I’m a libertarian free will believer. The idea is simple and does necessitate indeterminism: at any given time there is a plurality of futures the could come into existence in the next moment. If the necessary and sufficient reason why one future comes into existence and not another is irreducible (or at least partially irreducible) to the intrinsic causal power of the agent to collapse one possible future into a present from a repertoire of possibilities then the will is free. Freedom as determinator. Now, this cannot be “randomness” as, hypothetically, the will would act the exact same way in the same circumstances were they to exist again. That is to say a choice is neither determined nor random, but chosen; a revelation of what Being does in a particular circumstance. (Similar to the idea of Middle Knowledge in Theology.) I think this is actually our intuitive notion of what happens when we make a choice. Strawson’s argument is just wrong when he says we do what we do because we are who we are. Better to understand it: we are who we are because we do what we do. But there’s a tight feedback loop for sure. And this brings us to the central paradox of freedom: the more your choices are determined the more you are free and responsible for them. That is to say, the more you experience subjective determination (based on your values, dispositions etc.) and feel unaffected from external constraints, the more free you “feel” even though you’re very determined (from the point of view of the will itself) by one’s “internal pressures” which are just as extrinsic to the will itself as is any external force. This is why it’s important to remember that your moral identity is a long cumulative process; you are indeed responsible for who you are even though at any given moment you are probably “mostly determined” by either internal or external constraints. Still, Consciousness is participation in causal power to determine outcomes from repertoires of metaphysically possible possibilities. Consciousness is freedom and causal power itself.
I've read this essay three times. Some parts I like and can grasp. Others elude me. I've read the book by Sam Harris on Free Will. Gave up halfway. Furthermore, I've listened to his podcasts on the subject. Gave up halfway. Every time I walk into some kind of rubber wall where my brain loses track of the arguments presented. Maybe it's the tone of voice (the certainty) that makes me lose the train of thought. Perhaps it's me, my minimal brain. I've been studying this subject for 1,5 years now because of dramatic events in my life and read a lot. There are very few people who can explain subjects like consciousness and free will in terms that a layman can grasp. I am reminded of Jeremy Irons in the movie Margin Call: "Please, speak as you might to a young child…or a golden retriever. It wasn’t brains that got me here, I can assure you of that." A request, perhaps: try steelmanning the case FOR free will.
There is an equivocation in the following premise between subjective-determination and objective-determination: “a choice that is undetermined cannot properly be said to have been brought about by the agent who made it.” Determinism is about objective-determination by the prior state of the world, which leaves room for subjective determination. The latter does not preclude the former but the former precludes the latter. Moreover, any argument to the effect that free will is impossible invalidates agency, and therefore the premise of argumentation, and therefore the argument is self-negating.
There is indeed an outstanding problem of what it means for the subject to determine anything, to choose freely, which perhaps implies creation ex-nihilo. I argue that this constraint applies only to the deterministic (objective) world, but not to consciousness according to which the world ‘exists’, because in every act of conceiving (of a new idea/decision) the idea of the world is also revised, and the new creation is instantly extrapolated into the past, changing the past in order to be consistent with the new present.
I’m a libertarian free will believer. The idea is simple and does necessitate indeterminism: at any given time there is a plurality of futures the could come into existence in the next moment. If the necessary and sufficient reason why one future comes into existence and not another is irreducible (or at least partially irreducible) to the intrinsic causal power of the agent to collapse one possible future into a present from a repertoire of possibilities then the will is free. Freedom as determinator. Now, this cannot be “randomness” as, hypothetically, the will would act the exact same way in the same circumstances were they to exist again. That is to say a choice is neither determined nor random, but chosen; a revelation of what Being does in a particular circumstance. (Similar to the idea of Middle Knowledge in Theology.) I think this is actually our intuitive notion of what happens when we make a choice. Strawson’s argument is just wrong when he says we do what we do because we are who we are. Better to understand it: we are who we are because we do what we do. But there’s a tight feedback loop for sure. And this brings us to the central paradox of freedom: the more your choices are determined the more you are free and responsible for them. That is to say, the more you experience subjective determination (based on your values, dispositions etc.) and feel unaffected from external constraints, the more free you “feel” even though you’re very determined (from the point of view of the will itself) by one’s “internal pressures” which are just as extrinsic to the will itself as is any external force. This is why it’s important to remember that your moral identity is a long cumulative process; you are indeed responsible for who you are even though at any given moment you are probably “mostly determined” by either internal or external constraints. Still, Consciousness is participation in causal power to determine outcomes from repertoires of metaphysically possible possibilities. Consciousness is freedom and causal power itself.
Interesting. Have you written more about this?
I like to haunt comments sections of philosophy blogs….
I've read this essay three times. Some parts I like and can grasp. Others elude me. I've read the book by Sam Harris on Free Will. Gave up halfway. Furthermore, I've listened to his podcasts on the subject. Gave up halfway. Every time I walk into some kind of rubber wall where my brain loses track of the arguments presented. Maybe it's the tone of voice (the certainty) that makes me lose the train of thought. Perhaps it's me, my minimal brain. I've been studying this subject for 1,5 years now because of dramatic events in my life and read a lot. There are very few people who can explain subjects like consciousness and free will in terms that a layman can grasp. I am reminded of Jeremy Irons in the movie Margin Call: "Please, speak as you might to a young child…or a golden retriever. It wasn’t brains that got me here, I can assure you of that." A request, perhaps: try steelmanning the case FOR free will.
There is an equivocation in the following premise between subjective-determination and objective-determination: “a choice that is undetermined cannot properly be said to have been brought about by the agent who made it.” Determinism is about objective-determination by the prior state of the world, which leaves room for subjective determination. The latter does not preclude the former but the former precludes the latter. Moreover, any argument to the effect that free will is impossible invalidates agency, and therefore the premise of argumentation, and therefore the argument is self-negating.
There is indeed an outstanding problem of what it means for the subject to determine anything, to choose freely, which perhaps implies creation ex-nihilo. I argue that this constraint applies only to the deterministic (objective) world, but not to consciousness according to which the world ‘exists’, because in every act of conceiving (of a new idea/decision) the idea of the world is also revised, and the new creation is instantly extrapolated into the past, changing the past in order to be consistent with the new present.
In short, the two dimensional structure of time resolves the temporal inconsistency (https://michaelkowalik.substack.com/p/proof-that-emergence-of-something-out-of-nothing-is-impossible) in creation ex nihilo, by retroactively reinventing the world with every creative act of consciousness, creating the illusion of determinism if time is regarded as a single dimension. https://philpapers.org/rec/KOWTT