What is your Freedom?

If compulsion is causation then human freedom is a non-issue but human freedom is an issue, therefore compulsion must be different from causation. That's no proof for human freedom.

You are right, since that there is human freedom is not the conclusion of that argument. But I did not argue that. Why would I?

Just to be sure, you are taking human free will as a given. That's fine with me. Then I'll set the tiresome Laplacian determinism bit aside.

I agree your friends suggestion is not compulsion...unless it was a hypnotic suggestion.

If compulsion is causation then human freedom is a non-issue but human freedom is an issue, therefore compulsion must be different from causation. That's no proof for human freedom.

So, what is the proof that there is no human freedom, that I have no choice? Or, at the mininum, what has made you think we don't have the ability to choose?

So, what's the argument?

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. - Pierre-Simon Laplace

And, keep in mind, it has been shown that determinism, even if true, is compatible with free will.

This is interesting. I think I am missing some point that both you and kennethamy are trying to make. Please explain or direct me to online resource about how it was shown that determinism, even if true, is compatible with free will. Thanks.

Well do not hold your breath, because by the time compatiblists get through redefining "free will" or "human freedom" for you, it will not mean the "ability to choose or to do otherwise." anymore. You can try wikipedia on compatiblism, incompatibilism. You are right to be confused.

Or it will mean that, and you will recognize that you were unclear about what it means to have the ability to choose or do otherwise, but that once you analyze that notion you will find that the compatibilist analysis of that notion is the only one (as Daniel Dennett says in his Elbow Room) "worth wanting". Why should "the ability to choose or do otherwise" be understood in a way that prevents it from applying to any action or choice unless determinism is false? Particularly if such an understanding implies not only a kind of free will no one has, but also, no one would want?

I am free to obey Lord Umo.

Dennett gives the definition of free will
"All physical events are caused or determined by the sum total of all previous events".
Dennett avoids dealing with the issue of "hard determinism". Dennett avoids the issue of whether there is only one possible future and only one possible past.
Dennett has a materialistic and mechanistic view of mind and of human choice.
Dennett thinks we have "belief in free will" and that is all we need or should want but ultimately our notion of being able to act otherwise is an "illusion" albeit a necessary and persistant one.
I for one think there is more to the notion of "free will" and of "mind"than Dennett allows. I suppose it is my Platonic and romantic idealism again.

Is there more than one possiblity for the future?
Do we have the power to act in more than one way for any given event?
In my view hard determinism is false. What do you mean by "soft determinism?

I mean by "soft determinism" compatibilism. That is the accepted meaning in philosophy. "Hard determinism" is, of course, incompatibilism between determinism and free will.

As I remarked before, you think it is already settled that determinism is incompatible with free will (hard determinism) and so, for you. the issue is only whether determinism is true or not. The question of free will has dropped out of the discussion.

I do not think I am alone in the philosophy or in the forum in thinking that "determinism" and "free will" are related issues. I am a non compatibilist and a libertarian free will advocate. Yes, hard determinism is the main issue. An issue which you like Dennett do not wish to address.

If there is only one possible future and one possible past and one possible action for each event, then "free will" as the "ability to do otherwise" can not logically be "true".

Soft determnism appears to be a "hedge" and so is redefining "free will" to mean the illusion of, the concept of, or the notion of a "power or ability to do otherwise" which is not acutally present. I think avoiding determinism is avoiding the crux of the issue as most people would see it. Compatiblism and "soft determinism" are just distortions of meaning.

We address hard determinism. We think it is false. We are soft determinists. Do you, perhaps mean, we refuse to address determinism? But, as I pointed out. The issue is freedom of the will, not determinism, since once whether determinism is true has been settled, nothing has been settled about freedom of the will. (Unless you just assume that hard determinism is true, of course. But then, that would be begging the question).

If the only thing you mean by "soft determinism" is that "free will" and "determinism" are compatible you have clarified nothing at all.
I will ask again.
Is there more than one possiblity for the future?
Is there more than one possible human action for a given event?

- Some reading and good memory don?t make up for a total lack of intuitive thinking...

Regards>FILIPE DE ALBUQUERQUE