Talk:Free will/Archive 18

Proposed change to introduction
The existing introduction says:
 * "Free will is the ability of agents to make choices unconstrained by certain factors. Factors of historical concern have included metaphysical constraints..."

One might argue that the identification of 'free will' as an 'ability' is only one of many definitions, and many argue that it is, in fact, not an ability but an illusion. The basis of the subject, however, is the experience of free will that drives us to try to formulate this experience in words, and this underlying experience is what all attempts at definition try to capture.

It is proposed to change this to read as follows:
 * "Free will refers to the common intuition that one has complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of psychological and other conflicting influences.1,2,3 Free will is widely discussed in terms of constraints, that is, various factors that may limit the ability of agents to make choices. Factors of historical concern have included metaphysical constraints..."
 * Sources
 * 1 "One of the strongest supports for the free choice thesis is the unmistakable intuition of virtually every human being that he is free to make the choices he does and that the deliberations leading to those choices are also free flowing." Corliss Lamont as quoted by
 * 2 "The freedom in question is a property, real or imagined, that nearly all adult human beings...believe themselves to possess. To say that one doesn't understand what it is, is to claim to lack the most basic understanding of the society one lives in, and such a claim is not believable." from Quoted by The Information Philosopher and accessible on-line in Amazon's 'look inside' feature.
 * 3 "All normal humans experience a kind of basic, on-the-ground certainty that we, our conscious selves, cause our own voluntary acts." from
 * 3 "All normal humans experience a kind of basic, on-the-ground certainty that we, our conscious selves, cause our own voluntary acts." from


 * Comment: The reason for this change is, as expressed by the cited source, that free will is the "unmistakable intuition of virtually every human being", and there would be very little written about 'free will' at all were it not for this widely shared feeling. As Dennett summarizes one position:1
 * "Free will is here to stay, and the challenge for science is to figure out exactly how it works and not to peddle silly arguments that deny the undeniable."


 * and this:
 * "Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom" Britannica


 * and this:
 * "Theories of free will are more plausible when they capture our intuitions and experiences than when they explain them away. Thus, philosophers generally want their theories of free will to aptly describe the experiences we have when we make choices and feel free and responsible for our actions." 1


 * Other sources along these lines can be quoted.
 * The idea is that the primal feeling or intuition is the spring driving our interest, and definitions and arguments are attempts to come to terms with it. Hence, the everyday feeling should be placed up front, to be followed by various attempts at definition and argumentation. Identification with an 'ability' is prejudicial. Brews ohare (talk) 22:31, 6 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment: If you want to change the lede you should be using a more general source, one that summarises the field. That is if it needs changing which I am unsure of.  I think you are (as ever) arguing a position based on the  sources you have found rather than focusing onthe  use of secondary material  Snowded  TALK 08:30, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: This argument of yours is just a way to duck cited sources by suggesting that there is some 'better' source that would say something else. I've already provided half a dozen supporting sources that are very reputable, including the Encyclopedia Britannica. In any event, the proposed change in the introduction does not interfere with the presentation presently in place; it just provides a sourced and broader initial position. Perhaps you could break with all precedent and actually suggest what you find objectionable about the proposed content? Brews ohare (talk) 16:37, 7 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment: I don't have time to read this in full right now but I want to quickly address one part.
 * You write "many argue that it is, in fact, not an ability but an illusion"
 * Just as with "intuition" above, those who hold that free will is an illusion are saying that the ability to choose freely is an illusion.
 * For yet another analogy: sun dogs. What are sun dogs? They're these bright spots of light that appear to the sides of the sun. Sun dogs are entirely illusory, they're an optical artifact: there are no actual objects where those bright spots of light appear to be, lensing effects just make it look like there are. But what is the illusion of? Bright spots of light to the sides of the sun.
 * If free will is entirely illusory, then it is an illusion of something, and that something is what defines free will. For something like sun dogs we can outright say in the lede that the phenomenon in question is illusory: sun dogs are illusory spots of light, etc... because their illusory nature is uncontroversial. With free will that's not so, for either illusoriness or intuitiveness or anything else. Saying "free will is [something concrete]" does not say anything about whether that concretely-defined thing exists, or is merely an illusion, or something we wrongly intuit to exist, or anything -- it merely identifies what the object of such intuitions or illusions are, out of all the many possible intuitions or illusions one might have. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:31, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * On an unrelated note to your suggested lede: use-mention distinction. Learn it. Free will does not refer to anything. "Free will" refers to something, namely free will, whatever that is. Free will just is something. The article is about the topic, not the term. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:31, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Pfhorrest: Your retreat into arcania amounts to saying that the present assertion that "Free will is the ability of agents..." really should be read as saying "Free will is a supposed ability of agents...", which would still be an objectionable formulation because it makes the everyday experience of free will seem conjectural when it is we might say, self-evident to everybody. The prevalence of this experience is attested to by the half-dozen sources cited above. In any event, the topic here is not some supposed formulation, but the experience and the consequent attempts to account for it in some framework or another - three possible frameworks have been presented to you above. Brews ohare (talk) 16:42, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * As an FYI: the three approaches to the experience of free will listed in the earlier thread are:
 * (i)  'Free will' is a phenomenon addressable by science.
 * (ii) 'Free will' is a phenomenon outside the domain of science.
 * (iii) 'Free will' is a term to be defined and logically connected with other definitions about 'freedom', 'choice', 'ability to do otherwise', and so forth. Construction of a logical apparatus is the focus although, of course, it is hoped there is relevance to the experience provoking this exercise.
 * Comment upon these approaches can go in the previous thread, and aren't relevant to this proposal. The point in bringing up these approaches is to emphasize that they all are sparked by the experience of free will and intend to deal with that experience one way or another. Hence, the proposed beginning identifies the phenomenon: "Free will refers to the common intuition that..." Brews ohare (talk) 17:34, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Bottom line: 'Free will' is a phenomenon, and a phenomenon is separate from various attempts to explain it. We all have direct personal access to this phenomenon every moment of every day, and the experience has nothing to do with various clumsy or clever attempts to define it in words, although the urge towards its understanding provokes attempts to put it into words. Brews ohare (talk) 17:43, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * You are writing an essay on your view of the subject and that is not appropriate. You have not (and never do so I wonder if it is worth making the point again) addressed the issue of the need to use secondary sources rather than your interpretations and selection of primary ones.  Neither is it appropriate to insult both editors engaged with you here.   You need to walk the line a bit more carefully Brews  Snowded  TALK 18:26, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * → Snowded: (1.) there is no 'essay' here; everything is sourced; (2.) your masochistic desire to be abused by some imaginary insult is your personal problem. Brews ohare (talk) 20:58, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * (i) the fact something is sourced does not mean it is not an essay, the issue is how you are selecting sources and providing commentary (ii) Comments like "retreat into arcane" to an editor who is trying to engage you is one example. The fact you don't see either of these, or choose not to accept them is a large part of the problem here. Snowded  TALK 04:40, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: Instead of your continued focus on imaginary personal affronts, when are you going to address content beyond derogatory accusations backed up by absolutely nothing? Brews ohare (talk) 17:47, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It doesn't take much imagination to see the failure to follow WP:Civil in many of your comments Brews, but it may be you don't see it. Just as you don't see that content issues are being addressed, but not in a way you are happy with.  It seems to be an experience you are having with lots of editors  Not to worry, I suppose we have to wait and see which article you will move to next after failing to get your way here.  Its been a pattern for months and I really think you should make a donation to wikipedia to cover the costs of all the extra storage you use talking about your views on a subject.  Snowded  TALK 18:06, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * → Snowded: Indeed, content is not being addressed by you as I would like. 'Content' refers to specific statements that represent what reliable sources say. Consequently, criticism of content consists of challenging the statement as unrepresentative of the source, or in providing another reputable source with a different viewpoint. Of course, you are completely aware of these points, but choose not to engage in any such useful development of content. Brews ohare (talk) 19:59, 8 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Would "apparent" in place of "supposed" make you happy? (Or "seeming", or something else suggesting that phenomenality you're so intent on including). I'm usually fine with such softening words when stating a definition of something the existence of which is doubted, but they often get removed by other editors as "weasel words". If nobody else objects to it though I'm happy to see something like "apparent" or "seeming" or some other such adjective put right after "free will is the..." in the current lede. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:18, 7 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Pfhorrest: There is a distinction between the 'phenomenon' of free will and its description as an 'apparent ability'. It is that free will is an experienced phenomenon, that we try to put in words, and is independent of any attempt at verbal description, however apt, such as it's description as an 'ability', real or imagined. An "intuition" is not an "ability", nor necessarily indicative of an ability.
 * Do you really object to the proposed introduction on some grounds of misstatement of the subject, or what? Don't you agree with the sources cited that 'free will' is a widely held intuitive experience, and not simply an item of technical vocabulary? Somewhat similarly, music is experienced and is more than its description by notes on a staff.
 * Many discussions of free will begin with a verbal formulation and then assess it. That approach is entirely compatible with identifying the phenomenon of free will as an intuition and then proceeding to try to verbalize it and study the logical consequences of that verbalization. "Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom" Britannica. As a phenomenon, 'free will' transcends any encapsulation in words, just like an eclipse of the moon is a phenomenon that can be addressed by devouring dragons or by planetary motions, but still is an eclipse, however it is described. A difference from an eclipse, however, is that the experience of free will, despite its prevalence, is not established objectively by third-party observations, but by introspection and by reports by others of their own subjective mental life. Whether we all are deluded, or whether the matter lies outside the reach of science, the experience is there, and these wide-ranging questions about this experience are part of an exploration that the framing of the subject should include. Brews ohare (talk) 15:11, 9 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "Do [I] really object to the proposed introduction on some grounds of misstatement of the subject"? In short, yes. Let's take your first sentence, which is only thing that differs significantly from the current lede, and look at it word by word. I've already voiced many of these objections:
 * "Free will refers to the common intuition that one has complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of psychological and other conflicting influences."
 * Free will...
 * Good so far.
 * ...refers to...
 * No. The words "free will" refer to something. Whatever that something is, free will (note the absence of quotation marks) is that thing. "Free will" refers to whatever free will is; free will is whatever "free will" refers to. Since the article (like most Wikipedia articles) is about the topic, not the term, we want the free-will-is kind of sentence here, not the "free will"-refers-to kind of sentence here. So strike this phrase and substitute "is". Free will is...
 * ...the common intuition that one has...
 * No. There is a common intuition that one has something, that something being free will; but free will is not identical to that intuition, it is the object of that intuition. Free will is the thing that we commonly have an intuition of having. What is that thing exactly? That's what this first sentence is supposed to say. We can say separately that there is a common intuition that we have that thing; first we have to say what the thing we're going to talk about is supposed to be. So strike that clause completely. Free will is...
 * ...complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of psychological and other conflicting influences.
 * The rest of this part is OK, but adds nothing substantial beyond what's already there in the current version, and has some one slight problem.
 * Similarities first: Who are we talking about having that control? People, actors, the ones who perform the actions being chosen among... "agent" is the standard philosophical terminology for one who acts, as such. And we're talking about such agents being able to control, right? So this control would be a kind of ability... of agents.. to choose among alternative actions, that is, to make choices. And that ability, that power of control over choices, must persist even in the face of other conflicting influences, or factors if you will. And to have control even in the face of conflicting influences is to be... wait for it... unconstrained by those other influences. So you're talking about an ability of agents to control how they choose among alternative actions even in the face of conflicting influences, and we're already talking about an ability of agents to make choices unconstrained by certain factors. What exactly are you saying that's different from what we're already saying, again?
 * The slight problem now: Why list only psychological influences as possibly conflicting ones, and leave all the others unspecified? That gives undue weight to one view of free will (one that I agree with mind you, so I'm striving for neutrality against my own interests here). To fix that, we could say that free will is "complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of conflicting influences. Influences of historical concern have included psychological, social, physical, and metaphysical influences." Add in parenthetical examples of each kind of influence for clarity, and you've once again got something that's not substantially different from what we have already, just slightly rephrased and reordered. So what's wrong with what we have already?
 * It doesn't say anything about intuition, I bet you'll say. But I'd be fine with adding a sentence, even making it the third sentence (immediately following the definition, just before the "free will has important implications" sentence), just stating that there is a commonly-held intuition that we have free will, with maybe a counter-clause stating that the truth of that intuition, or even a precise statement of what it is that we intuit, are much-debated issues. I think such a sentence might work better as a replacement for the first sentence of the second paragraph however, as that then segues into a summary of those debates. --Pfhorrest (talk) 04:31, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Pfhorrest: I'll take another look at this tomorrow. My first reaction is perplexity. You agreed earlier with the sources that say we all share a common intuition, but rather than name that intuition 'free will' you want to reserve that name for some form of words, and then deny that the subject of this article is the intuition, but insist it is instead the form of words you identify as 'free will'. To me, this position is like refusing to admit the primacy of a phenomenon we all have witnessed called the eclipse of the moon, and insisting the thing we witness is not the eclipse, but that the eclipse is the travel of the Moon into the Earth's shadow. What we witness is only our perception of 'the travel of the Moon into the Earth's shadow'? Thanks for the reply; I'll think some more about this. Brews ohare (talk) 06:15, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I think you may be mixing up my several independent objections.
 * One objection is just about the use-mention distinction and your use of the phrasing "refers to". Please read that article I just wikilinked as it explains the problem in detail. A short version of it can be put thus: "cats" is a word, and as such, it can refer to something. That word, "cats", has four letters, but it doesn't have any legs; words don't have legs. The thing that word refers to, on the other hand, namely cats, the animals, have four legs, but they have no letters; animals generally don't have letters. And aside from animals like us who can produce speech that can refer to things, animals generally do not refer to anything. So cats don't refer to anything. But "cats" refers to something, namely cats, whatever those are. Note that this says nothing yet about what makes something a cat, or equivalently, what the definition of the word "cat" is. It just means that an article about cats should say "Cats are..." rather than "Cats refer to", unless the article is about the word "cats", rather than the animals that word refers to. So this article, being as it should be about free will (whatever that is) and not just the words "free will", should say "Free will is..." rather than "Free will refers to...".
 * The other, completely unrelated, objection, is to do with distinguishing an attitude and the object of that attitude. I'll try to phrase this in terms of your eclipse example. A lunar eclipse is a darkening of the moon. It is not the observation of the darkening of the moon. The eclipse is the thing which is observed, not the observing of it. Let's switch to solar eclipses so I can make my next point: so a solar eclipse is a darkening of the sun, not the observation of the darkening of the sun. However (this is that next point), solar eclipses are highly observer-dependent: a person on one part of the Earth may not observer a solar eclipse at the same time that another observer does. But still, the eclipse is the thing observed, not the observing of it. So we would not say "A solar eclipse is the observation of the sun darkening". We might say "A solar eclipse is the apparent darkening of the sun", to acknowledge that that darkening may be a highly subjective (observer-dependent) phenomenon. But the act of observing the eclipse is not the eclipse itself. Likewise, with free will, free will is the thing we intuit that we have, it is not the intuition of that thing. We commonly have an intuition that we have free will. What is free will then? What do we have an intuition of having? If free will is just the intuition that we have free will, then free will is the intuition that we have the intuition that we have the intuition that we have the intuition that we have the intuition that we have the intuition that we have the.... you get the idea. Free will is.... something. We have an intuition that we have that something. But free will is not that intuition of having that something. It is the something that we intuit that we have. You could say the same kind of thing about all kinds of things people might intuit that they have... souls, magic powers, whatever. When I was a little kid, I had an intuition that magic was real and that I had some kind of power to use it. That intuition was not magic itself; it was an intuition (a false one as it turns out) about magic, which as it turns out does not exist at all. Many people similarly intuit that they have souls; but that intuition is not itself a soul, it is an intuition about souls. And likewise our common intuition that we have free will is not itself free will, it is about free will. --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:40, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Pfhorrest: You present an interesting view of language: "a lunar eclipse is a darkening of the Moon, not the observation of the darkening of the Moon". This viewpoint sounds persuasive when the description is shifted from "a lunar eclipse is the traversing of the Earth's shadow by the Moon" to more everyday language like "darkening of the Moon". The first formulation obviously congers up a model of orbiting spheres that is seemingly unintuitive. But we use words like 'darkening' in many contexts, so it seems to place the eclipse in an everyday setting among things like turning out the lights, and so 'darkening' seems somehow more perceptual and less theoretical, putting it closer to the 'observation' of the darkening of the moon, and making the noting of an 'observation' less significant. I don't find the replacement of the word 'observation' by the identification of a particular type of observation, a 'darkening', to be persuasive here. Of course, the eclipse of the Moon has been described in many ways, from Moon-eating dragons, to poetry, to astronomy. We agree, it seems, that the eclipse (use) transcends all such descriptions. Although I don't think the contrast of a 'darkening' with the 'observation of a darkening' gets us anywhere, I do think that the intuition of 'free will' or the experience of 'free will' is the subject of this article (the use of 'free will'), and 'free will' (the use, or phenomenon) is not one of many debatable and non-unique formulations in words (various philosophical attempts to encapsulate the phenomenon in words). I am unsure whether you consider the 'experience' of free will to be an 'observation' of free will, making the 'intuition' of free will prior to the experience of it? Or perhaps you view the 'intuition' of free will as an 'observation' of free will, and 'free will' to be something extant and prior to the intuition or the experience of it? If so, doesn't this introduce the Use–mention distinction in a different fashion, where we now have to identify the 'use' of 'free will' as something even more difficult to identify than the intuition of free will?


 * "Likewise, with free will, free will is the thing we intuit that we have, it is not the intuition of that thing."

Why is that necessary? Why not take the view that, like many whims, we have many intuitions (that the person in front of us is our true love, that there is only one God, that 'science governs all that happens', that 'no machine can embody what is essentially human',...) and one intuition on that list is the intuition that "we are free to make our own choices", or "that we cause our own conscious acts"? What we have to do in order to discuss the intuition we might label as the 'intuition of free will' is to identify from among our many intuitions which is the one we are talking about.

If we have an intuition of free will, how do we identify this intuition? Doesn't any identification, such as those of the sources, for example, "the unmistakeable intuition of virtually every human being that he is free to make the choices he does and that the deliberations leading to those choices are also free flowing", plunk us down in linguistic controversy, an infinite regress? That entry into regress is based upon the mistake that identifying this intuition requires its complete and definitive description. Of course, the rarer the experience, the more description is needed to bring it to mind, and if there are many similar experiences a more complete a description is needed in order to separate what is being talked about from other things that seem similar on the surface. But in the case of 'free will', no-one will misunderstand what is referred to here. As the source says, it is 'unmistakable'. That is not to say that this description is complete or definitive. It is just a tag that identifies the subject, and the intuition itself may be far more complicated and unclear than this tag. That ambiguity is actually why reference to the intuition is preferable to any attempted encapsulation in words: once one has identified the intuition, which is directly experienced, one can begin to assess what is said about it and decide whether what is said is a more or a less complete characterization. There is no infinite regress necessary, just a comparison of the verbal characterization with one's identified intuition. On that basis we can propose a 'compatibilist' or an 'incompatibilist' position vis à vis 'determinism' and inquire how that fits our intuition, or we can decide that correlations of brain scans with lifting our finger capture our intuition, or whether one's persistent attempts to form one's own character capture our intuition, or whether all these are only facets we recognize as aspects of our intuition. And we can ask whether the intuition is well-founded, in whole or in part, and how that might be established. The entire subject is broadened and recognizes what the Encyclopedia Britannica points out, "Arguments for free will are based on the subjective experience of freedom". [My emphasis.] Brews ohare (talk) 14:13, 11 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps a revised version of the proposed change presented below is more acceptable? Brews ohare (talk) 17:03, 11 March 2014 (UTC)


 * One intuition on that list is the intuition that "we are free to make our own choices", or "that we cause our own conscious acts"
 * "We are free to make our own choices" and "we cause our own conscious acts" are sentences roughly equivalent to "we have free will". At least, they're sentences of the same order: they're talking about some ability or capacity of us, rather than some attitude we have towards having that ability or capacity. You might say "one intuition on that list it the intuition that we have free will". That would be a perfectly fine way of speaking. But you are plainly misusing basic English if you want to say that an intuition of having something is identical to that thing, or any kind of intensional attitude toward a thing is identical to that thing. A belief in something is not the thing believed, a desire for something is not the thing desired, an emotion about something is not the thing emoted over, an intuition about something is not the thing intuited, an opinion about something is not the thing opined about, and so on.
 * I'm not raising any objection whatsoever (at this point at least) about whether or not there is a common intuition that we have free will, or whether or not there is anything to be known about free will besides that we have some intuition about it, or anything substantial like that. This is a linguistic objection; and that is not to say that all there is to be said about free will is language games either, it's saying that you are abusing language in your attempts to talk about the subject. I'm objecting to your abuse of language in trying to state what free will is by saying that it is the intuition that we have it. What is the thing that we have an intuition about? Whatever your answer, however precisely or vaguely or however we want to describe it, it's linguistically fine to say that that thing is free will, but not to say that the intuition that we have that thing is, itself, identical to free will. It would be linguistically fine to say, adapting your two phrases above, that "Free will is the freedom to make our own choices", or "Free will is the causation of our own conscious acts". Those sentences do not commit the error I am harping on here. (They have different problems though). But "Free will is the intuition that we are free to make our own choices" is just, prima facie, linguistically screwy -- you're saying essentially "free will is the intuition that we have [free will]", when what we need is a sentence saying "free will is [free will]", where those bracketed words at the end are standing for some kind of definite description of free will, the specifics of which are a matter for a different argument.
 * Let's look at magic again for another example. It would be wrong, in the same was as you're wrong here, to say "magic is the belief that one has power to alter the physical world by thought alone". No. Magic is not a belief in [magic]. Magic is [magic]. Where that bracketed "[magic]" there is again standing in for a definite description of magic. You could say "magic is the power to alter the physical world by thought alone". That would be linguistically fine. We could then argue about whether "the power to alter the physical world by thought alone" is an uncontroversially accurate definite description of magic. That would be a separate issue. But that issue aside, believing you have magic is not the same thing as having magic. It may be that there is no magic, that there is only belief in it, and there is nothing more to be said about it than that people believe in it, and the kinds of things they believe -- but that doesn't make the belief identical to the thing believed-in. Likewise free will. It may be that there is no free will, there is only this intuition that we have it, and there is nothing more to be said about free will than that we intuit that we have it, and the kinds of things we intuit about it -- but that doesn't make free will identical to the intuition that we have it.
 * I'm getting seriously frustrated here, over multiple article and years of discussion, with your apparently utter inability to think in abstract terms and understand when you are confusing things like this, or even understand the thing that it's being said you are confusing. It's simple language confusion, over and over again -- you don't grasp what words mean, different orders of abstraction, different modalities of language or logic, intensional attitudes and their objects, etc. I'm getting sick of it. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:40, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Pfhorrest: Perhaps the choice of the word 'intuition' is a problem. You say 'a desire is not the thing desired'. No problem. Likewise, 'an intuition is not the thing intuited' I am not violating this paradigm. I want to say that free will is a subjective phenomena, like a sense of individuality, a thing in itself. You prefer to call it an 'attitude'.
 * Let me think out loud for a moment. Of course, the intuition that 'there is a God' is not evidence there is a God. The intuition that one has a capacity is not that capacity. The intuition that one is free to choose is not the freedom to choose. But if I wish to define a particular intuition as the "intuition of 'free will' ", there is no linguistic problem in saying I have the particular intuition that I call the "intuition of 'free will' ", meaning I am under the impression, or have the intuition that 'I have the capacity to choose'. (More precisely, I direct attention to this intuition using this label, although the intuition is in fact more complex than the label indicates.) The problem you point out arises only if I suggest this intuition is the actual capability of choice, which is not being asserted. Am I still making a mistake here? I think you misunderstand me. Brews ohare (talk) 15:13, 12 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Most of what you write here just now makes sense enough. The objection is that the wording of your proposed lede sounds like it's saying something that doesn't make such sense. It makes it sound like you are identifying free will with the intuition that we have the capacity to choose, rather than identifying free will with the capacity to choose itself. There certainly is an "intuition of free will", but that is like a "belief in God"; God (whether or not he exists) is not the belief in God, and free will (whether or not it exists) is not the intuition of free will; the latter item of each of those pairs is an intentional attitude (a mental state about something) about the former item in that pair. So however we may want to mention that free will is commonly intuited, we cannot do so in a way that identifies free will as the intuition that we have it; we have to instead state what it is, and then that we intuit that we have it. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:26, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Pfhorrest:You are right that I want to connect to the intuition that we might identify with the label "capacity to choose", although I use the designation "the intuition that we have the capacity to choose" only as a label, and do not wish to say that this intuition is completely described by this label, in the same way that one might identify a wagon with the phrase "the wagon that is red" without suggesting that the color 'red' is a complete description of the wagon, which obviously has many interesting features beyond its color. In contrast, if I say 'free will is the capacity to choose" I have limited myself to this definition. To gain adequate flexibility to discuss the topic of 'free will' I am now faced with some preamble like the following in order to make clear that no one simple definition, no matter how clever, is adequate to contain the subject:
 * "The term 'free will' has many different meanings and nuances that ultimately can be traced back to the complexity of the intuition we associate with 'free will', To treat these various aspects, we will proceed to consider a list of definitions of 'free will' that to some extent overlap, and will contrast and compare these various approaches. A number of these definitions can be set up in the same words, but they differ because the meanings attached to words like 'free' 'freedom' 'choose' 'choice' and so forth can be interpreted in many ways. Some approaches take the view that 'free will' is a concept outside the reach of objective observation, and to be examined in some important dimensions only by introspection or the reports by others of their introspections. Other definitions are oriented more toward the sciences, and try to set up definitions of 'free will' that have some possibility of experimental substantiation. These fall into two categories - those that may be verifiable by scientific methods (like brain scans) that are already available techniques. Others are formulations that conceivably could be tested by techniques that may be developed in the future, for example, supposing our understanding of complex systems today can be extrapolated to more advanced understanding of complex feedback systems beyond our grasp today. A completely different set of definitions can be found in various religions, which attempt in various ways to reconcile the concept of free will with religious ideas about the capacities of various deities." And so on and so forth.
 * Pfhorrest, no doubt you would write this preamble in a different fashion (as would I upon reading it over), but perhaps you can see that using a single, narrow definition at the outset as is now done is a straightjacket that does not fit the subject. The subject is not free will in some narrow sense, but free will with all the complexity contained in the intuition of free will. (I've tried to provide some of this flavor in the clumsy paragraph above.) It is this intuition that drives the subject, not any particular verbalization of it that chops off a part of the intuition so one can deal more simply with only that chosen part of the phenomenon. Brews ohare (talk) 04:34, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * To use your example of a red wagon, let's say we were editing an article about something called a "rotwag". The first sentence of that article, defining the subject to be discussed, might be something like "A rotwag is a red wagon." There are a lot of other things that could probably be said about such a thing: who has built them, what are they made out of, why are they important, what has happened with them and where have they been over the course of their existence, and so on. But the defining characteristic of a rotwag, all of that stuff aside, is its being a red wagon -- there might be all different kinds of red wagons and lots of things to say about them, but "a red wagon" is sufficient to identify the kind of thing that "rotwag" names. Saying "A rotwag is a red wagon" in no way claims that there is nothing more to say about such wagons other than that they are red. It's just enough to say about them to tell the reader that red wagons are the things named "rotwags" that we're going to be telling them more about in the article they're about to read.
 * Let's say that images of rotwags are extremely common. They appear on all kinds of things everywhere. In fact people have perhaps more exposure to images of rotwags than they do to actual rotwags themselves, or at least, they could tell you more about the images of rotwags than they could about rotwags themselves. Maybe the only reason anyone is interested in rotwags is because there are, for some reason, images of them all over the damn place. We'd want our article on rotwags to say somewhere prominently that images of rotwags are extremely common, sure enough. But we would not open the article by saying "A rotwag is a common image of a red wagon." No. A rotwag is a red wagon. Images of rotwags are common. And there's a lot of other interesting things to say about rotwags. But we start Wikipedia article with definitions, and "a red wagon" is a good definition of a rotwag: it tells you just enough to identify a rotwag, without being so specific as to rule out by definition things which should count as rotwags, or so vague as to leave readers with no idea what the article is going to be about, and without confusing rotwags with something else about them, like the common images of them that are everywhere, or the word "rotwag" used to name them, etc.
 * Your long preamble there is good enough on a cursory read for an essay about free will, nothing really screams 'incorrect' about it to me, but it is not a writing style appropriate for the lede of a Wikipedia article, which must begin with a good definition, and which is generally (with some exceptions, but not here) about a topic rather than a term used to name that topic. For topics which have vague of controversial definitions, the best we can do within those confines is to give an extremely minimal definition that will not conflict with any of the specific controversial ones, and then list some of the controversial specifics.
 * You've used phrases like "capacity to choose, even in the face of conflicting influences". I've repeatedly stated that, stripped of all the other problems, a statement like "Free will is the capacity to choose, even in the face of conflicting influences" is an acceptable style of definition... but one that is scantly at all different from the one we already have. Free will is the ability to will freely -- that's completely uncontroversial because it's just an inane tautology. Like "free speech is the ability to speak freely." It's just an inane tautology though, so we need to fill in more informative but still synonymous and equally uncontroversial phrases for those words "will" and "freely". What is it to will, in the broadest general sense? To choose, to make choices, to make decisions... there are all kinds of things we could fill in here that would be adequate synonyms. And what is it to do something freely? To do it without being restricted, constrained, forced, coerced, influenced, and so on. You're picking different words than the ones we already have but they're still saying the same thing, once we strip away all the other problems: Free will is some kind of {ability, capacity, power, etc} to {will, choose, decide, etc} without being {restricted, constrained, forced, coerced, influenced, etc}. On that level there is no controversy anywhere. Where the definitional controversy comes in is in what it is important to be free from. So we list some general categories of things that notable sources have said are the important thing that your willing needs to be free from in order for you to have free will.
 * None of that pretends to have said everything there is to say about free will, or even to have given an exhaustive gloss of every possible definition of free will. It just gives a minimalist uncontroversial definition just to meet the requirement that the article begin with a good definition, and then it lists some prominent examples of controversial details which often get added to that minimalist uncontroversial definition.
 * You're not going to get around the requirement that the article start with a good definition. That is policy. We can't start with a big rambling preamble about the topic just to avoid your discomfort with saying "Free will is [something]". That's not how Wikipedia articles are written. We can argue about the nuances of the exact words that we put in for that [something], how much detail we can put in before it becomes controversial to someone, and so forth. But so far all your proposals, when stripped of other problems that are mostly just misuse of language, boil down to what we already have, just using different synonyms, slightly different grammar, etc. You have yet to propose anything which actually points at a problem in the current lede and suggests a fix; you've only proposed adding new problems, without even being able to see that they are problems until I write multiple doctoral theses explaining why they are problems, and often not even then. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:39, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi Pforrest: Your 'multiple doctoral theses' might have been shorter if you stopped to read what I said instead of assuming I am incapable of using English, and in several instances simply repeating what I have said, but in your own words. That aside, we seem to agree on two main points:
 * (i) There is a widely held intuition concerning free will (as attested by a dozen sources);
 * (ii) No definition of free will adequately captures the subject (or the intuition), including, in particular, the present definition: "'free will' is the ability of agents to make choices unconstrained by certain factors".

We appear to disagree about an early notice to readers about the role of this intuition, and about the limitations of this definition (leading to many alternative definitions, not all compatible with one another). Personally I think a better handling of these two issues is achievable in principle without deviating much from the present formulation. However, you appear to be unwilling to recognize any need for improvement, or perhaps feel that an attempt at improvement is inadvisable, and that being so, there is nothing that can be done about it. Brews ohare (talk) 16:01, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Hoping against hope, I have made a third attempt that seems to offer a possible resolution of these matters. Brews ohare (talk) 17:02, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I repeat things similar to what you have said with important modifications, in an attempt to better illustrate the places where I agree and the places where I object. You seem to read these as either agreeing or disagreeing with you entirely, and rarely seem to get the nuance of the partial agreement, partial disagreement, which is the real point I'm trying to discuss: that something could be OK, but only if certain problems were fixed.
 * For example, I do not agree on point (ii) there. In fact the major point of my previous response was that your own proposed lede, stripped of other problems, is roughly synonymous to the present definition, and consequently that the present definition should be equally unproblematic to you, serving the same purpose as your own terminology does, in merely identifying the thing to be discussed, not giving an exhaustive description of everything there is to say about it. I agreed that it is difficult to give a substantial definition of free will without bias, but I object that it is not impossible to give a minimal definition that says just enough to identify the topic, but little enough to avoid bias.
 * I also have not objected (and have repeatedly explicitly said that I don't object) to giving prominent mention of your point (i), which I do agree with. I disagree with the specific way you try to do so. Something of the form "Free will is [whatever]. There is a widely held intuition concerning it." is not intensely objectionable for a lede. I'm only objecting that "Free will is the intuition that [whatever]" is problematic.
 * I am not arguing that the article is perfect as it is. I am merely looking at each of your proposed changes as written and asking "is there anything wrong with this?" and commenting where I see problems. A proposed change with any problems fixed would be fine. But so far, your proposed changes, minus the problems I see with them, end up proposing almost no change at all, and so do not seem like constructive changes. I'm even trying to suggest ways that the gist of what you seem to want to add can be added without those problems. (Like a sentence mentioning the common intuition that we have free will somewhere in the first or second paragraphs -- once it's divorced from the problem of defining free will as "an intuition" as your proposal literally suggests). But you seem not to hear those and insist on fighting about the problematic way to make that point instead, reading me as objecting to the substance when it's largely the form that's a problem.
 * I will look at your new proposal below in a bit. --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:50, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Another attempt at a revised introduction
The following is a third version of the change in the introduction suggested in the above thread:
 * "Free will is a term used to capture the common intuition (whether valid or not) that one has complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of psychological and other conflicting influences.1,2,3,4,5 Although this description serves to distinguish this intuition from others, there are many attempts at a precise definition of free will.6 Whatever formulation is adopted, its reality is widely discussed in terms of constraints, that is, various factors that may limit the ability of agents to make choices. Factors of historical concern have included metaphysical constraints..." [The remainder of the present introduction continues from here.]
 * Sources
 * 1 "One of the strongest supports for the free choice thesis is the unmistakable intuition of virtually every human being that he is free to make the choices he does and that the deliberations leading to those choices are also free flowing." Corliss Lamont as quoted by
 * 2 "The freedom in question is a property, real or imagined, that nearly all adult human beings...believe themselves to possess. To say that one doesn't understand what it is, is to claim to lack the most basic understanding of the society one lives in, and such a claim is not believable." from Quoted by The Information Philosopher and accessible on-line in Amazon's 'look inside' feature.
 * 3 "All normal humans experience a kind of basic, on-the-ground certainty that we, our conscious selves, cause our own voluntary acts." from
 * 4 "The experience of being able to act differently in similar situations is certainly a main source of our intuition that we possess free will."
 * 5 "Free will does exist, but it is a perception, not a power or driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense that they are free." An often-quoted remark by Mark Hallett, researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. Quoted, for example, by
 * 6 A recent attempt by a neurophilosopher to put 'free will' into words he finds compatible with machine intelligence is: "Our belief in free will expresses the idea that, under the right circumstances, we have the ability to guide our decisions by our higher-level thoughts, beliefs, values, and past experiences, and to exert control over our undesired lower-level impulses."
 * 6 A recent attempt by a neurophilosopher to put 'free will' into words he finds compatible with machine intelligence is: "Our belief in free will expresses the idea that, under the right circumstances, we have the ability to guide our decisions by our higher-level thoughts, beliefs, values, and past experiences, and to exert control over our undesired lower-level impulses."


 * Comment: This revision avoids some objections by Pfhorrest to the earlier versions and tries to alert the reader both to the intuition of 'free will' underlying the interest in it, and to the difficulties in arriving at a precise verbalization of this intuition. At the same time it leads naturally into the consideration of constraints, which is the thrust of the rest of the introduction. Brews ohare (talk) 17:00, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Ok, let's go over this word by word again:
 * Free will is a term used to capture...
 * WIkipedia articles are about topics, not terms. This article is about free will, not the term "free will". So strike "a term used to capture", and we have "Free will is..."
 * ...the common intuition (whether valid or not) that one has...
 * As we've been going over at length above, while there may be a common intuition that we have [whatever free will is], free will is not identical to that intuition. To keep this inline here, we'd need to rephrase to something like "...the commonly-intuited...", but that sounds very awkward and I think this needs to be moved to another sentence entirely. "Free will is [something]. There is a common intuition that we have free will." Or something like that. But meanwhile, what goes in that "[something]"? "Free will is..."
 * ...complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of psychological and other conflicting influences.1,2,3,4,5
 * Most of this is ok-ish, but as mentioned above already, singling out psychological influences as the only source of conflict worth mentioning by name (with everything else as just "other") biases the lede of the article toward undue weight to one of many controversial positions. We could list some other prominent influences inline here with it: social, physical, and metaphysical, like we have now. We did that at one point, in fact. But then people wanted clarification on what those meant, so each of them got a little parenthetical list of examples. And then the first sentence was huge, so that last part got split into a second sentence immediately following the first.
 * If we preempted that process here, and followed up with the moved intuition sentence above, we'd have something like "Free will is complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of conflicting influences. Conflicting influences which people have notably been concerned about have included psychological influences (such as [examples]), social influences (such as [examples]), physical influences (such as [examples]), and metaphysical influences (such as [examples]). There is a common intuition that we have free will." That would not be awful (I'd quibble with a thesaurus some), but except for the added sentence about intuition at the end, it says pretty much exactly what we already have. So what's wrong with what we already have, that adding that extra sentence won't fix?
 * Although this description serves to distinguish this intuition from others, there are many attempts at a precise definition of free will.6
 * You're still talking about the intuition, rather than the thing intuited, which is the topic of this article, but aside from that, this sentence seems completely unnecessary. If something like it were to be salvaged, it could fit in as a second half of the sentence stating that there is a common intuition about free will, contrasting the commonality of that intuition with the difficulty in agreeing on the exact details of it. This would segue well into the existing second paragraph, and so could plausibly replace the existing first sentence of that paragraph.
 * Whatever formulation is adopted, its reality is widely discussed in terms of constraints, that is, various factors that may limit the ability of agents to make choices. Factors of historical concern have included metaphysical constraints..." [The remainder of the present introduction continues from here.]
 * This is completely redundant with the fixed "conflicting influences" above now, so one or the other should go; and since something like this is already in the article, I see no reason why it should go only to be replaced with something else that means the same thing and needs some work to sound better.
 * Bottom line: There might be something in this that could make a good replacement for the current first sentence of the second paragraph; something saying something to the effect of "There is a commonly held intuition that we have free will, but whether or not we really do, and what free will even means at all, are widely debated topics." But the attempt to rewrite the definitional first sentence of the article to make that point only brings a bunch of problems and otherwise says exactly what's already there. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:28, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, Pfhorrest, you take a very negative view of this attempt. The idea that somehow this proposed introduction is a violation of some imagined WP custom of beginning an article with a definition is a crock. What is the definition of Brittany Spears? A bit facetious, but if there is no satisfactory definition as is the case here, and if the reason is simply that 'free will' is one of those terms that cannot be pinned down, like Wittgenstein's analysis of 'games', then there is no need to use an awkward approach.

It's my opinion that rather than look at the issues raised and examining the views of the six cited sources, you have mounted a defense of the status quo and combined it with a generally hostile tone that doesn't encourage a fresh look at the intro. If you were to look at the definition of reference 6, for example, it bears very little resemblance to the version you prefer. And there isn't much doubt that the underlying critique of all these approaches is based upon how well they compare with our intuition of free will, with many sources devoted entirely to reinterpreting commonly used words to make a definition square with our intuition.

In any event, you are happy with things the way they are, and that is that. Brews ohare (talk) 06:49, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Imagined custom? It's policy. "Encyclopedia articles should begin with a good definition", from WP:NOTDIC. (Which by the way also links to WP:REFERS, the policy behind my first point above).
 * I didn't mention your sources because I don't have any objection to them. They are not the problem. But they don't counter the other problems. And now that you point it out, your source 6 doesn't appear to support the assertion it's attached to, it's just an example of the thing that assertion is talking about. But let's look at it anyway since you seem to think I don't care about whether the current lede conforms to sources:
 * Our belief in free will expresses the idea that...
 * A roundabout way of saying "free will is..". The content of our belief in free will amounts to the following proposition; that is, to believe in free will is to believe the following proposition; that is, the following proposition is an elaboration of what "free will exists" means, and by extension, a definition of what "free will" means.
 * ...under the right circumstances...
 * In other words, absent the wrong circumstances; in absence of something impeding or restricting or limiting the following proposition.
 * ...we have the ability to guide our decisions by our higher-level thoughts, beliefs, values, and past experiences, and to exert control over our undesired lower-level impulses.
 * In other words, we can choose, make choices, or decisions, and so on. This definition from the source goes into more detail on what exactly that entails, but that's not the point; what is described here falls (along with other possible elaborations) under the umbrella of "making choices", so the existing lede doesn't go against this, it just leaves out some details (which may be controversial).
 * So the definition proposed is tantamount to "Free will is the ability to, absent impeding circumstances, make choices", with some flowery wording and some elaboration on what it means (in this person's view) to make choices. How does that conflict with what we have at present again, that free will is the ability to make choices unconstrained by certain factors? My point is not that the current wording is the best it could possibly be -- just that you haven't shown a source that it conflicts with, so it remains an adequate minimal good definition that captures the basics of what all the more elaborate definitions have in common. All your sources say the same kind of thing (some with added, possibly conflicting details, which we omit), and your own proposed wording, once linguistic problems are fixed, also says the same kind of thing. So what is the problem?
 * I also want to point out that I did identify the genuinely new and unproblematic part in your proposal, and suggested an unproblematic way to include it, but I guess you want to ignore that and insist that any critique of your proposal is blanket rejection of the whole thing. To be extra clear, here is your proposal with the problems edited out again, as minimally as possible, all in one place, to show you how much I am not objecting to:
 * Free will is a term used to capture the commonly-intuit ion ed (whether valid or not) that one has complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of psychological, social, physical, metaphysical and other conflicting influences.1,2,3,4,5 There are have been many attempts at a precise definition of free will. Whatever formulation is adopted, its reality is widely discussed in terms of constraints, that is, various factors that may limit the ability of agents to make choices. Factors of historical concern have included metaphysical constraints...
 * Or to go ahead and apply those edits for further clarity, these are your own words, with only minor formal problems with them fixed:
 * Free will is the commonly-intuited complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of psychological, social, physical, metaphysical and other conflicting influences.1,2,3,4,5 There have been many attempts at a precise definition of free will.
 * My only objections with that are stylistic. It reads awkwardly and could be better worded and rearranged but the substance of it is fine.
 * However the only new bit of substance is the "commonly-intuited" bit. I have suggested an alternative way to include that without having to rewrite all of the rest of it in this awkward way that's going to take a bunch of rewrites just to end up saying the same thing anyway. Do you want to go back and read that suggestion again (I've repeated it multiple times) or are you going to continue making this your-way-or-the-highway? --Pfhorrest (talk) 08:40, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Pfhorrest: I'm glad to continue. I am not in a 'my-way-or-the-highway' frame of mind. I do like some indication that I am being understood.

So I'd suggest that the 'intuition' of free will be given more attention, and invite your suggestions about how that can be done. I'd suggest further that although constraints are significant, they should be identified as significant only as part of a program to assess the reality and the boundaries of 'free will' rather than as part of the definition of what is to be verified or circumscribed. The strong focus upon constraints is like defining a thing by what it isn't, rather than by what it is.

The intuition of free will is dismissed by Dehaene (reference 6). He says the intuition of free will is a present-day superstition that will 'evaporate' along with Chalmers' hard problems of consciousness as we re-educate our intuition in the light of greater understanding. He views his definition of 'free will' based upon a machine left alone to execute its supervisory software covers the territory, but he still has to refer to this intuition and spend pages defending against it.

My view is that there just isn't a single definition, and that is why a roundabout approach is used in this WP article. My alternative is to say any definition is an attempt to capture our intuition about 'free will', and that intuition is elusive, leading to this ambiguity and multiplicity of formulations. I think all the sources above, cited and supplementary, bring up the intuition because they understand the only interest in this topic is a result of this intuition. They want to embark upon some codification of this intuition, which they see as a starting point for a more careful formulation. Each author starts from this intuition and tries to phrase it in what they hope is a clearer manner than others have done. Do you disagree?

I'd like to hear some concrete suggestions for a change in the introduction in place of complicated circumlocutions about why the introduction is a really good presentation already. Brews ohare (talk) 18:08, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm in a rush to leave for the weekend so I have to be brief.
 * I've made a concrete suggestion. Replace the first sentence of the second paragraph with something saying that we commonly intuit that we have free will but whether that is true or what that even means are long-debated subjects. (As that paragraph begins the summary of those debates). That seems to be the only new substance your proposal, and it is fine.
 * The rest of my comments are not defending the perfection of the current introduction, but rather critiquing the new problems your proposal would introduce, and then asking of what's left: what is substantially different about this, besides the piece about intuition which I've suggested a better way to include?
 * To repeat: your proposed definition speaks of "conflicting influences", and that is all that the talk of "constraints" means. Would changing the phrasing to "conflicting influences" solve the problem you think exists with the present lede? How? Likewise your proposed definition speaks of "control to choose among alternative actions", but how is that of any substantial difference to "ability to make choices"?
 * You are happy to use a phrase like "control to choose among alternative actions even in the face of conflicting influences" to "merely identify the intuition", but you seem not to realize that that is all the definition in any Wikipedia article does: it identifies the thing to be talked about, which in this article is the object of the intuition you so much want to talk about: free will.
 * What is different about your proposed lede (minus its problems that just avoid talking about the topic directly at all) that solves the problems you think exist in the current lede?
 * How is your (fixed, and reordered):
 * Free will is complete control to choose among alternative actions, even in the face of psychological, social, physical, metaphysical and other conflicting influences. [...] It is commonly intuited that we have it, but there have been many attempts at a precise definition of it.
 * Any better than the gist of the current first two sentences plus the proposed new par2 sen1:
 * Free will is the ability to make choices unconstrained by certain factors, such as mental, social, physical, and metaphysical factors. [...] It is commonly intuited that we have it, but there have been many attempts at a precise definition of it.
 * What does the first one fix about the second? --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:25, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

What is appropriate to this article?
Hi Pfhorrest: You suggest that identification of the subject of this article is all that the definition in any WP article does: it identifies the thing to be talked about. But apparently this article is about 'free will' and cannot be about the 'intuition of free will', so we are forced, as I understand you, by WP policy to avoid the second formulation within this article because, I guess, the title of the article is not intuition of free will.

Such a discussion of beliefs is not, as you have noted, about the 'content of our belief in the concept of free will' but about the 'beliefs that are concerned with the concept of free will'. That opens the door to what types of belief about free will various sources report, the verification and testing of these various types of belief, their connections with the subject-object problem and the mind-body problem, and so on, which is not divorced from their content, but is not restricted to their content. So, within this subject, one can analyze beliefs as dualist, reductionist, epiphenomenalist, cultural, or whatever.

It might be of interest in this connection to note that Stanislas Dehaene (Ref 6 above) regards the "intuition of free will" as in the same realm as Chalmers' hard problem of consciousness, namely it is a superstition: "Chalmer's hard problem will evaporate...The hypothetical concept of qualia...will be viewed as a peculiar idea of the prescientific era, much like vitalism." 1 I'd presume that when this happens, the entire topic of 'free will' will become a curiosity, not just the belief.

In your opinion, would this perspective add to the article? Brews ohare (talk) 05:13, 15 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I am in no way objecting to material about what people think (or believe, or intuit, or any other intentional attitude) about free will being included. That's what most of the content of the article has to be about, since it is not a cut-and-dry scientific matter that we can report facts about in the article's own voice: the only way we talk talk about the subject is to report what other people think about it, attributing their opinions to them.
 * Also note that we already have a section about the psychology of belief in free will, where all kinds of things could be said about how common the intuition that we have free will is, how strongly it is held, under what circumstances people will abandon it, and so on, if that's the kind of thing that you want to talk about.
 * My only objection on the subject of 'intuition' was phrasing the introductory definition in such a way that it (as literally worded) identified free will with an intuition about it. We can talk all we want about intuitions people have about it, in the appropriate place in the article.
 * Dahaene's opinion you describe there is of the type that is perfectly appropriate to this article. I don't know enough about him at the moment to say what weight it deserves or where it belongs exactly, but it's the kind of material that is suitable for inclusion somewhere here, sure.
 * Things like subject-object and mind-body issues are also appropriate to the extent that they are tightly relevant to discussion about free will; in particular, that they are relevant to some particular view on free will. Different conceptions of free will (and the proponents of those conceptions) may or may not find those issues important. In the course of discussing a particular conception of free will which finds those kinds of issues important, it is appropriate to bring them up, but only to give a short summary of what those issues are, and say that they are important to that particular conception of free will. It is not appropriate to write at length about those issues in and of themselves (they have their own articles for that), or to write about them in a way that's divorced from their relevance to the particular view of free will which finds them important (such as in the lede, or in an overview section of all philosophy, or something like that, rather than say, for example, the paragraph under Metaphysical Libertarianism we have now, discussing the importance of interactionist dualism to libertarians who wish to maintain that physical determinism is true, and require a nonphysical mind to provide the nondeterminism necessary for free will as they conceive of it to exist).
 * --Pfhorrest (talk) 07:32, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the remark about intuition in the Intro. Your exposition above seems to be quite open-minded, although it is sowed with land mines like 'undue weight', avoiding 'writing at length', and 'relevance to some particular view on free will' (possibly meaning 'Don't go outside the Procrustean bed already in place). Brews ohare (talk) 18:34, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Those "land mines" are there intentionally, to forewarn against some of the problematic aspects of your previous contributions. There is plenty of room to add to this article, certainly, but it needs to be done within certain confines to avoid causing more problems than it solves, and as you've crossed those lines before I think it's worth mentioning them again in advance. It's like "Please, come inside, but wipe your feet first, and don't put them up on the table, and don't jump on the couch, and.... and don't stick beans up your nose. But other than that come in and make yourself at home." I want to be welcoming but I don't want to end up fighting over the same things again. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:30, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Secondary sources and belief in free will
Pursuant to the above thread, a digression on secondary source followed, as below:
 * Find a secondary sources that talks about the different types of belief and you might have a case for material. Your using primary sources to make that determination is not acceptable.   Personally I remain awestruck that Pfhorrest is still prepared to engage with you, despite you ignoring everything which s/he has explained to you.    Snowded  TALK 06:21, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The suggestion that secondary sources are necessary is wrong, and your surprise that Pfhorrest has a real interest in WP content is no surprise to those that share that interest. Brews ohare (talk) 05:35, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * No Brews it is right and you had that explained to you on the discussion forum concerned, There are limited circumstances in which primary can be used and that most definitely does not include simply collecting some quotes that appeal to you.  My comment on Pfhorrest related to his willingness to continue to give you a tutorial service with no fee not to his interest in content  Snowded  TALK 07:36, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: A good deal of philosophical writing consists of discussion of quotes from reputable sources. Of course, the Stanford Encyclopedia and the Internet Encyclopedia and the Oxford Companions allow their contributors to advance their own views regarding these quotations, because their authors are considered to have some expertise. However, WP editors cannot do this as it constitutes WP:OR so as a WP editor it is necessary to restrict oneself to stating what the sources say.
 * There are different views about a presentation using quotations together with commentary that does not add OR. Your view is that (i) nothing of this kind is allowed unless the quotations are a rehash of a secondary source, and (ii) quotations are in general to be discouraged and paraphrase is better (although exposed to questionable choices of rewording).
 * I suspect this personal aesthetic of yours originates in a profound unease that a selection of primary sources could result in undue weight of particular views, an anxiety you are unwilling to allay by digesting sources or participating in discussion. Instead you assert the occurrence of imagined policy violations and misbehavior, thereby avoiding exhaustion of your limited attention.  Brews ohare (talk) 15:06, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Simple policy Brews, suggested deep psychological motivations are a result of your own imagination and I suspect reveal more about you than me Snowded  TALK 15:27, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * More avoidance of content, eh Snowded? The issue, lest you forget, is the discussion of the belief in free will per se, rather than about whether the various beliefs are logically formulated for a variety of specialized verbal contexts. Brews ohare (talk) 15:57, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Then find a source which summarises different beliefs then we can look at it. I'm avoiding original research and synthesis not content  Snowded  TALK 16:38, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * From your earlier remarks, I assume you would not find satisfactory a variety of sources addressing various beliefs individually, even if a complete spectrum of such viewpoints were represented? As an example of one such view, there is this assertion that machines have free will. The author says intuition is a function of our understanding and will change along with this understanding to dismiss any belief in a free will beyond that available to machines. Conflicting sources also would be cited, perhaps this discussion dismissing determinism. This author believes there is a realm accessible to intuition and not available to machines. Have I identified your reaction correctly as being entirely opposed to such a presentation, no matter how completely it covers the spectrum of opinion and no matter how authoritative the individual presentations? Brews ohare (talk) 19:39, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I am not opposed to covering the subject if there is some source which gives us a summary (or maybe one or two).  However a synthesis of a limited number of sources, particularly partial ones won't do it  Snowded  TALK 19:56, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Most sources summarize several views from what they feel is an objective standpoint. It might take a few sources to cover all views - for example, many philosophers are not concerned with views far removed from active discussion. However, it is probable that each philosopher has their own approach to this exposition. I think it will be felt that a proponent of a view presents their own view better than a contestant, eh? That applies to articles in the Stanford or the Internet Encyclopedias just as much as it does to textbooks or monographs.
 * So what you are faced with in rejecting some of these sources yourself is a personal decision, not an objective one. It is better to let the sources speak for themselves, as they have been through the filter of some book or journal publication process that is better than your own evaluation. By presenting the reader with sources across the spectrum, the reader is able to evaluate and compare by themselves, and form their own judgment. Unlike a scholarly work, WP is not engaged in weighing in to adjudicate differences, not to 'add to the literature' on the subject, but to present readers with a reasonable cross-section of the subject with a choice of sources that readers can check out for themselves, without relying upon a WP editor's judgment. Brews ohare (talk) 20:46, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, well your belief that wikipedia should have strings of quotes from original sources is not in accordance with policy. So we cannot rely on our judgement about which sources to present we need to find a refereed secondary sources that does that. Now beliefs and emotional responses to the issue of free will seem (from my reading) to be incidental remarks rather than something essential to an understanding of the subject. The lack of secondary sources could be seen as supporting that. Snowded TALK 21:06, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded, I think what you are trying to deal with is the following: an expert is widely read in their field and has a deep understanding of their subject. Naturally they can summarize a field based upon knowledge of its history, the seminal articles and books, and most important authors. In contrast, a WP editor is very likely not an expert, quite possibly has a shallower understanding of the subject, and is possibly swayed by some superficialities an expert would discount. So here is the problem you, Snowded, have posed for yourself - how can you keep WP articles to expert standards when they aren't written by experts?
 * You suggest using secondary sources, but this idea is inadequate. A 'secondary source' is conventionally an encyclopedia or general reference, kind of a dictionary with longer entries and a bibliography. There seems to be a myth that these sources are more definitive than a monograph. There are a few problems with such sources. Among the difficulties are (i) such sources are usually 5-10 years behind the times; (ii) such sources deal mainly with broad subjects for the general (possibly well-educated) reader and don't go into the detail found in specialist literature. Another difficulty is that heavy reliance of WP upon secondary sources would severely limit what WP could do, and what it could do would not be equal to the secondary sources it imitated. On the other hand, special topic collections like the various handbooks of particular philosophical fields and the on-line philosophy encyclopedias comprised of collections of very short monographs are not secondary sources  - they are (at their best) review articles of the technical literature and (at their worst) are position papers - they have to be like this because their subjects are narrow and mainly experts talk about them. So there is little distinction beyond length between an article in the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for example, and a book by Dennett or whoever.
 * As you are aware, apart form whatever we can do to establish what is an authoritative source, WP relies upon a process, not the process of journals and book publishers based upon expert opinions, but the process of having non-experts assemble the arguments of published sources and presenting them, subject to two key points (i) that each source is accurately presented, and (ii) all points of view are presented with the caveat of avoiding undue weight. This is a process, because the non-experts require time to discover pertinent sources that should be included and include them, and over time they will discover infelicities of presentation and correct them. This process is mediated by Talk page discussion intended to decide which sources add to the presentation, and what form of words most felicitously represents each published position.
 * I think you, Snowded, recognize the problems. So you want to solve the problem of quality using your own judgment, and as that is not WP policy, you are forced into artificial arguments to impose your judgment. Snowded, you are trying to cut the Gordian knot here by intruding your own judgment instead of using your knowledge of philosophy to help the process along to reach its natural conclusion. Brews ohare (talk) 22:01, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * See previous comments Snowded  TALK 23:07, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Some just won't accept an umbrella when out in the rain. Brews ohare (talk) 03:28, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Well if you have finalised realised that umbrella's have been on offer to you from several editors over many articles we are making progress Snowded  TALK 07:22, 19 March 2014 (UTC)