There is no need to amend my definition--it already includes the word "genuine". And what is "self-contradictory" about stipulating that it be a "genuine" choice--one that involves the intentional exercise of active power, not just deterministic and/or random effects?

You cannot just dismiss this formalization so easily. Does "ordinary matter" have active power?

Can "ordinary matter" exert such power as a first, unmoved mover?

Does "ordinary matter" have the categorical ability to refrain from exerting such power?

Can "ordinary matter" act for the sake of reasons?

Where do you see randomness in any of these statements? Where do you see self-contradiction?

Not at all--what Moreland means by "active power" is impossible if determinism is true.

J. P. Moreland wrote:
Active power is a primitive notion with a sense that is ultimately understood ostensively in acts of first-person introspective awareness of one's own initiation of change. A characteristic mark of active power is the ability to initiate motion, to bring something about. Active power is a dual ability to exert or refrain from exerting one's power. So understood, it is impossible for an exercise of active power to be causally necessitated by prior events.

A first-mover is a substance that has active power. The notion of categorical ability in (3) has two important aspects to it. First, it expresses the type of ability possessed by a first-mover that can exercise active power, and as such it contrasts with the conditional ability employed by compatibilists. Second, categorial ability is a dual ability: if one has the ability to exert his power to do (or will to do) a, then one also has the ability to refrain from exerting his power to do (or will to do) a. Finally, (4) expresses a view of reasons as irreducible, teleological goals for the sake of which a person acts. In general, we may characterize this by saying that person s e'd (e.g., went to the kitchen) in order to r (e.g., get coffee or satisfy s's desire for coffee). This characterization of action, according to (4), cannot be reduced to a causal theory of action that uses belief or desire event causation.

Only because you still insist that non-deterministic=random, an equivalence that I have rejected over and over.

Unfortunately, I do not seem to be able to articulate why I reject it, at least not in a way that you will accept. It just seems clear to me that if I am in control of my decisions, then they cannot possibly be determined (because they are not dictated completely by prior events) and they cannot possibly be random (because they are not governed purely by chance). There has to be a "third way".

I am under the impression that it has not been definitively established whether quantum events are truly uncaused or simply have causes that we do not yet understand.

In any case, I am not aware of anyone else ever suggesting that quanta are "first movers" in the same sense as free human agents.

This obviously begs the question. I deny that our brains do any of this; only our minds have these capabilities, and I am aware of no good reason for thinking that the mind is somehow reducible to the brain.

ecspose wrote:


I think the question you are trying to ask, is how did the universe get set in motion in the first place. Although I believe that question is beyond the scope of this discussion, I will entreat it with the answer that this line of reasoning assumes non-movement as a default state of the Universe, when in fact everything we can observe points to the opposite conclusion.

Perhaps there is no change of state in the universe, what we perceive as time and motion could be the real illusion, while the Universe remains in an unchanging state of relationships spanning the dimensions of our perception. When asking a question so grand, it is reasonable not to expect an easy answer.