The concept of Libertarian Free Will (and the contextualizations that must accompany it) is really just too big to tackle all at once, so I’m going to begin with a thread to serve as a basic primer about my view of Libertarian Free Will (LFW) – what I posit it to be, ontologically speaking, and how I describe it.
The basic difference between compatibilist free will and libertarian free will is that compatibilist intents are ultimately manufactured effects of unintentional brute processes. No matter how many layers of “pondering” “meta-pondering” one adds, or how many “modules” or “partitions” are added to the mix, it all still ultimately boils down to intentions being sufficiently explained as effects of brute (unintentional) forces. That is the root of all will in the compatibilist view; ultimately, humans do as they will, but do not will as they will, regardless of how many pre-action “intentions” they put in the chain.
This fits into an ultimately reductionist view of existence; even emergent properties are generated bottom-up and produce no effects “on their own”, so to speak. In the reductionist view, mind may be an emergent property, but if you damage the brain, the mind becomes dysfunctional. Calling something an “emergent property” – such as free will – doesn’t change the fact that eating a pepperoni pizza on wednesday might, through a biological butterfly effect, cause you to make a different decision the next day than you would have had you not eaten that pizza.
IMO, compatibilist “free will” exists, and it is the kind of “free will” most living creatures utilize. While LFW is available everywhere, IMO most living creatures do not, or cannot, utilize it. They can do as they will, but cannot will as they will. This is a very important distinction.
In Libertarianism, however, free will is not an effect itself; it is a causeless cause. It is taken to be a fundamental “first thing”. This position is an a priori ontological premise. Thus, the primary difference between CFW and LFW is simply whether or not one’s free will is itself caused by something else.
My particular view of LFW is that in individuals, it is an aspect of God’s Will, or Logos, the Word, Shabd, the Demiurge. It is the intent of god, so to speak, whereas everything else is the body of god. The knowable universe is comprised of and powered by two things: psychoplasm & Logos. Everything “in particular” is a reflection, characterization, individualization, or aspect of these two fundamental pillars of existence – Self (Logos) and Other (Psychoplasm). Perhaps at an unknowable level of existence they exist as one thing (monism), but that is by nature unknowable and cannot be meaningfully experienced.
Just like our body obeys our intent, the body of god obeys god’s intent. In fact, our body/mind (careful with the word mind, it can have many connotations) is an actual reflection of the composition and nature of the relationship of the divine body/mind relationship. This fundamental dichotomy is both necessary for individuated experience and is universally mirrored in all things. Individuated experience requires A/not-A, self/other, mind/body. Looking at the body, one need not know anything at all about how it functions to make it work; all they really need do is intend. With no knowledge about how to transform sugars into chemical energy, or how to make neurons fire, or how to make musles work or even any knowledge whatsoever about biology, all one requires to make their body function is intent. One intends, and the body responds.
An observation worth making here: if one existed at the size of, say, an atom, a human body would be a universe. The amount of stuff that goes on just to simply wave your hand is staggering. With no more command and control knowledge than a basic intention, a miniature universe of organized activity springs into action, dedicated to manifesting that intention, and all of that activity occurs lightning-fast. When one takes into account the planck-distance transitions that occur, the quantum leaps at the subatomic level, that an intention can drive such organized activity without the operator having any understanding of the process is about as miraculous a thing as one can imagine. Intentional movement itself is about as “magic” as anything gets.
IMO, this is what occurs when the Logos activates the psychoplasm. LFW is another name for the driving, ordering, creative fundamental force; it is ultimately what orders the physical world into the patterns we see. It is primordial and uncaused; it is that which causes everything that can be experienced to take shape.into a format that can be experienced in the first place. Just as human intent moves trillions of subatomic phase transitions and quantum leaps in accordance with a purpose, so too does Logos move the body of God.
The main reason I’m discussing your ideas/philosophy in relation to the modern intelligent design movement is that both you and the owner of this blog obviously have an interest in it. Let’s assume your basic theism, which would mean that everything we can observe in the world is the result of intent on one level. We could then come up with the idea of secondary, or local, intelligent design within that world. Examples would be our own efforts, and presumably that of some other animals.
When we look at a man-made dam, we can reasonably describe it as intelligently designed, and built with intent. Local I.D.
If a river becomes dammed by a landslide, the event and result are not usually described as intelligently designed. The phrase “intelligently designed” is usually applied where we perceive local/secondary design, not as something which, assuming theism, would apply to everything in the physical world.
Claims made by I.D.ists on biology and the OOL imply local, or secondary design. IOW, remembering that we’re assuming theism and first level intent behind the physical world, a claim that the OOL cannot come about by the natural physical processes of the world is a claim that the natural world is incorrect for life, and life requires local I.D., like the man-made dam.
A question for you at this point is: would you personally, as a theist, describe a dam formed by a landslide as “intelligently designed”?
I wouldn’t claim that ID is the best scientific explanation for such a dam. Philosophically, I consider everything that exists intelligently designed.
So William, if someone who denies having LFW can in fact have it and it’s clearly possible for someone to think he or she has LFW and not actually possess it at all, how can anyone ever choose to continue to have LFW? I mean, it seems pretty clear by those two conditions that it’s not actually possible to know there’s anything to continue having.
Robin,
The possibility that we are deluded or wrong about things we believe exists in any endeavor.
Quite so, which then begs the question of whether your LFW has any actual effect or if it’s no better than a placebo.
Hey, I say that about natural selection….
That’s what I was assuming. So, why the attraction to the I.D. movement, which makes arguments about local design on top of the original design of the physical world? It’s always struck me as odd that folks who believe, philosophically, that the natural physical world was designed to be as it is should then argue that the original design is inadequate to produce certain local phenomena (like life on this planet).
Great, the leap from landslides blocking a waterway to living organisms arising from non-living matter…
The most notable convert to the fine tuning argument is Michael Denton, whose book popularized the phrase, “Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.”
He seems to have recanted on that and embraced the anthropic principle in “Nature’s Destiny.”
Much of this was anticipated by Chardin’s “Phenomenon of Man,” written about 1930.
Chardin seems to have popularized the idea that evolution has a tendency toward greater complexity.
I’ve always hoped that ID advocates would settle on their message, whether evolution is impotent, or whether it embodies and follows a front loaded program.
Is it your view that we are in a physical world that is intentionally designed in such a way as to make such things impossible? A naturally sterile world?
At least Petrushka (and Michael Denton) have got the point I’m driving at. Try a little harder, Joe.
Non-sequitur. But if you have any evidence, any at all, that necessity and chance can produce a living organism from non-kliving matter, please present it.
You have no idea what Denton says. Also you are just fishing. Fish harder…
The combination of the Tale of The Refused Refund and Tenfold Tax Rebate, and the concept of “psychoplasm”, make me extremely disinclined to take the concept of LFW , or its proponents, seriously
But I expect it, and they, can do without me.
This isn’t a thread about ID.
RB:
WJM:
RB:
And a question you passed over:
Thanks.