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Free will is the ability of agents to make choices unimpeded

The title of this thread is the definition of free will provided in this article. The use of the term "agent" presumably is not intended in the sense of a "sales agent", but would seem to be connected with philosophical agency, the ability to act. According to The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "An agent performs activity that is directed at a goal, and commonly it is a goal the agent has adopted on the basis of an overall practical assessment of his options and opportunities. Moreover, it is immediately available to the agent's awareness both that he is performing the activity in question and that the activity is aimed by him at such-and-such a chosen end."

Adopting this as the idea behind the choice of the word "agent", I believe the first sentence of the lede should be more clear about this intention, as the word "agent" is to be read by those for whom philosophy is not their calling. The intention of this sentence would seem to me to be more clearly expressed by saying:

"Free will is the ability of agents to assess and/or to make choices unimpeded."

If we go back to the thirteenth century, "Freedom — that is, acting or refraining from acting as one wants — requires the self-movement of the will and the cognitive capacity for reflecting upon one's act...Even if reason judges an act of the will to be evil, the will has the option of desisting from this act or not." This view describes the two phases of assessment and action and suggests "free will" is their combination.

Some more modern opinions are:

"Traditionally, free will has been conceptualized as the capacity possessed by persons to decide and to act in accordance with an unimpeded will of their own." — Bernard Baertschi, Alexandre Mauron; Determinism tout court

Here again the combination of deciding and then acting constitute free will.

"Free will, then, is the unencumbered ability of an agent to do what she wants" — Michael McKenna, Justin Coates

Here the stress is less clear: the role of doing something is clearly included, but what wanting to do it means is not spelled out. What does a drug addict "want" - the drug, or to be free of the drug — and how do we know what the addict really wants? Is the "assessment" idea built into this definition or not?

In psychology, the idea of setting a goal and acting to achieve it are separated in the so-called Rubicon model of action phases.Achtziger & Gollwitzer

In any event, the proposed change is clearer in emphasizing what is meant by "agent", and indicates the two aspects of free will, the division into action and volition, that permeates the subject. Brews ohare (talk) 09:01, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not wild about it given some of the modern meanings of 'agent' in AI and CAS, in fact 'agency' is increasingly problematic as a word. We need the lede (as I have said many time) to reflect a third party source not be a synthesis of discussions of the subject by editors ----Snowded 11:28, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

We need some clarification here, Snowded. You use the term "third party source" with your personal definition, and not that of WP. WP explains a third party source in the context of finding an unbiased observer: "one that is entirely independent of the subject being covered". Obviously, no such source exists to define what "objectively speaking" is meant by 'free will'. For example, sources like The Oxford Handbook of Whatever or The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy contain articles that are what WP calls "secondary sources", that is,

"A secondary source provides an author's own thinking based on primary sources, generally at least one step removed from an event. It contains an author's interpretation, analysis, or evaluation of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources."

Possibly you mean to use the term tertiary source defined by WP:TERTIARY as: "publications such as encyclopedias and other compendia that summarize primary and secondary sources." However, the role of such sources is primarily to argue that a position has not been given undue weight, and so far as establishing veracity:

"Some tertiary sources should not be used for academic research, unless they can also be used as secondary sources or to find other sources." ]

I would conclude that the role of a tertiary source in establishing a definition, particularly when (as is usually the case) its viewpoint is that of a single author, may rest upon seeing it as a secondary source. In that regard, as WP:SECONDARY points out:

Policy: Misplaced Pages articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources. Articles may make an analytic or evaluative claim only if that has been published by a reliable secondary source.

With all this in mind, your remark " We need the lede (as I have said many time) to reflect a third party source not be a synthesis of discussions of the subject by editors" should be reworded. IMO, what we need is a lede that either:

• (1) provides a single definition widely adopted by secondary sources of all stripes as a starting point (whether they are compatibilists, incompatibilists, or whatever). This approach is utopian, IMO.

or

• (2) provides several assorted definitions with appropriate secondary sources sufficient to satisfy WP:NPOV. For example, definitions acceptable to compatibilists and others acceptable to incompatibilists, and so on.

Both approaches require some judgment to establish that indeed the selected definition is (or definitions are), in fact, representative. And both require quotations for definition(s). Would you adopt a strategy such as this as a substitute for your own wording? Brews ohare (talk) 16:16, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

You are just repeating old arguments Brews, and as ever at length. Sorry don't agree. I'll have time to work on your other edits this weekend ----Snowded 05:19, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

It's a simple question: how does your idea of a "third-party source" square with WP policy definitions? It is clear that it does not, and the relevant policy is WP:SECONDARY in conjunction with WP:NPOV. Brews ohare (talk) 13:15, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Its been explained to you by multiple editors on article pages and also on policy pages when you have tried to change them to support one of your content disputes. Sorry Brews I'm simply not prepared to carry on saying the same thing over and over again ----Snowded 19:32, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

Apparently you believe you have dealt with the problem that your concept of "third-party sources" is yours and yours alone. It is my opinion that has not happened, and you have never faced the fact that secondary sources are the backbone of WP sourcing as pointed out in WP:SECONDARY. However, this failure to connect with WP policy is not a critical factor in attempting to establish an adequate & sourced definition of "free will". In particular, we have two candidates already quoted at the start of this thread.

1. "Free will, then, is the unencumbered ability of an agent to do what she wants" — Michael McKenna, Justin Coates

2, "Traditionally, free will has been conceptualized as the capacity possessed by persons to decide and to act in accordance with an unimpeded will of their own." — Bernard Baertschi, Alexandre Mauron; Determinism tout court

Of the two, the last one seems to me to be the least ambiguous, as terms like "unencumbered ability" and "doing what one wants" bury a host of difficulties, among them: whether "do" involves both decision and action, either of which could be "encumbered". According to MMcKenna & Coates, that allows the compatibilists to limit laws of nature to action and leave will unencumbered. Somehow, I don't think this interpretation is the only way to look at the two-aspect formulation and incompatibilists could work with this definition. Anyway, choose one, or provide an alternative sourced version you like better with some reasons why. Brews ohare (talk) 21:16, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm loosing track of what you are proposing Brews and I don't have to choose one of yours if I am happy with the present wording or think it preferable. Of the two quotes yo give the second is preferable but I really don't see what your issue is. Maybe summarise exactly what change you are looking for ----Snowded 03:43, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

The second definition says 'free will' as a capacity, a capacity both to decide and to act. It identifies two aspects. Now some authors focus on one or the other, not both. So this "traditional" view does not satisfy WP:NPOV. The lack of unanimity about the "traditional" point of view should be explained and cited.

The present first sentence is a bit oblique, but adopts the traditional view by using the word 'agent' linked to the WP article on philosophical agency (which implies action directed toward a goal selected after due consideration). It has therefore two defects: it is unclear, and it is unsourced.

So my issue is to fix the first sentence to be 1) clear & 2) sourced & 3) identified as a common but not universal view. Brews ohare (talk) 14:17, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Replacement of chains or imprisonment

An example of constraints limiting free will was provided as "physical constraints (such as chains or imprisonment)". Technically "imprisonment" might fit better under social constraints, so I moved it there along with censure. The example of chains is trivial, and not any philosopher's real concern. A better example, and one of importance, is the constraints of laws of science. So for example, one cannot defy gravity whatever one's choice, and there is much discussion over whether in fact thought can influence events at all (not being one of the fundamental forces recognized by laws of science) and whether in fact original thought is a chimera should it be found that all "thought" is merely an accompaniment to more fundamental events that are indeed due to forces included in the laws of science. So I replaced "chains" with "requirements of the laws of science", which is in fact a topic of concern to almost all philosophical comment on free will. Brews ohare (talk) 05:47, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I made a minor modification to put back some of the old text but otherwise I think that is OK. Otherwise the last set of changes seem fine but with the removal of a logical position with no adherents (that statement I have referenced) so I also removed the picture as it implied such a position was real ----Snowded 07:42, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Filled in citation template for your source and removed the "that have been studied" phrase that seems neither here nor there. Brews ohare (talk) 17:42, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

OK will live with that and thanks for the template. Not sure why you are breaking the wikipedia convention on indenting - not like you ----Snowded 03:39, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Use of term 'natural law'

The term natural law appears to have been appropriated by the legal system as a reference to morality. So where science is meant, the laws of science or physical law appears to be a better choice of words. Unfortunately, the WP articles on these topics border upon the views of Laplace or Leibnitz and hardly reflect a modern position. Brews ohare (talk) 18:08, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't agree with you there and Natural Law is more commonly used. If you have more recent references happy to look at it again but even science is not fully agreed on the idea of 'laws' ----Snowded 03:38, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Please do that. Here is a link to a definition Also, look at the WP article natural law. And here is a Google book search. The common understanding of 'natural law' relates to "an ethical belief or system of beliefs supposed to be inherent in human nature and discoverable by reason". From context, this topic is not the one intended.

The second philosophical meaning in the linked definition is 'A nonlogical truth such as a law of nature'. In contrast to natural law, the laws of science or physical law is on target and unambiguous. Brews ohare (talk) 06:48, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

As a compromise, I have substituted "laws of nature" for "natural law". Hope that works. Brews ohare (talk) 15:23, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

It's your view again Brews, in this context I want a reference which makes that point in the context of free will and says it has replaced natural law. I'm tempted to do a mass revert but I will look at it. Please accept that if something is reverted you DISCUSS it before reinstating ----Snowded 17:03, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: I don't understand your remarks. The substitution of "laws of nature" for "natural law" makes no claims about "free will" and has nothing to do with it. Its just a question of everyday usage, and the Google books link shows that the usual interpretation of "natural law" is its legal context. Switching to "laws of nature" just avoids a possible misdirection. Brews ohare (talk) 17:47, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I am assuming that you agree that the ensuing discussion of causal closure is related to the "laws of nature" (scientific laws) and is not pertinent to "an ethical belief or system of beliefs supposed to be inherent in human nature". Brews ohare (talk) 17:53, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

It can related to ethical laws drawn from 'nature' that in effect provide restrictions. The legal context derives from the philosophical use so you were wrong to change it, There are also restrictions from laws of nature in the sense you mean them but your phrasing does not help that. I'll go through the recent changes in then next day or so. I'm flying to the US tomorrow so I won't have time for a day or so ----Snowded 21:57, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I am surprised by your remarks because I don't find any connection to ethics in this particular paragraph, which IMO is entirely devoted to what you call " laws of nature in the sense you mean them", namely the laws of nature that form science. Brews ohare (talk) 00:23, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

The context in question is:

"The conflict between intuitively felt freedom and laws of nature arises when either causal closure or physical determinism or nomological determinism is asserted. With causal closure, no physical event has a cause outside the physical domain and with physical determinism, the future is determined entirely by preceding events (cause and effect). However, despite our attempts to understand nature, ... " .

If there is any indication that ""an ethical belief or system of beliefs supposed to be inherent in human nature and discoverable by reason" is the subject of interest here, perhaps you can point it out to me? Brews ohare (talk) 04:55, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

It's a philosophical position Brews, I doubt you agree with it I have some sympathy with it, The point is that you are conflating a term incorrectly to mean what you think it should. ----Snowded 06:56, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

The linked definition provides three philosophy related meanings. The first is about ethical principles. The second is about 'laws of nature'. The third is about rationally supported legal principles. The question here is which meaning applies to the context at hand. It is the second: laws of nature. So ambiguity about which meaning applies is removed by saying simply 'laws of nature' instead of 'natural law'. I am sure you understand the advantages of clarity. So your objection would seem to be that the 'laws of nature' meaning does not apply in a discussion of causal closure. I await some argument that relates the ethical and legal meanings to discussing causal closure, an exercise in futility, IMO. Brews ohare (talk) 13:07, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

As I said I will look at it, but I am happier using a common term than one preferred by Brews albeit with links, to my mind that is clarity. Neither am I happy with you focusing on causal closure I think its partial at best. ----Snowded 14:01, 14 April 2015 (UTC

Snowded: this sentence is old text and not a recent introduction of mine. However, I agree with it that causal closure is worth bringing up. After all, the whole free will problem predating Chrysippus is the reconciliation of our intuition that we are free agents with our everyday observations that similar circumstances lead to similar results. Brews ohare (talk) 14:16, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

The issue yes Brews, its your use of it as a focus I am more concerned about. But I'm not getting sucked into a discussion of the subject with you, we are not here to co-author an essay but reflect what third party sources say. I'll review the recent changes in the next day or so ----Snowded 14:25, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

I hope that review will include specific references to sources. Brews ohare (talk) 15:09, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Try not to be snarky Brews, it's more likely to result in a mass revert than a willingness to wade through yet another set of edits ----Snowded 22:52, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Claims that dualism is largely an incompatibilist view

In the introductory paragraph to In Western philosophy the following stand-alone sentence occurs:

"Although incompatibilist metaphysical libertarianism generally represents the bulk of non-materialist constructions, including the popular claim of being able to consciously veto an action or competing desire, compatibilist theories have been developed based on the view of complementary vantage points in which "the experience of conscious free will is the first-person perspective of the neural correlates of choosing."

Sources

Shariff, Schoolker & Vohs, pp. 183 etc.

Libet

Robert Kane

Shariff, Schooler & Vohs, p. 193

Velmans

According to the article libertarianism, it posits that agents do have free will, and that, therefore, determinism is false. This formulation assumes that "agents have free will" is an empirical fact, and the definition of free will then logically implies that determinism is false. This is a precarious assertion, as the 'empirical fact' is doubtful and the logical contradiction depends upon a particular choice of definitions not considered by everyone to capture the problem.

However, the statement beginning this thread has other difficulties. One is its use of the words "non-materialist constructions" that conveys nothing to the average reader. Another is the claim that the "bulk" of non-materialist views is comprised by metaphysical libertarianism. That statement is untrue, both historically speaking and in terms of the modern views of the limitations of causal closure.

Can't we do a bit better? Brews ohare (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded's blanket reversion

Snowded you have reverted a host of changes you say you agree with because of reservations (unspecified in any way) and without discussion here. Unless you make some attempt at discussion here. I think your changes should be undone. Brews ohare (talk) 14:57, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

You were hasty with your revision, and we now have duplicate text about the dilemma. You also seem to think the mind-body problem and subject-object problem are unrelated to the issue of causal closure, which is unfortunate. And last, you still have not addressed the ambiguities of 'natural law'. Brews ohare (talk) 01:59, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Remove the duplicate material by all means. Otherwise I have explained my reasoning and I'm not going into it again. ----Snowded 04:16, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded, nowhere have you "explained" anything. You have stated your personal preference for 'natural law', unsupported by any vestige of argument. You have not addressed at all your removal of links to subject-object problem and mind-body problem and their connection to causal closure. Before you do that you might read this discussion in the Stanford Encyclopedia. Brews ohare (talk) 05:28, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Please don't assume that Brews does not agree with this is the same as This has not been explained ----Snowded 10:58, 17 April 2015 (UTC).

No basis laid for such a trivialization. Links supplied showing three philosophy- related meanings for 'natural law' of which two including the one discussed in Natural law are irrelevant, suggesting clarity is improved by use of "law of nature". You also have not responded to the request for explanation of your causal closure censureship.

I understand that is your opinion Brews and I'm sorry you thought it was mocking. It wasn't; it was just a very direct way of saying that I am not prepared to explain a point again and again and again simply because you disagree or won't compromise. The fact you are now returning to other articles to try and impose changes that were rejected last time round just illustrates the uncompromising and intransigent nature of your interactions with other editors.----Snowded 14:59, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: My remarks merely repeat and link to published sources and are the opinions of those cited authors. As you know, these sources matter whether you agree with them or not, and whether I agree with them or not. So get off your fanny and provide sources of your own for comparison and proper summary. And stop with the mud slinging and nonresponses, Brews ohare (talk) 19:48, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Hard incompatibilism

life is still killing me and i don't have time to even engage in responses to this, but I just noticed that the definition given for hard incompatibilism currently in the lede is incorrect, and i'm not sure when that started.

it currently says that hard incompatibilism is the position that determinism is false and still we don't have free will.

the correct definition is that it's the position that whether or not determinism is true or false, either way we wouldn't have free will.

though there's a sourced quote saying the former position has no adherents, i'm fairly positive the latter position has at least some, since that's what the whole dilemma of determinism is all about (whatever the story is on determinism, either way undermines free will). also those who put forth the Mind Argument (so called by Van Inwagen) are claiming exactly that if determinism were false (which it is) then we could not have free will.

Pfhorrest (talk) 04:33, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The position you find lacking is sourced and so is its repudiation as lacking advocates. Do you have sources for your modified view of hard incompatibilism and its reception? Brews ohare (talk) 05:33, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The 'no adherents' was mine and it is well sourced, happy to change if there are some. ----Snowded 10:59, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

The cited source says the position we have called "hard incompatibilism" has no adherents and no name. He suggest calling it libertinism. Vesal (talk) 02:49, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

I basically just removed the claim that this is called "hard incompatibilism", which is a position that has notable proponents, such as Derk Pereboom. It seems that the "no free will" position is nowadays more commonly called free will pessimism, skepticism, impossibilism, etc. Vesal (talk) 17:12, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

You may be correct in taking a wider stance on this issue, but I think that actions like this should be supported by inks to specific comments in published sources, not just on what might be called "name dropping" of a reference to Pereboom. Brews ohare (talk) 23:58, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Laws of science

Brews would you please stop equating the Laws of Science with types of physical constraint. We are dealing with a subject that has a long history in which that term means something different, and even in the current day the question of what is included has some ambiguity. For example is ritual covered by the laws of science? Some at the biological end of Anthropology would argue they do, others that they don't. Also given that change has already been opposed bringing it back in anywhere in the article without agreement is edit warring. ----Snowded 15:23, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: the definitions of physical determinism and nomological determinism were taken from hose articles and are not opinions of mine. If you prefer, I will source these definitions. In any event, it is clear that physical and nomological determinism differ. The use of "physical determinism (nomological determinism)" could be construed as saying they are different names for the same thing. That would be incorrect, so it is better to separate them. Brews ohare (talk) 15:32, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

The fact that one source discussing a problem uses a particular verbal construct does not justify making it an absolute statement. That is why we go to third party reviews of the field as a whole when we are doing that. You are far too particular in your choice of sources and use of them to make definitive statements. I've made this point a hundred times (as have several other editors both directly and in RfCs) and until I consent on the talk page I'm not accepting that type of change. ----Snowded 15:59, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded, I'm lost. Your reversion is concerned with nomological cf. physical determinism. The Oxford Dictionary suggests nomological is the broader term, including physical as an example. Your comment seems to be about some other point not the subject of your reversion. What is the issue? Brews ohare (talk) 16:13, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

And I've suggested a way out of the woods for you too many times to repeat myself. Read the aspect I criticised in my first comment. ----Snowded 16:22, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded - if you cannot identify the topic here, how can we proceed? Is it about these two definitions or something else? If something else, what has your reversion of these definitions got to do with what you wish to assert? Please clarify the subject here. Brews ohare (talk) 16:26, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

See multiple previous comments----Snowded 16:37, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

A useful reply consists of a "yes" or a "no", just one word to answer if the issue here is to settle the difference between nomological and physical determinism. If this is the issue, The Oxford Dictionary settles the matter: nomological determinism is the broader term and includes physical determinism. If this is not the issue, I propose to reinstate this difference as explained in the text you removed simply because this distinction is the entire meaning and purpose of the removed text. Brews ohare (talk)

It does appear from your initial words to me to stop conflating 'laws of science' with 'physical constraints' has nothing to do with your reversion, leading me to think you made this reversion without reading what you reverted. Brews ohare (talk) 01:14, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

If you restore it with the conflation I will revert Brews. You are not the arbitration of truth here. Neither am I obliged to keep repeating myself ----Snowded 03:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

The only conflation occurring here is the conflation of nomological with physical determinism that I am trying to avoid by providing the Oxford Dictionary definition that shows 'nomological' to be a broader term than 'physical' determination. You have not opposed this view, and you have identified no other "conflation" so you seem to have nothing at all to say here. Brews ohare (talk) 05:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

See OPENING STATEMENT in this thread "Brews would you please stop equating the Laws of Science with types of physical constraint" ----Snowded 07:28, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Already responded to just above-your reversion is unrelated to "equating laws of science and physical constraints". It deals instead with the Oxford Dictionary definition of 'nomological' as a broader term than 'physical' . You appear to confuse these separate matters. Brews ohare (talk) 14:01, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm open to you separating issues with different edits over a longer period But with your policy on putting together controversial and non-controversial edits together with a reference form which makes it difficult to change, there is little alternative but to revert. I made the reasons for my reversion clear. ----Snowded 03:27, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

You are speaking in generalities, but what we face here is a narrow specific edit explaining 'nomological' cf 'physical' determinism. No grand themes of multiple edits and standard forms of citation you dislike. Brews ohare (talk) 05:19, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't dislike the citation form Brews, I think its excellent for stable text. But it is a real pain for other editors who have less time that you when the article is being actively edited. What it means in practice is that you are more likely to face a mass revert than a revision. ----Snowded 10:37, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Which is related how to the topic of "nomological" versus "physical" determinism? I'll rewrite this discussion to provide more detail and more sources. You could contribute as well, you know. Your role as arm-chair film director is not all that you could do, Brews ohare (talk) 16:20, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Nomological, physical determinism, causal closure, laws of nature

Snowded: these topics are not treated the same way by all authors. Some treat nomological and physical determinism as synonyms, some distinguish between them. Some take causal closure as indisputable, others as extrapolation at best. The ideas are clear, but he terminology is not. Perhaps we should tackle these topics on the basis of the conceptions involved, and we can then agree on some mutually acceptable labeling? Brews ohare (talk) 15:35, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Here is a possible starting point. Brews ohare (talk) 16:04, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

You can't synthesis different sources, you need a source that does the synthesis ----Snowded 03:26, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: I now see that your idea of "synthesis" does not refer to WP:OR, that is, you do not refer to a WP editor making an unsupported claim. Rather, you refer to presenting sourced opinion from multiple secondary sources. So, if source A says a and source B says ~a, you would reject a WP sentence that says "There is a difference of opinion on this subject, for example, A says a and B says ~a. "

I am guessing that you object on the grounds that there may be other sources, other views, not discussed by A or B and worthy of mention. In other words, such a sentence might suffer from a lack of breadth or from WP:UNDUE. That could be the case. However, WP attempts to correct such situations by having various WP contributors contribute additional sourced opinions over time, eventually converging upon a balanced presentation that compensates for the ignorance or impetuous choices of a few.

I think you do not subscribe to this evolutionary process. That is why you want to reject all such contributions, unless they express the views of a select few sources you have annointed.

WP is designed around a cooperative process that involves many over a long time. You need more faith in such collaboration and in the constructive comparison of sources. Try it out, please. Brews ohare (talk) 05:07, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages does not allow synthesis Brews. If you want to have an evolutionary approach then discuss on the talk page and reach agreement as to what should be included before directly editing the article based on your particular perspective. Several editors have point out over the last two years that you have a particular take on the subject so you need to be more aware of that ----Snowded 10:35, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded, you have reintroduced the term "synthesis", which in terms of WP policy is defined by WP:OR and refers to including a WP editor's personal opinion unsupported by citations to reliable sources instead of following WP:SECONDARY. Your notion of "synthesis" as you outline it here has nothing to do with following WP:SECONDARY. Your idea of "synthesis" is any contribution that has not reached talk page agreement with you, whether it fits WP:SECONDARY or not. Obviously talk page agreement is desirable. But it is reached by editors making comparisons of sources, not by diatribe, but by all participants using WP:SECONDARY.

You exhibit a huge reluctance to engage this way in talk page discussion. Most of your commentary makes no attempt at improving proposed text using sources, but instead complains using abstractions and generalities unrelated to specifics, and without introducing links to a single source to widen or to deepen discussion. Thus avoiding "synthesis" as you understand it becomes, not agreement about what the literature has to say, but merely agreement with Snowded.

I hoped my invitation in this thread might be an opportunity to collaborate. Brews ohare (talk) 13:05, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not interested in having discussions about your particular perspective on the subject Brews. if you want that go and study the subject at a University or find a study group. Out business here is to create a encyclopaedia. You are also getting pretty tedious on the accusations. Can I remind you that on multiple RfCs in the past you were not supported by other members of the community and I'm not the one with a major topic ban from ArbCom ----Snowded 02:55, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I am surprised that you would indicate such indifference to WP procedures, and dress that up as a well justified pique over my "general behavior". I think we could work together on this article in the fashion I outlined based upon presenting sourced and cited opinion. However, it is your view that any sources I present are inadequate, simply by virtue of being found by me, and there is no point in your presenting any sources of your own because I'd never understand them anyway. Well, that attitude can lead nowhere. Brews ohare (talk) 07:36, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Brews, you have consistently refused requests to agree things on the talk page first. You also have this bad habit either mistaking or misunderstanding views that contradict your own. Synthesis is well defined in Misplaced Pages and the issue is your use of sources. ----Snowded 10:12, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

An odd response, completely avoiding my reply about process, and returning to your theme of saying that I won't accept views other than my own and misuse sources. I guess I have to repeat that I present only sourced opinion, whether I agree with it or not, while you rarely use sources at all, and present your visceral reactions unsupported, mostly without specifics about improvements in presentation. Of course, if I cherry picked sources, then you could counter with sources known to you. Instead, you prefer this kind of personality assassination that has nothing to do with explaining with what sources say. A practical method is to follow WP:SECONDARY, with both of us identifying and summarizing published sources. There is no room there for personal opinion or cherry picking. Nor, I add, is there room in such a source-based process for arbitrary reversion of sourced material supported by glib one-line Edit Summaries that provide no clue as to how statements could be amended to be a more accurate portrayal of sourced opinion, but assert a self-annointed authority to adjudicate. Brews ohare (talk)

You present your selection of sourced opinion and you do not respond to suggestions which would make it easier to work with you. There is no requirement if you have 5 cherry picked sources for me to find another 5 and pepper the article with them. Our objective is not to synthesis a selection of material but to use third party sources. Either way, the Oxford Handbook on Free Will and also the one on Causation have just arrived at home so I am going to take a look at the material in those and see if we can salvage something here. For the moment jet lag is catching up with me ----Snowded 19:39, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Your jet lag will not improve your analytical talents, so it is good to wait for recovery. Your claim that sources are "cherry-picked' is just your personal bias until you provide alternative sources that have different views. If you do that, the proper course is to add these alternate views to the WP text so as to satisfy WP:NPOV, not to argue over who cherry-picked what. Presenting the opinion of a variety of sources, despite your own personal definition, does not constitute "synthesis" as it is defined by WP:SYN. It is the correct process according to WP:SECONDARY. And as for your choice of "third-party" sources, the Oxford Handbook on Free Will and on Causation, they are not WP third-party sources (A third-party source is one that is entirely independent of the subject being covered) as all the articles are written by single authors actively involved in the philosophical issues they report upon. They are secondary sources as described by WP:SECONDARY. Brews ohare (talk) 16:27, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

What a mess

What a rambling mess this article is. Compare it with the comparatively tidy SEP article. It's also unnecessarily complicated, if we take the view that Misplaced Pages is for a general audience, perhaps people from the age of 15 upwards, to your own grandparents. 'Nomological determinism' is mentioned throughout without any attempt to explain it (I know the theory is that you can click on the article it is linked to, but that makes it read very badly). Many of the sections are just lists of opinions held by philosophers.

Also interesting that logical determinism has no article about it, although there is the Problem of future contingents (whose introduction I wrote years ago).

The talk page above gives me a headache. Can anything be salvaged? Peter Damian (talk) 18:49, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Nothing would please me more than if someone ignored the talk page (which is making no progress) and took a fresh look at it ----Snowded 19:27, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

The term 'nomological determinism:' has a variety of meanings ranging from a general definition indistinguishable from determinism:

Given the state of the world at one time and various "laws of nature" (which may include laws beyond physical laws), there is only one possible way the world could be at other times

to physical determinism:

All physical events have physical causes, and are determined by antecedent physical events. Of course, a "physical event" is pretty vague, and might be limited to oscilloscope traces generated by a hadron collider.. :-)

So the upshot for free will is that you cannot discuss verbal morass surrounding 'freedom' until you set up the "determinism" from which the will is free. It seems likely that an approach based upon this summary could be more understandable and shorter than the present hodgepodge, which is a result largely of the variety of usages of terms leading to constant confusion about who is talking about what. A Tower of Babel. Here is one forlorn attempt to untangle it, and here is another. Brews ohare (talk) 15:50, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

'Physical event' is completely vague. What if scientists discover a different kind of matter or substance or force that turns out to be the basis of free will? What is the point of the different types of determinism? Start with a single definition that covers them all. Peter Damian (talk) 19:46, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Recent reversal by Snowded

In this edit with the one-line edit summary:

"I don;t by 'appears' and 'inescapable' as other than an opinion and stringing together references is no way to edit an article (per previous exchanges with multiple editors)"

that invokes non-existent exchanges with other editors over this new material, Snowded reverted the following text, a modification of a paragraph previously existing:

It appears difficult to reconcile the intuition that conscious decisions are causally effective with the scientific view that the physical world can be explained to operate perfectly by physical laws. An inescapable contradiction between the intuition of free will and the scientific view arises with nomological determinism, the doctrine that all events are determined by antecedent causes. The conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural law is less clear when causal closure and physical determinism both are asserted. Causal closure is usually limited to the physical domain, and states that if a physical event has a cause, that is a physical cause. The assertion of physical determinism is that every physical event has a physical cause, and therefore asserts that there are no uncaused physical events. Belief in these two tenets does not logically exclude the possibility that there may be events and entities that lie outside the physical domain.

As an example of phenomena that possibly could lie outside the physical domain, ...

Sources

Max Velmans (2002). "How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains?". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 9 (11): 2–29.

Steven W Horst (2011). "§7.5 Nomological determinism". Laws, Mind, and Free Will. MIT Press. pp. 97 ff. ISBN 9780262015257.

Stathis Paillos (2007). "Past and contemporary perspectives on explanation". In Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard, John Woods, Theo A.F. Kuipers, eds (ed.). General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues. Elsevier. p. 156. ISBN 9780080548548. According to determinism, every event that occurs has a fully determinate and sufficient set of antecedence causes. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

There is a lack of consensus on terminology regarding 'nomological determinism'. Some authors equate 'physical determinism' with 'nomological determinism', and some equate 'nomological determinism' to determinism itself. Where the term 'nomological determinism' is distinguished from 'physical determinism', 'nomological determinism' is taken to be the broader claim. See Brian Doyle (2011). Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy. I-Phi Press. p. 149. ISBN 9780983580263. and "'nomological'". Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved April 23, 2015.

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9781400840847. The causal closure of the physical domain. If a physical event has a cause at t, then it has a physical cause at t

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9781400840847. It is plain that physical casual closure...does not say that physical events and entities are all that there are in this world, or that physical causation is all the causation that there is

Comment

• Of course, the selected works might be improperly presented, but Snowded has not suggested that is the case or in what way that might be true. It also could be that there are other views that should be presented, but Snowded has not provided any sources that should be added to make the presentation more representative of published opinion. I invite him to provide some actual reasoning behind his action, preferably based upon sources. Brews ohare (talk) 00:03, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

• You (i) changed the language to your own perspective on the problem and (ii) created a long list of references to further add commentary rather than to support the text. If you check back a year when you last attempted to do this over 4/5 Philosophy articles, that approach was rejected in several RFAs ----Snowded 05:13, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded, not a single specific piece of text you object to nor a single source you claim is misrepresented or irrelevant to the presentation. Just primping and window dressing, Snowded, nothing of substance in your comments. Brews ohare (talk) 05:19, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

• Response to Snowded's vague assertions of fault:

The current text preferred by Snowded states:

"It is difficult to reconcile the intuitive evidence that conscious decisions are causally effective with the scientific view that the physical world can be explained to operate perfectly by physical law. The conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural law arises when either causal closure or physical determinism (nomological determinism) is asserted. With causal closure, no physical event has a cause outside the physical domain, and with physical determinism, the future is determined entirely by preceding events (cause and effect)."

Snowded's charges are that the proposal

(i) changed the language to your own perspective on the problem. The perspective has indeed changed, although it is not my own perspective but those of the additional sources cited. The current text fails to distinguish between nomological determinism and physical determinism. As the proposal points out, some authors do not distinguish between the two, but many do distinguish, and where a distinction is made (see Kim), 'nomological' is seen as a broader claim including all events, while 'physical' is confined to physical events.

(ii) created a long list of references to further add commentary rather than to support the text. Additional references have indeed been added in the proposal. However these are not 'commentary' unrelated to supporting the text. The only 'commentary' is footnote 4 that points out differences in usage for the term 'nomological' and cites Doyle and the Oxford Dictionary to the effect that there is a difference according to some authors.

Reference is in the current text and is retained.

Reference is to the discussion of nomological determinism by Horst. Among other matters he quotes Vihvelin to the effect that one cannot have all encompassing laws and yet allow free actions by human beings. This discussion of Horst supports the view that nomological determinism in the broad sense of including all events is incompatible with free will, as asserted in the sentence to which this citation is attached.

Reference is to a definition of determinism which is as quoted.

Reference as discussed already points out some differences in usage for 'nomological determinism'

Reference is to Kim, a very influential writer in this area, and serves to support the stated meanings for 'causal closure' and 'physical determinism' as limiting their claims to physical events, leaving open the possibility of other kinds of events. This is a key point, not made in the current paragraph. According to Kim (p. 16) "It is plain that physical casual closure...does not say that physical events and entities are all that there are in this world, or that physical causation is all the causation that there is"

As these reference by reference explanations show, Snowded's claims about "my own perspective" and "references added to allow commentary" are groundless.

If Snowded finds these explanations deficient in some way I suggest that he provide more detailed objections to these sources and the 'nomological' vs 'physical' determinism distinction. Brews ohare (talk) 14:46, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

By the way, the WP articles nomological determinism and physical determinism do make a distinction. Brews ohare (talk) 15:04, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

The issue is not that you have found references by google searches Brews but the questions raised (here and elsewhere over various articles and repeatedly as you do't address them) are (i) is your selection partial and (ii) is your interpretation or use of what you have found valid. Otherwise references are there to justify the next not to provide additional reading or commentary ----Snowded 07:30, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm still not up to speed with the issue here. When I looked at additions by Brews, they were all strictly correct, although sometimes poorly worded, but they tended to introduce material that was not relevant to the true focus of the article. I think every article should have a subject, addressed at the right level of scope and granularity, but this article has at least 10 subjects, addressed in all kinds of different ways. Is that the issue? I have also engaged with Brews on this page (see below) and he sometimes seems to miss the point. Peter Damian (talk) 07:35, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

The "issue" here is to use sources to construct a presentation of published opinion. Instead, the discussion loses all focus upon presentation of sourced opinion on this topic. Instead of pitching in with the process envisioned by WP:SECONDARY and WP:NPOV, useful construction of a presentation satisfying WP:SECONDARY and WP:NPOV is replaced by off-the cuff pronouncements and reversions, which diversions do avoid doing any reading or exploring for additional sources, and do allow entertainment to triumph over progress. Brews ohare (talk) 14:15, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I have rewritten the proposal and put it back into the main article. I think the revision will avoid the objections raised, vague though they are. Brews ohare (talk) 16:53, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Discussion with Damian on logical contradiction

Brews writes "An inescapable contradiction between the intuition of free will and the scientific view arises with nomological determinism". This is incorrect, and I doubt the sources say this. A contradiction is two statements which cannot both be true, or both false. Intuition cannot contradict causal determinism in this sense. The current text "It is difficult to reconcile the intuitive evidence that conscious decisions are causally effective with the scientific view that the physical world can be explained to operate perfectly by physical law" is better, because 'difficult to reconcile' is not as strong as 'contradictory'.

On the current text, this doesn’t quite get the problem right either. The conflict is between our conception of free will as making it possible to change the future, with the position that the causes of the future lie in the past, the past is necessary, therefore the future is necessary. I.e. the root of the problem is the tension between possible and necessary, not between 'causally effective', whatever that means, and 'the scientific view'. I also don't like the minute distinctions that the article insists on making. Kindness to WP's readers means clarity, and that usually means starting with the generic and moving to the specific. I.e. start with the conflict between free will and determinism = between possibility and necessity, and perhaps later, if at all, move to the fine distinctions between types of determinism. Peter Damian (talk) 19:42, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Damian: I appreciate your interest in this article, but I think you have a utopian view of making it all simple. It begins simply - some things are determined, fixed, by past occurrences and some are not. But that is the end of simplicity. Millennia of reformulations are not easily summarized, and the solution, I believe, is not to attempt to do that, but rather to identify understandable sources that present the various views and cite them. Maybe you are up for this? Maybe you have improvements over the presentation of the nomological vs physical distinction? Brews ohare (talk) 21:18, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

In connection with "inescapable contradiction", of course we are talking about a logical contradiction, not a matter of fact. And a logical contradiction between free will and determinism obviously depends upon what choice you make for each term. With the definition of free will as allowing individuals to initiate original acts and the definition of determinism as the future determined ineluctably by past events, there is a clear inescapable contradiction. That is what the quote of Vihvelin by Horst points out. Of course, that settles nothing because various authors simply change the definitions around claiming that their choice of definition better captures "what people mean" - a very vague target given that there is no empirical evidence to support such an assertion. Hence the unending dither. Brews ohare (talk) 22:46, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

You have not read what I wrote. A contradiction is between two statements. An intuition is not a statement, it is a feeling or a state of mind. I do not know what you mean about a 'choice' for each term. Do you mean definition? The utmost precision in the language we use for this kind of subject is essential. On your view of how to present a subject simply, as I said above, we have a duty to the readers. Do I have improvements over the causal versus physical distinction? In order to present the problem, there is no need of making it. Peter Damian (talk) 23:07, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

On your second point “With the definition of free will as allowing individuals to initiate original acts and the definition of determinism as the future determined ineluctably by past events, there is a clear inescapable contradiction.” Your definition is imprecise. You mean that free will is the capability for individuals to initiate original acts? The definition of determinism is not “the future determined ineluctably by past events”, for determinism is a kind of theory. Determinism is not the future. More sloppy language. Even if I paraphrase you, I do not see a contradiction. There is no contradiction between being able to ‘initiate original acts’ and the theory that ‘the future is determined ineluctably by past events’. It depends on what you mean by ‘original’ of course, but there again I see sloppy expression and sloppy thinking. Peter Damian (talk) 23:13, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Damian: I've been very clear that I am speaking about logical contradictions. Did you pick that up? Brews ohare (talk) 23:15, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

To avoid going in circles, try discussing Horst's quote from Vihvelin. Brews ohare (talk) 23:21, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I was speaking of logical contradiction, yes. And no, you haven't been very clear, as I have just said. Your formulation of the issues is sloppy and lacks precision. Peter Damian (talk) 23:26, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

Use Vihvelin's then. Brews ohare (talk) 23:28, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I am off to bed now. (I am in London). I am looking at Vihvelin's article in the SEP. It is very wordy and hard to extract a precise definition. I will look tomorrow Peter Damian (talk) 23:43, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

I looked. Vihvelin's description is hopeless Peter Damian (talk) 07:18, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

If you think Vihvelin is incomprehensible, how about finding a source you recommend? Brews ohare (talk) 14:25, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe McKenna & Coates, who refer to Vihvelin? They directly duck the issue of free will viz a viz determinism and instead frame it as an aspect of moral responsibility, a topic of great significance in free will and under-emphasized in the article Free will. Brews ohare (talk) 15:07, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

You will find here that my attempt to give McKenna & Coates some prominence was unsuccessful. Brews ohare (talk) 15:15, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe this is helpful? Jack Martin, Jeff H. Sugarman, Sarah Hickinbottom (2009). Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 20. ISBN 9781441910653. Traditionally, at least at the extremes, philosophical arguments concerning agency are predicated on a strict contradiction between free choice and complete causal determinism.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Brews ohare (talk) 16:24, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm still not in a place where I can be fully involved here right now, but I'm skimming through just to see how things are going. I appreciate your involvement here Damian, it's good to have some new voices.

While I like your overall sentiment about moving from the general to the specific, one thing I think we need to be cautious about in the specifics you mention is not to start out in a way that defines free will in relation to determinism, as that biases the article in favor of incompatibilist conceptions of free will. Within the discussion of that concept of free will, I like your thoughts; but we have to also keep in mind that there are broad schools of thought that don't see a conflict at all between the two, so we should not start from a place that assumes that conflict, but somewhere even more general than that. That was the purpose of the "constraints" language that I introduced long ago, which became the most recent stable version of this article before this conflict with Brews began; we start with the almost-vacuous generalism that free will is a will that is free from something, then move into the things that it might or might not need to be free from (determinism being only one of several proposals there) to be free in the relevant way, and then into problems specific to each of those different conceptions of it. --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:10, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! There doesn't have to be a conflict between general causal determinism (i.e. every event, whether physical or not, is caused) and free will, but that really depends on the definition of 'free will'. If everything whatsoever is determined, we have to define 'free will' as absence of restraint or something like that. Or we could, like Duns Scotus, fall back on a concept of synchronic contingency: the past could have been otherwise, although it happened that way. Or we could fall back on some epistemic notion of necessity. Alternatively, we could redefine the scope of the determinate (as Brews would like, I suspect), and restrict it to the merely physical or, with Aristotle, the 'natural'. But this all means dividing up the subject in a way that is coherent and uncluttered, but this is what the article is not, currently. Peter Damian (talk) 19:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

More nitpicking from Damian

The introduction characterises determinism as a form of constraint. Is it? Some philosophers argue that this confuses between 'voluntariness', namely acting without constraint or coercion, and 'origination', namely acting without there being any cause.

The wording of the introduction is very bad. " Historically, the constraint of dominant concern has been determinism of some variety ". What does this mean? "the two most prominent common positions are named incompatibilist or compatibilist for the relation they hold to exist between free will and determinism." That is presumably a clumsy way of saying that the two main opposing positions are incompatibilism and compatibilism. But positions on what?

" Those who find free will cannot coexist with determinism are called incompatibilists, as they hold determinism to be incompatible with free will.[ " – clumsy. Why not "Incompatibilists hold that free will is inconsistent with determinism"?

"it has been widely debated throughout history is 1066-ish. Peter Damian (talk) 07:18, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

On constraint and compulsion, it's thought by some philosophers that there is a confusion between constraint and determination. See Honderich's excellent website, and this excellent paper on it, by Van Inwagen. "It is evident that determinism places me under no constraints." Peter Damian (talk) 08:12, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe the constraint approach you dislike was constructed by Pfhorrest, who seems to have a significant familiarity with the subject, although he is prone to express his personal opinion, probably based upon his own expertise, but not firmly backed by citations. You seem to think Honderich has a good web site (perhaps this one?) and like a paper by Van Inwagen. You will find there are many persuasive contributors to the free will discussion, ranging over millennia, many repeating the same arguments with a different technical vocabulary, and the challenge (I hope you agree) is not to arbitrate between them and rank them in some way, but to identify the basic theses and present them with citations to their proponents. Brews ohare (talk) 14:32, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

As for the presentation, I believe a major issue in arriving at a balanced presentation is that WP editors, like everyone else, have an intuitive idea of what "free will" is, and allow that to bias their editing against views that do not match their intuitions. That bias takes the form of peremptory reversion of what are seen to be unpalatable views and assassination of opposing opinion. The common way around this problem is to make the discussion a word game, choose a definition, try to find its implications for determinism and moral responsibility, and argue that your definition fits the most "reasonable" intuition. A different way to handle the matter is to admit reductionism and physicalism have practical limits. There may be less than an infinity of possibilities, but there are enough to have occupied philosophers from before the time of Chrysippus. Brews ohare (talk) 15:38, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Just noting here briefly to confirm that the "constraint" language was introduced to the article by me some years ago, as a way of dissolving a then-ongoing dispute about how best to open the article in a way that was not biased either for or against compatibilism or incompatibilism. A big part of that dispute was that the use of the word "determine" to refer to anything that the will might or might not be free of (or need to be free of to count as "free will") was seen as biasing the very definition of free will in favor of incompatibilism, even while trying to make room for compatiblism. I suggested we use a different word besides "determine" to indicate an impingement on freedom, and so as to leave determinism of the kind relevant to incompatibilism clearly only one of possible threats to free will, and so as not to suggest that compatibilists considered some kind of determinism a potential threat to free will, as they by definition do not.

If there is some more technical usage of the term "constraint" that I'm not familiar with that makes it too unsuitable for this purpose, I'm happy to substitute some other word instead. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:14, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Featured article

I found the article in its featured article state, December 2004. It is better than the current version. Peter Damian (talk) 07:22, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Thats an interesting proposition, I'm open to it ----Snowded 07:31, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Well I didn't actually make a proposition, only an observation. Peter Damian (talk) 07:32, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

It's could be a good idea. Create a sandpit and invite those editors with some knowledge of the subject to help put, use that as a start and then create something that can be put to a RfA here ----Snowded 08:11, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

OK I will think about it. The problem as always is time. I have about four nearly finished papers to polish and send off, and Misplaced Pages is a form of displacement activity. Free will is an interesting problem. Peter Damian (talk) 08:14, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

I'd agree that 2004 edition has a lot to recommend it, at least as far as clearly stating the main issues. As with many WP articles, it has been a downhill run since that time. Brews ohare (talk) 15:54, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Tendentious editing

At issue (at least as I understand it) is Brews' insistence on using a melange of citations from primary sources, to advance a novel presentation without citations or references to other, secondary sources supporting this presentation. This runs afoul of Misplaced Pages policies of No Original Research and avoidance of Synthesis. Despite this being pointed out to him repeatedly (mostly but by no means exclusively by User:Snowded) the process has become completely mired in edits, reversions, accusations, accusations of bad faith and general battleground mentality (see the talk page discussions of any of the articles listed for ample examples). This also leads to forum shopping and canvassing with seemingly endless RFCs and petitions on policy pages (Wikipedia_talk:NOR#Explaining_rejections.3F), project pages (Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philosophy) and various users' talk pages to bring others to Brews' d way of thinking, almost always to no avail. Then the whole cycle starts again on another article. ANI April 2014

That agrees with my very brief assessment of the situation. I haven't encountered Brews before (to my knowledge), though I have heard of him (the Speed of Light arbitration case). I was asked by user Snowded to look at this article, I have read as much of the talk page as I can bear, and I have looked at some of Brews contributions. My view is precisely as characterised above, namely the use of citations to advance a novel presentation etc. Peter Damian (talk) 09:14, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

It is a difficult situation, however. I haven't found yet any cases where Brews adds something that is unequivocally incorrect. But here is a good example. Snowded reverts with the comment that the original was much clearer (I agree) and that the "Quintessence paragraph adds nothing just confuses". I broadly agree, and this is also the problem with the article here – the additions are not incorrect, but they tend to complicate the article. Again, our first duty is to the readers, not the editors. Peter Damian (talk) 09:38, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

It is annoying that you opine Snowded's reversion of this material removed a contribution that is "unequivocally incorrect" without explaining how it misrepresents the sources cited in its support. (That was not Snowded's claim BTW.) A tendency toward unsupported assertion is hard to quell, but try we must. Your phrase describing my efforts as "namely the use of citations to advance a novel presentation" is an oxymoron, as WP:SYN and WP:OR refer to a WP editor's introduction of personal opinion, not an editor's attempt to present what sources say. Although I am sure error is possible in my efforts to do this, the way forward is not to accuse me of some agenda, but to improve the presentation to make portrayal of the source more accurate or, if necessary, to introduce additional sources that make the presentation closer to a neutral point of view. Brews ohare (talk) 14:41, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

As for ANI's claim that I use primary sources "to advance a novel presentation without citations or references to other, secondary sources supporting this presentation", this is pure nonsense as secondary sources are used aplenty and there is no "novel agenda". These statements float in the aether, without any substance. They also are a misdirection from the objective of this Talk page of assessing content of this article Free will. Brews ohare (talk)

It was not incorrect. I said I hadn't found any instances of incorrectness. I then gave an example of the actual problem. "the additions are not incorrect, but they tend to complicate the article". Sorry for the misunderstanding.Peter Damian (talk) 16:51, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Much as I am intrigued by the article, I think I shall bow out and leave Snowded to it. I have four papers to finish, as I said, and life is too short. Peter Damian (talk) 17:48, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

The basic problem is that Brews is enthusiastically writing essays based on reading the results of google searches on the subject. That is not what writing an encyclopaedia is about. If I look at the Oxford handbook on Free Will - which I now have at home - the selections made by Brews come from articles advocating or explaining a particular perspective on the problem but are used to support a statement about the field as a whole. In the edits I had to revert this morning a list of different perspectives on free will is used by Brews to draw the conclusion that there is no agreement on definitions, something that the source does not support. That is Brews conclusion which may or may not be valid. But its not the way Misplaced Pages is written. Unless and until Brew's gets his head around WP:OR and WP:SYNTH we are going to have these problems. The trouble is, from his attempts on policy pages, that he doesn't really agree with those policies as commonly understood. Again that is legitimate point of view, but he needs to change the policies before he edits articles against those policies ----Snowded 05:20, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I see your jet lag has passed, but there is no increased interest in supporting your peculiar stance with sources. That there is a wide difference among authors on the usage of 'nomological determinism' is perfectly obvious, and is not limited to the sources cited. Even the minimal effort needed to read Doyle's separate definitions of 'nomological' and 'physical' determinism seems to be beyond your interest or capacity at the moment. As for finding authors that equate the two, just make a simple Google book search. Brews ohare (talk) 05:32, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Nothing is obvious unless it is referenced Brews. Find a third party source which says there is a wider spread disagreement and fine. Making "simple Good book seaches" is part of the problem here, not the solution. ----Snowded 05:40, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

The text you support lumps physical determinism and nomological determinism together, despite the distinctions drawn (and sourced) in the WP articles on these separate topics. Here are two links that also confound the two: "Physical determinism is generally used synonymously with nomological determinism". "The thesis of physical (or causal or nomological) determinism fits very closely with the kinds of physicalism that we studied.." Other authors equate nomological determinism to determinism itself (for instance, Viv\hvelin in the SEP). Doyle and many other authors carefully distinguish the two. You have nothing to complain about here, you are mistaken, and additionally have made no substantial criticisms or contributions toward clarification. Brews ohare (talk) 05:59, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Happy to talk about that aspect here Brews, but its one aspect of a series of changes you made. Starting with 'Nomological" rather than the current more accessible text is also a mistake. Drafting something that just makes that distinction and agreeing it here would be the best way forward. For example the idea that nomological determinism encompasses physical determinism but is not encompassed by it is an interest proposition implied by Doyle, but the very title of Doyle's book indicates controversy. At the same time "nomological" does not appear in the index of the Oxford handbook on Free will or The Oxford Companion to Philosophy both make use of Nomic but do not make the distinction you are making in your edit. So we need to be careful there to avoid synthesis of current debates ----Snowded 06:21, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm still having a little trouble in understanding the exact disagreement. Brews says there is a distinction between nomological and physical determinism. Fine, I don't think there will be any disagreement in that. The question for me is whether that distinction is a very fine-grained one, too fine to belong in a general 'flagship' article on the subject. The problem then is that there are no Misplaced Pages guidelines, AFAIK, about what a flagship article looks like. My instinct is that subtle or fine distinctions do not belong in general introductions to a subject, particularly if they don't really contribute towards understanding the subject. My view on the nomological/physical distinction is that it doesn't contribute. Therefore it hinders understanding. Therefore leave it out (but perhaps mention it in a footnote). Peter Damian (talk) 07:39, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

On Snow's point about looking at other general introductions (such as the Oxford Companion, which I referred to), that is a good rule. Few of the introductory texts I have looked at mention the distinction at all. Peter Damian (talk) 07:41, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Yep, that was my point. Without some reference in something like the Oxford Companion it is difficult to avoid synthesis and difficult to prove relevance. Per your other comments I also agree that the problem is not that Brews does not reference his material, but that he chooses to advance a particular thesis by his choice of primary sources. Now it can, in some circumstances be legitimate to provide some summary of that, but if contested the nature of the summary and sources used should be agreed on the talk page before the page is edited. And in all cases contested edits should not be inserted again simply because their author is unhappy with the response they have received on the talk page. ----Snowded 08:10, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Opposition to the proposed paragraph appears to be that nomological determinism is not mentioned in the index of The Oxford Handbook on Free Will or The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, and therefore is inconsequential or a "subtle point" and irrelevant to this article on Free will. I am unimpressed with the due diligence exhibited here regarding usage of this term, which is taken by Vihvelin to be the exemplar of the word "determinism" in his Arguments for Compatibilism. He says (lead sentence of §1) "In the literature, “determinism” is sometimes used as an umbrella term for a variety of different claims which have traditionally been regarded as threats to free will. Given this usage, the thesis that I am calling “determinism” (nomological determinism) is just one of several different kinds of determinism, and the free will/determinism problem we will be discussing is one of a family of related problems." . According to Schreuder, p.50 "Nomological determinism is the most common form of causal determinism." Horst, pp. 97-100 devotes an entire subsection to nomological determinism. Griffith, p. 19 says: "Others...talk about determinism in terms of laws of nature (nomological determinism — ‘nomological’ refers to the natural laws — or just determinism." Doyle, p. 149, whom Snowded and Damian pooh-pooh, has a section: The Determinisms containing a lexicon of varieties, in which nomological determinism is defined as "a broad term to cover determinism by laws, of nature, of human nature, etc." According to Snowded, Doyle, and by implication this definition, is controversial, but it fits the definition of 'nomological' provided by the Oxford Dictionary and the references just linked.

My conclusion? The term nomological determinism is used in many discussions about free will. Sometimes it is taken to be sufficiently broad as to represent determinism in general, and both nomological determinism and determinism in general have a subdivision called physical determinism.

This belaboring of a point would be unnecessary if the real objective of critics here was to depict the literature, rather than indulge in a purely rhetorical exercise.

These critics suggest that whatever else might be said, 'nomological determinism' is not very important to the subject of free will. To be pertinent here, this statement has to be viewed as a commentary upon the literature of free will. Historically, nomological determinism has been the huge focus of free will arguments through Hobbes, Hume, Laplace and so on. One may ask if it is so important in today's arguments, and I'd suggest that it is not, that physical determinism and the arguments over causal closure are the main thrust today. Assuming the critics might entertain this possibility, the importance of nomological determinism to this free will article is to help the reader understand that emphasis has shifted.

One consequence of this shift is Kim's point, p. 16 (referenced and quoted in detail in the reverted paragraph) that there is a logical out for free will with this formulation, namely that it limits itself to "physical events" (whatever they might be), and free will logically could lie outside this purview. See also Hutto, p. 89. In fact a great many modern thinkers including Wittgenstein, Nagel and Evans, adopt this viewpoint, which is a major aspect of any discussion of free will. See, as just one example, Smart on The mind/brain identity theory that processes of the mind are identical to states and processes of the brain, basically a closure argument, and Freeman's extended discussion. Hence the importance of this distinction.

I would appreciate some attempt on the part of Snowded and Damian to help construct an accurate article and desist from polemics unrelated to any positive change. Brews ohare (talk) 14:31, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

If you can't keep a civil tongue in your mouth don't expect engagement ----Snowded 17:49, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

So far, I have seen no engagement beyond rhetoric, put-downs, and polemics. No presentation of a source, not an idea for improved presentation, not a thing. Brews ohare (talk) 18:53, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

And just how many editors have you had this problem with today Brews? Should tell you something. Either way the comment stands. You have the clear view of several editors that your overall approach breaks WP:SYNTH so you either change policy or change your approach ----Snowded 18:59, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Care to point out what aspect of WP:SYN is involved here? It deals with presenting unsupported WP editor's opinion. which is not at stake here at all, where secondary sources are summarized. Period. Brews ohare (talk) 19:27, 26 April 2015 (UTC).

I have many times, Damian just has, Pforest has in the past, other editors have in your previous failed RfAs. Sorry Brews there are a limited number of times anyone can reasonably be expected to repeat themselves ----Snowded 19:31, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

These are imaginary events, Snowded. Will you ever get around to discussing the point here, the role of nomological determinism and its relation to physical determinism? So far you are in support of no distinction, which at best is a minority view, inconsistent with the views of at least half a dozed linked sources. Brews ohare (talk) 19:32, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Well a lot of us have had to spend a lot of time dealing with your imaginary events. Otherwise see above comments, this one is closed unless you have NEW arguments or other editors engage ----Snowded 19:35, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Bob Doyle (inventor)

Brews links above to Bob Doyle (2011). Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy. Bob Doyle is Bob Doyle (inventor), most of which article was written by an account called Cmsreview, who has written an entire walled garden around this stuff. See e.g. Two-stage model of free will, which surprisingly Doyle himself has written about on his own website. I would of course be blocked in two seconds if I suggested that Bob Doyle is behind that account (unless Doyle is also Grant Shapps of course), but this is the problem with Misplaced Pages. Peter Damian (talk) 08:15, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Also Brews has a tendency to use sources from Physics on Philosophy articles. We had that with him trying to use Hawkins at one point. The problem is understanding the nature and origin of the source and its relevance. I agree with your suggestion (elsewhere) that some form of peer review is going to have to be the next stage of evolution here. ----Snowded 08:19, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

The notion of "peer review" (at least in the scholarly sense) is alien to WP, which denies appeal to personal expertise and forces all authority upon published sources. Self-appointed "experts" are just pontificators in this scenario. The process envisioned in the policies of WP are summarized in WP:SECONDARY coupled with WP:NPOV. It consists of WP editors contributing presentations of what secondary sources say with links to them, and balance being maintained by a continuing process of constructive addition of sources or more careful presentation of sources already presented. Brews ohare (talk) 15:27, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

That was the interpretation you tried to have accepted Brews, it was not. ----Snowded 17:39, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Correction: It was deemed so obvious to all that no change in policy to further emphasize it was thought necessary. Brews ohare (talk) 18:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

RfC: Distinguishing 'nomological' from 'physical' determinism

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Comments are invited upon changing the third paragraph in Free will#In Western philosophy to more correctly separate the different roles played by the metaphysical doctrines of nomological determinism and physical determinism. Most importantly, the paragraph is expanded to incorporate Kim's view: "It is plain that physical casual closure...does not say that physical events and entities are all that there are in this world, or that physical causation is all the causation that there is." A possible replacement is proposed for comment. Brews ohare (talk) 00:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Current paragraph

The paragraph that currently appears in the article Free will is as follows:

It is difficult to reconcile the intuitive evidence that conscious decisions are causally effective with the scientific view that the physical world can be explained to operate perfectly by physical law. The conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural law arises when either causal closure or physical determinism (nomological determinism) is asserted. With causal closure, no physical event has a cause outside the physical domain, and with physical determinism, the future is determined entirely by preceding events (cause and effect).

Sources

Max Velmans (2002). "How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains?". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 9 (11): 2–29.

Comment on current paragraph

There are several difficulties with the current paragraph that should be fixed.

One is the use of the parenthetic construction physical determinism(nomological determinism). The parenthetic addition of ('nomological determinism') is likely to be interpreted to mean that physical and nomological determinism are two names for the same thing. Although a few authors do not trouble to distinguish the two and take the definition of physical determinism as also being the definition of nomological determinism, that lack of distinction is not the general view of the literature on these subjects. A separation also is the reason for two WP articles instead of one: nomological determinism and physical determinism. The general view is that nomological determinism is a broader claim (including many sorts of 'events' and many sorts of possible 'laws').

It might be thought that this confusion of terms is not important to the topic of free will, but that is not the case, and leads to another important problem with the current paragraph. That is the confusion introduced by stating that a conflict arises between intuitively felt freedom and natural law when either physical determinism or causal closure are adopted. Although such conflict is obvious if nomological determinism is invoked because it encompasses everything, with physical determinism that statement is an exaggeration. The two concepts of 'physical determinism' and 'causal closure' apply only to physical events and an intuition of free will quite possibly (according to some authors anyway) is not such an event. And the two concepts have to be applied jointly, not individually.

Still another problem with this paragraph is the claim that with physical determinism, the future is determined entirely by preceding events (cause and effect). That is not the claim of the metaphysical doctrine of physical determinism, which limits its claims to only physical events, not all events, and secondly does not claim the past dictates the future, but only that physical events past or present are connected by physical laws. These laws may or may not be deterministic, depending upon which laws we are thinking about and what is known about physical laws in the epoch we live in.

However, the most significant difficulty with the current paragraph is that it omits note of the self-imposed limitation of the metaphysical doctrine of physical determinism to the physical domain, which opens way to the many modern discussions of what might lie outside this domain, in particular the ambiguities of the subject-object problem and their effect upon the metaphysics of free will.

Recommendation

The suggestion of the RfC is that this paragraph be rewritten to avoid its present failings. As a trial balloon the following paragraph is proposed:

Nomological determinism often is taken to be the "notion that the past and the present dictate the future entirely and necessarily by rigid natural laws", or the doctrine that all events are determined by antecedent causes. Other definitions are used, but if these particular formulations are used, then a contradiction is present between concepts describing our intuition of free will and nomological determinism. Although it may appear difficult to reconcile the intuition that conscious decisions are causally effective with the scientific view that the physical world can be explained to operate perfectly by physical laws, a conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural law is less clear when, instead of nomological determinism, causal closure and physical determinism both are asserted. Causal closure is usually limited to the physical domain, and states that if a physical event has a cause, that is a physical cause. The assertion of physical determinism is that every physical event does have a physical cause, and therefore asserts that there are no uncaused physical events. Belief in these two tenets does not logically exclude the possibility that there may be events and entities that lie outside the physical domain.

As an example of phenomena that possibly could lie outside the physical domain, the laws of physics (deterministic or not) have yet to resolve the hard problem of consciousness:

Sources

Duco A. Schreuder (2014). Vision and Visual Perception. Archway Publishing. p. 505. ISBN 9781480812949.

Stathis Paillos (2007). Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard, John Woods, Theo A.F. Kuipers, eds (ed.). General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues. Elsevier. p. 156. ISBN 9780080548548. According to determinism, every event that occurs has a fully determinate and sufficient set of antecedence causes. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)

There is a lack of consensus on terminology regarding 'nomological determinism'. Some authors equate 'physical determinism' with 'nomological determinism', and some equate 'nomological determinism' to determinism itself. Where the term 'nomological determinism' is distinguished from 'physical determinism', 'nomological determinism' is taken to be the broader claim. See Brian DOyle (2011). Free Will: The Scandal in Philosophy. I-Phi Press. p. 149. ISBN 9780983580263. and "'nomological'". Oxford Dictionary. Retrieved April 23, 2015.

Jack Martin, Jeff H. Sugarman, Sarah Hickinbottom (2009). Persons: Understanding Psychological Selfhood and Agency. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 20. ISBN 9781441910653. Traditionally, at least at the extremes, philosophical arguments concerning agency are predicated on a strict contradiction between free choice and complete causal determinism.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Steven W Horst (2011). "§7.5 Nomological determinism". Laws, Mind, and Free Will. MIT Press. pp. 97 ff. ISBN 9780262015257.

Max Velmans (2002). "How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains?". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 9 (11): 2–29.

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. p. 15. ISBN 9781400840847. The causal closure of the physical domain. If a physical event has a cause at t, then it has a physical cause at t

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness - Note 8". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. p. 16. ISBN 9781400840847. The thesis of physical determinism to the effect that every physical event has a physical cause

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9781400840847. It is plain that physical casual closure...does not say that physical events and entities are all that there are in this world, or that physical causation is all the causation that there is

See Josh Weisberg. "The hard problem of consciousness". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. or Robert Van Gulick (Jan 14, 2014). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). "Consciousness: §9.9 Non-physical theories". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition).

Brews ohare (talk) 00:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

The last sentence above is not part of the trial balloon. It's just a segue to the next paragraph already present in the current article that briefly describes the hard problem of consciousness as an example of one discussion of what lies outside physical determinism.

NOTE THE TEXT OF THIS RFC WAS AMENDED BY THE CALLING EDITOR FOLLOWING INITIAL COMMENTS

Comments

• This paragraph is just a starting point, but it does correct the problems of the current paragraph. It also provides a reader with some sources for further reading. Changes or alternatives are invited. Brews ohare (talk) 00:58, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded, can you address the problems with the current paragraph beyond adding to these problems your view that "nomological determinism" has no place in the discussion of free will? Your suggestion that the sources of the proposed paragraph are not WP:SECONDARY sources appears to me to apply (or not apply) equally to your preferred single-author expositions invited to appear in compilations by single editors, all parties with established philosophical positions. Brews ohare (talk) 12:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• • You;ve called an RfC on that specific addition Brews, against the advice of two/three editors involved. I'm more than happy to have a discussion about what should be included in the lede and have offered that before. But rather than make such an agreement then draft you seem determined to draft and then challenge others to produce an alternative. My previous offer remains open, its up to you if you take it up or not. ----Snowded 15:36, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: I have not grasped what seems to me to be distinctions without a difference. Here I have proposed a replacement paragraph for discussion. That discussion is open to you. You can propose different sources, different wording, or different content. I'd appreciate that proposed changes in content be source based, and not simply your own opinion (however well-based that may be upon your personal expertise). But why not go ahead and participate, help this paragraph evolve toward a cogent presentation? This is not an escalation of earlier battles, but a challenge to progress. Brews ohare (talk) 15:45, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

• • • • You have called an RfC because your disagree with the view of other editors on the nomological issue. Those opposed to you say that its lack of mention in the main third party sources means that it is not relevant here. An RfC is to resolve an issue, if you want other editors to engage more generally then ask at the notice boards. I've offered a way forward on rewriting the lede but you rejected it. Your call, no one can compel you. But calling an RfC requires the RfC to resolve that issue. ----Snowded 07:15, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
• See my comments (as well as those of another editor) in the section Tendentious Editing above. In particular "At the same time "nomological" does not appear in the index of the Oxford Handbook on Free will or The Oxford Companion to Philosophy both make use of Gnomic but do not make the distinction you are making in your edit." Brews is choosing material he finds interesting from primary sources rather than reflecting secondary ones ----Snowded 04:45, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

The RfC is not about disagreement at all - it is about obtaining participation. You opted out, as I understood the situation. Also the RfC is not about the lede at all, it is about the third paragraph in the subsection Free will#In Western philosophy. Your objection to distinguishing between two types of determinism is to say 'nomological' determinism is irrelevant to free will. Yet, the paragraph you reinstated includes 'nomological' determinism in a mistaken manner. In addition, you have arrived at this belief by ignoring cited discussions that do use this term, such as The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Horst, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Doyle and others. But the biggest issue, that of the role of 'physical' determinism as explained by Kim remains outside your attention.

I don't understand why you cannot address these matters more carefully. Brews ohare (talk) 13:19, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

You consume too much time to too little purpose Brews. The RfC is about getting other editors to help resolve an issue, that issue is stated in the text and editors comment. Its not the way to obtain general participation in the wider aspects of the article. Nothing in my comment here references the lede, it does make it clear the objection to your proposed text and that is all that is needed. I haven't opted out of the article, I have opted out of constantly repeating the same points to an editor who either chooses not to listen, or simply finds disagreement impossible to handle. I suspect both ----Snowded 15:23, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: Your remarks are a reflex reaction patently wide of the mark. You have as yet never addressed even one of the issues raised with the current paragraph, never mind the proposed solution to them. As for never discussing the lede, you seem to have forgotten your immediately preceding remark that I've offered a way forward on rewriting the lede but you rejected it. Snowded, you are simply absentmindedly obstructionist. Please put your thoughts in gear and make some specific recommendations instead of vague maunderings. Brews ohare (talk) 15:38, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

To help structure a specific response the issues are as follows:

1. The parenthetic construction ‘physical determinism (nomological determinism)’ that seems to imply they are synonyms.

2. The confused treatment of what is only potential controversy between free will and the combination of physical determinism and causal closure

3. The confused idea of what physical determinism and causal closure mean.

4. The failure to draw attention to discussions of what could lie outside the physical domain, which leads naturally to the following paragraph on the hard problem of consciousness, presently just dangling in space.

Brews ohare (talk) 16:03, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• Brews ohare, once again, I appreciate your high level contributions to Misplaced Pages.

I agree that the paragraph needs rewriting to bring its level down to the readership and to clarify its content.

Most forms of determinism are rooted in either unwarranted generalizations of Newtonian and other limited, deterministic physical theories, or in theistic rationalization of an ideal world. Neither of these varieties have more than a possible or probable logical connection to actual events.

Based on these biases, I opine that all references to either psychological or to subjective first person (Protagorean) views be excluded. You have plenty of other references to support either God given lawful (yeah, I know), or physical law based determinism. BlueMist (talk) 15:03, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

BlueMist: My thinking is that psychological and first-person views are the ones most important. For example, William James opined that any "theory" that doesn't support moral responsibility is incorrect right from the gate: "determinism... violates my sense of morality through and through." Unfortunately discussion of moral responsibility has largely been lost from the article. Kim, Evans, Nagel all point out that the ambiguities of the subject-object problem are behind the problems in grappling with free will. Here is a statement of the connection. Brews ohare (talk) 13:43, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

• As has been the case in the past, there is no interest from the Philosophy Project participants in maintenance of philosophy articles, even those articles like 'free will' that rank among the most famous and published-upon topics of philosophy. That apathy is demonstrated on most academic subjects found on WP and is an indicator of the gradual demise of activity here beyond celebrity tabloid coverage. Brews ohare (talk) 14:37, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
• Anticipating no further developments, I have inserted the following abbreviated amplification of the nomological-physical differences:

"It is difficult to reconcile the intuitive evidence that conscious decisions are causally effective with the view that the world can be explained to operate perfectly by natural laws. A conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural laws arises when nomological determinism is asserted. Such a contradiction is more open to debate if causal closure and physical determinism are asserted, because these doctrines self-limit themselves to the domain of the physical. With causal closure, every cause of a physical event is a physical cause, and physical determinism states that there are no uncaused physical events. That leaves open the possibility of events and causes that lie outside the physical domain, in particular, certain subjective events.

Sources

Max Velmans (2002). "How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains?". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 9 (11): 2–29.

Nomological determinism often is taken to be the "notion that the past and the present dictate the future entirely and necessarily by rigid natural laws":Duco A. Schreuder (2014). Vision and Visual Perception. Archway Publishing. p. 505. ISBN 9781480812949. Others adopt the definition that "every event that occurs has a fully determinate and sufficient set of antecedent causes": Stathis Paillos (2007). "§16: Statistical explanation". In Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard, John Woods, Theo A.F. Kuipers, eds (ed.). General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues. Elsevier. p. 156. ISBN 9780080548548. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) Still other definitions sometimes are used.

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9781400840847. It is plain that physical casual closure...does not say that physical events and entities are all that there are in this world, or that physical causation is all the causation that there is

Brews ohare (talk)

Despite the noncontroversial nature of this paragraph, and despite its advantages in correcting misinformation in the paragraph it replaces, Snowded remains implacable in insisting upon its removal, although he has yet to provide any specific opposition, such as claiming some specific sentence is inaccurate, biased, misleading, or whatever. Brews ohare (talk) 15:29, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Adherents to nondeterministic and no free will

The entry cites one article for an assertion that there are no adherents to the position that there is no free will and that the universe is nondeterministic, but Kevin Timpe seems to suggest there are. Hackwrench (talk) 16:38, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

What this article says about this is:

"It is possible that one is an incompatibilist, thinks that the actual world is not deterministic, and yet still thinks that agents in the actual world do not have free will. While it is less clear what to call such a position (perhaps "free will deniers"), it illustrates that hard determinism and libertarianism do not exhaust the ways to be an incompatibilist."

This statement is not an assertion that there are adherents of this position, only that it is a possible position, which is not a contradiction of what the text says at the moment. Brews ohare (talk) 17:20, 28 April 2015 (UTC)

Revisiting the role of moral responsibility

In a recent edit, Snowded removed the following simple statement about the importance of 'moral responsibility' to the subject of 'free will':

"Some philosophers consider the main reason for interest in free will to be the moral aspects, which impact everyday attitudes and the law, as well as philosophy:

Timothy O'Connor (October 29, 2010). Edward N. Zalta, ed (ed.). "Free Will". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2002 Edition). Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. {{cite web}}: |editor= has generic name (help)

McKenna, Michael and Coates, D. Justin (February 25, 2015). Edward N. Zalta, ed (ed.). "Compatibilism: §1.1 Free will". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition). For the most part, what philosophers working on this issue have been hunting for is a feature of agency that is necessary for persons to be morally responsible for their conduct. {{cite web}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

David K. Chan (2008). "Note 7". Moral Psychology Today: Essays on Values, Rational Choice, and the Will. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 221. ISBN 9781402068720. The primary motivation of most scholars...is the the perceived threat to moral responsibility and agency.

Snowded's justification for removing this sentence is the one line Edit Summary: "I'm sure they do, and some don't. The moral aspect is already well covered."

The superficial comment "some do, some don't" simply ignores the history of the subject of "free will" from the historic article by William James to the modern treatment of McKenna & Coates, both of which make moral responsibility the basis for their entire discussion.

Let's examine what Snowded thinks constitutes "well covered".

The current version of Free will addresses 'moral responsibility' in a short paragraph under Free will#In Western philosophy:

"The puzzle of reconciling 'free will' with a deterministic universe is known as the problem of free will or sometimes referred to as the dilemma of determinism. This dilemma leads to a moral dilemma as well: How are we to assign responsibility for our actions if they are caused entirely by past events?"

The remainder of the "coverage" consists of a sentence or so buried as asides in later paragraphs on other topics. The relegation of 'moral responsibility' to a few footnotes and asides is hardly adequate coverage of moral responsibility, considered by many philosophers to be the main reason for the widespread interest in the topic of free will, and probably a primary reason for any readership of this article. Brews ohare (talk) 13:35, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

Apparently, no comment is to be expected about the lack of emphasis upon moral responsibility that forms such a strong thread through the history of 'free will'. I therefore propose reinsertion of the deleted sentence indicating this emphasis. Brews ohare (talk) 14:31, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

I have inserted the above reference to the view that moral responsibility is an important aspect of free will, but shortened by stripping out the quotations that make clear the sources do address this point directly. I don't think this insertion is debatable. Brews ohare (talk) 16:54, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

The added sentence is:

"Some philosophers consider the main interest in free will to stem from the moral aspects, which impact everyday attitudes and the law, as well as philosophy."

Note

Timothy O'Connor (October 29, 2010). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). "Free Will". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2002 Edition).; McKenna, Michael and Coates, D. Justin (February 25, 2015). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). "Compatibilism: §1.1 Free will". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition).{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link); David K. Chan (2008). "Note 7". Moral Psychology Today: Essays on Values, Rational Choice, and the Will. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 221. ISBN 9781402068720.

Despite the innocuous nature of this addition, Snowded has removed it several times. It may be noted that the connection between free will and moral responsibility extends over two millennia beginning before Chrysippus and Plutarch. Brews ohare (talk) 15:08, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

The role of the subject-object problem

The metaphysical discussion of Free will is focused upon the 'compatibilist'-'incompatibilist' framework. This constricts discussion to a rather semantic debate over definitions of 'free', of 'will', of 'determinism', and it is indeed the content of a great deal of the philosophical literature. However, as the subsection In science points out, there is a deeper aspect of the metaphysics related to the applicability of science to subjective matters like the 'intuition' of free will. According to Eddy Nahmias: "there are problems other than determinism that need to be confronted—namely, challenges to free will suggested by discoveries in neuroscience and philosophy". Understanding these challenges confronts the problems raised in the Subject-object problem and the Mind-body problem. As David M Hart suggests: "the free will-determinism distinction is grounded in the same subject-object dualism that Heidegger is so intent upon critiquing and overcoming..." Another discussion (probably less acceptable to an academic) is found in Ken Wilber's The Spectrum of Knowledge.

I suggest that a sentence alerting the reader to this situation be included in the introduction to provide readers with a clue that the semantic 'compatibilist-incompatibilist' debate is not all that is involved in the metaphysics of 'free will'. For example, at the end of the third paragraph of Free will#In Western philosophy that brings up the limitations of physical determinism, the sentence could be appended:

"Despite our attempts to understand nature, a complete understanding of reality remains open to philosophical speculations, a variety of which are reviewed in the articles Subject-object problem and Mind-body problem."

Perhaps more can be said? Brews ohare (talk) 14:35, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

You're not asking us to take a 'cultist' like Ken Wilber seriously in a philosophy article are you Brews? Otherwise you have made the semantic point before and I have some sympathy if not full agreement. Does any third party source make the same point? ----Snowded 19:27, 29 April 2015 (UTC)

There is Hart. If you read Wilber you'll see that he quotes at length a number of reputable opinions to establish the background of the subject- object problem. You don't have to subscribe to any cult extrapolations. The WP articles also have some useful sources. I hope you can draw upon your own knowledge of sources to provide a good starting point. I am happy to collaborate. Brews ohare (talk) 00:01, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

BTW: The quote you removed by Timpe, to the effect that the incompatibilist-compatibilist conflict is about possibilities not about whether 'free will' actually exists, ignores the more significant point that this brouhaha actually misses the issues involved in the mind-body problem and the subject-object problem. These more basic issues make clear that the incompatibilist-compatibilist argument is like arguing over whether to use chopsticks or a fork and knife when you have no food. Brews ohare (talk) 01:09, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

The fact that Wilber is even suggested is an illustration of the danger of searching the internet to find sources without some wider third party authority. I also think we need to remember there is another article on the Subject-Object problem and our job here is not to write a book on Free Will, but to provide a high level summary of the field. I'll look at Hart later ----Snowded 04:15, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

My interest in the link to Wilbur is in his extended quotations from Suzuki, from Eddington, from Heisenberg and so on. These authors have something to say. The point of mentioning this essay is not to provide an "authoritative" source.

The subject-object problem and the mind-body problem are open-ended issues of course, and there are sources like Nagel (See for example the discussion on pp. 110 ff. "What I shall discuss are two aspects of the problem of free will..." ) that are extremely conjectural. There is also Herbert Feigl: see §III section 3. Another approach is enactivism, and the idea that the subjective and objective are not really separable in a tightly coupled feedback system where the internal and the external interact to create each other. Hutto, Sporns, Torrance, and this compilation of essays. Still another view is that an understanding of free will must ask about the role of consciousness.Caruso. I am of the opinion that there are no "answers" to free will here, but there is ample argument to establish clearly that the problem is badly formulated as a compatibilsm-incompatibilism debate. Brews ohare (talk) 15:31, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Wilber is free to make extended reference to primary sources, but forgive me if I don't follow through on that. Cult leaders who claim to have achieved the ultimate synthesis of all know ideas lack credibility. But we do not write articles here in the way Wilber threads together said sources or extended quotes. We reflect reliable third party material. ----Snowded 05:51, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: Are you going to engage the issues actually in front of us here? Brews ohare (talk) 14:16, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

If you are not up for a more extended treatment, the single sentence suggested above could be appended to alert readers to this connection. Brews ohare (talk) 14:26, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Please don't interpret my unwillingness to engage with discussions about primary sources with my willingness to engage with the issues. You continue to refuse to accept that other editors disagree with you on synthesis. I understand you think you are right, but most of the rest of us do not. That means that efforts to synthesis primary material are going to be reverted. Refusal to help out by a temporary use of inline references while the aritlcle stabilises makes it more likely that you will snippet be reverted rather than amended, I've told you this a dozen times but compromise is not a part of your mind set.----Snowded 17:43, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: Just how do you intend to engage with the issues? Brews ohare (talk) 00:29, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

You have said earlier you intended to read Hart and two recently acquired Oxford Companions as an aid to joining this conversation, and above I have provided links to some additional viewpoints. Your response is complaint about reference formatting and threats of reversion of any attempt on my part to present anything concerning the works I have linked. Can you provide your ideas of some addition on this topic? Brews ohare (talk) 14:04, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I've got both and there is material in them that can be used but it doesn't really support your original research in that you are making partial selections You seem to make the assumption that the only alternative to your edits is proposing alternatives. That isn't the case, if your changes do not improve the article and/or constitute synthesis then reversion is a valid response. ----Snowded 01:28, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Snowded, you seem to have lost track of what this thread is about. It is not about valid bases for reversion. It is not about how eclectic the sources are that I have mentioned. It is about putting together a contribution about the relation between the subject-object problem and free will that is representative of the spectrum of opinion on this subject. So present what you have found. Comment upon what I have found. Then we can construct a balanced overview. This whole thing is about sources and their opinions. It is not about you or about me. Brews ohare (talk) 04:13, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

No Brews, find a third party source which justifies addition or change. We don't assemble sources and is increasingly about your refusal to understand that ----Snowded 05:10, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

"We don't assemble sources" — well, that seems to settle that. You are not going to discuss presentation of the literature and will simply revert every addition that is not from a "third-party" source. That terminates any possibility of contributing to this article, particularly because there are no third-party sources; all sources are secondary sources including your Oxford Handbooks that invite single-author contrubutions by philosophers with active interest in their own publications. I don't think you really feel this way, it is just your position when dealing with me. That is because you don't enjoy actually engaging in what the literature has to say. That is your prerogative of course, but it does impede development of WP. Brews ohare (talk) 21:31, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Nomological determinism not proven at this level

In this edit Snowded has said: Original reference was better, maybe some change in phrasing but not your synthesis. Nomological determinism per talk page is not proven as belong to an article at this level

This one-line edit summary makes no sense. For one thing, the current paragraph Snowded has restored says:

"The conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural law arises when either causal closure or physical determinism (nomological determinism) is asserted." (my emphasis)

Obviously, the term nomological determinism appears here, making nonsense of Snowded's reason for reversion. In addition, the 'original reference' of the current paragraph also is present in the removed paragraph, adding to the confusion of Snowded's rationale.

For another thing, the current paragraph has four defects pointed out earlier:

1. The parenthetic construction ‘physical determinism (nomological determinism)’ that seems to imply these two terms are synonyms.

2. The confused treatment of what is only potential controversy between free will and the combination of physical determinism and causal closure

3. The confused idea of what physical determinism and causal closure mean.

4. The failure to draw attention to discussions of what could lie outside the physical domain, which leads naturally to the following paragraph on the hard problem of consciousness, presently just dangling in space.

Snowded has addressed not even one of these deficiencies.

Inasmuch as Snowded has made no effort to engage here, his actions have no justification. Brews ohare (talk) 00:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

The removed paragraph has none of the listed defects, and is well-sourced. The other sourced changes removed by Snowded reduce the value and intelligibility of the article, and Snowded has made no attempt to explain these reversions at all.

Accordingly, I have rescinded Snowded's reversions, and ask him to kindly explain himself here to explain just what exactly he finds so misleading that removal is a better option than discussion here aimed at reformulation. Brews ohare (talk) 05:52, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

I've explained this before Brews and other editors have supported my position. You cannot force editors to engage with you in discussion of primary sources. If you can find a third party source that makes the term relevant to a summary article fine, but its not mentioned in the ones we have found so far. You really have to stop assuming that because you are not happy with a response on the talk page then the response is not adequate and justifies you in edit warring. Make a more modest set of proposals here and/or get other editors involved. Get agreement to a change before you make it, make smaller changes and give other editors time to respond, use inline references until things are stable. All of that would make it more easy to work with you. Accepting when you do not have agreement and moving on is also part of this The fact that you will never let go discourages other editors from engagement. You've driven one of the best philosophy editors from this page already, possibly two. This behaviourt got you a permanent block from physics articles before and I know you want to get that changed. Probably the best way is not to continue to exhibit the behaviour which resulted in that ban ----Snowded 10:29, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

Snowded, I see that you have crafted a fallacious response that makes no attempt to state specifics, neither as to your espoused 'position' (which remains nonexistent, or at least unexpressed ) nor as to your 'reasons' (yet to be enunciated) for reverting a few uncontroversial sourced corrections to errors in the text. In place of specific objections that could be addressed, your reply resorts to fictional talk-page history and personal intimidation. Constructive criticism appears to be alien. A four-point list of failures of the paragraph you support has yet to register. Brews ohare (talk) 13:48, 2 May 2015 (UTC)

No Brews, you don't agree with me nor are you paying attention to reasons given before against ascribing significance to this. I'll leave it a day to give you a chance to self-revert otherwise this is edit warring. ----Snowded 01:25, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Snowded, there is no dispute here about content. You have said nothing specific to content. So how is it possible to alter these additions to suit you, where you provide no idea about what you object to? These sentences you have reverted say exactly what the sources cited say. There is no idea of my own presented. The sourced definitions of 'nomological determinism' are verbatim quotes. They are uncontroversial and are used in the WP article nomological determinism. The limitation of physical determinism to the physical is exactly as Kim has described, and again we have verbatim quotes of noncontroversial remarks. So what, please, are your objections in specific detail regarding this content? Brews ohare (talk) 03:58, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

A four-point list of failures of the paragraph you support has received no attention from you. Yet you wish to install this sloppy paragraph with wrong information. Why ?? Brews ohare (talk) 04:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I have been following this dispute while on holiday. One thing that puzzles me is why Brews insists on highlighting the causal/physical distinction. How is it essential to the problem of free will? Peter Damian (talk) 13:06, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I reverted the latest edit by Brews. I think I understand why he insists on this distinction.He writes:

It is difficult to reconcile the intuitive evidence that conscious decisions are causally effective with the view that the world can be explained to operate perfectly by natural laws. A conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural laws arises when nomological determinism is asserted. Such a contradiction is more open to debate if causal closure and physical determinism are asserted, because these doctrines self-limit themselves to the domain of the physical. With causal closure, every cause of a physical event is a physical cause, and physical determinism states that there are no uncaused physical events. That leaves open the possibility of events and causes that lie outside the physical domain, in particular, certain subjective events.

First of all, as I have pointed out, this conflates 'confusion' with 'contradiction'. A 'contradiction' is a technical term for two statements which contradict each other, i.e. if one is true, the other must be false. The introduction needs to state why there is a contradiction between 'conscious decisions are causally effective' and ' the world can be explained to operate perfectly by natural laws'. (Perhaps there is an implicit assumption that 'conscious decisions do not operate according to natural laws'?). Brews adds 'That leaves open the possibility of events and causes that lie outside the physical domain'. This makes it clearer what he is aiming for, but only slightly. If there were causes outside the physical domain, but physical determinism were true, how could the non-physical causes have physical effects? Also, what is any of this doing in the introduction, which is meant to be a summary of the article? Peter Damian (talk) 14:54, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Peter: I am happy to see some attempt made to criticize the text instead of myself. The text you have supported along with Snowded says:

"It is difficult to reconcile the intuitive evidence that conscious decisions are causally effective with the scientific view that the physical world can be explained to operate perfectly by physical law."

the text you and Snowded reject says:

"It is difficult to reconcile the intuitive evidence that conscious decisions are causally effective with the view that the world can be explained to operate perfectly by natural laws."

What is the difference here? The difference is that the sentence you support states a strong limitation to physical laws and the scientific view, while the sentence you reject is somewhat broader in scope, suggesting a conflict with what is customarily defined as nomological determinism.

Is this a distinction that does not matter? Well, to understand the distinction one has to understand the difference between nomological determinism and physical determinism+causal closure. The paragraph you and Snowded support makes no distinction at all, indicating with a parenthetic construction that the conflict arises when " either causal closure or physical determinism (nomological determinism) is asserted."

As I have pointed out repeatedly (see my list of four problems with this paragraph) a distinction has to be made. Implied synonymy is unacceptable. Also the idea of an 'either/or' for causal closure or physical determinism needs to be replaced by an 'and'.

I am interested to discuss also your other points, but this one is the simplest to begin with as it involves only definitions that are widely accepted. Perhaps you can comment upon this point in detail? We can then proceed further. Brews ohare (talk) 15:27, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that a conflict with nomological determinism goes back to Chrysippus and Plutarch, while the restriction to physical determinism+causal closure began approximately with the views of Laplace. So if we are to frame matters in an historically inclusive manner as the header 'In Western philosophy' seems to suggest, nomological determinism is the way to start. Brews ohare (talk) 15:34, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

If some distinction is needed here, the next few sentences of the paragraph you and Snowded reject make sense. They say:

"A conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural laws arises when nomological determinism is asserted. Such conflict is more open to debate if causal closure and physical determinism are asserted, because these doctrines self-limit themselves to the domain of the physical. With causal closure, every cause of a physical event is a physical cause, and physical determinism states that there are no uncaused physical events."

I think you will agree that these statements are accurate and the sources pertinent. I have referred to Kim, but these definitions of physical determinism and causal closure are not peculiar to Kim. I am open, of course, to other sources.

Your objection is that all this constitutes too much detail. You say:

"Also, what is any of this doing in the introduction, which is meant to be a summary of the article?"

Of course, the subtopic 'In Western philosophy' is only a subtopic and not the article, but it is a very long subtopic and needs an introduction as you say. In my opinion, the clear limitations of the school of thought that "physical determinism+causal closure conflicts with free will" should appear in this introductory material. Brews ohare (talk) 16:12, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

(I changed 'contradiction' to 'conflict' in deference to your distinction.) Brews ohare (talk) 16:16, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

• I agree that the material I reverted is not very good, but that is no reason to support the addition. You say "As I have pointed out repeatedly (see my list of four problems with this paragraph) a distinction has to be made." I don't agree, on the other hand I agree that the conflation should not be made either. Why not just stick with 'causal determinism' (='nomological determinism') or just 'determinism' throughout?
• Then you say "the clear limitations of the school of thought that "physical determinism+causal closure conflicts with free will" should appear in this introductory material. The apparent conflict at the heart of the free will problem is between free will and (causal) determinism, period. Now one way of resolving the apparent conflict is by limiting the scope of the determinism as the schoolmen did. Perhaps this should be mentioned in the introduction, but we should start with the general and then move to the specific.

Peter Damian (talk) 16:48, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

You propose to remove nomological determinism from the article entirely on the basis that all that really matters is physical determinism+causal determinism. If we do that it does not avoid the issue of limitations of this view. You have mentioned the objection to mental causation I think was first made to Descartes by Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia: "How could the non-physical causes have physical effects?" However, this separation is the basis of many philosophical articles that have to be included, such as Hutto, Nagel and Griffith. Brews ohare (talk) 16:59, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

That door is left open by the last sentence of the rejected paragraph that leads naturally to the subsequent paragraph on the hard problem of consciousness:

"That leaves open the possibility of events and causes that lie outside the physical domain, in particular, certain subjective events." Brews ohare (talk) 17:05, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

"You propose to remove nomological determinism from the article entirely on the basis that all that really matters is physical determinism+causal determinism. " No, did I say that?

(I said "Why not just stick with 'causal determinism' (='nomological determinism') or just 'determinism' throughout?"Peter Damian (talk) 17:12, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Peter, what is wrong with limiting the free will conflict to nomological determinism has been pointed out several times. The term nomological determinism in broad terms is the doctrine that all future events are determined by antecedent events. The more modest claim of physical determinism limits itself to physical events and causes. That leaves open such questions as the hard problem of consciousness considered to be an active area by many philosophers. It also allows the views of enactivism which sees the objective stance of science as artificially excluding an interactive view, making the free will conflict something of an artifact of an inapplicable methodology. Naturally these summaries are only indicative, and sourced commentary is needed for the WP article. The point is that nomological is too restrictive to allow many modern positions, while physical determinism is not. Brews ohare (talk) 04:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Continuation of thread

Meanwhile, can we get clear on what I propose? Peter Damian (talk) 17:29, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree that keeps it simpler. A one/two sentence summary of some of the finer distinctions in the body of the article not the lede, if NOT sourced from primary sources might be OK. At the moment the article needs clarifying if anything ----Snowded 17:35, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Damian: I take it that your summary

the heart of the free will problem is between free will and (causal) determinism, period.

means something different to you than my description based upon Kim of physical determinism+causal determinism. You can refer to Kim's definitions of these two items.physical determinism,causal closure. Perhaps you can identify what you have in mind with some other source? Brews ohare (talk) 17:43, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

No, I am objecting to your statement that I "propose to remove nomological determinism from the article entirely on the basis that all that really matters is physical determinism+causal determinism. " I did not say this. I never used the expression "physical determinism+causal determinism" and I am not sure what it means. Peter Damian (talk) 17:49, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Yup, I would like clearly to understand what you mean by "physical determinism+causal determinism" Peter Damian (talk) 18:02, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

My meaning is that of Kim linked above. Is this confusing somehow? The idea in short is that of reductionism rather than antireductionism. The idea that within the physical domain all physical events are caused and caused only by physical causes. Brews ohare (talk) 19:11, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Kim does not say this. Where does he refer to "physical determinism+causal determinism"? Peter Damian (talk) 19:27, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Kim says:"The causal closure of the physical domain. If a physical event has a cause at t, then it has a physical cause at t....If a physical event has a causal explanation, it has a physical causal explanation."

Kim also says (Note 8): "The closure principle should be distinguished from the thesis of physical determinism to the effect that every physical event has a physical cause. Physical causal closure would make sense even if some physical events don't have causes."

So you are right, Kim does not mention the combination of the two Nonetheless he says: "Physical causal closure ...does not say that physical events and entities are all that there are in this world, or that physical causation is all the causation that there is." This comment is all that is needed for the paragraph you reject, and if you prefer to avoid the construction physical determinism+causal determinism, fine, it makes no difference to the gist, although the wording would change.

Of course, as I say below: "Physical determinism = causal closure + no uncaused physical event". But now I am doubting your honesty. Sorry. Peter Damian (talk) 20:08, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I was unaware that you were proposing this equation. You will notice I proposed no equation at all. All I am after is that there is a door open to dualism in the logical construction involving physical causal closure. Accusing me of dishonesty is really beyond the pall. Brews ohare (talk) 20:39, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

" All I am after is that there is a door open to dualism in the logical construction involving physical causal closure." This is nonsensical babbling. I cannot see how you can write such nonsense unless you are deliberately provoking me Peter Damian (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Damian: I am sorry to see you use phrases like "nonsensical babbling" and "such nonsense" in what is intended to be a discussion of Kim's treatment of dualism and causal closure. Lacking any supporting quotations from Kim, you seem not to have read the linked sections which I have reported here with complete fidelity. Brews ohare (talk) 21:12, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Brew's behaviour on this article

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This is ottava rima all over again. Some people are unable to admit a wrong, and will go to mind bending lenghts, over years, backing narrower and narrower into a corner to defend the incomprehensible. Because that is the limit of thier ability. This is clearly what is happening here with Brews. Is WP:COMPETENCE a defence? Ceoil (talk) 17:17, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Ceoil: You exhibit impatience with summarizing the literature, which apparently contains some ideas you deplore. However, your mind set is not what is wanted on WP, but rather the opinions of published scholars. Avoiding discussion of the literature by picturesque attacks upon myself will not improve the accuracy of the article. Brews ohare (talk) 17:23, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

No Brews, Misplaced Pages is governed by behaviour not by content resolution other than through the community and a series of agreed policies. The ongoing problem with you over multiple articles with multiple editors is that you do not feel constrained by either. You have been told time and time again that we do not synthesis primary sources but not only do you carry on doing so, you complain that other editors will not join you. You then edit war because you feel you are right and post longer and longer justifications on the talk page to the point where you drive other editors away from the articles (as you have here). You have been subject to community sanction for this behaviour but you seem incapable of learning from that sanction. ----Snowded 17:35, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Guys, I'm sorry if I sound ill tempered, but I've been following this page and I suppose I was. But I've been down this road, and reasoned argument will not work, as evidenced by the circular route of this talk page and its many archives. A different route need to be taken, I would suggest along the lines of exhaustion. And Brews, your approach to 'summarizing the literature' is exactly the problem. Ceoil (talk) 17:42, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

The problems go deeper than anything that can be neatly solved. For example, nomological determinism seems to have been custom-written by Brews in order to support the importance of the distinction. AFAICS it is just another term for 'causal determinism', which itself is the main form of what is commonly called simply 'determinism' (the other two forms being logical d. and so-called theological d.). See also this page which I started in order to list the articles that Brews and Doyle are the main contributors to. I don't think there is anything unambiguously wrong in any of them (but I haven't been through with a fine toothed comb. The problem is that they place undue emphasis on distinctions that are not that important in the scheme of things. It may take some time to clear this all up. For example, I think Subject–object problem should be afd'd. There is no material that could not be found elsewhere, and the term itself has no fixed and accepted use that I can find. However, the fuss and bother it would cause is an immediate deterrent. Peter Damian (talk) 17:45, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the summary Peter, and welcome back. But would the fuss and bother be any worse than the hand to hand, inch by inch combat here? Ceoil (talk) 17:55, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Well I would like to be fair to Brews. However, so far it seems that 'competence' may be an issue. Peter Damian (talk) 18:01, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Ask Snowded how that is likely to turn out. Ceoil (talk) 18:12, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm more with Ceoil on this. Trying to be fair to Brews over this round mainly on one article and a round last year on a dozen articles, just results in longer and longer talk page comments. Competence may the the issue, but its also his practice. See the multiple attempts to change policy to support his edit warring with various forms of synthesis. Its driven at least 2/3 editors away from Philosophy articles and makes change difficult It takes a lot of stamina to deal with Brews and if you don't respond on the talk page he just reinstates disputed text, so you have to respond and the cycle continues. As Peter is finding out he also has this habit of summarising the statements of opponents to say things they did not say and then hits out at the straw man ----Snowded 18:15, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

OK well let me see if he replies to my last question (I think he realizes by now he was talking nonsense but let's be fair). The only other solution, other than infinite patience, is a topic ban from philosophy, yes? Peter Damian (talk) 18:20, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Peter, he has 21 edits to this talk page alone today; every one with...<sigh>...the problem is that each needs careful unravellng, application of meaning and debunking, and ties up subject experts. Ceoil (talk) 18:29, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

There is another possibility. Remove the topic ban from Physics but impose restrictions to 1rr on all articles, a formal caution on synthesis and a restriction on talk page edits if he can't get agreement to a change. That might help things as he could be a good editor. Maybe a mentor who's judgement he has to accept. I really don't like bans but I suspect the next one would be from all articles. If banned from Philosophy he would simply move elsewhere. I think it his is retirement hobby so if the energy could be channelled it would be good. ----Snowded 18:32, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Good. This sounds like a first option to me. Ceoil (talk) 18:41, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

No, the problem is that you are both misusing the sources, and also (more problematically) you appear to misunderstand the sources. See my point above on 'physical determinism+causal determinism'. The source you are using nowhere uses this terminology, plus it is practically nonsensical -it's like saying "red+coloured". Peter Damian (talk) 19:30, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

It's possible you misread 'causal determinism' as 'causal closure'. But that means you aren't really paying attention + I never said that either + Kim does not talk about 'physical determinism + causal closure'. Physical determinism = causal closure + no uncaused physical event Peter Damian (talk) 19:38, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Its probably wise not to get further bogged down in specifics at this stage. There is enough debunking above, in the archives, etc. More general summaries of positions and habits would be better. Ceoil (talk) 19:45, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

But then he will complain that he is the only one making use of sources. I am hitting him at the very centre of this claim: namely he clearly has badly misunderstood the sources. Peter Damian (talk) 19:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Specifically, he has linked to an article by Jaegwon Kim (respectable philosopher), using it as a source to undermine me. But when I look at the source, it says nothing like what he claims. Peter Damian (talk) 19:53, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Also, he says things like " Is this confusing somehow? " as though I were stupid not to understand what the source says. This bullying and dishonest tactic may work with some people, but I call it what it is: bullying and dishonest. He must surely be aware what the source is saying. Peter Damian (talk) 19:55, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

And now he concedes the source did not say that. Was it an accident? But how many accidents have there been? Note it took about an hour of arguing and explanation for him to concede that. Peter Damian (talk) 20:11, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Damian: All that is here is just an attempt to present what leads to Kim's assertion that physical causal closure leaves the door open to dualism of some kind. That is it. Finito.

How you arrive at some imagined hostility on my part is a mystery. As for undermining your position, what is that? All I have to go by is your (unsourced) summary:

"the heart of the free will problem is between free will and (causal) determinism, period.

Your claim that "you are both misusing the sources, and also (more problematically) you appear to misunderstand the sources" is simply an undocumented assertion on your part. You seem to think that my use of the construction "physical determinism+causal closure" is some kind of misreading of Kim. Kim has not used this construction, but its use by me here is not some flagrant misrepresentation. Whether I need Kim's "physical clausal closure" or his "physical determinism" the only point that matters is that the door is open to nonphysical events and nonphysical causes which is stated in just so many words by Kim.

Rather than get you shirt in a knot, why not present your view carefully with some sources so we can see what you have in mind? Brews ohare (talk) 20:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Wow, there you go again. Further above, you wrote "physical determinism+causal determinism", directly above you write " "physical determinism+causal closure", so you misrepresent a misrepresentation. Neither of these makes sense anyway. Do you understanding anything of what you are babbling about? Either you are a skillful hoaxer, or you are merely confused. Peter Damian (talk) 20:46, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Wow indeed. Ceoil (talk) 21:16, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I am sorry to see this kind of activity on a talk page. If you all want to get serious, you can begin to address Kim's discussion. Else, goodbye. Brews ohare (talk) 21:21, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Well it's goodbye from me, for sure. Snowded asked me to help out with the article here, but it's beyond help. I would not have believed this, had I not seen it with my own eyes. Peter Damian (talk) 22:02, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Competence issues

The thread above has been locked because it involves 'behavioural' questions. I would like to address the 'brews problem' as one of competence alone. Brews simply does not take the time, or can't be bothered, to learn and understand some of the key terms of philosophical discourse, and this leads to endless talk page confusion and disruption, which in turn leads to more competent editors leaving the subject, perhaps even leaving Misplaced Pages. I give some examples below; if I (or anyone else) can find some more, there might be grounds for a ban on all philosophy articles.

• In this edit, brews clearly misunderstands the nature of implication. He thinks that 'p implies q' entails that p is the more general claim, q the more specific. Of course it is the other way round, which the other party picks up straight away. If p implies q, then q can be true with p being false, so q is more general. But p cannot be true with q false, so p is more specific. This is philosophical logic 101, and it is hard to continue a discussion with someone who persistently or wilfully disregards it. Note brews reply that this is nitpicking forms of implication, and that the other party (who has since left Misplaced Pages), has failed to respond to the issues. Yet no issue could be more basic than the implication!
• In the discussion immediately above, brews mentions a discussion "based upon Kim of physical determinism+causal determinism." Kim nowhere mentions this (which Brews eventually concedes), but then immediately trivialises it. ("You seem to think that my use of the construction "physical determinism+causal closure" is some kind of misreading of Kim. Kim has not used this construction, but its use by me here is not some flagrant misrepresentation"). But it is not trivial, for the whole article depends on a careful understanding of the terms. Briefly, causal closure obtains if every event has a physical cause, assuming it has a cause at all, thus it obtains even when some physical events have no cause. Physical determinism obtains when every event has a physical cause, i.e. the difference between physical determinism and causal closure is the stipulation of no uncaused events. Causal determinism (which is by definition the same as 'nomological determinism') obtains when every event, whether physical or not, has a cause, and so is a much stronger claim. Thus neither the expressions "physical determinism+causal closure" nor "physical determinism+causal determinism " make much sense, given that physical determinism already implies both causal closure, and causal determinism. If brews doesn't understand even these basic terms, it is pointless having these long protracted discussions.
  • Note that he later concedes all of this, but at what cost? Care about the use of terms, and perhaps just paying attention to what the other party actually says, would have avoided all this.
• Here he seems to misunderstand the nature of a 'contradiction'. I made the simple point that a contradiction can only be between propositions, and he prevaricates and obfuscates.
• A remark by John Blackburn here suggests that the problem is not confined to philosophy. " If you had read and understood the sources you claim to be basing your contributions on you would know this".
• This probably won't be allowed on Misplaced Pages , but this Citizendium article on the same subject was almost entirely written by Brews. It is philosophically incompetent, in my judgment. Worryingly, it points to what the Misplaced Pages article would look like if Brews were to continue unhindered and unconstrained, free.
• Blatantly fails to understand the precision required of philosophical discourse.
• Use of 'subjective event'
• Persistently fails to grasp WP:SYNTH , .
• Poor writing, misrepresentation of sources etc. See also the recommended rewrite.

That's all for now. Peter Damian (talk) 12:05, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Digging a hole

This smokescreen to avoid addressing the simple defects of a paragraph in free will is an amazing escalation of intemperance and incivility, all to avoid addressing sources and instead make personalities an issue. Brews ohare (talk) 13:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I have added this to the list of competence issues. Please note that questioning competence is not a 'personality issue'. Thank you. Peter Damian (talk) 14:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

You are deflecting discussion of the content of this paragraph to a discussion of my competence; whether you consider my competence to be an aspect of my personality is simply another diversion. Questions of competence might arise in the interpretation of sources, but so far you have not engaged in a comparison of interpretations. The key points are (i) nomological determinism is defined to include all events and therefore subjective events, while physical determinism is restricted to physical events, and (ii) Kim points out that (logically, if not in fact) that means what he calls physical causal closure allows the possibility of events and causes beyond its reach. These are simple points. They require no particular competence beyond reading the source. Yet you want instead of discussing these points to engage in evaluating my competence! Why, exactly? This complex assessment has no bearing upon your acceptance of the proposed paragraph. Brews ohare (talk) 14:20, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Please see WP:COMPETENCE "disruption is disruption, and it needs to be prevented" Sorry. Peter Damian (talk) 14:30, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

There is no disruption in my asking you to consider the proposed contribution instead of your viewing such a request as a personal affront worthy of an all-out attack upon myself as a contributor in general. Brews ohare (talk) 14:35, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Your intense response to this simple matter of the limitations of physical determinism is out of proportion to the situation and suggests a deep visceral response rather than an intellectual one. Perhaps you could step back a bit and regain some cool? Brews ohare (talk) 14:43, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

"They require no particular competence beyond reading the source. " Clearly they do Peter Damian (talk) 14:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

How about commenting upon this quote from Kim. Does it disagree with the proposed paragraph? Is Kim's a minority view requiring an alternative opinion? Should the presentation of this view be made clearer? These are the type of questions to be discussed, wouldn't you say? Brews ohare (talk) 14:58, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Peter Damian (talk) 15:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Damian, this curt link to your unsupported assertion of WP:SYN is an example of passive aggression, not a real attempt to assess the accuracy of this paragraph's treatment of Kim. can you engage in assessing the presentation of Kim's remark? Brews ohare (talk) 15:16, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Peter Damian (talk) 15:27, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I suppose you would like me to explain why it violates SYN, but this has already been explained to you by about a hundred editors before me, on this and many other issues. There is absolutely no point in engaging, and that is because it is an issue of basic competence. I'm sorry to be the one who points it out, but it has to be said. You clearly have expertise in some subjects, I mean you are or were a professor of transistors or something. But philosophy is something else. You need a basic competence even to approach the subject. Peter Damian (talk) 15:37, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

A vague reference to WP:SYN is not a substitute for pointing out how the paragraph violates policy. Apparently you refuse to do that as being a waste of your time! Of course, WP:SYN cautions against presenting opinion or conclusions that are not those of reputable sources. So a simple support for your claim of a WP:SYN infraction would consist of identifying some such unwarranted opinion or conclusion. Not too hard to do, except there are no such infractions in this paragraph. If you differ, point them out, please. Brews ohare (talk) 15:48, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Well let's take the statement "If these particular formulations are used, then a contradiction is present between concepts describing our intuition of free will and nomological determinism". There are a number of problems here. First, it says that the contradiction is between "concepts describing our intuition of free will and nomological determinism". As I have already explained, it is propositions and statements that are rightly contradictory, not "concepts describing our intuition". Second, the source does not talk about concepts describing intuition, rather, about the strict contradiction between free choice and complete causal determinism, so you misrepresent the source. Third, the source says that "philosophical arguments concerning agency are predicated on a strict contradiction between free choice and complete causal determinism", i.e. it is talking about the philosophical arguments, and not the claims made by those who are arguing. This is just one sentence from your proposed paragraph. The rest of the paragraph is sloppily written and illustrates again the competence problem. Peter Damian (talk) 16:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

On your point about 'visceral reaction', no, not really visceral, but I had the unfortunate task for many years of marking hundreds of student papers and I developed a keen sense for when things were going wrong. So perhaps 'reflexive' rather than 'visceral'. Peter Damian (talk) 16:23, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't think objections like "concepts cannot be contradictory, only statements or propositions" are central difficulties. Some rewording like this later version might fix such things with 'conflict' replacing 'contradiction'? In any event, I think it is progress to be discussing the wording in place of accusations of deliberate misrepresentation and WP:SYN. You have yet to address the two main points: (1) nomological cf. physical determinism and (2) the open door to nonphysical causes and events. Perhaps you have some recommendations? Brews ohare (talk) 16:42, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

There is far more that is wrong with the article than can easily be fixed. If you want a tip, focus on definitions that clearly bring out the contradictory elements of determinism and free will. This page sets it out nicely. If we define determinism as "a person never has the ability to have done otherwise", and free will as "for at least some actions, a person has the ability to have done otherwise" you see immediately that there is an actual contradiction. If one of the statements is true, the other must be false, and on these definitions the incompatibilist wins. But a compatibilist will then challenge one of both of the definitions. Does true determinism really mean not having the ability to have done otherwise? How are we to understand the term 'ability' in the definition of free will? This would take the article in a more philosophical direction. Peter Damian (talk) 16:56, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Your link doesn't work for Safari. I don't doubt that the article free will could benefit from a complete rewrite from top to bottom. My objective is more limited: to write a paragraph that correctly separates nomological from physical determinism, and then suggests that physical determinism is limited to the physical leaving free will open to a wider discussion than a focus upon determinism. That is all the paragraph is for. The subsequent paragraph goes into the hard problem, which follows nicely from this wider focus.

The standard definition of nomological determinism does not allow this development. Physical determinism does.

Accepting that the other paragraphs in this introductory material undertake the issues you raise (perhaps inadequately) do you see a need for a paragraph like the one I have proposed? If so, are you interested in framing it? Brews ohare (talk) 17:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

"physical determinism is limited to the physical leaving free will open to a wider discussion than a focus upon determinism" This is incomprehensible to me. How can free will, which is a faculty of the mind, be 'open to wider discussion'? What sort of wider discussion do you have in mind, given that this is (I assume) a philosophy article? Philosophy focuses on precise definitions of concepts and principles. Your formulation of the issues is (I repeat) anything but precise. We are back to 'competence'. I don't see the point in continuing, as I have already said. Peter Damian (talk) 17:18, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps we could advance this discussion. Is it possible that 'free will' is a faculty of the mind, like memory or reason? I am unclear how that could be established. Memory and reason can be tested as abilities to answer certain questions with verifiable answers, like "Where were you yesterday?" or "if your bank balance was $100 and you spent $50, what would your balance be afterwards?" I don't think free will is a demonstrable ability. As discussed by philosophers, 'free will' is an hypothesized capacity of the mind (presently conjectural), and one type of debate revolves around the possible conflict of this hypothesis with the hypothesis of some form of determinism, say nomological or physical. By a 'wider discussion' I mean a debate as to whether the hypothesis of free will should be considered in a different context, for example enactivism, or some form of dualism. I think it is clear that some philosophers engage in this way. Do you disagree? That is the point of the proposed paragraph. Brews ohare (talk) 18:35, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

It would be beyond my powers of endurance. Peter Damian (talk) 19:32, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I think I have answered your question: "How can free will, which is a faculty of the mind, be open to wider discussion?" The answer is in two parts. 1. Free will is not a demonstrable faculty like memory, but a concept, or more accurately, a range of related hypotheses, about what might be a capacity of the mind. 2. Not being an established ability of the mind, naturally there is debate over its nature or even its existence. As a debate, it can be more narrowly or more widely based. A narrowly based debate is the historical one, confined to examining the possible conflict of various hypotheses about free will with various forms (largely archaic forms) of of the hypothesis of determinism. A more broadly based debate is based upon dualism (as you recognize, Descartes was in this camp and it persists today in some approaches to the subject-object problem). Another broadly based debate is enactivism, as represented by Evans and by Hutto. Still another is represented by Thomas Nagel and others, who hypothesize we have yet to grasp the full role of consciousness in evolution. A very popular debate is found in neurophilosophy. In short, a wider discussion is not only possible, it already exists. Brews ohare (talk) 13:43, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Closure

Brews, you have been reverted by three editors now and all three are telling you that you are engaged in synthesis. This discussion must now be considered closed and you do not have consent to make the same or similar changes without prior consent on the talk page. ----Snowded 23:48, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

This idea of synthesis you entertain has nothing to do with WP:SYN, regardless of how many editors want tio redefine it. WP:SYN warns against editors expressing opinions or conclusions not found in reliable sources. But your erroneous view is that a violation of WP:SYN automatically results whenever multiple sources are summarized. A violation could happen of course, but it must be shown to happen by identifying the violating text and pointing out that it is not supported. You, Snowded, have never done that in all your many assertions of synthesis. In particular, in the case of this proposed paragraph which has the simple objective of correcting four listed shortcomings of the paragraph you support, and uses citations and verbatim quotes throughout, nothing is said beyond what sources say. You are simply unable to see this paragraph for the simple thing it is, an opening to the wider debate over free will that goes beyond conflicts with various ideas of determinism (most of which are archaic). Brews ohare (talk) 02:02, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

No, Brews ohare, it is not multiple other editors who "want tio redefine it". It is just you. Here: Misplaced Pages talk:No original research/Archive 60#A further exploration of WP:OR policy. Or here: Misplaced Pages talk:No original research/Archive 58#Proposed Sub-section for WP:NOR. Or here: Misplaced Pages talk:No original research/Archive 58#Synthesis and definitions. You clearly understand the policy (otherwise why would you seek to change it?). It's just that you think it does not apply to you. That there’s a clear consensus (as you note, "many editors") that your contributions are synthesis doesn’t matter either, as that policy is also entirely optional as far as you are concerned.

But WP:No original research and WP:Consensus are core policies. Not optional, not ones you can opt out of, certainly not ones you can rewrite based on your own minority views. That you continue to do so – continue to dispute WP:No original research, continue to ignore consensus – is simply disruptive. It has gone far beyond the bounds of reasonable behaviour and should have stopped a long time ago.--JohnBlackburne_deeds 14:30, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Blackburne: You are misdirecting the discussion, which is about WP:SYN, the caution against placing unsupported opinions or conclusions in articles. My point, which you ignore, is that a claim of violation is inadequate until it identifies the culprit text thought to be in violation. The simple statement that policy has been violated without indicating what exactly is the infraction is unsatisfactory for two reasons. One is that the violation may be only a supposed violation, and some discussion might resolve the issue. A second reason for identifying the culprit text is to assist the contributing editor to recognize the infraction so they can do something about it - maybe find another source. Or maybe reword things.

My contention with Snowded is that he never identifies what text he finds merits a WP:SYN flag, and context seems to suggest his view is that any summary of multiple sources is on the face of it a violation.

I think you can agree that identifying the culprit text is a desirable aspect of any invocation of violation. Brews ohare (talk) 14:50, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

It is also possible in Snowded's case that he confuses WP:SYN with WP:NPOV, taking the position that any summary of multiple sources is objectionable because it never includes all the available sources and so may result in WP:UNDUE. This confusion of policies is another reason to identify culprit text, as it may indicate confusion has occurred over the applicable policy. Brews ohare (talk) 14:56, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

A significant contributor to the inclination to avoid specifics when asserting some policy infraction is that the accusing editor just does not want to become involved, preferring a hit-and-run approach — that is, simply saying a violation has occurred and when asked to explain, avoiding engagement with unhelpful comments like "Read the policy" or "No further explanation (beyond my Edit Summary of a very few words) is necessary." This tactic my be an outgrowth of mainly dealing with vandalism, but it is inappropriate to apply it to extensively sourced, serious contributions. Brews ohare (talk) 15:07, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

"a claim of violation is inadequate until it identifies the culprit text thought to be in violation." But there is no culprit text with SYN. The culprit is the implication. The example on the page is good: "The United Nations' stated objective is to maintain international peace and security, but since its creation there have been 160 wars throughout the world.", which (perhaps misleadingly) implies that the objective has not been met. This is even though the two conjoined sentences are true and well-sourced. In addition, as I pointed out above, Brews has also mispresented sources, possibly because he has misunderstood them, but then there is the issue of competence, as I also point out. Add to that the initial denial of any problem, followed by trivialisation of the problem once recognised, finished off by a loss of memory about the fact that any dispute occurred in the first place. It's an incredibly frustrating thing to deal with. I am saying this as someone new to the dispute, and who has worked for many years with professional editorial teams, where this kind of problem has never occurred. Peter Damian (talk) 17:54, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

We are all wasting time, if Brews will not desist it has to be ANI time ----Snowded 19:36, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Continuation of thread

Damian: Your remark: "But there is no culprit text with SYN. The culprit is the implication." is incorrect: there is indeed a culprit text that embodies the implication. Your example is:

"The United Nations' stated objective is to maintain international peace and security, but since its creation there have been 160 wars throughout the world."

This statement itself is, of course, the culprit text that violates WP:SYN. The explanation of its violation to the editor contributing this sentence could be:

"The word but conjoining the two halves of your sentence suggests that the portion after but has a connection to the portion before but, which is not the case. The idea that there exists a connection is not supported by either the source supporting the first half nor the source supporting the second half, so the combination of these two ideas constitutes a violation of WP:SYN unless another source can be found making this connection."

Your implication, of course, is that I have done exactly this kind of thing in the following paragraph:

"It is difficult to reconcile the intuitive evidence that conscious decisions are causally effective with the view that the world can be explained to operate perfectly by natural laws. A conflict between intuitively felt freedom and natural laws arises when nomological determinism is asserted. Such a contflict is more open to debate if causal closure and physical determinism are asserted, because these doctrines self-limit themselves to the domain of the physical. With causal closure, every cause of a physical event is a physical cause, and physical determinism states that there are no uncaused physical events. That leaves open the possibility of events and causes that lie outside the physical domain, in particular, certain subjective events.

Sources

Max Velmans (2002). "How Could Conscious Experiences Affect Brains?". Journal of Consciousness Studies. 9 (11): 2–29.

Nomological determinism often is taken to be the "notion that the past and the present dictate the future entirely and necessarily by rigid natural laws":Duco A. Schreuder (2014). Vision and Visual Perception. Archway Publishing. p. 505. ISBN 9781480812949. Others adopt the definition that "every event that occurs has a fully determinate and sufficient set of antecedent causes": Stathis Paillos (2007). "§16: Statistical explanation". In Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard, John Woods, Theo A.F. Kuipers, eds (ed.). General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues. Elsevier. p. 156. ISBN 9780080548548. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link) Still other definitions sometimes are used.

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. p. 15. ISBN 9781400840847. The causal closure of the physical domain. If a physical event has a cause at t, then it has a physical cause at t

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness - Note 8". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. p. 16. ISBN 9781400840847. The thesis of physical determinism to the effect that every physical event has a physical cause

Jaegwon Kim (2007). "Chapter 1: Mental causation and consciousness". Physicalism, or Something Near Enough. Princeton University Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9781400840847. It is plain that physical casual closure...does not say that physical events and entities are all that there are in this world, or that physical causation is all the causation that there is

In fact, this has not happened, and no-one has even attempted to point out an instance where something like this has occurred here. Instead we have all this blather about abstract possibilities that do not apply in this instance. Blather introduced simply because there is no intention to address this paragraph because the objective instead is to discredit its contributor and to focus upon that objective. Brews ohare (talk) 19:43, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I have already pointed out, very carefully, how that paragraph misrepresents,synthesises and confuses. Hence my reference to the 'final step' above, of your complete amnesia about any discussion that has already taken place. You say "no-one has even attempted to point out an instance where something like this has occurred here", as though some gigantic memory blot has enveloped your brain. Peter Damian (talk) 19:49, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Baloney. You have not criticized this paragraph beyond arguing over the word "contradiction" that I have subsequently changed in the version above to "conflict". Brews ohare (talk) 19:50, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Wrong link. Peter Damian (talk) 18:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Coherence and quality maintenance

The collateral damage to all this is that the article gets less and less coherent. Adding well-cited distinctions here and there without properly integrating the change into the rest of the article inevitably results in overall deterioration over time. We have a deep and serious quality maintenance problem here that goes beyond the behaviour of a single editor.

Why should any competent person invest time in this article when we have no mechanism in place to protect the article from well-meaning local improvements that ruin its overall coherence? Vesal (talk) 11:50, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

This article is a paradigm case of a type of topic that Misplaced Pages handles poorly. Along with a number of other philosophical topics, free will has the property that there is no mainstream. The diversity of views is so great that it is impossible even to state the problem without falling into controversy. When a topic is so lacking in unity, the only way to get unity in an article is for it to be imposed by an author -- an author who has a broad knowledge of the topic and is committed to neutrality. But unity of that sort is never very robust -- it is always vulnerable to disruption by editors who favor framing the article in a different way.

That isn't certain to happen. Consciousness has the same basic problem as free will: there is no mainstream. When I set out to rework that article a few years ago, I expected the same thing to happen as has happened here -- that the unity would be disrupted by editors who didn't accept the validity of the framework. That hasn't yet happened, but it is really just pure luck. Active defense against that sort of thing is very difficult. Looie496 (talk) 13:26, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Both of you have identified a serious problem. On this talk page, Snowded has proposed his idea of a solution, namely to restrict all contributions to summaries of what he calls 'third-party sources'. That is unfortunate terminology because there are no 'third-party sources' for subjects like this. What he might mean by this is a restriction to compendia of invited review articles: he likes the Oxford Handbooks and the Oxford Companions, and dislikes the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy although I see no essential differences between these sources. It is possible that such limitations can produce something close to what single authorship could produce, but it has several difficulties. One is that there are many such articles written from diverse viewpoints, so unanimity will not result. Another is that restricting sources requires criteria for their selection, and there is no WP policy to separate these secondary sources from others or to rank them. Another problem is that it would make WP derivative and outdated, and the compendia themselves would be a better source of information.

My approach, detested by many editors, is to take the view that the topic be presented with careful attention to secondary sources of all varieties, and to depend upon WP policies like WP:SECONDARY to select sources, and WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE to maintain balance. Over time more sources and more balance would evolve. Unfortunately, this process requires that contributors try to present sourced opinion, and most WP editors are unwilling to engage in presenting sourced opinion, greatly preferring their own. Of course, personal opinions are easily expressed, and require none of the labor involved in finding and summarizing sources. When sources are found that happen to diverge from personal views, battle ensues, not over sources, but opinions.

If this policy-based approach were enforceable, the WP article would include eventually a pretty complete and balanced presentation, and would become stable over time because additions would all be source-based, and probably would occur only when a new or previously unreported source came to light. It is possible that the resulting article would be disorganized, but some editors would attempt to structure the material from time to time, and if the environment were source-based, discussion of structure would be constructive.

The main problem in improving quality and coherence at the moment, as I see it, is that the purpose of presenting sourced opinion is not made paramount by contributors, and interpersonal struggles supplant presentation of sourced opinion. Brews ohare (talk) 14:10, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it can be anticipated that I see my attempted contributions to this article as following the policy-based strategy I have outlined. I find opposition to my efforts rarely if ever consists of analysis of sources or suggestions for adding sources. Instead the policy-based presentation of sources is attacked as violation of WP:SYN with no identification of how or what constitutes the violation. The opposition is simply a visceral reaction to the policy-based presentation of sources itself, as a strategy, regardless of the content it produces. There is a distrusting suspicion that the selection of sources inevitably is indiscriminate, and despite WP:UNDUE this approach introduces fringe views into an article. Brews ohare (talk) 14:26, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

It is entirely possible that there are expert philosophers engaged on WP, and they have expertise in subjects like free will. So far as I can see, Snowded and Damian see themselves in this way. However, experts are not viewed on WP as founts of wisdom whose pronouncements are to be accepted from on high. The role of experts, as I see it, is to use their extensive knowledge of sources to provide authoritative sourced content backed up by citations. They could help a lot to organize article structure. That role for experts seems not to be part of self-professed experts' thinking on WP. Brews ohare (talk) 15:28, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

The problem with your sourced opinion approach is that it results in a rambling mess. The proper way would be to read a lot of material, meaning full-length works, so that we can have a fair and proportionate representation of the significant views on this topic. This requires actual expertise to pull off. I'm not an expert myself, but I have read enough full-length treatments of this topic to recognize which editors know the literature. Vesal (talk) 16:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Vesal, rambling can be a problem, and Free will exemplifies it, although I cannot be held responsible for its present long and disorganized form. You identify an approach to better organization based upon expertise to obtain a "fair and proportionate representation of the significant views", surely an indisputable goal.

However, I have a very clear understanding of experts, and they vary one to another, from those much interested in the goal you identify to those interested only in their latest interest, or in hearing themselves talk. And, of course, depending upon your own judgment as to just who is expert and who is not is far from satisfactory, just as is the acceptance of individual editor's personal assertions of expert standing.

So some less utopian approach is what we are faced with. I think an improvement right off the bat would be a rigid insistence upon the presentation of sourced opinion and avoidance of all other forms of talk page blather, particularly unsupported accusations of violating WP:OR or WP:SYN. What do you think about that? Brews ohare (talk) 16:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

There is a pretty obvious solution. Revert it to its featured article status version and then agree changes on the talk page. Get Brews to agree a 1rr restriction with the need to agree changes on the talk page if reverted. Further agree that a no is a no on the talk page. Further, that reinstating disputed edits because he does not think the talk page response is adequate is not acceptable. That restriction could be taken to ANI if not voluntary. The reality is that Brews does not accept the general interpretation here of synthesis, ignores policy on civility and misstates opposing opinions. All three are exhibited in this section. I doubt that will change but a 1rr restriction would nullify it as a problem)----Snowded 16:51, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

The featured article goes back to 2004. That sounds like a big rollback. Of course, Snowded and I don't see eye to eye on process. His idea of how changes should proceed is that he has no need to justify his actions or follow policy. His belief is that discussion of sources is pointless unless they are 'third-party' sources (that is ones he has chosen). So that is a problem. Brews ohare (talk) 18:25, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Misrepresentation and personal attack Brew, try and avoid both ----Snowded 21:33, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Proposals

Once again this discussion gets hijacked by Brews spamming. However, on Looie’s claim that “there is no mainstream”, I disagree. It is true that there is no settled opinion in philosophy, even for two thousand year old questions, but most philosophers agree on what the main theories are (e.g. compatibilism/incompatibilism, and what the main sub-theories of those are, and so on). You can test this by sampling any reliable tertiary sources (four of which have been mentioned above) and while there are differences, there won’t be a million miles of difference.

Another suggestion is to develop a set of guidelines on what a flagship philosophy article should look like. Is it merely a set of links to the sub articles? Does it contain mini essays which summarise or even replicate the contents of sub articles? Does it diverge from them entirely? Etc.

Another problem raised (by User:Pfhorrest above) is definitions. Typically philosophers try to resolve problems by defining terms. E.g. define ‘determinism’ and ‘free will’ in a way that they don’t conflict. Hence competing philosophical theories tend to compete via the definitions. But this is a nightmare for a encyclopedia which is compelled to open with a single definition. This would be worth discussion. Must rush. Suppertime. Peter Damian (talk) 18:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

There is an interesting discussion which starts with the 2004 featured article and asks what is missing from it? Philosophy is not a field that changes every few months so I doubt if its much ----Snowded 21:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

Couple brief comments on skimming this.

I agree that a useful role for experts here is in organization and structure, and that's the role I've mostly tried to play (not to call myself an "expert" exactly, since I don't work in the field, but I do have a degree in it at least). Which is largely why I'm not delving into quibbling about what exactly different sources say. I'm mostly concerned with structure of the article (and the lede, which is supposed to summarize and outline that structure) preserving room for neutral consideration of all the different viewpoints and sub-topics that need discussing in the body of the article. I really don't have the time or interest to work on the nitty gritty of the main body of the article.

About rolling back, I think going all the way back to 2004 would be a bit much. I've been watching this article since 2010, and for the most part it has been very stable since then, when I helped to resolve a major ongoing dispute that was happening at the time. Since then there was one big conflict with an extremely tendentious and biased one-note editor attacking just this article (User:Syamsu), who got permanently banned from the whole encyclopedia and basically had no effect on the article as a whole; and then there's this ongoing conflict with Brews that has stretched out over a couple years now and not produced much substantial change to the article either. (For comparison, this is the version of the article from March 2010 where I first introduced the wording of the lede that has stood more or less the same ever since, and this is the version of the article from August 2012 just prior to Brews' first edit here.) All the other changes besides those two have been a series of very minor improvements, and other than those two big conflicts, the article has been very stable. I don't think we need to roll all the way back to six years before it reached that stable state (back to elven years ago!), especially considering it wasn't delisted from FA status until just three years ago. --Pfhorrest (talk) 21:44, 6 May 2015 (UTC)

OK so your call on the last GA version? Very open to other ideas, but we need a restart of some type ----Snowded 05:26, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

The problem with the article is not its Introduction, which is OK as is, as Pfhorrest has pointed out. There are some problems with the section Free will#In Western philosophy.

For reasons I cannot understand, there is massive resistance to straightening out the distinction between nomological determinism and physical determinism. Other than that, this section is not too bad either.

"Other than that, this section is not too bad either". You are talking about the section whose opening paragraph opens "The underlying issue is ...". You see no problem with that? Peter Damian (talk) 18:03, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Damian, as stated immediately above, and linked, the section referred to is Free will#In Western philosophy. Brews ohare (talk) 19:11, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Some reorganization of the content of the subsections 1.1-1.3 could shorten up this discussion and make it more readable. My guess is that there is no-one here who has any intention of doing that. Pfhorrest has bowed out already, calling this the "nitty-gritty". Snowded and Damian have exhibited no interest in this kind of extensive writing throughout their time on WP.

So where is all this furor leading? Removal of tons of work accumulated from myriad (now largely absent) contributors will serve to emasculate the article, but it is not going to improve it. There is no-one going to do the work. Brews ohare (talk) 10:40, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

If I am wrong about this lack of crusading writers, let some of these critics actually propose specific changes to specific wording on this page. Brews ohare (talk) 11:27, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

If it's any help, I have looked at the article's history and the key contributions and I think reverting to the 2004 might be a little drastic. On the other hand, the introduction needs some work (see my comments above) and it's terribly bloated. What we really need is a consensus on what a flagship philosophy article looks like.

On Brews claim that I haven't done any work, or that there is no one to do the work, I have been here since 2003 and I wrote some of the original philosophy articles. I am also a published writer on academic philosophy. I am happy to put in some work or help with the discussion here, but we need a plan first, and I am not seeing a plan. Piecemeal additions and piecemeal reverts is no way to do it. Peter Damian (talk) 17:57, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Damian, so far, you have suggested several approaches to reorganization. (1) Develop guidelines for a flagship philosophy article; (2) Sample tertiary sources and try to develop a summary compatible with their commonality; (3) Try to solve the problem of beginning the article when multiple definitions are in use.

Pfhorrest approached this last item via the idea of constraints. It works pretty well, and I don't think the lede needs work. If you don't like that approach you could say why and what you would replace it with. Instead, I'd focus on the subsection Free will#In Western philosophy. In this context, your second item is something you could begin to fill in: quote the sources and present a trial balloon for assessment. Your first point requires an outline of specific topics. The existing article is constructed around headers and sub-headers that could provide a beginning framework for possible changes leading to a better outline. Damian, do any of things indicate how you plan to help out? If so or if not, what are you going to do next? Brews ohare (talk) 19:03, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Brews. other editors may disagree but I am now pretty convinced that progress on this (or other articles) is not possible unless and until you reconcile yourself to the majority view on synthesis, cease personal attacks and agree to change the way you interact. Now if you are prepared to do that we can try something ----Snowded 19:28, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Snowded: What connects this iteration of your customary lecture to what Damian plans to do ? Brews ohare (talk) 19:34, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

This is a bit tangential to the topic of this section but FWIW I don't think we should have a "In Western Philosophy" section at all. Not that everything in that section should be deleted, but that the structure of the "philosophy" section needs to guide the structure of the entire article. Rather than different academic disciplines, the top-level sections should be different conceptions of what free will is; basically, the subsections of the philosophy section as it is now. Within each of those should go both the philosophical discussion of why that concept of free will is the correct one, and then all philosophical arguments / scientific research / religious doctrine / etc about whether or not anyone has free will in that sense. (Scientific research and religious doctrine won't usually delve into definitional questions, but it will still take some definition or another for granted). This avoids the pervasive definitional problems by basically splitting the article into many "sub-articles" (but not ones I think should actually be separate articles), one about each sense of free will. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:52, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

I put in a header that fits Damian's and Pfhorrest's thoughts about structure. The present article has main headers 'In Western philosophy', 'In science' and 'In Eastern philosophy' . Pfhorrest has suggested they have enough in common that they could all be brought together and the main headers become those of the subsection headers under what is now 'In Western philosophy' . That might work, but it might not. My suggestion is that the subsection 'In Western philosophy' be put into good shape first, and when that happens it should be clear whether the other two main sections can be brought in.

My concern is that the traditional framing of the topic as compatibility or not with a variety of definitions of what compatibility means and what determinism means is so verbally oriented that it will tend to suck up most of this section, and result in undue weight given to arguments over semantics. There are many Western philosophers that are not natural fits to a dominantly semantic division. Calling a bunch of them 'compatibilists', for example, does not illuminate these positions, which have important differences.

So just to proceed in small bites and not have the whole article to digest at one gulp, maybe this one section would prove manageable. Brews ohare (talk) 00:25, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

• On point (2) above, about sampling (reliable) tertiary sources I have made a start here, starting with the sub heading "difficulties of definition". A number of articles simply avoid the subject of definition altogether. It should be obvious from this why I am uncomfortable with the use of the term 'constraint' in the definition, as this term, also 'compulsion', 'impediment', 'coercion' etc is traditionally associated with compatibilism.
• On developing a structure of the article, I suggest agreeing on a method of division. A good method of division is such that the divided portions neither overlap, nor leave any remainder. One way would be to divide determinism into (1) causal determinism (which Brews calls 'nomological determinism' – I prefer the former as avoiding long and difficult words that would put off the ordinary reader); (2) epistemic determinism, which would include 'theological determinism', and (3) logical determinism.
• On Brews's dogged insistence that we must further subdivide causal determinism into physical and non-physical, this division merely reflects an old strategy of limiting the scope of determinism to exclude human choices. See e.g. here. "Everything else in the world is made of matter and thus is material or physical. Material things are governed by particular laws and so are determined to particular activities. If human beings were wholly material, then their actions would also be determined and they would not act freely. But because the capacities that bring about action are immaterial in nature, and hence, not governed by physical laws, actions that come about as a result of those capacities will be uncoerced, at least under ordinary circumstances. According to medieval accounts of freedom, then, freedom is incompatible with causal determinism (although medieval philosophers would not express the point in these terms)." So the distinction Brews is proposing is simply a variety of incompatibilism, and should be treated as such.

Peter Damian (talk) 11:05, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Kudos for discussing a source. It explains a view dividing events in the universe into two groups - one where causal determinism apples and one where it does not. To adopt your conclusion that this is an incompatibilist position is incorrect however, unless one assumes the second set is empty. If you adopt an enactivist position however, you object to the division into two groups as a false framework. See the links to Hutto "Radicalizing Enactivism" above explaining the impossibility of dividing a tightly coupled system into separate parts. Nagel and others also say the division is false because, in their view, although the laws of nature apply to all events, causal determinism does not apply to a more accurate view of these laws ("The View from Nowhere", for example). Nagel supports a greater role for conscious action, and Griffith (linked above) points out those that think evolution requires this capacity. From these viewpoints, the compatibilist-incompatibilist framework is a Procrustean bed.

I am using an iPad to edit so repeating these links is awkward. But if you can't find them I'll track them down for you later. Brews ohare (talk) 14:21, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

"To adopt your conclusion that this is an incompatibilist position is incorrect however, unless one assumes the second set is empty. " That is clearly not my position. Peter Damian (talk) 14:41, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

To make my position clear, causal determinism is always inconsistent with the strong form of free will (i.e. origination). However if we restrict the types of event to which determinism applies, then then the inconsistency simply does not apply. By analogy, hot is always inconsistent with cold. But that does not mean that bodies cannot be hot, so long as the cold fails to reach them. Likewise, if there are types of event that determinism does not affect, then they are not determined. It's very simple really.Peter Damian (talk) 14:48, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

"If you adopt an enactivist position however, you object to the division into two groups as a false framework." Why is the division a 'false framework'? Either freewill and determinism, however defined, are consistent, or not. Tertium non datur. This is a matter of logic. P or not-P. Peter Damian (talk) 15:06, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Your links don't work for me. I am assuming they are to Chapter 4 of James Fieser's unpublished book Great Issues in Philosophy? His definition of determinism "a person never has the ability to have done otherwise." is not as general as the ordinary definition: "a theory or doctrine that acts of the will, occurrences in nature, or social or psychological phenomena are causally determined by preceding events or natural laws."

I would say that one can make the problem simple by setting up the universe to be simple, for example choosing a very restrictive view of what free will means and adopting a view of determinism that contradicts that definition. However, there are millennia of discussion about "ability to do otherwise" and "alternative possibilities" that are mostly about choosing the "best" definitions, which mostly amounts to trying to encapsulate the intuitive sense of free will in an objectivist language.

Your comment on Hutto misses his point, which is that various definitions of freewill and determinism are not descriptors with any meaning in the present context. It is like describing a Picasso with quantum theory. You may capture the physics, but the painting has nothing to do with that. Brews ohare (talk) 15:19, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

See my definition below. "Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action." As I mention, the definition of 'possibility' remains open in order to capture the difference between the two main positions. The definition is perfectly clear. Peter Damian (talk) 15:54, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Your italicized sentence appears to originate in Colleen McClusky's article on "Medieval Theories of Free Will" in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which is off-line at the moment. Brews ohare (talk) 15:58, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes. To be clear, the sentence is "But because the capacities that bring about action are immaterial in nature, and hence, not governed by physical laws, actions that come about as a result of those capacities will be uncoerced, at least under ordinary circumstances."Peter Damian (talk) 16:00, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

"The definition is perfectly clear". It also may be irrelevant in the context of human decision making and enacting, if we follow Hutto, Nagel and Griffith. Brews ohare (talk) 16:08, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

The definition is clearly relevant to the subject of free will, since it is a definition of free will. If what you are talking about is irrelevant (as you claim), then it shouldn't be in the article. Peter Damian (talk) 16:14, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

You misunderstand - the topic of free will encompasses many dimensions, and you have selected some of these where your description has meaning. But some other approaches are orthogonal to this formulation. You know the old quote: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio Brews ohare (talk) 16:19, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I have selected the two definitions that are commonly found in reliable tertiary sources. Do you agree with that approach or not? Peter Damian (talk) 16:23, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Suggested division

Following my remarks above, here is a suggested division.

• Begin with a definition: Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action. This is consistent with with both compatibilism and incompatibilism, depending on the definition of 'possible'. If it is defined modally, as the contradictory of impossible', then free will is inconsistent with determinism. If it is defined as freedom from external constraint or compulsion, then it is consistent. There is no consensus among philosophers about which definition is correct.
• There are three kinds of determinism, namely causal, epistemic and logical.
• We then divide into three parts corresponding to causal, epistemic and logical
  • For Causal determinism, the two main positions are compatibilism and incompatibilism. Explain in more detail the compatibilist notion of 'possibility'.
    • Explain incompatibilism, and make a further division into hard determinism and (metaphysical) libertarianism. Further divide libertarianism by the way that the scope of determinism is restricted. For example, medieval Aristotelians believed that while non-rational beings (stones, plants, animals) are governed by natural laws, humans are mostly not. This would be the place for the distinction that Brews wants to make. Discuss the problems with this view, such as psychological, biological causation etc.
    • Explain compatibilism (which is simply the contradictory of incompatibilism). Discuss the problems of this view, mainly as not agreeing with our intuitive or 'originalist' conception of free will.
  • Epistemic determinism is not well covered, but try here. See also Augustine's discussion of the problem here.
  • Logical determinism is also not well covered in the present article, but there is this elsewhere on Misplaced Pages.

I think the points on 'Eastern philosophy' could mostly be incorporated into epistemic determinism, but I haven't looked closely. Peter Damian (talk) 15:03, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Enactivism

The WP article Enactivism is badly written and impenetrable. There is a better article that mentions it in SEP. By coincidence my PhD thesis (1986, sadly now lost by the library) was on this subject. I am not sure it is notable enough to include in the article, or at least it would take much original research. Peter Damian (talk) 15:15, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Hutto is not impenetrable. Brews ohare (talk) 15:25, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

"The server encountered an error and could not complete your request".Peter Damian (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

Daniel D. Hutto, Erik Myin (2013). Radicalizing Enactivism: Basic Minds Without Content. MIT Press. p. 6. ISBN 9780262018548. Google book link Amazon 'look inside' link

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