assert that we do have free will, one must also assert that free will is a fact lying outside the realm of determinism, or, as the source says, mechanism does not govern human decision making. The extreme version of this position is to state that determinism doesn't apply at all, anywhere. So, I'd say the view that metaphysical libertarianism holds that "nomological determinism does not encompass free will" is orthodoxy. Can you develop your objections further? Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

I meant that the way you phrased it does not make sense, as in, it's not at all clear what it's saying. The source you quoted concurs with my stated definition here (although it also is a bit confusing with its use of "mechanism" to mean apparently nomological determinism, but that's easy enough to see past). A much clearer way of phrasing that would be "our wills are not (nomologically) determined, and are thus free", which is much closer to the quoted "mechanism is [not] a true explanation of human action, and therefore responsibility is possible"; both imply that determinism/mechanism and free will/responsibility are mutually exclusive, and that the latter is the case rather than the former. Talk of nomological determinism "encompassing" free will just doesn't parse clearly. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

→ → Pfhorrest: I see we have a different picture here. Yours is that the hard determinist says P and the libertarianist says not P. My view is that the determinist says P is the universe and the libertarianist says Free will is not P, so the universe is bigger. Is this our difference? Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

It sounds roughly like it, although "P" and "not P" could apply to any dispute; the difference is in what "P" fleshes out to. I'm saying they disagree over P = "for all x, D(x)". You seem to be saying both sides agree on Q = "for all x in S, D(x)", and only disagree over P = "A is a subset of S". (I think we've reached agreement already that both sides also agree on a proposition R = "for all x, if D(x) then not F(x)"). I don't see the usefulness in breaking it down like that, since it still boils down in either case to "everything is determined, including human will and action" vs "some things are not determined, like human will and action", plus mutual agreement between them that something determined is not free. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The next sentence similarly does not make any sense. "This framing of the question of free will is a particular form of the more general question of whether free will is an assertion about objective fact (viewed by hard determinists as supporting determinism), or lies outside it (as suggested by metaphysical liberalists)." Both hard determinists and metaphysical libertarians agree on all definitional issues regarding free will -- they agree completely about what free will is (or would be if we had it) -- and their only argument with each other is over the question of fact: is determinism in fact true (implying, by their definitions, that we must not have free will), or do we in fact have free will (implying, by their definitions, that determinism must be false). Virtually every party to the debate agrees that there is some question of fact about whether or not we have free will (except those who say that the whole question is malformed nonsense to begin with, including perhaps hard incompatibilists, who seem to define free will in a way that makes it logically impossible right out the gate). Even though there is also argument about what exactly is being asked by that question (i.e. the issue of what it even means to ask if we have "free will"), there isn't any prominent debate about whether or not there is a question of fact to be asked at all. --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

→ This argument is perhaps the crux of the matter. I don't think this is a correct formulation of the division between libertarians and determinists. As the article points out, the hard determinist position is that everything is determined. The libertarian position is that "free will" is not determined. To my mind this is the same thing as saying there are exceptions to the determinists' "everything", that determinism may have its place, but it is not all-encompassing. Do you have objections to this formulation? Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

That sounds correct to me, but I don't see how it conflicts with what I said above. Hard determinists and metaphysical libertarians are arguing over whether the assertion of fact "Everything, including human will and action, is nomologically determined" is true or not; "not" would mean "Something (such as human will and action) is not determined". Determinists hold the former to be a true fact, libertarians hold the latter to be a true fact, and they argue over which of the two is in fact true. Neither is arguing over whether or not it is even a question of fact at all. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

→ → Sorry, Pfhorrest. I could not make head nor tail of this remark. Please rephrase. Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

What I meant was, it sounds to me like you are claiming that determinists and libertarians disagree over whether the question of free will is a question of fact at all (as opposed to a question of definition, or of value, or of taste, or what have you). I was saying that it looks clearly to be a taken by both as a question of fact: a question of whether or not everything, including human will and action, is determined. One side says yes to that; the other side say no, some things, like human will and action, are not determined. But they both agree that they are arguing over the factual question of whether there are exceptions to determinism (and whether human will and action falls within those exceptions); neither side thinks they're arguing over definitions or values or tastes or anything like that instead. --Pfhorrest (talk)

→ It is worth noting that the argument that " all x are determined; z is not determined; therefore z is not an x ", is completely separate from what exactly "free will" (z) is or is not, and from what things (if any) actually are determined (x). That avoids a lot of trouble. Brews ohare (talk) 16:58, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure, but if you only say "Everything in this (non-universal) set of x's is determined", leaving open the possibility of z's which are not x's and therefore possibly not determined, then you are not asserting nomological determinism. Nomological determinism says that everything, period, is determined. If you reject that, then you reject nomological determinism, and can't be a hard determinist; that leaves you with metaphysical libertarianism if you're an incompatibilist and find that "z" is something sufficient to enable free will; hard incompatibilism if you don't find "z" sufficient to enable free will; or compatibilism otherwise. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

→ → Of course, that is what I am saying. Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, but I don't see why you're saying it. The hard determinist says "everything is determined". The metaphysical libertarian replies "human will and action aren't". The metaphysical libertarian might want to append, tangentially, "but still a lot of things are, there is a big set of things which are determined, human will and action just aren't in that set"; but that is a separate statement apart from their disagreement over the question "is everything (in the entire universe of discourse, not just some subset of it) determined?", and that question is the one that divides these two positions. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

→ It might be worth noticing this separation of determinism from everything has received discussion in the literature. For example, a rather long discussion of the matter can be found in John T Roberts (2006). "Formulations of determinism". In Sahotra Sarkar, Jessica Pfiefer, eds (ed.). The philosophy of science: an encyclopedia. A-M, Volume 1. Psychology Press. pp. 198 ff. ISBN 0415939275. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link). A quote is:

"Alternatively, one may hold that some aspects of the world are deterministic...and others are not. ... In this way, one can formulate the idea that, for example, the world is deterministic in its physical aspects, but not in its mental aspects".

Brews ohare (talk) 20:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Sure, and such a person would not be a hard determinist. Descarte is a great example of that position; he is virtually a pioneer of mechanical materialism, holding the whole physical universe to operate like clockwork, but he is also the figurehead of substance dualism and held that immaterial souls nondeterministically intervened in the otherwise-deterministic operation of the physical world. He was an archetypical metaphysical libertarian, and appealed to mental substances as the source of indeterminism enabling free will despite otherwise widespread determinism. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:15, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

→ → I agree entirely. I'm not sure what you think is the topic here. I was attempting to elaborate a picture of libertarianisim. Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

You seemed to be arguing that this "some things are determined, something aren't" position was somehow contrary to the claim that the question "is everything determined, or are some things not?" was what divided hard determinists and libertarians. I was saying no it's not contrary to that at all, that's just a common libertarian position. Libertarians take the "some things are not" tine of that fork... and very frequently add "but some things are, too", which is fine and dandy and not problematic at all so I don't see why you bring it up. Libertarians still say "not everything is determined" (with or without adding "even though some things are"), which is what distinguishes them from hard determinists who say "everything is determined". --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

--Pfhorrest (talk) 05:37, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: Thank you again for looking into this matter and taking the time to respond. Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: I believe this exchange has identified the main source of your objections, namely as I understand it, you do not want to relate "free will" to subjective perceptions, which are the well-spring leading to the metaphysical considerations of free will. I think to disconnect the two is not at all how philosophers have handled this matter. Brews ohare (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that's an accurate take on my position at all. First of all that's far from an overarching theme to my objections to your proposals, that's just one specific objection to one part. But that aside, my concern was... here, have another analogy: we're writing an article about a certain category of paint brushes, describing what makes a brush fall in or out of this category of brushes, and the different kinds of brushes in this category. Then you get on a tangent about the importance of brushes in general to the world of painting and the improvements they make over finger painting and how they help distinguish painting as an art from say pencil or charcoal drawing. I was saying that that that is kind of a digression away from the narrower scope of this article on these kinds of brushes. I've since come around, above, to the idea that we would in fact want to mention the historical predecessors and descendents of this kind of brush and the influence of its use in the art of painting; but it still needs to be confined to a tight connection between this kind of brush and its influences, and not a digression into matters of brushes or painting in general. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Version 4 of "new introduction"

A revised version for discussion purposes It incorporates revisions to accommodate comments by Pfhorrest and Richardbrucebaxter; the topic of free will is divided into two aspects, subjective free will and objective free will. I hope that will defuse much of the objections to the earlier versions:

Free will is the ability of agents to select freely among alternatives. There are two major divisions to the topic of free will. On one hand, there is the subjective intuition of free will:

"One of the strongest supports for the free choice thesis is the unmistakable intuition of virtually every human being that he is free to make the choices he does and that the deliberations leading to those choices are also free flowing."

— Corliss Lamont, Freedom of Choice Affirmed, p. 38

A second aspect concerns demonstration of the existence of free will, its exact nature and definition, aspects long debated in philosophy. Although we commonly believe that we can make choices, historically there has long been argument over the reality of this perception, going back to early Greek efforts to square notions of fate with those of personal responsibility.

A domino's movement is determined completely by laws of physics.

The idea of "fate" is vague, and a clearer position about the control of the future is nomological determinism, the notion that, in fact, the past and present dictate the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events. On this basis, determinists assert that an agent cannot make choices, there is no objective "free will", a position called hard determinism. The figure at the right is an artist's attempt to depict determinism.

If the brain is nothing but a complex physical object whose states are as much governed by physical laws as any other physical object, then what goes on in our heads is as fixed and determined by prior events as what goes on when one domino topples another in a long row of them.

— Alex Rosenberg, Philosophy Of Science: A Contemporary Introduction, p. 8

The opposite view, that objective free will is not determined, is that of metaphysical libertarianism.

"[Determinism] admits that mechanism is true — that human beings, like the rest of the universe, are entirely subject to and produced by the physical states and laws of the universe — and therefore claims that no one is responsible for anything. The latter [metaphysical libertarianism] denies that mechanism is a true explanation of human action, and therefore responsibility is possible."

— Judy Illes, Neuroethics: Defining the Issues in Theory, Practice And Policy

More shaded views of the question are designated as compatibilist, the view that determinism is compatible with objective free will.

These densely argued issues are described in much detail later. They have been described as "philosophical discussions which have addressed the internal contradictions between our intuitive world view and the questions of freedom of decisions, capability of guilt before God and man, and predestination through the omniscience and omnipotence of God or the eternal natural law." A "molecular physical chemical" argument by a molecular chemist (only one view) illustrates the sort of issues these discussions try to resolve; the argument leads to these three choices:

1. There is no free will...our impression that we decide freely is an illusion.
2. There is an "objective free will" but no subjective free will.
3. A subjective free will, as we intuitively understand it, namely that a complex overall structure, the individual or the I, makes the decision, would require a violation of the current laws of molecular quantum physics. The experimental proof of a subjective free will would simultaneously be the proof of a new physics.

This set of choices is only illustrative, and by no means settles the debate.

A different approach to free will is to focus more on the subjective aspects, and avoid debate over whether subjective free will actually has a corollary that exists in an objectively verifiable way. Instead it looks for the connections between subjectively experienced free will and observable events. Obviously, subjective free will does not fall squarely into the realm of objective fact. Nonetheless, it has implications that can be objectively verified. An analogy is the experience of pain, a largely subjective matter:

Pain is always subjective...[It] is always a psychological state, even though we may well appreciate that pain most often has a proximal physical cause.

— Merskey & Bogduk, Classification of Chronic Pain, 2nd ed., The International Association for the Study of Pain

It is difficult to establish whether an obscure pain experience is psychosomatic or just hard to trace to another cause, but often pain can be related to the objectively observable operation of receptors, communication channels and brain activity. If subjective free will is placed into this category, one focuses upon the relation between the subjective experiences of free will and objectively observed events. It is found that constraints upon free will exist, examples being addiction and mental disorders, and one can discuss the nature of such constraints, the mechanisms by which they affect our decisions, and the role of programming upon agent response, such as psychiatric treatment, conditioning, and evolutionary limits. This complex of issues addresses the point that "free will" is less free than everyday subjective observation might suggest to us. It takes the view that translation of subjectively reported free will into intention and into behavior has observable limitations, and leaves to the future a determination of how severe these limitations may prove to be. It might evolve with further observation that our "free will" is largely illusory, or that it extends only to long-term decisions; future developments will tell the story.

What is the origin of the subjective intuition of free will? This question is part of the hard problem of consciousness, how physical phenomena acquire subjective characteristics becoming, for example, colors and tastes. For example, "it is possible to know all the physical and functional facts concerning the operation of human brains without, for example, knowing what it is like subjectively to experience vertigo." And there remains the "hard problem of free will": Does conscious volition impact the material world?

Notes

_______________

Comments

I have removed or rephrased statements that caused problems in Version 3. I have decided to avoid careful identification of compatibilism, determinism, libertarianism which seems to raise objections and instead rely on the later sections of the article, and here only to provide a few quotations that seem uncontroversial to me. I've split the discussion up into "subjective" and "objective", which seems to me again to avoid much of the earlier problems. I've added a couple of sources to support some statements. Brews ohare (talk) 16:17, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

I believe the last paragraph expresses the present situation regarding "free will", the two main problems: the hard problem of consciousness and the hard problem of free will, remain open questions. The reader deserves candor on these points. IMO they are not close to resolution, and indeed have yet to display any understanding of consequence. Brews ohare (talk) 20:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)

Version 3 of "new introduction"

A revised version for discussion purposes It incorporates revisions to accommodate comments by Pfhorrest:

Free will is the ability of agents to select among alternatives. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long been debated in philosophy. We commonly believe that we can make choices, and historically there has long been argument over the reality of this perception, going back to early Greek efforts to square notions of fate with those of personal responsibility.

A more recent replacement for the idea of "fate" is nomological determinism, the notion that, in fact, the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events. On this basis, some assert that an agent cannot make choices, there is no "free will", a position called hard determinism. The opposite view, that nomological determinism does not apply to free will, is that of metaphysical libertarianism. This framing of the question of free will is a particular form of the more general question of whether free will is an assertion about objective fact (viewed by hard determinists as supporting determinism), or lies outside it (as suggested by metaphysical liberalists). Both these positions are designated as incompatibilist, an "either-or" formulation of the question of whether "free will" exists or is an illusion.

More shaded views of the question are designated as compatibilist. Some take compatibilism as limited to the view that determinism is compatible with free will. One way to arrive at such a position is to note that some subjective personal experiences do not fall squarely into the realm of objective fact, but nonetheless have implications that can be objectively verified. An example is the experience of pain, an entirely subjective matter, but one that can be related to the objectively observable operation of receptors, communication channels and brain activity. If free will is placed into this category, one focuses upon the relation between the subjective experiences of free will and objectively observed events. It is found that constraints upon free will exist, examples being addiction and mental disorders, and one can discuss the nature of such constraints, the mechanisms by which they affect our decisions, and the role of programming upon agent response, such as psychiatric treatment, conditioning, and evolutionary limits. This complex of issues addresses the point that "free will" is less free than everyday subjective observation might suggest to us.

The above focus upon constraints avoids debate over whether subjective free will actually exists in an objectively verifiable way, and instead looks for the connections between subjectively experienced free will and observable events. It ducks the interesting questions of mental causation (how to account for the common-sense idea that intentional thoughts or intentional mental states are causes of intentional actions) and the hard problem of consciousness (how physical phenomena acquire subjective characteristics becoming, for example, colors and tastes). It takes the view that translation of subjectively reported free will into intention and into behavior has observable limitations, and leaves to the future a determination of how severe these limitations may prove to be. It might evolve with further observation that our "free will" is largely illusory, or that it extends only to long-term decisions; future developments will tell the story.

Notes

_______________

Comments

I have removed or rephrased statements that caused problems in Version 2, and added a couple of sources to support some statements. The first two paragraphs probably are acceptable at this point. The last two paragraphs here are the same as before, and are yet to be discussed. Brews ohare (talk) 17:17, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Anticipating some objections, there is some rewording of the last two paragraphs. Brews ohare (talk) 17:33, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Free will is the ability of agents to select among alternatives.

I still object to giving a blanket definition of free will like this. Someone or another will always disagree with it. In this case, we've still got the problem discussed in v2 about incompatibilists saying "selecting them isn't enough, you need to freely, non-deterministically select them!" No improvement here. I think we still need to say that freedom of will is the ability to make choices free from something, and then as immediately as possible go into a quick summary of the different proposed "somethings". --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

We commonly believe that we can make choices, and historically there has long been argument over the reality of this perception, going back to early Greek efforts to square notions of fate with those of personal responsibility.

This is worded much more nicely, but I still don't like its placement right at the start. It would make a good start to a separate lede paragraph summarizing the history of the issue. What I'm suggesting is something like:

• Paragraph 1, as-is: Free will is... freedom from something, what exactly is a contentious point. Most commonly that something is said to be nomological determinism, leading to the two most common positions on free will, metaphysical libertarianism and hard determinism...
• Paragraph 2, as-is: But lots of people disagree that nomological determinism matters at all. They are called compatibilists, and they say that these other things are the more important questions...
• Paragraph 3 (optional, can be integrated into the above perhaps), as-is: There's also some other positions and issues of concern...
• Paragraph 4, as-is: The question of free will is important to all these different fields.
• Paragraph 5, NEW FOR YOU (maybe integrate with the above): The question of free will has relations to all these other philosophical issues, like philosophy of mind and moral responsibility...
• Paragraph 6, NEW FOR YOU: The question of free will goes back a long time, from the Stoics down to Van Inwagen and Frankfurt...

Then, in almost reverse order in the body:

• Section 1: Why the question of free will is important, with regards to philosophy of mind and moral responsibility and so on...
• Section 2: History of the debate about it, touching briefly on the back-and-forth between different positions.
• Section 3: The different positions in detail, including:
  • Incompatibilism, including relevant theological and physics issues
  • Compatibilism a la Dennet et al, including relevant chaos theory and complexity issues
  • Compatibilism a la Frankfurt et al, including relevant biological, sociological, and psychological issues
  • Compatibilism a la Hobbes et al, including relevant political issues

Gotta run right now, but will try to comment on the rest later tonight. --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok back. The above is really what should be my conclusion here, but here's more point-by-point critiques on why I think the changes to the existing material makes it worse:

On this basis, some assert that an agent cannot make choices, there is no "free will", a position called hard determinism.

This has the same problem of "ability to choose" vs "freedom of choice" discussed above, and I see no other improvement over the current phrasing that hard determinists "claim that nomological determinism is true, so free will does not exist". It also skips over the defining issue that leads us into talking about these incompatibilists in the first place, that "Many hold that nomological determinism must be false in order for free will to be possible". --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The opposite view, that nomological determinism does not apply to free will,

This still has the same problem of determinism verbing "free will" in some way (applying to it, encompassing it) that does not clearly just state what defines metaphysical libertarianism. A much more straightforward way to put it is simply "will is not determined, and therefore free", not "determinism does not apply to free will". The latter could very easily be confused for saying "determinism is not relevant to the question of whether or not we have free will", which is very untrue of libertarians' opinions; they say very much that determinism is what matters in the question of free will, but that determinism is false, so our wills are free. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

This framing of the question of free will is a particular form of the more general question of whether free will is an assertion about objective fact (viewed by hard determinists as supporting determinism), or lies outside it (as suggested by metaphysical liberalists).

This is the issue we're discussing in v2 comments above. Libertarians and determinists are both making claims that it is an objective fact that we do or do not have free will. This whole sentence just seems confused though; if you think libertarians say the existence free will is not a matter of objective fact, what do you think they say it is? --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Both these positions are designated as incompatibilist, an "either-or" formulation of the question of whether "free will" exists or is an illusion. More shaded views of the question are designated as compatibilist

This is misrepresenting the difference between incompatibilists and compatibilists again in the same way that was my initial objection to your edits. Compatibilism is not about picking middle points on a linear spectrum with libertarianism on one end and hard determinism on the other. On the spectrum of "how much determinism", most of it is occupied by libertarians (everywhere from "nothing determined" to "most things determined"), with one one extreme point ("everything determined") held by hard determinists. Compatibilists meanwhile say "that's not what free will is about", and don't have a position on that spectrum at all.

Also, "exists or is an illusion" is saying more than it needs to. Not all hard determinists necessarily say that there is an illusion of free will. The question is over whether "free will exists or not". (And that's an either-or question no matter how you slice it; the difference between compatibilists and incompatibilists is whether that question turns on the question of whether determinism is true or not). --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Some take compatibilism as limited to the view that determinism is compatible with free will.

That "some" sounds weasely there, as that is pretty much how compatibilism is always defined. Investigating the source you cited that quote to, the author of that article admits to be coining a new term "impossibilism", for something which is otherwise known as hard incompatibilism, and arguing that the possibility of that position and the implausibility of counting it as a form of incompatibilism calls for a redefinition of compatibilism and incompatibilism. Hardly a reliable source to back up softening an otherwise universally agreed-upon definition with "some take ... as limited to". (Nevermind that you don't go on to say anything about what others take it to be).

Anyway, the rest of this paragraph and the next is actually pretty good, but is going into way too much depth on the details of one particular position for this point in the article (it's half the lede as you've written it). I think it could be well-incorporated into the opening paragraph of the section on compatibilism in the vein of Frankfurt et al, or maybe as part of the above-proposed Overview section introducing how free will relates to issues of neurology etc.

(That's a good idea to keep in mind in general for that section, now that I think about it: not only what other topics is the question of free will relevant to -- moral responsibility, philosophy of mind, etc -- but what topics are relevant to the question of free will, e.g. physics and theology are relevant to incompatibilists, complexity and chaos are relevant to Dennet et all, and the issues you describe here are relevant to Frankfurt et al. Then we go into more detail on those subjects in their respective sections).

So, what do you think about the organizational proposal above? Leave the lede as it stands alone, add two whole sections to the start of the body overviewing the relation between free will and other topics and the history of the debate, then add two new paragraphs to the end of the lede summarizing those sections. That will give you a nice big open space to be bold and develop the article in positive ways without any objection from me about disrupting the parts of the lede that I think really need to stay more or less how they are. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:40, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Some quick comments regarding 'Version 3 of "new introduction"' (I have not read the other versions):

A more recent replacement for the idea of "fate" is nomological determinism

Fate is not necessarily implied by nomological determinism (see for example compatibilism). Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ There is not intention to suggest these ideas are coextensive, only that both imply the inefficacy of will. Perhaps a different wording would be more acceptable? Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Somewhat tangential to this point per se, but there is a confusion evident in your phrasing here which relates directly to the dispute about what incompatibilism means. Even on an incompatibilist understanding of free will, determinism does not imply any lack of efficacy of will; it implies only lack of freedom of will. Your will can still be perfectly effective on your behavior, and your behavior on the world, but (if the hard determinist is right) you can't will anything but what you will. In contrast if the fatalist is right, whether or not you can will one thing or another, it doesn't matter, the same thing is going to happen no matter what you will or what you do. This relates to the shackles analogy below. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The opposite view, that nomological determinism does not apply to free will, is that of metaphysical libertarianism

Again, this is not what incompatibilism presupposes; it is that physical determinism negates the existence of free will not that the "application of determinism" negates the existence of free will (see talk section "Richardbrucebaxer: Incompatibilism does not assert the non-applicability of nomological determinism"). Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ This seems a fine point to me. In any event I accept that nomological determinism says free will doesn't exist, and delete the word "application". Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Minor nitpick: hard determinism says free will doesn't exist. Nomological determinism just says everything is determined by the past and the laws of nature. It's only when you combine that with incompatibilism that you get the negation of free will. Compatibilists think that even if nomological determinism were true, free will would be none the worse for it.

But as for deleting "application": hurray, progress! --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Some take compatibilism as limited to the view that determinism is compatible with free will

No, all compatibilists assume such. Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ Fine. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

One way to arrive at such a position is to note that some subjective personal experiences do not fall squarely into the realm of objective fact,[F 6] but nonetheless have implications that can be objectively verified

'Subjective experiences with objectively verifiable implication' - is not something relied on by compatibilism to arrive at their position. Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ This claim is not made, it is sad you can get there this way, not that it the only way. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

a) Subjective experiences themselves, if they represent a higher level physical consciousness and exhibit some level of "freedom" over lower levels of physical consciousness, this may perhaps provide a possible compatibilist interpretation of free will. Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ This hypothetical situation could be discussed, of course, but it is not something I have considered. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

b) Objectively verifiable conscious experiences (brain activity believed connected with consciousness: not necessarily "subjective" / "do not fall squarely into the realm of objective fact") with objectively verifiable physical implication (brain activity believed unconnected with consciousness) - and the establishment of temporal relationships thereof perhaps provide a possible compatibilist interpretation of free will. (see below *) Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ I do not think there exist the things one might call "verifiable conscious experiences". Conscious experiences can be spoken of by subjects, but that is a report of the single observer, and that does not constitute verification in a scientific sense. However, "objectively verifiable physical implication" may indeed be obtainable in the form of objectively observable correlates of subjective reports. A report of "red" might be related to a certain range of wavelengths of reflected light, for example, and that might be found generally to apply to a large number of individuals. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

An example is the experience of pain, an entirely subjective matter,[F 7] but one that can be related to the objectively observable operation of receptors, communication channels and brain activity

This is not a good example of "subjective experiences with physical implication" - as a) the observable operation of receptors etc could be independent of the experience of pain (eg ephiphenomalism), and b) pain is not necessarily an entirely subjective matter (eg see reductive physicalism) Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ There is a fine point here, but the broad argument is not impacted. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

If free will is placed into this category, one focuses upon the relation between the subjective experiences of free will and objectively observed events

Not necessarily. Even (physicalist) incompatabilist models are subject to the relation between the subjective experiences of free will and objectively observed events.* Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ The incompatibilists, as I understand the matter, would deny "subjective experiences of free will" have any status beyond illusion, and so can be dropped from consideration. Is that not so? Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Hard determinists would say it is an illusion. Metaphysical libertarians might or might not depending on their particular flavor, but most probably would not, as they generally hold there to be some kind of magical nondeterministic power exercised by the mind, and so would say that those subjective experiences are causally effective. (The dualists would, at least; the physicalist libertarians generally thing some kind of quantum magic is being amplified by the brain and that the subjective experience of free will is the experience of being the wielder of such power.) --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

It takes the view that translation of subjectively reported free will into intention and into behavior has observable limitations, and leaves to the future a determination of how severe these limitations may prove to be

This is stating that compatibilism is incompatibilism (or may be taken as such).

→ Can you elaborate? Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:19, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

→ I think my view is that compatibilism focuses upon constraints, a topic with real practical impact, while incompatibilists argue between themselves about the existence of "free will" in one sense or another, and never get around to anything of consequence. Brews ohare (talk) 20:47, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

I would generally agree with you that compatibilism is the more practical approach to free will, but that's my bias and doesn't have any bearing on how we should be organizing the article. We're here to tell people what various notable people think, not to tell them what to think with our favorite notable people for backup. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter: Thanks for your remarks. Brews ohare (talk) 18:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

The indentation above is all wacky again. @Richardbrucebaxter, are you intending your replies one level less than the parts you're replying to? It looks like it here, and it's screwing up the reading of this dialogue. Talk page protocol is to indent replies one colon more than what you're replying to. See WP:INDENT for full details. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Some general discussion

Pfhorrest: Here are a few points you have raised for further discussion. Please elaborate further:

• Libertarians and determinists are both making claims that it is an objective fact that we do or do not have free will.

This statement is not the case, at least not according to all sources. A more open statement of the difference is that determinists claim that "it is an objective fact that we do not have free will", while libertarians claim that "we do have free will", but do not explicitly or necessarily claim that it is "an objective fact".

I don't even know what sense to make out of this. A determinist puts forth an opinion on a matter of objective fact: "as a matter of fact", he says, "everything, including human action, is determined". A libertarian responds with their opinion on that matter (a matter of objective fact, as previously stated): "no, actually; human action, in fact, is not determined". In proffering a contradictory opinion on the matter (of objective fact) which the determinist opined about, the libertarian puts forth his own opinion on that matter (of objective fact). --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ I went into this in a new section below. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

All they say is that whatever sort of phenomenon "free will" might be, determinism does not apply to it.

They say that whatever sort of phenomenon will might be, it is not determined, and may consequently (via the incompatibilist thesis) be free. The way you keep phrasing this is like saying that "shackles do not apply to free actions", when you mean to say that someone is "not shackled, and thus free to act". It's a really weird way of putting it, and sounds more like you're saying shackles have nothing to do with whether an action is free -- when I'm sure you and I and everyone can agree that the presence or absence of shackles "applies" very much to the question of whether an action is free or not.

You might say that "shackles have not been applied to this man [i.e. he is not shackles], and he is thus free to act", and similarly say (still very strangely) that "determination is not applied to human actions [i.e. they are not determined], and we are thus free to choose"; or that "a free action is one not compelled by shackles", and similarly "a free will is one not determined". I'm pretty sure you're going for some combination of those in one sentence, but it's not working, and it's not necessary if we open, as the existing article does, with stating that all incompatibilists agree with the second ("a free will is one not determined"), and libertarians are those incompatibilists who say in addition to that "our wills are free, and are thus [on the basis of the prior statement] not determined". --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ I found this analogy to shackles impenetrable. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, you understand freedom of action right? I have freedom of action if I can move my body as I like without some kind of physical restraints -- by which I mean things like shackles and chains and bars and what have you -- restricting the motion of my body.

Would it not sound strange to you to say that a man has freedom of action by saying that "shackles do not apply to free actions"? Would it not make much more sense to say simply that "he is not shackled, and is thus free to act"?

Incompatibilists hold, analogously, that determinism is like shackles on the will. You have freedom of will, according to them, only if your will is not determined, in a broad metaphysical sense; if, given the exact same history and the exact same you in the exact same situation, you might have chosen other than you did. Determinism would rob you of that freedom, on their account, exactly as shackles rob you of the freedom to move your body as you please. Libertarians say that determinism is not the case, and so we are not robbed of that freedom.

I'm saying that it is an odd way of putting that to say that we have free will because "determinism does not apply to free will". And that it would make much more sense to say simply that "our will is not determined, and is thus free". Or rather to attribute that to libertarians, not to say it ourselves or in the article's voice.

But you seem to have already conceded the "applies" terminology above, so I'm not sure why I'm explaining this now. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Support for this more general view is the following quote: "[Determinism] admits that mechanism is true — that human beings, like the rest of the universe, are entirely subject to and produced by the physical states and laws of the universe — and therefore claims that no one is responsible for anything. The latter [metaphysical libertarianism] denies that mechanism is a true explanation of human action, and therefore responsibility is possible."

That quote seems to me to concur with my position, and I already addressed it earlier to say as much. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ I went into this in a new section below. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

As to the classification of "free will" as objective fact, there is lots of opinion to the contrary, going back arguably as far as Chrysippus. We have this from Cicero about the classification of free will as subject to fate or as voluntary:

"Between the two views held by the old philosophers, one being that of those who held that everything takes place by fate in the sense that fate exercises the force of necessity — the view of Democritus, Heraclitus, Empedocles, and Aristotle — the other that of those who said that the movements of the mind are voluntary and not at all controlled by fate, Chrysippus stands as an honorary arbiter and wished to strike a mean between the two; although he leans rather towards those who hold the mind is free from all necessity of motion...nonetheless, he slips into such difficulties that against his will he lends support to the necessity of fate."

This doesn't sound to me like it's saying anything about the point of contention you're presenting it for. Cicero is saying that Chrysippus is trying to defend the existence of free will, but in the process ends up making points that would better support the determinism, and that he [Chrysippus] consequently tries to find some kind of compatibilism to reconcile the two. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ Yes, that is Cicero's thesis; I may be stretching his remarks more than is allowed. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

We might have a difference of opinion here as to whether Chrysippus' "fate" governs the objective world, while "voluntary free will" escapes fate because it is not part of the objective world. Further reading persuades me that Chrysippus postulated two realms, each subject to different rules, but the idea of "objectivity" probably has changed since his time.

I get the feeling that you might be attaching some unnecessary meaning to the word "objective", like "verifiable" or something, so let me offer this analogy: most modern theists support neither natural theology (the position that questions about God can be solved by naturalistic means) nor theological noncognitivism (the position that statements about God do not purport to describe facts at all, but rather just express emotions or such). Consequently, most modern theists hold that it is an objective fact that God exists -- that it's not merely a subjective experience some people have with no grounding in reality, but that God is really out there, and that someone who denies that is objectively wrong -- but they also hold that that fact is not empirically verifiable in any way. [Strong] Atheists, of course, assert the contradiction of that, that the fact is that God does not exist out there, and people who think he does are objectively wrong. They are arguing over a matter of objective fact, even though (at least) one side claims that the fact they put forth is not empirically verifiable.

I'm a physicalist and empirical realist myself, as I suspect you are as well, so I would argue in my own work that the theist claims of non-empirical objective facts are nonsense. Nevertheless, people do hold that position, and I would dispute an edit to the article on God which tried to say mainstream theists claim God's existence is not a matter of objective fact, just as much as I dispute your suggestions about libertarianism here. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ I said more about this in a new section below. Dragging theology into this discussion isn't going to help, I see from your remarks; "fact not empirically verifiable in any way" strikes me as a misuse of language by introduction of personal definitions of words commonly used differently: the Humpty Dumpty approach of "paying words extra to mean what I want them to mean". Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Quite the contrary, you are the one playing Humpty Dumpty here, or well not quite but closer to it than I. You are clearly a verificationist or something much like it, a position I hold a close affinity for myself, and in my own work I would agree that "fact not empirically verifiable in any way" doesn't make much sense when you really think about it. Nevertheless, in the general use of the language outside the circles of verificationism and its descendants, people talk very much about whether or not supernatural and otherwise unverifiable things are in fact real or not, and they are not just expressing their feelings about subjective experiences they each have, they intend to argue about objective facts. (I would say in my own work that they're never going to have a very productive argument about such things, but nevertheless people do argue about them).

The existence or nonexistence of God is just a big prominent example of this. Go find a random Christian off the street and ask them whether God is just a subjective experience they have or if he is in fact objectively real. Then go find an atheist and ask him if he thinks it's an objective fact that God doesn't exist or if he's just expressing a feeling about a subjective experience. I guarantee you most of the ones you find will say that they are objectively, factually correct in their opinions; and at least most of the atheists and probably a number of Christians will admit in the same breath that they can't think of a way of empirically verifying that claim and one probably doesn't exist. "fact not empirically verifiable in any way" may not make sense to you or I on close inspection, but people go around using it all the time anyway, and it would bias the article for us to call them all wrong in the article's voice. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

The epistemological pluralism of Descartes, Kant, Popper, Nagel, Jackson etc. certainly separates "free will" from objective fact, although I'm unsure that they are classed as libertarianists. Are they? Brews ohare (talk) 16:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the connection you seem to find so obvious between epistemological pluralism and a separation of free will from objective fact. Given your reference to Nagel's famous paper on qualia in the proposed changes, it seems like you're talking about distinguishing "what it's like" facts from "what it is" facts (1st person vs 3rd person knowledge). There are certainly some people arguing that free will lies entirely within the domain of the former rather than the latter (the "free will is just an illusion" folks), but libertarianism certainly isn't defined by following such a position. Both libertarians and most hard determinists agree that there is a "what it's like" experience of feeling free to choose, and might fall anywhere on the matter of the ontological status of subjective feelings; but they hold that if determinism was true nobody would really, objectively have free will, and any such feeling, whatever its ontology, would thus be just an illusion. Then they argue against each other over whether determinism is true. Libertarians say it's not, so our wills can be really, objectively free, not just an subjective illusion of freedom.

Since you like making the analogy to pain: it's like asking if a pain someone is experiencing is due to some kind of actual physical ailment like an injury or pinched nerve or whatever, or if it's just psychosomatic. The psychosomatic pain is still a subjectively real experience, but it may not indicate what pain usually seems to indicate about objective states of affairs, namely injury etc. Likewise, the perception of being free to choose is a subjectively real perception one way or another, and libertarians and most hard determinists will say yeah sure most people have that perception: they then argue about whether people really, objectively have the ability which their perception seems to indicate they do, namely freedom of will, which they define in a way incompatible with determinism. Compatibilists are arguing about some objective fact too; they just disagree about what objective fact is named by the term "free will". --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ You bring up the interesting point about "free will is just an illusion" and psychosomatic pain. The pain literature also deals with this prejudice against the subjective, and patients often complain that doctors just don't believe them when they claim to be suffering because they can't find any objective correlate. Medicine is full of such nonsense, and as you may know personally, medicine cannot find the source of a large percentage of patient complaints, and as far as that goes, cannot even find explanations for objectively obvious maladies. There is a trend these days to take subjective reports of pain more seriously as doctors have discovered pain is a far more subtle matter than they had thought, and requires sophisticated methods of treatment beyond the training of most.

I'm not sure if you're arguing against me here or just talking about something tangential. Just to be clear, I wasn't being dismissive either of pain or of subjective experiences of free will, or denying that there is an underlying physical cause of either. I'm saying there's an analogy between asking whether the pain in my arm is there because my arm is damaged, or if (some some reason or another) it just feels to me like my arm is damaged; and asking if my perception of freely making choices is because I actually am freely making choices (in some kind of effective, significant way), or if I just feel that way for some other, ineffectual reason. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

→ You suggest that "Compatibilists are arguing about some objective fact too; they just disagree about what objective fact is named by the term "free will"." I find this simplisitic, if that is really what compatibilists are arguing about. This take on matters removes the traditional compatibilist, determinist, incompatibilist debates from anything of real interest to anyone not addicted to word play. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Large swaths of western philosophy since the Vienna Circle (the originators of verification I should note]] are all about what you'd want to call "word play", or more nicely put, analysis: looking at a big abstract concept we loosely throw around all the time, and trying to really nail down exactly what coherent, rigorously-defined formal concept best matches that loose understanding. Compatibilists are telling incompatibilists "you've got the concept wrong, you're arguing about irrelevant things; argue about these things instead". What I was saying above is that in both cases the "things" in question are some kind of objective (not necessarily verifiable, see above) facts about the real world: incompatibilists argue over whether, in fact, everything including human action is nomologically determined; compatibilists argue about various other things like whether human actions can be predicted, or whether they are physically forced, socially coerced, culturally or genetically programmed in, etc. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

• A much more straightforward way to put it is simply "will is not determined, and therefore free", not "determinism does not apply to free will".

The separation of these two views as somehow different hinges upon what is "determinism". If we take hard determinism as the statement that "everything is dictated by the past and present", then saying that "will is not determined, and therefore free" is a claim that "everything" is too strong a statement, that is, the universe is bigger than things governed by determinism. That is the same statement as "determinism does not apply to free will". Brews ohare (talk) 16:15, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

See above: I am contesting the phrasing "determinism does not apply to free will" as not clearly communicating what (I hope) you're trying to say by it, which is that "will is not determined, and therefore free". That latter sentence does have the implication that the set of things which are determined is not universal, and will is one of the things which falls outside of that set (which, combined with the incompatibilist thesis, implies that that will could be free); but that implication is not equivalent to the sentence, it's just implied by it.

→ See new section. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm saying the disagreement between hard determinists and libertarians turns on whether the statement "everything is determined" is true or false. To say that it is false is to say "not everything is determined", which is equivalent to "some things are not determined", which is what you seem to want to say, just in a weird way. ("Determinism does not apply to some things"). And just to emphasize, the negation of "everything is determined" is NOT "everything is undetermined", and I am not saying the argument is between those two things. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ You seem to have captured my viewpoint, but still object to it. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think I object to your viewpoint, but to your way of stating it, which you seem to have now conceded to Richard above. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

• The latter [ "determinism does not apply to free will" ] could very easily be confused for saying "determinism is not relevant to the question of whether or not we have free will", which is very untrue of libertarians' opinions; they say very much that determinism is what matters in the question of free will, but that determinism is false, so our wills are free.

The criticism is that the formulation [ "determinism does not apply to free will" ] can be misconstrued, so a clearer formulation is necessary. I believe it is the statement that "determinism is false, so our wills are free" that is the unclear formulation, for several reasons. The first part, that "determinism is false", is not a clear formulation of the libertarian position. I don't think libertarianists make the statement that determinism is a view totally inapplicable to any part of reality.

See above. By "determinism" here I mean nomological determinism (I though that was clear by now), the claim that "everything is determined (by the state of the universe at any one time plus the laws of nature)". The negation of that is NOT "determinism is a view totally inapplicable to any part of reality"; it is, to use your formulation here, "determinism is a view that is not totally applicable to all parts of reality". Which can be much more clearly put as "some things [some parts of reality] are not determined [do not have determinism applied to them]". --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ You have my position, but have not said what your view of it is. I gather you disagree with it. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Again, no, just with your way of stating it. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Such a position is untenable if determinism is formulated so that science actually fits into it, that is, if mechanism is properly viewed.

What does this sentence mean? --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

If instead determinism is taken in the Laplacian sense, then determinism is clearly outmoded and actually does apply to nothing, in which case the statement that "determinism is false" is clearly true, but since such a concept of determinism applies nowhere at all, it is tautology to say it doesn't apply to free will either.

Weren't you just arguing not long ago that it is impossible to empirically determine the truth of "the Laplacian sense" of determinism? Note that the claim is that if one knew the total state of affairs of the entire universe and the complete laws of nature, one could with sufficient computational resources eventually correctly infer every fact about every other time; it is not the claim that such knowledge or computational resources are available, even in principle. It's a statement about the logical relationship between some things; it essentially gives a formula, it does not say that the values of the variables are known or can be found, or that someone capable of the computations necessary to solve the formula exists or could exist. It only asserts the formula itself. Our inability to solve the formula does not make it false, it merely makes it not very useful to us. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ Indeed you are right about this, except for the apparent belief that untestable statements about the nature of reality can be true or false. I guess statements that have testable consequences can be classified as true or false according as their implications are true or false, but statements like "Omniscient observers can predict the future" are just nonsense. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ Of course, true and false can be applied to logical arguments as well, but that is a matter quite separate from empirical truth and falsity. One could discuss whether the definition of "omniscient" implied ability to predict the future, but that is not a discussion about reality, but about how one wants to use words. Brews ohare (talk) 17:59, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Wow, more and more you sound like someone straight out of the Vienna Circle; they were also called the logical positivists, and held that any statement which wasn't a positive (i.e. empirical) or purely logical one was empty nonsense and worse than saying nothing at all. For a large part I agree with that position (with some important caveats), but that's not important: what's important is that logical positivists do not get to dictate how the rest of the world speaks and what concepts they use and how, and the rest of the world has not chosen to go along with the logical positivist program, so there are lots of notable viewpoints that we would be negating in the article's own voice if we assumed a logical positivist sense of truth in writing it. And that would violate WP:NPOV.

This is a really important point to note so I'm putting this sentence in bold: You seem to be coming at this article assuming that a minority viewpoint -- one which I mostly agree with, I think -- is uncontroversially correct and everything that runs counter to it should be disregarded as clearly nonsense. I'm trying to tell you as politely as possible that no matter how much I or any other editor here might personally agree that something is nonsense, unless there is a clear consensus of experts in the field that agree with that (which on philosophical topics you can pretty much always assume there is not), we cannot write the article from that perspective without violating one of Wikipedia's core policies. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

Another objection is that the second part of the statement does not follow from the first. I take this non sequitor as an indication that this sentence is too abbreviated to be a proper position statement.

I am abbreviating some things in our discussion here when I think that we've already clarified them between us and don't need verbose restatement. In this case, I thought it was clear that incompatibilists (hard determinists and metaphysical libertarians both) agree with each other that "if everything is determined, our wills are not free". Given that premise they share, they then argue to each other "everything is determined, therefore our wills are not free" and "our wills are free, therefore not everything is determined", respectively.

→ Boy, that is exactly what I've been saying, but you seem to disagree with me. I am confused. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I've been disagreeing with the way you've tried to put that, saying that it is confusing and not at all clear that that is what it means. Richardbrucebaxter doesn't appear to have understood what you meant at all and gotten repeatedly confused in exactly the way I worry other readers might. But you have already conceded the offending phrasing to him above, so it's a moot point now I guess. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm thinking that laying out some semi-formal logical statements here might help clarification on the different positions regarding free will and determinism (leaving out the much broader disagreements within compatibilism):

• F = "free will exists" = various things depending on the source
• U = a description of the total state of the universe at some given moment
• N = a description of the true laws of nature
• D = nomological determinism = "everything that will ever happen could be inferred from U and N"
• I = incompatibilism = "necessarily if D then not-F"
• L = libertarianism = "F and I", therefore "not-D" (and therefore "not-H")
• H = hard determinism = "D and I", therefore "not-F" (and therefore "not-L")
• C = compatibilism = "possibly F and D" = "not-I" (and therefore "not-H and not-L")
• M = the mind argument = "necessarily if not-D then not-F"
• X = hard incompatibilism = "I and M", therefore "necessarily not-F"

And for extra clarity, though this shouldn't be necessary if you understand logic:

• not-D = "not everything that will ever happen could be inferred from U and N" = "some things that will happen could not be inferred from U and N"

There are other possible statements too, like:

• "People experience a subjective feeling of freedom to choose from several possible alternative courses of action"
• "People undergo a deliberative process whereby they weigh alternative courses of action and select one of them"

These statements might (and usually would) be supported by any of the above positions, though incompatibilists would generally say that neither of these (nor their conjunction) is equivalent to F, because they are both clearly compatible with D, which would mean C and therefore not I. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ Maybe we have to resort to translation like this. I am not sure yet. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ I'd rewrite one principle to fix what looks like a misprint:

• D = nomological determinism = "everything that will ever happen could be inferred from U and N"

Good catch, yes; I had originally written "S" for what I ended up calling "U" and didn't change it there. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

→ We need a few more propositions and need to classify them.

• MU = "The universe is multifaceted" - Not everything is accessible to scientific methods
• MF = "Free will is a facet of MU" - I'd call this a libertarianist position; you would not.
• MFC = "Free will as a facet of MU is constrained" - I'd call this a compatibilist position; you would not.
• MCO = "Constraints upon free will can be established empirically through correlated observable phenomena."
• MHP = "A failure to solve the hard problem of consciousness suggests MU or requires faith that MU eventually will prove false." - This isn't really necessary, just a matter to give pause.

Brews ohare (talk) 20:09, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Most of this seems a side-discussion irrelevant to defining what different positions on free will are. For example, certainly many libertarians are dualists and say there is a whole realm of mental substances inaccessible to the natural sciences, which would imply your "MF". But that's not a necessary condition of being a libertarian (there are also physicalist libertarians), so doesn't belong in the definition of libertarianism. That is a large overall point I am repeatedly trying to make here: you bring up interesting material that's worth discussing somewhere in the article, but it doesn't have a bearing on what defines the different positions and so doesn't belong right at the top of the lede which is just trying to say "free will is variously defined by these parties in these ways". By all means lets go into detail about the implications of those definitions... but later, in the body of the article. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:08, 4 December 2012 (UTC)

There are some other points to discuss, and it looks like agreement can be found, but maybe this should be hashed out first. Brews ohare (talk) 17:56, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

It looks like the libertarianism-hard determinism differences can been seen differently depending upon the view of the world one entertains:

• If one's view is that the universe is entirely amenable to scientific methods, although science has not yet encompassed the universe, then of course "free will" is a reasonable subject for scientific method, and all that remains is to speculate about how that investigation may turn out. It may be that, like "particles" and "waves", the detailed definition of "free will" that is established as having application to the objective world will evolve. Any debate over whether "free will" will be established will be colored by the present view of what science says about things today, and Occam's razor suggests that "free will" will turn out to be like other scientific objects, that is, as more or as less determined according to how that theory looks at the moment. The libertarianism-hard determinism differences become debates about whether science has or has not reached a mature view of free will. For example, determinism phrased to accord with Newton's laws is not viable, but how about one phrased to fit string theory or multiverses?
• On the other hand, if one's view is that subjective observations like taste, color, pain are individual, never exactly repeatable, and essentially unobservable by third parties, and that free will is among these phenomena, then free will is not amenable to scientific examination. (The hard problem of consciousness is insoluble, at least for the present and possibly altogether.) One can, however, examine individuals claiming to exercise their free will and try to find objective correlates. That is how the study of pain and its treatment is proceeding. From this subjective-objective division one might reasonably suggest that the intuitive notion of "free will" is part of the way the human mind operates, it is a given, and scientific study may succeed in establishing many new correlates over time, for example with new methods like PET scans of the brain, but none of these scientific developments impact the internal intuitive experience of "free will", which is whatever it is. Whether "free will" is 'determined', or not, becomes an empirical matter; that is: Which reported subjective intentions lead to what empirical correlates? What empirical conditioning leads to which subjective reported intentions?, and so forth. From this stance, the universe is indeed larger than the subset of phenomena directly accessible to science, and the libertarianism-hard determinism differences can be seen as argument over (i) the completeness of the scientific aspects of the universe and (ii) which part of reality free will falls into.

Is this a conversation relevant to the topics above? Brews ohare (talk) 05:17, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

No, I think it is a misleading tangent that only confuses the issue. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:21, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

→ It's my idea of background, sorry you don't appreciate it. Brews ohare (talk) 17:40, 1 December 2012 (UTC)