Talk:Free will/Archive 8

Cyrus the Great & Zoroastrianism
It is very shocking that these two concepts are not included in this article. Cyrus the Great is one of the historical figures to allow free will over religion, freedom of speech and language. As well, Zorooastrianism states that every human being on this earth has free will and can do any actions they wish, but will then be judged on Chinvat bridge on judgment day.

Would somebody like to implement these two ideas into the article? Warrior4321Contact Me 17:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Any such material would need to be supported by reputable published sources that explicitly discuss the relationship of Cyrus or Zoroastrianism to the concept of free will. Can you point to any? Looie496 (talk) 17:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't understand that this lack should be shocking. Many religions, all the Abrahamite f.ex., and various others, speak about free will, and punishment/rewards for to the acts under the regime of the personal free will. If Cyrus the Great presented a philosophical definition that would be profitable for the article. If he did something more like legislation that respected the individuals wishes and choices, then maybe that should go to some legislation article or Persian empire article or some such. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 14:52, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

A belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs
Anthony Cashmore is a Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. He was elected to the membership of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. In an article titled "Free will is an illusion, biologist says", Lisa Zyga writes, "In a recent study, Cashmore has argued that a belief in free will is akin to religious beliefs, since neither complies with the laws of the physical world."

See http://www.physorg.com/news186830615.html And see http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/02/04/0915161107.full.pdf+html JasonCupertino (talk) 01:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What philosophical question isn't? One chooses a set of axioms, walks, and then observes whither the road goes. Religion touches personal philosophy and personal values, and uses various axiom sets — free will is such a possible axiom, unprovable by itself, like most religious systems. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 14:48, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Might this be of use to you?
I'm attempting to clean up Freedom (a disambiguation page) and Freedom (philosophy) (a horrible mess). My intention is to redirect the latter, which is currently a mish-mash of political and economic freedom issues and free-will issues, to the former, after moving any well-sourced material from the latter to more relevant articles. The following is the only well-sourced bit of anything from the latter article, and this article seems the closest place to a fitting home for it, but since I'm not closely involved with this article I'll leave it to you regulars to integrate it as you see fit.

"Freedom can also signify inner autonomy, or mastery over one's inner condition. This has several possible significances:
 * the ability to act in accordance with the dictates of reason;
 * the ability to act in accordance with one's own true self or values;
 * the ability to act in accordance with universal values (such as the True and the Good); and
 * the ability to act independently of both the dictates of reason and the urges of desires, i.e. arbitrarily (autonomously).

Especially spiritually-oriented philosophers have considered freedom to be a positive achievement of human will rather than an inherent state granted at birth. Rudolf Steiner developed a philosophy of freedom based upon the development of situationally-sensitive ethical intuitions: "acting in freedom is acting out of a pure love of the deed as one intuits the moral concept implicit in the deed". Similarly, E. F. Schumacher held that freedom is an inner condition, and that a human being cannot "have" freedom, but "can make it his aim to become free".

References:"

I've also added a link to this article (Free will) from the aforementioned Freedom disambiguation page. --Pfhorrest (talk) 11:49, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, thank you. It was on my wish list. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 14:56, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Don't reify the laws of nature
The second sentence of the article reads, "Addressing this question requires understanding the relationship between freedom and cause, and determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic". That sentence should be revised because the laws of nature are not now and never will be "causally deterministic". The "laws of nature are observable". The laws of nature never determine anything. The proposition that the laws of nature can cause this or that is an error of logic named reification. JasonCupertino (talk) 02:25, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Depends. In nominalist framework "laws of nature" are just theories in human minds, in a realist framework the phrase "laws of nature" can both refer to the human formulations called "laws of nature" and to the underlying cosmological principles described by those human formulations, in which case laws of nature are things with existence. The conventional phrase "causally deterministic", can by the same usual human language usage either refer to whether one in principle can determine everything increasingly exact by improving measurements, or to whether the nature have the underlying cosmological quality required for such increasingly exact determinations. I think the formulation is realist, and it is usually understandable since natural languages, especially scientific language, generally allows such reifications. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 15:38, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's worth reading this sentence carefully. "Addressing [whether or not free will exists] requires ... determining whether the laws of nature are causally deterministic."  That is, the sentence phrases this as an open question, and as such does not reify the laws of nature. Jason, we now have your opinion on record, but many other professional philosophers would disagree with your opinion.  As such, stating that addressing whether or not free will exists depends on addressing questions about whether or not the universe is deterministic is in no way incorrect, and is, in fact, supported by the large body of text that describes the implications of agreeing with or rejecting the idea that the universe is deterministic.  Is there something else in the sentence that you're objecting to that I'm missing?  Edhubbard (talk) 17:41, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Free will is a philosophical question
The first sentence of the article reads, "Free will raises the question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, or choices". The line directly above that first sentence reads, "This article is about the philosophical question of free will".

The first sentence of the article should be revised to read, "Free will raises the philosophical question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, or choices". Adding the word philosophical to the article's first sentence makes it clear that free will is not a scientific question. Scientists never invoke free will as an explanation for human behavior or anything else. JasonCupertino (talk) 03:01, 6 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Agree. Such a change is uncontroversial, so I'll be bold per virtue of two votes. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 14:51, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Although historically, free will has been a philosophical question, it is no longer limited to that domain, as the research from neuroscientific and  experimental psychology approaches currently summarized in the article will attest.  There are even a number of people working on domains like "neuroscience and the law" (again, see the current text of the article) who deal with the moral issues of right and wrong and punishment within the framework of what neuroscience can tell us about our current notions of free will.  To say that free will is a philosophical problem implies that it also beyond the reach of empirical science, which is manifestly not the case. Edhubbard (talk) 17:00, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Notice of intent to define free will
Dr. Hubbard et al: I intend to revise the first paragraph of the article on free will to include a definition of free will. The revised paragraph will read as follows:

Free will, as defined by the Collins English Dictionary, is "the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined".[1] This apparent ability raises the question of the extent to which rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, or choices. The various philosophical positions taken differ on whether all events are determined or not — determinism versus indeterminism — and also on whether freedom can coexist with determinism or not — compatibilism versus incompatibilism. So, for instance, 'hard determinists' are incompatibilists who argue that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible.

1. Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 6th Edition (2003). HarperCollins Publishers; New York, NY. ISBN 0007197527 ISBN-13: 978-0007197521

Respectfully submitted, JasonCupertino (talk) 04:14, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it would be quite reasonable to cite that definition, but it ought to be qualified. The greatest difficulty is with the word "externally" -- there are lots of writers who feel that having actions determined internally could also contradict free will; that is, there are lots of writers (the incompatibilists) who would either drop the "externally" or replace it with "physically". Looie496 (talk) 17:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I see your point, I think. The "externally determined" component of the Collins definition of free will does not exclude the possibility that each human is inhabited by a supernatural soul or metaphysical mind and that human behavior is nevertheless "externally determined". I wonder if the last sentence of the first paragraph, which makes reference to the 'hard determinists', might be revised in a way excludes non-corporeal internal agents. How about, "So, for instance, 'hard determinists' are incompatibilists who argue that the universe is composed exclusively of natural beings (no supernatural or metaphysical entities), that the universe is deterministic, and that this makes free will impossible. JasonCupertino (talk) 18:28, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that the direction this conversation is taking highlights the danger of going down the "definition" path. Different people (including different professional philosophers, who are the ones who count most here, since they produce verifiable, reliable sources) disagree about what the appropriate definition of free will is. Additionally, given different starting points (definitions) different philosophers reach different conclusions about the tenability of specific viewpoints in the free will debate.  The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on free will  takes the approach of dealing with these differing definitions, but does little of the metaphilosophical work that our current wikipedia article does.  Rather the current version of the wiki article is structured similarly to the free will entry in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy .  My point here is that, given the debate about the definition of free will, choosing a single definition of free will fails under WP:WEIGHT.  To put a single definition in our article as the definition of free will misleads the reader into thinking that this is a settled issue, when in fact it is far from settled.  However, giving this issue the proper weight it deserves requires much more than simply tacking a sentence into the lead of the article, and would require a concerted effort to consider how the debates about the definition of free will impact the other parts of the article that already exist, how to make the narrative and logical flow consistent, and so on (note that even in the professional literature, no one entry tries to take both approaches).  The issue of definition has been discussed here on the talk page before Talk:Free_will, but no consensus was reached. Jason, please read over the SEP entry and let us know if you see a way to do the definition dance right.  This article should not ignore this issue, but simply choosing the Collins definition as the definition of free will is perhaps even worse. Edhubbard (talk) 17:18, 8 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, this is all true, but SEP and REP are more explicit about their approach. The first sentence of this article gives the feeling that it has left something undefined. The first sentence from REP: "'Free will' is the conventional name of a topic that is best discussed without reference to the will." Could something like that be added? Vesal (talk) 09:35, 13 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. We have to do something, but exactly what the best approach is, is still not clear to me.  I'd love to get some more input from other editors on this.  This is wikipedia, so nobody needs my permission to do anything, but we should try to reach some consensus about how best to address this while maintaining the current high quality of the article... as of right now, the conversation is moving slowly, so I'm in no rush to change things... Jason? Others?  Edhubbard (talk) 18:27, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I would like to know what the objections were to my edits to the lede; Dr. Hubbard here reverted it with reference to this discussion, but I don't see anything in this discussion particularly counter to the change I made. Comments please? --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:50, 15 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I hope Ed will respond, but I believe the problem with the current formulation is that a compatibilist might not accept this definition. Free will for them has nothing to do with any ability (purported or actual) of rational agents the exercise control over their actions, decisions, or choices. For them, you are free simply if you are not subject to obvious constraints. Even if an action is completely controlled by your (and the universe's) history, you are acting freely as long as you are not manifestly coerced physically or psychologically. This notion of compatibilist free will is not included in the current definition. Vesal (talk) 14:01, 17 March 2010 (UTC)
 * That's all fine and good, except I'm not positing that definition, I'm just rearranging the grammar and paragraph structure around the definition already implied in there. If we want to change definition that's fine with me; stating WHAT free will is is not my point. I only mean for the structure of the lede to be "Free will is X; there is a question about whether and in what sense it exists..." rather than "The question of free will is the question of whether and in what sense X exists...". What "X" is does not concern me, at least as far as those edits go.
 * (Tangentially though, certainly not all compatiblists would disagree with the current definition; plenty of compatibilists define free will in terms of a person's psychological makeup, [e.g. lack of overwhelming compulsions or phobias] rather than circumstances of a person's physical environment [e.g. lack of chains or imprisonment]). --Pfhorrest (talk) 19:46, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

(←) Pfhorrest, actually you are right, all you did is the transformation, so the version EdHubbard reverted to is not really any better. It essentially contains the same definition. For an example of a true true evasion by a true compatibilist, see Simon Blackburne, in the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy: "Free will. The problem is to reconcile our everyday consciousness of ourselves as agents, with the best view of what science tells us that we are." Vesal (talk) 20:17, 17 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Anyway, I edited the first sentence to make the definition slightly more compatible with compatiblist views, mostly based on this. Of course, this has its own problems ... Vesal (talk) 23:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Both of these positions, which agree that the causal determination is the relevant factor in the question of free will, are classed as incompatibilists. Those who deny that determinism is relevant are classified as compatibilists, and offer various alternative explanations of what constraints are relevant, such as physical constraints (e.g. chains or imprisonment), social constraints (e.g. threat of punishment or censure), or psychological constraints (e.g. compulsions or phobias)."
 * Thanks for the support Vesal. Regarding your latest edit, I'd argue that that actually makes the stated definition less neutral; as noted in the article, some folks such as utilitarians deny that moral responsibility has anything to do with free will.
 * On a more general note of this discussion topic, perhaps we could take a cue from the lede of Rights, which I have helped extensively on, and state what free will is in as broad and disjunctive terms as necessary, just the bare bones that all relevant parties would agree to. Something like:
 * "'Free will is the purported ability of agents to make choices free from constraints. The relevant form of constraint which must be absent for free will to be present is variously construed by different theorists as metaphysical (e.g. determinism), physical (e.g. imprisonment), social (e.g. threat of punishment), or psychological (e.g. compulsions or phobias). Historically, the metaphysical constraints of determinism have been the dominant consideration in the debate about free will, with metaphysical libertarians claiming that it is absent and thus free will is present, and hard determinists claiming it is present and thus free will is absent. Those who deny that determinism is the relevant form of constraint are classified as compatibilists, and offer various alternative criteria for freedom of will.'"
 * Needs work but you get the gist. Thoughts? --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * This is absolutely in the right direction. It is very good already. Since tying will to moral responsibility, although probably the dominant POV, is not uncontroversial as you say, so I would strongly support your approach. Vesal (talk) 11:28, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you again Vesal. I think perhaps a mention of the (not universally accepted) link between free will and moral responsibility does deserve a place in the lede -- we have a whole section on it after all -- but not in the definition in the first sentence.
 * Unrelated, here is a modified/improved/wikified version of my above suggestion for the first paragraph of the lede.
 * "Free will is the purported ability of agents to make choices free from constraints. The historically dominant concern in the debate about free will is the metaphysical constraint of determinism. The opposing positions within that debate are metaphysical libertarianism, the claim that determinism is false and thus that free will exists; and hard determinism, the claim that determinism is true and thus that free will does not exist.
 * I think the current last paragraph of the lede (or some modification of it) would wrap that up well, and it mentions the issue or moral responsibility too. I'll wait a bit for Hubbard's comments before I go through with implementing this. --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Since Ed is taking a while to comment I've gone ahead and been bold with this edit. --Pfhorrest (talk) 04:05, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Many other articles on free will
I was looking at Category:free will, and I see lots of articles created by the Information Philosopher Bob Doyle; while most of the stuff seems more or less okay, I'm not so sure there is a need for so many different articles. Also, some of the terminology is dubious: standard argument against free will? Vesal (talk) 20:54, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

On my wish list
On my wish list:definitions of "free will" — the description in the intro doesn't define free will, but instead alleges something partially irrelevant: inner control. It might actually be the case that a "free will" exists, but before being defined we don't know what to look for. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 15:22, 18 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Defining free will is possibly the single greatest problem relating to it. It is a common language term whose meaning we learn from usage, not a technical term we learn from a definition -- the question is whether a formal definition can be found that matches our intuitive usage well enough to get broad agreement on it. Looie496 (talk) 01:20, 19 February 2010 (UTC)
 * If defining "free will" is hard, then there must have been a lot of disparate tries, that could be candidates for the article. Finding a definition that fits my opinion will be impossibly hard, since I reject the idea, unless posed in certain restricted contexts (see Philosophical Investigations), but that is off-topic, I'm just any other reader/editor, and so we don't need one sole definition that matches our intuitive usage, we just need the "free will" definitions that important philosophers and other important guys have posited. Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 09:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'll take a look at the links provided by External links, plus the skeptics dictionary, and see what we can get there... Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 09:39, 19 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It isn't so much that there are a lot of definitions, it is that the "folk understanding" of free will is intrinsically dualistic. In the context of dualism, defining free will is pretty easy -- actions are freely willed if they are caused by the mind rather than the physical world.  The problem for materialists is to find a useful definition that doesn't presuppose substance dualism and doesn't violate the folk understanding.  I personally think that it's unsolvable, but the literature contains quite a number of attempts. Looie496 (talk) 21:10, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Rursus, defining free will is easy.

Free will is the assertion that the behavior of a human is controlled by a non-corporeal entity, such as a metaphysical mind or supernatural soul. In accordance with this assertion, a person who is awake and able to engage in the complex vocal behavior known as language is usually regarded as being under the control of such an entity. However, a person who is asleep or sleepwalking might not be regarded as being under the control of such an entity.

As an explanation for human behavior, free will stands in contrast to behavioral determinism, the naturalistic assertion that the behavior of a human or other complex organism is a function of the organism's physiology, its history of reinforcement and punishment, and its current environment. From an anthropological perspective, free will can be regarded as an ideology, an explanation for human behavior that justifies a socially sanctioned system of rewards and punishments. The members of a society can use the doctrine of free will to justify rewarding people for behaving in socially approved ways and they can use that doctrine to justify punishing people for behaving in socially prohibited ways. These uses of the doctrine of free will can generate and maintain the patterns of behavior that anthropologists observe and call culture.

JasonCupertino (talk) 01:35, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I thank you JasonCupertino, and I think you're right, but my post was a wish for various definitions of free will in the article. So maybe if we can find suitable citations supporting it, it might be a first candidate for the article... Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 14:21, 7 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Your personal opinions about what the definition of free will is do not meet standard criteria of verifiability or reliable sources. Given the high quality of the article already (it is a featured article), any new materials would have to not only meet these minimal requirements, but also criteria like WP:UNDUE and provide a fair and comprehensive treatment of the definitions that different philosophers have used in the past. Edhubbard (talk) 03:43, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Dr. Hubbard: I believe that free will should be defined from an objective, scientific perspective. We cannot observe free will but we can observe that people make the assertion that free will is the cause of human behavior. I therefore believe that it is correct to define free will as an "assertion". That assertion cannot be regarded as a scientific hypothesis because there is no way to test the assertion that free will is the cause of human behavior.


 * Wikipedia defines social control as follows: "Social control refers generally to societal and political mechanisms or processes that regulate individual and group behavior, leading to conformity and compliance to the rules of a given society, state, or social group". Free will is a component of the system of social control of modern societies. We can observe that "free will" is used to justify rewarding and punishing various behaviors and we can therefore accurately describe free will as a political ideology. JasonCupertino (talk) 16:46, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia defines abstract object as, "an object which does not exist at any particular time or place, but rather exists as a type of thing (as an idea, or abstraction). In philosophy, an important distinction is whether an object is considered abstract or concrete." Given this definition, I believe that it is appropriate to define free will as an abstract object. JasonCupertino (talk) 17:01, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The Wiktionary definition of free will is: "The doctrine that human beings (and possibly other beings, such angels or higher animals) are able to choose their actions without being caused to do so by external forces". This definition seems to me to be an accurate statement of the concept of free will that the average person uses. JasonCupertino (talk) 17:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Sponges are animals. They sit on the bottom of the ocean filtering sea water. Do the proponents of free will assert that sponges have free will? Mimosa pudica (the Sensitive Plant) closes its leaves together when it is touched. Does the Sensitive Plant have free will? JasonCupertino (talk) 17:45, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Let me repeat Edhubbard's point that Wikipedia articles need to be based on reputable published sources, not on our own personal thinking. Wiktionary and other Wikipedia articles are not usable as sources (using them would create circularity).  Regards, Looie496 (talk) 18:49, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Looie496: Please look at the structure of the Vitalism page. A definition of vitalism from the Merriam-Webster dictionary is presented in the first paragraph of that article. Based on that example, the article on free will might begin...


 * Free will, as defined by Collins English Dictionary, is "the apparent human ability to make choices that are not externally determined". Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 6th Edition 2003. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003. Cited at http://www.thefreedictionary.com/free+will


 * The use of the word "apparent" in that definition provides a foundation for a following discussion about free will (i.e., whether a person's behavior is caused by an internal, non-corporeal entity, or by external events). Anthony Cashmore's recent article, cited below in the next section of this page, could be used as an example of the proposition that "Free will is an illusion". Other articles could be cited supporting the propositions that free will is a function of a supernatural soul, or a metaphysical mind, or a homunculus.


 * I believe that using the Collins definition of free will at the beginning of the article would provide a good foundation for explanations and discussions of free will. JasonCupertino (talk) 22:38, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello good guys! I agree with using something like Collin's definition. When scrutinizing the current intro, I think it fits, and I think the current intro touches something near free will, but in a mysterious way misses the central point: whether an act can be attributed to an individuals deliberate choice or must be attributed to a force uncontrollable by the individual. I think the first sentence pluralizes such a formulation and impersonalizes it, which is confusing, since free will is considered personal. Maybe
 * The philosophical question of free will raises the question whether individuals exercise full control over their actions, and thus can be considered acting under a "free will", or are governed by uncontrollable forces, in which case their acts are considered "unfree". [or some proper replacement for the word "unfree"]
 * . Rursus dixit. ( m bork3 !) 14:41, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion there is no interesting knowledge about free will proposed in the article. For example one thing I find interesting about free will, is that in a choice new information is created, the information which way the choice turns out. And there are many other interesting things, such as the time perspective in choosing, that there is a relationship to the future in choosing. I think the reality is that people reading the article are just going to be more ignorant about free will. --Syamsu (talk) 15:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well, you're welcome to improve the article, as long as the changes you make are based on opinions expressed in reputable published sources and reflect mainstream thinking. Regards, Looie496 (talk) 15:39, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Well then cut out all the sources who did not try to reflect mainstream thinking in their theorizing. Only allow the thinkers who who tried to find the logic people use when they talk in terms of choosing on a practical basis every day of their life. Those are the only ones who reflect mainstream thinking. Now the article more represents an odi-sophy instead of a philo-sophy, a hatered for mainstream thinking, and hatered for knowledge about free will.--24.132.149.27 (talk) 22:28, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Text in "Experimental" section - advice requested
I've removed the following text from the "Experimental" section:"'A recent experiment examines the relationship between belief in the existence of free will and moral behavior. The experimenters divided a set of 30 students into two groups of 15 each. One group was made to read text that encouraged a belief in determinism as opposed to free will. The other group was made to read neutral text that made no reference to the existence or non-existence of free will. The two groups were later made to answer a series of questions in basic mathematics on a computer. The mathematical test had scope for cheating by relying on a flaw in the computer's program. The researchers found that the group that was made to read text discouraging belief in free will was more likely to cheat as compared to the group that read neutral text. This suggests that belief in free will has deep social and moral implications in addition to scientific and philosophical ones. '"While there are references for the experiment, my concerns include the likelihood that it is far too specific for a short, general section, and that this text places too much weight on one small-scale test. Thoughts? --Ckatz chat spy  20:09, 16 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I generally think having a stubby section with some well-sourced coverage of the topic, even if insufficient or unbalanced, is better than one without anything. Let more material be added to counterweight or qualify it instead. Leaving it there will invite such contributions from other editors, whereas emptiness will not. --Pfhorrest (talk) 20:54, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not disputing the section, but instead the undue weight on the one experiment. It is referenced only by itself and a mention in a blog at Scientific American. The final line of the text above appears to draw some fairly deep conclusions from the study, but there is no indication that the conclusions are those of the larger scientific community, the blog writer, or the Wikipedia contributor. I'm not saying that the experiment is fake, or of little value, or anything such as that. However, we do have to be careful that, in selecting examples, we do not appear to be presenting any one particular theory as being the "right" one. Of all the experiments and examinations conducted over the years, why is this one highlighted as being of special significance? --Ckatz chat spy  21:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Okay. Let's talk about this experiment and this result. First, the social implications of believing or not believing in free will have been discussed in other experiments also. See the line on the Free Will article just before the end of the section on experimental psychology: "Psychologists have shown that reducing a person's belief in free will makes them less helpful and more aggressive." with its cited source. Second, I think that the results of the experiment should not surprise anyone. Sartre and others have said that anti social behaviour often takes refuge under determinism. So I believe that this experiment, or the results of this experiment should be a part of this page ( or some other page). Now, I do not have a problem rephrasing it to make it fit better in the scheme of the page. Suggestions are most welcome Kp grewal 21:05, 16 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kp grewal (talk • contribs)


 * I agree that this study may be based on one experiment. But the experiment is important. And the relationship between free will and moral behaviour is important. The aim of an encyclopedia should be to give people links so that they can study a subject further. This is a very interesting link.
 * I would like to mention this experiment on the main article page. If some years later, there are more experiments on this subject, they can be added or the paragraph modified. But removing the paragraph and the mention of this experiment at this stage helps no one. And see the line : " Psychologists have shown that reducing a person's belief in free will makes them less helpful and more aggressive." ( last line in experimental psychology section). If this line can be there based on one research paper, then I do not see why the paragraph on "how belief in free will influences moral behaviour" should not be there. I have no problems reducing it to a line but lets mention it. Kp grewal 18:14, 17 April 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kp grewal (talk • contribs)


 * I'd just like to mention that if this were a medical-related article, it would fall under WP:MEDRS, which recommends not using sources that have not been covered in review articles. This avoids that problem of "one of a kind" papers that report results that can't be replicated.  I personally feel that this principle should be used for all articles that make use of scientific methods. Looie496 (talk) 23:48, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that applying the MEDRS criterion to everything actually undermines one of the great aspects of wikipedia, which is the speed with which it can respond to the constant updates in the scientific literature. Due to the speed (or rather, slowness) with which the professional academic publishing world moves, requiring that results have also been described in a review article will likely mean that wikipedia will lag 2-5 years behind the latest research.  In the medical field, the MEDRS criterion makes more sense, since 1) the delay may be shorter, since the speed/rate of publication is higher than in some other fields, like philosophy, and 2) MEDRS deals with information that has life and death consequences, so setting a higher bar makes sense. However, in other fields, this criterion would seem to stifle the cutting edge aspect of wikipedia, being able to update rapidly as new information comes along.  Given this point about publication speed, we might want to be careful about saying "unreplicable" for a result that is less than two years old.  No published replications have appeared yet, but this is quite different from not being able to be replicated. In any case, this is secondary to the UNDUE issue originally raised.  On that point, I agree with the above.  This one experiment does not need to be described in detail here. Edhubbard (talk) 12:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Calvinists are compatibilists
In particular Edwards seems willing to admit the similarity of his own views with Hobbes's. In his Freedom of the Will he writes:


 * To instance in Dr. Whitby; he, in his discourse on the freedom of the Will, opposes the opinion of the Calvinists, who place man’s liberty only in a power of doing what he will, as that wherein they plainly agree with Mr. Hobbes. And yet he himself mentions the very same notion of liberty, as the dictate of the sense and common reason of mankind, and a rule laid down by the light of nature; viz. that liberty is a power of acting from ourselves, or DOING WHAT WE WILL. This is indeed, as he says, a thing agreeable to the sense and common reason of mankind; and therefore it is not so much to be wondered at, that he unawares acknowledges it against himself: for if liberty does not consist in this, what else can be devised that it should consist in? If it be said, as Dr. Whitby elsewhere insists, that it does not only consist in liberty of doing what we will, but also a liberty of willing without necessity; still the question returns, what does that liberty of willing without necessity consist in, but in a power of willing as we please, without being impeded by a contrary necessity?

Later, he says:


 * It is many ways apparent, that the Arminian scheme of Liberty is utterly inconsistent with the being of any such things as either virtuous or vicious habits or dispositions.

(Arminianism is a Protestant theology which asserts libertarian free will.)

The article's identification of Edwards with hard determinism is factually wrong and should be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.210.9.156 (talk) 07:22, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Definition of Free Will
It would be good if there were a good definition of free will in the introduction or even a section early in the introduction on definition. "free of constraints" as a definition is not very clear. What exactly is meant? How can you tell this is the exercise of free will and this is not? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.94.137 (talk) 10:14, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

Free Will is a very slippery concept and some believe totally meaningless as a concept, therefore it would be very beneficial if a decent definition could be produced. Understandably, there may be a considerable lack of agreement on what constitutes an adequate definition. In this case, the variety of definitions could be provided along with some discussion of why different people argue that one, more or all fall short. I feel that this would be a very important contribution to the beginning of the article, as the rest of the article is predicated on a clear understanding of exactly what is being talked about when taking about 'free will'. Hopefully, some philosophers with knowledge of the relevant literature will contribute to do this. Dictionary definitions, while interesting in providing generally understood definitions (and therefore worth inclusion), are probably not adequate for properly nailing the concept down. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.94.137 (talk) 15:33, 13 June 2010 (UTC)


 * That is pretty much what this entire article is. The lede ("introduction") starts with what everybody's definition of free will has in common -- it's something to do with being able to make choices "freely", unconstrained by something or other -- and then gives a brief overview of what different constraints different theorists thing are relevant. The entire rest of the article is talking about the arguments between them over which constraints are relevant and whether those constraints exist. --Pfhorrest (talk) 22:19, 13 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that the definition given in very first sentence of the article is loaded. What common people mean when they say they have free will is that they could have chosen differently than how they in fact did. The "free from constrains" definition, apart from being kind of circular, is rather an attempt to redefine the concept. It's a redefinition custom made for allowing the idea of "compatibilist free will" to make sense. What actually happened is this: When determinists were confronted with the uncomfortable realization that they would have to deny the existence of free will, they fooled around with the definition of free will in order to make it compatible with determinism. The very fact that philosophers today distinguish between "compatibilist free will" and "libertarian free will" proves that "free will" simpliciter is *not* the capacity to choose "free of constrains". Actually, as a matter of fact, we never choose free of constrains; our beliefs, desires, instincts, etc, up to some significant degree do constrain our choices. According to the common meaning of free will, which philosophers now call libertarian free will, these factors do not *determine* our choices. So the definition in the introduction section of the article is not only misleading but also incongruent. - Free will is an important philosophical issue and I think the introduction section should be greatly improved, for as it now stands it's confusing. Dianelos (talk) 09:25, 4 August 2010 (UTC)
 * That is entirely your own point of view however, and the article must adhere to a neutral point of view.
 * On what authority do you claim that the incompatibilist notion of free will is the "common" one and that compatibilism the made-up philosophical distortion, as opposed to the other way around? Before I ever took a philosophy course (when I was what you call "common people") I already held a compatibilist notion of free will, in that I wondered what all the fuss was about arguing between determinists and libertarians: free will, as poorly defined as it was in my young and unexamined mind, didn't seem on the surface to be incompatible with determinism. When I later took philosophy courses and discovered that other people felt the same and had put a label to it, I adopted that label for myself; but my "common sense" notion prior to doing any philosophy was what philosophers would have called compatibilist.
 * My point is that different people have different notions (both intuitive and analyzed) of what constitutes free will, and the article cannot unilaterally declare any of them correct, since there is not consensus amongst experts in the field about who is correct, and our job here is to report the consensus of experts in the field. The one thing that everyone's notion of free will has in common is that it is some sort of at-least-partially unconstrained action-directing capacity, or as the lede says, the "ability of agents to make choices free from constraints". Different experts in the field disagree on what kinds of constraints are important: historically most of them have worried about causal determinism, and said you have free will only if your choices are not causally determined, but then there's plenty of others (at some points in history even a majority of philosophers) who disagree and say causal determinism is irrelevant, and other things are relevant instead. People are still arguing about this today, and it's not our place as an encyclopedia to imply which of them is right.
 * Let me put it another way: if, in the lede, we say something like "Free will is the ability of agents to make choices without those choices being determined by prior events", then when we get to the section about Compatibilists we would have to say, for consistency, something like "Some people don't realize that that's what free will is though, and instead have a wrong, distorted idea of free will, along the lines of..." That is obviously again WP:NPOV, so we can't do it. Instead we have to say "free will is something like X; some people say it's more like this, some people say it's more like that." Which is what it says now. --Pfhorrest (talk) 23:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * It is also worth noting that this issue has been discussed several times in the past on the talk page Talk:Free_will and Talk:Free_will and the general consensus was to avoid defining free will (at first, at all, then later, defining it too precisely) for exactly the reasons that have been raised here... I won't wade into the question of which one seems more natural here, but the mere fact that people do disagree over the definition of free will, and that this disagreement is part of the different positions on free will makes any single definition here quite difficult to defend. If we have only one definition, which one?  If we get into the debates about definition, then how do we integrate this with the current article, which is FA quality?  As I have noted in the past,  the SEP and REP take quite different approaches to the question of how to deal with these interrelated issues, and our current version takes after the REP entry in approach and style more than the SEP entry.  This doesn't mean that it can't be done, but it would require a massive commitment to doing it right. Vesal and Pfhorrest worked to achieve some stable version of a definition a few months ago, when I essentially had to abandon wikipedia to work and wedding planning.  The less precise the definition, in this case, the better, but especially the definition in the lead, where we certainly cannot get into all of the complexity that goes with the issue of definition.  Cheers, Edhubbard (talk) 03:12, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

$0.02: I think the current lede explains it rather well 1Z (talk) 14:30, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Constraint
I don't fully understand the very first sentence:
 * "Free will is the purported ability of agents to make choices free from constraints."

specifically the term "constraint". It does not appear to be defined in the article. I understand the meaning of a constraint within the field of mathematics, but it is not clear to me how that would apply. It seems to me that any living person would be subject to a large number of constraints in the most naive and literal sense. CHF (talk) 06:01, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps it would be better stated "...free from certain kinds of constraints"? The intended meaning is that every different definition of free will has to do with decision-making abilities that are not constrained by something; usually that something is metaphysical determination for incompatibilists, but sometimes it's other things for different compatibilists, so to be neutral we can't name what constraint in the opening definition. The very next sentence, of course, is about what different constraints different theories consider relevant. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:22, 6 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Determinists define freedom like going forward unrestrained, like a rock falling is falling freely, because it is not hindered by anything in falling. Indeterminists on the other hand define freedom with having alternative results.
 * The definition of free will used is partial to determinism because that is the ruling philosphy today. See also for instance in the artificial intelligence discipline, there choosing is defined in a determinist way, as calculating a best result from a set of values. So in artificial intelligence the calculation forces the best result, given the numbers, and it can't turn out any alternative way. So there the freedom in the choice means to let the calculation progress towards the result, progress towards the result without being hindered. --Syamsu (talk) 18:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Positive and negative liberties
I've just undone an edit by Tesseract2 linking absence of physical restraints (e.g. chains or imprisonment) to negative liberty and absence of social restraints (e.g. threat of censure or punishment) to positive liberty. They two pairs don't really correspond to each other: both types of liberty are really social concerns (about whether other people are helping or at least not hindering you), and both absence of physical constraints and absence of social constraints are negative types of freedom, since they are both absences of something. You might try to draw a connection inverse of what Tesseract did, since positive liberty is about actual ability, which is a physical thing (e.g. I do not have the positive liberty to fly like an eagle, because I simple am not able to do so, regardless of what anyone does or doesn't do to or for me), while negative liberty is about absence of hinderance by other people (which is of course required to have positive liberty, too). But really, the connection between the two types of liberty and physical vs social restraints isn't supported by anything I've seen and it certainly isn't obvious. --Pfhorrest (talk) 00:05, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I see what you mean; certainly distinguishing between physical/social/psychological constraints isn't the same as distinguishing between positive and negative liberty. I do still think Full Liberty (positive and negative) is relevant to the summary of the Compatibilist use of the term "Free Will", and I will try again to include that info.-Tesseract2 (talk) 18:31, 31 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I still don't think that's appropriate for the lede (though further down under compatibilist theories, certainly), and as worded now it is inaccurate. Not all compatibilist theories of free will equate free will with liberty (in the socio-political sense that "positive and negative liberty" talk about; obviously, in a literal etymological sense, all theories of free will, compatibilist ones included, are concerned with liberty-as-in-freedom of some sort; namely, that of the will).
 * There are both classical thinkers like Hobbes who say that a man's will is free so long as he is not actually physically restrained, regardless of social structures in place (e.g. a man trapped by an avalanche in a cave is not 'free' in the Hobbesian sense, despite nobody restraining his liberty in any socio-political sense; and a man threatened with imprisonment if he commits some act is still 'free' up until he is actually imprisoned); and then, more notably, modern compatibilists like Frankfurt concern themselves primarily with psychological factors completely unrelated to what other people are doing or what the circumstances of the actor's body are - they're concerned with whether you're able to achieve a mental state or undergo a mental process which legitimately constitutes 'choice', regardless or whether you are physically able to carry out that choice or what social, legal, or other consequences you might face for doing so.
 * (Just to cut off any potential debate about whether which if any of these, or the question about determinism, are really questions about free will versus freedom of some other sort: I personally am of the opinion that these are all equally legitimate but different questions about different kinds of freedom: freedom from metaphysical determination, freedom from physical restraint, freedom from social consequences, or freedom from psychological compulsion, and that only the last kind is really a question of free will at all, will being a psychological issue. But different notable philosophers each contend that these various different kinds of freedom are what really constitutes free will, so we can't privilege any one of them as "the" concept of free will, or any one of the latter three as "the"compatibilist concept of free will, without sacrificing the encyclopedia's neutrality, which is of course a no-no).
 * So, I would like to ask that you revert your changes to the lede, and perhaps instead incorporate material about different kinds of liberty further down in the sections which flesh out the different compatibilist theories of free will. Thanks. --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:11, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

How free will is talked about
I suggest we change the introduction with the following:

Free will is most often talked about as the ability of the spirit to realise an alternative outcome. With every act of free will there are at least these aspects of alternatives in the future, decision, and the spirit that determines the result. Spiritual things, like love and hate, are generally considered only to be knowable subjectively. The alternatives and the choice on the other hand are considered to be objectively measurable. In a choice information is creatd. The information which way the choice turns out comes from nothing or zero. This information is thus new, and is discussed as creativity, spontaneity and expression. A small number of scientists support theories that free will is real. Most scientists doubt free will is real, especially on the points that subjectivity is needed for understanding, and that there are alternatives in the future.

An explanation of free wil should have the following criteria:

- it should reflect common understanding first

- it should say what the most simple act of free will looks like, not a complicated act of free will

- it should mention subjectivity about what does the job of deciding

- should mention some other words free will is closely related to (like creativity, spontaneity, and expression)

- should provide some bridge from common, towards scientific understanding about free will

- should mention that there are many people in science doubting free will is real at all

--Syamsu (talk) 19:03, 4 December 2010 (UTC)


 * That all looks mostly reasonable (I don't understand your second paragraph, though) -- but my experience has been that when people speak of "common understanding" they usually mean "my understanding", so it would be helpful to see more specifically what you have in mind. I doubt that it would be productive to frame things in terms of the "spirit". Looie496 (talk) 19:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * that bit about information coming from nothing is not the common understanding anymore, that's a bridge towards scientific understanding, loosely referring to which-way information in quantum experiments, and other theories about nil potential and so on. The reference to spirit is meant to reflect common understanding. It's a majority view in science that love and hate and such can be measured objectively, but that's not the view of the population in general. --Syamsu (talk) 21:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm unilaterally opposed to this suggestion for the reason that it is entirely point-of-view biased. The lede ("introduction") cannot take any position on a controversial subject, which the nature and even definition of free will most certainly is. Talk of "spirit" is especially problematic, as it implies dualism which is far from uncontroversial. The part about purely subjective phenomena likewise implies dualism, albiet of a more nuanced nature. The part about information coming from nothing implies incompatibilism, which is less wildly controversial than dualism but still notably controversial. And the part about what "most scientists" think, I would like to see sources for, and even then, I question its relevance in the lede; maybe it would be appropriate somewhere down in the "Scientific" section.
 * As to your bulleted criteria there:
 * I second what Looie says about "common understanding" usually meaning "my understanding"; this is what I mean about point-of-view bias. Many different people have a different "common understanding" of what free will is and whether it exists.
 * Saying what acts are acts of free will at all is depending on what theory of free will we adopt, so it would be difficult to give an example of a "simple act of free will" in the lede without biasing it toward one theory or another. (e.g. a compatibilist might say choosing Cheerios over Wheaties for breakfast is a clear example of free will, despite whatever social conditioning or metaphysical determination might be at play; where an incompatibilist would say that whether or not that is a free choice depends entirely on those kinds of considerations).
 * Likewise, saying anything about "what does the deciding" is taking one position over all others, so we can't do that in the lede; that needs to be discussed under the different particular theories.
 * As far as related words go, I don't have any strong objection, but I question the need, and also the choice of words could very easily bias the article itself if done poorly.
 * About bridging between "common" and "scientific" understandings of free will, we face the same problem of "what is the common understanding of free will?" from the first point above, and also that "scientific" understandings of free will are not the be-all end-all of free will; more than just scientists discuss free will, philosophers and theologians and the like discuss it as well, and in fact the majority of this article (appropriately, I would say) is about philosophical discussion of free will.
 * --Pfhorrest (talk) 22:45, 4 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree that the common understanding about free will is controversial. We talk to each other in terms of free will on a practical basis in day to day life in a basicly non problematic way, which indicates the practical use is non controversial. That there is a different explanation in the introduction now is because of not trying to reflect the common understanding. There have been comments that there should be a separate common or folk understanding section, which indicates that the present explanation is not even intended to be common understanding. By your line of argument you can't say anything about free will, otherwise to say anything is prejudicial. Again, the criteria as I set out, those should be met, leaving in the middle if I have met those criteria or not. How to determine what is in the common understanding, we can establish that by references. Only references to researchers who tried to find the common understanding of free will should be sought. Obviously theologians and philosophers generally deal more with the subjective part, so there is plenty of room left for them, not all science.--Syamsu (talk) 00:41, 5 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I can search references for scientists generally opposing free will, like Robert Rosen discussed this in his book about anticipation, and various articles I read. But you know, AFAIK it's simply not accepted in any paper to attribute variation in results to freedom, that should be evidence enough. If you get variation in results then generally you must make apology for not controlling the experiment, theorise about some undiscovered causes influencing the results, or attribute it to measurement error. I can remember reading an article some time back about a "quiet revolution" in biology that some biologists were starting to ommit these things, and by ommision implying that the variation was due to freedom. So that tells me, that freedom is not accepted in science, eventhough some scientists believe it's real. --Syamsu (talk) 01:10, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Well I can't find anybody researching the common use of free will. So guess to settle this by acclaim, in fairness, on the basis that is self-evident. Neither of you said it wasn't the common understanding, and let's be reasonable, the common understanding is in reference to the human spirit, regardless if you think that understanding is wrong or right. The point is not the word spirit, the point is to be subjective about what does the job of deciding. That is the way the logic works in practice, and I am sure you can think of thousands of examples of that subjectivity towards people as the owner of their choices, while the choices themselves and the consequences are considered matters of fact. While this may be less "productive" for some types of brainresearch or something, to find some kind of objectified love or something, that Looie seems to be concerned about, it is productive in producing subjectivity about these things. So then we get an article based on common understanding of free will, with a bridge towards scientific understanding that is in line with common understanding, and then contesting of those science theories with alternatieve theories. Currently it is a very ideosyncratic collection of thoughts, lots of ideosyncratic people, slanted very heavily towards doubting of free will, which doubt and ideosyncracy does not exist much in the practical use. People simply understand each other when they refer to somebody acting of their own free will, which understanding would not be the case if the meaning was so controversial, so it is self-evident --212.121.106.109 (talk) 11:17, 6 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I did very well say that what you proposed (I assume you are Syamsu?) is not the common understanding, implicitly in saying that there is no such thing as a single universal common understanding. Sit in on any introductory level philosophy club discussion, full of people who haven't studied any philosophy at all yet -- common people by any definition. Free will is a very common subject of discussion there, and anyone with any degree of philosophical sophistication observing the discussion will see that much of their disagreement stems from disagreement over definition. They won't usually know enough to call themselves "compatibilists" or "incompatibilists" or what not, but there clearly are some people whose intuitions about free will fall into the former camp and some whose fall into the latter camp.
 * What Wikipedia does is report the consensus of experts on a given subject. When it comes to free will, like many philosophical topics, there is no consensus, so the best we can do is say what little abstract bits the different positions have in common (e.g. free will has something to do with a will being free of something somehow, or as the article says now, an "ability to make choices free from certain constraints"), and then describe the differing positions in further detail. What Wikipedia does not do is state something as "common sense" or "the common understanding" without some verifiable, reliable source stating as much (e.g. a well-crafted survey of popular opinion on the topic, published in a reliable academic journal). Plenty of completely uncontroversial things (like "Paris [is] the capital and largest city in France") slip by without citations because they're so obvious that nobody questions them, but if someone is contesting something -- as I am contesting what you want to include -- that is by definition controversial, and needs a source to back it. --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:48, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Philosophical debate is mostly about what free will "really" is, or if it exists, wherein lays the controversy, not so much controversy about what the common understanding about free will is. I am not talking about public opinion on free will, I am talking about research on the structure of logic people use when talking in terms of free will. So your basis for contesting it is invalid. You must show controversy in the practical use, back that up with research, you cannot just claim the definition of free will used in practice is controversial by asserting it here. Maybe it can be made a bit clearer that I am referring to the practical use.--Syamsu (talk) 08:47, 7 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Could you give some examples of "research on the structure of the logic people use when talking in terms of free will"? Assume we all support your approach, we still need scholarly sources for each of your bullet points above. It would certainly help if you could cite a few papers that we could have a look at. Thanks, Vesal (talk) 13:33, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I could not find any, and like I said, it isn't neccessary because the common use is uncontroversial, so it can be settled by acclaim on the basis that it is self evident. Somebody protesting that what I wrote is not common understanding, should take some example from practical usage that is inconsistent with what I wrote. For example somebody in terms of choosing to mean having no alternatives available, or somebody who regards the owner of a choice in a non subjective way. --Syamsu (talk) 15:50, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I do not object to your claim that people tend to have some kind of agent-causal libertarian understanding of free will based on their first-person experience. What is being contested is that we can write an encyclopedia article with this as a starting point unless you provide some scholarly sources covering this. There is no obligation to base articles on popular opinion. We do not write articles on evolution based on popular opinion, so why should philosophical topics be any different? Vesal (talk) 09:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The common understanding provides a default hypothesis when scholars are disagreeing about what free will is. It is the explanation that everybody knows, so it provides a basis to communicate, eventhough many disagree with it. There isn't this extent of disagreement about what evolution is among scholars. I guess it would be wise to use common understanding every time there is this extent of disagreement among scholars. And as mentioned previously in reference to Robert Rosen's work on anticipation, the scientific community is generally biased against free will. This bias of the scientific community is dealt with by starting out with the common definition. So how you deal with this bias from scholars otherwise? --Syamsu (talk) 01:21, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Structure of the article
Seems lots have changed since I last saw this article. While most changes are obviously good, I really wish mature articles like this one were developed more carefully. There is no guarantee that well-intended local improvements will result in a better article overall. I'm mostly concerned with the clustering of many views as subheadings of compatibilism. I think the two-stage models were outright misplaced there, so I moved that section to libertarianism, but I am not convinced this current structure really works that well. I also notice that the section on "moral responsibility" has been integrated into the positions on free will. I must have missed the discussions regarding this change, and I can live with that, but am I the only one who feels that too drastic changes are being made to this featured article? Vesal (talk) 23:21, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

"Common understanding" vs the lack of consensus of experts

 * I want to complain again, that the article does not remotely reflect our true state of knowledge about free will. It more reflects problems scientists / atheists / humanists etc. have with free will. The article should just provide knowledge about free will in a matter of fact way, as it is. Doing something other than that, then the article is going to be strange. You understand me when I talk in terms of choosing, and I understand you, fundamentally there is no controversy. So just provide the facts, and clear out the rest.


 * "compatibilists", and other groups, generally admit themselves they have a non standard understanding of free will, and that they are prejudiced against it. Sorry, it is just not in the knowledge about free will people use, that alternatives aren't really real. You can argue it all you want that alternatives aren't real, but still the true fact about the present state of our knowledge is that alternatives are real. The question is, either we reflect the knowledge we use in daily life in the article, or we reflect the problems scientists etc. have with free will.


 * Let's be real, scientists etc. generally hate it that free will supposes an absolute limit to what they can know. They hate to be subjective towards what does the job of making it turn out one way or the other in a decision. Scientists plainly just hate emotions and anything spiritual, the classic evil scientist stereotype is just true. They are trained at school and college to root out all subjectivity, and be purely objective. So wanting to root out subjectivity then they get problems in dealing with free will, so then they write stupid books about it to change the definition so no subjectivity is required anymore in dealing with what does the job of making it turn out one way or the other. And being in a position of borrowed authority from the scientific community in general, they actually get some credence. But again, the true state of our knowledge about free will is that alternatives are real, that is what you know and I know, and all what scientists have managed is to spread doubts about that knowledge, but never to replace it with any functional alternative that anybody actually uses, so that stuff should not be in the wiki. --Syamsu (talk) 02:32, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think you've just let your bias shine through clear as day: "Scientists plainly just hate emotions and anything spiritual, the classic evil scientist stereotype is just true". Really?


 * What you consider to be "knowledge" about free will, others consider erroneous beliefs about it. You may as well complain that the article on evolution is suppressing "knowledge" about the divine creation of man. "[S]cientists / atheists / humanists" who take a compatibilist stance do so earnestly, because it seems to them that incompatibilists have a confused or mistaken understanding of what constitutes free will. To dismiss them as knowingly propagating a "non standard" (by which you seem to mean somehow incorrect) position is disingenuous on your part.


 * What's more, compatibilism was until quite recently the "standard" view: to quote Stanford's article on incompatibilism, "until fairly recently, compatibilism was the received view and it was widely believed that arguments for incompatibilism rest on a modal fallacy or fairly obvious mistake". It wasn't until 1983 and Peter van Inwagen's paper "An Essay on Free Will " that incompatibilism regained any widespread acceptance.


 * Please stop pushing your point of view and accept that other points of view have to be equally represented here as well. --Pfhorrest (talk) 03:39, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You are not adressing what I am saying. Scientists THEMSELVES admit to being prejudiced against free will. I referred that previously. So I am just reflecting a fact of a widely held opinion that scientists are prejudiced against it. A compatibilist such as Dennet invented a new word to make his concept of free will. I forget what that word was now, but the point is that these things scientists invent are challenges to the status quo, and are not actually in the status quo, and the wiki should reflect the status quo. Now it's very popular among scientists to use the multi-universe idea to circumvent the standard concept of free will. That does not mean yet that the concept of free will is controversial, and that we should make an introduction of free will taking into account the multi-universe theory. Only when people talk to each other in terms of choosing in daily life and they have to explain to each other what concept of choice they are using when they use the word choice, then the concept is controversial. I don't believe these scientists are earnest in their challenges, because their skill in using the logic of alternatives is at a very low level. I mean even if a scientist doesn't believe alternatives are real, then to be earnest in addressing the issue of free will, they should at least have skill in using that kind of logic, regardless that they don't believe it's real. But they do not have such skill, which means that they just disliked "alternatives" as a concept in the first place, and prejudicially sought something else. In reverse, people who accept alternatives are real, they are still skilled in using the logic of cause and effect that compatibilists use besides that. They do not show a general bias against knowledge in the form of cause and effect. --Syamsu (talk) 13:15, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Some quotes I googled to substantiate scientists themselves acknowledge that scientists are prejudiced against free will.


 * D.P. Barash reviewing one of Dennett's books
 * "there can be no such thing as free will for the committed scientist, in his or her professional life."
 * http://www.human-nature.com/nibbs/03/dcdennett.html


 * Ofcourse Einstein was notorious in his blatant disregard for theories positing freedom
 * "I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose of its own free will, not only its moment to jump off, but also its direction. In that case, I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist."
 * http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10737


 * Judith Rosen talking about all science being based on presumptions excluding anticipation
 * "The reactive paradigm of science need not be discarded: It will remain just as applicable to certain types of systems as it ever was— BUT—we are no longer limited to ONLY that. We are then free to expand our scientific capacity in order to ...learn about the anticipatory nature of living systems.
 * http://journals.isss.org/index.php/proceedings53rd/article/view/1249


 * etc. Obviously many more quotes can be gotten, but is anybody really contesting the opinion that scientists are generally prejudiced against free will?--Syamsu (talk) 21:07, 16 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'll happily concede that some scientists are against the idea of there being free will, though that doesn't show that all scientists are generally against it.


 * I think we lost track of the point here somewhere though. What point about changes to the article are you trying to make by this discussion about whether or not scientists oppose the idea of free will? That is: lets say we were to concede that all scientists generally believe that there is no such thing as free will. Then what do you want us to change in the article in light of that? --Pfhorrest (talk) 02:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Your own reference to the Stanford dictionary said something to the effect of that scientists generally exluded free will untill some decades ago. And as before, to my knowledge it is now still not generally accepted in science to for instance attribute variation in results to there being freedom in the system. Freedom not being in any paper means scientists generally don't accept freedom. I already wrote this to you before, you should not make this into some kind of debate, where you forget things I wrote when it suits your cause, because we have a common cause. I also already wrote before what I think should be in the article, including the article should mention that free will is generally not accepted in science. What mentioning this general non-acceptance of free will does, is to distinguish common understanding where free will is not a problem, and scientific / intellectual understanding where free will is a problem / controversy. The way the article functions now is to attack common understanding, or to burden common understanding with the problems of science. But what the article needs to do is to accurately reflect common understanding, and push the problems towards the scientists, where they belong. That the most influential compatibilist Dennett requires the word "evitability" to make "free will" intelligible, that's a highly particularist view, which next to nobody uses. It does not reflect the status quo as what we know is true about free will, and the wiki should reflect the status quo. It is more something that a very few people are considering what might be true about free will, although the same people never functionally use such knowledge. So it can be put at the end of the article among an asortment of other views on free will. But the main article should be about the common knowledge version of free will, which is what knowledge everybody uses.--Syamsu (talk) 12:45, 17 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The passage I quoted from Stanford certainly did not say that scientists "generally excluded free will until some decades ago". It said that philosophers were generally compatibilists until some decades ago. Compatibilists do not "exclude free will"; they say that free will does not require indeterminism. While not strictly necessary to be a compatibilist, most compatibilists believe that people do sometimes have free will, whether or not determinism is true; and until the advent of quantum mechanics, most compatibilists believed both that people had free will, and that determinism was in fact true. (As an aside, these days you'd be hard-pressed to find a legitimate scientist who believes the universe is deterministic, thanks to the astounding success of quantum physics; that doesn't in itself say anything about whether or not there is free will, but you would think it would make incompatibilist scientists more likely to believe in free will than not).


 * As far as "attribut[ion of] variation in results to there being freedom in the system", any science which studies humans very much does take into account at least the fact that humans have very complex and difficult to predict and control behavior. Whether that is "free will" or not is not a scientific question, but that is the very reason there is such a thing as a double-blind test, to make sure that any choices (even subconscious ones) which either the researchers or the participants might be making will be accounted for in the analysis of the results. Scientists know that human test subjects could choose to mess with their test results (whether or not that choice is conscious), and so they build the tests to account for the effects of such difficult-to-predict behavior.


 * But ok, if it were shown that most scientists believe there is no such thing as free will, that could warrant a mention in the article (though I don't think a very big one unless it's a part of supporting some larger point). However, you have yet to show that, and citing particular scientists who seem to disparage freedom in one way or another is never going to be enough to show that; someone else could always start trotting out particular scientists who do believe in free will. And if we were to try to take a survey of them and come up with an answer on it, that would be original research, which is prohibited here on Wikipedia. What you would need to show this point is a reliable secondary source which did a well-designed study on the beliefs of scientists in regards to free will and came to the conclusion you want to make.


 * As to this "common understanding", I have stated before that I do not think there is such a thing, at least not beyond the minimal one the article currently opens with. From my own personal experience I have met many people uneducated in philosophy (I know this because I meet them at introductory philosophy discussion groups) who are incompatibilists, libertarians, hard determinists, compatibilists, soft determinists, hard incompatibilists, you name it. They don't call themselves those things because they haven't studied this yet, but their "common sense" beliefs match all the varied positions those names describe. Some people believe that determinism negates free will; some of those believe that they have free will and the universe must thus be indeterministic, and some of those believe that the universe is deterministic and that nobody thus has free will. Others believe that free will doesn't have anything to do with determinism; some of those believe we have it, some don't, some think we sometimes do and sometimes don't. Some say that whether or not the universe is deterministic, either way nobody has free will.


 * More to the point though for Wikipedia here: who are you going to cite your "common understanding" to? You can't say "Free will is XYZ " . Again, you would need a well-designed study on common beliefs about free will, published in a reliable secondary source, in order to make that point; and even then, the point you could legitimately make from that is that "most lay people are XYZists", not that "Free will is XYZ". Wikipedia reports the consensus amongst experts in the relevant field; and in the case of free will, there is no consensus amongst the experts, aside from something incredibly vague like "free will is the ability to make your own choices instead of having them made for you", which all the different positions agree with and which is basically what the first sentence of the article says in less-dorky language. It's the details that they disagree with, and it's those details that I'm trying to prevent you from forcing the article to take a position on, since there is no consensus in the field about them.


 * Would it perhaps make you happy if we spent the whole first paragraph stating in a few different ways what that small common ground is (instead of just the first sentence), before moving on to the details which are controversial? A quick survey of dictionaries (surely a reflection of common understanding?) gives a few definitions like "the power of making free choices unconstrained by external agencies", "The ability to choose one's actions, or determine what reasons are acceptable motivation for actions; The doctrine that [people] are able to choose their actions without being caused to do so by external forces" , and "the capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives", , which I believe compatibilists and incompatibilists of all varieties would agree with. (They would argue vehemently about what they mean exactly, and whether or not people have such power/ability/capacity, but they would all agree that "yeah, free will, if it exists, is something like that, given the right understanding of that"). Do you like definitions like these? --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:36, 18 January 2011 (UTC)


 * From your reference: "In the older literature, it was assumed that determinism is the working hypothesis of science, and that to reject determinism is to be against science. "


 * and


 * "In the older literature, there were just two kinds of incompatibilists — hard determinists and libertarians. A hard determinist is an incompatibilist who believes that determinism is in fact true (or, perhaps, that it is close enough to being true so far as we are concerned, in the ways relevant to free will) and because of this we lack free will"


 * I think it's not acceptable the way you argue this on wiki. That you say your reference "most certainly not" says what I said it did, is just being obstinate given what it says. That style of argument you can do at debating forums or something, that does not belong in wiki. There is a single paper fairly recently purporting to demonstrate free will of fruit flies. The people behind the paper then go on to suggest that also human beings have free will. But that there is this single paper does not mean that science generally accepts free will, that there is just 1 paper means science generally doesn't accept free will. Can you be reasonable and admit this fairly obvious point with clear evidence to support it, that science generally doesn't accept free will? Or perhaps you could point me to a paper naming say 3 survival benefits to having free will? Such a paper doesn't exist, afaik, because science doesn't accept free will. You yourself say free will is not a scientific question. I fail to see how that is fundamentally different from saying science doesn't accept free will.


 * I would just state what free will is in common language, and not refer to a dictionary. Partly because most dictionary definitions are bad in that they are circular, like free will is being free etc., also because dictionary definitions tend to be made for professionals / scientists, not for common people. And the point here is to use the common knowledge, because the experts are in controversy, and also because of this bias of experts against the subject altogether. Common knowledge does not need a cite. When I talk in terms of choosing to you, I do not have to cite a reference for using the word "choosing". So as I mentioned before, what the common knowledge is can be settled by acclaim, on the basis that it is self-evident.


 * Free will is most commonly talked about as the ability of the spirit to realise an alternative outcome. With every act of free will there are at least these aspects of alternatives in the future, decision, and the spirit that determines the result. Spiritual things, like love and hate, are generally considered only to be knowable subjectively. The alternatives and the choice on the other hand are considered to be objectively measurable.


 * Now ofcourse what scientists and other groups like atheists, humanists etc. might object to in this introduction, is the requirement to be subjective. However, let´s try it. There are millions of songs and movies etc. using this kind of clichee structure. That when regarding free will, you can be objective about what the alternatives are and how the choice turned out, but to regard what does the job of deciding, then you must be subjective. Would anybody really oppose  being subjective about identity issues, about who we are as the owner of our choices? I like to think it is common knowledge, and that it does not need any cite. Sure some scientists might disagree with it, but then they still might admit that it is common knowledge to be subjective about what does the job of deciding.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.121.106.109 (talk) 13:14, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

That article says that most scientists were (until recently) determinists; but as I just explained, a compatibilist (which most philosophers, until recently, were) believes that determinism is not the opposite of free will. So just saying that most scientists were determinists does not say that more scientists rejected free will, unless you assume incompatibilism, which seems to be your problem. You cannot seem to accept that many people, many of them quite notable, honestly do not share your assumption that determinism is the opposite of free will. During the long period where most scientists were determinists and most philosophers were compatibilists, most educated people believed both that determinism was true and that people could sometimes have free will.

When I say "free will is not a scientific question", I don't at all mean that most scientists reject free will; and I think perhaps your conflation of scientists not addressing free will with scientists not accepting free will is the source of your confusion about some things here. Consider, for an analogy, that most scientific papers don't say anything about whether this, that, or the other thing is beautiful. That doesn't mean that most scientists believe there is no beauty in the world; it just means that questions about beauty are not scientific questions, not the kinds of questions that scientists ask. Some sociological or psychological papers might talk about what people think is beautiful and why; but then, sociologists and psychologists also talk about people's perceptions of free will. Science generally doesn't say anything about free will; it neither says it exists, nor that it doesn't. It just doesn't usually talk about it at all.

As to "common understanding", instead of restating what I already said, I ask you to please read WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:OR. Those are some of the most fundamental principles of Wikipedia. We can't just assert something because you think it is the common understanding; we could assert that something was the common understanding, if we had reliable sources verifying that fact, but even then that would not allow us to assert the "something" as fact in the article's own voice.

And regarding your posited three principles of what constitutes free will, aside from verifiability and original research issues, it shows your clear religious or at least spiritual bias. Any naturalist (including most scientists and atheists) would reject that definition on the grounds of its appeal to a "spirit". That you dismiss the views of scientists, atheists, humanists, etc, out-of-hand shows your bias very clearly. If you don't understand why the article can't be biased like this, I ask that you also read WP:NPOV, another of the key principles of Wikipedia. Articles here have to respect all notable viewpoints equally, and while it can describe what various different positions on controversial issues claim, attributed to whoever holds those positions, it cannot assert those positions in its own voice, as you seem to want it to. --Pfhorrest (talk) 10:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I would not put it in the article that scientists etc. are evil, I would just put in the article that free will is generally not accepted in science. In wording that makes it clear what I mean by that, which is that science generally, with a few exceptions, does not establish in papers choices and alternatives present as a matter of objective fact, like we do do in daily life.


 * Scientists etc. could not reject the new introduction on the basis that they disagreed with it, because the introduction then doesn't seek the truth about free will it only seeks to accurately refelect common understanding of free will. It might be preferred on wiki to have some research about what the common understanding of free will is, although it could also be argued that to settle it by acclaim on the basis that it is self-evident is more in line with wiki rules. I am not at all convinced that any scientist / atheist etc. would argue that subjective understanding of what does the job of deciding, is not the common understanding. My guess is that these scientists know that their conception of free will is not the common one. I never hear anybody talk about "evitability" in daily life, so I don't think any compatibilst following Dennett would say that compatibilism is the common understanding.


 * So does anybody here disagree that what I say is more or less the common understanding of free will? It seems like we have some millitant free will deniers here, so if they would agree it is the common understanding, then I think we are on safe ground.


 * So far we only have people saying that they don't know what the common understanding is. You can find out if it is common or not, if it sounds common / clichee to you. That is to say, that when songs etc. talk about "from the heart", they are talking subjectively about people as the owner of their choices. It sounds clichee to me. --Syamsu (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I agree that our pre-reflective understanding of free will relies on alternative possibilities, and in principle, we could cite introductory philosophy textbooks that introduce the problem of free will by first recounting this common understanding. On the other hand, compatibilism is the dominant position among professional philosophers. According to the philpapers.org survey, almost 60% accept (or lean towards) compatibilism, while about 14% accept libertarianism and another 12% deny free will. What I really do not understand is why you want to give so much weight to the common understanding? I do not use an encyclopaedia to read about the common understanding; for that, I can phone my mother. Vesal (talk) 20:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I took a look around wiki to see the definition of subjectivity, which lead to qualia, and much to my horror to find the name Dennett dominating the issues. Pfhorrest does me an incredible honor to suggest it is my original thought to be subjective about what does the job of deciding. But I would rather refer this honor to people like Mohammed, Jesus, Moses, Martin Luther King. The people who for instance compel us to look to the heart of a person, not the color of their skin. Subjectivity itself works by decision. Which means that to be able to make a statement about someone as the owner of their choices, I must myself make a choice about their choices. I might make a choice between good and bad for instance about their choices. And when my choice turns out good, then I can express that the spirit of their choice was filled with goodness. And then when I made my choice whether resulting in good or bad, then somebody else can choose about my choice again etc. etc. So on second thought I refer to Mohammed, Jesus, Moses, Martin Luther King for reference. THEY are the generally acknowledged experts on free will, not Dennett! And while they did not use such fancy words like subjectivity and qualia, everybody knows what they meant.


 * It says in the wiki on subjectivity, that most science disciplines work to exclude subjecitivity from their work. Does anybody see what's going on here yet? science working to exclude subjectivity -> science objectifying what does the job of deciding = stating what is good and evil as matters of objective fact --Syamsu (talk) 21:23, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Dennett acknowledges himself as a Darwinist. Which science discipline is notorious according to historians for objectifying what is good and bad? Social Darwinism. --Syamsu (talk) 21:39, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Dennett is much inspired by R. Dawkins. Dawkins is most well known for his book entitled "the selfish gene". In this book Dawkins uses an objective definition of selfishness. In normal use of the word, we can only arrive at the conlusion "selfish", by making a decision about a decision. To be selfish is something like to pay "too much" attention to themselves at the cost of others. So then there are alternatives of "too much" and "not too much" and then you have to choose between them, and if your choice turns out "too much", then you can express that the choice was selfish. So you see, it is suggestive of objectifying good and evil to objectively define selfishness. Ofcourse anybody reading "the selfish gene" enjoys the book precisely because of the perverse deliciousness of the implied coldblooded judgement in calling somebody selfish as a matter of calculated fact. In my opinion Dawkins is just an obvious eccentric, who does not know what he is doing. But I think people such as Dennett reading his book, know that they are engaging in a guilty pleasure by reading it, and Dennett is certainly guilty of knowingly objectifying good and evil. --Syamsu (talk) 22:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC)


 * When I linked you to WP:OR I did not mean to state that you were the first person to have the opinions which you espouse. What "original research" means in the context of Wikipedia is statements put forth directly by Wikipedia editors themselves (as opposed to reports of notable statement published in reliable sources, which is what Wikipedia articles are supposed to contain). If you can find something that Mohammed, Jesus, Moses, etc, said about free will, then we can say in the article that they said that; but we still can't just say what they said, in the article's own voice. Furthermore, if they are not talking directly about free will, but talking about something which you interpret as having to do with free will, then stating your interpretation in the article, even if attributed to them and not in the article's voice, is still a kind of "original research" called "synthesis" (see WP:SYN). For example, if one of them said something like "It is better to follow your heart than to be lead by others", that is something we could maybe interpret as having something to do with free will, but that interpretation would have to be published in a reliable source before Wikipedia can report on it. If one of them said something like "true freedom of will is the alignment of one's will with the will of God", then we could report that they said that; but we still can't just say that, in the article's own voice.


 * I'm unclear on what you're trying to say about ownership of choices which isn't already said in the article, and likewise this stuff about subjectivity and objectivity. As it stands, the introduction does not seem to rule out the position you seem to espouse, which is (if I understand you correctly) what's called metaphysical libertarianism. The article allows that your understanding of free will might be correct; however, it also allows that other understandings of free will might be correct. That is the crux of my objection to what you want to add: you seem to want to state one position as the correct one, when many people, very smart people on every side of the argument, disagree about which position is the correct one. I'm not trying to tell you that your understanding of free will is wrong, plenty of very smart people, notable people have an understanding of free will very similar to yours. I'm just saying that there is notable disagreement with that understanding, and that the article has to be neutral about that disagreement; it can't say who is right, because it's not our place to decide that.


 * To address a couple of your other points: when scientists try to "eliminate subjectivity" from their work, what that means is that they try to find what is true about whatever they're studying, aside from anyone's thoughts or feelings on it. Double-blind studies are a good example of this again: the placebo effect is is a subjective reaction to something based on what the test subject thinks about that something. Many people will, if given something they are told is medicine, report that they are feeling healthier. More so than even that, many people will report feeling healthier if they are given something that the person giving it to them thinks is medicine, due to the demeanor of the "doctor" and subtle things like that. But scientists want to know what a drug is actually doing physically to people, and if people are going to report feeling better even if they aren't even given the drug, just because they think they're being given a drug, then that makes it very hard to tell what the drug is really doing. So the scientists arrange an experiment where some people get a pill that does nothing and some people get a real drug, and neither the doctors giving out the pills nor the test subjects taking them know whether it's the real drug or not; only the researchers do. The researchers can then see how much people report feeling better when they got a pill that does nothing, and how much people report feeling better when they got the real drug, and compare them to see how much those reports of feeling better are due to the drug itself, as opposed to people thinking they're getting the drug. The scientists acknowledge that there are subjective aspects in the system, but they want to see the objective aspects of the system, so they use ways that allow them to measure the subjective aspects and subtract them from their overall results so they can see what the objective aspects are. They're not saying that "there are no subjective aspects"; quite the opposite, they're saying "there are subjective aspects, and those make it hard to see the objective aspects, so how can we look past the subjective stuff to see the objective stuff more clearly?"


 * You appear to be confusing Darwinism, which is a particular line of thought within the study of evolution, and has nothing to do with any social or ethical claims, just biology; with Social Darwinism, which is a long-discredited belief that it is good for the strong to prey on the weak and thrive at their expense. One says "more successful organisms tend to live long and prosper as a species, while less successful organisms tend to suffer as a species and then die out"; the other says "more successful people deserve to live and prosper, while less successful people deserve to suffer and die." They're very different things and Dennett is in no way the latter.


 * I'm also not sure why you're fixating on Dennett in particular, anyway. Your earlier comments about his use of "evitable" are equally non-sequitur; Peter van Inwagen, who defends a position similar to the one you seem to espouse (and lead the charge in the resurgence of incompatibilism), uses plenty of "big words" himself. I don't mean to attack you, but honestly you seem very anti-intellectual when you dig at philosophers for using words like that, when you disparage the opinions of "atheists, humanists" and the like, and say that the "evil scientist" cliche is true. I'm beginning to wonder what you are here at Wikipedia for, if not just to push your point of view and disregard the verifiable opinions of notable experts as so much less important than what you personally see to be the common and correct opinion. --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:35, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Well when it is unclear to you what I am talking about with subjectivity, then we can reasonably say that what I said is not common knowledge, for as far as can be established by acclaim on the basis that it is self-evident. Because from common knowledge you should have gotten lots of context to interpret what I was saying, but still with all that context you failed to see a basic meaning in what I wrote.


 * It is ofcourse not me, but Darwinists such as Dennett who are bleinding Darwinism with social darwinism, by not making a categorical distinction between subjectivity and objectivity. Dennet and most Darwinists do not acknlowledge this whole category of spiritual things which are only known subjectively. --212.121.106.109 (talk) 13:28, 20 January 2011 (UTC)