Compatibilist-free will yields so little freedom to crow about in the first place, but the philosophers up on modern science want free will so badly that writing a whole book (or two of them) is the norm. Their usual practice comes in the form of calling human decision-making “free will”, thus weaseling out of the problem. What truly amazes me is the huge trouble this causes the compatibilist philosophers. They have to write whole book after whole book on free will, because they have chosen their problem in such a way as to require “free will”, which cannot be found or defined.

It is very important to distinguish between the “sensation” of free will (which we all feel) and actual free will

For the purposes of discussing “free will”, this is true. But as you pointed out above (or as I understood you to point out) the discussion invariably leads to questions about the “meaning” of “actual” which (in my humble opinion) is a barren rock where beautiful music has not and will not ever be heard.

Unless one believes in the existence of non-natural (or supernatural) entities that can intervene directly in the biochemistry of human congnition and locomotion…

Interestingly, certain psychedelic drugs such as DMT are reported to “reveal” such entities to the human eye and/or soul.

http://leda.lycaeum.org/?Table=Trips&Ref_ID=11

Our perception of reality and “free will” is very much dependent on chemistry. But most humans at any given time are under the influence of their last meal primarily. That is why discussions of “worldviews” are merely divisive and misleading unless one is advocating a life under the constant influence of a brain chemistry-altering drug, or unless one is claiming that massive groups of humans are “wired” in distinct ways that allow them to see deities where others can not. That would be a radical claim indeed.

“No-one disagrees that there is at least a superficial appearance of free will; but I am arguing that that is as far as it goes.”

That is also the position taken by Daniel Wegner in The Illusion of Conscious Will (see http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0262731622/ref=sr_11_1/102-6496270-2592158?%5Fencoding=UTF8 , but beware of the last chapter, where he wimps out). It is very important to distinguish between the “sensation” of free will (which we all feel) and actual free will, and between the ability to make choices (which we all have) and whether that ability requires or involves “free will.” From what I have posted above, it should be clear by now that the sensation of free will is no guarantee that free will actually exists, nor does our ability to make choices have any bearing on the question of whether those choices are made “freely.” As Amy points out, the brain (which is, after all, where all of our thoughts and actions are generated) is entirely composed of “chemicals” (that is, macromolecules) whose behavior is entirely “governed” by the laws of chemistry and physics. The content of our ideas is translated into action potentials in the brain, and our actions are the result of such action potentials interacting with muscles, bones, etc. Nowhere in this highly complex system is there any non-natural (or supernatural) component, nor is any required to cause our ideas or actions to happen.

In other words, the environment (the natural world) constrains the inner environment of the brain when we make choices, and so such choices, while they “feel” free, cannot possibly be so.

Unless one believes in the existence of non-natural (or supernatural) entities that can intervene directly in the biochemistry of human congnition and locomotion…

Do you believe in everything that can be imagined up, simply because it can be imagined?

No. But you can not dismiss the idea of “free will” I expressed above as “merely” a “superficial appearance” unless you want to dismiss all of our perceptions of reality as “merely” “superficial appearances.”

Get it? Put another way: it’s possible to argue that all this “reality” is just a “dream”. But in my dream I can use chemical energy to make decisions.

We could certainly pretend that there are no such things as “decisions” Freawaru. That seems like a silly thing to do, given our short lifetimes.

My working definition of free will is quite simple: that your volition is not driven entirely by things outside your control, but that you have some– even a minuscle quantity, perhaps– of say in it.

By making a choice, you have a say in it whether or not you are driven by internal ‘voices’ of reason and chance.

If intelligence is reducible to chance and necessity you have no say, and are driven– driven, not simply guided or constrained– by forces outside your control.

What would something that is not reducible to chance and necessity look like? Compare the ‘you do nothing’ to the ‘you make a choice’, what is the difference in outcome. So in fact, you have a lot of say in where you and your world is going. If you need an external source of this choice then fine, I personally have no problem with the concept that free will is reducible to laws and chance because it does not ‘force’ me to make any particular choice.

But perhaps the thought that regular and chance processes can make choices and thus appear to have ‘free will’ may be too much for us to deal with.

I haven’t any problem with the idea, but “to appear” implies an illusion and is here pretty irrelevant. No-one disagrees that there is at least a superficial appearance of free will; but I am arguing that that is as far as it goes.

Amy-

If you want to pretend that even when we recognize a concept such as “free will”…

Do you believe in everything that can be imagined up, simply because it can be imagined?

Perhaps we have different expectations of free will.

Or different definitions, which Allen alluded to above.

If free will is defined as the ability to choose something in the complete absence of any prior chemical influences on that choice then no living creature has free will because living creatures are made of chemicals.

If free will is defined as the ability to use chemicals to consciously make choices with the understanding that we are free to do so, then we have free will.

If you want to pretend that even when we recognize a concept such as “free will” we are incapable of controlling our moment to moment destinies, then go right ahead. I mean: that’s too bad that the vibrating atoms that constitute “you” make it impossible for you to feel otherwise at this moment.

Ah, philosophy! It’s so … useful.

“You are borne along by forces that begun acting long before your existence and will continue acting long after you are gone.”

It’s interesting how similar this viewpoint is to the Buddhist conception of karma. According to Phillip Kapleau (among others), “karma” refers to the “grand field of cause and effect,” extending infinitely into the past and future. According to this view, one’s acts are entirely constrained by one’s karma; that is to say, by the interplay of cause and effect in one’s past, combined with one’s intentions for the future (and the cause and effect relationships that will pertain in the future).

One of the basic principles of Buddhism is that one can “escape” one’s karma (often called “stepping off the great wheel”, implying a kind of recursion similar to Nietzsche’s “eternal return”) by following the path of the Buddha (usually referred to as the “eight-fold way”). In the tradition that I have followed (Rinzai Zen), this usually happens “suddenly,” in an event referred to as “kensho” in Japanese (or “satori” in Sanskrit). The literal translation of this term is “blowing out,” as in the blowing out of a candle.

In the Rinzai tradition, one cannot “reason” one’s way to Kensho, nor can anyone do it for you. Teachers (usually referred to as “roshi,” the Japanese word for “old man”) can point out the way and suggest techniques to reach it (most of which involve some sort of “breathing meditation,” from which Zen derives its name - the Chinese word “chan” stems from the Sanskrit term “dhyana,” meaning “breath”).

Even in this tradition, however, there may be no “free will” involved. Indeed, it appears to me that achieving enlightenment (via kensho) is simply switching from one system of conditioning (i.e. karma, as provided by the entire world) to another (i.e. the eight-fold Way of the Buddha, which bears some resemblance to the Tao of Lao Tzu). Following the Way/Tao is no more “free” than being “driven” by on’es karma, unless “following” a way can be considered to be more “free” than “being driven” by one’s karma.

…on the first clear and definitive analysis of this question that I have read anywhere.

It can’t have been all that clear or definitive, as the person who needed convincing– PvM– is still unconvinced.

PvM

If choices are infinite and the choice is initiated by our actions then how can there not be a ‘free will’?

The choice is made not by any sort of “you” but simply by impersonal chance and necessity, so “you” have no say in it and thus no free will. You are borne along by forces that begun acting long before your existence and will continue acting long after you are gone.

Look at it this way. You acknowledge that your choices are somewhat constrained by chance and necessity acting from the outside… i.e., decisions made in the past effect you, you can only make decisions in line with the rules of nature, and so forth. But after that you seem to think there are an infinite number of choices, and “you” can make a choice from them, thus demonstrating free will. The thing is the decision that ultimately is made is made not by anything more particular than your brain. And your brain is itself the product of chance and necessity, and acts not as “you” bid it but simply as the programming from those forces bid it to.

The neurochemistry that goes on there is constrained by natural law, yes, but it is also defined by chance and necessity working together in the past, when natural selection formed it, and by chance working now. There is no room for a personal “you” to play any part in the decision at all. Your brain belongs to you, and it works, but that is the limit of the connection.

But maybe I have misunderstood what you meant when you said that human will and intelligence were reducible to chance and necessity. To me this means the same as to say, in math, “can be written in terms of”. Those are the only two forces that exist in the universe and act in the observable world, and all forces we observe are various combinations of them. But from your comments here it would seem that all you mean by it is that we cannot act outside the natural laws and are always subject to chance. These two views are very different; which do you hold?

Allen–

My own view would be a bit closer to Plato’s than to Democritus’; that intelligent and natural causes*, while fully compatible with each other and working in the same realm of space, are not, in the end, reducible to each other.

[*i.e., chance and necessity]