I suggest that this is already part of the analysis of FW I am using under the
rubric of "ultimate origination" or "ultimate responsibility". Since it is
already part of the definition of FW, it does not need to be added again as
part of the defintion of CHDO (which is of course itself already part of the
definition of FW).
If it is already part of your definition of FW, then there surely can be no objection to re-inforcing this in the definition of CHDO? Or do you think this would invalidate your arguments?
The point of analysing a concept is to "divide and conquer" -- show that is
valid because all of its constituents can be satisfied. (Or to show that it is
invalid because they cannot be combined).
What is the alternative ? Having every possible option available to you at all
times ? As I have pointed out before, that is a kind of god-like omniscience.
I have not suggested “all possible options are available”..
But to suggest that our options to choose are necessarily limited by some “indeterministic idea generator”, and that this is the source of our free will and “CHDO”, is a gross misconception and misrepresentation of both free will and CHDO.
Why ? If you agree that Fw is not god-like omniscience and omnipotence, there
has to be some intenral limitation. Why should not the limitations of the
RIG+SIS model actaully constitute that necessary and inevetable limitation ?
You have said
that they dop not, without explaining why.
Incorporating a random idea generator (RIG) (even in parallel with a DIG) does NOT result in an agent which possesses the above GENUINE CHDO properties. The RIG acts to RESTRICT the choices available to the DIS.
No it doesn't. A deterministic mechanism cannot come up with the rich and
original set of choices that an indeterministic mechanism can come up with.
Unplugging the RIG does not unleash some hidden creativity in the SIS.
I have never suggested that a deterministic mechanism does!
A deterministic idea generator does not endow CHDO. But my point is that neither does a random idea generator! BOTH generators endow “forced to do otherwise” – and not “could have done otherwise”
Internal limitiation (due to lack of omnipotence and omiscience) is not
the same as being forced externally.
One part of a system (in this case the RIG) having a causal effect on another
is not the same as the constraint of the system as a whole by external forces.
The SIS is not a mini-agent with its own wants needs, and decisions, it
is a filtration mechanism.
A random idea generator gives the “possibility that things could turn out differently”, NOT because we FREELY CHOOSE them to turn out differently, of our free will, but because the RIG FORCES them to turn out differently!
One part of a system (in this case the RIG) having a causal effect on another
is not the same as the constraint of the system as a whole by external forces.
The RIG constrains the choices available, just as much as the DIG does, regardless of our rational will. And this is true regardless of whether the RIG is internal or external.
Internal limitiation (due to lack of omnipotence and omiscience) is not
the same as being forced externally.
The DIS is therefore once again FORCED to do otherwise. The DIS can only make a FREE CHOICE between A and B if the idea generator offers up both A and B as alternate possibilities.
The SIS does not make choices as an agent does; it is not a mini-agent with its own wants needs, and decisions, it
is a filtration mechanism.
If the RIG comes up with more than one option, the SIS can make a free (in the
compatiblist sense -- no external constraint) choice between them
The key here is the “If”……
What if the RIG does not come up with option A, when the DIS prefers A to B?
Then there is a failure of imagination, creativity and ingenuity -- such
as is inevitable in a natural, finite. non-go-like agent.
. What the
RIG adds to the SIS is the extra, incompatiblist, freedom of CHDO.
If the RIG offers up both A and B, then let us say the DIS chooses A.
The only reason the DIS would choose B rather than A is NOT from some “free will choice of the agent”, but because it is CONSTRAINED by the RIG, because the RIG does not offer up A as a choice in the first place!
Do you call this free will?
Do you call this “could have done otherwise”?
I call it “forced to do otherwise”.
I call it a failure of imagination, creativity and ingenuity -- such
as is inevitable in a natural, finite. non-go-like agent.
The SIS cannot choose an option that is not presented to it by the RIG.
It can only choose from what is on the menu -- that is what we normally
mean by a free choice. The alternative -- an ultra-genius level of insight
and innovation for every possible situation -- may be worth wanting,
but is not naturalistically plausible.
My point is that it is precisely CHDO that “may be worth wanting”, but is not naturalistically plausible. CHDO does not exist.
I can ALWAYS do what I wish to do if I have free will.
Naturalistically , you cannot expect to be able to think of every possible
solution to a problem the very first time you encounter it. Ug the caveman
cannot think of crossing the river by suspension bridge. The fact that some
solution might appear to
have been desirable
with 20:20 hindsight does not mean your will was frustrated
on all the occasions you failed to come up with it
On the occasions you failed to come up with the suspension bridge solution,
you were not thinking to yourself "Oh, I really wish I could dream
up a suspension bridge, but some mysterious force is preventing me",
the idea of a suspension bridge just isn't in your head at all.
Why would I then want to have some kind of random idea generator which constrains the choices available to me, just so that it can provide the artificial conditions necessary for your alleged “CHDO”, which is actually FDO after all?
The RIG doesn't constrain the options avaible to the SIS (NB: Not "you", the
SIS is not you, not is it a mini-agent inside you), it allows more than
one option to be available to the SIS, in general. The SIS cannot be
pre-loaded with preferences for every possible decision, since that
would entail omniscience. Therefore, when the RIG fails to come
up with an idea the SIS [n]would have[/b] preferred, if it
had been available, that does not mean the SIS
already has
the idea, plus a preference for it. The SIS "recognises" the preferability
of an idea for the SIS using an algorithm, rather than a look-up table,
as it were.
A finite, natural, agent will
have internal limitations; they are not limitations on freedom
because they are not external. A caged bird is unfree because it
cannot fly; a pig cannot fly either, but that is not an example
of unfreedom because it is an inherent, internal limitation.
In our example of A and B, both A and B are possible choices that the agent might make. The agent always chooses A rather than B if given a free will choice between A and B. The ONLY reason the agent would choose otherwise (ie the only reason the agent would choose B) is simply because the option of doing A is NOT MADE AVAILABLE (by the RIG). Whether the RIG is internal to the agent or external the effect is the same - the agent chooses B simply because A is not "deemed to be available", and NOT because the agent prefers (freely chooses) B compared to A.
I dare say Ug would always choose to keep warm by making a fire rather than
shivering
once the fire-making idea had occurred to him
But did the model “do otherwise” in run 2 out of “free will choice to do otherwise”, or was it “constrained to do otherwise” by the RIG?
It had an internal limitation, as naturalistic systems must.
The RIG remember is responsible for “throwing up possible alternative choices”. In run 2, the RIG did NOT throw up the possibility of choice A, thus in effect the RIG BLOCKED the agent from the possibility of choosing A, even when A would have been (rationally) a better choice than B!
The RIG did not block from choice A -- choice A was never on the menu.
Choice A was certainly on the menu in the first run. Why not on the second run?
Naturalistic limitations (actually I have already addressed this issue. I can
amend the RIG so that once it has succeeded in throwing up
possibity, it continues to do so -- that is within naturalistic limitations).
It
certainly *failed* to come up with choice A. Failures and limitations
are part of being a finite, natural being.
Thus you are saying that the agent “chose to do B rather than A simply because it failed to come up with the option of doing A”, and NOT because “it chose to do B rather than A out of a free will choice to do B rather than A”?
I am saying FW is the whole process of RIGation and SISection. The SIS is not
a mini-agent with its own FW.
This is what you understand by free will?
“I freely choose to do B rather than A, not because I WANT to do B rather than A, but simply because I did not think of doing A in the first place”?
This a very strange kind of free will, and not one that many would recognise!
The SIS cannot be pre-loaded with preferences for (you cannot have wants
relating to) options the RIG has never dreamt up ITFP.
What natural mechanism can provide all possible choices ex nihilo ? How is Ug
the caveman to know that rubbing two sticks together and starting a fire
is the way to keep warm ? I don't doubt for a minute that what you want is
desiable; but how do *you* think it is possible ?
I am not asking for omniscience. I am asking whether CHDO exists.
I will never know if I have considered all possible alternatives, that is why I have already acknowledged that a RIG CAN add value to a decision-making agent by perhaps throwing up some additional possible alternatives.
But that is ALL it does. The RIG does NOT endow CHDO, the most it can ever endow is FDO.
It does endow CHDO in the standard defintion (eg Robert Kane's Alternative
Possibilites).
It doesn't restrict choices, becuase the choices don't exist priori to be
restricted. The RIG is a GENERATOR not a filter.
In one run the RIG might throw up A and B. In another run it might throw up only B. Thus the RIG controls whether A is made available to the agent or not. Whether you look upon this as a filter or as a generator makes no difference – the fact is that in one run A is made available, in another it is not.
The RIG can only be afilter if it filters all possible ideas. But all possible
ideas cannot be naturalistically available apriori, therefore the RIG is not a filter
but a generator, as I said.
This is what you understand by free will?
“I freely choose to do B rather than A, not because I WANT to do B rather than A, but simply because I did not think of doing A in the first place”?
What is the alternative ? To be able to think of every possible idea
ITFP ? That is omniscience, not FW.
This a very strange kind of free will, and not one that many would recognise!
You are very far from establishing that the failures of the RIG constrain the
SIS in all circumstances. For instance, you keep failing to consider
that the RIG can suceed in coming up with preferable ideas.
The agent is not constrained by the RIG because the RIG is not external.
Most of your objections to my argument seem to be based on the idea that the RIG is not external to the agent – it is supposed to be internal. Therefore the RIG cannot be looked upon as an external “constraint” to the agent’s free will. Correct?
OK. But then you are saying the indeterminism (in the RIG) is internal to the agent. That the source of the agent’s free will is based on some kind of internal indeterminism in the agent’s decision-making process.
But if the indeterminism is supposed to be internal to the agent, this must surely undermine the rationality of the agent. How can an agent believe that it is acting rationally if it at the same time thinks its choices are somehow controlled by an indeterministic mechanism?
The short answer is that there is not a pre-determined set of rules for
solving every particular problem. Agents have to depart from
rule-following in order to guess, create and innovate.
The long answer is found in my original article.
Speaking for myself, I certainly would not like to think that my rational decision-making processes were based on an indeterministic mechanism. How on Earth could I believe that such a thing is the source of my free will?
The net result is the same. In your model, free will means the following :
“I freely choose to do B rather than A, not because I WANT to do B rather than A, but simply because I did not think of doing A in the first place”?
Again, this is one-sided. In many cases you freely choose, C, which you have
never thought of before, because it is a better solution to the traditional
options A and B.