Is libertarian free will coherent?

[The Thinker]

I think you need to define "thoughts" more carefully. You seem to be using it far too broadly. (In another post you even include "The exercise of the will is itself a thought".)

The will is a thought. How can you will X without thinking about X? If your will is not due to thoughts, then thoughts have nothing to do with the will.

Because it would seem natural to me at least to distinguish between (1) the mind, which has the capacity to think thoughts, and (2) the thoughts that the mind thinks. Also, by "thought" most people probably mean an idea contemplated. So it's not at all clear that the exercise of the will is itself a thought. The will may be a faculty different from the faculty of contemplation of ideas. And I think others have pointed out that willing an action seems different from contemplating an idea.

On your view then define the difference between the will, the mind, and the soul.

I think what you mean is: did something external to the soul cause the soul to cause the thoughts? If so then the proponent of LFW will obviously answer "no". But how is that at all a problem for LFW? Saying that nothing external caused the soul to act as it did does not at all imply that the soul did not cause the thought/choice.

Yes, I think in the context here that is pretty obvious what I meant. How is that at all a problem for LFW? Well. I outlined that in the post. If the soul has no cause when it causes thoughts, then you are saying that the thoughts begin to exist without a cause. This could violate the kalam cosmological argument's first premise (everything that begins to exist has a cause) and would essentially falsify it. If our soul had no cause for the thoughts it generates they would be totally random fluctuations and it would be a mere coincidence that they had any connection to the physical world or reality.

On top of that, the ability to choose your thoughts is logically impossible. You can't have a thought, about a thought, before you have a thought. You can't choose what your next thought, desire, or idea will be. In order to do that, you'd have to think about it, before you think about it. That's incoherent. If you can't choose your next thought, or any of your thoughts, how is your will or mind controlled by you, and in what sense is it free? It isn't. Thoughts arise in consciousness and we have no control over it.

Except that people, every day, do make choices about what to think about. A person can choose to turn his mind for the next hour to the study of Calculus, intentionally contemplating specific ideas in that field.

Sure, "we" make choices, but define "we".

If your argument were sound, it would imply that humans have no control over what to think about at all. It would even rule out a deterministic mind controlling what thoughts it thinks. It would imply that thoughts are entirely random, and the mind thinks whatever random things drift in and out.

It wouldn't imply that all thoughts were random, that would be implied by our mind not having a cause. If it has a cause, then it is not random, it is determined by whatever caused it, and whatever caused that was also determined by something else, and so on, and once you get that, you've just described determinism.

And then others have pointed out already that even if we had no choice about what we think (what ideas we contemplate), that isn't the same thing as the faculty of deliberating among ideas, and choosing how to act physically.

But the choice to act or not to act physically would be just one more thought that you had no control over. Same problem.

I think maybe that's not a good way to state the point. If we define our will as our faculty of controlling, then it would be improper to speak of controlling our will. Rather "the will" just refers to our capacity to control our actions. The way you state it seems to make it improperly circular. The real question then reverts to: Does the agent have any capacity to control its actions, or is it entirely controlled by external forces? Which likely ends up just being a restatement of the question of LFW.

The question is multifaceted. One is whether the will exerts a causal impact on the body. That is (2), and the other is whether we are in any sense in control of our will, which is (1). If our will is entirely caused by something else, then we can't have (1), but even if we reject determinism we face the logical problem of the impossibility of being able to be in control of our will, or mind, or soul - however you want to call it.

I'm not sure it is reasonable to ask for a positive proof that something is not self-refuting. You are asking for a proof of a negative (that there does not exist any argument that would prove LFW to be self-refuting). Proofs of a negative are notoriously difficult to come by (like asking for a positive proof that there does not exist any unicorn). So I would think the burden of proof would be on the person claiming that LFW is self refuting, to provide the proof showing it is self-refuting.

Wow. This is a horrible assessment of my post. I'm asking for a positive argument to show coherency, not to disprove incoherency. If you can't do this, then what you're saying is that no one can ever show anything to be coherent.

That is, you would start with LFW as the premise, and from it alone deduce a series of propositions, ultimately ending in a contradiction:

Premise) LFW
Conclusion 1) ...
Conclusion 2) ...
...
Conclusion k) X and Not-X.


So far it does not seem that you have given any reason to think that LFW is self-refuting.

So far you have failed to assess this post properly and have no given any reason to challenge the view that LFW is incoherent. Please focus on making a positive argument. I've been telling this to everyone on this thread and I even said that in the post.

[Truthseeker]

But what decides the choice itself? Can you list a chronology of what happens when you think someone is making a free choice?

God is possibly the one who decides. If not, after thinking about the matter, I concluded that the brain contains something like a random choice maker. One reason to believe it exists is that it is impossible for the mind to whittle down the perceived putative courses of action to just one or none. Always, every moment there is a choice between at least two perceived options. How then does one decide? He must decide, somehow. One choice at the end of finally deciding take a course of action is the decision of continuing to try to "think of" a better choice--or stop (whence perforce he now undertakes that course of action).


I suppose what you mean by "rational" is that an argument is rational if its set of premises is sufficient for one to draw out a conclusion from and the body of the argument is sound logically--so the conclusion is . . . well, rational! Maybe not true, because at least one premise in the set may be wrong.

[Joel]

The will is a thought. How can you will X without thinking about X? If your will is not due to thoughts, then thoughts have nothing to do with the will.

I didn't say they have nothing to do with one another. But two things being related does not mean they are the same thing. The idea of an action is not the same thing as willing it. After all, one can deliberate over a choice among two or more competing ideas of possible actions. Contemplating/thinking those ideas is not the same thing as willing them. So it seems incorrect to say that "the will is a thought."

On your view then define the difference between the will, the mind, and the soul.

I don't know that we need to distinguish between mind and soul, for our purposes. Shall we say that a mind is an agent/being, that has a variety of faculties/capabilities? and that the will is one of those faculties? (Other mental faculties include sensation, memory, reasoning, awareness, focus/contemplation, feeling passions, etc.)
But the point I was making is that there is a difference between such a mind and any ideas that the mind might contemplate.

Yes, I think in the context here that is pretty obvious what I meant. How is that at all a problem for LFW? Well. I outlined that in the post. If the soul has no cause when it causes thoughts, then you are saying that the thoughts begin to exist without a cause.

That doesn't follow. You are saying that if X causes Y, but X is not caused (by yet something else) to cause Y, then Y came to be without a cause. But that doesn't follow. It would still be the case (by the premise) that Y has a cause: X.

In Christian theology, where God is an uncaused causer, God created Creation. Thus Creation had a cause (God), even though God was not in turn caused to do so by anything external to God.

If the soul causes an action, then the action has a cause (the soul). Whether the soul was caused to do so by something external to the soul is a different question. So what if the soul has some degree of ability to act as an uncaused causer?

If our soul had no cause for the thoughts it generates they would be totally random fluctuations and it would be a mere coincidence that they had any connection to the physical world or reality.

I think you are assuming your conclusion here. You are assuming that if the agent is not controlled by something external to the agent, then the agent is uncontrolled. You are not even considering the possibility of a self-controlled agent. (And as before, I'm not talking about full self-control. The question is whether an agent can ever have any self-control at all.) An agent has some ability to control/order their thoughts and actions, and to do so according to purposes. (And purpose is not the same thing as "cause" as we've been using it. 'Final cause' vs 'efficient cause.') Your mere assuming that an agent cannot be self-controlled is no argument that the idea is self-refuting.

As for relation to the physical world, that would be via the senses. And there are different kinds of thoughts. E.g. perception (e.g. recognizing particular raw sensations as being your dog Scruffy), conception (e.g. abstracting to the general concept of "dog"), judgement (e.g. propositions relating ideas such as Scruffy or "dog"), reasoning (relating propositions to each other). So even if the raw information from the senses were an uncontrollable flow, an agent can still have a self-controlled and ordered mind with respect to the higher forms of thoughts, and still have a connection to the physical external world. But even regarding raw sensations, an agent has some ability to choose how to act to seek out or avoid various sensations.

On top of that, the ability to choose your thoughts is logically impossible. You can't have a thought, about a thought, before you have a thought. You can't choose what your next thought, desire, or idea will be. In order to do that, you'd have to think about it, before you think about it. That's incoherent. If you can't choose your next thought, or any of your thoughts, how is your will or mind controlled by you, and in what sense is it free? It isn't. Thoughts arise in consciousness and we have no control over it.

I already discussed this is previous posts. As I pointed out, "A person can choose to turn his mind for the next hour to the study of Calculus, intentionally contemplating specific ideas in that field." And in another post I pointed out how the choice can be to go from thinking one thought to think related (but different) thoughts, like thinking about calculus or school in the abstract, and choosing to spend the next hour thinking about calculus in various particulars. Or for a more concrete example, it takes a non-zero amount of time to think through or recall the quadratic formula ("Negative b plus or minus the square root of....") One can choose to take the time to think through it or to do something else instead. But making that choice is prior to the doing it. At the time I am making the choice, I am thinking of the quadratic formula more abstractly, which is not the same thought as thinking through the exact formula. Someone can think of it in that abstract sense without being able to remember the exact formula.

For other examples, consider the fact that sometimes you have to choose to exert effort to continue focusing on a particular thought or thinking through it. Or to recall a thought. Or think through what one wants to write when composing a post on Theologyweb.

So yes, of course, a human agent has some ability to choose what to think about.

The question is multifaceted. One is whether the will exerts a causal impact on the body. That is (2), and the other is whether we are in any sense in control of our will, which is (1).

What I was questioning is whether it makes any sense to make such a distinction. I'm suggesting that the agent/mind/soul/whatever has the faculty of controlling its body. That faculty is called the will. So there's just one question: Is that true--can the agent control its body?

To separate the two, you seem to be conceptualizing the "will" as some intermediate thing/instrument between the agent and the body. I'm not sure that's correct or useful. Instead I'm suggesting we think of the will as just one of the agent's capabilities, and the question is whether the agent has that capability or not.

I'm not sure it is reasonable to ask for a positive proof that something is not self-refuting. You are asking for a proof of a negative (that there does not exist any argument that would prove LFW to be self-refuting). Proofs of a negative are notoriously difficult to come by (like asking for a positive proof that there does not exist any unicorn). So I would think the burden of proof would be on the person claiming that LFW is self refuting, to provide the proof showing it is self-refuting.

Wow. This is a horrible assessment of my post. I'm asking for a positive argument to show coherency, not to disprove incoherency.

What is the difference? To prove X is the same as to disprove ~X. (Earlier, you equated incoherent and self-refuting, thus equating coherent and not-self-refuting.)

[JonathanL]

If you think consciousness has the ability to change the course of your atoms to go one way or the other, and that you could have done otherwise in the same situation, meaning, your consciousness itself is not determined by something, then you would believe in LFW.

I must have been slightly out of it when I wrote my previous post since it was never my intention to state that it is your consciousness who's doing the choosing. Your consciousness is not what is choosing between the impulses, you are. The choice is a conscious choice, but the consciousness itself doesn't choose anything, it's the person connected to the consciousness who's choosing. And that choice is not determined by outside factors. Influenced? without a doubt. Determined? Not according to what I've experienced in my life so far.

[JonathanL]

Interesting. I would actually say the exact opposite: the strongest impulse is the one you ultimately follow. I think we tend to confuse immediacy with strength.

I don't think I've confused immediacy with strength during the times I've chosen what I've felt to be a weaker impulse over a stronger one.

[The Thinker]

God is possibly the one who decides. If not, after thinking about the matter, I concluded that the brain contains something like a random choice maker. One reason to believe it exists is that it is impossible for the mind to whittle down the perceived putative courses of action to just one or none. Always, every moment there is a choice between at least two perceived options. How then does one decide? He must decide, somehow. One choice at the end of finally deciding take a course of action is the decision of continuing to try to "think of" a better choice--or stop (whence perforce he now undertakes that course of action).


I suppose what you mean by "rational" is that an argument is rational if its set of premises is sufficient for one to draw out a conclusion from and the body of the argument is sound logically--so the conclusion is . . . well, rational! Maybe not true, because at least one premise in the set may be wrong.

If "God" decides, that's basically a form of occassionalism, in which LFW goes out the window. Same thing with a random choice maker.

[The Thinker]

Contemplating/thinking those ideas is not the same thing as willing them. So it seems incorrect to say that "the will is a thought."

The "contemplating/thinking" are thoughts that would be subject to the same problem. And if the will is not a thought, it is still subject to the same problem.

I don't know that we need to distinguish between mind and soul, for our purposes. Shall we say that a mind is an agent/being, that has a variety of faculties/capabilities? and that the will is one of those faculties? (Other mental faculties include sensation, memory, reasoning, awareness, focus/contemplation, feeling passions, etc.)

I ask because many people have different views on what all these things are, so it's to clarify.

But the point I was making is that there is a difference between such a mind and any ideas that the mind might contemplate.

The question is what, if anything, causes those thoughts to arise in the mind. And whatever the cause is, what causes the cause?

That doesn't follow. You are saying that if X causes Y, but X is not caused (by yet something else) to cause Y, then Y came to be without a cause. But that doesn't follow. It would still be the case (by the premise) that Y has a cause: X.

The focus is on avoiding just pushing the cause a step back. If the soul causes the thought, then what causes the soul? If it has no cause it is subject to the random problem I mentioned in the post.

If the soul causes an action, then the action has a cause (the soul). Whether the soul was caused to do so by something external to the soul is a different question. So what if the soul has some degree of ability to act as an uncaused causer?

Then you are saying that it begins to exist without a cause. This could violate the kalam cosmological argument's first premise (everything that begins to exist has a cause) and would essentially falsify it. If our souls had no cause they would be totally random fluctuations and it would be a mere coincidence that they had any connection to the physical world or reality.

On top of that, the soul's ability to choose your thoughts is logically impossible. You can't have a thought, about a thought, before you have a thought. You can't choose what your next thought, desire, or idea will be. In order to do that, you'd have to think about it, before you think about it. That's incoherent. If you can't choose your next thought, or any of your thoughts, how is your will or mind (or soul) controlled by you, and in what sense is it free? It isn't. Thoughts arise in consciousness and we have no control over it.

I think you are assuming your conclusion here. You are assuming that if the agent is not controlled by something external to the agent, then the agent is uncontrolled. You are not even considering the possibility of a self-controlled agent. (And as before, I'm not talking about full self-control. The question is whether an agent can ever have any self-control at all.) An agent has some ability to control/order their thoughts and actions, and to do so according to purposes. (And purpose is not the same thing as "cause" as we've been using it. 'Final cause' vs 'efficient cause.') Your mere assuming that an agent cannot be self-controlled is no argument that the idea is self-refuting.

I'm not assuming any conclusion here. I am outlining all the possible views and showing how neither makes the case for libertarian free will. I considered a self cause agent in my post. I said it would refute the kalam cosmological argument for one thing, since there would be something about it that begins to exist without a cause. And if it doesn't have a cause, it faces the logical problem that you can't have a thought, about a thought, before you have a thought. You can't choose what your next thought, desire, or idea will be. Thoughts arise in consciousness and we have no control over it. So a self caused agent is incoherent. How can an agent cause itself to have it's next thought? What's the initiator inside the agent? The agent's soul? You need to make a positive argument showing how this is coherent.

As for relation to the physical world, that would be via the senses. And there are different kinds of thoughts. E.g. perception (e.g. recognizing particular raw sensations as being your dog Scruffy), conception (e.g. abstracting to the general concept of "dog"), judgement (e.g. propositions relating ideas such as Scruffy or "dog"), reasoning (relating propositions to each other). So even if the raw information from the senses were an uncontrollable flow, an agent can still have a self-controlled and ordered mind with respect to the higher forms of thoughts, and still have a connection to the physical external world. But even regarding raw sensations, an agent has some ability to choose how to act to seek out or avoid various sensations.

But all this stuff takes place inside the brain which is determined by physical processes. You'd have to show how an agent's mind or soul can somehow violate physical laws by controlling them, which is to demonstrate (2) in my post: our mind is causally effective. How does a non-material soul get information from the senses? Why would it even need a body to do that? But this also still doesn't resolve (1):We are in control of our will. You still need to logically explain how one can control their thoughts given the fact that you can't have a thought, about a thought, before you have a thought.

I already discussed this is previous posts. As I pointed out, "A person can choose to turn his mind for the next hour to the study of Calculus, intentionally contemplating specific ideas in that field."

But that doesn't resolve anything because the choice to "turn his mind for the next hour to the study of Calculus" was itself a thought that popped into their mind that they had no control over.

And in another post I pointed out how the choice can be to go from thinking one thought to think related (but different) thoughts, like thinking about calculus or school in the abstract, and choosing to spend the next hour thinking about calculus in various particulars.

Same problem as above.

Or for a more concrete example, it takes a non-zero amount of time to think through or recall the quadratic formula ("Negative b plus or minus the square root of....") One can choose to take the time to think through it or to do something else instead.

Ditto.

But making that choice is prior to the doing it.

If the choice itself is not something you can choose, you haven't resolved the dilemma at all. You still face the logical problem of being able to choose a future thought. That's simply logically impossible. If you disagree, you need to logically show how it is possible. Saying "You can choose to contemplate calculus" is not an answer; it's a non-starter. It doesn't resolve the dilemma at all.

For other examples, consider the fact that sometimes you have to choose to exert effort to continue focusing on a particular thought or thinking through it. Or to recall a thought. Or think through what one wants to write when composing a post on Theologyweb.

Sure it takes effort, but I can't choose my choices before they occur. They just do.

So yes, of course, a human agent has some ability to choose what to think about.

Sorry, you have not shown that at all and I predict we're gonna go round and round in circles on this for days just like we did with morality.

What I was questioning is whether it makes any sense to make such a distinction. I'm suggesting that the agent/mind/soul/whatever has the faculty of controlling its body. That faculty is called the will. So there's just one question: Is that true--can the agent control its body?

To separate the two, you seem to be conceptualizing the "will" as some intermediate thing/instrument between the agent and the body. I'm not sure that's correct or useful. Instead I'm suggesting we think of the will as just one of the agent's capabilities, and the question is whether the agent has that capability or not.

I'm considering many possible angles here on the mind, the will, and the soul, and neither resolve the central dilemma.

What is the difference? To prove X is the same as to disprove ~X. (Earlier, you equated incoherent and self-refuting, thus equating coherent and not-self-refuting.)

Then according to your logic, anytime anyone says "X is incoherent/self-refuting" no one can provide positive proof it isn't. That's just absurd. I'm asking you and everyone here to provide a positive argument that LFW is coherent, if you can't do that, just says so and save us all some time.

[robrecht]

That would not actually be compatibilism. Compatibilists recognize that LFW is an illusion and that we have no genuine control over our thoughts or actions - it is controlled by physics, genetics, etc. This is true regardless of whether the universe is completely deterministic or indeterministic. They just define free will as the ability to arrive at conclusions through a rational process, even though it is out of our control, and if your thoughts or actions originate in the atoms of your brain as their proximate cause without any influence of other agents or disorders (like tumors), then it is "free."

Unless I am not understanding something here, it seems like you first said that this position (my position) was compatibilist but now you say it is not. This is why I think we need a clearer definition of terms here.

[The Thinker]

Unless I am not understanding something here, it seems like you first said that this position (my position) was compatibilist but now you say it is not. This is why I think we need a clearer definition of terms here.

It seemed like you were saying that, but then it didn't when I got more info. Do you accept (1)(2) or (3) in my original post? For (3) quantum indeterminism, should it be true, could allow for this, but it still would not allow true free will because a compatibilist would recognize (1) and (2) or not true.

[robrecht]

It seemed like you were saying that, but then it didn't when I got more info. Do you accept (1)(2) or (3) in my original post? For (3) quantum indeterminism, should it be true, could allow for this, but it still would not allow true free will because a compatibilist would recognize (1) and (2) or not true.

I should be able to answer tonight when I get home. In the meantime, what was the additional info that changed your classification of my view?

[Joel]

The focus is on avoiding just pushing the cause a step back. If the soul causes the thought, then what causes the soul? If it has no cause it is subject to the random problem I mentioned in the post....If our souls had no cause they would be totally random fluctuations

You are assuming that an uncaused causer acts randomly. I see no reason to think so. Surely an uncaused causer can act purposefully and orderly. There's nothing contradictory about that.

So what if the soul has some degree of ability to act as an uncaused causer?

Then you are saying that it begins to exist without a cause.

No. The thought would have a cause: the soul. The act would have a cause: the soul.
Neither would the soul (or its faculties) begin to exist without a cause.

But that doesn't resolve anything because the choice to "turn his mind for the next hour to the study of Calculus" was itself a thought that popped into their mind that they had no control over.

That's not relevant. Suppose you are correct that the thought of calculus in the abstract involuntarily popped into their mind. And it is in the mind along with thoughts of alternative uses of the next hour. But that doesn't imply that the person cannot choose among those alternatives, and thus choose to study particular ideas in calculus. (Particular ideas which are not the same thoughts as the abstract thought of calculus that involuntarily popped into the mind.)

Likewise for my other examples that you dismissed. For example:

Or for a more concrete example, it takes a non-zero amount of time to think through or recall the quadratic formula ("Negative b plus or minus the square root of....") One can choose to take the time to think through it or to do something else instead. But making that choice is prior to the doing it. At the time I am making the choice, I am thinking of the quadratic formula more abstractly, which is not the same thought as thinking through the exact formula.

If the choice itself is not something you can choose, you haven't resolved the dilemma at all. You still face the logical problem of being able to choose a future thought. That's simply logically impossible. If you disagree, you need to logically show how it is possible.

I just did show how it is possible. You can think of something in the abstract when you choose whether to contemplate it in its particulars. You can have an abstract thought related to a particular before you think the particular thought. That's the solution to your dilemma that "you'd have to think about it, before you think about it". They aren't the same thought, although they are related.

Saying "You can choose to contemplate calculus" is not an answer; it's a non-starter. It doesn't resolve the dilemma at all.

It does answer the question though. People do, in fact, sometimes choose to contemplate calculus. Therefore it is possible. The question of how it is possible, is of secondary interest.

Sure it takes effort, but I can't choose my choices before they occur.

The fact that one applies effort to do something is consistent with their being able to refrain from that effort, and thus consistent with their choosing to apply and to continue applying that effort, instead of doing something else. There's nothing contradictory in that concept.

It is also another way around your dilemma of "you'd have to think about it, before you think about it". If you are contemplating X and choose to continue contemplating X (rather than switching to do something else), then yes you were thinking of X (at time t1) prior to continuing to think X (at time t2), but there is no contradiction in doing so. It in no way implies that you have no choice about whether to continue thinking it.


And again, there still is the point that even if you couldn't choose what to think, you could still choose actions. Choosing an action involves choosing among alternative ideas/thoughts about possible actions. Even if you didn't choose the set of alternatives that are in your head (you didn't choose that set of thoughts), you could still choose among those. You could choose one of those (involuntary) thoughts to act upon. The act could still be voluntary, even if the set of thoughts of possible alternatives was involuntarily in your head.

Then according to your logic, anytime anyone says "X is incoherent/self-refuting" no one can provide positive proof it isn't.

But why would someone need to disprove an unsubstantiated claim? Wouldn't the burden of proof be on the person who initially brought it up, claiming that "X is incoherent/self-refuting"?

Can you provide an example of proving that some proposition X is not self-refuting? Take any proposition you like--say, "Socrates is mortal."--and show how to prove that it isn't self-refuting. Clearly you have some idea of what you are asking for. If you could demonstrate it on some other example, it would be very helpful.

[Truthseeker]

If "God" decides, that's basically a form of occassionalism, in which LFW goes out the window. Same thing with a random choice maker.

Did you get the point that the acting person will reject or ignore many choices every moment? That is not exactly making a decision itself, finally; but winnowing out disliked options or options that seem impossible is a part of the decision process.

[The Thinker]

You are assuming that an uncaused causer acts randomly. I see no reason to think so. Surely an uncaused causer can act purposefully and orderly. There's nothing contradictory about that.

Then logically explain why an uncaused agent would do X rather than Y. An agent that is not caused by anything would not act in a way that has any connection to what's going on around it. Do you accept that the kalam cosmological argument's first premise (whatever begins to exist has a cause) is false?

No. The thought would have a cause: the soul. The act would have a cause: the soul.
Neither would the soul (or its faculties) begin to exist without a cause.

What causes the soul's decisions?

But that doesn't imply that the person cannot choose among those alternatives, and thus choose to study particular ideas in calculus. (Particular ideas which are not the same thoughts as the abstract thought of calculus that involuntarily popped into the mind.)

Any choice a person made would be itself the result of something they could not consciously control because all their thoughts are things that begin to exist in consciousness that cannot be controlled.

I just did show how it is possible. You can think of something in the abstract when you choose whether to contemplate it in its particulars. You can have an abstract thought related to a particular before you think the particular thought. That's the solution to your dilemma that "you'd have to think about it, before you think about it". They aren't the same thought, although they are related.

The abstract thought is something out of your control, and so is the thought about the particular. If I say "Think of movies and then pick any particular movie right now," whatever movie you think of is a movie that popped into your head, you can't choose it anymore that you can choose to think of the abstract "movies."

It does answer the question though. People do, in fact, sometimes choose to contemplate calculus. Therefore it is possible. The question of how it is possible, is of secondary interest.

No it doesn't, you're just asserting your false point over and over. As Schopenhauer said, "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants."

The fact that one applies effort to do something is consistent with their being able to refrain from that effort, and thus consistent with their choosing to apply and to continue applying that effort, instead of doing something else. There's nothing contradictory in that concept.

There is something contradictory if you claim that their choice allows for (1)(2) and (3) in my original post. What you just described is perfectly compatible with determinism.

It is also another way around your dilemma of "you'd have to think about it, before you think about it". If you are contemplating X and choose to continue contemplating X (rather than switching to do something else), then yes you were thinking of X (at time t1) prior to continuing to think X (at time t2), but there is no contradiction in doing so. It in no way implies that you have no choice about whether to continue thinking it.

If you are contemplating X, that was a thought you had no choice of thinking, since you can't choose it before you involuntarily think about it, and neither is the choice to continue thinking about it, since that is also something you can't choose before you involuntarily think about it. So there is a contradiction in thinking so.

And again, there still is the point that even if you couldn't choose what to think, you could still choose actions. Choosing an action involves choosing among alternative ideas/thoughts about possible actions. Even if you didn't choose the set of alternatives that are in your head (you didn't choose that set of thoughts), you could still choose among those. You could choose one of those (involuntary) thoughts to act upon. The act could still be voluntary, even if the set of thoughts of possible alternatives was involuntarily in your head.

Still faces the same problem, since the choice of the action is still something that involuntarily popped into your head, since you cannot choose it before it does. Every single thought you have faces this problem.

But why would someone need to disprove an unsubstantiated claim? Wouldn't the burden of proof be on the person who initially brought it up, claiming that "X is incoherent/self-refuting"?

I did just that in my post. I made an argument showing that it is incoherent. The believer in LFW has to show it is coherent.

[Joel]

Then logically explain why an uncaused agent would do X rather than Y. An agent that is not caused by anything would not act in a way that has any connection to what's going on around it.

Perhaps the agent prefers X over Y. Perhaps the agent chooses according to some end. Perhaps the agent decides to give into his passions. Lots of possible reasons. Note, again that purpose--final cause--is not the same as efficient cause. Being uncaused (efficient cause) does not imply a lack of purpose/reasons for acting (that can have a connection to what's going on around the agent).

No. The thought would have a cause: the soul. The act would have a cause: the soul.
Neither would the soul (or its faculties) begin to exist without a cause.

What causes the soul's decisions?

The decision is the soul actualizing one of multiple possibilities. There is no decision apart from the act. The act is the actual thing, and it is caused by the soul.

Suppose you are correct that the thought of calculus in the abstract involuntarily popped into their mind. And it is in the mind along with thoughts of alternative uses of the next hour. But that doesn't imply that the person cannot choose among those alternatives, and thus choose to study particular ideas in calculus. (Particular ideas which are not the same thoughts as the abstract thought of calculus that involuntarily popped into the mind.)

Any choice a person made would be itself the result of something they could not consciously control because all their thoughts are things that begin to exist in consciousness that cannot be controlled.

This is you saying, "Thoughts can't be controlled, because thoughts can't be controlled."

The abstract thought is something out of your control, and so is the thought about the particular. If I say "Think of movies and then pick any particular movie right now," whatever movie you think of is a movie that popped into your head, you can't choose it anymore that you can choose to think of the abstract "movies."

You are just assuming that the thought about the particular is out of your control, (which is to assume your conclusion).

In your example, you are specifically asking me to try to recall movies, and name whichever one first pops into my head. And you might be correct that the first movie popping into my head is involuntary. But that's a pretty different thing than I was describing. And one's choice to participate in your experiment or not is another example of having some choice about what to think about (e.g. whether to think about movies and let one's recall retrieve an arbitrary movie).

That's not the same thing as what I was describing with, e.g., moving from the abstract thought of the quadratic formula, to choosing to think through the content of the exact formula. There you aren't asking your faculty of recall to pick a random movie, you are choosing to recall and contemplate specific information (that has an objectively correct answer).

There is something contradictory if you claim that their choice allows for (1)(2) and (3) in my original post. What you just described is perfectly compatible with determinism.

So what if that point is also compatible with determinism? If it is consistent with LFW, then it's consistent with LFW. If you are just claiming that it is incompatible with LFW, then you seem to be just restating your conclusion.

It is also another way around your dilemma of "you'd have to think about it, before you think about it". If you are contemplating X and choose to continue contemplating X (rather than switching to do something else), then yes you were thinking of X (at time t1) prior to continuing to think X (at time t2), but there is no contradiction in doing so. It in no way implies that you have no choice about whether to continue thinking it.

If you are contemplating X, that was a thought you had no choice of thinking, since you can't choose it before you involuntarily think about it, and neither is the choice to continue thinking about it, since that is also something you can't choose before you involuntarily think about it.

Whether X first came into your head voluntarily or involuntary is irrelevant.
When you make the choice to continue thinking about X, that implies that you were thinking about X prior to choosing to continue thinking about X. So you are thinking about that thought when you choose whether to continue thinking about X in the immediate future. I see no logical problem there. You seem to be just claiming that it can't be a voluntary choice.

And again, there still is the point that even if you couldn't choose what to think, you could still choose actions. Choosing an action involves choosing among alternative ideas/thoughts about possible actions. Even if you didn't choose the set of alternatives that are in your head (you didn't choose that set of thoughts), you could still choose among those. You could choose one of those (involuntary) thoughts to act upon. The act could still be voluntary, even if the set of thoughts of possible alternatives was involuntarily in your head.

Still faces the same problem, since the choice of the action is still something that involuntarily popped into your head, since you cannot choose it before it does. Every single thought you have faces this problem.

1) You are still supposing that actions are thoughts. The ideas of the multiple possible actions are thoughts. You can think and deliberate about them. The actualization of one of them is not itself a thought. It is something different. There is a huge difference between (a) thinking a thought about moving your arm in a certain way, and (b) doing it. No new thought needs to pop into your head. The thought about the action was already in your head when you were deliberating.
2) You are supposing here, without argument, that at act (of actualizing one of the thoughts) is involuntary, which is assuming your conclusion.

But why would someone need to disprove an unsubstantiated claim? Wouldn't the burden of proof be on the person who initially brought it up, claiming that "X is incoherent/self-refuting"?

I did just that in my post. I made an argument showing that it is incoherent. The believer in LFW has to show it is coherent.

And I have responded to your points. Which seems sufficient. If there was no prior need to disprove the claim, then it seems sufficient to refute the argument for the claim, and no need to make a positive disproof. However, I have been providing you with positive models (e.g., making choices of thoughts while thinking of different but related thoughts).

[The Thinker]

Perhaps the agent prefers X over Y. Perhaps the agent chooses according to some end. Perhaps the agent decides to give into his passions. Lots of possible reasons. Note, again that purpose--final cause--is not the same as efficient cause. Being uncaused (efficient cause) does not imply a lack of purpose/reasons for acting (that can have a connection to what's going on around the agent).

But what causes that preference? What chain of events goes back to the first cause in all that is relevant to the act that is claimed to be free?

If you want to bring in Aristotelian metaphysics into this, like final and efficient causes, you will be undermining libertarian free will, because the Aristotelian principal is incompatible with LFW: (Whatever is changed is changed by another, or, in its more traditional formulation, Whatever is moved is moved by another.) If the soul is changed to cause one action vs. another, then it must be changed or moved by something else that is not itself, and that means it isn't free and must be caused.

The decision is the soul actualizing one of multiple possibilities. There is no decision apart from the act. The act is the actual thing, and it is caused by the soul.

But since it can't choose it's own thoughts or decisions it can't be free.

This is you saying, "Thoughts can't be controlled, because thoughts can't be controlled."

No, this is me saying, "Thoughts can't be controlled." Period. Full stop.

You are just assuming that the thought about the particular is out of your control, (which is to assume your conclusion).

No, I'm showing you how the possibility of that is incoherent.

In your example, you are specifically asking me to try to recall movies, and name whichever one first pops into my head. And you might be correct that the first movie popping into my head is involuntary. But that's a pretty different thing than I was describing. And one's choice to participate in your experiment or not is another example of having some choice about what to think about (e.g. whether to think about movies and let one's recall retrieve an arbitrary movie).

That's not the same thing as what I was describing with, e.g., moving from the abstract thought of the quadratic formula, to choosing to think through the content of the exact formula. There you aren't asking your faculty of recall to pick a random movie, you are choosing to recall and contemplate specific information (that has an objectively correct answer).

It still faces the same exact problem, because "choosing to think through the content of the exact formula" is itself a thought that popped into your mind that you couldn't have chosen, no more than you can choose any thought you will ever have ahead of time. It's simply logically impossible. It's as illogical as something creating itself - it has to exist before it exists. To choose your thoughts is to think about it before you think about it.

So what if that point is also compatible with determinism? If it is consistent with LFW, then it's consistent with LFW. If you are just claiming that it is incompatible with LFW, then you seem to be just restating your conclusion.

LFW itself is incoherent logically, so you can't claim that a person going through a process of weighing different options is evidence for LFW because that is actual compatible with determinism, and LFW itself is incoherent - which is the one thing I asked you do show is coherent and you have not done.

Whether X first came into your head voluntarily or involuntary is irrelevant.
When you make the choice to continue thinking about X, that implies that you were thinking about X prior to choosing to continue thinking about X. So you are thinking about that thought when you choose whether to continue thinking about X in the immediate future. I see no logical problem there. You seem to be just claiming that it can't be a voluntary choice.

You didn't think about continuing to think about X until that thought popped into your consciousness without your ability to choose or control it. So you're still stuck with the same problem.

1) You are still supposing that actions are thoughts. The ideas of the multiple possible actions are thoughts. You can think and deliberate about them. The actualization of one of them is not itself a thought. It is something different. There is a huge difference between (a) thinking a thought about moving your arm in a certain way, and (b) doing it. No new thought needs to pop into your head. The thought about the action was already in your head when you were deliberating.

On the LFW view, thoughts cause actions, so if the thought is out of your control and it leads to an action, then the action is out of your control. And if you claim that the person can inhibit the action, that itself would be a thought that they have no control over choosing.

2) You are supposing here, without argument, that at act (of actualizing one of the thoughts) is involuntary, which is assuming your conclusion.

That is complete nonsense because I gave an argument for how it is logically impossible to choose your thoughts in my original post.

And I have responded to your points. Which seems sufficient. If there was no prior need to disprove the claim, then it seems sufficient to refute the argument for the claim, and no need to make a positive disproof. However, I have been providing you with positive models (e.g., making choices of thoughts while thinking of different but related thoughts).

You have responded yes, but none of your responses logically demonstrates that LFW is coherent.