If free will is the ability to choose, then the how and with what we choose should show whether or not one has free will. Is this statement true or not? This is not a thread on free will, it’s just about this statement. If it is not true, is there something that could be changed to make it true?
Your then clause includes the word ‘should’ and the phrase ‘whether or not’ making it impossible to determine the statement’s validity - i.e. it is not known if you mean to suggest
a) If ‘free will’ is the ability to choose, then how we choose and with what we choose shows ‘free will’ exists.
or
b) If ‘free will’ is the ability to choose, then how we choose and with what we choose shows ‘free will’ does not exist.
That said, ‘free will’ is ‘ability to choose’ (these are synonymous concepts) so both premises are correct. However, B is clearly self-contradictory; and A is just a tautology: If choice, then the hows and whats of choice prove the existence of choice.
I’d argue you need to rephrase altogether.
if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
-Imp
a will free from action is nothing more than a potentiality or an idea. when one attempts to bring ones will into actual existance or realize fully the implications of ones will, ones will can no longer be free from consequence.
are these statements true?
Could someone please describe to me how to live as if we believe that we have no will? Never got that one.
Some questions are philosophical - some are not. Meaningless questions are of the latter variety.
So don’t ask such questions. Your question has nothing to do with this thread.
Like how? How could it be said? I am sure you know what I mean.
What if you chose not to make any more choices…?
And you just lay on your bed, listening to your breathing and sensing your heartbeat.
Man… that would be like, soooo cool.
You just asked one of “those questions”. And faust’s response definitely has something to do with this thread.
Your saying this is a stupid question?
And I ask you brain child, what did faust have to contribute as well as your stupidity.
Do atoms exist? Well, it wouldn’t change our lifestyle either way, but the process of answering the question gave us an understanding of how things work. Of course, science is a bit more solid and a bit less close to home than philosophy, but I think the point still holds. We can learn from the question, even if the answer doesn’t actually change something about the way we act concerning the content itself.
On the subject of free will, if you define it as the ability to choose, then an entity choosing would prove free will. But you’ve then got the problem of what a choice is, and how you determine whether or not the entity is choosing.
TheCDF, for what it’s worth, I think you might want to simmer down.
free will is the options that come from the amount of power and abilities we have.
we dont really have free will each one of us just has a certain amount of power and abilities which gives us the option the takes various actions. some have more than other, such as a rich compared to a poor person or a physicaly fit person to someone who is physically handicapped etc.
still inevitability remains…
I want to how this is a meaningful question.
Partly, I want to know what difference any answer to your question(s) makes. I want also to know how to verify the possible answers to this question. CDF - you may not be aware of logical positivism, but it is a generally well-known school of philosophical thought. My question can meaningfully be asked by a logical positivist (and has been) and by some precursors and some successors to this particular school of thought. I wish to know how the question itself is meaningful - you seem to believe that the only two alternatives are “true” and “false”. There is a vast philosophical tradition that disagrees with this.
You are asking about your statement alone, and not about free will. This is why I use a logical positivist approach. It suggests itself.
Daybreak is giving you the benefit of the doubt here, and merely pointing out that your formulation is invalid reasoning. I am claiming that it is meaningless, even when the logic is corrected, which I can speculate about, I think. I think Daybreak can speculate about what you might mean here. But you have left us to just speculation. Both criticisms come from well-considered philosophical outlooks, however.
Strictly speaking, it’s not a stupid question, because it’s not a coherent enough question to qualify for stupidity. You can learn something about philosophical technique here, or not. Calling those who can help you “stupid” may not be the best way to do that. Time will tell.
As it happens, Imp’s question is much like my own, and is aligned with Daybreak’s view - the “logical validity” view, if you will. Except you would have to understand something about statements, language, logic and definitional meaning to know this.
My statements go to the nature of statements, Daybreak’s to definitional meaning, and Imp’s to language. And they all go to logic.
Pretty stupid, huh?
Hell yeah! I guess it is me who does not understand you but why can’t you understand me? I have talked with people my whole life and have never had a problem such as this. This is such a simple question to me and yet you guys say it is not a question at all. What?
Have you really forgotten how to understand us who do not know your language? Can you really tell me you do not understand what I have said? It must be that you guys have painted yourselves into a corner as you can now only talk with yourselves and not communicate with people who have not gone to college. Is this by design or mistake. Are we that meaningless to you. How do you forget how to understand simple concepts? And you are the educated ones. How do you talk to your familys. Either they have gone to college too or you don’t I guess.
Do I feel better now?
Hell no!
Everybody, simmer down! I thought we learned this from theCDF’s last thread?
THECDF KNOWS ALL, WE ARE JUST TOO STUPID TO REALISE IT!
Really though, based on the few posts I’ve read, you are wasting your time. His name, as long as I am around to preach it, will be “theWetSponge”, becuase that is what he is. Filled with his own delusions, incapable of of absorbing anything of use, fun to poke once or twice, but all around boring, easily replaced, and if you leave it around long enough, it starts to smell funky :S
Just read his website here, and it will explain everything you need to know about this guy 
[/just opinion based on expereience. don’t hate me for it 
]
How do you get the “we” in “you” as in “, WE ARE JUST TOO STUPID TO REALISE IT!”
By the way “realize is spelled realize”. And you call me stupid!
thecdf.net
It depends on what you’re trying to say. That was the point of my first post - that I don’t know what you’re trying to say. If you mean to argue against the existence of free will, the statement is self-contradictory; if you mean to argue in favor of the existence of free will, the statement is a tautology. When I say you need to rephrase, in turn, I mean you need to word the statement in such a way so that the position you intend to defend (or refute) is clear.
That’s step one, at least.
I like things in steps. Let me see if I can clear it up.
“If free will is the ablility to choose”
if = in the event of
ability = the state of being able
choose = to select freely and after consideration
In the event of being able to select after consideration,
then = according to that
should = ought
show = to cause or permit to be seen
whether or not = in any case
either = being the one or the other of two
that = the idea indicated
according to that, the how and with what we choose ought to permit to be seen in any case being the one or the other of two, one has free will.
I think I see my problem, I don’t know the meaning of “whether or not”. It should be “either”.
In the event of being able to select after consideration, according to that, the how and with what we choose ought to permit to be seen in any case being the one or the other, free will does or does not exist.
I think!
I am not arguing either point. Trying to say, that the act of choosing ought to show which is true.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/incom … arguments/
1 We have free will (of the kind required for moral responsibility) only if we are the ultimate causes (sources, originators, first causes) of our actions.
2 If determinism is true, then everything we do is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside our control.
3 If everything we do is ultimately caused by events and circumstances outside our control, then we are not the ultimate causes (sources, originators, first causes) of our actions.
4 Therefore, if determinism is true, we are not the ultimate causes of our actions.
5 Therefore, if determinism is true, we don’t have free will (of the kind required for moral responsibility).
Premise (2) follows from the definition of determinism (at least given two widely accepted assumptions: that there is causation in a deterministic universe and that causation is a transitive relation). (For some doubts about the latter assumption, see Hall 2000, and Hitchcock 2001). Premise (3) is clearly true. So if we want to reject the conclusion, we must reject Premise (1).
Compatibilists have argued against (1) in two different ways. On the positive side, they have argued that we can give a satisfactory account of the (admittedly elusive) notion of self-determination without insisting that self-determination requires us to be the first causes of our actions (Bok 1998, Dennett 1984, Fischer 1994, Frankfurt 1971 and 1988, Wallace 1994, Watson 1975 and 1987, Wolf 1990). On the negative side, compatibilists have challenged (1) by arguing that it is of no help to the incompatibilist: if we accept (1), we are committed to the conclusion that free will and moral responsibility are impossible, regardless of whether determinism is true or false.
The challenge to (1) takes the form of a dilemma: Either determinism is true or it’s not. If determinism is true, then my actions are ultimately caused by events and conditions outside my control, so I am not their first cause and therefore, if we accept (1), I am neither free nor responsible. If determinism is false, then something that happens inside me (something that I call “my choice†or “my decisionâ€) might be the first event in a causal chain leading to a sequence of body movements that I call “my actionâ€. But since this event is not causally determined, whether or not it happens is a matter of chance or luck. Whether or not it happens has nothing to do with me; it is not under my control any more than an involuntary knee jerk is under my control. Therefore, if determinism is false, I am not the first cause or source of my actions and, if we accept (1), I am neither free nor responsible (Ayer 1954, Wolf 1990).
In order to defend (1) against the so-called “determined or random†dilemma, above, the incompatibilist has to offer a positive account of the puzzling claim that persons are the first causes of their actions. The traditional incompatibilist answer is that this claim must be taken literally, at face value. We — agents, persons, enduring things — are causes with a very special property: we initiate causal chains, but nothing and no one causes us to do this. Like God, we are uncaused causers, or first movers. For instance, if Joe deliberately throws a rock, which breaks a window, then the window’s breaking (an event) was caused by Joe’s throwing the rock (another event), which was caused by Joe’s choice (another event). But Joe’s choice was not caused by any further event, not even the event of Joe’s thinking it might be fun to throw the rock; it was caused by Joe himself. And since Joe is not an event, he is not the kind of thing which can be caused. (Or so it is argued, by the proponents of agent-causation. See Campbell 1957, Chisolm 1964 and 1976, Clarke 1993 and 1996, O’Connor 2000.)
Many philosophers think that agent-causation is either incoherent or impossible, due to considerations about causation. What sense does it make to say that a person or other enduring thing, as opposed to a change in a thing, or the state of a thing at a certain time, is a cause?
also see:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism
-Imp
(Much like “colour” vs “color”, we spell realise with an S up here in Canada)
CDF - Maybe I still don’t get you here, but it seems like you’re saying that we have choice, for the determining factor in the truth or falsity of any claim of free will is the choice itself.
…“the act of choosing ought to show which is true.”
The “which” being, evidently, whether it is true or false that free will exists.
But you include what looks like constituent parts of that choice, the “how” and the “with what”. Do you mean, by “how” a method of choice? Such as “a rational process”? Do you mean, by “with what” a brain? Depending upon your view of human nature, or theory of mind, or any of several possible parameters, these could be two different entities, or could be two ways of saying the same thing. It’s a little vague, to me.
For instance, the “with what” could be our “minds” which is a word that measn different things to different people, and the “how” could mean “through the grace of God”, for instance, or through a “universal mind”, to pluck an example out os the history of philosophy. Since your basic question is often rendered as a metaphysical one (I would say almost always), these interpretations are not unlikely.