Compatibalism

[seer]

If so-called libertarian free will choices are influenced by antecedent causes then it is not libertarian free will, it's compatibilism i.e. the notion that free will and determinism are compatible. Whereas, in actuality, strict determinism and freedom are incompatible.

Oh look, I found a picture of Tass and Thinker, aren't they the cutest things!

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[JimL]

No, libertarian free will doesn't mean that our choices can't be influenced by antecedent causes.

I'm not sure anyone takes the radical position that our choices are completely independent of context, internal or external. What libertarian free will means is that our choice is not determined by antecedents. If you knew everything about me, then if libertarian free will is true, it would be impossible for you to demonstrate whether I would, in fact, go and kill someone one day. It can be rendered likely, but if I actually killed someone, then it would be because I chose to do so, not because I was made to do so.

However, no libertarian free will philosopher holds that it is unreasonable to make statements such as 'I know Jack, he's a good fellow, a more dependable and stable person you can never find, him losing his mind and killing his wife is unthinkable. I much rather suspect Dobson, he always had it in for her, and a bad temper too.'

Catholic moral theology has it spelled out in far greater detail. Your choices can form habits, and those habits can influence your decisions. You can be affected by what desires and temptations you're presented, and though you retain the free ability to choose to act against them, it's improbable that you could keep it up if you voluntarily exposed yourself to temptation for instance.

None of this is new philosophy.

What purpose does the brain serve if there is a free agent distinct from the brain that is making the choices, and how does this free agent then, move the physical body to action?

[Leonhard]

What purpose does the brain serve if there is a free agent distinct from the brain that is making the choices, and how does this free agent then, move the physical body to action?

I don't think there is an interaction problem or a distinction at all between the brain and the 'free agent'. Your body is part of you. It's not a shell you're remote controlling. The agency of the mind is a set of new properties, that makes 'the brain' and 'the body' capable of doing new things.

How this works out in detail is an interesting question, I refer to neurology and theories of cognition.

[JimL]

I don't think there is an interaction problem or a distinction at all between the brain and the 'free agent'. Your body is part of you. It's not a shell you're remote controlling. The agency of the mind is a set of new properties, that makes 'the brain' and 'the body' capable of doing new things.

How this works out in detail is an interesting question, I refer to neurology and theories of cognition.

What do you mean by "the mind is a set of new properties?" Do you mean that the mind is just a term describing the functioning of the physical brain itself? In other words is the physical brain doing the thinking, or is the mind something distinct from the brain which is doing the thinking?

[Tassman]

I don't think there is an interaction problem or a distinction at all between the brain and the 'free agent'. Your body is part of you. It's not a shell you're remote controlling. The agency of the mind is a set of new properties, that makes 'the brain' and 'the body' capable of doing new things.

How this works out in detail is an interesting question, I refer to neurology and theories of cognition.

Your body is you. You are what the brain is doing. The mind and consciousness can be reduced to the neurological function of the brain and nervous system.

[Leonhard]

What do you mean by "the mind is a set of new properties?"[/ Do you mean that the mind is just a term describing the functioning of the physical brain itself? In other words is the physical brain doing the thinking, or is the mind something distinct from the brain which is doing the thinking?

Your body is you. You are what the brain is doing.

I mean that in hylomorphic dualism the soul is the substantial form of the body. This is the Aristotelian notion of 'form' as (that which gives to matter its properties, i.e makes it what it is). I reject the substance dualism of Descartes. So there's no remote controlling being inside the brain (if we take the brain as being the exclusive domain of the rational soul, which seems like). However, the brain acts in ways it wouldn't unless it had a human soul. It has new properties, new abilities, such as the ability to make rational choices. A part of this intelligence, namely the one that can understand abstract terms intentionally, is immaterial and not encorporated.

There's just no interaction problem in hylomorphic dualism, as we don't consider the soul a separate substance. A human soul is a set of new properties, abilities, and powers, added onto living matter, augmenting what it does basically.

The mind and consciousness can be reduced to the neurological function of the brain and nervous system.

Neurologists don't even understand what consciousness is yet in terms of what the brain is doing. They know far more about how it can be impaired than how it's implemented. The same is even more true for how our rationality works, more so how this functions neurologically. You're overblowing how far that science has come.

I'm quite open to any scientific developments in that field, and I eagerly read about the discoveries on that.

The big problem for any reductionist is that they would not be able to explain what it means for humans to have thoughts 'about something'. Or what it means to have intentions, basically what it means for something to 'mean' something. I'm not sure what pathway is open to a consistent reductionist, except to reject that we actually ever think 'about' anything.

[shunyadragon]

I mean that in hylomorphic dualism the soul is the substantial form of the body. This is the Aristotelian notion of 'form' as (that which gives to matter its properties, i.e makes it what it is). I reject the substance dualism of Descartes. So there's no remote controlling being inside the brain (if we take the brain as being the exclusive domain of the rational soul, which seems like). However, the brain acts in ways it wouldn't unless it had a human soul. It has new properties, new abilities, such as the ability to make rational choices. A part of this intelligence, namely the one that can understand abstract terms intentionally, is immaterial and not incorporated.

The big problem for any reductionist is that they would not be able to explain what it means for humans to have thoughts 'about something'. Or what it means to have intentions, basically what it means for something to 'mean' something. I'm not sure what pathway is open to a consistent reductionist, except to reject that we actually ever think 'about' anything.

You may say your open to scientific advancements on this, but the above is a classic 'argument form ignorance' to justify a theological world view. The present lack of knowledge does not cause reductionists any problems, because all present scientific knowledge still supports no other possible explanation, and our knowledge concerning the brain, mind and consciousness is increasing over time.

[JimL]

I mean that in hylomorphic dualism the soul is the substantial form of the body. This is the Aristotelian notion of 'form' as (that which gives to matter its properties, i.e makes it what it is). I reject the substance dualism of Descartes. So there's no remote controlling being inside the brain (if we take the brain as being the exclusive domain of the rational soul, which seems like). However, the brain acts in ways it wouldn't unless it had a human soul. It has new properties, new abilities, such as the ability to make rational choices. A part of this intelligence, namely the one that can understand abstract terms intentionally, is immaterial and not encorporated.

And what makes you think that this substantial form of the body, that out of which the body is formed, is an intelligence in its own right. For instance, one could equate this soul, or substantial form of the body, with energy, because matter is a product of energy, but I don't think you would argue that energy is an intelligence in its own right. Perhaps by soul, or substantial form of the body, you have something else in mind.

There's just no interaction problem in hylomorphic dualism, as we don't consider the soul a separate substance. A human soul is a set of new properties, abilities, and powers, added onto living matter, augmenting what it does basically.

Then it isn't a soul, or the substantial form of matter. Properties, abilities, and powers of living matter are the properties, abilities and powers of living matter, so all that the above is actually saying, afaics, is that living matter is a soul, but the term itself has no extra meaning.

[Leonhard]

And what makes you think that this substantial form of the body, that out of which the body is formed, is an intelligence in its own right.

Do you mean to say "What makes you think a human has intelligence?"

That's basically what your question amounts to, when asked about humans. Everything that's made of matter has form, otherwise, it wouldn't exist. Wood carved into the form of a chair. Ice in the form of a snowflake. Cotten in the form of a sheet. Etc... each particular form is limited by what the matter can ultimately be, but nothing physical exists without having a form of some sort. This 'form' dictates its shape, but also all its properties. A chair is chair-like. A table table-like, a match has match properties, such as the ability to be struck and lit.

And humans, have rational intelligence as part of what we are.

[The Thinker]

Wow! Another sock puppet chimes in! Where do you buy these things, my grand kids would love one!

Yup you definitely sound like someone whose thoughts are random and uncontrolled. Can you show me LFW is coherent at all?

[seer]

Yup you definitely sound like someone whose thoughts are random and uncontrolled. Can you show me LFW is coherent at all?

Sure sock puppet, as soon as you deductively show me that you were determined to speak a truism above. After all your thoughts are too uncontrolled.

[Tassman]

Yup you definitely sound like someone whose thoughts are random and uncontrolled. Can you show me LFW is coherent at all?

No he can't show us that LFW is coherent. When pressed he will launch into a god-did-it argument, i.e god mystically granted humans LFW...or resort to the rather silly mockery we're copping at the moment. Neither option is satisfactory, obviously, but it's all he's got.

[Tassman]

There's just no interaction problem in hylomorphic dualism, as we don't consider the soul a separate substance. A human soul is a set of new properties, abilities, and powers, added onto living matter, augmenting what it does basically.

The big problem for any reductionist is that they would not be able to explain what it means for humans to have thoughts 'about something'. Or what it means to have intentions, basically what it means for something to 'mean' something. I'm not sure what pathway is open to a consistent reductionist, except to reject that we actually ever think 'about' anything.

or humans. This is merely an Argument from Ignorance and in any event it creates more problems than it solves.

[Leonhard]

With hylomorphic dualism we have the notion of soul as that which makes a living thing alive,

And makes the living organism, what it is.

Again I'm not sure you understand hylomorphic dualism. It is specifically not claiming that there's a second substance, remote controlling the brain. There's no ghost in the machine. The soul is the substantial form of the body. It is because my body is human, and functioning normally, that I'm able to think and reason.

Yes, I agree that doesn't describe how this takes place in detail, but so what? Your objection was to the soundness of Libertarian Free Will, to which you continuously return to the interaction problem whenever someone describes causation that isn't material. All I have to do is describe, not defend, but describe one single case that is logically self-consistent in order to defend against the notion that it is incoherent.

I really don't have to do more than that.

Many animals have thoughts, not just humans, and they think rationally as well.

If they do, that is not a problem. They have souls as well.

You're straw-manning the argument. I never said, "We don't know how this is done, ergo soul." My argument, if I were to make it and I won't here, would be to use intentionality, aboutness and possible qualia (less certain about that one) to argue that reductionistic materialism has serious conceptual problems with even describing these, no matter how complex the science of neurology gets, it would not amount to an explanation of those hard problems (as Chalmers calls them). Then I would focus on where I think the crux of the problem is, and defend hylomorphic dualism which solves all the conceptual problems, those hard ones, and leaves the soft ones as to how this works in detail, to the neurology department.

This is merely an Argument from Ignorance and in any event it creates more problems than it solves.

It is no argument from ignorance. And it adds no problems to the mix. A Thomist expects the brain to work brainly and do mind stuff. Which it is quite capable of doing. We don't make any claim about there being a secret part of the brain that acts as a transmission reciever, this is rather what the Cartesian dualists expect, the body being a remote controlled meat puppet and the soul being the driver. That's quite absurd and indeed creates a whole host of problems.

[JimL]

Do you mean to say "What makes you think a human has intelligence?"

That's basically what your question amounts to, when asked about humans. Everything that's made of matter has form, otherwise, it wouldn't exist. Wood carved into the form of a chair. Ice in the form of a snowflake. Cotten in the form of a sheet. Etc... each particular form is limited by what the matter can ultimately be, but nothing physical exists without having a form of some sort. This 'form' dictates its shape, but also all its properties. A chair is chair-like. A table table-like, a match has match properties, such as the ability to be struck and lit.

And humans, have rational intelligence as part of what we are.

Okay, thats a little clearer I think. But so what, what does the form, and the properties associated with that form, have to do with a soul? I mean naming it a soul doesn't seem to change anything of its singular materialistic nature. The matter of a body in the form of a nervous system, a brain, has the property to rationaly compute. You say that therefore the brain acts in ways it otherwise wouldn't unless it had a human soul as if a human soul was something different than, and causative of, the properties of the material form. I guess what I'm trying to understand is in what sense do you understand hylomorphic dualism to actually be dualism.