4

This question represents the second I have asked in relation to an argument I posted here approximately a year ago, which aims at a proof for the impossibility of free will.

It is inappropriate to attach this question to the initial post, as it would constitute a distinct third question (find the second question here), confuse the answer stream, and miss out on the potential consideration of many users who have already visited the original post over the past year and are unlikely to encounter any addition to it. This question also seems to constitute an interesting question in its own right, and to therefore warrant this dedicated post.

The premise at stake is:

  1. A decision is an act. Therefore, in order for a decision to be voluntary, a person must decide to decide it.

(An act is defined here as "A thing done").

I am motivated to ask this question after email communication with an internationally-noted philosopher of mind (not identified here, as I haven't obtained consent to do so). I presented the argument in question, and they happened to agree that - if only in their opinion - it was sound, but remarked that to define a question as an act is philosophically controversial. I'm honestly astonished they took the time to respond to my email and I don't want to pester them with follow-up questions. Regardless, I'm raising the question here because I'm interested in the diversity of (informed) response that Philosophy Stack enables, and primarily because any strong refutation of decision as action would likely prove fatal to my (long-cherished) argument.

The question is:

Where an act is defined as 'a thing done', how might a decision be defined if it is to be defined as something other than an act?

Kitajima & Toyota (2013) state, "Decision-making is the act or process of choosing a preferred option or course of actions from a set of alternatives".

McCall (1987) raises this very question, but I don't have access to the entire article to examine any answers he provides.

"Is a decision an action?", he asks. "If so, what sort of action? Must decision be preceded by deliberation?".

Any insight into this realm would be most welcome, whether as answers, quotes and/or references.

Futilitarian
  • 3,981
  • 1
  • 7
  • 38
  • 1
    Decisions may well be mental acts, but the argument still fails. The problem is with your first premise that encodes what is called volitionism: "In order for an act to be voluntary, a person must decide to perform it". [Hacker](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Human_Nature/gCT1eMxuNXQC?hl=en&gbpv=0), following Ryle and Wittgenstein, disagrees:"*When one utters a sentence, every word is spoken voluntarily, but it would be ridiculous to claim that one consciously performs successive acts of will, one for each word (or phoneme?) an instant before utterance*". – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 14:17
  • @Conifold. The idea that it would "be ridiculous to claim that one consciously performs successive acts of will, one for each word (or phoneme?) an instant before utterance", seems to support my argument, rather than contradict it. That is precisely what my argument claims, via the infinite regress. Or have I misunderstood you? – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 14:31
  • 1
    The conclusion of your argument is - "insofar as free will requires the ability to make voluntary decisions, free will is impossible". It may well require such ability and be possible if some acts do not require exercising that ability. The regress only comes if all voluntary acts are alike, but psychological studies tell otherwise. We obviously make decisions sometimes and then act, sometimes we just act, and sometimes we then confabulate "decisions" after the fact. Perhaps decisionless voluntary acts draw on our ability to decide on maxims, as Kant thought. Or perhaps it is chicken-and-egg. – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 14:56
  • @Conifold. This discussion is probably better suited for [the original post](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/84287/proof-for-the-absence-of-free-will), but if "sometimes we just act", surely we act involuntarily. Likewise, if we "confabulate 'decisions' after the fact", we surely act involuntarily. Likewise, if "some acts do not require exercising that ability [voluntary decision-making]", they are involuntary. Again, I feel as though these observations only contribute to the argument. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 15:05
  • Philosophy of mind is really closer to Psychology than Philosophy first off. The terminology speaks of that too: you can tell a tree by its fruit. The terminology is way way too vague. An act is a thing done? Could you be a tad more specific? Are you implying all things humans know are acts of some kind? Literally an ACT has to be a physical thing in English grammar the last time I checked. Mental process are NOT considered ACTS. If I am dreaming right now of a place where everyone knows my name and nothing evil ever occurs am I acting? How would anyone else know or verify this? – Logikal Aug 12 '22 at 15:14
  • @logical. "If I am dreaming right now of a place where everyone knows my name and nothing evil ever occurs am I acting?". Not voluntarily, I wouldn't think. I don't think that when you are dreaming, you are engaged in a volitional act (I could be wrong). I'm am concerned with whether a decision is an act or not. If it is not an act, how is a decision to be defined? Is a decision _not_ a 'thing done'? – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 15:19
  • 1
    As Hacker's example shows, "if "sometimes we just act", we act involuntarily" is very plausibly false, and false presuppositions do not contribute to arguments. The volitionist regress fails for the same reasons as Wittgenstein's regress of interpretations, [Ryle's regress of thoughts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryle%27s_regress), and similar examples, and not because decisions are non-acts. If you discard the first premise there will no need to look for a fault in the second. – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 15:25
  • Well in the real world we deal with our famous senses the majority of the time. So an ACT in English implies there is a sense of touch present. The term decision I would say has two parts: a mental process portion & then the literal touch portion where we make things happen by manipulating matter. This begs the question that if I only do one part is that a decision or not? Can I do something literal without rational thought behind it? I would say yes. Can I think of an idea to solve a problem & never execute that idea? I say yes. If decisions must be literal then yes they must be acts as well – Logikal Aug 12 '22 at 15:29
  • @conifold. The thing is, when Hacker states, ""When one utters a sentence, every word is spoken voluntarily", he is in essence - in the context of my argument - _assuming_ this. So to use this claim as a premise in order to counter an argument which disputes that premise is circular, is it not? – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 15:29
  • @Logikal. I apologise if I'm misunderstanding you/misrepresenting you here, but it seems that when you say, "If decisions must be literal then yes they must be acts as well", you are agreeing - precisely - with Premise 2, that 'A decision is an act'. (This would be better dealt with at the site of the [original question](https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/84287/proof-for-the-absence-of-free-will)). – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 15:32
  • To be more specific here a decision is a PHYSICAL ACTION carried out under your definition. I am going with YOUR definition here. You need to add the details that you mean a literal or scientific context only. You seem to be withholding such details & may go the direction that “duh it is obvious”. Well obvious to some people is not the same as obvious to all. You must communicate to ALL of your audience and provide enough details so no one would go astray in their reasoning. You are leaving gaps for some people to fall through & not take accountability. Many people think ideas are decisions – Logikal Aug 12 '22 at 15:39
  • @logikal. Is 'physical action' insufficient? I'm not trying to withhold anything. I have posed this question here precisely because it was pointed out to me by an experienced philosopher that - if not to them - some in philosophical circles take issue with a decision being an act. In other words, I am _actively_ seeking out evidence of a contradiction to my argument. If a decision is not an act, I would like to know what it is, so that I can amend or refute my own argument. If it _is_ an act, then the definition of it as an act seems sufficient in order for my argument to operate. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 15:45
  • 2
    Not if you want to pinpoint the flaw in the argument, but perhaps I misunderstood the question's motivation. Btw, McCall concludes that decisions *are* mental acts after identifying four tests: can answer what is done, can be tried, can be used in imperatives and combined with adverbs. Few others qualify:"*Besides decide, choose, and deliberate, which form a cluster, I have been able to find only one other rather small and unimportant cluster, calculate, count and compute, together with one large and important one containing verbs of imagination, creativity and inventiveness*". – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 15:48
  • @conifold. No. I certainly want to pinpoint any flaws. I guess I'm just not grasping what you mean. But I appreciate the McColl citation. I am interested in whether you might provide any definition (sourced from anywhere) of a decision as something other than an act. Then I could consider this/these attribute(s) and possibly defeat my own argument. That's what motivates my question. I may not comprehend everything, but I feel I could comprehend a definition of a decision which describes it as something other than an act. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 15:56
  • Yes defining a decision strictly as a physical action in reality seems unnecessary. Why can’t ideas alone be decisions that one has never gotten around to physically perform? Can one mentally decide without a physical performance? I would think yes I can but I haven’t physically performed my thoughts out. Can I decide to make an investment in a specific stock & not get around to do it? Can I decide I want to leave all of my wealth to my children evenly & never write a will before my untimely demise? You would say then it is not a decision? Well what was it just BS? Was I delusional? – Logikal Aug 12 '22 at 16:03
  • @logikal. I could be wrong, but I see an obvious distinction between an idea and a decision. One can certainly decide without _subsequent_ physical performance (here I am of course deeming a decision as a physical performance of a sort). Eg: I can decide to pick up a glass then decide not to. So no, I would say you are absolutely right, you _did_ make a decision re. your will, even if you didn't act upon it. Yet I don't see how this contradicts anything I'm getting at. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 16:07
  • 2
    Your original argument is similar to Strawson's regress argument, of which SEP has some [discussion with references](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freewill/#ArguAgaiRealFreeWill). See also O’Shaughnessy's paper in [Mental Actions](https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/mental-actions/). He also identifies "willing" as a mental act, but it "differs from bodily action in a fundamental respect... If I voluntarily talk (inwardly) to myself or imagine raising my arm, there is no distinction between my act of willing and an event my willing produces. Rather, in such cases, the willing just is the acting". – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 16:16
  • @conifold. Strawson's argument does work from a kind of similar attitude, but what he sacrifices in efficiency, he gains with robustness, in that he doesn't leave himself prone to the apparent controversiality of 'decision-as-action', which is what I'm enquiring after here. O'Shaughnessy quotes Pink: "A decision, Pink argues, is itself a goal-directed action". – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 16:23
  • 1
    "*Common-sense folk psychology and mainstream philosophy of action agree about decisions: these are... intentional actions... I begin this paper by presenting a problem for this view. In short, since the content of the motivational attitudes that drive deliberation and decision remains open-ended until the moment of decision, it is unclear how agents can be thought to exercise control over what they decide at the moment of deciding.*" [Shepherd, Deciding as Intentional Action: Control over Decisions](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00048402.2014.971035). – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 16:27
  • @Conifold. Excellent. Thanks. I never would have found that. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 16:29
  • Without equating decisions and acts, it doesn’t seem paradoxical to me to believe decisions and acts respectively can be voluntary and involuntary. Do you think the above is paradoxical and why exactly? Or is trying to equate act and decisions, which *can* be both vol/invol, paradoxical? – J Kusin Aug 12 '22 at 16:32
  • @JKusin. The intuitive attitude which drove the argument (more specifically, premises 1 & 2), was that a decision must be an act, because I couldn't think what else it might be. I certainly wouldn't assume that a decision can be voluntary. That is precisely what my argument is trying to disprove (leading to the 'disproof' of free will). – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 16:35
  • 1
    Here is another one that references your concern directly, [Pettit, Deliberation and Decision](https://www.princeton.edu/~ppettit/papers/2010/Deliberation%20and%20Decision.pdf):"*For if action were always supposed to originate in decision, and decision were itself an action, then we would face a regress... similar to that which Donald Davidson (1980) invoked in criticism of the idea that every intentional action must originate in an act of will, repeating – without apparently being aware of it – a point that Thomas Hobbes (1994: 125) had made in 1640*". – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 16:36
  • When I decide which arm to raise, I didn’t voluntarily decide everything which lead me to decide which arm to raise. Case in point, I didn’t voluntarily decide everything about having a computer in front of me with this text. So before I raise my arm, and before I’ve decided which arm to raise, there is “deciding to decide”, as in *part* of your first two premises — deciding to decide which arm to raise. *That* came in part from reading your texts which came from further past complexities I didn’t have full voluntary control over. There may be a mereological *coherentism* to keep vol and invol – J Kusin Aug 12 '22 at 17:10
  • @JKusin. I don't think I disagree with much there. My only query is over your final sentence. I have a vague understanding of 'mereological', but would you mind further explaining "There may be a mereological coherentism to keep vol and invol"? – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 17:14
  • Well now I see a clear inconsistency. If you agree that I can make a decision about a will without physically acting upon it then all decisions cannot be physical acts: a physical thing done. Your original argument places the idea decision inside the set of all physical action applied in reality. This is like me saying all cats are inside the class of mammals. But then someone finds a cat that is not a mammal. How? The original proposition must now be false! If I have made a decision to will my billions of dollars to my kids & it is not physical then you MUST say it is not a decision. – Logikal Aug 12 '22 at 17:57
  • Your second sentence seems contradictory to me. "If you agree that I can make a decision about a will without physically acting upon it then all decisions cannot be physical acts: a physical thing done". This does not address the claim (my claim), that a decision _itself_ is an act. If I were to modify your representation of my view, it would go like this: "I can make a decision (perform an action) which then leads to a _subsequent_ action which performs the thing the decision decided to do". EG: I perform the action of deciding to drink. Then I drink. Two separate acts. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 18:03
  • Mereological coherentism like in metaphysics allows for things to have some role in their own explanations. A is in part explained by A. It is controversial but not without supporters. I bring it up in contra to premise 2. There isn’t a regress of requiring infinite chains of voluntary decisions because there would be coherentism. And it may help in trying to define act, decision, and free will. It may provide less problematic definitions as you are finding. – J Kusin Aug 12 '22 at 18:24
  • @JKusin. I may not be comprehending what you've said, but it's precisely the lack of coherentism of an infinite regress which I employ to defend my argument in Premise 3. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 18:27
  • Infinite regress is not *coherentist*. Coherentism may lead to defining the terms you seek better than non-*coherentist* attempts is all. You use infinite regress to problemitize free will existing. I’m saying maybe free will exists by another construction is all. – J Kusin Aug 12 '22 at 18:33
  • @JKusin. I would love to hear more about that, if you've taken it any further. Whilst I'm for now convinced that the available logical arguments more strongly support a lack of free will than otherwise, I still enjoy the possibility of being proven wrong. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 18:36
  • You added more problems. If you agree that a thought alone is a decision how is the idea a physical act? This act cannot be verified. Are you saying both separate parts must be true for decisions? That if I have just one that is not enough. So unless my will is acted upon then it is not a decision. I need to have the idea & carry it out according to your reasoning. The average person would still say the idea of the will is enough eventhough it never materialized. The idea is still a decision for many people. I say having either part the idea or the physical part there can be a decision. – Logikal Aug 12 '22 at 20:08
  • @Logikal. I'm not referring to thoughts in general. I'm referring to the particular kind of thought we define as a 'decision'. "So unless my will is acted upon then it is not a decision" is demonstrably untrue. EG: If I make a decision to to drink, but then I change my mind before drinking, I have made a decision _without_ acting upon it. Like I said in my previous comment, "A decision _itself_ is an act". I didn't say, "A decision requires a separate, subsequent action to be deemed a decision". If you read my previous comment again, especially the last line, this should be clear. – Futilitarian Aug 13 '22 at 04:13
  • @Logikal. I think the confusion here is encapsulated in your comment, "If you agree that I can make a decision... without physically acting upon it then all decisions cannot be physical acts: a physical thing done". No. I claim that the decision to drink is an act distinct from the act of drinking. Hence this question: "How might a decision be defined as something _other_ than an act (a 'thing done')?". If a decision can be other than an act (ie. a mere event), then this sort of decision would seemingly be involuntary, in which case the argument against free will becomes even simpler. – Futilitarian Aug 13 '22 at 06:39

3 Answers3

5

Here is a selection of references to make them more visible than in the comments.

That decisions are mental/intentional acts is a very common position. McCall's paper in the OP argues for it, and Shepherd in Deciding as Intentional Action: Control over Decisions says so before presenting a challenge and an alternative:

"Common-sense folk psychology and mainstream philosophy of action agree about decisions: these are under an agent's direct control, and are thus intentional actions for which agents can be held responsible. I begin this paper by presenting a problem for this view. In short, since the content of the motivational attitudes that drive deliberation and decision remains open-ended until the moment of decision, it is unclear how agents can be thought to exercise control over what they decide at the moment of deciding. I note that this problem might motivate a non-actional view of deciding—a view that decisions are not actions, but are instead passive events of intention acquisition."

The regress argument that motivates the question is old, and goes back at least to Spinoza, see What counters are there to Spinoza's argument that acts of free will create infinite regress? and Hobbes. In recent times, a similar argument was proposed by Strawson, see SEP and Davidson, with opposite aims. Strawson argued against free will, and Davidson against the "separate act of willing" premise, see Pettit, Deliberation and Decision:

"Does every action originate in a decision to perform that action? It cannot do so if decision is itself an intentional action: if it is a mental act, as some have taken it to be, in which an agent resolves uncertainty about what to do in a given context. For if action were always supposed to originate in decision, and decision were itself an action, then we would face a regress. The regress would be similar to that which Donald Davidson (1980) invoked in criticism of the idea that every intentional action must originate in an act of will, repeating – without apparently being aware of it – a point that Thomas Hobbes (1994: 125) had made in 1640: “a man can no more say he will will, than he will will will, and so make an infinite repetition of the word will.”"

Even authors who take decisions to be mental acts distinguish some of them from bodily acts in ways that block the regress. It has the same effect as denying that all voluntary acts must be preceded by decisions, as Hacker does, following Ryle and Wittgenstein. In both cases, decisions to act (mentally) can be events identical with the acting itself. For example, see O’Shaughnessy's paper in Mental Actions volume:

"Brian O’Shaughnessy’s “Trying and Acting” argues that there is at least one species of mental action that differs from bodily action in a fundamental respect. According to O’Shaughnessy, when we assert ‘A did x’, where x is a bodily action, we imply that there was an event which was “the active generation of x,” an act of willing or trying which is not identical to, but rather the cause of, A’s x-ing. Something similar holds for certain sorts of mental action: if I try to remember a name, and succeed, then my remembering the name is presumably an event caused by my trying to remember.

But, O’Shaughnessy maintains, there are also kinds of mental action to which this analysis does not apply. If I voluntarily talk (inwardly) to myself or imagine raising my arm, there is no distinction between my act of willing and an event my willing produces. Rather, in such cases, the willing just is the acting. So, O’Shaughnessy concludes, not all willings are tryings-to-produce; we must leave room for a form of willing which is internally, non-productively active."

Conifold
  • 42,225
  • 4
  • 92
  • 180
  • Re. the last paragraph. "If I voluntarily talk (inwardly) to myself or imagine raising my arm, there is no distinction between my act of willing and an event my willing produces". Does this seem right to you? It doesn't to me. There is always a distinction between my decision and the event my decision produces. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 17:27
  • A decision is a plan for an action, not an action itself. – Pertti Ruismäki Aug 12 '22 at 17:31
  • 1
    @Futilitarian Not if we say the decision is *one way to describe an aspect of the event, namely the ascription as one of my own volition*. The philosophical issue here is that a plurality of discriptional layers doesn't make a plurality of ontological realities. A decision is, maybe, really nothing more than a rationalisation (linguistic representation) of certain events, after the fact. – Philip Klöcking Aug 12 '22 at 17:34
  • @PerttiRuismäki A "decision" to do something in the future is nothing but an ill-labelled *plan*. It could and could not lead to an action, which then needs some element of volition according to your own contributions here. A mere intention is wishful thinking, not willing proper. – Philip Klöcking Aug 12 '22 at 17:37
  • @PhilipKlöcking. I'm pretty philosophically naive, Philip, so forgive me if I've got this wrong, but when you say, "A decision is, maybe, really nothing more than a rationalisation (linguistic representation) of certain events, after the fact", then that would be a concession that a decision is not a compelling act and that it therefore does not contribute to any notion of free will? Or have I slipped up? – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 17:41
  • 1
    @Futilitarian No, you pretty much nailed it. That is, not necessarily since we could play that game further and say that *since no domain of discourse can claim inherent superiority in terms of epistemological access to what or what not really is the case, all we end up with is different domains of discourse*. If we take this seriously, everything that has *practical consequences* (shapes how we interact with our environment) is to be called 'real' with equal credence. No matter whether we talk about religion, free will, science, or whatever. – Philip Klöcking Aug 12 '22 at 17:49
  • Given what your write in the italics, can I ask how you arrive at your beliefs? How do you differentiate what is 'real' if different claims as to 'what is real' have 'equal credence'. My only response to this is 'logic' and 'evidence'. I realise now that these may be broader terms than I first thought, but from a pragmatic level, I don't really see another way in which to operate. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 17:53
  • 2
    @Futilitarian It is a common theme between Ryle, Wittgenstein, Davidson, O’Shaughnessy, etc., etc., whether it is wrapped into special kinds of acts, non-acts or voluntary acts w/o decisions. I have the same impression, for what little it is worth. That action has to be stamped by deliberations to be voluntary strikes me as old school over-rationalism, and that decisions stand in the same separable relation to mental acts as they do to physical acts, as regress arguments assume, strikes me as loose analogizing. I doubt people's ability to track "deciding to decide" introspectively to tell. – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 17:58
  • 1
    @Futilitarian In the pragmatic philosophy, everything that has practical consequences is real. It makes a difference to you whether God exists or you got free will? They obviously bear some reality. Does that make reality *solipsistic*, everyone having their own one? No, it is and never was anything more than a *social construct*. What we have to stop thinking is that there was any ultimate measure of ultimate 'capital-concepts' like Truth and Reality. There is human life interacting with its environment. Full-stop. All we can do is trying to frame that in words that make sense to us. – Philip Klöcking Aug 12 '22 at 18:03
  • @Conifold. I have a deeper question now, which is admittedly more pertinent to a psychology stack, but as was pointed out to me, we may tend to choose our philosophy according to our preferences as opposed to letting philosophy dictate our preferences. Do you think this happens with free will, given it is such a counter-intuitive stance? – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 18:09
  • @PhilipKlöcking. "There is human life interacting with its environment. Full-stop. All we can do is trying to frame that in words that make sense to us". This seems like a reasonable motive for, and description of, philosophy. I think that's what we're trying to do here (for better or worse) : ). – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 18:12
  • 1
    @Futilitarian I think we do both. I can think of many philosophers, and not, adopting positions, to stay consistent, that are very likely at variance with their preferences, or perhaps they sacrifice some preferences to others. And I think that free will, to some, is such an *intuitively* preferred stance that arguments against it become *reductios* of their premises. – Conifold Aug 12 '22 at 18:20
1

(instead of a comment)

The question and its related questions center around an assumed split between "decision to act" and the "act" itself.

First of all, there is no a priori reason for a decision to act and the act to be fundamentally different and not aspects of the same thing nor be time separated and not happen simultaneously.

To elucidate let's perform a thought experiment:

  1. we agree that a mental thought is also an act.
  2. try to spot a difference or split between deciding to think of something and actually doing it, thinking it.

The previous gedanken experiment suits the preconditions of the question while making clear that decision to act and the act are not necessarily fundamentally different nor are necessarily time separated.

If decisions are indeed real, this would be a natural way to be since if otherwise could lead to unnecessary difficulties and infinite regresses.

The problem of infinite regress is present even if decision is taken as unconscious and not willed. Again if decision to act and the act itself are fundamentally separated, the Impossibility lurks. So regardless of free will, decision to act and the act cannot be fundamentally separated

That being said, when speaking we usually confuse the meaning of the word "deciding" with that of "deliberating". "Deciding" is at the same time the initiation of the action. What happens before is "deliberating".

Is "deciding" an "action"? According to this post however one might call "deciding" it is inseparable from an "action". Whether it is the same as the action, or whether it is simply a different aspect of the decision/action pair, or whether it simply cannot be separated in any meaningful sense from the associated action, I will leave it to the reader..

PS: The same problem of infinite regress plaques a standard interpretation of QM, ie collapse of the wavefunction. At some point t there is a state of affairs between collapsing the wavefunction at that point or not. But this state affairs itself can be formulated via another wavefunction which now has its own collapse to handle, ie either collapsing to collapse or not, via a third wavefunction and so on.. Obviously this interpretation accepts that collapse happens without regress and without higher-order wavefunctions. It happens irreducibly to further mechanisms.

Nikos M.
  • 2,113
  • 1
  • 11
  • 18
  • 1
    Yes. As has been pointed out by others across some of my questions, I need/ed to do more reading on volition to get a better understanding of different theories of decision/action/will etc. I'm not sure about your thought experiment though. "Try to spot a difference or split between deciding to think of something and actually doing it" is not very helpful giving the potential time periods involved. I still struggle to think of a decision being part of the action that is being decided upon, but maybe that's just an argument from ignorance on my part. Not sure. – Futilitarian Dec 29 '22 at 02:28
  • 1
    Here is a related link Conifold sent me.[Deliberation and Decision](https://web.archive.org/web/20220308042151/https://www.princeton.edu/~ppettit/papers/2010/Deliberation%20and%20Decision.pdf) by Petit. – Futilitarian Dec 29 '22 at 02:48
  • For infinite regress to happen, two premises must be satisfied: a) decision must be such that can be meaningfully separable from its assoiated action and b) that this separation has a time delay. if not both are satisfied then no infinite regress can happen or even if it does it is harmless. If decisions are indeed real then there is absolutely no reason for any time delay between taking a decision and starting to act, that would be the natural way, simultaneity. If this is the natural way, then we come to the conclusion that they cannot be separatable in any meaningful sense. – Nikos M. Dec 29 '22 at 08:49
  • The problem of infinite regress still lurks if decision to act and the act are fundamentally separated, **even if decision is unconscious and not willed**. Again we come to an Impossibility. So decision and act cannot be fundamentally separated, regardless of free will. (updated answer) – Nikos M. Feb 14 '23 at 20:12
  • For example the same problem of infinite regress plaques a standard interpretation of QM, ie collapse of the wavefunction. At some point t there is a state between collapsing the wavefunction at that point or not, but this state itself can be formulated via another wavefunction which now has its own collapse to handle, ie either collapsing to collapse or not, via a third wavefunction and so on.. Obviously this interpretation accepts that collapse happens without regress and without higher-order wavefunctions. It happens irreducibly to further mehanisms. – Nikos M. Feb 15 '23 at 07:01
0

Decision-making is a mental process, not a physical one.

A decision is the result of that mental process. A decision is knowledge about what the deciding agent is about to do.

A decision is not an action. Actions are physical. The mind makes decisions, the muscles perform actions.

Pertti Ruismäki
  • 1,625
  • 3
  • 11
  • 2
    So.. following from your answer, how would you define a decision? As simply as "a mental process"? Remember, a decision is demonstrably _not_ equivalent to "knowledge about what the deciding agent is about to do", because a person can change their mind after a decision and act against what they decided to do. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 14:23
  • A decision is exactly knowledge about what the agent is about to do. Decisions can be discarded and replaced by a new one before they are implemented. A decision is the *result* of the mental process. Changing one's mind is just a part of that process. – Pertti Ruismäki Aug 12 '22 at 17:08
  • Your first sentence contradicts your second. – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 17:09
  • No contradiction. A decision is not complete before it is implemented. A decision is *exactly* knowledge, not *exact* knowledge. A decision is just a plan for action. – Pertti Ruismäki Aug 12 '22 at 17:24
  • 2
    A decision is not implemented by itself. It is implemented by the _action_ that was decided upon. As you state in your final sentence, "A decision is just a plan for action". – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 17:28
  • Yes. Performing the action is implementing the decision. – Pertti Ruismäki Aug 12 '22 at 17:32
  • Let us [continue this discussion in chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/138483/discussion-between-futilitarian-and-pertti-ruismaki). – Futilitarian Aug 12 '22 at 17:35