Bob, you should have just asked Eddy "Where do deliberations come from? Aren't they determined by prior deliberations and environment?" Eddy makes a big point out of the fact that our deliberations matter. "And therefore we have free will." But this does not logically follow. Of course our deliberations matter, but that does not mean we have free will. Our deliberations are fixed by our prior deliberations and environmental and biological factors. Where is freedom in that?

1:08:12

I sometimes like to think of Freewill like this: As a human, I have the ability to NOT DO what my instincts, habits,, urges, etc., make me want to do. For example. It’s 4:00 pm. I’m hungry. I see an enticing glazed donut on the counter. I want to devour it. The I think, well, I will be having dinner soon, or, I’m trying to lose body fat, so I will not eat the donut.I “feel” free to make that decision. Whether I actually am or not mY be another story.

This whole issue of free will is very strongly connected to understanding consciousness (mentioned last in this talk). Regarding this, something we tend to forget is that it is CONSCIOUSNESS that contemplates and talks about EVERY single thing in the universe including ourselves. IT IS CONSCIOUSNESS that thinks/talks about the brain, and IT IS CONSCIOUSNESS that thinks/talks about consciousness itself, and even talks about free will. Therefore it is CONSCIOUSNESS that needs to be carefully studied - this is exactly what the Buddha did in a very methodological way. He described subjective experience (and don’t forget that scientists and philosophers also have subjective experience all the time) by taking into account seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touch sensations and thoughts. Regarding causality: the Buddha explained how things that happen in the future could be altered by actions undertaken HERE AND NOW. The present moment is the only moment we CAN change and this change will affect the future. For example, if we take action now, we maybe able to influence climate change. Also, attending to here and now (practising mindfulness) can reduce the power of negative thoughts like anger and depression.

I like the thermostat example. A thermostat makes decisions within the room it's installed. You might say it has free will, in that context. That doesn't mean it originated its action in a vacuum. That's because nothing does - nothing.

Good conversation. Laboured the point on fatalism (the idea that given some starting point we can freely choose and thus take different paths, but certain things will always happen regardless, embodied in the phrase 'it was meant to be') vs determinism (the idea that given some starting point there is only one path), but I think importantly to bring out the distinction compatiblists are using.

Free will does not exist but freedom does and I think it may be that it's actually an emotion/feeling/inner experience as opposed to a process or sequence of events. Maybe it's what we feel when randomness intermingles with intention in our brains. As a musician, I think about this way: if I'm playing something that's totally improvised, I have to start with some note, any note, so there is some randomness/rolling of the dice there. But once I play that first note, the sound of that note interacts with my personality/DNA/emotional and mental history, current environmental factors, ect., to create a path forward. But.....if I take chances and if I'm open to a little randomness, I can get off that causal train track at any time and explore new pathways and directions. So freedom, in this view, is really about creativity, and its degree varies in individuals and species. One reason we asses some improvisers as being more free or more creative than others is because they have cultivated this relationship with randomness and are more comfortable taking chances and navigating new terrain. Having more knowledge and more skills gives us more options and thus increases the potential for freedom but that freedom will only manifest if she who has acquired said knowledge and skills is equally as capable of forgetting and embracing random fluctuation which opens to the door to all the newness and creation that is constantly taking place all around us in our environment. I think this is what artists mean by being, "in the moment". Could I have chosen otherwise? Who cares! What matters is how free did I feel and did I create something new, special and unique to that moment.

To me Bob makes perfect sense. I would like to know, if Z was definitely going to happen given A....then WHERE do we identify opportunities to do otherwise?? It's like saying "Well, he had an opportunity to do otherwise here at E....but given A-D there was no chance he was going to take that opportunity." I don't see how that is an actual opportunity then. You cannot then say to a person "you could have done otherwise" if they actually couldn't have. Language gets tricky here though because we use a lot of words that do not make sense in the larger scheme of things, but have practical day to day applications. Like "opportunity." I also wonder if what has really happened is the scientific community has come to the conclusion that the general public NEED to believe in free will to keep them from falling into fatalism. However, fatalism also requires a supernatural belief system. I would rather just be honest about free will and focus on our interconnectivness with the natural world and each other. Rather than fatalism, I find this leads to acceptance instead of shame, and greatfulness instead of pride. A better world naturally unfolds.

Robert,

My dear friend, I am afraid it is time for a new mic. It would be wonderful.

My thing about free will is almost Alan Watts-ian, and that this debate arises irreconcilably when too strong a distiction is made between subject and object. Say the biographical self is translucent, and that while an "individual" is a real manifestation, there is also no radical barrier separating a human being's skin from the entirety of the universe (its all a single process, say), such that in a very real sense "I" am both a human person AND the universe. In that case, then would not the conclusion be absolute freedom, rather than absolute determinism? In other words, from the point of view of the individual "layer", everything appears determined, but from the point of view of the "universal layer", I have been determining everything since the big bang and before. And neither layer is really reducible to the other, but rather each is "non-dually" true. This is the sort of compatibilism I find compelling.

We need to remember that we are highly conditioned creatures. For example, if a person were conditioned to think that stealing is ok (conditioning that can happen through friends, parents, etc.), then that person would be motivated to engage in stealing without any guilt because that is how that person has been conditioned (i.e., he thinks stealing is ok). Now, if this person were given an extensive intervention that would make him realize what he is doing is wrong/harmful to society, etc., then he could get conditioned to change his behaviours.

‘I am, however, far from wishing to deny that instinctive actions may lose their fixed and untaught character, and be replaced by others performed by the aid of the free will. On the other hand, some intelligent actions-as when, birds on oceanic islands first learn to avoid man-after being performed during many generations, become converted into instincts and are inherited. They may then be said to be degraded in character, for they are no longer performed through reason or from experience.’

Is substance monism that Spinoza believed in still alive?

Retribution is not only to be weighed in terms of the suffering of the perpetrator. There is also the cathartic payoff that accrues to the innocent victim.

It's a mistake to think naturalism discounts dualism. It merely discounts dualisms that have supernatural components (where 'supernatural' means 'outside the Universe').

Compatibilism = 'science

Nahmias just plays wordsalad: He doesn´t want to give up his materialism but at the same time he wants to keep the word free will by redifinig it, a cluster of atoms and its activity is completely determined by prior states, eventes and conditions and the laws of physics and it is powerless to change those facts.

Compatibilism `= There is only one possible outcome but the non-existing you are free to believe that this outcome is freely chosen. OR: "I want my cake and eat it too" OR: "A desperate attempt to save physicalism."

The train has only a limited course of action, whereas the human has to decide. At the point we stand there with all the options hanging there before us, we have free will. Once the human decides, the action they have chosen is subject to determinism.