The Free Will Debate

07/02/14

There's an argument over whether or not free-will exists. Well, there's lots of arguments over free-will:

• can it exist if it's deterministic
• does it come from the brain
• does it come from the soul
• can it only exist if dualism is true
• et cetera

I, myself, am a believer in deterministic free-will. You may scoff and ask, "How can free-will be free-will if it's deterministic?"

I don't understand that question.

I think I don't understand because I don't understand other people's definition of free will. And by "don't understand", I think I mean "don't know".

Free-will isn't a well-defined term.

I have thought a bit on what free-will means to me. Little-by-little I have added the necessary qualities of free-will. Let's start with the basics:

• Free-will is the ability to make choices.

Is this alone enough? No. A coin or a dice can make ecisions (if outcome were decied by result), but they do not contain free will. Some thought must be put into the decisions. So:

• An agent containing free-will must be capable of making choices for reasons

Is that all? No. A computer can make choices, but everyone agrees that currently computers do not contain free-will.

Things must go deeper. Why are those decisions being made for those reasons. The reasons for doing something are derived from an expected result, so:

• Free-willed agents must have goals

And goals need to be tied to actions somehow, so:

• Free-willed agents have models that tie actions to goals

This all ties together into my definition of free-will:

• Free-will is the ability to make choices based on who you are and what you want.

Under this definition, free-will can be deterministic. In fact, shouldn't free-will be deterministic? Shouldn't a person's actions be predictable if you know what kind of person they are?

I guess now I should look up the actual literature on free-will and correct some of my ignorance.