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Choice versus its implementation

The removal from the Introduction of the material describing the logical distinction between choice and its implementation:

It should be noted that freedom of choice is logically separate from freedom to implement that choice, although not all writers observe this distinction:

"Philosophers who distinguish freedom of action and freedom of will do so because our success in carrying out our ends depends in part on factors wholly beyond our control. Furthermore, there are always external constraints on the range of options we can meaningfully try to undertake. As the presence or absence of these conditions and constraints are not (usually) our responsibility, it is plausible that the central loci of our responsibility are our choices, or “willings.”" –Timothy O'Connor, Free will

References

appears to me to seriously degrade the article content. A major topic in "free will" is exactly this point, and it bears on an enormous amount of discussion concerning free will and responsibility (moral and legal), concerning free will and developmental psychology, and concerning free will and addiction/mental disorder. To remove this logical distinction from the introduction emasculates the entire proceedings. Brews ohare (talk) 16:06, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

The distinction is still mentioned in the introduction (in context of the compatibilist models it relates to), and the reference remains; it is just not as blatant. Do you suggest adding here quotations identifying all conflicting positions on free will?

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

This distinction is now shoe-horned into a discussion where it does not belong, and the very clear description of the issue in the quote by O'Connor has been dropped. The whole point is now obscure and likely not to register. Why do you do this? Pfhorrest moved it to its present position in the lede, which seems a good place for it to me. Brews ohare (talk) 18:03, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

I noted this anomaly also, and have since moved the quotation to section Compatibilism [1].

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 18:16, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

A bad dynamic developing here

I'm concerned about the amount of reverting recently; let me explain why. Most Wikipedia articles try to avoid synthesis and follow the mainstream of thought, focusing on the sources that are considered most reputable. There are some topics, though, where there is no identifiable mainstream, and where the most reputable sources wildly contradict one another. This is one of them. When that happens, it is impossible to have a good article without adding some synthesis -- otherwise you just end up with an incoherent list of contradictory views. But it's impossible to synthesize the material usefully if editors fight with each other. There is no way to make this process work if the editors who are contributing don't make a basic commitment to avoid fighting. Looie496 (talk) 16:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Looie: I don't think there is any ill will here. Perhaps changes could be discussed on the Talk page more, but things are evolving OK. Brews ohare (talk) 17:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

What is this article about

Perhaps it is time for some general discussion about the orientation of the article Free will?

Although there is a long history of the subject of Free will, I myself don't think this article should be restricted to these historical debates. The modern relevance of this issue is as to exactly what actually is going on when decisions are made and implemented, and is not upon "nice" distinctions between hypothetical positions and possible definitions. This article should attempt to present these historical points from a modern perspective, and not simply regurgitate things from their original perspective.

The historical issues of Chrysippus in trying to reconcile "fate" with the obligation to think through one's actions find echos in the dualism of Descartes, Kant, Popper and others. They all boil down in modern terms as to just what the role of intention is in our lives. Is it the cause of our actions, or is it a correlate of our actions, or is it merely a consequence of evolutionary programming boiling up from our subconscious mental activities? These are the issues (still unresolved at the moment, but better understood), and the presentation should present the historical debates from these viewpoints with the modern developments.

The article contains a lot of good material, but it is (in my mind) mostly presented in an archaic manner, and therefore its relevance beyond academic and dusty old discussions is buried. Brews ohare (talk) 16:24, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

While I welcome the inclusion of newer material in this article, the "historical" material about "distinctions between hypothetical positions and possible definitions" is still important for maintaining neutrality because people still hold this wide variety of positions, and still argue about which is correct.

My main concern with the overall pattern of your edits here is that you seem to operate from the viewpoint that the incompatibilist definition of free will is correct, and when making edits that add otherwise useful material let that bias slip through constantly, disrupting the carefully developed neutral introduction to the subject we developed over quite some time here, especially in the lede. Any material which goes beyond these definitional issues will be assuming a definition and so needs to be couched in the context of that, controversial, definition, or else it will imply that the others are wrong, in the article's own voice, violating WP:NPOV

The old consensus that has stood in the lede for quite some time was to introduce what free will is neutrally by briefly introducing what questions there are about it and the proposed answers to those question. In outline form, that structure is this:

• Free will is some kind of lack of constraint from something, but what that something is and whether we are unconstrained by it is debated.
  • The most popular value of 'something' is metaphysical determinism, and the two most popular (incompatibilist) positions are thus:
    • That we are not determined and are thus free. (Libertarianism)
    • That we are determined and are thus not free. (Hard determinism)
  • But there are a bunch of other proposed (compatibilist) values of 'something', like:
    • Physical restraint (e.g. Hobbes)
    • Social coercion (I think we used to have something about this that got deleted or refactored, maybe Rousseau?)
    • Psychological hangups (e.g. Frankfurt)

This is in essence one long (but the shortest possible neutral) answer to the question "what is free will?", which is the first thing an article on free will needs to state. You keep adding other material -- which is good, and belongs here somewhere -- into the middle of this, breaking the logical connections between the different parts of it, e.g. turning the summary of compatibilist definitions of free will into "digressions" on other things which may impede the exercise of free will (which also seems to have a bias toward the incompatibilist definition of free will, again). Likewise you're adding other (good, valuable) material to other places in the article, but in poorly chosen places that disrupts the structure of the article. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:57, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: Thanks for your reply. I get the drift, but my reaction is a bit different from yours. In my mind, hard determinism and libertarianism are positions based upon definitions that have next to nothing to do with what actually is. Of course, one is free to invent definitions and construct what amounts to a mathematical formalism based upon those definitions, but whether that beautiful construction applies to the real world is a separate question. My opinion is that beautiful and simple as it is, this debate over idealisms has no bearing at all upon the real world, and so is a form of philosophical amusement.

I don' t think it will surprise you that this is my opinion, and I won't be surprised if your view is "so what". However, I do think that the position of hard determinism and that of liberalism can be presented within a completely NPOV as two possible models out of dozens. With all the possible models in front of us the evidence or its lacking can be presented for each of the views, which is a perfectly NPOV. The reader can then decide for themselves which of the views is more supported and which questions are likely to lead to progress. IMO, of course, continuation of hypothetical arguments, about which definitions imply what, are less fruitful than looking at what we actually do know about the mind-body problem, and which definitions suggest useful inquiry. A NPOV would allow this position of mine an equal footing to the fun & games of the past. Brews ohare (talk) 22:50, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Brews,

I don't think we've met. I haven't dropped by here since Syamsu got his indef block. I haven't been following these edits closely at all, but a couple of points in your response jumped out at me. I think you're bringing a very different mindset to this article, and I would like a better understanding of that mindset (or better yet, figure out that I misunderstood what you were saying).

Zooming in on two sentences: With all the possible models in front of us the evidence or its lacking can be presented for each of the views, which is a perfectly NPOV. The reader can then decide for themselves which of the views is more supported and which questions are likely to lead to progress.

The first thing that struck me about that was its similarity to creationist "teach the controversy" arguments: there are several competing schools of thought, so present all of them and let the student (however ill equiped she may be) decide which one is best. I have no argument with this as a rhetorical technique, but when the rubber hits the road that's not how we make decisions in biology, mathematics, or (I'll argue) philosophy.

Then there's the comment about "progress": I think it's an arguable point whether philosphy does, should, or even can progress (as it's just footnotes to Aristotle — I'm kidding. A little.), but I don't think it's a stretch to say that progress as a goal in philosophy is a minority point of view.

The composite picture I take from this — and I want to emphasize that I may have utterly misread you and welcome correction — is that you're imagining a reader who comes to this article hoping for a neutral presentation of existing theories of free will so she can go about choosing the best one. That's an interesting and valuable approach and I can imagine several articles where it would be ideal, but I'm not convinced that it's appropriate for this article.

Let me give you a different model. Philosophy is conversation, and as part of that conversation there has been a two-thousand-odd year discussion about free will. As in any coherent conversation, what can be said (intelligibly) is constrained by what has been already spoken. Coming into this conversation now makes for a baffling experience unless you have a scorecard of where the discussion has been, who said what and why, and where the conversation is going. This article, in my opinion, should be a condensed version of that scorecard.

If you'd like the article to go in a different direction, then by all means let's discuss that.

Best,

GaramondLethe 04:12, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Garamond: You raise some interesting points. I don't think I want to be quite as radical as to leave everything up to the reader. The fact is that this topic has been around at least 3 or 4 thousand years and its far from settled even today. SO I guess this little Talk page is not going to break new ground. My feeling is the present article is very tied to a bunch of fuddy-duddy stuff and can be made to address some actually interesting aspects of the topic. Whether WP is the place to do that depends very much upon who is assembled here now, and whether it lasts depends upon how persuasive it appears to those that come later. Maybe I should just find something better to do, eh? Or maybe I should write a User space article on Free will that seems to me more digestible and interesting and see how it is received? Or, maybe I should look at some other articles and let Free will sit smugly in its little corner? At the moment I can say some useful additions and changes here have been accomplished, but I'm doubtful that further piecemeal attempts will accomplish anything more. Any advice? Brews ohare (talk) 06:07, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

I spent some time reading your user page as well as the arbcom case you linked to. (Leaving that up isn't doing you any favors.) Then I spent some time reviewing your edits. I'll call out this in particular: "As a question of what actually is going on, rather than as a debate over hypothetical possibilities and logical distinctions....". That's the thinking of a physcist who has read a few books on philosophy, not a philosopher.

As to advice: start an article (perhaps Neurological views of free will and put the cool stuff in there. You're approaching free will as an engineering problem: that's perfectly interesting and legitimate, but it's a topic in its own right distinct from (albeit related to) the philosophical question. If you don't think there's enough for an article then put this in its own section here.

As an aside, Eric Kandel's fifth edition of Principles of Neural Science is due out soon. It's the actual science that Dennett only alludes to. Note that you will need a license to carry a book that large in rural Georgia. Kidding. Seriously, grab the fourth edition out of the library and start pounding through it. I think you'll like it as much as I did.

Two other book recommendations: Jaegwon Kim's Physicalism, or Something Near Enough is a limpid history of how philosophical ideas of free will have reacted to (or been steamrolled by) scientific advances. And Samir Okasha's Philosophy of Science: A Very Short Introduction is good enough that I'll be using it as a textbook.

One last thought: the Philosophy of Computer Science article is wide open and I think it's not going to be too difficult to improve on the SEP article. I'm slowly pulling together a bibliography. Let me know if you're interested.

GaramondLethe 21:41, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Garamond: I gather that your advice is to go somewhere else. I don't think there is an alternative, as there is no way to engage a thought process here. I am somewhat bemused by those here assembled that take a view that "free will may exist to some degree" is not a neutral point of view, when actually it encompasses all other views just by sliding the pointer from one extreme to the other, from some degree = 0% to some degree = 100%. It's an interesting perspective upon "neutral". Brews ohare (talk) 04:31, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

That's the tragedy of expertise: if you want to convince experts that your idea might be better than theirs you have to first learn their language in order to convince them. So one way of "engag[ing] a thought process here" would be to go off and read Kim and Okasha and come back and make your point using the domain-specific language. If that's too much of a time investment then you're more than competent to do run-of-the-mill editing here, but I don't see a good way forward for your major reorganization of this article until you're able to present your point more effectively. (If I was trying to reorganize an article in your field I expect you would be telling me the same thing.)

Let me give you a concrete example: Libet's experiments that you discussed above are certainly interesting from a neurological standpoint, and it's certainly understandable that neurologists would think they invalidate the idea of free will. However, when a philsopher looks at that data the conclusion is that "free will [] is essentially non-conscious". [2] Is that moving the goalposts? Well, maybe, but a successful argument that goalposts were moved will be a philosophical argument, not an argument about the data. (This article has been cited heavily; you might want to have a go at it and see how you would pick it apart.)

In fewer words: no, I'm not trying to run you off, but I do disagree with a few of your ideas for the direction of the overall article; one way of getting those ideas out in the world is to put them in their own article. GaramondLethe 05:40, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Garamond: I am not feeling you want to "run me off". I appreciate your interest.

I looked over your suggested article "Free Will in the Light of Neuropsychiatry", which is an accurate title. The lead sentence of the abstract "If the notion of free will is to be retained by philosophers, psychiatrists and psychologists, then it will be a free will which is essentially non-conscious." is a narrow neurological viewpoint to the exclusion of all else. Of course, it is obvious to one and all that "free will" is consciously intuited, so it is not non-conscious; using this conscious intuition as the meaning of free will, the author's conclusion is it has no causal importance.

The author suggests there is no role for consciousness in decision making, which I think goes beyond the evidence and may be a consequence of a methodology that is orthogonal to the investigation. All such subjective states that are conscious intuitions are unavailable to direct third person observation: at best neurological correlates can be found, and even that is not always available. Libet's experiments indicate some actions of motor control are temporally complex, with some neurological precursors to conscious awareness, but with awareness occurring before actual action takes place. Whether this has any bearing upon free will as applied to motor control is undetermined, and whether motor control is germane in any way to free will is even less clear, as free will may well have much longer time constants and be related to other parts of the brain. For example, we know subjectively that recollection and assessment can take minutes or more, not milliseconds. The jury is out as to what the neurological correlates of free will are, and even less clear about the role of subjective states (if any) in the decision process.

I wonder if that is your view as well? Brews ohare (talk) 11:50, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

In any event, these considerations and those of the cognitive sciences are much more germane to the significant issues of free will like reforms of the legal system, improvement of the treatment of addiction and mental disorder, teaching of the young, and leave arguments over "hard determinism" versus "hard compatibilism" on some dusty shelf in the stacks. Brews ohare (talk) 11:58, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Problems with exposition

Earlier on this Talk page Garamond Lethe has raised the topic of "the tragedy of expertise", suggesting that this article is beyond improvement by a layman because its editors-in-residence speak a "domain-specific language", and without adopting this jargon it is impossible for any argument of reform to proceed effectively.

I'd like to suggest that even the experts might find some of the article Free will indigestible, and might excuse a reader developing a sense of vertigo. As various popular books on this subject show, like (just for example) Sam Harris' Free will, this situation is not necessary to the subject, but a choice of style.

The article has adopted the view that free will should be couched in terms of long-standing and unending philosophical debate like "determinism", "hard determinism" "incompatibilism", "hard incompatibilism", "compatibilism", "physicalism", "libertarianism", "metaphysical libertarianism". Even very simple ideas can be made indigestible when these terms are introduced.

An example of turgid exposition is the following paragraph:

Incompatibilism requires a distinction between mental and the physical, being a commentary on the incompatibility of (determined) physical reality and one's presumably separable sense of will. Although substance dualism offers such a distinction, a lesser form of naturalism known as non-reductive physicalism may also suffice, the idea that although physical states do cause mental states, they are not ontologically reducible to them. In one such construction, mental events supervene on physical events, describing the emergence of mental properties as correspondent (causally reducible) to physical properties. Non-reductive physicalism is therefore often categorised as property dualism rather than monism, yet other types of property dualism do not adhere to the causal reducibility of mental states – such as epiphenomenalism, often considered an inert substance dualism.

There is of course a certain pleasure for an English speaker in reading French and enjoying one's ability to understand a second language acquired after some effort, failing a better description, a certain je ne sais quoi. But is this the way to write a WP article intended to be useful to the general reader?

A more useful exposition, perhaps lacking in cachet being simple English, would point out simply that "although one might suppose that mental states and neurological states are completely different in kind, that does not rule out the possibility that mental states are associated with certain neurological states, and may cause them or vice versa, or instead, that they might act in concert to determine events."

This statement doesn't exactly capture the nice attempt of the existing paragraph to embroil the reader in academic hairsplitting, but it is understandable, and provides a basis for continuing an intelligible discussion.

What this example is intended to suggest (whatever its success in doing that) is that a great deal of the article Free will could be made more digestible (and a lot shorter). The article Free will doesn't have to be devoted to a rather poorly presented and exhaustive dictionary entry describing differences in jargon that is not interesting or even understandable to the general reader. Free will deserves better. Brews ohare (talk) 14:52, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Several good points here, and put elegantly, too.

I'll grant you that Sam Harris wrote a very clear, readable book, but he also made several basic errors that might have been avoided if he had been more familiar with the existing literature.[3] So no, I don't take that as a useful model.

Yes, the paragraph you mentioned can certainly be improved. That's not controversial. I believe we're disagreeing over how much technical jargon to keep. As I use wikipedia (in part) to learn how experts think about a topic, I'm going to to be biased in favor of keeping the jargon that experts use. Other reads will have different preferences, of course.

OxfordUP has published Free Will: A Very Short Introduction. I've found that series to be broadly similar to wikipedia in terms of putting together a breif introduction to technical topics. I'll grab the kindle edition and skm it and see how they approach the problem.

GaramondLethe 21:19, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

A quick skim of chapter 1 of FW:AVSI confirms it's following a similar path in terms of using the technical vocabulary (although in a much more readable way). GaramondLethe 08:12, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Readability of the article could be improved if technical jargon were first defined in everyday terms at the beginning and then used sparingly, rather than using these terms like leitmotifs to construct a Wagner opera. It should be possible to replace the occurrence of a piece of jargon with its definition and have a perfectly clear sentence without the jargon, which is only a shorthand analogous to an ACRONYM. It might be a useful exercise to try and rewrite the porridge quoted above in clear manner. Brews ohare (talk) 14:52, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

The dozen or more pages of Free Will: A Very Short Introduction available on line discuss the question of free will largely without the jargon of the WP article. The term determinism shows up first on p. 13 as casual determinism, not the determinism of the WP article. Incompatibilism also shows up first on p. 13 and is defined simply as the view that "freedom is incompatible with causal determination". Libertarianism shows up on p. 13 too, as incompatibilism "combined with the further belief that we have control over how we act". Although my opinion is that the discussion of Free Will: A Very Short Introduction is irrelevant and outmoded, Free Will: A Very Short Introduction makes a very clear case that most of the technical jargon in the WP article can be avoided and still allow one to describe the archaic points that are the subject of Free Will: A Very Short Introduction. Brews ohare (talk) 16:29, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

"Compatibilism" occurs on pages 18-19 and 43-72. "Naturalism and compatibilism" occurs on pages 44-5, 55-6, 65-72 and 109-10. "Rationalism and compatibilism" occurs on pages 43-9 and 118-19. "Incompatibilism" on pages 13-14 and 16-18.

I'm not going to conclude much more than OxfordUP thinks an introduction to the topic for a lay audience can be sold profitably with at least that much jargon. That may or may not be a useful data point in the discussion here.GaramondLethe 21:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

The hang-up with Free Will: A Very Short Introduction is that it uses introspection and intuition as evidence, begging the questions it raises, it does not clearly distinguish between definitions and models and what is really "out there" (similar to the failure of old to distinguish mathematics from physics), it ignores the basic question of how to test models of mental activity, which is a topic of current interest, and although in its discussion of Kant and Hobbes (p. 70) the issue is raised that the "causally determined Hobbes world, the world as we experience it to be, is not the whole truth", it glosses over the causality issues, and the role of feedback in complex systems, which are an active developing area. The problem of free will has not been solved, and arguments like those in Free Will: A Very Short Introduction cannot resolve the issues which must await further developments in neuroscience and the treatment of complex feedback systems.

I realize that these are mere pronouncements of mine as I have presented them. But the fundamental failure so far to resolve the conundrum of free will can be fleshed out with sources. Of course, within a NPOV, this position remains only one of several in vogue today. Brews ohare (talk) 16:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm probably closer to your position than you might think, but that's neither here nor there for the purposes of this article. I agree that the view you outlined is one among many, and I have no problems add/amplifying it in the article as you find good sources. GaramondLethe 21:58, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Garamond: Thanks for the encouragement. I think the section on Free will#The mind-body problem pretty much covers my view of the present-day dilemma. Unfortunately, the last paragraph of this section takes this quite clear exposition and reinserts it into the mud of the rest of the Free will article. I therefore have removed this paragraph and hope that it does not return. If it does return, presumably to cast modern views in the tendentious vocabulary of old, it would be helpful if it were accessible to the everyday WP reader, and if it were made clear that this translation is an aside for devotees of jargon, and adds nothing consequential to the section. Brews ohare (talk) 14:18, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to think that sometime this weekend I could carve out enough time to un-porrige that paragraph, but it's pretty far down on my list. On the other hand, it did occur to me that you'd probably enjoy Robert Sapolsky on the behavioral aspects of Huntington's disease (transcription here). It's his talk on receiving a reward from the Freedom From Religion foundation. (I've never cared much for his books, but he's a compelling lecturer.) Here's a sample:

"Here's a scenario: 40-year-old guy, 20-year happy marriage, white-collar job, living in the suburbs, utterly colorless, stable life. One day, from out of nowhere, he punches somebody in the face at work, in his office, some guy at the water cooler who had made some comment about a sports team. This guy hasn't had a fight since junior high school. Utterly bizarre, unprecedented. Three months later, his wife of this 20-year marriage discovers he's been having an affair with a 17-year-old kid at the checkout down at the supermarket. Totally bizarre. Three months later, he's arrested for drunken brawling in a bar--and he never even used to drink. Three months later, he embezzles the funds from his workplace, disappears, and is never seen again.

"How can we explain this guy?

"Explanation number one: the guy is no damned good. [laughter]

"Explanation number two: he's having the world's most dramatic and childish midlife crisis.

"Explanation number three: it's a neurological disease; he has a single-gene defect that makes him do this."

I don't see a natural fit for lecture in this article, but it might be a good lead into the neurological literature.

GaramondLethe 00:15, 13 October 2012 (UTC)

Revision of a paragraph in mind-body section

The following paragraph appears in the section on mind-body problem

Incompatibilism requires a distinction between the mental and the physical, being a commentary on the incompatibility of (determined) physical reality and one's presumably distinct experience of will. Although substance dualism offers such a distinction, a less extreme form of naturalism known as non-reductive physicalism may also suffice. Although one might suppose that mental states and neurological states are different in kind, that does not rule out the possibility that mental states correspond to neurological states. Under non-reductive physicalism, although physical states do cause mental states, they are not ontologically reducible to them. In one such construction, mental events supervene on physical events, describing the emergence of mental properties as correspondent to physical properties. This relationship is known as causal reducibility. Non-reductive physicalism is therefore often categorised as property dualism rather than monism, yet other types of property dualism do not adhere to the causal reducibility of mental states - such as epiphenomenalism.

I understand the urge to recast the preceding discussion in a form more similar to the rest of the article. But I don't find this paragraph, although superior to its predecessor, has quite made the grade. I'd like to try to do this in a manner reverse to that of the paragraph; that is, go from the simple viewpoint to the technical rather than vice versa. A single paragraph won't do it. Here is a possible substitute (please take it as a suggestion to be tinkered with):

One may choose as a starting point the point of view that mind and matter constitute different things. One may then take several views about how or even whether they interact. At one extreme there is no interaction at all. At another extreme, mind completely controls matter or the other way around. In between, one may say mind and matter each influence each other to a degree, in some cases one is more in control and sometimes the other.

We might attempt to establish which of these choices is best, but that seems to be out of reach at the moment. Instead, we will simply connect these possibilities with various identifying labels of historical importance.

If one takes the extreme view that mind completely controls matter, or vice versa, in effect the controlled aspect is simply an appendage of the controlling aspect, and may be considered simply as a property of the controlling aspect. The two substances are then simply one, albeit perhaps with some additional attributes, and this viewpoint is called monism, which takes on several forms as described in that Wikipedia article.

An example is epiphenomenalism, that mind is just a peculiar side effect of matter. Thomas Huxley described the relation between mind and matter as follows:

The consciousness of brutes would appear to be related to the mechanism of their body simply as a collateral of its working, and to be completely without any power of modifying that working as the steam-whistle which accompanies the work of a locomotive engine is without influence upon its machinery.

— TH Huxley, Animal automatism, p. 201 in Collected essays, Volume 1

Huxley goes on to say he sees no difference from humans in this regard. Very similar to this point of view is reductive physicalism adopted by some neuroscientists:

...consciousness is a biological process that will eventually be explained in terms of molecular signaling pathways used by interacting populations of nerve cells...

— Eric R. Kandel, In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind

The view that mind and matter are different is called dualism, and it again takes on several forms described in that Wikipedia article. Within this description are various degrees of control of one entity over the other, ranging from complete autonomy of one or both entities, to some degree of interdependence. Considerable interest attaches as to what forms of interdependence might arise.

For example, even if mental states and neurological states are different in kind, that does not rule out the possibility that mental states bear some correspondence with neurological states. Under non-reductive physicalism, physical states do cause mental states, but they are not ontologically reducible to them. In one such construction, mental events exhibit emergence from physical properties, and in one view, supervene on physical events. One term for such a relationship is circular causality, a generalization of the idea of feedback to complex, nonlinear interacting systems. The distinction between circular causality and simple feedback is detailed as follows::

But add a few more parts interlaced together and very quickly it becomes impossible to treat the system in terms of feedback circuits. In such complex systems, ... the concept of feedback is inadequate.[...] there is no reference state with which feedback can be compared and no place where comparison operations are performed [...] An order parameter is created by the correlation between the parts, but in turn influences the behavior of the parts. This is what we mean by circular causality.

— JA Scott Kelso, Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior

A further example of this term taken from the field of complex feedback systems is the "slaving principle" (a generalization from analysis of lasers), detailed as follows:

Note we are dealing here with circular causality. On the one hand the order parameter enslaves the atoms, but on the other hand it is itself generated by the joint action of the atoms...Over the past years, it has been shown that these concepts apply to a large number of quite different physical, chemical and biological systems.

— Hermann Haken, Information and Self-Organization: A Macroscopic Approach to Complex Systems

There are differences of opinion regarding this circular feedback mechanism, with some regarding the emergent mind as controlling its generating neurons, and others regarding mind as determining the response of the brain in consort with the neurons. It appears that the notion of cause and effect becomes complicated in such situations, where the ultimate effect is a non-obvious result of the system dynamics in response to its environment. In one view:

...Circular causality departs so strongly from the classical tenets of necessity, invariance, and precise temporal order that the only reason to call it that is to satisfy the human habitual need for causes. The most subtle shift is the disappearance of agency, which is equivalent to loss of Aristotle's efficient cause...The very strong appeal of agency to explain events may come from the subjective experience of cause and effect that develops early in human life, before the acquisition of language...the question I raise here is whether brains share this property with other material objects in the world.

— Walter J. Freeman, "Consciousness, intentionality and causality" in Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?

References

My primary response to this suggestion would be that there is more than one article on Wikipedia, and that the Free will article is not the place to start a discussion about philosophy of mind to its nth degree.

Secondarily, I think there are a number of highly questionable points made in your summary;

One term for such a relationship is circular causality, a generalization of the idea of feedback to complex, nonlinear interacting systems.

Feedback/circular causality etc itself is irrelevant to physicalism (reductive and non-reductive): either the system can be described to function by the laws of physics or it can't. Hence arguments regarding overdetermination (ie, how could mental properties possibly influence the system in order to be anything but redundant). This problem cannot be hidden behind "system dynamics". Furthermore, any discussion regarding feedback in the context of physicalism is either not causally relevant (and therefore not feedback in any meaningful sense), or is referring to a physical subsystem that does not require any mental explanation (eg subconscious-conscious interaction). Note again that conscious activity is not (exclusively) non-neurological under (non-reductive) physicalism.

We might attempt to establish which of these choices is best, but that seems to be out of reach at the moment

This might be true, but you don't find many academics ascribing to a model of mind which cannot be described to operate by the laws of physics (and therefore has at least a physical representation in the neural system; assuming it is not reduced to the neural system). As you know, scientists tend to accept the causal closure and/or causal self-sufficiency of the observable universe for the purposes of their research - and this assumption is increasingly supported (as far as brains/minds are concerned) based upon neurological research.

Again, you have removed any reference to free will as described in this article (ie in/compatibilism), and so it leaves the reader completely uninformed as to whether the various modes of causality discussed are relevant to a particular definition of free will (if any). When I previously sorted this material on modes of causality (the quotations) into section Compatibilism, you moved it to section 'Free will and causality'. However, the only material which could perhaps have implications for incompabilist free will is that which has implications for physical causality (ie, the quantum/Bohr references regarding the intrinsic difficulty in establishing causality due to experimental contamination of observation - let alone the Copenhagen interpretation whereby the physical system is not defined without observation/collapse of the wave functions). Material in this section will have to be clarified (if not removed) at some stage.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 03:41, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Richardbrucebaxter: Thanks for the considered response. I'd like to engage further with your remarks:

• Feedback/circular causality etc itself is irrelevant to physicalism (reductive and non-reductive): either the system can be described to function by the laws of physics or it can't.

I've questions about these remarks. The "circular causality" position of Freeman is clearly the view that "circular causality" is not causality as it is ordinarily thought of. That would seem to place him in the non-reductive camp. On the other hand, the "circular causality" defined by Kelso seems to be on the fence, stating that a system like the brain defies the traditional theory of feedback, but seems to leave the door open that a better theory might work. The view of "circular feedback" by Haken is smack in the middle of the engineer's view that "circular feedback" is a reference to a description in terms of cooperative action that can be reduced to subsystem properties, but one would sacrifice understandability by using that vocabulary. So it would seem to me that "circular causality" proponents are all over the map on this one. Why do you disagree?

• you don't find many academics ascribing to a model of mind which cannot be described to operate by the laws of physics (and therefore has at least a physical representation in the neural system; assuming it is not reduced to the neural system).

I'm not too interested in doing the statistics here on how many academics believe which option. It seems clear that neuroscientists favor this view, but there seems to be a school of academics that do not. I'd guess everybody believes that the brain is a physical system, but mind is not so clear. As above, some think its a phenomenon only correlated with some brain activity, some think it causes some brain activity, and some think it is an internal perception of brain activity that has no translation in the realm of neurology. Why should one school of academics have a favored position in this subsection?

• you have removed any reference to free will as described in this article (ie in/compatibilism), and so it leaves the reader completely uninformed as to whether the various modes of causality discussed are relevant to a particular definition of free will.

I'd say that connecting modes of causation to definitions of free will is desirable, but has yet to be accomplished here.

• the only material which could perhaps have implications for incompabilist free will is that which has implications for physical causality. ... Material in this section will have to be clarified (if not removed) at some stage.

I'm unsure of what you're saying here. It seems as though you think Bohr's views are pertinent to the incompatibilist position, but they should be deleted? My view is that Bohr's view probably is largely correct: it is fruitless to try to connect internal monitoring of mental processes (mind) to external observations that muck up these processes. That is also Northoff's view, but arrived at differently.

It seems clear to me that you approach this topic from a different angle than I do, and I'd like to understand your perspective better. Brews ohare (talk) 19:32, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Brews Ohare: I remain pretty adamant at present with respect to your suggestion (although it is very polite, and appreciate your efforts in explaining yourself thoroughly)...

The "circular causality" position of Freeman is clearly the view that "circular causality" is not causality as it is ordinarily thought of. That would seem to place him in the non-reductive camp.

If material is explicitly classified as non-reductive physicalism by the author and is a mainstream enough interpretation to be considered important enough to be placed side by side with anomalous monism on a summary of the mind-body problem, then perhaps it belongs to this paragraph. Secondarily, if material has implications for physical determinism then it relates to incompatibilism and must be clarified with respect to this. If material does not have implications for physical determinism, then it can only relate to compatibilist free will (if any).

As above, some think its a phenomenon only correlated with some brain activity, some think it causes some brain activity, and some think it is an internal perception of brain activity that has no translation in the realm of neurology.

The issue I am highlighting here is not whether or not mind affects brain (your options 1, 2, and 3 you have articulated nicely), but whether the laws of physics are compromised in the process. This is what is contentious of your statement "We might attempt to establish which of these choices is best, but that seems to be out of reach at the moment" in your proposed summary of the mind-body problem.

I'd say that connecting modes of causation to definitions of free will is desirable, but has yet to be accomplished here.

If the modes of causation described a) do not specify any bearing on physical determinism (and therefore either incompatibilism or at best compatibilism as a psychological theory of sorts), and b) do not explicitly reference/define models of free will, then the material is unclear, and possibly irrelevant.

I'm unsure of what you're saying here.

My suggestion should be read as follows (a satisfactory implementation thereof); the Bohr material in the section 'Free will and causality' perhaps has a bearing on incompatibilism. If any 'circular causality' material from either a) that section or b) your above draft summary imply that the laws of physics do not hold in all cases, then they perhaps have a bearing on incompatibilism also. Material which perhaps has a bearing on incompatibilist free will should be clarified as such and moved to section Incompatibilism (if not deleted). Any remaining circular causality material (ie, that which imply the laws of physics hold in all cases or do not suggest otherwise) does not have a bearing on incompatibilism - unless it also explicitly asserts indeterminism. Material which does not have a bearing on incompatibilism should be clarified as such and moved back to section Compatibilism (if not deleted). If you are unable to establish whether the references compromise physical determinism (please do not ignore the adjective), then I would recommend removing it from this article on Free will, as it unclear how it relates to any free will model defined here - unless the author explicitly discusses free will. If so, then their model should be added under "Other views".

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 02:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

Freeman

I have chosen to begin discussion with Freeman, just to keep some focus. Here are your comments about his work:

Brews Ohare: I remain pretty adamant at present with respect to your suggestion (although it is very polite, and appreciate your efforts in explaining yourself thoroughly)...

The "circular causality" position of Freeman is clearly the view that "circular causality" is not causality as it is ordinarily thought of. That would seem to place him in the non-reductive camp.

If material is explicitly classified as non-reductive physicalism by the author and is a mainstream enough interpretation to be considered important enough to be placed side by side with anomalous monism on a summary of the mind-body problem, then perhaps it belongs to this paragraph. Secondarily, if material has implications for physical determinism then it relates to incompatibilism and must be clarified with respect to this. If material does not have implications for physical determinism, then it can only relate to compatibilist free will (if any).

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 02:24, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

OK, Richard. Let's notice that Walter J. Freeman's chapter: "Consciousness, Intentionality, and Causality" is Chapter 5 in the book Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? Apparently these editors think his work is relevant to the topic "free will" that occurs all through this book, Freeman himself mentions free will on p. 89 where he says consciousness is "commonly but mistakenly attached to free will..." He says on p. 90 "It is absurd in the name of causal doctrine to deny our capacity as humans to make choices and decisions regarding our own futures, when we exercise the causal power that we experience as free will." Having thus completely muddied the waters he concludes on p. 102 by saying:

"It is paradoxical to assign linear causality [this is Freeman's term for what normal people call causality] to brains, and thereby cast doubt on the validity of causal agency (free will) in choices in and by humans, just because they are materialized in phase transitions in their brains."

What can be said about the relevance of Freeman to this article on free will? Well, one can say that Freeman thinks he is talking about free will, so maybe WP should grant him that.

Does Freeman "explicitly classify his work as non-reductive physicalism"? No, in fact, the word "physicalism" does not appear in his chapter.

Lastly, you would like Freeman's position to be place in the context of physical determinsm and compatibilism. I'd say myself that the quotes above indicate that Freeman would place determinism and compatibilism both in limbo because they are concerned with causality in a sense (a meaning) that Freeman considers to be irrelevant to the issue of free will altogether, namely these ideas refer to "linear causality", not "circular causality"..

Is Freeman's view "mainstream enough" to warrant inclusion? Well, there certainly are many exponents of the "emergent" school of thought about mind to warrant its mention. Maybe Freeman is not the best exponent of this view, but the editors of Does Consciousness Cause Behavior? thought his viewpoint significant enough to warrant inviting him to contribute to their book.

I am not particularly an advocate of Freeman's views. But it seems to me that Freeman's views fit into this article, but do not fit into the philosophical framework laid out in the WP article Free will. Freeman's claims (in my words) are that these categories are a Procrustean bed that should be abandoned. That's my take on Freeman - you may read him differently?

Richard, what more would you say? Brews ohare (talk) 20:43, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

It is evident from your analysis that this content;

a) does not belong to this paragraph (it certainly is not an explicit description of non-reductive physicalism)

b) does not belong to the mind-body problem section (it does not represent a mainstream philosophical model of mind as represented in the literature, if it does represent one at all)

c) appears to belong to section "Other views".

I suggest dissolving section Free will and causality and categorising its content appropriately as previously discussed.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 01:51, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Richard, help me out here.

(a) According to this source, for example, "Nonreductive physicalism claims that although the mind is physical (in some sense), mental properties are nonetheless not identical to (or reducible to) physical properties. This suggests that mental properties are, in earlier terminology, emergent properties of physical entities." I'd suggest that this view is pretty much what Freeman is talking about. So your point (a) seems wide of the mark. Can you explain further?

(b) It appears from this source again that this "emergent properties" view of Freeman's is in fact an ancient one well within the scope of the mind-body problem and free will, and hardly an outlier in the space of opinions.

(c) I don't see why Freeman's school of thought should be classified among "other views" as it belongs quite well where it is as a topic in the mind-body problem and its relation to free will. If my "Procrustean bed" interpretation of Freeman is accurate, I'd say that Freeman's form of "nonreductive physicalism" achieves its nonreducibilty by introducing a different realm of causality for the effects of intention (his "circular causality"), which is hardly a new idea although his attempts to relate it to "phase transitions" and "order parameters" dresses it in new vocabulary akin to condensed matter physics, but (I'd say) with a bit of a mystical element. Northoff introduces still other concepts of causality, achieving the same purpose of nonreducibility. Bohr achieves nonreducibility as well, by saying that "...any observation necessitates an interference with the course of the phenomena, which is of such a nature that it deprives us of the foundation underlying the causal mode of description." and further " the freedom of the will must be considered a feature of conscious life that corresponds to functions of the organism that not only evade a causal mechanical description,"

I'd like some more from you about your points above. Further discussion on this Talk page is needed. Personally, I do not agree with your rewrite and reorganization expressed here and here. Brews ohare (talk) 03:57, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Regarding a) and b), it might possibly be classifiable as such, but it does not therefore mean this content belongs to a Mind-body problem summary (on a non-mind body problem article). I can't help further on c) at this point in time other than redirecting you to my previous argument (Revision of a paragraph in mind-body section).

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 04:28, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Richard: You say "it might possibly be classifiable as such, but it does not therefore mean this content belongs to a Mind-body problem summary (on a non-mind body problem article)" The classification of Freeman, Northoff, Kelso, Bohr as advocating "nonreductive physicalism" is simply an aid to those wanting to understand where this work fits into the terminology of old philosophical debate. The reason why Freeman's work belongs in an article on free will is that Freeman is explicitly addressing free will, his article is titled "Consciousness, Intentionality, and Causality", and it was selected by a group of editors to appear in the work Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?. I do believe the relation between intention and causality is the crux of the problem of free will, don't you? So how can Freeman's work be considered not pertinent to WP's article on Free will?

It seems to me, Richard, that you are placing your judgment of the value and relevance of this work above that of published authors and scholars. Brews ohare (talk) 12:23, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

On second thought, Richard, I've changed my mind about my above remarks. The real problem with this article is that it is a mish-mash and needs better organization. The leading figures aren't helpful. Only some dimensions of the problem are presented in the Intro, and not others. It's a big mess. Brews ohare (talk) 15:53, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Better introduction

The present introduction does not cover the dimensions of the problem. The leading figures are not helpful.

I'd keep the lead sentence:

Free will is defined as the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. Whether free will is a mere perception or an actuality, and what constraints might apply to it, has long been debated in philosophy.

From here one might describe some known constraints:

Certain constraints are known to apply, such as physical constraints (e.g. chains or imprisonment), social constraints (e.g. threat of punishment or censure), or psychological constraints (e.g. compulsions or phobias).

We also know about certain observations suggesting a large amount of subconscious brain activity underlies much of what we do:

In several brain-related conditions, individuals cannot entirely control their own actions. Though the existence of such conditions does not directly refute the existence of free will, the study of such conditions, like the neuroscientific studies above, is valuable in developing models of how the brain may construct our experience of free will.

The implications of evolution, self-programming robots, and so forth have a place:

In some generative philosophies of cognitive sciences and evolutionary psychology, free will is assumed not to exist.[98][99] However, an illusion of free will is created, within this theoretical context, due to the generation of infinite or computationally complex behavior from the interaction of a finite set of rules and parameters.

Once the general layout of the article is established, it seems to me that a subsection can try to classify these ideas according to the various philosophical labels. Formal classification according to logical categories may have its merits but jargon doesn't do much for the average reader. Brews ohare (talk) 16:11, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

The above excerpts from the article are not intended to be the new Intro, but just to show some of the range of the article that the Intro just does not attempt to introduce. Brews ohare (talk) 16:16, 22 October 2012 (UTC)

Use of the word "extreme"

In a recent reversion, objection was raised to use of the word "extreme" as " 'extreme' phasing is biased against incompatibilists". Of course, stating that hard determinism and libertarianism are extreme positions was not intended pejoratively, but merely as a description that these views are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Nonetheless, to avoid any misconception, in reverting this edit I have removed the word "extreme" as a descriptor of these positions.

I believe characterizing hard determinism and libertarianism as "the two main positions within that debate" is not a NPOV, as the compatibilist stance is quite possibly more prevalent and equally important.

Likewise, suggesting that compatibilists view determinism as "irrelevant" is inaccurate if one uses the term "determinism" in its everyday language sense that one thing determines another i.e. determinism is not he same thing as strict determinism. Compatibilists certainly would agree that many aspects of what we decide to do are set by factors other than our will, and that our will is often impotent. For this reason, instead of the term "irrelevant" I'd prefer the statement that compatibilists limit the role of determinism and prefer to phrase matters in terms of constraints of various kinds. Brews ohare (talk) 14:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

It seems like you are still framing the issue in a biased way. Compatibilism is not a stance on the debate between whether or not we have free will in the sense that our actions are not metaphysically determined; there is not just a unidimensional spectrum which has hard determinism on one end and libertarianism on the other, as you keep trying to frame it (making "extreme" useless even as a purely descriptive adjective). Compatibilism is beside that debate entirely and say it is founded on a faulty premise; that free will is not just the absence of metaphysical determination, but rather it is the absence of something (varying by theory) much more specific; that we can be determined, in the broad metaphysical sense that present circumstances including our actions are completely and necessarily entailed by past circumstances, and still have free will if the specific way that our actions were determined lacked some particular especially egregious influence the presence of which would negate free will. That is the sense in which determinism is "irrelevant" to compatibilists; they are not partaking in the argument over whether or not we are determined and consequently whether or not we have free will, rather they are questioning what in particular we must not be determined by (not just whether our actions can be determined in general) in order to have free will.

For Hobbes, that was physical restraint: if you were not physically forced into action or inaction, then you acted of your own free will, even if there is no way you could have done other than that given some past circumstances and the laws of nature. For others (I think Rousseau was an example but I'm disappointed this material seems to have been lost from this article), that is social coercion: if nobody is holding a gun to your head (or less extremely threatening you somehow, e.g. with the law), then you act of your own free will. For some like Frankfurt, it is psychological hangups: if you are not suffering any compulsion or phobia or other lack of effectiveness of your own self-control, but rather you do what you do because you want to do it and you want to want to do it (if your desires about what desires are effective, are effective), then you act of your own free will. And so on.

I wonder though if this may be just an issue of terminology. In the article prior to your edits, the old consensus that we struggled to establish here a long time ago, we settled on the word "constraints" to refer to whatever it is that we must be free of to have free will, without saying "determinism" as that is generally understood in discussions of free will to refer to what you seem to want to call "strict" determinism. It seems like you want to use the word "determinism" to mean what we say by "constraints" here. I wonder if adding a qualifier to the use of "determinism" as the article stood prior to your edits would make things clearer for you; something like "nomological determinism". To be clear, this means the view that every moment is necessarily entailed by previous moments and the laws of nature, that everything is in principle predictable and nothing is random or uncertain, and everything everyone will ever do is already and has always been predetermined by the first events.

• Incompatibilists say that free will is (or at least requires) the absence of that. But among them, they disagree on whether that is the case, and thus whether we have free will; the two sides in that disagreement are libertarianism and hard determinism.
• Compatibilists on the other hand say it doesn't matter whether or not that is the case, we can have free will either way, so long as other much more specific things do not obtain; each then goes on to list their more specific thing.

My main objection to your edits to the lead recently have been on breaking the chain of that explanation: "Free will is lack of some kind of constraint. Many people think it's lack of that constraint (nomological determinism), and then argue about whether that constraint is really in effect. Others think it's not that constraint, and then argue about what constraint it is." Of course in the article that needs to be fleshed out more encyclopedically and thus more verbosely, and each sentence turns into a paragraph, but the way we had it before it was a cohesive flow of things into each other, and your edits keep breaking it up and losing the connection between the different parts.

I'm going to partially revert your edits again, keeping the sources you've added and adding that "nomological" qualifier, while we continue to discuss this here, per WP:BRD. --Pfhorrest (talk) 17:27, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: You have provided an outline of how the introduction is supposed to be understood:

• Incompatibilists say that free will is (or at least requires) the absence of that. But among them, they disagree on whether that is the case, and thus whether we have free will; the two sides in that disagreement are libertarianism and hard determinism.
• Compatibilists on the other hand say it doesn't matter whether or not that is the case, we can have free will either way, so long as other much more specific things do not obtain; each then goes on to list their more specific thing.

It is useful to have this outline. I'd make a few observations:

1. I don't think the intro succeeds in getting this across. It has elements of what you say in it, but it isn't clear.
2. While this outline covers a particular topic, it hardly covers the article content. See this, for example.
3. The topic covered by the outline in my mind is confusing in this way: there are two separate matters involved in the compatibilist-incompatibilist brouhaha. There is (i) the logical distinctions, and (ii) the question of whether any of these positions actually obtains "out there". These two different issues should be sharply separated and discussed individually. Brews ohare (talk) 15:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

I like this response, it's very clear and makes me hopeful that we might reach some kind of understanding here.

To your point 1, I am very open to suggestions on how to better convey what I outlined here. I am only resistant to changes that seem to me to make that message less clear, which many of yours seem to do.

To your point 2, I am also completely open to the lede containing more information on other parts of the article that you want emphasized. But the very first part of an article is supposed to be a definition. On an article like this, where the definition is itself contentious, the best we can do is to state what little the contending parties agree on (free will is some kind of freedom, of the will, from something that would otherwise constrain it), and then state briefly what the different contentious positions are. On a non-contentious subject, we would just say "Subject is X", but here we have to say "Subject is some kind of X; many say it's this kind of X, others say it's various other kinds of X like A, B, or C."

Then, for various reasons, that statement has gotten a lot of basically parenthetical asides thrown into it: First of all it's not clear to everyone that we're not claiming Subject exists in stating a definition of what it would be if it did exist, so we immediately say that its existence is contentious in the same breath as saying that people disagree about what kind of X it would be if it did exist. Then, since we're basically listing some major positions A, B, and C, we also mention that those many who agree that it would be the first kind of X disagree about whether that kind of X obtains in fact. So that sentence at the end of the previous paragraph becomes even longer: "Subject is some kind of X. Whether it exists and what kind of X it is a subject of disagreement. Many people think it's this kind of X, and then argue about whether that kind of X exists. Others think it's not that kind of X, and argue about what kind of X it is, like A, B, or C."

The first two paragraphs of the article are basically that, with the variables filled in for free will in particular, and naming the different positions thereby described as they are introduced. The current third short paragraph is a brief postscript to that on a handful of other positions that don't fit neatly into asides to our opening definition. The current fourth paragraph is the only part of the lede that is not just an opening definition, or an aside crammed into it to address one objection or another. I would be happy to see more paragraphs added summarizing other parts of the article as well, and I think that would be a more productive place for you to contribute the things you want to contribute.

To your point 3, I could see what we have being reorganized along those lines, and in many ways I would personally like that, although I anticipate possible objections from incompatibilists that we would be giving compatibilism undue weight if we did so. We could say:

Free will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long been debated in philosophy. Historically, the constraint of dominant concern has been the metaphysical constraint of determinism (the notion that the present dictates the future entirely and necessarily, that every occurrence results inevitably from prior events), but other kinds of constraints have also been proposed, such as physical constraints (e.g. chains or imprisonment), social constraints (e.g. threat of punishment or censure), or psychological constraints (e.g. compulsions or phobias).

Positions that hold that nomological determinism must be false in order for free will to be possible are classed as incompatibilist. Such incompatibilists then debate whether nomological determinism is true or false, and thus whether free will is possible or not. The two main positions within that debate are metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that nomological determinism is false, so free will is at least possible; and hard determinism, the claim that nomological determinism is true, so free will does not exist. Hard incompatibilism, while still holding that determinism is an obstacle to free will, holds that indeterminism is likewise an obstacle to free will, and concludes that free will is thus impossible in either case.

Positions that deny that nomological determinism is relevant, saying that we could have free will either way, are classified as compatibilist, and offer various alternative explanations of what constraints are relevant. Such compatibilists thus consider the debate between libertarianism and hard determinism a false dilemma. Some compatibilists assert that determinism is not just compatible with free will, but actually necessary for it; that the randomness of indeterminism is a greater obstacle to free will.

Most of the things you seem to want to talk about, e.g. neuroscience issues, seem to be things that take some kind of compatibilist definition of free will for granted (mostly it seems to be a psychological one ala Frankfurt but I'm not clear on that), and then do science to see if those constraints do in fact obtain, e.g. if there are actual neurological feedback mechanisms which allow for desires to have certain desires be effective on our actions to be effective on what desires actually are effective on our actions. That makes them basically the compatibilist equivalent of incompatibilists arguing over whether or not determinism is true, so if you think you could write a few sentences summarizing the state of knowledge in that field, I think it could fit well after the third of the above paragraphs I've just suggested. --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:18, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: I am confident we can work out a good approach to the article. I'll be away for a while, so I'm unsure how much time I can spend at this right now. Just speaking of my own perception of this issue, which is far from settled, it seems to me that a scientist is likely to take the view that "free will" means that mental intention can determine some state of the brain, at least in some cases, and from there you have several reactions. One view is that cannot happen, and "free will" is an internal percept without objective function. Another view is that intention is a descriptor that applies in a subjective realm that is in fact completely disjoint from neuroscience. A third view is that intention is a descriptor that ultimately will be accepted by neurosciemce as more than a correlate of some brain activity, somewhat in the manner that temperature is a useful concept in describing gases, even though it has only a statistical connection to atomic motions.

These different ideas can be sorted using various philosophical terms like "hard determinism" etc., and that may be useful. However, in understanding where the free will debate among scholars goes from here, I'd guess that it is going to be phrased in terms of the limitations of neuroscience and of artificial intelligence, and not be seen as a battle over terminology and different intuitions in the cogito ergo sum tradition.

I'd say we can work this out and it may well be a beautiful thing. Brews ohare (talk) 02:11, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

For reference, although I don't dispute the latest changes by Pfhorrest, I don't understand what was/is unclear about the introduction or the definition of determinism in this context. I also don't understand the primary difference between the various reactions been considered. View 2 "completely disjoint from neuroscience" implies view 1 "without objective function". View 3 appears to imply view 1 also (subject to one's philosophy): what is the objective function of temperature? Is not temperature a correlate of motion/kinetic energy? Higher order phenomena are based on their lower order counterparts: an object is more than its sum parts - argued since antiquity - but even a more complex analogy such as a biological system can be causally reduced thereby retaining no clear objective function. Basically it ("objective function") comes down to one's opinion on the independence of mind from (determined) physical reality (compatibilism/incompatibilism: those that argue independence is not important/important respectively), hence the historic debate. Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 04:03, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Ninja'd by Richard

My first thought reading your scientists-likely-view is "what exactly do we mean by 'intention'"?

On your 'third view', or the closely related purely reductivist view that an intention just is some kind of brain activity (I don't see why the "more than" is necessary for our purposes there), you're basically talking about Frankfurt-style compatibilism in neurological terms. Frankfurt's theory is not explicitly physicalist, and could in theory be applied to the function of some immaterial substance which then intervenes in the physical brain's function, but a purely physical implementation of the function which Frankfurt identified with free will would be whatever particular brain states we describe as "intentions" being able to determine particular other brain states (namely, other intentions). It's like asking "Do I have enough influence over this person to convince or condition or otherwise somehow affect him in a way that changes his desires or at least which desires he acts on?", but in the special case where "this person" in question is oneself, and where the interaction is thus between brain-states and not separate organisms; it's asking "if I wanted to want something other than I do want, would that make me want it?"

Sticking to physicalism still, your 'second view' would simply seem to be a 'no' answer to this question: I may regret the desires I have and wish I didn't have them, but that's not going to change my having them; I subjectively perceive a self-judgement of my own actions and approval or disapproval of them, but that's always after the fact of the action and has no effect on what actions I take. And your 'first view' seems to me to be answering the question before establishing what is being asked; we haven't established what an 'intention' is and whether we are even asking a scientific question yet (e.g. we could be asking if Cartesian mental substances are causally effective on physical brains for all we know at this point).

I'm kind of rambling off-topic now, so to get back to the article itself: I'm thinking that perhaps a better way to organize the entire article may be to stop isolating the science from the philosophy. I'm still very adamant that at every point we need to be clear about exactly what concept of free will is being discussed, so I want to keep a structure similar to that of the "In western philosophy" section, but I think the scientific topics can be integrated into there, both will benefit from it.

I'm thinking we have the article mainly organized into sections on one concept (or definition) or free will each, and then everything, philosophical, religious, scientific, etc, discussing that concept of free will, organized within that section.

• Our first section would be on free will as lack of (nomological) determinism, and would discuss the debate between libertarians and hard determinists, the physics of whether the universe is deterministic or not and whether and how any nondeterministic effects may manifest on the macroscopic scale of human behavior, religious issues about God's supposed foreknowledge and what effects that would have on this kind of free will, etc.
• We could then have sections on conceptions closely related to lack of nomological determinism, such as free will as lack of predictability, two-stage models that require both some indeterminism and some indeterminism, perhaps the new "variations of causality" section (though honestly that sounds like it should go in the "as a psychological state" section, as it sounds remarkably similar to Frankfurt, identifying free will with a kind of reflexivity).
• Then we could have a section free will as lack of physical restraint, covering the 'classical compatibilists' like Hobbes, and criticisms of this conception involving the distinction between freedom of will and freedom of action.
• Then we have a section on free will as a psychological state (or condition or function), which can discuss both the philosophical arguments that this is the correct conception of free will, as well as the large variety of scientific issues that seem to assume a conception something like this, including issues of genetic and environmental conditioning, neuroscience, neurology, psychiatry, etc.
• Then sections on the different 'other views' not yet categorized.

Basically, create "boxes" for each different concept of free will. Then go through the article and sort every part of it into the right box according to what concept of free will they're talking about. Then organize each box individually according to what kinds of things are in it (e.g. the 'lack of determinism' box will have physics and theology sections that most other boxes won't, whereas the 'psychological function' box will have all kinds of bio/neuro/psycho/socio science sections that most other boxes won't).

Thoughts? --Pfhorrest (talk) 04:48, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: I'm in transit, so can't say a bunch. The box idea is a good start, combining philosophical categories with their neuroscientific, psychological, and evolutionary aspects. One additional aspect is the impact of advances in cognitive robots and artificial intelligence; there is both scientific and literary interest (remember Hal and the Terminator?) in things like the extent to which an adaptive robot can actually modify its fundamental goals all by itself as well as modifying its strategies toward reaching those goals. How close is the analogy of a computer algorithm selecting an optimal strategy to the idea of its apparently having free will? Brews ohare (talk) 17:41, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

No worries about not having time much, I'm slammed with work and life and won't be doing much around here on my own.

Anyway, yes I agree that AI fits perfectly in with some variety of the "psychological functional" sense of free will. --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:11, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

(Again, for reference) There is a strong connection between sense of self and freedom. When we feel capable of acting in accordance with this belief/trust in self; if necessary overcoming/contravening our programmed (eg subconscious) reality. T2 goes further by highlighting/hinting a relationship between sense of self and sense of other - one which is perhaps even an educational process. There should be more references for this "psychological function" variant of compatibilism. Eddy Nahmias has noted that when peoples actions are framed with respect to their beliefs and desires (rather than their neurological underpinnings) they are more likely to dissociate determinism from moral responsibility. Adam Feltz and Edward Cokely found that people of an extrovert personality type are more likely to dissociate belief in determinism from belief in moral responsibility.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 03:57, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

The moral/legal concept of free will is absurd since social pressure to blame and justify makes free will impossible.

As shown by Kurt Fischer, Christina Hinton et al. in "Mind, Brain and Education", extreme cases of neuroplasticity, such as mental recoveries from brain damage that mainstream psychology considers impossible, are linked to tolerant environments. This can be explained by the fact that social pressure to blame on others leads to making up putative mental limitations to blame on, and social pressure to justify leads to justification which paralyses self-correction. The tolerance factor also solves the by research proving the existence of rapid evolution highlighted contradiction between biological explanations of individual psychiatry and sociological explanations of ethnic differences. Since rapid evolution means that divergent pressure can quickly turn individual differences into group differences, the fact that most studies support the contradictory view must be because there is a methodological difference, a missing environmental factor taken into account by ethnic studies but overlooked by studies of individual psychiatry. Since racist discrimination is a form of intolerance, the tolerance factor is a good candidate for being the missing environmental factor. So the concept of free will as a basis for moral/legal responsibility is exactly what through much of society prevents free will from existing. The way to make will free is by abolishing all social pressure to blame and justify, which makes the question of what constitutes responsibility irrelevant. 109.58.101.110 (talk) 09:01, 29 October 2012 (UTC)Martin J Sallberg

Martin: These issues of the social ramifications of different beliefs in free will is an important topic with many aspects including the effect of these beliefs upon the treatment of antisocial behavior. As an instance, it is apparent that the facts of addiction as determined by neuroscience have important implications for rehabilitation that are ignored by the judicial system in most if not all countries. It is equally clear that much of education of the young ignores the established neurological foundations of the learning process, with undue emphasis upon the student's exercise of their "free will" in undertaking studying and desiring to learn. Perhaps you have some suggestions for treating these topics? Brews ohare (talk) 19:40, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Free will Concepts Based On Determinism Views

What do you guys think of this figure for section Hard Determinism?

Various definitions of determinism that have been proposed, for both Compatibilism (Psychological Determinism, Biological Determinism, Cultural Determinism), and Incompatibilism (Theological Determinism, Causal Determinism).

NB I wasn't sure about the definition/name of theology that rejects destiny (currently it stands as 'Theological Libertarianism').

I have ordered the figure such that, in general, the higher levels of freedom require their respective lower levels of freedom. I.e. if one is not determined by destiny then they cannot be determined by nature; if one is not determined by nature then they cannot be determined by their subconscious; if one is not determined by their subconscious then they cannot be determined by their genetics/environment; if one is not determined by their genetics/environment then they cannot be determined by society.

The psychological determinism category assumes orectic psychological determinism as indicated - noting that rational psychological determinism would equate to compatibilism with respect to this form of determinism.

Regarding the instances of compatibilism in this figure (psychological indeterminism, biological indeterminism, and cultural indeterminism), there is a pseudo correspondence with the forms of compatibilism discussed in this article (ie Free will as a psychological state, Free will as unpredictability, and Free will as lack of physical restraint respectively) - but it is weak.

Cheers,

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 14:44, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Richard: The figure doesn't really help much with the understanding of the terminology. For example, the figure shows Compatibilism has three divisions: psychological, biological and cultural. That information is more readily understood as a statement, or better, using headers and subheaders in the text:

Compatibilism

Compatibilism can be viewed as allowing free will in the presence of any of three major subdivisions of determinism as described below:

Psychological determinism

Psychological determinism subsumes two further subdivisions, orectic psychological determinism and rational psychological determinism... .

Biological determinism

Biological determinism is closely related to genetic determinism ...

Cultural determinism

Cultural determinism can be contrasted with environmental determinism ...

and so forth. I don't agree with this structuring of compatibilism, but if that is what one wants to do, a revision of the text would be more helpful than addition of this figure. Brews ohare (talk) 19:27, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback Brews.

The intention of the figure is not to capture all possible forms of compatibilism - it does not even represent those in the text (there is only a weak correspondence as above). The intention is to demonstrate how free will can been be seen in the light of different conceptions of determinism - and the relevance of incompatibilism/compatibilism to each. I am not aware of compatibilism having three major divisions: psychological, biological and cultural (it would be pure coincidence if it did). The figure could even be modified such that environmental/genetic determinism was broken down thereby creating four relevant categories of compatibilism; but this seemed to overweight compatibilism (and would mean removing an important category: biological determinism). A major point of the figure is to demonstrate that incompatibilism/metaphysical libertarianism is only relevant to (dependent on) one form of determinism: physical/causal/nomological determinism. NB incompatibilism is only relevant to theological determinism in so far as it asserts that (presuming the existence of a creator deity) freedom from destiny requires physical indeterminism.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 03:42, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

An error in the definition of hard determinism appears to have been introduced to wikipedia:

00:41, 7 February 2012 / Peterdjones / "clarify"

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hard_determinism&oldid=470320977

Hard determinism (or metaphysical determinism) is a view on free will which holds that that determinism is true...

->

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hard_determinism&oldid=475490890

Hard determinism (or metaphysical determinism) is a view on free will which holds that that some form of determinism is true...

01:04, 7 February 2012 / Peterdjones / "Hard determinism: expand a little"

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_will&oldid=475488145

->

Hard determinism is a view on free will which holds that that some form of determinism is true, and that it is incompatible with free will...

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Free_will&oldid=475494487

I have updated the figure accordingly, along with the wikipedia articles.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 04:54, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not super thrilled with this figure, if anything it seems more confusing then elucidating. On several levels.

First and more trivially, I don't understand the reason behind the sort of ordering you've put things in. If I were to do a chart like this, I would have put it destiny -> physics -> (psychology = biology & society) -> coercion -> chains.

• If certain events are just fated, and God is going to make them happen no matter what, physics be damned he'll suspend the laws of nature and perform a miracle if he has to, then that's beyond even hard determinism, that's fatalism.
• Sans that, physical, causal, nomological determination would encompass all of the biological, psychological, and social processes within the determined history of the universe; if such physical determinism exists and is sufficient to rule out free will (the incompatibilist position), then there's no point in worrying about the details of what biological, psychological, or social processes are impeding our free will, as there was never any chance for them not to, there are merely the mechanisms by which our unfree actions are determined, and any alternate mechanism would be equally deterministic.
• If it's possible to have free will despite physical, causal, nomological determinism (the compatibilist position), then we start looking at the particular processes by which our actions are caused and whether those are sufficient to constitute free will or not. This is where both biological and cultural determinism are relevant. If we are merely programmed by genes and memes, genetics and environment, nature and nurture, and do not have any kind of self-control of our own mental processes, any ability to self-reprogram, then we do not have free will in the psychological sense popular with modern compatibilists.
• But then there are older senses of free will popular with classical compatibilists, where even if you don't have that kind of psychological freedom, you are still free so long as your actions are not being coerced, e.g. so long as somebody's not pointing a gun at you and you can do what you want without retaliation, you're free in that sense. Modern compatibilists would say that that is political freedom, and is something different from freedom of will; that you could have either without the other, they're not the same thing.
• And then there's the oldest compatibilist sense from Hobbes, where even if someone is holding a gun to your head, so long as they are not literally forcing your hand, but you are performing actions under your own motor control as you want to, coercion and psychological compulsion and physical determination be damned, you are still "free" to act or not. Modern compatibilists would say that this is "freedom of action", and is also something different from "freedom of will".

Secondly and more prominently... the various positions on free will just don't fit accurately into a two-dimensional chart like this, and trying to make them fit is just confusing. I threw together a more accurate chart of sorts (still pretty simplified, missing all the unpredictability and two-stage and other semi-incompatibilist positions, as well as hard incompatibilism, but it gets the point across well enough): external link because I don't intend this to be used in the article and so won't upload it here.

The closest to this I could see being useful would be just a graphic of the different kinds of determinism without the second column, but then I don't see why we'd want that to be a graphic. Much more useful might be some kind of Euler diagram. It would be a really complicated one though (intersections of different kinds of determinism and different definitions of free will, each of which would be pretty complicated on their own), and so I would question its usefulness as well. --Pfhorrest (talk) 09:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

That is a great figure, and a very good explanation. I accept your primary argument. I agree that it would be more important at this stage to have a figure outlining the different forms of compatibilism as discussed in the article/literature than a figure identifying the relevance of compatibilism/incompatibilism to different forms of determinism (as the figure stands).

Regarding your minor points;

1. I chose this ordering because I was dealing with responses to determinism only (as identified in section hard determinism), not with all forms of compatibilism (for which I like your ordering: destiny -> physics -> [psychology = biology & society] -> coercion -> chains).

2. Freedom from theological determinism (destiny) still requires physical indeterminism (hence its relevance to incompatibilism and choice of red) as a necessary but insufficient condition - again noting the presumption of a creator deity (ie, freedom from more general "fatalism" perhaps does not). NB I purposely stated that higher levels of freedom require their lower levels of freedom (not that higher levels of determinism require their lower levels of determinism). In any case, the figure does not assert any basis behind the ordering, and I added the "in general" clause to deal with exceptions (way to go subconscious anticipation...)

3->5. Everything else makes perfect sense, and thanks for laying it out so nicely.

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 13:00, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

One positive result of your figure, Richardbrucebaxter, is that it resulted in the presentation by Pfhorrest above, which should be the introduction to this article. It lays matters out in a very clear manner and would make it possible for 98% of readers of Free will to stop at its end and leave with a grasp of the matter. Aficionados of splitting hairs and disputing definitions could proceed further, to enjoy their particular amusement.

In any event, to underline the conclusion here, it is revision that is needed, not this figure. Brews ohare (talk) 13:30, 2 November 2012 (UTC)