Harry Frankfurt, on the Daily Show:

[wolven7]

Harry Frankfurt was on the Daily Show, tonight, talking about his new book On Truth. His previous book was called On Bullshit. No, I'm not kidding.

Ever heard of Frankfurt Examples? Here's a taste:

You go to the store to buy a soda. Unbeknownst to you, someone has wired themselves into your brain, while you were sleeping. They can see what you're going to choose, and change your mind for you, if they don't like your choices. If you choose a Coke, at the store, then you're fine, but if you choose anything else, then the nefarious neurologist will press the button and make you change your mind. So you're sitting there, thinking "I Like Coke, I really do... But I eally like Dr Pepper, too... Hm..." But, in the end, you choose a Coke. No manipulation necessary. But, if you had chosen that Dr Pepper, the Neurologist would have changed your mind, right? So Is Your Choice Really Free?

This type of example was designed to show that free will does not require the ability to choose otherwise.

This is what I've decided to do with my life.

Awesome.

Comments

[unknownbinaries.livejournal.com]

You are earning your License to Fuck With Peoples' Heads.

Like art, it seems, the way there isn't as interesting as the goal. Thinking about the brief time I spent mulling over going into that. Seeing some of the crap you have and are going through with it...Thank ALL the fucking Gods I didn't go any further. I have far less patience than you for academia and all it's attendant stuffiness and baroque age.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's a long, fucked up road, full of rage and hatred, but man, when you get to the end, you just WANT to fuck some shit up.

[pallandrome.livejournal.com]

See, this here is why I'm becoming a writer. I don't need no fancy schoolin or namby pamby grammer to blow peoples mind!

[wolven.livejournal.com]

No, but you're a better writer than I, so I gotta work with what I got.

[ellenore.livejournal.com]

Well if this had been going on for a while, you could become conditioned to only chose Coke through force of habit. A lot of people wouldn't consider that to be free will.

Of course, once conditioning isn't free will NOTHING is free will- conditioning is how people learn.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Conditioned learning is still free will, in this scenario, but so is the initial choice. His entire point is to show that you don't need to be able to do otherwise for a choice to be free.

Free Will and Determinism, under Frankfurt's model, are compatible, and we need to redefine "free," before we can continue the talks...

It's so fun. ^_^

[ellenore.livejournal.com]

But doesn't the fact that someone is actively controlling your mind make your will not free? I'm just a lucky mind controlled person because I have yet to have my thought reset.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Well, if you choose not to analyse your conditioning, that's still an act of free will, at very base. If all acts of conditioning are modulated, meaning EVERY choice is directed by the nefarious neuroscientist, then that's not free, anymore. :)

[ellenore.livejournal.com]

But if the neuroscientist controls your choice in one particular situation, doesn't it mean that in that situation your will is not free?

How about a cake or death scenario? What if you're a Gitmo prisoner and you have to obey an order or be killed? What if you're a patient in a mental institution and all of your choices are controlled? What if you're a baby and all your actions are regulated by your parents? You certainly don't have freedom of will. Is that the same or a different thing from free will?

[wolven.livejournal.com]

He controls your will in one situation, but ONLY if you don't do something he would like you to do, in that situation (choose coke). If you seriously debate the merrits of all sodas at your disposal, and Chose Coke Yourself, without any intervention, then is that not still a free choice?

You have the ability to choose to not listen to parents, the freedom to search for a different answer, or to die, or to Do Nothing At All.

Babies, it can be argued, are the most free of us all. Things happen to them, but their wants and desires are unmodulated. There's only Want-Get/Don't Get-Happy/Sad. What's more free than that?