I'm defending a compatibilism closest to Harry Frankfurt's conception of free will.

Under this view, you can very much do things you didn't want to do, because you have different levels of preferences/desires. The laws of realty dictate what you do, and whether your will is free or not is more about how you perceive what happens. If what happens is what you'd want to happen if you were able to control it, then your will is free. If the opposite, then it's not. This is super simplified of course. The idea is that we don't really choose what we do, but we have some higher order preferences, and we feel free if they are fulfilled over lower order ones.

So if you have a drug addiction, we can say that you both want and also don't want the drug. Your higher order reasoning and desire is that you don't keep using the drug, assuming you'd genuinely prefer a life without it. This doesn't always win though, you often succumb to the drug, to lower order desires. If you ultimately desire not to use the drug and succeed in this, you will perceive your will as free, which is all free will really is. If you don't succeed, you'll perceive your will as not free. Meanwhile, all of what actually happens is determined, there are no classically conceived "decisions" happening here. You experience the agency, you don't enact it.

> on the one hand we have the science demonstrating for us that everything that happens is determined in some sense, and on the other we have human intuition, experience, ethics, and practical reason telling us (or necessitating) that we exercise agency of some kind. The challenge is in reconciling the two

But they can’t be reconciled. If reason tells us it’s necessary for us to exercise agency, that’s too bad, because we can’t. We are going to act like we can, but we can’t.

The existence of the field of ethics is one thing among many that both arose out of the past physical state of the universe, and will influence its future state, but not from any external cause - it’s all in the closed system. We’re pulled towards the earth because there is gravity, and someone might “decide” something in a certain way because they are aware of some ethical principle, and that contributed to what the particles in their brain do in the current moment. That doesn’t mean the principal itself has intrinsic value.

why the Rush to jump to conclusions there, eh buddy?

> If the state of the world at the present moment is completely determined by the preceding moment, then you can’t choose to have a glass of water, because that would mean defying the laws of realty and exerting a god like power.

I know. But nobody is saying “I wish I had the power to ignore physical laws”. They’re saying “if only things weren’t deterministic, because it would be kinda nice to actually have agency and be able to make choices”.

Nope, you're not getting it. If the state of the world at the present moment is completely determined by the preceding moment, then you can't choose to have a glass of water, because that would mean defying the laws of realty and exerting a god like power. You're drinking the glass of water because at the start of all existence something was set in motion that dictated you would drink that water. This is the conception of reality that Harris and other determinists have. This is not what I'm saying, this is what determinism is. This is why Harris concludes that free will is an illusion.

The reason he's wrong is that this god-like ability to break the laws of reality simply doesn't have anything to do with having a free will.

The whole reason this debate is important is because on the one hand we have the science demonstrating for us that everything that happens is determined in some sense, and on the other we have human intuition, experience, ethics, and practical reason telling us (or necessitating) that we exercise agency of some kind. The challenge is in reconciling the two. This is the starting point of nearly all philosophical problems.

It's not helpful to just repeat ad nauseum "but everything is determined cuz the science so free will is an illusion". This is the starting point of the conversation, not the end. We already know that, Harris hasn't said anything that wasn't said 100 years prior. He's just adding more updated science examples. In fact, he's really not contributing anything to the conversation that wasn't already considered 3000 years ago. He's basically just ignoring thousands of years of philosophical discourse, and going "but causality". He doesn't get it.

I could attempt to marshal a reply, but I know that we'll just continue to talk over each other, when we are in fact 99.98% in agreement. Neither of us will concede that last 0.02%, so we might as well save our energy and move on.

However, I do owe you an apology for my less than polite tone, so might as well attach it here. That was unnecessary.

> I didn't say "identifies". You're still thinking of it as a decision in the traditional sense. No such thing is happening. People are just being, and if they believe that what they are doing is in line with what they'd like to do, then they have agency. It's not circular at all. Nobody is deciding they have agency, they just have it.

I believe that I misinterpreted your comment. I see that you are drawing a distinction between what people want and what they actually do. I think you are agreeing that this distinction is an illusion, because you can't possibly do anything other than what you want. Since we are unable to choose what we want, it's ultimately a distinction without a difference, but your point still stands. That's a valid definition.

> You'll have to explain what you mean by the second paragraph as it's not clear what you're asking exactly.

I figured you were defending libertarian free will, but since you appear to be a compatibilist, I guess there is nothing to reconcile. There's no distinction between compatibilism and no free will, as far as our first person experience is concerned. I think our disagreement lies solely in the semantics and the practical implications of said semantics, not in the physical mechanics of 'free will'.

The intuitive perception of the self which most Westerners have is illusory, as is free will. Ultimately, it’s part of our culture, in its modern incarnation, to view ourselves as free, rational agents. In other cultures, like the Ancient Greeks, it’s a given that our lives are ruled by fate.

Free will is an illusion, buts it’s not an illusion which is inherent to the mind. It’s an illusion which is maintained via culture. It’s entirely possible to subjectively perceive yourself to not have free will. Personally I don’t feel a strong sense of volition in the vast majority of things I do and say. 99% of the time I’m operating on instinct.

> be thinks that having agency means having control over reality in some way, making decisions that change the course of the world.

Taking something mundane like “I choose to have a glass of water now” and framing it as wanting to “change the course of the world” is a choice you’ve made to imply arrogance on the part of the speaker. Now anyone who argues that having free will is ideal looks like they’re saying they should have omnipotence.

> This is what I mean by god-like.

Why do you believe that only gods should have this power?

Any other conception of agency is useless to consider.

I've read a bunch of his material, including one of his books on this very topic. I'm well versed in the topic.

Your description is just a different way of saying what I've said. Harris is assuming a particular definition of free will that is simply false. It's a very naive conception that doesn't have anything to do with free will. I don't mean that in a rude way, it's a definition that most people who haven't studied and contemplated this stuff much at all might have. The difference with Harris is that he actually thinks he knows better when in fact he doesn't understand the philosophy involved at all. Nobody is redefining it, they're just better understanding what it actually is. What Harris is doing is counterproductive because he's just effectively repeating that "free will means having control over reality" over and over without making any good arguments for why that's a good way to conceive of free will. He's not reconciling the phenomenology and intuition with the science.

I didn't say "identifies". You're still thinking of it as a decision in the traditional sense. No such thing is happening. People are just being, and if they believe that what they are doing is in line with what they'd like to do, then they have agency. It's not circular at all. Nobody is deciding they have agency, they just have it.

You'll have to explain what you mean by the second paragraph as it's not clear what you're asking exactly.

You've horribly misunderstood what I said. We're not talking about arrogance. Harris holds a very naive conception of agency; be thinks that having agency means having control over reality in some way, making decisions that change the course of the world. This is what I mean by god-like. He thinks that since physical laws dictate that we have no such ability, we must not have free will. He's not wrong about the science, he's wrong about what constitutes free will. Free will is not the power to be a "first mover".

No, you're just using a false conception of agency. Agency isn't deciding how to conduct yourself, that's the point. You're reading my description of agency with a preconception that isn't compatible with it.

Can confirm; am illusion.

Even the soul or external force argument leads to determinism. Does a being with a soul get to choose that soul? If so, did they get to choose whatever it was that made that particular choice of soul? Any philosophical concept surrounding free will eventually leads back to there being an external determination made first. This original determination then effects all subsequent “choices” and negates any true free will.

That is essentially what I said, I just provided reasoning and left the pathway to changing opinion without ridicule.

I really appreciate this take and will exercise my free will to continue to assume the title actually read, "Free Willy is Only an Illusion if You are, too."

Willy and I are not illusions and I would challenge you to hypothesize some logical origin of this declared decision based on nuances contained within this rambling.

It both is and isn’t an if. It’s dialectical. Phenomenology and existentialism get at the nature of what it means to be and perceive. Sure that’s a subjective reality, which you need not pay attention to, but I similarly need not consider your skepticism to be well informed.

Right. So you agree it's an if? The other thing about philosophy is that as time goes on, a lot of it turns out to be wrong. Philosophers agreed about plenty of things in the past and were wrong. Yeah we can make judgements, but it was not wrong at all here to say "if" and saying it in any other way that didn't denote that this is not concrete would be irresponsible imo.

That’s the thing about philosophy tho. It asks questions that get beneath the material fabric of reality. Even if it’s real, it can still be an illusion, just a real illusion, which is what everyone agrees on since Kant. So like yeah, it’s a if, but I make the subjective value judgement that rational beings can see the intuitive truth in that logic, when it’s laid out properly, since the underlying reason that I see reflected in all (perceived) entities around me informs my consciousness as well, and I see the reason Kant lies out as necessarily true.

For me, environmental factors are too great. We can see it just in watching people who grow up in certain areas. Environment has a huge effect on our development and decision making. Beyond that our nature just comes from a long line of action and consequence all the way back to the big bang. Sure I can self-reflect and make changes or improvements to myself. I can decide to do something different and crazy, but did I? I can't know I need to change or should change or want to change unless I've encountered information to convince me of that. You cant know what you don't know and haven't been exposed too. Cause and effect are too great of factors in my reality to pick a side on free will. I lean toward no, though. The part I struggle with is the mind and the idea that all consciousness is God. Therefore God i.e. You and I have already predetermined this or are creating this reality as we go. It twists my mind.

Trying to explain freewill in terms of a soul is begging the question. Appealing to randomness is replacing one kind of prison with another. Compatibilism, no matter how you define it, is another illusion.

Freewill is nonsensical.

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