What is free will?

Dude, I'm a French guy interested in philosophy. If I don't know about deconstructing, who will? You?

The point is deconstructing is only the easy part. Reconstructing is usually harder.

For instance: if knowledge is just a convention socially agreed to be the case, does it follows that one should always follow the majority of smart asses on any issue? What is the status, in such a conventional view, of non-conventional views? Are they just false because most scholars disagree with them? What differentiates science from dogma?

This is what I don't get. There is no way a new set of rules can be created. The rules are either probabilistic or deterministic. If you build a structure like the brain using those rules, the result of that structure must involve those rules. There aren't a new set of rules that we can call 'mental rules'. Whatever your mental world is it is generated by the brain and the brain operates based on rules that are either probabilistic or deterministic. So how can something arise from that which is neither one or the other or maybe a combination of the two somehow if you're into that.

You need to explain how probabilistic rules can turn into something else. Or deterministic rules can turn into something else. It just doesn't make sense that there can be a distinct set of mental rules that have nothing to do with reality.

...oh by the way Tomr a probabilistic model is not an explanatory model although it can make predictions, the only explanatory model is deterministic.
I suspect Olivier doesn't have a clue on what you are talking about and doesn't intend to go on some quick reading either...smart but lazy sounds French alright...

And it would have been my decision too... so? Just because you can take another decision doesn't mean there's no free will. In fact it's more an argument FOR free will. Whatever pushes you to go for one over the other (e.g. stinginess vs. long-term planning vs the desire for the latest toy), it is still a part of you (defined as your mental world).

...not if you are not aware of the unconscious particulars that gave rise to the decision, the decision conforms to "you" but is not yours...in all cases you can think about there are always unconscious elements constraining your decision making. Not only you can't do otherwise as similarly you can't know how did you arrive at X decision, although it is well know people have a vivid imagination for justifying their choices...

That's the reason why I keep repeating the fact that we are constrained by our genes and environment. Beyond those constraints, we can do almost anything.

Our five senses are limited when compared to other animal life; that's a constraint we cannot overcome, but humans can make instruments to improve them. Humans invent things; it proves we have limitations to our genes, but we can overcome some of them through development instruments that we can use.

Once we are given life, the span between birth and death, our environment is the constraint. Even here, some can migrate from their place of birth, and many of those constraints are expanded.

We are born into the environment that makes a difference in our culture, language, politics, economy, family, friends, and other potentials for what one person can accomplish. It impacts our perceptions.

Yes, we are limited by language, culture, race, ethnicity, education, and the politics under which we live, but those limitations are what we are provided from the environment in which we are born and raised.

Since humans (*homo sapiens) originated from Africa, our ability at migration have been extensive on this planet even by foot travel.

Where's the predetermination?

What in your life was predetermined other than your gene and your environment?

I can't explain the entire universe but I can see that there are levels, planes in reality. Like the sub-atomic level, the atomic level, the chemical and 'classic physics' level, the biology level, the knowledge level. Each of this level obeys to rules that are SPECIFIC to the level. There is no simple way to derive chemistry rules from quantum mechanics rules, or biological rules (things such as sexuality, parasitism or ethology) from chemistry rules.

You've agreed that the world of ideas exist, that our mental world is a fact.

If this mental world exists, as part of our world (nothing religious here), it follows that it exists as a level of reality following its own set of rules, such as logic. Logic is an integral part of any reasoning, a basic building block, a set of rules about how to think, about how thought A can determine thought B. If A then B. That's causality in the mental world for you, rules specific to the mental world.

Do you think you can derive the rules of logic from biochemistry? I doubt it very much, just like we're unable to derive the laws of thermodynamics from quantum mechanics. Or the laws of biology from chemistry.

Sorry, I'm too lazy to read your post.

Conscious or unconscious, it's still you! That's how human brains work.

You don't live your life through your unconscious brain. If you did, you'd be living in chaos.

When you decided to post on a2k, it was not your unconscious brain at work - or maybe for you, it was!

Excuse me but one essential characteristic common to all explanatory models is determinism be it chemistry or biology or brain models...exception goes for QM but then in QM there is no attempt for an explanatory modelling only a model that can arrive at some predictive conclusions...what rule were you thinking about at a mental level that uses determinism for justifying the authorship of decision making but ditches determinism when to retrospect the causal origin that gave rise to your decision ?

I agree, Fil, that the free-will vs. determinism equation must take into account unconscious "particulars" in both their positive (drives) and negative (inhibitive) influences.
But, of course, my* persistent focus is on the notion that while there is choosing--we** see that happening--there are no choosers (we*** don't see them if we**** look closely enough, just as Decartes thought he***** saw a thinker but didn't).
*
**
***
****
*****
grammatically required pronouns.

Those aren't "determinism." It's evolution and limitation by the environment.

For Christ sake Cic you have a talent to debate the obvious, unconscious decisions are mechanistic processes Cic their authorship is not "you" its your machinery...

lol Cic Evolution is a deterministic model...causes give rise to consequences, namely survival or extinction...you are apawling !

Only a naive realist would use the terms "true" and "false" with respect to scientific paradigms. Information processing models of the brain "don't work".Go from there but not with a futile atgument about "free will".

I have told you long long ago that we agree more then we disagree in a strange way...what I mean is that although I clearly state "you" exists as a legitimate phenomena I never did said I didn't understood why you arrive at a different conclusion...I know your arguments and I even partially agree with them...but then the phenomena is there...the thing is I never refer to a "self" as some form of property check...

C.I., consider the possibility that ALL our actions reflect/express multiple levels of awareness simultaneously. The less-than-conscious elements account for the depth of our experience, otherwise our mental lives would have no more weight/depth than arithmetical calculations (this might not include all mathematical equations). Art would be impossible.

...the point with Cic is that he doesn't seam to know what deterministic means to start with...he can't get to the point of debating authorship without understanding what "deterministic" implies...one step at a time....Cic seams a fine gentleman except he is damn stubborn n far to quick to conservatively react before he thinks...he clearly dislikes questioning his long established common sense perspectives on these n similar matters...eventually he reacts like if he cant think but I suspect that is more the result of his stubbornness then an innate inability to commit to the questions...

Answer the question, fresco. If it's all about agreed and shared realities, what is the status of dissent? Is one allowed to disagree with the fad of the day, and what does it mean?

You were in his head when that happened?