@FrankHubeny Hey I’m awake now. Just saw your answer and I’ll have to think about it before commenting. I was wondering if you can explain what “constrained free will” means. Do you think that would be a good question to post? Because I’ve heard of “limited free will” which is basically the same thing.

@anonymouswho It is better to discuss this here rather than the comments. Free will is not absolute. We can't do everything so we certainly don't have absolute free action, but even our desires are influenced by something else. For example, we get hungry and then we either choose to eat now or wait. We made a choice, but we were forced to make that choice by our hunger. We were constrained, but we could still choose.

@FrankHubeny Right, but why did you choose to wait? Are you on a diet? No. Is there nothing in the kitchen that appeals to your biologically constrained taste buds? No, I didn’t check. Are you watching a movie and waiting for it to end? No. So you’re hungry, but you’re choosing not to eat for a reason that you yourself cannot explain. Isn’t that random?

@anonymouswho The reason why we chose to wait is because we made a choice to wait. All of the other explanations why are rationalizations of our choice that we may give should someone ask us why we did something. We don't reason to our choices. We choose and then justify using reason. At least that is how I experience my own choices. Also it goes it Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind and moral foundation theory.

It is almost midnight for me, so I may be going to bed shortly. I live in Chicago.

@anonymouswho In your question you seem to be equating "free will" to "choice"; do you view those as the same thing?

@FrankHubeny I live in Kentucky but I work third shift, so that’s why I’m awake so late. You could choose to stay awake though lol. I’m kidding. Eventually your body will shut down, and there’s nothing you can do about that. You said the reason why we made the choice to wait is because we made the choice to wait. This is circular reasoning, but it’s also false because we made the choice to wait because our body was hungry and forced us to make a choice.

We didn’t choose to have the choice, and now that the choice has been imposed upon us, we have a very limited number of options. If we make a choice for no reason whatsoever, and then try to rationalize our behavior, then our actions must have been random. What other option is there besides caused actions and random actions?

@HWalters Sorry I’ve asked a lot of questions, so I’m not sure which one you’re referring to. I don’t view them as the same thing. I believe in choices, but I don’t believe in free will. I define choice as a selection among many different options. I can have chocolate or vanilla- and that’s a choice. I just don’t believe that the choice I make is uncaused. And if it is, then it must be random; which means my choices are bound by the chains of randomness and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I'm referring to this: philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/55978/…

"If hard determinism is true, then it was never really my choice to be the person I am at this exact moment."

I might be misreading, but if say I choose to get a haircut, then part of the person I am right now is defined by a choice I made; thus, I played at least a contributing role to being the person I am at this exact moment (and as a disclaimer, I've no definition of "free will" to go by, just choice here)

I think it suffices to say that there's a distinction though; I can infer from that the typical chain-of-causes going back to something we don't control. However, this aspect of hard determinism I've never been able to make sense of: "There’s also only one path from this point forward, so if I’m going to eventually be a good person or stop some of my bad habits, then won’t that happen regardless of anything I do or don’t do?"

If we do choose things, and our choice is "for reasons", meaning that under the hood it's effectively deterministic, then the things we choose are chosen because we make the choices. The way this is described, however, it's like saying that the pool stick didn't cause the 8 ball to go into the pocket because it was going to go in the pocket anyway

But the only reason we can argue it was going into the pocket, and can only go into the pocket, is because of the state of the pool stick and its effects

IOW, if you're going to have determinism where A causes B causes C, you can't deny that B is a cause because A results in C

@anonymouswho I would post an answer, but I'm not quite sure how to do it with this question... because you're calling to assume hard determinism (not mere determinism) is true, and the problems I have are with hd itself

(even then "choice" isn't necessary; it's just the hd concept of "lack of choice" makes no sense to me)

@HWalters Right, that’s just a common argument against determinism, but I don’t actually believe any of it. The word choice is not the main word in that sentence. The main word is my, as though the selection of the different options came from some sort of immaterial stuff that lives inside of me and makes free decisions.

If you choose to get a haircut, then I do not deny that you wanted to get a haircut. The question is, why do you want a haircut? Why is this even a concern of yours that is forcing you to make a decision? There must have been something(s) prior in your life that eventually led to the choice being presented, and you making a specific choice.

You probably got haircuts when you were a child (against your will because your parents forced you), and now that your older, it is culturally acceptable that men should have shorter hair. Or maybe you’ve grown your hair out before, and when looking at yourself in the mirror, you didn’t like it (which is also the result of several different causes).

I agree with what you say about the pool stick, and that’s a good analogy if you’d like to answer the question. My question is simply based on a common misunderstanding of determinism, not because I’m actually dealing with this issue.

@anonymouswho Why must it be immaterial? Who says my soul isn't a few pounds of wet flesh?

There's some guy I refer to by "me"; is that immaterial? Some may think so, but I'm not sure it has to be

My whole objection is that if there's an A that led to some B leading to C, I don't think that legitimately can be used to deny that B led to C

For the record, I don't think "something caused me to do X" and "I did X randomly" are the only two possibilities; "I'm the original cause of X" is a third (I don't personally take this one seriously, but I think this is the libertarian view)

@HWalters Oh I have no idea how it’s all supposed to work lol. I don’t believe in immaterial stuff. I agree that B was crucial for C, but there would have never been a B without A. And since we’ve ran out of letters, there wouldn’t have been an A without 9; which was determined by 8, and so on. So the reason why we should try to better ourselves is because we will never get better unless we try.

If we don’t try and never get better, then that was determined also. However, the answer that satisfies me is the fact that we don’t know the future, so we might as well try. If it produces good results, then that’s a good thing. I’m hoping there’s more that could be added to that, because I enjoy reading what others have thought about.

And yeah, that's part of my problem as well; I don't know exactly what "free will" per se is supposed to be (or if there's really just "one concept" there versus it merely being a shared confusion)

Speaking of busy, heading out to rl

@HWalters Well I would enjoy reading your answer, whether you’re a determinist or not. Yes, that’s another big problem I have with free will. Nobody can seem to agree on a definition, and that makes it tricky. It’s sort of like if you ask if I believe in God, and when I say yes, automatically assuming I mean the triune god of Christianity. Or an omnisomething god who “transcends” time and logic.

However, “god” is just a single word. “Omnipresent god” is when we run into real problems. There are clear definitions for words like “free” and “will”, but I don’t see how those two words can be combined into a single entity. Okay, it’s been fun talking to you.

@anonymouswho What I am saying is that "making a choice" is a reason (explanation) why we do something. It does not have to be some prior event that is independent of our choice although we may be influenced by those events. So if you ask why did we choose something, the answer is because we chose to do that. It starts a chain of events. We may come up with a rationalization (often after the choice was made), but the choice itself is the reason why.

@anonymouswho: I want to address this (quickly, before rl-ing today): " Right, that’s just a common argument against determinism, but I don’t actually believe any of it."

That characterization of what I was arguing is incorrect. It's not determinism that's the problem; it's "hard determinism". Furthermore, I'm not arguing that hd is a problem because I'm trying to save free will; the problems with hd are fundamental to hd in and of itself.

The fundamental issues I have with hd is that it contradicts itself, completely missing the point of "causality". The fact that there might be compatibilists advancing such arguments is simply a distraction from the fundamental issues.

I could illustrate the problem much more abstractly, using only "programs" as entities; and not just that, but concrete specific ones

That would be greatly off topic of your question on s.e., but I'll get into that a bit later

@FrankHubeny Nice deflection to this ongoing chat in your response today.

Not sure I agree with the use of "illusion" exactly in your answer, either.

@Chelonian I think it is best to have extended discussion here than under the question. If determinism is true, then everything we think we have initiated had a complete cause prior to us initiating it. So our view that we initiated it is an illusion. My view is that we participate in starting a causal chain of events with our actions. There is no complete causal explanation for that initiating coming from prior events.

You can view that as an alternate assumption to determinism.