What is Free Will? (Metaphysics) 

I am relatively new to philosophy and you are right, this problem truly was one of the first one that crossed my mind! I cannot wait for more videos to come to this series.

excellent video, my friends and I have written a lot about these three premises, but good to see them clearly presented on RU-vid something people ought to consider more is that there's a difference between 'free will' and the 'perception of free will'

I have been struggling sorting this out on my own. This did a wonderful job

This video just states what free will is. There are 3 positions: 1.Determinism - Free will does not exist, everything is predestined. 2.Compatibilism - Everything is predestined, but (somehow) we have free will. 3.Libertarianism (do not confuse with the political view) - Everything is not determined. And we have free will.

Will exists-it’s never necessarily free, but its existence is possible. Will’s freedom exists in varying degrees. The choice in proposition discarded depends on the domain being spoken about as well as the scope of what is being said-which probably (like most I’d imagine) makes me a compatibilist. I believe will & desire exist on opposite poles.

To my view free will is meant to convey the concept that there are a set of possible outcomes such that there is an ability to make a decision to increase the probability of a given outcome to become more likely. Also people seem to forget that determinism is an interpretation of physics, and it is not without it's own logical inconsistencies, a great source on those inconsistencies is "A Primer on Determinism" by Earman. Earman has also published supplemental work on these issues that is worth reading as well. Another issue worth mentioning is that it seems unintuitive that evolution would select for an "illusion" about "free will" if it was not possible for that to exist in reality such that it makes no difference to survival to have such false observations. For example creatures evolved neurology bc in the ocean there existed degrees of spatial freedom, up, down, left, right, foward, back, and having neurology allowed that organism to capitalize on those degrees of freedom to it's benefit. Also there is a bit of a false dichotomy going on used to justify some of the conclusions being made in debate about this topic. Primarily that we must decide if either determinism of true randomness is true, but to my view there is no reason to assume it is not possible that there is some other paradigm that exists as a third option and might demonstrate that two concepts are not mutually exclusive or some other deeper understanding that avoids the pitfalls of the current state of stagnation in philosophy about how all these concepts are related and seemingly reasonable tools for thinking about the world.

I want "determinism al dente" on a shirt

This should be fun. Libertarianism - I'm inclined to agree with Galen Strawson - we cannot help but think we have the ability to do otherwise in certain circumstances. Contra Strawson, I believe that the ubiquity of these sensations of apparent freedom are sufficient to justify the belief in it. When dealing with agents, we assume indeterminism - freedom to do otherwise, and when dealing with non-agents, we assume determinism. Both assumptions have the same epistemic priority, and they are not incompatible. Science assumes universal, rather than local, determinism; but pretheoretically we do not.

One logical conclusion of determinism is that there is no truth. No true or false. Your statement and my statement were just as equally determined to happen. One proposition could not be more true than the other if they are both merely the effects of physics.

Determinism is sufficient for free will not existing. Non-determinism is necessary, but not sufficient for free will to exist (eg: randomness don't actually creates free will). There is evidence that determinism is true, even though it is still an open issue. The question is, what would be sufficient condition for free will existing? I can't even answer that question.

so do libertarianists think that they were predetermined to do something or not, is the last part of p2 only there so that the trilemma formulation works

Accepting all these 3 doesn't lead to inconsistency. 1 can be accepted while allowing for free will as "the ability to do otherwise". Libertarians don't deny the first premise either we merely hold that there is an appropriately non random indeterminacy with regards to some of our choices.

When you say youre a skeptic, do you mean a free-will skeptic (as in you lean towards hard-incompatiblism/determinism), or that you are skeptical of the current conceptual landscape of the debate? (Would this make you a revisionist like Manuel Vargas?).

Skeptics are skeptical of every dogma and doctrine, except skepticism.

Is defining free will as "the ability of doing what we want to do" would be sufficient for compatibilism ?

Wisdom is when you ignore the right "mysteries".

Soft determinism makes a lot more sense to me.

I'd drop the clishé here and say that compatibilists are just closeted determinists. :) On a serious note, I do think that at this point, science quite convincingly tells us that the universe and we in it follow "deterministic laws" (and I don't even like the term laws, as we don't follow them, they just describe how the universe works). The only question is if we want to salvage and redefine "free will", going down the compatibilist road, just like we did with "atom", "energy", "psyche" and so on, or we let the term fade away, given its historical signifance and baggage.

How about freewill defined as agent causation. That the cause of decision is the agent him/herself and not some other agents.

Depending on how we define "free will", I'm either a compatibilist or a free will skeptic (more specifically, a hard incompatibilist). Compatibilist in the sense that people can physically be either prevented or not to act against their experienced voluntary will. "Free will" is then manifested whenever a person is 'free' to exercise their experienced will without physical involuntary compulsion to do otherwise. Hard incompatibilist in the sense that no matter what physical restrictions our experienced voluntary will is or is not faced with, we can never do other than we do, because it appears everything in the universe - including our thoughts and actions - is governed by a combination of prior states of the universe and the laws of nature (whether deterministic or indeterministic). Thus, there is no "free will" to exercise, ever, but only the unfolding universe we, as conscious creatures, are forced to experience.

I fall somewhere in the compatiblist camp insofar as I am of the mind that our concern for free will is ultimately the concern for the culpability of conscious actors. For my will to be free I must act without coercion by any actor other than myself. The allowance by the universe for me to do otherwise seems inconsequential, so long as the universe is not a conscious creature.

I think we should ask these questions : R we totally free in our ideas & our knowledge ? R we totally free in our capabilities to do an act ? R we totally free in our emotions & feelings ? R we totally free in our options ?

Compatibilism "appeals" to me bc I am of the opinion that the universe follows deterministic laws, but I don't think u can break or undermine those laws with ur free will, I think if one thinks so and does in consequence otherwise(to prove free will or to escape the situation) one still operates within those laws. And I don't really know why but I don't really believe in coincidents, I think when one thinks something is random infact one just doesn't know enough. *one includes my self because one can never know enough, wich makes my whole view more of a belief, because i dont think it can ever be proven...

I'm a soft determinist, I believe that the decisions I make aren't entirely dependent on the laws of the universe

I use my non-existent existent free will to choose not to engage in the choice of debating free will :P The free will debate is only for actual philosophers with too much free time on their hand so as to waste time trolling noobies about free will for the lolz and for armchair philosopher to demonstrate on online forums how much of a noob they actually are. This is one subject from the philosophy class where I would be proud to fail by handing in a blank page as my assignment thesis. Though that blank page may actually earn me a pass depending on the teachers position on free will. A practical demonstration is better than words ;)

Compatibilism appeals to me because it seems to have a different concept of free will.

I don't know if you know the school of Ash'ari ( islamic theological school) May be it seems irrelevant, but this school has developed a lot of philosophical theories One of the main theories is in the free will dilemma They refer to free will as the possibility of choice to be related to two contrary things ( do and don't do ) if one of them happened but the possibility of the other one was there then that is free will It's somehow not clear even for the members of this great school! But I think , it can be called semi free will First, The theory admits that nothing happens only by the will of God ! Second, The theory clearly say that there is no physical determinism ( all physical events are probabilistic relative to each other) Third, All events are the creation of God ( it is not similar the first point ) Including conscious human actions Four, Human has something that we call will God willed that we will ! So everything that is coming from this thing called will , will not go against God will because he willed that we will ! This will that we claim for humans is an ability to choose between two contrary things ( do or do not ) The choice is instantaneous with the creation of this ability, so it is A necessary thing for other , Possible for it self ! How it choose? We say simple things has no how! Then we build it to say : God willed us to to will He knows what we will Either he will what we will to happen or not! If if he willed it to happen, the action is acquired to you , and you will be responsible for it ! ( case 1) Otherwise, the action is acquired to you but no responsibility! ( case 2 ) The case one is referring to things done with the presence of will like the movement of hand The case two is referring to actions that we cannot control Paralysis, Shivering!

There are many arguements for compatiblism. And if we make the frame bigger (by looking at moral systems) there maybe is no inconsistency anymore. For example the christian believe: If you act according to gods plan (P1) while god lets you choose between good and evel (P3) you will get absolute free will (P2) after you died. Guess this might hold true for many religous believes, fe. also Shintoism, Muslims and so on. Also in real life there might me no contradiction between P1, P2 and P3 if you accept to act accordingly to the laws of nature (or god). Following those laws is life-giving. Not following them death (fe you can't be free of gavity without floating into space, you can't stop breathing, and so on). Ultimately if you would defy nature in it's whole you yourself couldn't be you anymore because you follow natures laws. If you are not you you wouldn't have come to the point asking that question. So basically you are part of the law itsself. Which could lead us to Spinoza I guess.... :D

If you deny free will, are you free to do that? If not, who is denying what?

In my opinion the only really coherent idea is compatiblism, however I don't think the idea is necessary.

Compatibilism. Free will is the idea that people act purposefully. 'Free will' is used as a requirement for the justification of incentivization structures (punishment or reward), and this definition is what would make sense for that context.

TherE is no free will. We have a feel of having free will like in the dream we have same feel. In the dream we feel yes am taking the decision but in reality it's not me in the dream but mind had taken all the decision on my behalf. So free will is just an illusion.

I am a libertarianist

The universe isn't deterministic. Laws can be broken. Free will does exist (it is called death or there has to be an afterlife - forever eternal).

I'm trying to imagine what the universe would look like with free will and what it would look like with out free will and I think they look the same. Pragmatically, this is some sort of word game, alternate descriptions of the same thing.

Ok. Im just done. Lmbo Call me dumb. I'll take it.

Will is subjuctive, ambiguous and irrelevant. Before we can ask if we have will, we first need to know what we are. What is personhood? Are we individuals? The proverbial "we" don't possess enough information to understand and pursue such questions. Again, the idea of will is fun but superficial and irrelevant. That said, we should never stop asking why and always stride forward to the pursuit of knowledge and understanding. All that said, I lean towards hard determinism. But I don't claim it's objective. It just appeals to my philosophical biases.

libertarians must accept that thoughts can ultimately have no cause other than themselves. compatibilism superfluously uses free, because who doesn't want free will?! ameyereight?!?! will is the reasoning upon which action is predicated. it's the product of deterministic factors, just like everything else in the universe. KEvron

Quantum mechanics tells us that there are no determinism so I would lean to the Libertarianism. Although I could see points for compatibilism too.