Adina Roskies - Free Will and Decision Making

What is the relationship between free will and decision-making, the capacity of individuals to select among options or choices usually based on certain criteria. It would seem that, in principle, decision-making can exist outside of free will (such as in a computer), but free will cannot exist without the capacity to make decisions.

Adina Roskies is an American philosopher and the Helman Family Distinguished Professor at Dartmouth College.

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[david-fmgv]

Someone needs to come along and nail down the terminology surrounding the free will debate and definitions of those terms so everyone can get on the same page going into the conversation. Every debate gets muddled and weighed down by personal interpretations of the terminology.

[patientson]

Self-control is more than being legal. It is a powerful force required to negotiate new paths in one's life toward another. Endurance on the other hand helps you make informed decision; how long for depends on you the subject to accept said task. A mother knows when she is due for birth. She makes a staunch defense to allow her to deliver that baby successfully. Her transformation for evolving is impeccable and supernatural.

[randomone]

True free will necessitates the ability to act without adhering to any rules (in our universe). So long as some outside influence can affect our universe in a way that doesn’t adhere to classical physics, I think we can conclude free will exists. This will come down to truly understanding the “random” mechanisms of quantum mechanics.

[UriyahRecords]

The difference between Free will and fate is an illusion. They secretly are the same thing and mutually arise, as light is not without darkness.

[pbasswil]

'Free Will' is this vague theory that we've inherited from Western history (<– much influenced by Abrahamic religion's need to assign ethical responsibility). To this day the concept of Free Will is ungrounded in any deep understanding of how the brain/mind works. Start by realizing that our 'Reality' is a conceptual model that is constructed and maintained in the mind – a model which can never actually match the material world, but which is the best we can do, and which functions as an adequate mental surrogate for our physical environment in most cases. To choose, ('free will'?) we must compare and weigh theoretical paths to the future – completely conceptual, synthetic alternatives that we ourselves have constructed. Our fear of death/oblivion drives us to invent and 'choose' self-preserving paths. Calling this Free Will mostly burdons us with a knotted mess of inadequately examined legacy assumptions. Start there.

[XOPOIIIO]

Responsibility can be perfectly applied to both conscious and non-conscious agents. The whole point of punishment is for agents to keep in in mind while calculating decisions.

[christopherchilton-smith]

She's almost a politician, expertly dodged giving any defense of her "capabilitism"

[ansleyrubarb]

...If you would allow me add a thought. With Great Freedom comes Great Responsibility. All of us are the sum of all our life experiences. Experiment: stop, take a step, now within that 360 degree circle, do anything you want, wether for good or evil. You have total Free Will, however, with that Great Freedom comes Great Responsibility, yet you, we, still have complete Free Will, respectfully, Chuck...captivus brevis...you tube...Blessings...so simple, yet so complicated elegance. The Gift of Life is so incredibly Beautiful. Both of you are Marvelous in your own way...

[wattshumphrey]

The underlying assumption in this discussion is that "indeterminism = randomness".

This falls out of the basic assumption that everyone in science appears to be working with that the only possible descriptors of our universe are that it is either deterministic, random, or some combination of both.

Given that, there is no room for "free agency" at all.

If we are to believe our own first-hand experience and instincts -- that we are conscious, free agents not bound by either determinism or chance -- there must be something big missing from this picture of the world allowed by our current science.

Something monumentally big.

[jamesruscheinski]

future is open, undetermined, even random? past is, or has been, determined? free will in both determined past (compatible) and open future (libertarian)?

[A.--.]

In Islamic paradigm we have complete free will for a limited number of variables in a deterministic Set.

I like to think of it as a sphere in which we can move about freely but bounded by the limits of the given set who's dimensions have fixed and variable parts.

The boundry of the sphere is called Qadar (prederminiation) which can be changed by Supplications.

This entire structure is by the Allowance of God.

[attilaszekeres]

I loved the soft deterministic flirting in the middle.

[Maxtraxx]

I have an itch that I would love to scratch - but I won't, because I have free will, and because I decided not to scratch, in order to prove* that I have free will - I have free will.
*There are always causes and reasons - ergo, no free will.

[zcydssh]

Can't understand the initial point RE: machines. Has any machine ever made a decision? Has any computer ever decided to do something contrary to its programming?

[stPrinciples]

The universe always is . The energy keeps transforming. Everything is inside this transforming soup. In this sense, reality is predetermined

[namenlos]

First question: what is the definition of "Free Will"? Free from what?

[iflysnf]

Where she talks of decisions with no consciousness, it’s the same as a word with no meaning. The word isn’t sharing the meaning so the person using the word isn’t conscious of the details connected. Like responding just from seeing social media or a single source of info. It’s like speaking without thinking.

[jamesruscheinski]

is there free will, determined or undetermined, where there is causation?

[jamesruscheinski]

is decision making a deterministic free will?

[dr_shrinker]

Random or determined…..both are hinderances which deny free will.