Anything beyond "I'm not sure" is intellectually dishonest.

How do you define free will?

Jason wrote:

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Anything beyond "I'm not sure" is intellectually dishonest.

How do you define free will?

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 The ability to reason, to choose between 2 or more options, to form abstractions. 

I'd say the fact that you can say " I am not sure " proves free will.

An animal's mind ( we're speaking non-rational animals here ) do not have the ability to doubt, however humans do. 
Animals exist in a world of sensation and percepts, as do developing human beings ( infants ).  It is at the stage of forming concepts that one realizes his free will, his ability to discriminate and to doubt certain claims.  If man were deterministic, we would flow directly from perceptions to concepts, much like we did from sensations to perceptions as developing children.
The ability to be sure of something, or to doubt something is an act of introspection.  A determinist mind would work automatically, and would be unquestionable and infallible.

The way we form concepts and ideas is obviously not one of automatic, determined thought, but of our CHOICE to use reason, to think about something past an automatic sense.

I don't know how you can advocate any ethics when you are unsure of free will.

You can advocate ethics even from a purely, boldly deterministic stance which is farther than I would ever go. Ethical constructs can shape human behavior into more desirable outcomes even if humans are mindless automata.

Of course, you would affirm that determinism is disproven by people choosing certain ethical constructs over others with the end of shaping behavior. There is no way I can convince you otherwise, I think.


Perhaps you could explain to me how what Descartes called "perfect" free will can account for known facts about the universe and human beings. How can an arrangement of matter, which we would agree lacks free will, produce free will when positioned in a certain way? We know that humans perceive the outside world, and we know that our brains are what sort out the information. Information comes into a neural network of certain electrical potentials stored in a network of millions and millions of hidden nodes, and travels through the network in such a way determined by the structure of the brain and the laws of physics, wherein a pattern of activation is determined. Where is the free will in that? Where is the homunculus that guides the neural activation into the way it WANTS it to activate?

I can't answer these questions, and it seems to me that the brain acts in a determined, albeit nearly infinitely complex, way. Nothing else makes sense to me.

How does a certain form of matter alter how something acts? I don't know, why don't you ask anything alive instead of something that is stagnant.
And how are human minds different from animals? How can they be different, rather? I'm not quite sure. I'm not a neurologist. What I do know it is very apparent that we do think differently.

Certainly not every human being has free will. Many people have totally abandoned thought, and really do act like animals, reacting to their emotions and impulses. But they HAVE the choice.
The saying " He has chosen his path in life " is a good way to state it. We don't handle every single minute decision. People can choose between irrationality and rationality, and their decisions will be influenced in that way.

I am defending free will from a philosophic standpoint, and I know I am unable to defend it from the standpoint of neurology. I'm not sure of your ability, but I don't often like to argue things that I am not sure of. I have heard ideas from studiers of the brain who do advocate free will, but I rarely can follow their arguments. However, and I've been having this argument on another board, if it is true for philosophy, you can negate scientific claims that are contra correct philosophic truths. I don't argue against quantum randomness because I know I'm not equipped to do so on the level of science. However, I am sure from a philosophic standpoint that randomness is an impossibility. Things act out of identity.
Philosophy is the science of " what " and " why ". The natural sciences explain the " how ".

That last sentences could be misguided. But it sounded cool.

I think any discussion of human cognition, including free will, should be guided by the cognitive sciences.

I would have to say that I disagree with Jason in the assumption that matter is as a matter of necessity incapable of free will. From what I understand of the contemporary situation in the philosophy of mind - and this is an area I have studied somewhat, because I find it interesting - it would seem that our best explanation is that certain kinds of matter simply are conscious and capable of volition, whatever the reason is for this.

Having said that, I am also distrustful of the basic 'divided self' model that Piggie seems to rely on. I think that reasoning is simply one of our capabilities, not something to be seen as somehow over and above them.

Reason is not over and above..What other aspect of us? Since it really makes " us ", I would say it is certainly fair to consider reason above other aspects of us, such as emotions which alone are impotent to do anything for us.