Is libertarian free will coherent?

[Tassman]

By hypothesis, I was discussing the possibility of one part of the mind (the will) changing state of another part of the mind, which would be a change in mental state. So a change in mental state can't disprove the hypothesis.

...and where does the will originate?

[seer]

Logically unjustified does not = logically contradictory. So are you trying to say that all beliefs or knowledge is equally unjustified? Are you trying to say my beliefs are just as justified as yours are? If so, explain why?

My only point is your hypocrisy Thinker. You can not even begin to approach reality from a logical foundation, yet chide other for their perceived violations of logical rules.

I stopped where I stopped because that is the minimal amount that I need to assume to make sense of the world. It is not an arbitrary stopping point. You on the other hand start with the assumption that the Bible is god's word, which is assuming your conclusion -- and something that by the way is demonstrably false.

If course it is an arbitrary stopping point, why not go one step back. How is stopping at your subjective mental state concerning what makes sense of the world not arbitrary? After all your bare assertion that what goes on in your mind actually corresponds to reality is completely without rational justification.

[The Thinker]

My only point is your hypocrisy Thinker. You can not even begin to approach reality from a logical foundation, yet chide other for their perceived violations of logical rules.

at all.

If course it is an arbitrary stopping point, why not go one step back.

Back where? Give me an example. I've already given you logical reasons for my basic beliefs. Now you're just in denial because you don't want to admit you are wrong.

How is stopping at your subjective mental state concerning what makes sense of the world not arbitrary?

Because that's the one thing we all have to do in order to make a reasonable discussion between us even possible. If you don't grant that an external world exists, and you believe the rest of the world and I and any evidence I show you aren't even real, then it's game over.

After all your bare assertion that what goes on in your mind actually corresponds to reality is completely without rational justification.

I never made a bare assertion, I gave you a logical argument that it's possible. So my view is completely rational, unlike your LFW.

[seer]

at all.

So you agree that we can not logically prove reality.

Back where? Give me an example. I've already given you logical reasons for my basic beliefs. Now you're just in denial because you don't want to admit you are wrong.

No you didn't, you asserted, you never made a deductive argument.

Because that's the one thing we all have to do in order to make a reasonable discussion between us even possible. If you don't grant that an external world exists, and you believe the rest of the world and I and any evidence I show you aren't even real, then it's game over.

Yes, we all have faith that what goes on in our mind corresponds to reality.

I never made a bare assertion, I gave you a logical argument that it's possible. So my view is completely rational, unlike your LFW.

Please refer me back to the logically deductive argument you made.

[The Thinker]

If you are defining "random" in that way, such that:

agent has cause & has purpose => not random
agent has cause & lacks purpose => not random
agent lacks cause & has purpose => random
agent lacks cause & lacks purpose => random

Then I have no problem with LFW choices being "random" in that sense. It would be merely tautological. Given that, a LFW actor could still act in orderly, rational manner and accomplish goals. What else would I want?

No. Uncaused means random such that the will will have no purpose at all. Having a purpose would be having a cause.

It is consistent with your three points in the OP: (1) The agent is control of determining the resulting action, (2) The agent does actualize the selected action, and (3) in the same situation, the agent could have selected one of the other alternatives.

No it isn't, you're just asserting this. You have not in any way logically shown how an agent can have any control over a thought that arises in their mind. You just assert that at t2 or t3 that it is a voluntary thought. Voluntary thought by the way is not define by you. In compatibilism, a voluntary thought is a thought that is caused, but not that is naturally in the brain and not by other agents or a something like a tumor, brain damage, etc.

I didn't say either of those things. I explicitly denied their being identical (unless we use your tautological definiton of "random"). And I made no claim about whether we are capable of distinguishing those two different things.

So they're not identical, and yet you're agnostic on whether we can distinguish them? Make up your mind. So far I have you claiming LFW works like something random, that we may or may not be able to distinguish from true randomness, and yet you want to say the will has purpose governing it, which means it would have a cause. This is not LFW in any way.

The only thing the agent need control is the agent's action. And the agent does control the action. The action is not uncaused. It is caused by the agent.

The agent has no control over its will, which leads to the action, that's the point. The action is not the issue, it's the will. If it is uncaused you can't have any control over it, and that is required for my (1). Hence LFW is incoherent.

That doesn't follow. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that the selection at t2 were 'random', such that it were uncaused. That doesn't imply that no other relation exists. On the contrary, there necessarily is at least one relationship: the selected option must be one of the options from which the selection is made!

If the selection at t2 were random it wouldn't have any necessary relationship to what happened before at all. You're trying to say that it's random, but only within the confines of a certain space. That wouldn't be LFW either, because the agent would have no control of the limited-range randomness.

That doesn't work. There are three instances of "thought" in the sentence. The first instance is explicitly a thought about the second instance. If the second is a thought about ice cream, then the first would have to be a thought about the thought about ice cream, and thus cannot be the same thing. You have to choose. Is the first instance a thought about ice cream, or a thought about the thought about ice cream?

It is a thought about ice cream. To simply things, you can't have chosen to think about ice cream before you think about ice cream, hence we do not have control of our will or thoughts. Thoughts or choices arise in consciousness and we cannot control them. This is best explained by our brain causing our will and thoughts, which is what all the scientific evidence shows. The only way an agent could possibly be in control of its thoughts is if it could control them beforehand, but doing that requires them to think about the very thing they were going to choose to think about, and so the thought about ice cream that is needed to be able to choose ice cream would itself need its own prior thought and you'd get an infinite regress. Hence it is logically impossible.

And my comments do eliminate any problem. A person could deliberate about whether to contemplate the idea of ice cream, by contemplating the idea of contemplating the idea of ice cream, which is not the same as actually contemplating the idea of ice cream.

That doesn't resolve the issue at all. A person deliberating about whether to contemplate the idea of ice cream, by contemplating the idea of contemplating the idea of ice cream, is already thinking about ice cream, and that arose in their consciousness that they couldn't have had control over, because once again it is logically impossible. And if someone thinks, "I'm not going to think about ice cream," that itself is a thought they couldn't have chosen.

(This is in addition to my other ways of eliminating any problem: E.g. one can contemplate the idea of ice cream at t1 when deliberating about whether to contemplate the idea of ice cream at t2. No contradiction. Or e.g. one can contemplate just an abstract idea about ice cream while deliberating about whether to contemplate concrete idea(s) of ice cream. Any of these eliminates any supposed contradiction, because in each case there is a difference between the earlier contemplation and the later contemplation, so there is no contradiction in contemplating the earlier idea when planning ahead to contemplate the later idea.)

This is just more of your assertion. How did the person choose to think about ice cream in the first place for t1? How did they choose to begin deliberating about whether to contemplate the idea of ice cream at t2? If a thought or a deliberation arises in consciousness, how can you show me that it is not something caused (determined) by prior events, and not something that is random, and logically prove to me that the agent chose to think that? I think you would agree that it is logically impossible to choose your thoughts before your thoughts. (And if you try to say that deliberately thinking about what you plan on thinking about, like consciously thinking "I'm going to think about ice cream in 5 seconds" doesn't resolve it.)

Says you.

If you are correct, then the original Uncaused Causer of the universe must have changed its state in the process of causing the first effect, in which case it follows that there is nothing impossible about an uncaused causer changing its own state in the process. (And thus the objection I was addressing vanishes.)

Well your example was that "The mental state of the agent doesn't change." Something that cannot change cannot cause an effect outside of it. It would be as if your mind was frozen in the thought of ice cream. You could never think "I want a sandwich instead" because that would require a mental change.

That's not an argument.

Do you really need me to spell out how incoherent it is to claim that an unchanging will can cause a wide variety of different effects?

By hypothesis, I was discussing the possibility of one part of the mind (the will) changing state of another part of the mind, which would be a change in mental state. So a change in mental state can't disprove the hypothesis.

That makes no sense. How does an unchanging will do anything? Logically explain this. Once the will changes the state of another part of the mind, it must change, because why did it decide to do change X vs change Y? How does it cause the other part of the mind at one particular time rather than another if it is unchanging? How could initiate an action if it can't change?

[The Thinker]

So you agree that we can not logically prove reality.

No one can logically prove an external world exists. But that doesn't make any claim about the external world valid.

No you didn't, you asserted, you never made a deductive argument.

You just got finished telling me there is no logical justification for anything, and now you want a deductive argument? Wow.

Yes, we all have faith that what goes on in our mind corresponds to reality.

We call this a basic belief.

Please refer me back to the logically deductive argument you made.

I did so right here:

Let's say A = adding one rock to one rock leaves me with two rocks. I take one rock, add it to another rock. I get all this data from my senses of sight and my brain processes that data and I am determined to conclude that adding one rock to one rock leaves me with two rocks. The sight of one one rock being added to one rock determined my brain to believe that A = adding one rock to one rock leaves me with two rocks. That is a physical and logically deductive mathematical proof that does not require induction . Now if you say that I can't know for sure whether my belief in A is true you will be violating your claim that "I never asked you to demonstrate with 100% certainty.

[Joel]

...and where does the will originate?

I'm not sure what you are asking.
If you are asking how the person came to have the faculty of will, then it would be that the person was created by God, procreated by his parents, or however you'd like to put it.

[Joel]

Having a purpose would be having a cause.

I've explained, multiple times, that that's false. The two are very different things.

[My model] is consistent with your three points in the OP: (1) The agent is control of determining the resulting action, (2) The agent does actualize the selected action, and (3) in the same situation, the agent could have selected one of the other alternatives.

No it isn't, you're just asserting this.

Those things follow from the very statement of my model.
At t2, the agent selects from the alternative actions.
At t3, the selected action is underway.
At t2 the agent could have selected one of the other alternatives that were enumerated at t1.

(And, again, I don't have to assert that the model is true. It only needs be consistent with your criteria.)

So they're not identical, and yet you're agnostic on whether we can distinguish them? Make up your mind.

Do you still not understand that just because we are presently unable to experimentally determine whether something X is true, that that does not imply that there is no distinction between whether X is true or false?

So far I have you claiming LFW works like something random,

No, that's been your claim, not mine.

The only thing the agent need control is the agent's action. And the agent does control the action. The action is not uncaused. It is caused by the agent.

The agent has no control over its will, which leads to the action, that's the point. The action is not the issue, it's the will. If it is uncaused you can't have any control over it,

The only relevant question is whether agent controls the action. If so, what more would I want?
And as I've said before, I don't think the will is necessarily a thing. "Will" simply refers to the agent's control--i.e., of the action.
By insisting that the agent must in turn control the agent's will is to insist that the agent control the agent's control, which doesn't make any sense. The will is not an intermediate thing. It is not an instrument by which the agent controls the action.

It would be sort of a Zeno's-paradox-like argument. I could make a similarly unreasonable demand upon determinism. I could say that nothing X can deterministically cause Y, because that would be a causation Z, and X would have to cause Z. But in turn, X causing Z would be a causation W, so X would have to cause W, ad infinitum.

And again I point out that there must be an original Uncaused Causer of the universe. So there can't be anything logically impossible about the existence of an uncaused causer.

That doesn't follow. Let's suppose for the sake of argument that the selection at t2 were 'random', such that it were uncaused. That doesn't imply that no other relation exists. On the contrary, there necessarily is at least one relationship: the selected option must be one of the options from which the selection is made!

If the selection at t2 were random it wouldn't have any necessary relationship to what happened before at all.

Having no relationship would be like selecting from the options of "heads" and "tails" and selecting "purple." In which case you would be talking about something different from what I'm talking about.

You're trying to say that it's random, but only within the confines of a certain space. That wouldn't be LFW either,

My point was not that if it were random it would still be LFW. My point was that even if the selecting at t2 (from the options at t1) were random, the result would have a necessary relationship to the options at t1.
(And I'm not trying to say that it's random.)

And my comments do eliminate any problem. A person could deliberate about whether to contemplate the idea of ice cream, by contemplating the idea of contemplating the idea of ice cream, which is not the same as actually contemplating the idea of ice cream.

That doesn't resolve the issue at all. A person deliberating about whether to contemplate the idea of ice cream, by contemplating the idea of contemplating the idea of ice cream, is already thinking about ice cream,

That doesn't follow. The contemplation of the idea of contemplating ice cream is not the same thing as actually contemplating ice cream.

(This is in addition to my other ways of eliminating any problem: E.g. one can contemplate the idea of ice cream at t1 when deliberating about whether to contemplate the idea of ice cream at t2. No contradiction. Or e.g. one can contemplate just an abstract idea about ice cream while deliberating about whether to contemplate concrete idea(s) of ice cream. Any of these eliminates any supposed contradiction, because in each case there is a difference between the earlier contemplation and the later contemplation, so there is no contradiction in contemplating the earlier idea when planning ahead to contemplate the later idea.)

This is just more of your assertion. How did the person choose to think about ice cream in the first place for t1? How did they choose to begin deliberating about whether to contemplate the idea of ice cream at t2?

Irrelevant. Even if the contemplation of it at t1 (and the deliberation) were involuntary, that does not preclude making the voluntary choice regarding whether to continue thinking it at t3.

And there's still the third possibility: "one can contemplate just an abstract idea about ice cream while deliberating about whether to contemplate concrete idea(s) of ice cream."

Your argument is that making the choice supposedly requires the person to "think about the very thing they were going to choose to think about". Each of these possibilities avoids that by explaining how the thoughts can be not the very same thing.

Well your example was that "The mental state of the agent doesn't change."

My discussion proceeded in stages, from
1) An unchanging Uncaused Causer of the universe, to:
2) An unchanging human mind causing effects external to it, to:
3) An unchanging part of the human mind causing effects external to that part (including changes to the rest of the mind). E.g. the part A that doesn't contemplate ideas could control what ideas the part B contemplates.
You were replying to the last stage, which does include changing mental states.

Something that cannot change cannot cause an effect outside of it.

Says you.

And I must repeat (because you didn't respond to it): "If you are correct, then the original Uncaused Causer of the universe must have changed its state in the process of causing the first effect, in which case it follows that there is nothing impossible about an uncaused causer changing its own state in the process. (And thus the objection I was addressing vanishes.) "

Do you really need me to spell out how incoherent it is to claim that an unchanging will can cause a wide variety of different effects?

The situations and alternatives are changing external to the will. Different choices could result in different effects, because it is different situations.

We could also go to a fourth stage where
4) The effects of the will could result in a causal chain that affects/changes the will at a future time t4. If the selection at t2 was LFW, an effect on the will at t4 cannot possibly retroactively make the t2 event not LFW. And it couldn't, regardless how short the causal chain is. So it seems there is no logical problem with a self-changing uncaused causer.

And again, if you insist that uncaused causers be self-changing, then the original objection vanishes.

(And I have to remind that treating the will as a thing (part of the mind) in this discussion of these 'stages' is just to make it easier to reason about this particular objection. And this objection clearly is not even worth discussing because you seem perfectly fine with--even insisting upon--self-changing uncaused causers.)

[Tassman]

I'm not sure what you are asking.
If you are asking how the person came to have the faculty of will, then it would be that the person was created by God, procreated by his parents, or however you'd like to put it.

[The Thinker]

I've explained, multiple times, that that's false. The two are very different things.

You haven't explained anything, you've just claimed that a will with a purpose is not caused. You seem to be under the impression that just saying something shows it to be true. There are only 2 options available to us: Either something is caused, or uncaused. That's it.

Those things follow from the very statement of my model.
At t2, the agent selects from the alternative actions.
At t3, the selected action is underway.
At t2 the agent could have selected one of the other alternatives that were enumerated at t1.

(And, again, I don't have to assert that the model is true. It only needs be consistent with your criteria.)

It isn't consistent because all you are literally doing is claiming that the agent made a LFW choice at t2. That's literally it! Just claiming that at t2 "the agent selects from the alternative actions" doesn't in any way show that my (1) is logically possible. Making a mental choice between 2 alternatives is something entirely compatible with what determinism would say, and the problem for you is that for determinism we have a cause, but on your view we don't (claiming the "agent" causes the will only pushes the problem one step back), and so on your view an agent cannot be in control of something that is uncaused, because that is logically impossible. And claiming that the agent has a purpose doesn't resolve the issue, because if a purpose results in choice X over Y, then it is caused, and the question to ask is what caused the purpose, and what caused the cause of the purpose, and you're going to get a chain of causes that is either going to show determinism is true, and hence no LFW, or some kind of uncaused event, which must be totally random, even if it is confined, and that would not be an example of an agent control its will, hence no LFW.

Do you still not understand that just because we are presently unable to experimentally determine whether something X is true, that that does not imply that there is no distinction between whether X is true or false?

In a situation where X is logically incoherent, and Y is coherent, when they both would appear to be the same exactly way, and indistinguishable, then yes.

No, that's been your claim, not mine.

OK, then explain to me the difference, such that we'd clearly be able to tell the difference between a situation where an agent makes an LFW choice vs. a determined choice.

The only relevant question is whether agent controls the action. If so, what more would I want?
And as I've said before, I don't think the will is necessarily a thing. "Will" simply refers to the agent's control--i.e., of the action.
By insisting that the agent must in turn control the agent's will is to insist that the agent control the agent's control, which doesn't make any sense. The will is not an intermediate thing. It is not an instrument by which the agent controls the action.

It would be sort of a Zeno's-paradox-like argument. I could make a similarly unreasonable demand upon determinism. I could say that nothing X can deterministically cause Y, because that would be a causation Z, and X would have to cause Z. But in turn, X causing Z would be a causation W, so X would have to cause W, ad infinitum.

The infinite regress problem is one of the reasons exactly why LFW is incoherent. And the problem you describe makes no sense; and no, no such problem would apply to determinism. In determinism X causes Y which causes Z, and on and on, and X of course has causal antecedents. And just as a reminder, my argument against LFW does not depend on determinism being true, it works perfectly fine on undeterminism because the agent would still not be able to control the outcome on a random or probablistic indeterministic ontology.

If an action necessarily follows from the will or mind or soul (or whatever) deciding to do it, then whatever the hell that deciding factor is, is what we're debating.

And again I point out that there must be an original Uncaused Causer of the universe. So there can't be anything logically impossible about the existence of an uncaused causer.

Once again, where did I argue before that an uncaused causer is logically impossible? I said such a thing could not have LFW because something uncaused cannot have been controlled by an agent, that is what is logically impossible. As for the "Uncaused Causer of the universe", this is a whole other debate which we could maybe have in the future, but I disagree of course. The problem with LFW would also apply to the "Uncaused Causer".

Having no relationship would be like selecting from the options of "heads" and "tails" and selecting "purple." In which case you would be talking about something different from what I'm talking about.


My point was not that if it were random it would still be LFW. My point was that even if the selecting at t2 (from the options at t1) were random, the result would have a necessary relationship to the options at t1.
(And I'm not trying to say that it's random.)

To your first point, I addressed that in my second sentence. I get your second point, but if t2 is uncaused there is no explicable reason why it would be confined at all. Saying a "purpose" confines doesn't actually explain anything. How can a purpose have any effect on something that is totally uncaused?

That doesn't follow. The contemplation of the idea of contemplating ice cream is not the same thing as actually contemplating ice cream.

It does follow, because you cannot contemplation of the idea of contemplating ice cream, without already having thought about ice cream -- which you couldn't have chosen.

Irrelevant. Even if the contemplation of it at t1 (and the deliberation) were involuntary, that does not preclude making the voluntary choice regarding whether to continue thinking it at t3.

And there's still the third possibility: "one can contemplate just an abstract idea about ice cream while deliberating about whether to contemplate concrete idea(s) of ice cream."

Your argument is that making the choice supposedly requires the person to "think about the very thing they were going to choose to think about". Each of these possibilities avoids that by explaining how the thoughts can be not the very same thing.

That makes no sense at all. To contemplate "an abstract idea about ice cream" requires you to think about ice cream, to "contemplate concrete idea(s) of ice cream" does the same thing. Whether t1 is involuntary or not does make a difference on t2, but you have not shown that t2, is a LFW choice. To give you an analogy, being able to control your will would be tantamount to being able to control who you are born as. You can't choose who you'll be born as because you'd have exist before you exist. Likewise, to choose your will or thoughts would require you to think about what you will later think about. In the same exact way how we don't get to choose who we're born as, we don't get to choose our thoughts.

None of your options resolves this problem, so no, you have not avoided anything.

My discussion proceeded in stages, from
1) An unchanging Uncaused Causer of the universe, to:
2) An unchanging human mind causing effects external to it, to:
3) An unchanging part of the human mind causing effects external to that part (including changes to the rest of the mind). E.g. the part A that doesn't contemplate ideas could control what ideas the part B contemplates.
You were replying to the last stage, which does include changing mental states.

Absolutely nothing here is logically possible. To cause something requires change, because the causer has to do something. Otherwise it cannot cause anything. What would be the difference between its ontological state when it causes something vs not causes something? Would they be identical? If so, who could it cause something? A timeless mind is by definition, non functional. Likewise, an unchanging being is by definition acausal.

Says you.

And I must repeat (because you didn't respond to it): "If you are correct, then the original Uncaused Causer of the universe must have changed its state in the process of causing the first effect, in which case it follows that there is nothing impossible about an uncaused causer changing its own state in the process. (And thus the objection I was addressing vanishes.) "

I think that the whole concept of an uncaused causer deity, which is the standard traditional concept of god, is incoherent. So I'm not even granting you this possibility for your example. Such a thing would still have the same randomness problem that LFW has if somehow we could entertain the idea of an uncaused causer deity. Now regarding humans living in time who are finite in their abilities, I never said that them being an uncaused causer is incoherent. I said it would not be LFW because the person or agent can't choose or have any control over something that is uncaused. This is something you just never get.

The situations and alternatives are changing external to the will. Different choices could result in different effects, because it is different situations.

We could also go to a fourth stage where
4) The effects of the will could result in a causal chain that affects/changes the will at a future time t4. If the selection at t2 was LFW, an effect on the will at t4 cannot possibly retroactively make the t2 event not LFW. And it couldn't, regardless how short the causal chain is. So it seems there is no logical problem with a self-changing uncaused causer.

It doesn't matter that the "situations and alternatives are changing external to the will" because an unchanging will cannot produce any effect. It must change in order to be able to "control" alternatives an have done otherwise. How could a thing/being/part of a mind (or whatever) that is ontologically identical in two identical scenarios do something different in each, where the effect is also in its control?

And again, if you insist that uncaused causers be self-changing, then the original objection vanishes.

A self changing being that has a change that is uncaused is definitely incoherent. Is this the nonsense one has to entertain to make a case for LFW.

(And I have to remind that treating the will as a thing (part of the mind) in this discussion of these 'stages' is just to make it easier to reason about this particular objection. And this objection clearly is not even worth discussing because you seem perfectly fine with--even insisting upon--self-changing uncaused causers.)

No I am not fine with "self changing uncaused causers." The whole idea is incoherent. I was just entertaining your idea for the sake of argument, just like I'm granting the soul here for the sake of argument. If your will (or "thing" - whatever you want to call it) is uncaused, it could not have been under your control in any way (my 1) because to be under your control would at the very least require you to be the cause. But it's uncaused! Hence this is not LFW.

[Joel]

First, I wasn't asserting that. I was offering that as a hypothetical possibility, in a progression of hypothetical possibilities.

Secondly, if you are insisting that nothing but deterministic cause exists, such that something else must cause the will to act upon the rest of the mind, then you are begging the question.

[Joel]

You haven't explained anything, you've just claimed that a will with a purpose is not caused.

I have not said that.
I'll try explaining in a different way. Suppose you are pushing a cart toward a goal. The cause of the cart's movement is you pushing it. The goal is the thing aimed at (the purpose). The goal is not the thing that causes the cart's movement. The cause and the purpose are two different things. And the existence of a goal is not sufficient to cause the movement.

There are only 2 options available to us: Either something is caused, or uncaused. That's it.

Sure, in the excluded-middle sense. But a thing (that is caused or uncaused) can also have other properties besides, say being green or blue. Thus leading to many combinations of possible properties.

Just claiming that at t2 "the agent selects from the alternative actions" doesn't in any way show that my (1) is logically possible.

That 'claim' is just part of the definition of my model. And the model is consistent with your (1). That's all I need. The burden would be on you to prove that my model is self-contradictory.

and so on your view an agent cannot be in control of something that is uncaused, because that is logically impossible. And claiming that the agent has a purpose doesn't resolve the issue,

First, the only thing the agent need control is the action, and, in my view, the action is caused.

Secondly, I never suggested that purpose is part of the control of the action; I said it implies the action is non-arbitrary.

Do you still not understand that just because we are presently unable to experimentally determine whether something X is true, that that does not imply that there is no distinction between whether X is true or false?

In a situation where X is logically incoherent, and Y is coherent, when they both would appear to be the same exactly way, and indistinguishable, then yes.

This makes no sense. There is no Y in my question.

OK, then explain to me the difference, such that we'd clearly be able to tell the difference between a situation where an agent makes an LFW choice vs. a determined choice.

1) If there is no difference between LFW and determinism, then what are we debating about?
2) You yourself stated the difference in your OP.
3) That there is a difference does not imply that we will be able to observationally tell the difference.

I could make a similarly unreasonable demand upon determinism. I could say that nothing X can deterministically cause Y, because that would be a causation Z, and X would have to cause Z. But in turn, X causing Z would be a causation W, so X would have to cause W, ad infinitum.

The infinite regress problem is one of the reasons exactly why LFW is incoherent. And the problem you describe makes no sense;

Yes, the problem I describe makes no sense--in exactly the same way the problem you describe about LFW makes no sense. In the case of LFW, the agent is X and the action is Y, and the "will" is just another word for the causation Z.

Once again, where did I argue before that an uncaused causer is logically impossible?

To say a person made a LFW choice is just to say that the person was an uncaused causer. And your position is that that is logically impossible. If it's not logically impossible, then the debate is settled.

I said such a thing could not have LFW because something uncaused cannot have been controlled by an agent, that is what is logically impossible.
...
I never said that [an agent] being an uncaused causer is incoherent. I said it would not be LFW because the person or agent can't choose or have any control over something that is uncaused. This is something you just never get.

But you are asking for something that is not necessary. The only uncaused thing is the agent. So you are complaining that the agent doesn't control the agent (in the situation where the agent does control the agent's action (which is caused)). If the agent controls the action, what more control could we want?

To give you an analogy, being able to control your will would be tantamount to....

As I said before, your "will" is just another word for your control (of your actions). So your insistence that you control your control, is like insisting that X cause its causation of Y. That doesn't add anything meaningful to the concept.

I get your second point, but if t2 is uncaused there is no explicable reason why it would be confined at all.

Perhaps because that is the extent of the agent's faculty/ability. Perhaps the agent has the power to select within that confines but lacks the power to select outside of it. A person's abilities are limited.

It does follow, because you cannot contemplation of the idea of contemplating ice cream, without already having thought about ice cream

One example to illustrate this (contemplating the idea of contemplating X without actually contemplating X) is the case where you are struggling to remember X. The fact that your memory has not (yet) successfully recalled X implies that you are not actually contemplating X itself. Yet the fact that you are struggling to recall X implies that you are thinking about the idea of contemplating X. You are trying to contemplate X but have not yet successfully done so. Thus the former is possible without the latter.

That makes no sense at all. To contemplate "an abstract idea about ice cream" requires you to think about ice cream, to "contemplate concrete idea(s) of ice cream" does the same thing.

It's easier to grasp in examples I gave before: You can contemplate the quadratic equation in the abstract, without the particular content of the equation being in your conscious mind at the moment. We could come up with various similar examples, contemplating the idea of the Gettysburg Address in the abstract without contemplating the actual words of the Address.

Irrelevant. Even if the contemplation of it at t1 (and the deliberation) were involuntary, that does not preclude making the voluntary choice regarding whether to continue thinking it at t3.

Whether t1 is involuntary or not does make a difference on t2

How so?

Your argument is that making the choice supposedly requires the person to "think about the very thing they were going to choose to think about". Each of these possibilities avoids that by explaining how the thoughts can be not the very same thing.

None of your options resolves this problem, so no, you have not avoided anything.

My discussion proceeded in stages, from
1) An unchanging Uncaused Causer of the universe, to:
2) An unchanging human mind causing effects external to it, to:
3) An unchanging part of the human mind causing effects external to that part (including changes to the rest of the mind). E.g. the part A that doesn't contemplate ideas could control what ideas the part B contemplates.
You were replying to the last stage, which does include changing mental states.

Absolutely nothing here is logically possible. To cause something requires change,...

So then you must adopt a self-changing uncaused causer, in which case the objection I was addressing vanishes.

To cause something requires change, because the causer has to do something. Otherwise it cannot cause anything.

Says you.

I think that the whole concept of an uncaused causer deity, which is the standard traditional concept of god, is incoherent. So I'm not even granting you this possibility for your example.

I didn't say deity.

How could a thing/being/part of a mind (or whatever) that is ontologically identical in two identical scenarios do something different in each, where the effect is also in its control?

By it not being deterministic. It seems that your problem is that you insist on thinking of it as a deterministic thing, which begs the question.

A self changing being that has a change that is uncaused is definitely incoherent....No I am not fine with "self changing uncaused causers."

It seems you've walked yourself into a contradiction. At least one uncaused causer has existed (whether God or the Big Bang or whatever). In the event of its acting as an uncaused causer, it either was self-changing or not. You seem to be saying that each of those options is logically impossible and thus false, which is a contradiction.

[Tassman]

First, I wasn't asserting that. I was offering that as a hypothetical possibility, in a progression of hypothetical possibilities.

Secondly, if you are insisting that nothing but deterministic cause exists, such that something else must cause the will to act upon the rest of the mind, then you are begging the question.

[Joel]

Evidence isn't that relevant when the discussion is only about logical possibility.

I've refrained from taking any stand on the existence of "the soul" or any theory of dualism/monism/etc. But if an immaterial soul is logically possible, then it would be valid for me to make use of it in this thread, which is about whether LFW is at all a logical possibility.

any thread in the web and trace back far enough (taking whichever branches you like) it must eventually stop at a beginning, to avoid infinite regress. So the existence of the beginning of a thread shouldn't be considered a problem.
[/edited to add]

[Tassman]

Evidence isn't that relevant when the discussion is only about logical possibility.

I've refrained from taking any stand on the existence of "the soul" or any theory of dualism/monism/etc.

But if an immaterial soul is logically possible, then it would be valid for me to make use of it in this thread, which is about whether LFW is at all a logical possibility.

any thread in the web and trace back far enough (taking whichever branches you like) it must eventually stop at a beginning, to avoid infinite regress. So the existence of the beginning of a thread shouldn't be considered a problem.
[/edited to add]

do