Free will -- a beginners look [Archive I] - Page 3

kennethamy

September 28, 2006, 06:38 PM

It's no wonder that the Hard Determinists you (sorry, HoomDoo or sweetie, whoever said that) know are grumpy; you've defined them out of existence! Your definition: someone who believes in determinism but not Compatibilism; they believe there's no difference between being tied up or able to get out of bed. It's no wonder you think I'm one of you. Yikes. Do know of any such Hard Determinists or should we just completely eliminate the term?

Yes, it would be much better if you said there are only Compatibilists and nondeterminists. In that case, I'm a nothing. Or your definition of me is wrong. Hmmm. Can you not accept that a HD is someone who believes that your concept of free will is not free, but still very useful?

EXCELLENT post, though! I'd add a 'bowing to the god' icon but the movement distracts my reading.

But isn't a hard determinist someone who holds that determinism implies that there is no free will? That's what I learned, and that is what I taught. And a compatibilist (also called, a "soft determinist") holds that determinism and free will are compatible. Is that wrong? Why?

I don't understand what you mean by saying that a HD (or anyone, for that matter) thinks that my concept of free will is not free? Free what? I think that a HD thinks that a person has free will only if his actions (or choices) are undetermined. Why is that wrong? And don't you (maybe) want to say that my conception of free will is not true but is "useful". But how is it useful, unless it is true? How is it useful?

Sorry, but I find your post very confusing. Can we agree Hard Determinism is the view that free will and determinism are incompatible? And that Compatibilism is the view that free will and determinism are compatible. So that Hard Determinism would be just another name for In compatibilism?

That is the customary way of making these distinctions. If you have a better way, then let me know. But I thought the issue was whether freedom and determinism were, or were not, compatible.

Have you looked at this site?

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:pAXOpOp1xsAJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism+compatibilism+free+will&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8

kennethamy

September 28, 2006, 06:40 PM

The representation you experience is a representation of a real thing. But it is not the real thing. It is a construction of the brain which represents the light reflecting off the thing. The only thing available to the visual system.

Is the light reflecting off the thing the same as the thing? The thing is moving at the speed of light?

So no wonder Hoodoo was run over. He didn't see the damn truck! (And especially if the truck was moving at the speed of light. No wonder Hoodoo didn't have a chance!)

kennethamy

September 28, 2006, 06:44 PM

Try to read carefully.

The representation of the truck your brain creates and presents is a representation of a REAL truck.

But, untermenche, no one even suggested that the truck was a fake, or even that it was a toy truck.

But was it a real truck that ran over Hoodoo, or just the representation of a truck? On the other hand, it might have been only the representation of Hoodoo that the representation of the truck ran over. LOL! And Hoodoo doesn't have a scratch on him!

sweetiepie

September 28, 2006, 07:10 PM

What is a desire? Who possesses it? And where does the external world stop and YOU begin?
*shrug. I'm not a neuroscientist.

I can guess. A desire is a chemical process linked to information in the brain. I possess it. I am located somewhere inside my head, again, coded in cells.

One might similarly ask where the software of a computer ends. Unfortunately I'm not a computer engineer either. :-/

untermensche

September 28, 2006, 08:06 PM

But, untermenche, no one even suggested that the truck was a fake, or even that it was a toy truck.

But was it a real truck that ran over Hoodoo, or just the representation of a truck? On the other hand, it might have been only the representation of Hoodoo that the representation of the truck ran over. LOL! And Hoodoo doesn't have a scratch on him!
The real truck has existence. It has properites. It has surfaces that reflect light. The light, not the truck, enters the eye. The light is turned into a cellular signal and the signal from cells enters the brain, not the truck or the light. That signal is converted by the brain into a representation of the truck and presented to consciousness, not the truck, not the light, not the cellular signal is presented to consciousness.

Hoodoo Ulove

September 28, 2006, 08:28 PM

The real truck has existence. It has properites. It has surfaces that reflect light. The light, not the truck, enters the eye. The light is turned into a cellular signal and the signal from cells enters the brain, not the truck or the light. That signal is converted by the brain into a representation of the truck and presented to consciousness, not the truck, not the light, not the cellular signal is presented to consciousness.Well, I'm relieved the truck didn't enter my brain, even if I didn't see it.

untermensche

September 28, 2006, 08:30 PM

Well, I'm relieved the truck didn't enter my brain, even if I didn't see it.
Seeing an accurate representation is as much as a brain can do.

Hoodoo Ulove

September 28, 2006, 08:34 PM

Seeing an accurate representation is as much as a brain can do.Actually, I have seen accurate representations, such as photographs, or very good paintings. I've also seen trucks. As to whether my brain has seen anything, I don't know how to answer that.

untermensche

September 28, 2006, 08:37 PM

Actually, I have seen accurate representations, such as photographs, or very good paintings. I've also seen trucks. As to whether my brain has seen anything, I don't know how to answer that.
You have seen a truck. OK.

Tell me the physiological and anatomical pathway in which you saw this truck.

What specifically happened in your universe when you saw this truck?

Canard DuJour

September 29, 2006, 04:18 AM

You have seen a truck. OK.

Tell me the physiological and anatomical pathway in which you saw this truck.

What specifically happened in your universe when you saw this truck?

I think people already assume that seeing is a neural process with some interpolation by the brain. Perhaps rather more interpolation than ppl realise, if that's what you're getting at.

Otherwise, that's what people mean by "seeing".

Similarly, it's no devastating scientific revelation to most folks that decisions are physical processes which are subject to causality.

TomJrzk

September 29, 2006, 07:49 AM

But isn't a hard determinist someone who holds that determinism implies that there is no free will?
Yes. But I've heard a caricature of a HD, that's what I have a problem with.

Caricatured Democrat: Take money from others to buy votes.
Democrat: Everyone should get a fair opportunity.
Caricatured Republican: Give money to rich people.
Republican: Having someone spend others' money always leads to waste.

I know you know what a caricature is, but I like analogies. Here, we could support both Ds and Rs but we'd need a Meritocracy, which would get rid of both. Can we do something similar with Determinism?

Caricatured HD: Doesn't believe coersion or being tied up has significance?
HD: Believes in the commonsense notion of freedom; but knows of no physical source for 'true' freedom. Agrees that being tied up or coerced is a bad thing. Laughs at jokes, is not all THAT grumpy.

I separate brain activity into conscious and subconscious. We don't usually know what's going on subconsciously, but we know we like fruits better than vegetables (because vegetables are vital organs and evolution resulted in fruits being 'better tasting'). Are our preferences for fruits over vegetables deterministic? Absolutely; even with millennia of breeding the bitterness out of 'grass'. Do we have free will to like vegetables more than fruits? No.

Can we choose to eat an apple rather than an orange? Consciously, yes; that's the everyday struggle we spend most of our time on. But subconsciously, no; which fruit I end up choosing is based on deterministic neural patterns. So, I revel in the conscious freedom that you would deny me. I felt this before I even heard of HD, and it didn't go away when I realized that it's all an illusion; it's all very useful whenever I open the fridge. Again, we can not sense the inner workings of decisions, they just seem to come from ?????.

Again, and this was not meant as a rhetorical question, do you know of any people displaying your notion of HD? Or have they all stopped breathing?

I think the only fight a Compatibilist can pick with this HD is to say, "decisions are made by X, which is free from everything, because...".

The problem some Compatibilists have with this is that I bring the child molester from the next town and park them next door; caricaturizing HD puts those pesky doubts everyone has (and Fast is perplexed by) somewhere on the dark side of the moon, where the brain does not have to deal with them.

Don and I (and who knows who else) have been trying to draw the line between HD and SD at what we believe is the deterministic 'final answer' made by neurons in the brain; because that's where we see the distinction arise. But Compatibilists don't seem to want to address that; they want to stop at commonsense freedom and call HD Dopey (or Grumpy) ;).

I'll investigate your link over the weekend; I wanted a 'before' picture.

Excellent discussion! Thanks for your patience.

kennethamy

September 29, 2006, 08:28 AM

The real truck has existence. It has properites. It has surfaces that reflect light. The light, not the truck, enters the eye. The light is turned into a cellular signal and the signal from cells enters the brain, not the truck or the light. That signal is converted by the brain into a representation of the truck and presented to consciousness, not the truck, not the light, not the cellular signal is presented to consciousness.

So there is poor Hoodoo, lying in his hospital bed, repeating in his delirium of pain-killling drugs, "I never even saw the truck!" According to you he must be right even if the truck was two inches from him.

TomJrzk

September 29, 2006, 08:39 AM

Have you looked at this site?

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:pAXOpOp1xsAJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compatibilism+compatibilism+free+will&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8
Yeow! They've redefined free will:

According to Hume, free will should not be understood as an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires.

Couldn't he just make up a new term? Say "mostly free will" or "free will that is actually not free"???

You've redefined free will to the point where it's useless. That is probably the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard; of course, it has practical PC applications since the unwashed (like me) can think there is free will when there's not.

You could at least have started your conversation with this definition when you saw me out in the weeds. Wasn't that clear in my orange/grape soda post? Not very cool. You've wasted a lot of people's time, though I did get to scratch my head an awful lot.

So, I'm left nowhere. You've undefined HD and now I can only say I'm SD but believe their definition of free will is not at all accurate? Hmmm, this might take me more than a weekend.

Hoodoo Ulove

September 29, 2006, 08:47 AM

You have seen a truck. OK.Agreed.Tell me the physiological and anatomical pathway in which you saw this truck.Actually, it was on an interstate roadway. As to the physiology of vision, I have no particular reason to believe I know more about this than you, but even if I do, you would be better served learning from other sources than me.What specifically happened in your universe when you saw this truck?I don't have a universe of my own, I share it with others. One specific thing of interest that happened when I saw a truck was that a truck drove by. I am confident many other things happened as well.

kennethamy

September 29, 2006, 08:54 AM

Yeow! They've redefined free will:

Couldn't he just make up a new term? Say "mostly free will" or "free will that is actually not free"???

You've redefined free will to the point where it's useless. That is probably the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard; of course, it has practical PC applications since the unwashed (like me) can think there is free will when there's not.

You could at least have started your conversation with this definition when you saw me out in the weeds. Wasn't that clear in my orange/grape soda post? Not very cool. You've wasted a lot of people's time, though I did get to scratch my head an awful lot.

So, I'm left nowhere. You've undefined HD and now I can only say I'm SD but believe their definition of free will is not at all accurate? Hmmm, this might take me more than a weekend.

Wouldn't it be more accurate for you to say that Hume redefined your particular view of what "free will" ought to mean? (I don't mean to imply that others do not share your view). And, since Hume's is the view that ordinary people who say that, e.g. "Joe married Mary of his own free will" have in mind, isn't it rather up to you to make up a new term like "unmotivated" or "uncaused" action?

It is unlikely that Hume's view is useless, since:

a. It is the view that is the common one, and,
b. You, yourself, say that it has practical applications.

The part I don't understand is why you think its use would lead people to think they have free will when they do not. That would be as if to say that if "tall person" were defined to mean, "person 6 feet to 7 feet tall" that would lead people to think that people are tall when they are not (since a tall person has to be over 7 feet tall).

sweetiepie

September 29, 2006, 09:14 AM

I separate brain activity into conscious and subconscious. We don't usually know what's going on subconsciously, but we know we like fruits better than vegetables (because vegetables are vital organs and evolution resulted in fruits being 'better tasting'). Are our preferences for fruits over vegetables deterministic? Absolutely; even with millennia of breeding the bitterness out of 'grass'. Do we have free will to like vegetables more than fruits? No.
Sorry. This doesn't fly. We don't choose everything. We do choose some things. We don't choose other things. We do, to some degree, choose what we like. We do have the ability to get used to fruit. We also have teh ability to willingly get sick of it.

Can we choose to eat an apple rather than an orange? Consciously, yes; that's the everyday struggle we spend most of our time on. But subconsciously, no; which fruit I end up choosing is based on deterministic neural patterns.
This doesn't make sense at all. Neural patterns aren't specifically subconscious. Our conscious thoguhts are also determined by neural patterns. We're not less conscious because they are formed by neurons.

Again, we can not sense the inner workings of decisions, they just seem to come from ?????. You mean desires. Big difference. We can sense where our desires come from too. As you mentioned the genetics/fruit desire.

Again, and this was not meant as a rhetorical question, do you know of any people displaying your notion of HD? Or have they all stopped breathing? That particular notion of HD is used rhetorically. It goes like this. Determinism implies we don't have choices. We have choices. Thus determinism is false.

I think the only fight a Compatibilist can pick with this HD is to say, "decisions are made by X, which is free from everything, because...". How about-- decisions are made by X, where X is me. Decisions are free of everything, but me.

Don and I (and who knows who else) have been trying to draw the line between HD and SD at what we believe is the deterministic 'final answer' made by neurons in the brain; because that's where we see the distinction arise. But Compatibilists don't seem to want to address that; they want to stop at commonsense freedom and call HD Dopey (or Grumpy) ;).
The philosophical -2 possible things happen- is just as goofy. Doesn't it strike you as odd that this definition has nothign to do with freedom or will-- that it's about chaos or imperceivable events. Don't pretend that that defintion is all meaningful anyway. All definitions of "free will" are stupid. People should just stop at determinism, or non-determinism. Instead they talk about free will because they want to justify God. They refer to the philosophical defintion but they sneak in the coercion definition. And then those crazy enough to actually buy HD get all depressed like Don-- who, in a need to explain this flip of rhetoric, ends up believing that people aren't real.

TomJrzk

September 29, 2006, 09:15 AM

The part I don't understand is why you think its use would lead people to think they have free will when they do not.
My mistake. I should have been more explicit and said: unwashed people would think SD included free will, when it doesn't. Only washing with the special ointment called "Hume" allows one to read way below the lines.

It is nice to know, though, that all of you are not thinking there are FreeWillions flying around. But couldn't you have started your post with this redefinition? Can you in the future? MOST people might think 'free' means 'free'; I don't pick up a free pen and pay $3. And I don't think you should say will is free but it's dependent on personality. I could redefine 'apple' to mean 'orange' and would be almost as eggregious.

Hoodoo Ulove

September 29, 2006, 09:34 AM

It is nice to know, though, that all of you are not thinking there are FreeWillions flying around. But couldn't you have started your post with this redefinition?Let us return to an actual philosophical question, rather than the trivial matter of definition.

Stipulating the truth of determinism, can we be held morally responsible for our actions?

TomJrzk

September 29, 2006, 09:42 AM

Let us return to an actual philosophical question, rather than the trivial matter of definition.

Stipulating the truth of determinism, can we be held morally responsible for our actions?
Yes. I prefer to call them 'social responsibilities' but society has the right to place in the icky bucket those who are anti-social.

But, we're rather getting off the subject unless this helps Fast decide. Maybe he has enough info already?

Hoodoo Ulove

September 29, 2006, 10:08 AM

They [neuron firings] are ultimately coercive.But, we're rather getting off the subject unless this helps Fast decide. Maybe he has enough info already?How can we be held responsible for our actions if we are coerced?

TomJrzk

September 29, 2006, 10:19 AM

How can we be held responsible for our actions if we are coerced?
The neural firings are an integral part of the person. If the neuron firings are anti-social, they need to be in the icky bucket too, along with the person.

This does, though, inform my thoughts on punishment. People should be separated from their temptations, not so much punished. But, society can only separate so much and it is costly, so punishment is a way, though undesireable, to affect other anti-social neurons from shooting yours truly.

Hoodoo Ulove

September 29, 2006, 10:27 AM

The neural firings are an integral part of the person. If the neuron firings are anti-social, they need to be in the icky bucket too, along with the person.

This does, though, inform my thoughts on punishment. People should be separated from their temptations, not so much punished. But, society can only separate so much and it is costly, so punishment is a way, though undesireable, to affect other anti-social neurons from shooting yours truly.Shit. We've run out of disagreements. Have a nice day.

TomJrzk

September 29, 2006, 10:37 AM

Shit. We've run out of disagreements. Have a nice day.
Thanks. I do feel a bit better now about being ambushed; I figured that was a lot of the motivation behind your posts. We can, however, discuss why you're not "Hoomdoo Ulove" ;).

Hoodoo Ulove

September 29, 2006, 11:04 AM

Thanks. I do feel a bit better now about being ambushed; I figured that was a lot of the motivation behind your posts.Please ambush me when I give you the opening.

TomJrzk

September 29, 2006, 11:34 AM

Please ambush me when I give you the opening.
Hmmm. I hope you didn't think that I meant that you ambushed me with your questions. I was referring to being ambushed by the redefinition of 'free'...

And, if we ran out of disagreements, you must be BRILLIANT! I'm not that good at ambushing, though; I think the building anticipation is the most stimulating part of interpersonal relationships.

untermensche

September 29, 2006, 03:34 PM

Agreed.Actually, it was on an interstate roadway. As to the physiology of vision, I have no particular reason to believe I know more about this than you, but even if I do, you would be better served learning from other sources than me.I don't have a universe of my own, I share it with others. One specific thing of interest that happened when I saw a truck was that a truck drove by. I am confident many other things happened as well.
So you know nothing about the physiology of vision.

Then why do you make arguments from ignorance?

You waste people's time.

fast

September 29, 2006, 03:35 PM

But, we're rather getting off the subject unless this helps Fast decide. Maybe he has enough info already?
I suppose I'll be just as angry for being the victim of the crime committed by an android, but anger aside, my outlook will at least be of a slightly different sort.

Hoodoo Ulove

September 29, 2006, 04:56 PM

So you know nothing about the physiology of vision.I said I might know less than you. If to know less than you is to know nothing, then you know next to nothing, and you call others ignorant.

untermensche

September 30, 2006, 03:22 AM

I said I might know less than you. If to know less than you is to know nothing, then you know next to nothing, and you call others ignorant.
Do you think you can simply ignore the science of vision and pretend vision is something else?

Do you think you can ignore the discoveries of science, which is nothing but applied philosophy, and be doing anything but childish uselessness?

kennethamy

September 30, 2006, 04:09 AM

Let us return to an actual philosophical question, rather than the trivial matter of definition.

Stipulating the truth of determinism, can we be held morally responsible for our actions?

A utilitarian view of holding people responsible for actions which are determined (which has already been expressed on this thread-I think) is that by so doing, we can enter into the chain of causes, and thereby affect future actions by those we hold responsible, and others as well. Thus the notion of holding people responsible for what they did, although what they did was determined, is "forward looking" to what consequences the action of holding others responsible will have in terms of "the greatest happiness principle" of utilitarianism, rather than "backward looking" to determine desert. Thus, on this view, the justification of punishment is deterrence, rather than justice.

Notice, I write in terms of holding a person responsible for what he does, not in terms of his being responsible for what he does. Even if determinism implies that no one is responsible for his actions, it need not imply that holding people responsible for their actions is not justified. (Whatever "justified" might mean here).

Of course, it has to be admitted that the action of holding people responsible, punishing or rewarding them for their behavior, is, itself, determined. Which leads to the old joke about the philosophical son who points out to his philosophical father that since his depredation was determined, it is not just to punish him; but his father points out that the punishment he will mete out to his son is equally determined.

kennethamy

September 30, 2006, 04:12 AM

Do you think you can simply ignore the science of vision and pretend vision is something else?

Do you think you can ignore the discoveries of science, which is nothing but applied philosophy, and be doing anything but childish uselessness?

You confuse "ignoring the science of vision" with "the irrelevance of the science of vision" in this issue. The question is whether the science of vision implies what you apparently think it implies, namely that we never see objects, but only "mental representations" of them. (By the way, does the science of hearing imply that we never hear (for instance dogs barking) but only the "mental representations" of barking dogs? Or the science of touch, that we never feel objects, but only "have the mental representations of feeling objects") How plausible is that last one? Concentrating only on seeing, rather than hearing, or touching, or smelling, or tasting, presents a fairly narrow picture of what goes on. As Wittgenstein writes, a one-sided diet is often the main cause of a philosophical disease just as it may be the main cause of a physical disease. Does the science of touch also imply that we never touch objects, but only the mental representations of objects?

untermensche

September 30, 2006, 04:45 AM

You confuse "ignoring the science of vision" with "the irrelevance of the science of vision" in this issue. The question is whether the science of vision implies what you apparently think it implies, namely that we never see objects, but only "mental representations" of them. (By the way, does the science of hearing imply that we never hear (for instance dogs barking) but only the "mental representations" of barking dogs? Or the science of touch, that we never feel objects, but only "have the mental representations of feeling objects") How plausible is that last one? Concentrating only on seeing, rather than hearing, or touching, or smelling, or tasting, presents a fairly narrow picture of what goes on. As Wittgenstein writes, a one-sided diet is often the main cause of a philosophical disease just as it may be the main cause of a physical disease. Does the science of touch also imply that we never touch objects, but only the mental representations of objects?
We do only "hear", really experience, a mental representation of sound. Sound is just like vision. A physical phenomena excites sensory cells which creates a cellular signal which is converted by the brain into a representation of the stimuli and presented to consciousness.

As fas as touch goes, an object has physical esistence. It occupes space. So if you push against it, this resistence to moving it and entering it's space, will be experienced as increasing muscle tension, an internal sensation with receptor cells in the tendons. But the sensation of light touch is exactly like vision and hearing. Specific sensory nerves are exicted in responce to a physical stimuli, a signal sent to the brain, and this signal converted to something that is presented to consciousness and therefore experienced.

In fact "YOU" do not touch anything. "YOU" feel the resistence to push in muscles, or if hit by the truck, the bodily trauma of having a real object "hit" another real object made of flesh and bone.

And being "hit" is a concept best explained by physicists, not philosophers. And they will tell you, the truck "hits" the body, but it does not touch the body. there is always space between electrons, they cannot touch.

TomJrzk

November 4, 2006, 11:26 AM

I suppose I'll be just as angry for being the victim of the crime committed by an android, but anger aside, my outlook will at least be of a slightly different sort.
This description of Compatibilism sounds different to me from a mere semantic change in the definition of the term 'free' will. It implies some unknown mechanism that the will has a handle on:
http://www.galilean-library.org/int13.html[/url], from the stickies at the top of this philosophy forum]

Arguments for compatibilism

Taking now the other possibility, what of arguments for compatibilism? In our discussion immediately above, we've already seen some of the ways in which compatibilism appeals by answering the incompatibilist's ideas, as we'd expect: if it isn't obvious that the two concepts are incompatible, then we would invite some kind of justification to that effect. That said, the problem does seem to have something to it, even if we aren't yet convinced by the arguments.

One suggestion was advanced by Hume when he said that some kind of determinism is required if we want to have free will. After all, if we want to be free to decide for ourselves and hence make plans and choices, we expect the same action or cause to lead to the same result or effect each time—otherwise what use is free will if we never know what will come of our decisions?

Another way to think of compatibilism is to question the assumption of the past being "fixed" in some way, since some results in the sciences seem to cast it into doubt. Some physicists, as well as some so-called eastern philosophies, have suggested instead that determinism may be a relationship wherein every aspect of the universe has an influence on (or determines) every other part, with the links being more like a web than a chain.
I wonder why Hugo left out Hume's definition of free will that I find so dishonest and troubling.

Regardless, I can't call myself a Compatibilist under either regime. I can't call myself a Hard Determinist since I can appreciate noble gestures and take pride in being honorable.

So, the best term I could come up for myself is 'Compartmentalist'.

I see will that is not really free the same way as I see bumping two objects together which never touch. Physicists can say that matter is mostly the space between the particles and two objects exchange more and more photons as they get closer together but never come 'in contact', but that doesn't mean that I'm going to lower my head and run into a brick wall. I know my head won't touch the wall but I also know that it will somehow end up hurting anyway. (This is an analogy, please don't 'hit me over the head' with momentum changes or something.)

I know that I have no real choice to do any but the honorable thing but I also know that I will feel the struggle that cheating would circumvent. When I see someone doing something noble, I think they probably did that in the face of pain to themselves and for that I can feel appreciative.

My philosophy is not a balanced position though. As much as I give noble people the credit for doing great things, I don't also give criminals the same amount of blame. I can say nothing but that I'm inherently a 'glass three-quarters full' guy.

Hmmm. Maybe beauty is a better analogy. When I see a beautiful woman, I do not say, "she did nothing to deserve that except for being given the right genes, so who cares"; I would still like to spend quality time with her. I somehow attach the beauty to the person, even though she has no control over it (I'm talking about the genetic beauty and ignoring the fudge factors of exercise and makeup). But, again in an unbalanced manner, I just feel slightly sorry for the woman that's not so well endowed. (I say 'slightly' because I think there is a large amount of pain a completely beautiful woman must endure that those with progressively lesser amounts do not.)

So, I'm going to call myself a Compartmentalist. I accept the ultimate consequences of determinism (including rejection of Hume's definition of free will) but cherish the practical aspects of a will that is not really free, but is a will.

Have I just described a widely known term that I've not yet heard about? Are there any other compartmentalists (or whatever) out there?

fast, does this help or hinder?

fast

November 4, 2006, 02:44 PM

fast, does this help or hinder?
I wouldn't say that it hinders. I find that the labels throw me a bit, for I'm unaccustomed to them.

I guess the issue that has sparked my interest is the idea that I may not actually have control (real control) over my actions and thoughts. I don't like the idea that my future decisions are destined or set in stone. When someone does something bad to me, I want to be angry, and I want that anger to be real. When someone shows affection, and if it isn't non genuine, then I want to embrace it and appreciate it, and I want that appreciation to be genuine and of my own choosing--not some computer-like effect to an if-then statement.

If it's the case that all actions are calculable far in advance (fully predictable as another said), then not only are the actions I partake not as real, but the emotional reactions are nothing more than a computerized facade.

kennethamy

November 4, 2006, 02:55 PM

I wouldn't say that it hinders. I find that the labels throw me a bit, for I'm unaccustomed to them.

I guess the issue that has sparked my interest is the idea that I may not actually have control (real control) over my actions and thoughts. I don't like the idea that my future decisions are destined or set in stone. When someone does something bad to me, I want to be angry, and I want that anger to be real. When someone shows affection, and if it isn't non genuine, then I want to embrace it and appreciate it, and I want that appreciation to be genuine and of my own choosing--not some computer-like effect to an if-then statement.

If it's the case that all actions are calculable far in advance (fully predictable as another said), then not only are the actions I partake not as real, but the emotional reactions are nothing more than a computerized facade.

How does "real control" differ from just plain old control? If I decide to have oatmeal instead of Froot Loops tomorrow, and actually have oatmeal, why isn't that control? (I'll leave it to you to explain why it isn't real control, and what would have to happen for me to have real control). I predict that you will reply to this post. If you do, does that mean that my prediction has cost you control as to whether you will answer this post? Suppose I had not predicted you would answer this post. Would that, if you do answer, have returned control to you?

P.S. Be careful about answering this post, since if you do, since I predicted that you would, you will have lost real control over whether you answer this post. And how will you feel then? Like a puppet on a string. Right? On the other hand, if you do not answer this post, then, it will probably be because I predicted you would not, and you are showing that I was wrong. But, in that case, do you have real control over your action? (For, here is a secret. I told you that I predict that you will answer this post, but I may have lied. I may really be thinking, "if I tell Fast I predict he will answer this post, then he won't, just to show he has real control". So, in fact, you may never know whether you were in real control over whether you answered this post or not. I am afraid you are going to have to be satisfied with knowing whether you were in control!)

fast

November 4, 2006, 04:55 PM

How does "real control" differ from just plain old control?

You said yourself that "real" was a denial term. So, your question then should be what is it that I am denying.

Recall, we have real things as opposed to imaginary things, and we have real things as opposed to fake or counterfeit things.

I am not using real in the sense as opposed to imaginary things, so it's not like I’m saying that our control is non-imaginary. I'm saying that if the cause and effect theory suggests what it appears that it might be suggesting (that we don't have control), then it may be true that the control we think we have might not actually be the control we think we have. So, I am saying real control to insinuate that maybe the control we think we have may not be genuine control.

But, what reason would I possibly think that we might not have the control we think we have when it seems clear to the casual observer that I get to choose which cereal I will eat?

The best example I can come up to suggest that things may not be as they appear entails taking a closer look at the control Data the android from Star Trek exhibits--and we'll just pretend that he's real.

If he (and notice I didn't say it) ... if he is nothing more than the sum of his parts, and if his neuroprocessor plays apart in the decisions he makes, then isn't it obvious that the control he appears to have isn't attributable to him but rather the makeup of his circuitry? One thing leads to another which ultimately leads to the so-called control over his so-called choices.

If we analyzed his circuitry today, then put him in a controlled environment, then we ought to be able to predict what so-called CHOICES he will make, and as he APPEARS to have control over his actions, it will be clear to those conducting the study that there's really no HIM making choices.

If I decide to have oatmeal instead of Froot Loops tomorrow, and actually have oatmeal, why isn't that control? If you what? If you DECIDE? What makes you think you get to do that? That decision future act has already been made set in motion IF the cause and effect theory is true; hence, it would be not only be obviously clear but would have already been obviously clear as to what your so-called decision is going to be....remember the Commander Data example.

I predict that you will reply to this post.If causes bring effects, and if those effects are the causes for additional effects, then doesn't following that line of thought yield a cascading array of infinitesimal waves of momentous numbers of cause and effect occurrences--even on the micro level? Isn't it true according that logic that it was true that I was going to respond to this post a week ago? A year ago? A millennia ago?

kennethamy

November 4, 2006, 05:18 PM

Isn't it true according that logic that it was true that I was going to respond to this post a week ago? A year ago? A millennia ago?

Well everything that is true now is true a week ago. For instance, it is true that it is about 40 degrees F. on Nov4. 2006 at abut 6pm in NYC. That was true a week ago. It will be true a million years from now. So there is nothing special about your action. What is true is always true. In fact, necessarily, if P is true, it is true.

Of course, as you already know, although necessarily, it is true that if you were goiing to respond, then you were going respond. But as you know it is not true that if necessarily you were going to respond, you were necessarily going to respond. And my predicting you were going to respond did not force you to respond, or make it necessary that you respond. Remember, we went through all of this with Garrett.

It is true that necessarily if you are going to respond, then you are going to respond.
But it is not true that if you are going to respond then you are necessarily going to respond.

You can't move "necessarily" from the front to the middle that way.

Remember:

http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/swartz/modal_fallacy.htm

Especially: Logical Determinism.
http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/swartz/modal_fallacy.htm#ldeterminism

Which Garrett posted, and then surrendered. Read it. It's not hard stuff.

fast

November 4, 2006, 05:39 PM

It is true that necessarily if you are going to respond, then you are going to respond.If I must, then I will.

But it is not true that if you are going to respond then you are necessarily going to respond.Just because I may, it doesn't mean I must.

I believe that I have captured your point.

Read it.Every word! As always, I appreciate the reading materials you suggest.

It seems to me, and as usual, I can be wrong, but it still seems to me that an effect is a necessary consequence of a cause. It sure seems like I have a choice to hit the "submit reply" button, but so too did Data think that as well in his experiment.

StaticAge

November 4, 2006, 07:10 PM

Just tossing this in here:

If there is no such thing as free will, then there is no such thing as meaning.

If determinism, in the vein of free will being an illusion, is true, then predestination is the same thing as determinism. I call it the snowflake theory of mind- it may be that no two are alike, just like it may be true that no two people are alike, but snowflakes are still wholly determined by logical sequences of events. The weather conditions that form the snowflake were physically determined, and those physical determinations were determined etc, therefore, the only possible outcome for that particular snowflake was to form in a specific pattern at a specific time. There could be no other pattern for it to form because there were no other causes present.

If free will is illusory, the nature vs nurture argument doesnt help argue for or against free will, both are determinations caused at bottom by physical causes that predetermine the results the same way a program runs the way its programmed to.

But at the top, in things like justice and punishment etc, all arguments are meaningless. If people cant help why they do what they do, then their actions, as well as their punishment, as well as the way people speak in behalf of justice and reason are meaningless- they are just a product of a long history of physical causes, no superior or inferior than if a butterfly flaps it wings. If there is no free will, then your reaction to the very thing I type is a product of causes and effects that dont matter what you wish or think about them, because that very wish was determined to happen and was inescapable. If you post or not doesnt matter, either way, you had no control over it. Whether that makes you happy or irritated doesnt matter- it is a necessary emergence of your nature and time and place. However eloquently you widh to argue against it is meaningless- either I am bound to accept it given my time place and nature, or I am not. Either way, the reaction is a mechanical physically determined event. "Reason" therefore doesnt matter, it is only the way you were destined to think "reasonable" was, if there ever was such a thing.

kennethamy

November 4, 2006, 08:11 PM

If I must, then I will.

Just because I may, it doesn't mean I must.

I believe that I have captured your point.

Every word! As always, I appreciate the reading materials you suggest.

It seems to me, and as usual, I can be wrong, but it still seems to me that an effect is a necessary consequence of a cause. It sure seems like I have a choice to hit the "submit reply" button, but so too did Data think that as well in his experiment.

The argument from causation is different from the argument you first gave which is the argument from logical determinism. It has to be treated differently.

kennethamy

November 4, 2006, 08:15 PM

fast

November 4, 2006, 08:59 PM

If free will is illusory, the nature vs nurture argument doesnt help argue for or against free will, both are determinations caused at bottom by physical causes that predetermine the results the same way a program runs the way its programmed to.You understand. Good.

Now to make things a bit more complicated. Given that the program will play out, how can I possibly make an argument for free will? How can it possibly be compatible and not an illusion?

To go out on a limb, I think the key is in entertaining an understanding that full prediction isn't logically possible, even if all data was accessible and calculable, thus, we still wouldn't have enough of information. I think there's a break down in the cause and effect when it comes to thought. We are not necessarily destined to make the choices we will, for contemplation interjects between cause and effect in the mind. But, neuroscience might disagree.

Perhaps that's the basis of the illusion, but then again, if I'm right, then there's no illusion at all. Talk about wanting my cake and eating it too.

At any rate, I don't want to commit. I'm comfortable in maintaining that I have free will, and if it so happens that we don't, then perhaps that's a free will of a different kind not to be confused with the free will to which we are accustomed to maintaining.

kennethamy

November 4, 2006, 09:48 PM

You understand. Good.

Now to make things a bit more complicated. Given that the program will play out, how can I possibly make an argument for free will? How can it possibly be compatible and not an illusion?

Aren't your decisions and choices a part of that programme, so that how that programme runs out depends, at least, in part, on what you do? Or are you saying that fatalism is true, and what you do has no effect on what will happen?

StaticAge

November 4, 2006, 10:13 PM

You certainly use the term "meaningless" loosely.
Punishment (or reward) may change a person's behavior, and may change the behavior of a lot of people. That is called "deterrence" in the case of punishment, and "encouragement" in the case of reward. Psychologists have shown that both punishment and reward are effective in changing behavior. Whatever you mean by "meaningless" is changing human behavior meaningless?
Whether "punishment" or "reward" changes a person's behavior is entirely up to physical causal determinations. To say that such a response has "meaning" would be as if to say that a ball "means to" fall towards the center of the earth when dropped. There is no "means to." There is only "must."

Secondly, the "decision" of the punishment and rewards themselves are also entirely determined by causes that could result in no other situation but to advance that the punishments and rewards were "appropriate." Even that was predetermined. So not only is the reaction to the establishment of a carrots/sticks system of behavior control deterministic, the creation of that system is itself determined. In fact even the decision to create a system is determined, and so on and so on…

StaticAge

November 4, 2006, 10:27 PM

You understand. Good.

Now to make things a bit more complicated. Given that the program will play out, how can I possibly make an argument for free will? How can it possibly be compatible and not an illusion?

To go out on a limb, I think the key is in entertaining an understanding that full prediction isn't logically possible, even if all data was accessible and calculable, thus, we still wouldn't have enough of information. I think there's a break down in the cause and effect when it comes to thought. We are not necessarily destined to make the choices we will, for contemplation interjects between cause and effect in the mind. But, neuroscience might disagree.

Perhaps that's the basis of the illusion, but then again, if I'm right, then there's no illusion at all. Talk about wanting my cake and eating it too.

At any rate, I don't want to commit. I'm comfortable in maintaining that I have free will, and if it so happens that we don't, then perhaps that's a free will of a different kind not to be confused with the free will to which we are accustomed to maintaining.
I think the "problem" of free will (or whatever it is that we feel makes us autonomous) is a false one that arises from supposing that science is the only way to know anything and that any belief must match current scientific/philosophic theories to be worthy believing in.

I mean, supposing that we are limited in our scope of sense and reason and logic, its entirely possible that some things may escape our grasp. String theory asserts there may be 11 or so dimensions- how many do you exeperience? What is the deal with quantum mechanics anyway, and why doesnt it make common sense? If bees and honeybees can see ultraviolet light in the same manner our eyes capture RGB wavelengths, can you imagine what the extra colors they sense look like? What conclusions could we reach if we had developed organs that sensed gravitons? I am not arguing for relativism, I am simply saying that there could be a lot outside our current comprehension, possibly totally unavailable to us.

We intuitively experience decision making and free thought. Call it free will or autonomy, whatever you like, you experience it. To me, it seems a poor choice to settle then for an explanation that denies its existence.

StaticAge

November 4, 2006, 10:32 PM

Aren't your decisions and choices a part of that programme, so that how that programme runs out depends, at least, in part, on what you do? Or are you saying that fatalism is true, and what you do has no effect on what will happen?
Sure, your actions would cause other reactions the same as a gear in a machine that is caused to turn would cause other gears to turn in response. But there is no other result that could happen- if the gear is turned, it cant "decide" not to work the way it works. If you are part of a program, your "decisions and choices" are similar reactions- you must perform the reaction your nature and time and place determine.

Infideliation

November 4, 2006, 10:33 PM

Aren't your decisions and choices a part of that programme, so that how that programme runs out depends, at least, in part, on what you do? Or are you saying that fatalism is true, and what you do has no effect on what will happen?

This definition of fatalism that you have seems absurd. I'm sure you're aware of this.
How is it possible for you to have no effect on what will happen when you are necessarily part of what ultimately happens in a cause and effect environment? It's as if you have to argue that you don't exist in order for your definition of fatalism to be correct. It seems true by definition that what you do (implies that you are doing something) follows that something is being done by you. Just by the definition of existing. What you do has an effect on what happens, as being an existant being in motion something is happening as a result of you being here, namely, you are moving and interacting with other things and these things are happening - causes and effects are occurring and intermingling.

I'm trying to peice together how someone could argue for fatalism as you define it. The only guess I can muster is that someone believes that the universe will die of entropy and nothing we do can change that no matter how good our technology gets and that when it's gone existence somehow ceases to exist and then we technichally never existed. Is this what fatalists argue?

kennethamy

November 4, 2006, 10:50 PM

Whether "punishment" or "reward" changes a person's behavior is entirely up to physical causal determinations. To say that such a response has "meaning" would be as if to say that a ball "means to" fall towards the center of the earth when dropped. There is no "means to." There is only "must."

Secondly, the "decision" of the punishment and rewards themselves are also entirely determined by causes that could result in no other situation but to advance that the punishments and rewards were "appropriate." Even that was predetermined. So not only is the reaction to the establishment of a carrots/sticks system of behavior control deterministic, the creation of that system is itself determined. In fact even the decision to create a system is determined, and so on and so on…

If my decision or choice makes a difference to what happens, and if it is my choice or decision, then that is what I, and most people mean by acting of one's own free will. What do you mean by it, if that isn't what you mean? If Sam falls in love with Mary, and decides to marry her because she is intelligent and pretty, if someone were to tell me that Sam did not marry Mary "of his own free will" I would not understand why he would say that. And. if I asked him, "Why do you say that" and his answer was, "because Sam's decision was caused" my reply would be, "So what? Why should that matter as long as he was not forced in some way to marry Mary. He did not do it under threat, nor is it the result of post-hypnotic suggestion (The Manchurian Candidate, nor is he drugged. He is doing what he wants to do. And that is what is called, 'acting of your own free will'. What could you mean by 'acting of one's own free will' if not that?"

It is not hard to invent a different meaning of the expression, "acting of one's own free will" and then maintain that in that new and invented meaning, the person is not acting of his own free will. But what would that show? Nothing much that I can see. It would be as if you were to say that no person can be said to be a tall person unless that person is over 9 feet in height, and then maintain that there are no tall people. That seems to me exactly what you are doing: changing the meaning of "acting freely" so that no one can act freely in that new meaning, but still, just as there are tall people despite your decision to call only people over 9 feet tall, tall, so also, there are people who act of their own free will, despite your decision to construct a meaning of that phrase according to which no one acts of his own free will.

StaticAge

November 5, 2006, 05:27 AM

kennethamy

November 5, 2006, 07:27 AM

Remember, I was the one who said meaning doesnt exist if there is no free will. You seemed to be arguing with me on that point, as if free will is an illusion. No one shifted the meaning of free will, rather, you seem to be shifting the meaning of "illusory."

I didn't talk about the term "illusory". Is it illusory that a person who is 8 feet tall is a tall person just because you have decided that only those over 9 feet in height are to be called "tall"? Why is it illusory that a person who does what he wants to do, is acting freely? That is exactly what is meant by acting freely.

fast

November 5, 2006, 06:52 PM

fast

November 5, 2006, 07:04 PM

Aren't your decisions and choices a part of that programme, so that how that programme runs out depends, at least, in part, on what you do? Or are you saying that fatalism is true, and what you do has no effect on what will happen?

Yes, my decisions and choices are a part of the cascading effects, but it seems that my actions are instead a consequence of those effects that ultimately lead to the consequences of my actions, so I am not saying that fatalism is true, for I agree that whether she dies by drowning or dies by shooting depends on whether the killer chooses to take her fishing or chooses to take her hunting.

He isn’t being coerced, so it’s true that he has free will, but if his choice is nothing more than mere effects of cascading causes, then what say we about the cause of his actions? Would his non-coerced choice have been any other?

If you come back and say that different events could have transpired in his life that would have led to a different set of circumstances, then how do you explain the change of progression in the cascading rain of cause and effect?

kennethamy

November 5, 2006, 07:17 PM

We are apparently using the term free will in two different ways, and I have apparently been trying to reconcile them as if they one and the same. That apparently is my mistake.

On the one hand, we are free to make choices, for we are under no coercion, thus, to say of a person that the free will he thinks he has is illusory is improper, for it’s clear to see that the person is not being coerced.

On the other hand, the choices we make are consequences of cause and effects, and even if it so happens that we are destined to make the choices we will, it is still choices born not of coercion but instead of physics.

Data isn’t coerced into making the decisions he does, but would he have made another decision? Yes, if things would have been different. But, could things have been different?

A part of me says yes, but another part of me says no. It’s on the one hand that I want to say yes, and it’s on the other hand that I want to say no. Perhaps I continue to make my mistake.

Of course things could have been different (and, had they been different, we might have asked about them whether they could have been different, as, for example, as they are now) If you are asking whether given the very same antecedent events, something different could have occurred, the answer is, no, at least not if determinism (which is not the name of anything very clear) is true. But, then, so what?

Let's note, however, that of two different events, neither one of which occurred we still think that one of them could have occurred, and the other one could not have occurred. Here is an example: this morning I did not take my customary one mile walk. And, this morning, neither did I take a 40 mile walk (which believe me I never have done before). But, although I did not take my customary one mile walk this morning, I could have done so. How do I know that? I know that because I have been taking it every morning for the past five years, and I am in the same shape now that I was yesterday morning when I took my walk, and the morning before. So I could have taken the walk, only I did not. On the other hand, I know I could not have taken a 40 mile walk. For one thing, I am not in that kind of physical condition.So, here are two things that I did not do, but I could have done one of them, but not the other one. The only thing that was not the same between this morning, and all the mornings on which I did take the one mile walk is that I chose not to take the walk this morning. So that is different. But does that mean that I could not have taken my walk this morning in the sense that I was not free to take my walk this morning? Did I not have my free will because I did not make my choice? But isn't that really ridiculous, to say that I was not free to take my walk simply because I chose not to take my walk. Isn't it true that it is just because I did choose not to take my walk that I was free not to take my walk? How can if be that the very reason we say that I was free not to take my walk becomes the reason to say that I was not free not to take my walk?! Could it be that my choice not to take my walk is evidence of my lack of freedom not to take the walk?

And yes, let's say that my choice not to take the walk was "determined" by previous causes. But, so what? It was my choice. It was not forced on me? What is happening is that a particular philosophical theory is twisting us up, and is forcing us to say that we are not acting freely for a particular reason when it is exactly that reason that justifies us in saying that we are acting freely.

fast

November 5, 2006, 08:24 PM

Of course things could have been different (and, had they been different, we might have asked about them whether they could have been different, as, for example, as they are now) If you are asking whether given the very same antecedent events, something different could have occurred, the answer is, no, at least not if determinism (which is not the name of anything very clear) is true. But, then, so what? It is comforting to know that things could have been different when I made that choice to walk, but seeing how things could have been different is difficult, especially when you say, "if you are asking whether given the very same antecedent events, something different could have occurred, the answer is, no."

It's like you're saying that I had an option to either walk or not walk this morning even though walking and the decision (and the causes for the decision) (and the causes for the causes for the decision) were already set in motion. How could things have turned out differently? Were uncaused events going to creep in somehow? I don’t believe in uncaused events. I don’t see how things could have been different anymore than I can see how the clock might strike seven before six. Keep in mind that what I said is that I don’t see how things could have been different…I didn’t say that I believed things could not have been different.

It seems as though that not only are we now dealing with two different versions of "free will" but we're dealing with two different versions of "decisions".

I made a decision, sure, but that's on the one hand while on the other hand, it wasn't much of a decision if it's merely the consequences of yet another cause.

This cause and effect theory is making me imagine life like a movie ready to play out in the only one way it can, yet you maintain, "Of course, things could have been different". HOW? How could they have been different in light of the antecedent thingy you mentioned?

Let's note, however, that of two different events, neither one of which occurred we still think that one of them could have occurred, and the other one could not have occurred. Yes, we think this, but we’ve never relived the same moment twice under the same conditions.

Here is an example: this morning I did not take my customary one mile walk. It was a different day. The scene of life had not yet played out, in accordance with destiny—dictated by the physics of cause and effect.

And, this morning, neither did I take a 40 mile walk (which believe me I never have done before).Logically impossible. It wouldn’t have happened if it could have happened.

But, although I did not take my customary one mile walk this morning, I could have done so. Intuitively, yes, but this is being questioned. We have never lived the same moment twice, so we may be improperly inferring how things happened based on the fact that things happen differently from one day to the next.

You say that you could have walked a mile, and the walking a mile THAT DAY would have been the result of a convergence of many cascading causes and effects. Could you have coughed and tripped while walking? We think it’s possible, and we see no reason to suspect that it’s not plausible, but the theory of cause and effect is strong and penetrating, so it may be that we only think we could have chosen not to walk, but how…and this brings me back to the antecedent stuff again you mentioned.

How do I know that? I know that because I have been taking it every morning for the past five years, and I am in the same shape now that I was yesterday morning when I took my walk, and the morning before. An epistemological question that makes me take pause.

I brought this example up once before. Imagine playing a game of billiards. Record the game. Play it back. Play it back again. And again. Each time, it will be the same.

If we think of each millisecond that passes in the game as a day passing in our lives, it will appear to us that we have free will (and I’m talking about non-coercion). Each day will be slightly different, just like each ball will be in a slightly different position. How can we look back over the last five years (or some number of milliseconds) and say that things could have been different on any given day? This determinism theory suggests that things must occur as they do and thus fails to allow room for what you suggest—that things could have been different. Oh, and remember, that doesn’t suggest fatalism either.

And yes, let's say that my choice not to take the walk was "determined" by previous causes. But, so what? It was my choice. It was not forced on me?
But Ken, I’m not arguing that there is any force. I agree that we have free will of the non forceful variety. The free will in question is of a different sort.

What is happening is that a particular philosophical theory is twisting us up, and is forcing us to say that we are not acting freely for a particular reason when it is exactly that reason that justifies us in saying that we are acting freely.If I were to take a gamble, I’d wager you’re correct. I just want to see where my thinking has failed.

kennethamy

November 5, 2006, 10:41 PM

It is comforting to know that things could have been different when I made that choice to walk, but seeing how things could have been different is difficult, especially when you say, "if you are asking whether given the very same antecedent events, something different could have occurred, the answer is, no."

It's like you're saying that I had an option to either walk or not walk this morning even though walking and the decision (and the causes for the decision) (and the causes for the causes for the decision) were already set in motion. How could things have turned out differently? Were uncaused events going to creep in somehow? I don’t believe in uncaused events. I don’t see how things could have been different anymore than I can see how the clock might strike seven before six. Keep in mind that what I said is that I don’t see how things could have been different…I didn’t say that I believed things could not have been different.

It seems as though that not only are we now dealing with two different versions of "free will" but we're dealing with two different versions of "decisions".

I made a decision, sure, but that's on the one hand while on the other hand, it wasn't much of a decision if it's merely the consequences of yet another cause.

This cause and effect theory is making me imagine life like a movie ready to play out in the only one way it can, yet you maintain, "Of course, things could have been different". HOW? How could they have been different in light of the antecedent thingy you mentioned?

Yes, we think this, but we’ve never relived the same moment twice under the same conditions.

It was a different day. The scene of life had not yet played out, in accordance with destiny—dictated by the physics of cause and effect.

Logically impossible. It wouldn’t have happened if it could have happened.

Intuitively, yes, but this is being questioned. We have never lived the same moment twice, so we may be improperly inferring how things happened based on the fact that things happen differently from one day to the next.

You say that you could have walked a mile, and the walking a mile THAT DAY would have been the result of a convergence of many cascading causes and effects. Could you have coughed and tripped while walking? We think it’s possible, and we see no reason to suspect that it’s not plausible, but the theory of cause and effect is strong and penetrating, so it may be that we only think we could have chosen not to walk, but how…and this brings me back to the antecedent stuff again you mentioned.

An epistemological question that makes me take pause.

I brought this example up once before. Imagine playing a game of billiards. Record the game. Play it back. Play it back again. And again. Each time, it will be the same.

If we think of each millisecond that passes in the game as a day passing in our lives, it will appear to us that we have free will (and I’m talking about non-coercion). Each day will be slightly different, just like each ball will be in a slightly different position. How can we look back over the last five years (or some number of milliseconds) and say that things could have been different on any given day? This determinism theory suggests that things must occur as they do and thus fails to allow room for what you suggest—that things could have been different. Oh, and remember, that doesn’t suggest fatalism either.

But Ken, I’m not arguing that there is any force. I agree that we have free will of the non forceful variety. The free will in question is of a different sort.

If I were to take a gamble, I’d wager you’re correct. I just want to see where my thinking has failed.

"t was a different day. The scene of life had not yet played out, in accordance with destiny—dictated by the physics of cause and effect."

But aren't you just assuming what is at issue? That just because things were different, that I could not have taken the walk had I chosen to do so. What, for instance, is your evidence that just because it was a different day that I could not have done what I did yesterday, and the day before? My evidence that I could have done what I did before is the simple induction that we all accept. I have been able to take that walk in the past many times, so I was able to do it when I did not do it. Now, if your objection is an objection against inductive inference, then we have something else at issue. But it is at least as reasonable to suppose I could have taken that walk, as it is reasonable to think that the Sun will rise tomorrow. And, as I say, if you don't think it is reasonable to believe that the Sun will rise tomorrow, then we have gone on to a different issue.

After all, what difference does it make that "it is a different day"? It is up to you, and not to me, to show that difference makes a difference. You can't just assume that it does. I say, "I took a mile walk on May 26, May 25, May 27, and today is May 28, and I have decided not to take a mile walk today, but I could do if I chose" And Fast replies, "Ah, but today is May 29, so you cannot take that walk". But, Fast, what is it about its being May 29, that prevents me from taking the walk I took all those previous days? It cannot be simply that it is May 29. What would that have to do with it?

And, I hope that the issue is not that of my not being certain that I could have taken the walk when I didn't do it. I didn't claim certainty.

So, Fast, what is it? If your answer is, "determinism", then you are begging the question. For, Fast, if I had taken the walk, then there would have been one thing different. I would have chosen to take the walk. So it would not have been that exactly everything was the same as before, and I didn't take the walk. What is different is that I did not choose to walk today. But exactly that is why I freely did not walk today. Because I chose not to.

StaticAge

November 6, 2006, 08:33 AM

And yes, let's say that my choice not to take the walk was "determined" by previous causes. But, so what? It was my choice. It was not forced on me? What is happening is that a particular philosophical theory is twisting us up, and is forcing us to say that we are not acting freely for a particular reason when it is exactly that reason that justifies us in saying that we are acting freely.
You seem to be evading the issue. No one is arguing whether or not anyone feels as though their decisions are forced; their emotional state is not the issue. If I drop a ball, it is determined to fall to the center of the earth- whether the ball likes it or not. It is not free to go any other way. If the mind is determined, it doesnt matter if I "feel" free, the fact is that the choice I make is the only one possible at that place and that time because it was physically determined. I was not free to make any other choice, even if I like the choice I made. You can hypnotize someone to perform a random action like 'bark like a dog when I say "butter"' and the person who was hypnotized will believe he is barking for his own reasons- would you suggest that the barking man is barking "freely" because he thinks he is? To me this is evidence that we are talking about something else- we know what freedom is because an example of a hypnotized person is a display of someone not acting freely. I have already placed my cards on the table- I think that we do act with free will. But that is at odds with a nuerologically physically mechanical brain that determines action, because there is no currently observable gap in there for "I" or "will" or "freedom" etc to cause any alternative.

kennethamy

November 6, 2006, 08:43 AM

You seem to be evading the issue. No one is arguing whether or not anyone feels as though their decisions are forced; their emotional state is not the issue. If I drop a ball, it is determined to fall to the center of the earth- whether the ball likes it or not. It is not free to go any other way. If the mind is determined, it doesnt matter if I "feel" free, the fact is that the choice I make is the only one possible at that place and that time because it was physically determined. I was not free to make any other choice, even if I like the choice I made. You can hypnotize someone to perform a random action like 'bark like a dog when I say "butter"' and the person who was hypnotized will believe he is barking for his own reasons- would you suggest that the barking man is barking "freely" because he thinks he is? To me this is evidence that we are talking about something else- we know what freedom is because an example of a hypnotized person is a display of someone not acting freely. I have already placed my cards on the table- I think that we do act with free will. But that is at odds with a nuerologically physically mechanical brain that determines action, because there is no gap in there for "I" or "will" or "freedom" etc to cause any alternative.

And I wasn't talking about "whether or not anyone feels as though their decisions are forced" nor was I talking about an emotional issue either. What leads you to think that I was.

And what make you think that whenever I choose to do something, that my choice is forced? I see no reason to believe that my choice was forced when I chose not to take that walk. What reason have you for thinking it was? I don't equate "being forced" with "being caused" and you seem to. Have you any good reason for doing so. Sometimes when what I do is caused in a particular way I am being forced to do what I do, but it would be a fallacy to infer from the fact that some causes are also coercive that they all are coercive. Perhaps you are confusing, "all cases of coercion are cases of causation" with "all cases of causation are cases of coercion". I am sure you know that to argue that because all a's are b's, that all b's are a's is fallacious, and, in fact, has the name, "the fallacy of illicit conversion".

If you are simply assuming that all causes are coercive, I am afraid that you will have to support that assumption.

fast

November 6, 2006, 08:56 AM

But aren't you just assuming what is at issue? That just because things were different, that I could not have taken the walk had I chosen to do so. How could you have chosen to do so if the choice not to was the effect of a cause? Could you, for example, choose to do so even if the cause leads to a choice not to do so?

What, for instance, is your evidence that just because it was a different day that I could not have done what I did yesterday, and the day before?It's not because it's a different day, per se, but rather, it's because the events that are set in motion (the causes in play destined to bring about certain effects) are different. That's why choices and decisions are on the table as possible illusions.

My evidence that I could have done what I did before is the simple induction that we all accept. Induction that we are perhaps wise to accept, but the issues at hand is understanding the implications of the cause and effect theory when we realize that it applies to everything--even our choices and decisions.

I have been able to take that walk in the past many times, so I was able to do it when I did not do it.I can't tell you will enough vigor that I understand that, but no matter how many times we replay a movie, it will be the same. At the beginning of Lethal Weapon 1, Ms. Huntsacker falls from the balcony--each and every time I replay the scene. She could have chosen not to walk to the edge, but everytime, she does.

So, it appears that we have choices, for it appears that we can do things when we didn't do them, but how else would our movie of life play out when the causes lead to very specific non-alternative-like effects?

StaticAge

November 6, 2006, 09:12 AM

And I wasn't talking about "whether or not anyone feels as though their decisions are forced" nor was I talking about an emotional issue either. What leads you to think that I was.

And what make you think that whenever I choose to do something, that my choice is forced? I see no reason to believe that my choice was forced when I chose not to take that walk. What reason have you for thinking it was? I don't equate "being forced" with "being caused" and you seem to. Have you any good reason for doing so. Sometimes when what I do is caused in a particular way I am being forced to do what I do, but it would be a fallacy to infer from the fact that some causes are also coercive that they all are coercive. Perhaps you are confusing, "all cases of coercion are cases of causation" with "all cases of causation are cases of coercion". I am sure you know that to argue that because all a's are b's, that all b's are a's is fallacious, and, in fact, has the name, "the fallacy of illicit conversion".

If you are simply assuming that all causes are coercive, I am afraid that you will have to support that assumption.
The only time I even used the word "forced" was in replying to a quote I selected where you used the word "forced." Where have I said causation is the same thing as being "forced" to do something? I dont believe I have. In fact, I dont see how this is really responding to anything in my post.

kennethamy

November 6, 2006, 10:22 AM

The only time I even used the word "forced" was in replying to a quote I selected where you used the word "forced." Where have I said causation is the same thing as being "forced" to do something? I dont believe I have. In fact, I dont see how this is really responding to anything in my post.

Then why should the fact (if it is one) that my choice or action was caused be an objection to whether I chose or acted freely?

fast

November 6, 2006, 11:42 AM

Then why should the fact (if it is one) that my choice or action was caused be an objection to whether I chose or acted freely?Free will is being used in two different ways. The same phrase is being used to express two different propositions. We ought not equivocate between them.

Free will (of the first kind) I agree we have. It's free will (of the second kind) that I regret to say doesn't appear real. To say that I have free will (of the first kind) is to say that I was not forced or coerced into the car by gunpoint. No one is denying that we do not have free will in that sense.

The implication of being caused, however, makes us resemble non-choice making puppets more so than it does choice-making human beings. The controller in this circumstance is physical laws that ensure that cause and effect continue their unstoppable barrage of influence.

kennethamy

November 6, 2006, 12:20 PM

Free will is being used in two different ways. The same phrase is being used to express two different propositions. We ought not equivocate between them.

Free will (of the first kind) I agree we have. It's free will (of the second kind) that I regret to say doesn't appear real. To say that I have free will (of the first kind) is to say that I was not forced or coerced into the car by gunpoint. No one is denying that we do not have free will in that sense.

The implication of being caused, however, makes us resemble non-choice making puppets more so than it does choice-making human beings. The controller in this circumstance is physical laws that ensure that cause and effect continue their unstoppable barrage of influence.

So, according to you, there are two senses of "free will". One of which is the sense in which it is ordinarily used, and in which sense, it is possible for people to act and choose freely; and then there is another made-up sense, made up by philosophers, and used only by them, in which sense it is impossible for people to act or choose freely, because that invented sense is conextensive with the term "uncaused event". But there are still several matters which require explanation:

1. Would uncaused choices and actions then qualify as free actions and choices? (And could anyone be morally responsible for them)?
2. Exactly why should we think that simply because choices and actions are caused, they are not, thereby, free choices and actions?
3. Why should we adopt a usage of the term "free will" whereby no one can have free will? At least, prima-facie, it would seem not only self-defeating, but somewhat nutty too. (The suggestion that although the term "X' has a perfectly good use and enables us to talk sensibly about human actions, we should invent another sense of the term "X" which had no use until we invented it, and which does not enable us to talk sensibly about human actions, and that, furthermore, that invented sense of "X" is the proper sense, just seems to me an implausible suggestion. It would be as implausible as inventing another sense of the term "tall" by which in the new sense, no one can be tall, although in the usual sense of the term "tall" some people are tall, and some people are not tall. It would occur to me to ask, why should we invent, much less adopt this new, but rather useless sense, of "tall"? Wouldn't it you?

StaticAge

November 6, 2006, 12:37 PM

Then why should the fact (if it is one) that my choice or action was caused be an objection to whether I chose or acted freely?

If something is determined, it is not free to behave otherwise.

breezanne

November 6, 2006, 12:50 PM

I think the "problem" of free will (or whatever it is that we feel makes us autonomous) is a false one that arises from supposing that science is the only way to know anything and that any belief must match current scientific/philosophic theories to be worthy believing in.

I mean, supposing that we are limited in our scope of sense and reason and logic, its entirely possible that some things may escape our grasp. String theory asserts there may be 11 or so dimensions- how many do you exeperience? What is the deal with quantum mechanics anyway, and why doesnt it make common sense? If bees and honeybees can see ultraviolet light in the same manner our eyes capture RGB wavelengths, can you imagine what the extra colors they sense look like? What conclusions could we reach if we had developed organs that sensed gravitons? I am not arguing for relativism, I am simply saying that there could be a lot outside our current comprehension, possibly totally unavailable to us.

We intuitively experience decision making and free thought. Call it free will or autonomy, whatever you like, you experience it. To me, it seems a poor choice to settle then for an explanation that denies its existence.
Excellent.:notworthy:

Determinism is often taken to mean "material determinism"... which loses coherence at any "meaningful" level (as well as on "quantum" levels).

(never thought I'd agree with a Jehovah's Witness... please, just smile ;) )

fast

November 6, 2006, 12:57 PM

and then there is another made-up sense, made up by philosophers, and used only by them, in which sense it is impossible for people to act or choose freely, because that invented sense is conextensive with the term "uncaused event". But there are still several matters which require explanation:Something like that I guess.

You throw me with the "uncaused" part though. No one is declaring uncaused events -- yet.

1. Would uncaused choices and actions then qualify as free actions and choices? (And could anyone be morally responsible for them)?
I don't know what uncaused choices have to do with this.

If we could rewind time to how things were before you chose between getting a glass of milk versus getting a glass of orange juice, would you make the same choice again? You apparently think you could decide differently, but how so puzzles me.

The day might not matter, but the alignment of micro events would seem to play a major role in the fact that you have to make the same choice, and if you can only make that choice, then perhaps the common view of free will isn't so accurate.

2. Exactly why should we think that simply because choices and actions are caused, they are not, thereby, free choices and actions? Recall my picture versus movie analogy. Life is like a movie. If we stop time, what we see is a picture. If we rewind our movie to an earlier time, then we will stop on what appears to be another yet earlier snapshot picture. Once we hit play again, the movie will continue playing as it did before. If you chose to walk the mile on that particular morning, then you will again when that morning comes. You will have made the same so-called choice, and every time we replay our life movie, we will again and again and again make the same choices.

The rapist will decide to strike the same victim again, in the same way, at the same time.

How could you have decided anything differently when by definition every effect stemmed from a cause? If we are privy to the flow of all matter in motion, would we not see the future?

3. Why should we adopt a usage of the term "free will" whereby no one can have free will? At least, prima-facie, it would seem not only self-defeating, but somewhat nutty too. The cause and effect theory seems to suggest that our view of having free will is false. The examples you provide to suggest that we do have free will makes sense, but they fail to address the cause and effect theory that suggests you are incorrect.

(The suggestion that although the term "X' has a perfectly good use and enables us to talk sensibly about human actions, we should invent another sense of the term "X" which had no use until we invented it, and which does not enable us to talk sensibly about human actions, and that, furthermore, that invented sense of "X" is the proper sense, just seems to me an implausible suggestion. It would be as implausible as inventing another sense of the term "tall" by which in the new sense, no one can be tall, although in the usual sense of the term "tall" some people are tall, and some people are not tall. It would occur to me to ask, why should we invent, much less adopt this new, but rather useless sense, of "tall"? Wouldn't it you?I'm just trying to reconcile the cause and effect theory with having free will. I believe we have free will, but the cause and effect theory forces me to question if what I believe is true.

Oldal.

November 6, 2006, 01:38 PM

fast,

Hello again. Been away some time lately. Am not going to read all the above, so forgive me if I repeat other's words.

Why cannot my will be a cause? If we must insist and accept that all events are caused,(a linguistic requirement no less,) my actions are 'determined' by causes which I control. i.e. my will causes me to act in a particular way. Frinstance, it was my will which determined I should write these words of wisdom right now, not tomorrow, or yesterday or never.

Colin McGinn is promulgating the idea that there are some things,Free Will being one,which we are mentally unable to cope with. In the same way that a dog cannot speak although it has vocal chords, it does not have the mental facility so to do. He is following Chomsky in the idea that babies/children have this inborn capacity to use language, before knowing 'words'. We do NOT have the faculty to understand the Free will/ derterminism problem.

Oldal.

fast

November 6, 2006, 03:58 PM

Mr. Oldal, to whom has taught me that sometimes the path of a softer touch is a path better taken,

You ask, "why cannot my will be a cause," but the faulty assumption undermining the question is that I view our will as not being a cause at all.

Will can be a cause.

If we must insist and accept that all events are caused,(a linguistic requirement no less,) my actions are 'determined' by causes which I control. i.e. my will causes me to act in a particular way. Frinstance, it was my will which determined I should write these words of wisdom right now, not tomorrow, or yesterday or never.
Ken has me a little gun shy with the term must, but cautiously I say, we mustn't--it is not true that necessarily, we must insist and accept that all events are caused, but it seems as though the theory (and I believe it's a theory--not sure really) is true; true, in that all events are caused.

I noticed that you said, "My actions are determined by causes which I control". In particular, the "which I control" part isn't consistent (or at least doesn't seem consistent) with the deterministic view.

Colin McGinn is promulgating the idea that there are some things,Free Will being one,which we are mentally unable to cope with. In the same way that a dog cannot speak although it has vocal chords, it does not have the mental facility so to do. He is following Chomsky in the idea that babies/children have this inborn capacity to use language, before knowing 'words'. We do NOT have the faculty to understand the Free will/ derterminism problem.
Shame on Colin.

Last but not least, you have been missed, and though I'm no prodigy --which is clear for all to see, you may call me what you wish, but, be positive--you can start with words like amazing.

kennethamy

November 6, 2006, 04:38 PM

If something is determined, it is not free to behave otherwise.

If "determined" means, "caused" then I don't see why to say that. If I chose to eat oatmeal this morning, then, unless my choice was forced on me by threat, or intimidation, or physically, then why wasn't my eating oatmeal done of my own free will? Have you some reason to suppose it wasn't?

fast

November 6, 2006, 04:48 PM

If "determined" means, "caused" then I don't see why to say that. If I chose to eat oatmeal this morning, then, unless my choice was forced on me by threat, or intimidation, or physically, then why wasn't my eating oatmeal done of my own free will? Have you some reason to suppose it wasn't?

I put the eight ball in on the break, and so too, you ate oatmeal after waking up this morning.

A moment after I hit the cue ball, the eight ball was necessarily going to wind up in the corner pocket--perhaps I should have filmed it. A moment after you woke up this morning, you were necessarily going to eat oatmeal--perhaps I should have filmed it.

The eight ball didn't have a choice but to do what it was destined to do, and so too, if the theory of cause and effect is true, then you didn't have a choice as to what you would have for breakfast despite your purported choice.

Again, I'm arguing for a position I don't believe in, but I still don't understand why the position is false.

StaticAge

November 6, 2006, 04:50 PM

fast

November 6, 2006, 04:59 PM

I already told you I believe in free will.
So, when I was asked if I wanted sausage or bacon with my pancakes, the choice that I made could have been other than it was? I said, "bacon". Are you saying that I could have said, "sausage"? How?

Ken would bring up the fact that he has made choices in the past, but it seems you realize that a real time decision can be none other than what it is, and if it can be nothing other than what it is, then how could it have been different?

kennethamy

November 6, 2006, 05:37 PM

StaticAge

November 6, 2006, 09:03 PM

fast

November 6, 2006, 09:11 PM

I think free will would say that whatever choice you wanted to make was a possible choice.

Lets pretend you are at breakfast, the waitress asks you if you want sausage or bacon, and then 7 seconds later you give your choice. Lets also assume no external circumstances will affect you during those 7 seconds.

If determinism is true, then your neurological state at the point directly following her question, 7 seconds before you answer her, will inevitably lead to you choosing "bacon." If determinism is false, then it is possible for you to in that 7 seconds of time to arrive at a different conclusion and say "sausage."

Personally, I think it is possible to say "sausage" (although I would suggest going vegetarian and skipping it altogether).Thus, the different views are incompatible.

fast

November 7, 2006, 08:13 AM

So, when I was asked if I wanted sausage or bacon with my pancakes, the choice that I made could have been other than it was? I said, "bacon". Are you saying that I could have said, "sausage"? How?

Ken would bring up the fact that he has made choices in the past, but it seems you realize that a real time decision can be none other than what it is, and if it can be nothing other than what it is, then how could it have been different?"Realize??
Whatever it is that I negatively insinuated, I'm sorry. Of course you realize that a real time decision is nothing other than what it is. As the great-like Ken would say, "it's trivially true". Remember, "great-like"; not Great -- that title is reserved for me, grumpy :D

To have free will is to apparently not be under the influence of coercion, but that is not the extent of the implications of free will. We also inductively assume (and I say inductively because you brought it up earlier) that to have free will is to not only be free of coercion in our decisions amongst and between choices, but to have free will also assumes that there are choices to decide between.

Determinism has given us reason to take pause and consider that the choices we take for granted are illusory, so when you give an example that failed to take that into account, it's like you haven't really addressed the particular aspect of the issue that troubles me.

I believe that my picture/movie construct can work for us--given half a chance. You asked what difference does it make what day it is. My answer must not be abruptly skimmed over --and just work with me on my use of the term must.

Today is Tuesday, and I chose not to walk my mile (or so it seems). Life is like a movie. If we hit pause, what we see is nothing but a snapshot of how things are now. Let us ponder a minute what it means to say of things that they are like they are now. If we can envision a movie like matter in motion, then a true pause of our world would yield motionless matter. Imagine the positioning of all matter in the universe when viewing that still picture. It wouldn't be unlike a still picture of billiard game taken during and moments into the break.

Let us rewind time, and let's go back to yesterday, or if you choose (funny I should say that I think), but if you choose let's go back to last Tuesday instead of this Tuesday. There's nothing special about it being a Tuesday, but if you rewind time to last Tuesday and paused time, what we would see is yet another snapshot of motionless matter. Awe, but what's intriguing this go around is that the positioning of matter is different. To illustrate my example, imagine the placement of the billiard ball a second before the previous snapshot. Things are not as they were. Things are in a different position. That is extremely important. That's the basis of my argument.

Our decisions are not removed from matter in motion. Let us not stray from my point. Recall, earlier, I began a paragraph by saying, "Today is Tuesday, and I chose not to walk my mile." If we rewind time to before I got up this morning, and if I were going to relive the life of my morning all over again, could I have truly decided amongst options (the second go around)? If you're going to answer this, you're going to have to be careful. You can't bring up the fact that we've made decisions day in and day out that are different from one another, for it doesn't do justice to the implications of this wretched deterministic view. To carry on that venture is to carry me in circles.

We have to understand that the matter in motion at any given time is unlike any other day, and so too, the matter in motion inside our head, and the matter in motion to which we are privy to and around us is unique. So unique in fact that it's really hard to see how our life can be anything other than like a movie, destined, determined to act out the only one single choice available to us.

Don't let me lose you. If we have but a single choice as demanded by the deterministic view, then that is a direct argument against the idea that we have free will. Not because we are being coerced but instead because we don't truly have choices at all.

Again, and I can't say this enough, I disagree that the deterministic view has the stronghold that I convey, but I'll be darned if I can see why not. I'd like to know how I could comfortably see that the decisions I make are truly among choices; hence, a choice other than a choice among one choice, for as I've been saying all along, a choice isn't really a choice, if the so-called choice is the only choice available. Failing to choose doesn't even seem to be a choice with determinism.

The Great Fast

kennethamy

November 7, 2006, 08:23 AM

I already told you I believe in free will.

As far as I can tell, we are discussing "free will" vs "determinism." Adherents to both of those ideas would most likely claim that they are both causes, but for entirely different reasons, and that the other idea is not the cause.

Fact is, if something is determined, it is not free to behave otherwise. Do you agree or disagree?

I have never thought of planets or comets as being free or not free, since they do not have desires which can be thwarted. It is people who are either free or not free. And "free" here means, so far as I can see, "free to do as they please" and "not free" means, "not free to do as they please". So, I do not see anything incompatible between my actions and choices having causes (which is what I suppose you mean by "being determined") and my actions being free. Since, even if my choice is caused, as long as I am able to do as I choose, my action is a free action.

fast

November 7, 2006, 09:08 AM

I have never thought of planets or comets as being free or not free, since they do not have desires which can be thwarted. It is people who are either free or not free. And "free" here means, so far as I can see, "free to do as they please" and "not free" means, "not free to do as they please". So, I do not see anything incompatible between my actions and choices having causes (which is what I suppose you mean by "being determined") and my actions being free. Since, even if my choice is caused, as long as I am able to do as I choose, my action is a free action.

So, to look at our neurological brain activity (a bit like a planet of comet without free will) is not to look at us (people with free will). So, just because our firing neurons are like planets without choices, we are different.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 7, 2006, 09:22 AM

If we have but a single choice as demanded by the deterministic view, then that is a direct argument against the idea that we have free will. Not because we are being coerced but instead because we don't truly have choices at all.The fact that we will make but a single choice does not mean that we have but a single choice. If we were someone else, with different experiences and preferences, we would make a different choice. Why would you want to make a different choice than the unique you chooses? You might end up eating liver, and you hate liver.

fast

November 7, 2006, 09:39 AM

The fact that we will make but a single choice does not mean that we have but a single choice. What other choice is there?

If the neural effect from a neural cause is the final choice, then the final choice was destined because of the cause. If we were good enough, we would be able to tell where the final placement of the balls on the billiard table would end up. If we were good enough, I'd know what decision you would make before you made it. If the final placement of the balls on the table is destined, then so too is your single choice. So, again, what is this other choice? Liver? Yuck, I hate liver.

If we were someone else, with different experiences and preferences, we would make a different choice. Uniquely different yes, but the choice I'd make if I were someone else would be destined just the same.

Why would you want to make a different choice than the unique you chooses? You might end up eating liver, and you hate liver.
Your question assumes that I made a choice. Again, what were my choices? You say that I have choices when I make decisions, but if the decisions themselves are effects stemmed from causes, then the decision should be obvious--if we were good enough, that is.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 7, 2006, 09:52 AM

kennethamy

November 7, 2006, 09:54 AM

So, to look at our neurological brain activity (a bit like a planet of comet without free will) is not to look at us (people with free will). So, just because our firing neurons are like planets without choices, we are different.

No, our neurons are without choices, and so are rocks, and pebbles. So what?
It is people who make choices, and so far as I understand it, for a person to be free, or act freely, is to do as he chooses to do. To act as one chooses without impediments.

fast

November 7, 2006, 10:06 AM

No, our neurons are without choices, and so are rocks, and pebbles. So what?
It is people who make choices, and so far as I understand it, for a person to be free, or act freely, is to do as he chooses to do. To act as one chooses without impediments.What do you mean "so what"? The implications ought to be staggering. It implies no choice. The 'choice' we make (and I put it in apostrophes because I shouldn't have to write "so-called" every time) ... the 'choice' is being undermined by deterministic neurons, etc.

Wonderful, I'm free to choose from the only single outcome available! When the killer kills, let us cry, but let us not cry quite as hard; after all, we should have seen it coming. It's not like the neurons had a say in what the attached brains ultimate decisions would be.

fast

November 7, 2006, 10:12 AM

Fast, since you find this determinism so "wretched", explain to me what would be the observable differences between a world with free will (free will as you conceive it, not the unsatisfactory sort ken talks about) and a world without it.

How would you feel if you suddenly found out that the love of your life was an android capable of mimicking a human--playing out a role like a good programmed robot should--day in and day out choosing between choices that was well known far in advance.

It feels different to think that our choices are not between alternatives.

The world's puppet,

fast

kennethamy

November 7, 2006, 10:39 AM

How would you feel if you suddenly found out that the love of your life was an android capable of mimicking a human--playing out a role like a good programmed robot should--day in and day out choosing between choices that was well known far in advance.

It feels different to think that our choices are not between alternatives.

The world's puppet,

fast

Depends on what she looks like.
Choices are always between alternatives.

Have you seen the film, The Stepford Wives (in fact, I think there were two of them)? But in that film, the choices are made for the women. They did not make the choices. (There is a kind of mass-conditioning going on).
However, at the end of the film, one of the women rebels and gets the others to make their own choices. Are you saying that would be impossible?

The film(s) is based on a novel of the same name by Ira Levin. You might want to look at it.

fast

November 7, 2006, 11:00 AM

Depends on what she looks like.Humor is good. :)

Choices are always between alternatives.Yes, that's my view too, but the determinist theory is trying to make it so that my view is brought crashing down. I won't let it though.

It seems as though a choice (made by me) is composed of a set of non-choice events (within me). When the constituent parts of my brain carry on in its non-choice adventure, it seems that the ultimate conclusion of those destined neural non-choice events is nothing other than a choice (a free one, no doubt) by me.

Have you seen the film, The Stepford Wives (in fact, I think there were two of them)? No, but it’s now on my list of movies to watch.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 7, 2006, 12:40 PM

How would you feel if you suddenly found out that the love of your life was an android capable of mimicking a human--playing out a role like a good programmed robot should--day in and day out choosing between choices that was well known far in advance.There is no movie of future events, fast, that's something you made up. The fact that the future will be exactly what it will be is a fact of language, nothing more. Human actions are not playing a role, there is no movie. Androids are not conscious. Do you think you are not conscious? Why would you think the love of your life is not conscious? You are not controlled by your neurons; you are your neurons. If you are a puppet you are pulling your own strings.

fast

November 7, 2006, 01:14 PM

There is no movie of future events, fast, that's something you made up. There is no movie of future events, yes, but the illustration is only to convey the point that the determinist theory implies that what will happen must happen. We can also surmise from that view that there are no choices in outcomes from the decisions we make.

I keep giving examples. If I hit the cue ball in a billiard game, would we or would we not know the precise location that the balls would wind up if we were privy to and capable of grasping of facets of the scene? I say yes. To demonstrate this, we could film it and play it back and make note that what happened kept happening the same way.

The fact that the future will be exactly what it will be is a fact of language, nothing more.Our language has no bearing on the issue.

Review the film. The two ball hit the three ball the same time someone picked his booger. Ken (and apparently you) are saying that the one who picked his booger could have chosen not to, yet when we review the film, he does it time and time again.

Could things have been different--at that moment?

If you are a puppet you are pulling your own strings.
What choice did I have?

How about you and Ken refresh me on all that fancy antecedent talk again. You know, I was especially interested in the parts where the same thing had to happen given certain circumstances. It kind of sheds a very interesting view on things when cast in just the right light.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 7, 2006, 02:41 PM

fast

November 7, 2006, 03:14 PM

Neither ken nor I are arguing against the truth of determinism. You can stop arguing the truth of it, we believe you. You, on the other hand, keep arguing the truth of it, seemingly hoping you will be given an argument to refute it. I don't think it's false, I just don't think it's a problem. Not a problem you say, great. My choice of cereal tomorrow is destined to be what it is, yet I have a choice, and you think that jives.

I asked you a while ago about the observable differences between a world with and a world without free will, From what perspective?

On the one hand, I can see where the answer could be that there is no observable difference--least not to one living in it.

But, Imagine stepping back and viewing two different worlds where one has people with free will while the other doesn't. From that armchair perspective, and if I had to become apart of one over the other, I'd choose free will.

These were not responsive to the question. :(

I'm not asking about your feelings about these stories, stories you are telling. If you can't tell us what would differ in the world if "free will" is true or false, then consider the possibility that the concept has no sense to it.What concept?

I'd like to add something about the phrase "free will" that keeps bothering me. It's not being used the same all the time.

If I do something of my own free will, then the idea of coercion and force comes to mind, but what has that idea to do with having free will--a completely and totally different issue.

If I am determined (destined) to do something (like the forth domino is destined once the first has fallen), then I don't have free will (a true choice)--I don't have choices if I'm destined.

You don't see a problem with that?

StaticAge

November 7, 2006, 03:22 PM

Neither ken nor I are arguing against the truth of determinism. You can stop arguing the truth of it, we believe you. You, on the other hand, keep arguing the truth of it, seemingly hoping you will be given an argument to refute it. I don't think it's false, I just don't think it's a problem.

I asked you a while ago about the observable differences between a world with and a world without free will, and you came back with these stories about androids and movies. These were not responsive to the question. I'm not asking about your feelings about these stories, stories you are telling. If you can't tell us what would differ in the world if "free will" is true or false, then consider the possibility that the concept has no sense to it.

Well, actually, it was kennethamy who introduced a movie/novel plot about androids.

But secondly, you ask what difference would there be between a world governed only by determinism and one where there exists free will. However, you are automatically assuming free will to be illusory because you have already assumed that we are determined, therefore "free will" sits on top of what is meant to be anyway. But really, the truer version would be to assume free will actually describes our world and then to imagine a different world, which is much more easilly done. It would be a world without reason or meaning, and one which I believe could not contain anything of civilization, because I believe our civilization and concept of humanity to be the result of overcoming natural instinct, and not the result of natural instinct itself.

StaticAge

November 7, 2006, 03:30 PM

If I do something of my own free will, then the idea of coercion and force comes to mind, but what has that idea to do with having free will--a completely and totally different issue.

If I am determined (destined) to do something (like the forth domino is destined once the first has fallen), then I don't have free will (a true choice)--I don't have choices if I'm destined.

You don't see a problem with that?

"Compatiblism" is the idea advanced by William James among others that says determinism and free will are, well, compatible. But as John Searle and others have pointed out, it only makes a logical point about use of concepts of "free" and "determined," but leaves over the question people like you and me are interested in, that is: "Is it the case that for every human action that has ever occurred in the past, is occurring now, or ever will occur, the action wa caused by antecedently sufficient conditions?"

kennethamy

November 7, 2006, 03:36 PM

Not a problem you say, great. My choice of cereal tomorrow is destined to be what it is, yet I have a choice, and you think that jives.

From what perspective?

On the one hand, I can see where the answer could be that there is no observable difference--least not to one living in it.

But, Imagine stepping back and viewing two different worlds where one has people with free will while the other doesn't. From that armchair perspective, and if I had to become apart of one over the other, I'd choose free will.

:(

What concept?

I'd like to add something about the phrase "free will" that keeps bothering me. It's not being used the same all the time.

If I do something of my own free will, then the idea of coercion and force comes to mind, but what has that idea to do with having free will--a completely and totally different issue.

If I am determined (destined) to do something (like the forth domino is destined once the first has fallen), then I don't have free will (a true choice)--I don't have choices if I'm destined.

You don't see a problem with that?

Don't you think there is a difference among words like "destined", "fated", and, "determined"? If you say things like "destined" or "fated" you are saying that what happens will happen no matter what I do. And that is not my view or Hoodoo's. What we do makes a difference to what happens to us. So, in large part, what happens to us is up to us. My eating oatmeal tomorrow is surely a function of my having chosen to eat oatmeal.

That my choice was determined is an issue only when we know how it was determined. If it was determined by my having been given a drug, or by post-hypnotic suggestion, then my choice was a kind of faux-choice, and was not up to me. But, on the other hand, suppose my choice was determined by my consideration that an insoluble fiber rich cereal is better for me than sugar loaded Froot Loops, does that mean that I am a puppet on strings. If I am a puppet on strings, then it is the strings of reason and of argument. And what's the matter with that?

So, first of all, my action was not "destined" because it was a result of my choice.
And, second of all, if my choice was determined or caused, it was caused by reasonable considerations. Doesn't look like dominoes to me. Dominoes don't fall for reasons, they fall for causes. Now, that doesn't mean that reasons are not causes too. But although having a reason for doing something can cause you to do it, that is not a cause like a drug, or like being forced at the point of a gun. Is it. Wittgenstein wrote that sometimes pictures dominate people's thinking. Your picture is one of dominoes falling. Maybe you ought to get a different picture.

So why did I not have my delicious oatmeal of my own free will?

fast

November 7, 2006, 04:10 PM

If you say things like "destined" or "fated" you are saying that what happens will happen no matter what I do. And that is not my view or Hoodoo's.No, I'm not. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I'm saying that if you hit the throttle on the train that carries you (by tracks) through Knoxville, then you're going to Knoxville. What happens directly depends on what you do, so don't carry me back to fatalism-land.

What we do makes a difference to what happens to us. Yes, but what I'm questioning is if we have a choice. I keep trying over and over to illustrate how it is that we may not have a choice even though it appears we have a choice.

If causes lead to nothing other than effects, then it's like matter in motion is on their own set of train tracks destined to go in no other order than the direction they're headed, and if something intervenes, then it's because another set of cause and effect tracks were headed that way. The billiard ball break example illustrates that point.

So, in large part, what happens to us is up to us. My eating oatmeal tomorrow is surely a function of my having chosen to eat oatmeal. You are approaching this from such a macro level. Look deeper. Follow the chain of events on a microscopic level. Imagine the neurons firing as you contemplate your decision to have oat meal. Look at the cascade of interdependent set of neural train tracks as the web of mental cause and effect swish.

If you made the decision, which is the 50 millionth effect (from causes) within the last few seconds, then my question is, how could you have chosen differently. Don't let the vast amounts of variables bring you down, and don't shut down and bring up other situations where you also thought you had a choice. The choice is what's being questioned.

That my choice was determined is an issue only when we know how it was determined. If it was determined by my having been given a drug, or by post-hypnotic suggestion, then my choice was a kind of faux-choice, and was not up to me. There you go on about being free to do as you will. That's off topic. You're bringing up another issue. You're bringing up the issue of coercion.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 7, 2006, 04:22 PM

Not a problem you say, great. My choice of cereal tomorrow is destined to be what it is, yet I have a choice, and you think that jives.No, I think it jibes.

per Merriam-Webster
jive: to talk jive : kid around
jibe:: to be in accord On the one hand, I can see where the answer could be that there is no observable difference--least not to one living in it.

But, Imagine stepping back and viewing two different worlds where one has people with free will while the other doesn't. From that armchair perspective, and if I had to become apart of one over the other, I'd choose free will.Now you're really confusing me. There are these two worlds, seemingly identical to those living in them, but discernibly different to one living outside them. (sounds like God to me.) What does this God-in-an-armchair see different about these two worlds?What concept?Your idea of free will, and don't ask me to articulate it; that's your job.If I am determined (destined) to do something (like the forth domino is destined once the first has fallen), then I don't have free will (a true choice)--I don't have choices if I'm destined.

You don't see a problem with that?If it were true, I'd have a problem with that. No, wait - if it were true, then I wouldn't be who I am, and thus I don't know how I'd feel about it, or if I'd feel anything.

fast

November 7, 2006, 04:24 PM

"Is it the case that for every human action that has ever occurred in the past, is occurring now, or ever will occur, the action wa caused by antecedently sufficient conditions?"Not just human actions but the actions of inanimate objects as well.

Rocks don't think, but the same physics that cause them to break apart and land on the highway is just as causal as the inner neural firings of a human brain that leads to our decisions.

If we are actions are determined, then our perceived choices are not choices at all, and if free will is true, then are perceived choices are choices, and if both are true, then they are compatible, but if both are compatible, then someone has some explaining to do way beyond that of semantic trickery.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 7, 2006, 04:34 PM

"Compatiblism" is the idea advanced by William James among others that says determinism and free will are, well, compatible. But as John Searle and others have pointed out, it only makes a logical point about use of concepts of "free" and "determined," but leaves over the question people like you and me are interested in, that is: "Is it the case that for every human action that has ever occurred in the past, is occurring now, or ever will occur, the action was caused by antecedently sufficient conditions?"The question I am interested in is whether we have the sort of free will that is necessary for moral responsibility. I feel we do, and that this is compatible with determinism as you above define it.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 7, 2006, 04:43 PM

If we are actions are determined, then our perceived choices are not choices at all, and if free will is true, then are perceived choices are choices, and if both are true, then they are compatible, but if both are compatible, then someone has some explaining to do way beyond that of semantic trickery.OK, do some expaining.
WHAT IS FREE WILL?

fast

November 7, 2006, 04:46 PM

No, I think it jibes.Thanks. :)

Now you're really confusing me. There are these two worlds, seemingly identical to those living in them, but discernibly different to one living outside them. (sounds like God to me.) What does this God-in-an-armchair see different about these two worlds? He's privy to the truth.

In the deterministic world, each player acts according to their own program and makes their choices as it was destined and meant to be made, and all of those android/humans think that they are making decisions of their own accord (and choosing between alternatives), when in fact they are doing nothing more than succumbing to the emotionless cascade of cause and effect—matter in motion. In the darkly lit world of determinism, minds are but a computer program, faithfully slaving to the mechanism of their enslaved machine.

In the delightful world of free will, the killer ought to be ashamed for his evil deeds, for it is the killer that made the decision—not some consequence to an inevitable cascade of converging cold causes.

fast

November 7, 2006, 04:53 PM

OK, do some expaining.
WHAT IS FREE WILL?

It means that I'm not bound to make certain decisions. I get to choose. I get to decide. I get to be alive.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 7, 2006, 05:03 PM

It means that I'm not bound to make certain decisions. I get to choose. I get to decide. I get to be alive.Correct me if I'm wrong, here. You do believe you're alive, right? Thus, you do believe you have free will. Could you clarify your position on determinism, then? Do you believe your actions do not result from antecedent causes?

fast

November 7, 2006, 05:14 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong, here. You do believe you're alive, right?Oh come on, I meant that emphatically. Of course I'm alive either way, but I meant it with a lot of emotion behind it. Kind of like one may say you've never lived unless you've experienced something or another.

Thus, you do believe you have free will. I believe I have free will, yes, but the determinist theory rejects that is possible. I cannot both have a choice and not have a choice at the same time. I cannot control my own destiny and have it controlled for me at the same time.

Could you clarify your position on determinism, then?
All events are effects stemmed from causes.

Do you believe your actions do not result from antecedent causes?No. I believe that too.

I'm just fucked! I'm holding contradictory positions, and it hurts my head. :banghead:

kennethamy

November 7, 2006, 06:04 PM

No, I'm not. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I'm saying that if you hit the throttle on the train that carries you (by tracks) through Knoxville, then you're going to Knoxville. What happens directly depends on what you do, so don't carry me back to fatalism-land.

Yes, but what I'm questioning is if we have a choice. I keep trying over and over to illustrate how it is that we may not have a choice even though it appears we have a choice.

If causes lead to nothing other than effects, then it's like matter in motion is on their own set of train tracks destined to go in no other order than the direction they're headed, and if something intervenes, then it's because another set of cause and effect tracks were headed that way. The billiard ball break example illustrates that point.

You are approaching this from such a macro level. Look deeper. Follow the chain of events on a microscopic level. Imagine the neurons firing as you contemplate your decision to have oat meal. Look at the cascade of interdependent set of neural train tracks as the web of mental cause and effect swish.

If you made the decision, which is the 50 millionth effect (from causes) within the last few seconds, then my question is, how could you have chosen differently. Don't let the vast amounts of variables bring you down, and don't shut down and bring up other situations where you also thought you had a choice. The choice is what's being questioned.

There you go on about being free to do as you will. That's off topic. You're bringing up another issue. You're bringing up the issue of coercion.

I think it matters how my choice is determined. If it is determined by my having reasons, good reasons, for what I choose, then my choice was a free choice. But if it was determined by something I had nothing to do with, and if my choice was forced on me in some way, then my choice is not a free choice. But it seems simply wrong not to care how my choice is determined, and to think that no matter how it is determined I am a dominoe. There are distinctions to be made as to how the choice is determined. The term "determined" is too crude to enable us to make such distinctions.

John Searle is quoted as asking

"Is it the case that for every human action that has ever occurred in the past, is occurring now, or ever will occur, the action was caused by antecedently sufficient conditions?" And that is true, as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough. For the question now is, what sort of conditions were these "antecedently sufficient conditions"? Were they conditions which caused me, willy-nilly, and against my will, to do as I did. Or, even caused me to do what I did without due consideration of the consequences, on impulse?
Or, on the other hand, were these antecedent conditions which caused me to do what I did, conditions that made it a reasonable for me to act as I did, and just as importantly, I acted as I did because of those reasons? Now, in both kinds of cases, my action was "caused by antecedently sufficient conditions". But doesn't it matter whether these "antecedently sufficient conditions" were reasons like whether the cereal was good for me, or, by contrast, they were chemical changes in me that caused me to be impulsive? Shouldn't we distinguish between kinds of causes? If not, why not?

fast

November 7, 2006, 07:14 PM

I think it matters how my choice is determined. If it is determined by my having reasons, good reasons, for what I choose, then my choice was a free choice. It seems to me that you're right. I think we act upon what we think. Sometimes, our reasoning is rock solid, yet at other times, our reasoning and corresponding thoughts are not so grand, and when we look back to see and judge whether or not a person was using good judgment, there definitely appears to be a connection. It isn't just an appearance, for there is a true connection between our contemplation on what to do and what we actually wind up doing. All in all, and yet again, I stand by my first sentence: it seems to me that you're right.

I still think this deterministic view (true or otherwise) is hideously vile and deceptively corrupt--sickenly sad. I think it's wonderful though that we at least get to enjoy the comforts of knowing that reasoning and the accompanying emotions play a prominent role in our actions.

But if it was determined by something I had nothing to do with, and if my choice was forced on me in some way, then my choice is not a free choice. But, you do have something to do with the 'choice' you made. You made it, so of course you did. I would never attempt to insinuate the results of your test would have been passing despite your turning in of the paper. Sincerely, I agree that you have a lot to do with what happens.

But it seems simply wrong not to care how my choice is determined, and to think that no matter how it is determined I am a dominoe. There are distinctions to be made as to how the choice is determined. The term "determined" is too crude to enable us to make such distinctions.

Of course we care, but curiously though, why did you stop at reasoning as being a precipitating factor in what determined your ultimate choice? Did you not think or suspect that the reasoning would lead to the decision you made?

kennethamy

November 7, 2006, 08:24 PM

It seems to me that you're right. I think we act upon what we think. Sometimes, our reasoning is rock solid, yet at other times, our reasoning and corresponding thoughts are not so grand, and when we look back to see and judge whether or not a person was using good judgment, there definitely appears to be a connection. It isn't just an appearance, for there is a true connection between our contemplation on what to do and what we actually wind up doing. All in all, and yet again, I stand by my first sentence: it seems to me that you're right.

I still think this deterministic view (true or otherwise) is hideously vile and deceptively corrupt--sickenly sad. I think it's wonderful though that we at least get to enjoy the comforts of knowing that reasoning and the accompanying emotions play a prominent role in our actions.

But, you do have something to do with the 'choice' you made. You made it, so of course you did. I would never attempt to insinuate the results of your test would have been passing despite your turning in of the paper. Sincerely, I agree that you have a lot to do with what happens.

Of course we care, but curiously though, why did you stop at reasoning as being a precipitating factor in what determined your ultimate choice? Did you not think or suspect that the reasoning would lead to the decision you made?

I have no particular quarrel with what you call "the deterministic view", unless you mean that it implies that determinism and free action are incompatible, in which case it seems to me clearly false. But as Hoodoo pointed out, one can be a determinist and think there is free action. A number of prominent philosophers have done so: Hume, Spinoza (although, admittedly in a peculiar way) and Kant (in another peculiar way). Leibniz thought so, and to go to recent times, G.E. Moore thought so, and a whole host of analytic philosophers.

If a choice is forced on me, then although I did make it, and so, did have something to do with it, I did not make it in a way that the resultant action is a free action. And that is what I meant. But if the choice is not forced on me. but is simply determined by "antecedent causes" then a lot depends on whether the choice was just an impulse that "came out of no where" and led to (say) a self-destructive action, in which case one would question whether the resultant action was a free action; or whether the choice was caused by reasoned consideration of the alternatives. If the latter, then such a choice would be a paradigm of a free choice, as long as if the "antecedent causes" were causes of the right kind, namely reason and consideration. So, to repeat, whether the choice is the outcome of "antecedent causes" does not determine whether the choice, and the resultant action is a free choice and action. For all choices, free or not, are the outcome of "antecedent causes". At least I believe that since I am a determinist.

fast

November 7, 2006, 09:25 PM

or whether the choice was caused by reasoned consideration of the alternatives. If the latter, then such a choice would be a paradigm of a free choice, as long as if the "antecedent causes" were causes of the right kind, namely reason and consideration.
I see.

StaticAge

November 7, 2006, 10:07 PM

The question I am interested in is whether we have the sort of free will that is necessary for moral responsibility. I feel we do, and that this is compatible with determinism as you above define it.

Exactly, which is also what Searle notes. Most compatiblists only are interested in moral concerns. And thats cool, but its not the question I am talking about.

StaticAge

November 7, 2006, 10:18 PM

Not just human actions but the actions of inanimate objects as well.

Rocks don't think, but the same physics that cause them to break apart and land on the highway is just as causal as the inner neural firings of a human brain that leads to our decisions.

If we are actions are determined, then our perceived choices are not choices at all, and if free will is true, then are perceived choices are choices, and if both are true, then they are compatible, but if both are compatible, then someone has some explaining to do way beyond that of semantic trickery.

I totally understand what you are talking about, and I agree about the semantics as well.

But look, like I said earlier, this contradiction pretends as though we already have before us every single bit of info about how the mind works. Is that really true? Do we need to get rid of either determinism or free will because they seem incompatible with current science, or is it possible that the problem just isnt finished yet? Why is there this imperitive need to have an answer at the expense of one or the other, since I experience them both? To me it shows the limits of current knowledge, not the elimination of one or the other.

kennethamy

November 7, 2006, 10:22 PM

Exactly, which is also what Searle notes. Most compatiblists only are interested in moral concerns. And thats cool, but its not the question I am talking about.

If the question is, then, are we all robots? the answer is clearly, no, since only robots are robots. What really is the question? Are our actions and choices all the result of antecedent causes? The answer is, yes. Now what?

fast

November 8, 2006, 08:21 AM

I totally understand what you are talking about With my sloppy grammar, I'm impressed.

But look, like I said earlier, this contradiction pretends as though we already have before us every single bit of info about how the mind works. Is that really true? We need not necessarily, fully understand the subject matter to spot contradictions. If the opposite of determinism is indeterminism, and if what we think of as free will is indeterminism, then the opposite of determinism is free will, but if at the same time free will is compatible with determinism, then free will is not the opposite of determinism; therefore, there is a difference between that of indeterminism and that of free will.

When I try to figure out the implications of indeterminism, it leads me to free will, but the objection keeps coming back that free will is compatible with determinism, but the objection doesn’t mesh-- when the objection is pinned to the idea coercion.

Clearly, (or perhaps not so clearly) two different views of free will are on the table. There’s the one of the non-coerced variety—that only you and I see, and then there’s the other one about coercion. I agree that we have free will of that variety—I wasn’t coerced to send this message, but I scream, what has THAT to do with what we’re talking about.

Thing is, I'm willing to concede to another's use of free will, so I descend into a journey of looking for another expression, and that leads me to discussing choices as not truly being as they appear. That didn't work either. It’s a semantic nightmare.

Do we need to get rid of either determinism or free will because they seem incompatible with current science, or is it possible that the problem just isn’t finished yet? I don't want to lay down arms and simply say it's too much for us to take on.

Why is there this imperitive need to have an answer at the expense of one or the other, since I experience them both? If the contradiction that we envision cannot be explained away, then it stands to reason that one of our experiences isn't real.

To me it shows the limits of current knowledge, not the elimination of one or the other.You're just being safe. :Cheeky:

StaticAge

November 8, 2006, 08:34 AM

If the contradiction that we envision cannot be explained away, then it stands to reason that one of our experiences isn't real.

Not true! Look, quantum physics on the face of it sounds absolutely ridiculous- there are many apparent contradictions, making it seem illogical and random. Of course, when you get down to the abstract mathematics, all of a sudden it becomes sane and determinable again.

Now, I'm not saying that free will is a quantum effect at all. I am saying that if we experienece it, and we experience determinism, then obviously there is some way that they hang together, and if there is a way for similarly apparent contradictions to hang together in physics, then just that contradiction is not enough for me to rack my head over whether either free will or determinism has to be kissed goodbye.

I dont think one always needs to be surrounded only by neat answers anyway, sometimes living with the questions is much more beneficial. If the given answers dont match reality, why should we be quick to accept them? Sometimes its the questions which drive us.

kennethamy

November 8, 2006, 08:53 AM

Not true! Look, quantum physics on the face of it sounds absolutely ridiculous- there are many apparent contradictions, making it seem illogical and random. Of course, when you get down to the abstract mathematics, all of a sudden it becomes sane and determinable again.

Now, I'm not saying that free will is a quantum effect at all. I am saying that if we experienece it, and we experience determinism, then obviously there is some way that they hang together, and if there is a way for similarly apparent contradictions to hang together in physics, then just that contradiction is not enough for me to rack my head over whether either free will or determinism has to be kissed goodbye.

I dont think one always needs to be surrounded only by neat answers anyway, sometimes living with the questions is much more beneficial. If the given answers dont match reality, why should we be quick to accept them? Sometimes its the questions which drive us.

Certainly if determinism is true, and free will is true, then it follows that they are compatible, since a set of true propositions must be compatible. But, as for our "experience" whatever that means of determinism or free will, they may both exist, and determinism and free will need not be compatible. For one of those "experiences" may be wrong.
Of course, I have no idea what it means to "experience" free will if that means to experience counter-causation. What does the experience of something's not have a cause feel like? Suppose my choice of dessert last night had no cause. How do you think that felt? What was that experience like? The experience of there not being a cause. Let me know, will you?

Not only aren't there always neat answers, there aren't always answers that we know, or, for all I know, we can know. But that, of course, doesn't mean that there are no neat answers, nor those that we can know. One of these answers, it seems to me, is that whether or not my action, or my choice, is a product of "antecedent causes" tells me nothing about whether I acted (or chose) freely, unless I know what those causes were. And just realizing that, is some kind of answer. At least it doesn't just leave us with the impression that we don't have free will just because our action or choice is caused, but may lead us into investigating the difference that kinds of causes, especially reasons that are causes, make to whether we act freely. And that seems to me philosophical progress, at least toward some kind of clarity.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 8, 2006, 09:17 AM

If the contradiction that we envision cannot be explained away, then it stands to reason that one of our experiences isn't real.Perhaps "the contradiction" is a creation of your explanation. The first thing I think you might consider is the phenomenon of will. Not free will, but will itself. Consider salmon swimming upstream for hundreds of miles against the raging current. Billiard balls do not behave like that. There's something quite remarkable going on with living organisms, and although it does indeed arise from, and not "disobey" physical laws, it behaves quite differently than nonliving matter.

Free will will not, I think, be explained by armchair philosophising; it is a phenomenon to be scientifically investigated.

StaticAge

November 8, 2006, 09:26 AM

Ken, I like what you wrote, but I think there are some semantic arguments in there attempting to combine what I mean by "free will" and "determinism" and calling it "causation" and then asking how it would feel if there was no cause, but that reduction sort of strips away the meaning of the words. Maybe a better way would be to say that in free will, I sense a gap between deciding between two things, so that I could choose one thing or another equlaly and in determinism, there is no gap. Reducing one or the other or combining them into "causation" seems to ignore that.

But regardless, its been a nice discussion, I certainly wouldnt have expeceted any solution from it- free will vs determinism has been around for a very long time and its likely to stay that way for a while. If I recall correctly, we argued before on the same side of free will in another thread. I know you are not trying to say it doesnt exist and I appreciate your perspective in trying to realize some kind of an answer. So maybe thats a start.

I want to go see 12 monkeys again.

(hey fast- ever seen that movie? Next time you catch it, think about free will and determinsim while watching it- the dialogue is a blast)

fast

November 8, 2006, 10:37 AM

I want to go see 12 monkeys again.

(hey fast- ever seen that movie? Next time you catch it, think about free will and determinsim while watching it- the dialogue is a blast)
I don't recall; if I did watch it, it's been awhile.

fast

November 8, 2006, 12:10 PM

The first thing I think you might consider is the phenomenon of will. Not free will, but will itself. I'm not sure what the difference is, now that you mention it. It would seem that my will is my desire, and to say I have free will is to say that my desire is free of coercion--I suppose.

If someone puts a gun to my head and tells me to get in the car, then I did not get into the car of my own accord, (I did not act of my own free will) but then again, the precise actions (the consequences of my movements) is attributable to the direct orders (to personify a tad) of my contemplating reasoning brain.

When the prankster says shoot your child or I’ll kill you, I blame you for shooting, and in the previous example, YOU are the one that got into the car, and your will was FREE to suffer the consequence or not.

Consider salmon swimming upstream for hundreds of miles against the raging current. I like that example; I'm not sure how to utilize it yet, but I like it.

Billiard balls do not behave like that. There's something quite remarkable going on with living organisms, and although it does indeed arise from, and not "disobey" physical laws, it behaves quite differently than nonliving matter.

Free will not, I think, be explained by armchair philosophizing; it is a phenomenon to be scientifically investigated.
I don't see why the great complexity of the processes of the brain cannot be reduced to a level playing field with that of the actions of billiard balls.

When we look at things from a "matter-in-motion" perspective, then the thing in question (living or not living), follows the same rules. All events (our choices, decision, and actions) result directly from preceding antecedent causes.

Someone please tell me what antecedent means in that context.

From my humor files:

Judge: You must have a license to drive
fast: But, I don't want a license
Judge: Then, you don't drive
fast: But, I want to drive

DMV: What do you want?
fast: cute!
DMV: well, if you want a drivers license, then you better fill out the card
fast: Great, first it was the insurance company asking me if I wanted insurance, knowing all the while that I was only there because of the laws mandate, and now I'm here being forced to admit to yet another bogus desire.

TomJrzk

November 12, 2006, 11:34 AM

I'm holding contradictory positions, and it hurts my head. :banghead:
A lot of this discussion (as excellent as it has been) implies that you missed Hume's definition of free will that some compatibilists support:

According to Hume, free will should not be understood as an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires.
To me, these compatibilists have just kicked the can down the road, where you and I happen to be standing. I think if you keep this in mind, your dialog will focus on what we're curious about: the physics of their 'free' will, whether it's truly free or completely dependent on physics we now know and not 'ultimately' free.

The reason I think your head hurts is that your ego module WANTS freedom but your reality module can not accept it on the facts at hand. Unfortunately, I think you will continue to beat your head against the wall until you understand that your wants can not be fulfilled; only then can you focus on developing a philosophy that makes you comfortable with reality. It's an uncomfortable step, but coming to terms with it is worth the pain.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 12, 2006, 12:51 PM

Unfortunately, I think you will continue to beat your head against the wall until you understand that your wants can not be fulfilled; only then can you focus on developing a philosophy that makes you comfortable with reality. It's an uncomfortable step, but coming to terms with it is worth the pain.If one's ego module received the "ultimate" freedom it wanted, what would it have? Why would you want to be "differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires"? What's wrong with your actual beliefs and desires, and why would you want different ones?

kennethamy

November 12, 2006, 02:54 PM

A lot of this discussion (as excellent as it has been) implies that you missed Hume's definition of free will that some compatibilists support:

To me, these compatibilists have just kicked the can down the road, where you and I happen to be standing. I think if you keep this in mind, your dialog will focus on what we're curious about: the physics of their 'free' will, whether it's truly free or completely dependent on physics we now know and not 'ultimately' free.

The reason I think your head hurts is that your ego module WANTS freedom but your reality module can not accept it on the facts at hand. Unfortunately, I think you will continue to beat your head against the wall until you understand that your wants can not be fulfilled; only then can you focus on developing a philosophy that makes you comfortable with reality. It's an uncomfortable step, but coming to terms with it is worth the pain.

"To me, these compatibilists have just kicked the can down the road, where you and I happen to be standing. I think if you keep this in mind, your dialog will focus on what we're curious about: the physics of their 'free' will, whether it's truly free or completely dependent on physics we now know and not 'ultimately' free."

Which assumes what is at issue, and, so, begs the question. You simply assume that "being dependent on physics" whatever that means, but I think it means that determinism is incompatible with freedom of will, or, as you put it, being "truly free". All you mean by "truly free" (rather than good old "free") is an action which is not "dependent on physics" or, in other words, determined. So what you are, in fact arguing, is that compatibilists are kicking the can down the road because they are daring to question whether freewill and determinism are compatible. Imagine that!

A_M

November 12, 2006, 04:31 PM

Which assumes what is at issue, and, so, begs the question. You simply assume that "being dependent on physics" whatever that means, but I think it means that determinism is incompatible with freedom of will, or, as you put it, being "truly free". All you mean by "truly free" (rather than good old "free") is an action which is not "dependent on physics" or, in other words, determined. So what you are, in fact arguing, is that compatibilists are kicking the can down the road because they are daring to question whether freewill and determinism are compatible. Imagine that!
How is a non-deterministic free will any more "truly free" than a determined free will. If choices aren't made determined in a deterministic manner, then how are they determined - by chance? Is making decisions based on the roll of a dice really any more (truly?) free than making decisions based on rational deliberation (however determined)? IMHO, no - and whatever further freedom (if any) that might supposedly come from non-deterministic free will is not a desirable form of freedom.

kennethamy

November 12, 2006, 10:15 PM

How is a non-deterministic free will any more "truly free" than a determined free will. If choices aren't made determined in a deterministic manner, then how are they determined - by chance? Is making decisions based on the roll of a dice really any more (truly?) free than making decisions based on rational deliberation (however determined)? IMHO, no - and whatever further freedom (if any) that might supposedly come from non-deterministic free will is not a desirable form of freedom.

It is "truly free" that stumps me. How am I to tell whether some action is "truly free", rather than just free? Of course, I did not maintain that actions that are not caused (if any there are) would be desirable or undesirable, must less that they would be free actions. After all, I am not the one who maintains that only uncaused actions are free actions, or, indeed, that uncaused actions are free actions.

You probably have to decide whether all you mean by "free action" is uncaused action. If that is all you mean, then, of course, by your lights. only uncaused actions are free action. That is not how I, or most people use the expression "free action" however.

TomJrzk

November 14, 2006, 09:25 AM

What's wrong with your actual beliefs and desires, and why would you want different ones?
I agree with you completely. In fact (at least in Tom's world), our wills are completely dependent on neurology. That we have 'consciousness' and/or higher level thought processes and do not feel every neuron results in the illusion of free will. That type of free will I accept and value greatly. That is my actual beliefs and desires and I would have it no other way.

fast is struggling with what Hume compatibilism does not address, since it kicks the idea of doing differently given the same circumstances down the road. I think we can not do differently (but still like ice cream), fast would like to think he can, and Ken refuses to address it???

Hoodoo Ulove

November 14, 2006, 09:54 AM

I agree with you completely. In fact (at least in Tom's world), our wills are completely dependent on neurology. That we have 'consciousness' and/or higher level thought processes and do not feel every neuron results in the illusion of free will.I'm not at all happy with the description of free will as an illusion. We do not say that because the neuromuscular activity underlying walking is not apparent to us, that walking is an illusion. Why should we say that choosing is an illusion? We do choose. This seems a linguistic confusion only.

kennethamy

November 14, 2006, 10:15 AM

I agree with you completely. In fact (at least in Tom's world), our wills are completely dependent on neurology. That we have 'consciousness' and/or higher level thought processes and do not feel every neuron results in the illusion of free will. That type of free will I accept and value greatly. That is my actual beliefs and desires and I would have it no other way.

fast is struggling with what Hume compatibilism does not address, since it kicks the idea of doing differently given the same circumstances down the road. I think we can not do differently (but still like ice cream), fast would like to think he can, and Ken refuses to address it???

Actually, I think I have addressed it. And so did Hume. If determinism is true, then same causes, same effect. So, no, given that the causes are the same, the effect, what I do, could not have been different. Therefore, it follows that a compatibilist (who things that determinism and freedom are compatible-right?) cannot say that he could have done differently in exactly the same circumstances. And he doesn't say that. What he does say, is that he could have acted differently if he had (chosen, wanted, etc.) differently. And he points out that there are actions which we could not have done even if we had chosen differently, and actions we could have done if we had chosen differently. (I could not have walked 100 miles this morning, even if I had chosen to do so, and I could have walked a mile this morning, if I had chosen to do so. Actually I did neither. But I could not have done the former even had I chosen to, but could have done the latter, had I chosen to). So, whether I could have done some action, depend on whether I choose to do that action, and therefore, if I do an action I choose to do, then I am doing that action "of my own free will". No, inconsistency with determinism since what is different is that I chose to do what I did.

Your next question will be, but wasn't my choice determined. The reply is, yes, of course it was, since as a compatibilist, I am a determinist. But if your conclusion from that is that if my choice was determined, I could not have acted freely, it is that conclusion I deny. My reason is that whether or not my choice is determined is not relevant. What is relevant is what sort of choice it was. Was it a rational choice made with knowledge of the consequences? A considered choice. Or was it a choice which was the result of an impulse? Or was it the effect of hypnosis, or was it a choice that was forced on me in some way. If it was of the latter kind, then my action, although the result of my choice, was an an action done of "my own free will". But if my choice was a rational choice, not imposed on me in any of many possible ways, then the action that resulted from that choice was done "of my own free will". I think that Hume gives that kind of answer too.

So, the issue does not hang on whether the choice from which my action resulted was determined or not. Since compatibilists are determinists, the compatibilist must answer that the choice was determined. The issue, rather, hangs on what sort of choice it was.

Kingreaper

November 14, 2006, 11:00 AM

Thanks. :)

He's privy to the truth.

In the deterministic world, each player acts according to their own program and makes their choices as it was destined and meant to be made, and all of those android/humans think that they are making decisions of their own accord (and choosing between alternatives), when in fact they are doing nothing more than succumbing to the emotionless cascade of cause and effect—matter in motion. In the darkly lit world of determinism, minds are but a computer program, faithfully slaving to the mechanism of their enslaved machine.

In the delightful world of free will, the killer ought to be ashamed for his evil deeds, for it is the killer that made the decision—not some consequence to an inevitable cascade of converging cold causes.
In the world of determinism the Killer killed because they wanted to kill and are the kind of person who kills. Thus they can be sensibly punished both as a deterrant and if you subscribe to such a moral philososphy, because they deserve it for being a killer

In the world of free will the Killer killed because they did. They didn't do it because they wanted to. They didn't do it because they're the kind of person who acts on that impulse. They just did it because they did it. It is unjustifiable to punish them because deterrants cannot be effective, and they aren't the sort of person who kills and thus don't "deserve" punishment.

Kingreaper

November 14, 2006, 11:05 AM

But, Imagine stepping back and viewing two different worlds where one has people with free will while the other doesn't. From that armchair perspective, and if I had to become apart of one over the other, I'd choose free will.

How would you tell the difference?

If you can't turn back time you can't tell the difference. If you can turn back time then the difference must be that sometimes people with "free will" do things they don't want to do: Sometimes peoples desires don't control their actions. And you call that freedom?

TomJrzk

November 14, 2006, 11:54 AM

I'm not at all happy with the description of free will as an illusion. We do not say that because the neuromuscular activity underlying walking is not apparent to us, that walking is an illusion. Why should we say that choosing is an illusion? We do choose. This seems a linguistic confusion only.

I'm only saying that the 'free' part of free will is an illusion. We do have will. We do walk, but neither is walking free from the neurology of the brain. So we don't 'free walk'.

I know that Hume defined the physics out of the term 'free will' but I'm stuck with a will that is not free; it's dependent on neurology. My brain can not go there.

fast accepts that he has Hume's free will, he is only stuggling with going down to the end of the path: if he'll make the same choice because his neurology is the same then he doesn't feel that freedom.

wiploc

November 14, 2006, 12:03 PM

In the world of free will the Killer killed because they did. They didn't do it because they wanted to. They didn't do it because they're the kind of person who acts on that impulse. They just did it because they did it. It is unjustifiable to punish them because deterrants cannot be effective, and they aren't the sort of person who kills and thus don't "deserve" punishment.

That doesn't follow. In a world with free will, punishment serves the four purposes of isolation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and vengeance. Free will doesn't preclude any of those.

crc

Hoodoo Ulove

November 14, 2006, 12:45 PM

I'm only saying that the 'free' part of free will is an illusion. We do have will. We do walk, but neither is walking free from the neurology of the brain. So we don't 'free walk'.

I know that Hume defined the physics out of the term 'free will' but I'm stuck with a will that is not free; it's dependent on neurology. My brain can not go there.

fast accepts that he has Hume's free will, he is only stuggling with going down to the end of the path: if he'll make the same choice because his neurology is the same then he doesn't feel that freedom.This felt discomfort from a supposed lack of freedom seems to be a reaction not to anything in our experience, but rather to a story (a true story) about the neurological basis of our consciousness.

Is a bear who chooses to eat the honey rather than the berries under an illusion that he's choosing the honey?

kennethamy

November 14, 2006, 03:35 PM

This felt discomfort from a supposed lack of freedom seems to be a reaction not to anything in our experience, but rather to a story (a true story) about the neurological basis of our consciousness.

Is a bear who chooses to eat the honey rather than the berries under an illusion that he's choosing the honey?

I am pretty sure that an accurate representation of the view you and I disagree with would be that the bear is not under the illusion that he is choosing honey (and since I am not sure what that would mean with bears, let's go to people) but that the person's choice is the "necessary" effect of antecedent causes, and that therefore, neither the choice, nor the action which is caused by the choice is free. Which is to say, uncaused.

I am not saying that the above argument is a good one. Just that I think that would be the argument. But one thing is clear: if to say of an action, or of a choice, that it is free, is to say of it that it is uncaused, then if the choice or the action is caused, then it isn't free. You would have to agree with that.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 14, 2006, 04:16 PM

. . . then if the choice or the action is caused, then it isn't free. You would have to agree with that.No, I don't think those longing for "true" freedom want their acts to be uncaused. They want to be released from physical causality, but not to randomness. They want a non-material causality, a causality from spirit to matter. They want to believe themselves an unmoved mover.

kennethamy

November 14, 2006, 06:09 PM

TomJrzk

November 14, 2006, 07:48 PM

Is a bear who chooses to eat the honey rather than the berries under an illusion that he's choosing the honey?

Only if he is under the illusion that the choice is 'free'. The choice is caused by his neurology.

So, fast, it looks like determinism, whether compatible with free will or not, is what's giving you the headache. Even compatibilists would say that you would make the same choice under identical circumstances, so you would interpret that to mean that the choices are made by the circumstances. I say, "OK, my beliefs and predilections are part of those circumstances, so I have control over those choices in that sense". And that's good enough for me. I hope it is for you.

Compatibilists also want to say that my beliefs and predilections are a part of my free will? That, to me, is not free; and that's where I see the most confusion.

So, yes, it's all a movie and you're an actor. But the script is your own...

A_M

November 15, 2006, 03:13 AM

No, I don't think those longing for "true" freedom want their acts to be uncaused. They want to be released from physical causality, but not to randomness. They want a non-material causality, a causality from spirit to matter. They want to believe themselves an unmoved mover.
Why would one want spiritual causality rather than physical causality? Spiritual causality would be no better a basis for moral responsibility as if the "unmoved mover" is truly "unmoved", the agent would not be to blame for the spiritual causes for his actions any more than he would be to blame for any physical causes. (So, instead of "physics is to blame" we have "God is to blame"?)

Are you saying that those who argue against physical determinism are really doing so merely out of for fear of no longer having any use for their souls? That seems to me to be a credible explanation for the reluctance to accept determinism, but naturally it isn't a proper argument against it.

Kingreaper

November 15, 2006, 05:01 AM

That doesn't follow. In a world with free will, punishment serves the four purposes of isolation,The person didn't murder because they wanted to: they "freely" murdered. Who they are had no involvement, why detain them? deterrence, They didn't murder because they thought it would help them, they did so "freely"
rehabilitation, They didn't murder because they wanted to, they murdered because they did

and vengeance. Difficult to justify even when the other person wanted to harm you, let only when they only did it "freely"Free will doesn't preclude any of those.Sure it does.

crc

fast

November 15, 2006, 08:32 AM

Only if he is under the illusion that the choice is 'free'. The choice is caused by his neurology.There's no choice unless there's an option to choose. It seems to me that the option I'll be choosing when I make a decision (despite being a direct result of my contemplation and reasoning--for it is determined as well) is itself determined, and if that's the case, (which apparently it is), then the choice (the chosen option) for all intents and purposes may as well already have been made. Any second-rate God would have known what choice I would have made; after all, the damn thing was determined.

Was there any coercion? Nope. Was there free will? Well, I'll put it this way: If to have free will is to have a choice free of coercion, and if there is no coercion, then at least one piece of the puzzle is solved; hence, the coercion piece is explained, but the choice part remains contested.

fast

November 15, 2006, 08:36 AM

In the world of determinism the Killer killed because they wanted to kill and are the kind of person who kills.
In the world of determinism, what the killer wanted was determined.

wiploc

November 15, 2006, 08:53 AM

Originally Posted by wiploc http://www.iidb.org/vbb/images/001/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=3924151#post3924151)
That doesn't follow. In a world with free will, punishment serves the four purposes of isolation,
The person didn't murder because they wanted to: they "freely" murdered. Who they are had no involvement, why detain them?

I get the feeling you're really trying to make fun of someone else's idea of free will rather than seriously discuss punishment. In any case, if you isolate someone who freely murders people, then he won't freely murder any more people. Isolation works.

deterrence,
They didn't murder because they thought it would help them, they did so "freely"

I don't think anyone thinks "freely" means "randomly." In any case, if punishing one person can keep other people from freely doing crimes, then deterrence works.

rehabilitation,
They didn't murder because they wanted to, they murdered because they did

"[T]hey murdered because they did"? You are conflating cause with effect. In any case, if punishment can discourage someone from freely repeating his crime, then rehabilitation works.

and vengeance.
Difficult to justify even when the other person wanted to harm you, let only when they only did it "freely"

Vengenance is always "difficult to justify."

Free will doesn't preclude any of those.
Sure it does.

How do you figure?

crc

kennethamy

November 15, 2006, 09:12 AM

In the world of determinism, what the killer wanted was determined.

That's very true. In fact it is definitionally true, and thus trivially true. But, what is supposed to follow from that?

fast

November 15, 2006, 09:17 AM

That's very true. In fact it is definitionally true, and thus trivially true. But, what is supposed to follow from that?That our choices are determined.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 15, 2006, 09:17 AM

Any second-rate God would have known what choice I would have made; after all, the damn thing was determined.Maybe that's why our local god instructs us to forgive them that trespass against us, as he forgives us our trespasses.

Kingreaper

November 15, 2006, 09:24 AM

I get the feeling you're really trying to make fun of someone else's idea of free will rather than seriously discuss punishment. In any case, if you isolate someone who freely murders people, then he won't freely murder any more people. Isolation works.If someone freely murders people because of who that person is then it's not "free will" because who they are is causing their actions.

Thus isolating murderers would only be as successful as isolating anyone else

I don't think anyone thinks "freely" means "randomly." In any case, if punishing one person can keep other people from freely doing crimes, then deterrence works. But if deterrence can cause someone not to commit a crime, then their choosing not to commit the crime would be caused. Not free.

"[T]hey murdered because they did"? You are conflating cause with effect. In any case, if punishment can discourage someone from freely repeating his crime, then rehabilitation works. In non-deterministic "Free Will" THERE IS NO CAUSE. That is the whole point. If there were a cause to your actions they wouldn't be Free Will.

Vengenance is always "difficult to justify."
That is what I said

How do you figure?If someone performs actions for reasons, that means that determinism holds. Punishment is not sensible if determinism doesn't hold (nor is flattery, commerce, or any other form of human interaction based on the concept that what you do now will determine what they do later)

Kingreaper

November 15, 2006, 09:25 AM

That our choices are determined.
And this means what?

In determinism our choices are determined by us. In "Free Will" they are not. In which do we have more control?

kennethamy

November 15, 2006, 09:29 AM

That our choices are determined.

I agree that if every event has a cause, and our choices are events, then our choices have a cause. And I agree that every event has a cause. So, It follows that our choices have a cause. Fine. What follows from that? In particular, how does it follow that people are not free some of the time? Some causes compel, and some causes do not compel. If the cause does not compel, then we are free. As John Locke pointed out, the will is neither free nor is it not free. It is people who are either free or not free.

fast

November 15, 2006, 09:47 AM

I agree that if every event has a cause, and our choices are events, then our choices have a cause. And I agree that every event has a cause. So, It follows that our choices have a cause. Fine. What follows from that? In particular, how does it follow that people are not free some of the time? Some causes compel, and some causes do not compel. If the cause does not compel, then we are free. As John Locke pointed out, the will is neither free nor is it not free. It is people who are either free or not free.

This fog of confusion that I am in is starting to dissipate, and the points that you hammer out are starting to come in clearer for me, but the more I recognize the legitimacy of what you're saying, the more I realize the distinction between what I'm saying and your failure to address what I'm sayin--and yes, I'll gladly attribute that to my lack of clarity.

Take a peek at post 643. Notice the issue I take up with the term choice. Since it’s short, here’s the post in its entirety:

There's no choice unless there's an option to choose. It seems to me that the option I'll be choosing when I make a decision (despite being a direct result of my contemplation and reasoning--for it is determined as well) is itself determined, and if that's the case, (which apparently it is), then the choice (the chosen option) for all intents and purposes may as well already have been made. Any second-rate God would have known what choice I would have made; after all, the damn thing was determined.

Was there any coercion? Nope. Was there free will? Well, I'll put it this way: If to have free will is to have a choice free of coercion, and if there is no coercion, then at least one piece of the puzzle is solved; hence, the coercion piece is explained, but the choice part remains contested.

Now, let’s take a look-see at what you said. You said, “I agree that if every event has a cause, and our choices are events, then our choices have a cause.” You assume that we have choices. Intuitively, it seems natural to assume that. But, it’s being questioned. If our choice is determined, then it’s, well, determined—I find it particularly counterproductive to maintain the ordinarily intuitive mindset when that is the case. To say of my choice that it’s determined while maintaining that I have a choice seems a bit odd to me.

If our actions are determined, (and just forget about coercion), … if our actions are determined, then the consequence of our reasoning will point to a single decision to which there can be no other at that particular moment, and if that’s the case, then it’s not true that there were truly choices at that particular moment.

How do I bring myself to let go of this option/choice stuff?

fast

November 15, 2006, 10:06 AM

Some causes compel, and some causes do not compel. Need an example.

If the cause does not compel, then we are free. As John Locke pointed out, the will is neither free nor is it not free. It is people who are either free or not free.Interesting. Kinda makes ya go hmmm.

A_M

November 15, 2006, 10:12 AM

If our choice is determined, then it’s, well, determined—I find it particularly counterproductive to maintain the ordinarily intuitive mindset when that is the case. To say of my choice that it’s determined while maintaining that I have a choice seems a bit odd to me.

If our actions are determined, (and just forget about coercion), … if our actions are determined, then the consequence of our reasoning will point to a single decision to which there can be no other at that particular moment, and if that’s the case, then it’s not true that there were truly choices at that particular moment.
I don't think the definition of choice you are using is particularly useful. Instead I would say that as long as our reasoning, contemplation and evaluation of options influence the outcome of our decisions we have a choice. So long as nobody can tell you with absolute certainty what you will do in a particular instance you still have a choice in the matter.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 15, 2006, 10:13 AM

How do I bring myself to let go of this option/choice stuff?Why do you want to let go? If determinism is true, what does this do to your life? If you decide to believe it's false, what do you do differently?

fast

November 15, 2006, 10:21 AM

Why do you want to let go? If determinism is true, what does this do to your life? If you decide to believe it's false, what do you do differently?Decide to believe? Ya'll really tryin’ to fry me ain't ya?

Anyhoots, I desire for my beliefs to be commensurate with how things are. I'll still speed when I go to the store, so I guess nuttin' too awfully significant is going to happen.

fast

November 15, 2006, 10:24 AM

I don't think the definition of choice you are using is particularly useful. Instead I would say that as long as our reasoning, contemplation and evaluation of options influence the outcome of our decisions we have a choice. So long as nobody can tell you with absolute certainty what you will do in a particular instance you still have a choice in the matter.Options! What options? You mean like deciding whether or not I'll walk the mile this morning? Oh, I see, you think that I can do something in opposition to what is determined. Not gonna happen.

kennethamy

November 15, 2006, 10:25 AM

This fog of confusion that I am in is starting to dissipate, and the points that you hammer out are starting to come in clearer for me, but the more I recognize the legitimacy of what you're saying, the more I realize the distinction between what I'm saying and your failure to address what I'm sayin--and yes, I'll gladly attribute that to my lack of clarity.

Take a peek at post 643. Notice the issue I take up with the term choice. Since it’s short, here’s the post in its entirety:

Now, let’s take a look-see at what you said. You said, “I agree that if every event has a cause, and our choices are events, then our choices have a cause.” You assume that we have choices. Intuitively, it seems natural to assume that. But, it’s being questioned. If our choice is determined, then it’s, well, determined—I find it particularly counterproductive to maintain the ordinarily intuitive mindset when that is the case. To say of my choice that it’s determined while maintaining that I have a choice seems a bit odd to me.

If our actions are determined, (and just forget about coercion), … if our actions are determined, then the consequence of our reasoning will point to a single decision to which there can be no other at that particular moment, and if that’s the case, then it’s not true that there were truly choices at that particular moment.

How do I bring myself to let go of this option/choice stuff?

I think that the question of whether caused choices are really choices or not is just a verbal issue, and nothing hangs on it. If you don't like the term "choice" let's use "want".

People want things. Sometimes they can do as they want, sometimes not. When they can do as they want, they are acting freely. When they can't then they are not.

So, whether the wants are caused or not is not the issue. There is, however, an issue. Issue is whether or not these wants are caused in a certain way. Because even if a person does what he wants, if that want was caused in a certain way, we do not think the person acted freely. If, for example, as in the case of Raymond in The Manchurian Candidate the person is in a state of post-hypnotic suggestion, we can say that although the person did do as he wanted (in this case, shoot a senator, and a girl the shooter was in love with) he did not "really" want to do that, and that want was something forced on him. (Of course, this would need more analysis). Or if a person were under the influence of a drug and hallucinating, so that he hallucinated that his mother was the wicked witch of the East, as under that description, he wanted to kill her, then we would have to say that although, he did do as he wanted, that want was forced on him. (And that, too, would need more analysis). In such cases, we would say something like, although the person did do as he wanted, that want would not be something he would want to have, given the kind of person he was. Raymond would not have wanted to kill the woman he loved had he not been operating under post-hypnotic suggestion, nor would the son have wanted to kill his mother, but he hallucinated his mother was the wicked witch of the East. So, in that way, Raymond and the son did not want what they wanted.

So, although all our actions are caused, they are not all caused in the same way. And how they are caused, is what makes the difference.

A_M

November 15, 2006, 10:49 AM

Options! What options? You mean like deciding whether or not I'll walk the mile this morning? Oh, I see, you think that I can do something in opposition to what is determined. Not gonna happen.
No I absolutely did not say you could do anything in opposition to what is determined! :banghead: By options I mean things you are contemplating doing; like do I want to do A or do I want to do B? (or, "deciding whether or not I'll walk the mile this morning?") Surely you must admit that contemplating different options is not contrary to determinism? So long as the process of contemplating the different options influences what you actually do (i.e. the process is part of the causal chain leading to doing either A or B) there is a choice, in every meaningful way.

It is beginning to seem like you are wilfully making things more difficult than necessary. You are defining terms, such as choice and option, in an unnecessarily strict manner - such that you are in effect rendering these terms useless.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 15, 2006, 11:12 AM

Oh, I see, you think that I can do something in opposition to what is determined. Not gonna happen.What if your second rate god told you that you'd walk a mile this morning? If it were me, I'd ride my bike instead, just to fuck with his mind.

TomJrzk

November 15, 2006, 12:11 PM

It is beginning to seem like you are wilfully making things more difficult than necessary. You are defining terms, such as choice and option, in an unnecessarily strict manner - such that you are in effect rendering these terms useless.
No, fast is using the terms in a necessarily strict manner; that's the only way he can get his concern across: what if you feel a loss if your choices are determined, even if they're determined by the person that you are?

Garrett

November 15, 2006, 12:23 PM

fast
How do I bring myself to let go of this option/choice stuff?
I've been enjoying this thread, though I haven't read every word.

You ask that question as though your decision (to let go or not) is up to you. But if you do let go, then (I think) you are concluding that your choices are not up to you.

To say of my choice that it’s determined while maintaining that I have a choice seems a bit odd to me.
That's the problem you've been wrestling with. There must be some solution other than deciding that our decisions are somehow illusory.

if our actions are determined, then the consequence of our reasoning will point to a single decision to which there can be no other at that particular moment,
But one of the causes of that decision was the exercise of the ability to contemplate and choose!

I do subjectively experience a feeling of exercising such an ability - ie, when I'm conciously attending to the process of reaching a reasoned decision.

That I have the ability (of volition) is determined by my brain activity. When I exercise that ability, the conscious decision (and therefore my resulting volitional behavior) is determined by my brain activity and my subjective experiences.

Without the experience, there would be no decisions. Our feeling of will is itself a determining factor of neurological activity and volitional behavior! I believe free will and determinism must be compatible.
_____

I think that:

In order to understand the behavior of conscious beings, we must consider their state of mind.

When conscious beings reach reasoned decisions, they are exercising conscious volition. That action is partly neurological and partly mental. That action is a determining factor in the resulting behavior.

That action - the exercising of conscious volition - is free will.

By realizing that mental abilities are emergent, the problem evaporates.

fast

November 15, 2006, 12:45 PM

I think that the question of whether caused choices are really choices or not is just a verbal issue, and nothing hangs on it. If you don't like the term "choice" let's use "want".There is a semantic issue at play. Note that in the past when I used the term "free will,” I wound up claiming later to have used it in a slightly altered way. Then, I used the term "choice" but then came to declare that I meant it differently as well. And now, I'm forced (well, inclined, rather) to use "want" slightly different too, but I’m going to stop before I get ensnared into this perpetual trap that is clearly destined to lead nowhere.

All of these different senses I keep coming up with and rattling off is nothing more than my way of expressing what I see as the consequences of recognizing the implications of determinism. To me, to say of the world’s events that they are determined is to say that things will happen the way they will happen, and like you have so eloquently put it, though true, it’s merely tautologically and thus trivially true. But to me, such recognition leaves the world looking a little sadder than it was—for what appears to be choices, decision, will, and desires and wants and thoughts, are all just cold consequences of physics.

Now, I retract all that past jive about difference senses of the terms. What I’m now outright saying is that when I get pinned against the wall, I'm not really using them differently at all. It just turns out that how we’ve been using the terms are not commensurate with how things are if indeed determinism is true, and that, I’ve been saying all along; otherwise, I wouldn’t see it as sad.

In fact, I'm effectively arguing that free will, choices, and wants are somehow not at all what they appear—an argument I’m not too keen on making btw. At the same time, I consider that it may be more plausible might be more plausible that I’m simply missing something and just don’t grasp the finer points of what you’re trying to knock into me. But, a wing I am, as I singlewingedly flap through all this.

I think we need to look at the implications of determinism a little further, especially in terms of what it means to even have choices. I can’t even desire what I want because it’s friggin’ determined, so why think that the choices I make are any different?

People want things. Yes, they do. But, they don't get to choose what they want. Now, don't confuse that with they don't get to have what they want. Sometimes they do; sometimes they don’t. I'm saying their wants are beyond their control. Remember, it’s determined, so even our very desires are not of our own choosing, and if you can even remotely view this with a half-cup of emotion, you may then see why I have a saddened outlook of our deterministic reality.

Of course HooDoo likes fried chicken--he has no choice but to like it, and when he ‘chooses’ between chicken and shrimp, remember too that though he ‘chose’, it was determined, and like I’ve been saying all along, if it’s determined, then maybe that ‘choice’ he made that seemed like it was between alternatives (hence, the apparent shrimp) wasn’t only not going to be chosen—it couldn’t have [at that time] because at that time, his choice WAS DETERMINED!

Sometimes they can do as they want, sometimes not. When they can do as they want, they are acting freely. When they can't then they are not.You're getting ahead of yourself Ken. Let off the gas some. You assume we have wants just like you assumed we have choices. I'm saying that positing determinism as true necessarily brings into question an ass load of assumptions. Determinism screams to question our axioms.

All of a sudden, our choices aren't choices and our wants and desires aren't wants and desires any longer. The world is cast in another hue.

So, whether the wants are caused or not is not the issue.It's my issue, I think. If your wants are for all intents and purposes programmed into you by antecedent causes, and if every aspect of your brain's contemplation are a myriad of causes and effects, then the choice to pull the trigger was clear to the second rate God.

There is, however, an issue. Issue is whether or not these wants are caused in a certain way. :banghead:
The fact that it's caused isn't the issue, yet how it's caused is? What difference does that make?

Because even if a person does what he wants, if that want was caused in a certain way, we do not think the person acted freely.Well see, now you're bringing up the issue of coercion again. My issue isn't with coercion. My issue is with there even being an option for us to choose between to being with. Intuitively, there is, but we have to question that--determinism demands it.

If, for example, as in the case of Raymond in The Manchurian Candidate the person is in a state of post-hypnotic suggestion, we can say that although the person did do as he wanted (in this case, shoot a senator, and a girl the shooter was in love with) he did not "really" want to do that, and that want was something forced on him. (Of course, this would need more analysis). See, I told ya, you brought up force, and that's like bringing up coercion. You are not addressing the issue I have. You are perhaps addressing issues others have had with you, but you're not addressing my issue.

Or if a person were under the influence of a drug and hallucinating, so that he hallucinated that his mother was the wicked witch of the East, as under that description, he wanted to kill her, then we would have to say that although, he did do as he wanted, that want was forced on him. (And that, too, would need more analysis). I get the distinction you're trying to make. Really I do. It all falls back to where you get to claim that we are getting to decide between the choices before us free of undue coercion. But, like I keep saying, it's not the coercion aspect that's got me temporarily stumped.

So, although all our actions are caused, they are not all caused in the same way. And how they are caused, is what makes the difference.I'm trying to distinguish between A and B, and you're telling me the difference between B and b

fast

November 15, 2006, 12:54 PM

A_M,

Gee, I lobbed a little verbal grenade at ya and didn't even say hi first.

Welcome to IIDB. :wave:

Oh, and if I snap, that's just frustration seeping through.

Hoodoo Ulove

November 15, 2006, 01:13 PM

Of course HooDoo likes fried chicken--he has no choice but to like it, and when he ‘chooses’ between chicken and shrimp, remember too that though he ‘chose’, it was determined, and like I’ve been saying all along, if it’s determined, then maybe that ‘choice’ he made that seemed like it was between alternatives (hence, the apparent shrimp) wasn’t only not going to be chosen—it couldn’t have [at that time] because at that time, his choice WAS DETERMINED!Let's pretend that besides being Hoodoo, I am a hoodoo: Magic healing and control, especially in African-based folk medicine in the United States and the Caribbean. Also called conjure.
A practitioner of hoodooThat is, a supernatural dude, a third rate god, and that I could overrule my preference for chicken and make myself prefer shrimp. So then I'd order shrimp. Are we in a happier world yet? Maybe not. After all, was my choice to make myself prefer shrimp a "real" choice, or was it determined?

Garrett

November 15, 2006, 03:37 PM

fast
To me, to say of the world’s events that they are determined is to say that things will happen the way they will happen,
That sounds more like fatalism than determinism.

All of a sudden, our choices aren't choices and our wants and desires aren't wants and desires any longer. The world is cast in another hue.
My couch is made of many hard fast atoms. Does that make my couch any less singular, soft, and stationary?

fast

November 15, 2006, 03:48 PM

Let's pretend that besides being Hoodoo, I am a That is, a supernatural dude, a third rate god, and that I could overrule my preference for chicken and make myself prefer shrimp. So then I'd order shrimp. Are we in a happier world yet? Maybe not. After all, was my choice to make myself prefer shrimp a "real" choice, or was it determined?A happier me indeed. Does it seem like I perhaps need to come to terms with the declared sadness upon which I have little basis (if not any basis) to hold?

See, when I make a choice, I want it to be true that I could have in fact chosen differently under the same circumstances, but it's really starting to come in for me now that that's just impossible. Determinism just has to be true, and I was correct all along that life is a like a movie slowly acting out in no other way than it is or could—and that could part bothers me, for to me at least, it implies that I have no true choices.

I have made a mistake though. My mistake has to be that I've been confusing indeterminism with free will. It seemed to me that the Compatibilists (who definitely agrees with determinism) needed to find a better way to secure their argument that free will is true—beyond their same ole semantic and non-substantive routine.

Let me be as clear as I can. My fears have been realized--but may not be as melodramatically bad as I thought. The opposite of determinism isn't free will. If it were true, then it would be impossible for them to be compatible. Thus, to be compatible entails indeterminism not being the same as free will.

Determinism is a much bigger animal, and it's about the state of affairs of the world. Free will is a bit smaller in that it's only concerned about our conscious decisions about whether they were being coerced or not.

The sticking point had been that if determinism is true, and if the choices were real, then how in the world can there be free will? What I have been meaning by that is how can determinism be true while indeterminism is true. That of course is impossible. I’ve been referring to it as free will, and that has been a mistake of mine.

kennethamy

November 15, 2006, 03:56 PM

All of a sudden, our choices aren't choices and our wants and desires aren't wants and desires any longer. The world is cast in another hue.

It's my issue, I think. If your wants are for all intents and purposes programmed into you by antecedent causes, and if every aspect of your brain's contemplation are a myriad of causes and effects, then the choice to pull the trigger was clear to the second rate God.

:banghead:
The fact that it's caused isn't the issue, yet how it's caused is? What difference does that make?

Well see, now you're bringing up the issue of coercion again. My issue isn't with coercion. My issue is with there even being an option for us to choose between to being with. Intuitively, there is, but we have to question that--determinism demands it.

See, I told ya, you brought up force, and that's like bringing up coercion. You are not addressing the issue I have. You are perhaps addressing issues others have had with you, but you're not addressing my issue.

I get the distinction you're trying to make. Really I do. It all falls back to where you get to claim that we are getting to decide between the choices before us free of undue coercion. But, like I keep saying, it's not the coercion aspect that's got me temporarily stumped.

I'm trying to distinguish between A and B, and you're telling me the difference between B and b

"All of a sudden, our choices aren't choices and our wants and desires aren't wants and desires any longer. The world is cast in another hue."

But why is that? Possibly because you have a particular picture of what a want or a choice ought to be, and actual wants and choices don't conform to that picture. Now, I find it hard to understand the picture you have of what wants and choices really are-or rather, really should be. What should a person be able to do in order to control his wants and choices which he doesn't or cannot do?

Thanksgiving is coming up, so I'll use the analogy of someone cooking a turkey, and the its not meeting your approval. I might ask, "How should a turkey taste and be cooked so that it would be as you think it ought to be?" And you might be able to tell me what a turkey should really taste like, or how is should really be cooked. You might even say about the fowl you have before you (or at least think it) "That's not a real Thanksgiving turkey. It may look like one, but it doesn't taste like one" And, what's more, you might even be right. There is something you have in mind, and what you have in front of you doesn't measure up. So, although I may not agree with you, and think this turkey is just fine, I would understand you if you described your ideal "real" turkey to me. But I really do not have an understanding of what you think it would be like for our choices to be choices, and our wants to be wants. What would it be like for the "hue" to be different. Can you describe what you mean by talking about our choices and wants actually being in our control, as contrasted with how they are now? What would the "real" turkey be like?

I think I understand one use of the sentence " my choice (want) was in my control". It is possible to teach oneself not to choose what one chooses, or to want what one wants. It is possible to break a habit, for instance, a smoking habit, or a surfing habit. You may have tried to do that yourself. You may have wanted not to want to smoke or surf so much. Would that be what you have in mind? I bet you don't have that in mind, since if you did, you would not have the picture you have. You would say, that's just another want-the want not to have the want you do have. And you are not in control of that second-order want. And even if there were a third-order want, so you could want not to want what you want, that would make no difference to you. You would be like that fella who maintained that the world rested on a giant tortoise. And, when he was asked what the tortoise rested on, he answer that it rested on a giant elephant, and when the inevitable question arose, "And what does that elephant rest on?" the answer was, "Another even bigger elephant-and before you ask your next question, let me tell you that it is elephants all the way down!" For you, Fast, it is wants all the way down, and that just won't do.

But then, what would do? How would it be possible to have a "real" want, a want that is in your control? Have you something in mind?
I think that you don't have anything in mind here, because just being a want at all condemns it to the everlasting fire of being DETERMINED.

I have been talking about a kind of picture (you call it a hue or a color) which you have fixated on. Wittgenstein writes about this kind of thing that the philosopher has be "held captive by a picture". What that means, I think, is that it is nothing rational that is going on. It is a certain attitude that you have about human action. You have what Wittgenstein called, "a mental cramp". That is shown by your being unable to tell me what a "real" want would be like. No wants can be "real" in the sense you mean it.

This attitude, or picture, or mental cramp is not something you can be argued out of. It is something, perhaps, that you can be talked out of.

fast

November 15, 2006, 04:19 PM

To me, to say of the world’s events that they are determined is to say that things will happen the way they will happen, That sounds more like fatalism than determinism.

A fatalist denies the connection between cause and effect, and that view is demonsratably false. For example, a fatalist may advise you that there's really no need to look before you cross the street, for what's going to happen is going to happen regardless of what you do. That of course is false, for you could decide to wait until there is no traffic before crossing ensuring that your crossing will be safe.

I, on the other hand, am claiming that there cannot be an effect unless there's a precipitating cause. In fact, the ninth domino (in my controlled experiment) will not fall unless the eighth one knocks it over. I insist that there is a connection between cause and effect.

I am not a fatalist.

fast

November 15, 2006, 05:07 PM

<Stomps on Big meany Icon>

:frown:

kennethamy

November 15, 2006, 06:11 PM

A fatalist denies the connection between cause and effect, and that view is demonsratably false. For example, a fatalist may advise you that there's really no need to look before you cross the street, for what's going to happen is going to happen regardless of what you do. That of course is false, for you could decide to wait until there is no traffic before crossing ensuring that your crossing will be safe.

I, on the other hand, am claiming that there cannot be an effect unless there's a precipitating cause. In fact, the ninth domino (in my controlled experiment) will not fall unless the eighth one knocks it over. I insist that there is a connection between cause and effect.

I am not a fatalist.

There certainly is a connection between cause and effect. The same connection there is between being a bachelor and being unmarried. Which is to say, a verbal connection, since not only does every effect have a cause, but every effect must have a cause. The reason is that by definition, an effect is a caused event. So, the statement that every effect has a cause means that every caused event has a cause. And who would disagree with that?

Dominoes are a picture, a metaphor. Poetry. They are not a substitute for thinking. If you picture that chain of cause and effect as a set of dominoes, well, that very evocotive, and nice. But it is not philosophy.

fast

November 15, 2006, 07:04 PM

But I really do not have an understanding of what you think it would be like for our choices to be choices, and our wants to be wants.Okay Ken. Wanna Play? I'll play! Now that you've poisoned the well, let me give you some more ammunition and see how well you can do in bringing me down. I might just fair quite well. You may have the knowledge advantage, but I’m The Great Fast.

When you wake up in the morning, you will have the choice to get up and walk a mile. You will also have the choice not to walk. No one is going to make you one way or the other; therefore, I was wrong, so worry not dear Ken, for it is true that you do have a choice. Savor the feeling though, for I'm about to rock your world.

But, don't tell any of the smart one's of your decision to walk that mile. No, keep that under the hush hush. You don't want to insult their intelligence as if they didn't already know. I mean, come on Ken, (and get with it) we live in a deterministic world, and that being the case, then the potential exists to fully predict all future events--if you're smart enough--and privy to and capable of understanding all the ascertainable and relevant data.

Every decision, choice, want, event, and action in our future has the potential of being predicted. That, my friend, is the implication of determinism. If it's not, then you need to start kicking some heels and let the crowd know.

Oh, and let me be crystal clear (and see me shine while I do it) about what I mean by potential. We all know that we can’t get to the next star in our life time, and as far as we know, we might never be able to get there, but we do hold the possibility alive that we have the potential of getting there.

So, to recap and to keep you focused, the potential for predicting the future exists in a deterministic world. We’ve got a ways to go, and it’s going to get bumpy, so I hope you’re buckled in.

Now, let me ask, how does it feel to know the killer will kill before the killer is even born? How does it feel to know what choices the lover with the gun is going to make before the lover is ever even a lover? How does it feel knowing when the shit will fall before you ever even contemplate going to the crapper?

Knowing what will happen with perfect clarity sorta does somethin' to ya Ken, doesn't it? No of course it doesn't, for to know the things I described could only be accomplished by an omnipotent being—and you aren’t that good.

But, does that change the fact that I'm correct? Correct about what? Okay Ken, let me repeat, for I definitely don’t want to lose you again. I know the tenth domino is going to fall. I predicted that. I knew the cue ball was going to stop where it did. Why? Because I was capable of understanding the myriad of interactions between all the balls. All things being equal, (not that that’s technically possible), but to illustrate, I could do it again, and the ball will stop where it did before.

The brain is a complicated thing, and we use our brain to think, but like a complicated machine, it’s not immune to the full effects of our deterministic world. Is that eye-opening? Is your world starting to tremble a little yet? No? Want more? Okay.

If I were privy to the nature of all elements of matter, (and could see the complex interaction of the all effects (micro and macro) driven by causes), then I could tell you today whether little Johnny is going to decide to do the right thing on that fateful day twenty years from now. Yep, yep indeed, it is true that I have NOT once denied cause and effect, so don’t become a strawman maker and accuse me of fatalistic views.

Supposing you could too; hence, supposing the future has the potential for prediction like I say, and juxtaposing our ability to achieve that potential, then the realization ought to creep up on you that when people make choices, then it’s not possible that they could have chosen differently than they did. But, you don’t see that yet do you? Of course not, you’re not Fast—I am!

It really seems that I’m going to have to take you by the hand on this one. Have a sit down and check this out. Step 1: predict that Missy is going to have a little boy that’s going to grow up and choose to immorally shoot someone. Step 2: don’t say a word.

The shooter stands there contemplating whether or not he’s going to shoot. The not so smart one’s (who haven’t a clue how to predict like the smart one’s) sit there going, “think Mr. shooter…think before you act,” so he sits there and contemplates. He agonizes over the decision of whether to shoot or not. The not so privy to the prediction stand there in total anticipation knowing full well in their minds that the shooter needs to make the right choice to keep from going to jail. The crowd tries to do what it can. It ‘interferes’ as you already knew it would.

You and I though, well, we know what choice he’s going to make. You know why? Because not only do we live in a deterministic world where causes produce effects, but we were able calculate all the variables—every neural synaptic movement in his and everyone elses brain.

He made the choice like we knew he would. Later on, (years later) he learns that the choice he made that day was deterministic. It was known years before he was even born.

What do you call a choice that’s going to be made to the exclusion of all others? Deterministic? Some choice!

I’ll tell you something else you don’t see Kenny Boy, I am not in the grip of some damn theory. I thought you may have kinda knew me a little better than that—but I guess you haven’t taken the time to notice. I would have thought that you have noticed that I hold these kinds of positions in a thread to totally abandon them later once I’ve been impressed by the arguments and understand the surrounding issues. I latch on to a particular idea and I defend it. Meanwhile, I watch and learn. The arguments for and against my position seep in. I, unlike others, change my position when it doesn’t sound sensible to hold.

I argue with you with vigor because I believe that you have your shit together. Me, on the other hand, I didn’t lie when I created this thread. I literally knew Jack nothing about free will and determinism. To me, they were nothing but terms I had no idea about. But now, look, I’ve at least been able to use some catch phrases in sentences. So no Ken, you are definitely wrong about me being in the grip of a theory. But, I guess it would seem like that to someone who isn’t paying attention. But, that’s okay, I don’t pay attention a lot of times when I ought to.

As always, your knowledge you bring to these threads is enlighteningly valuable.

From me, just another simpleton,

fast

Garrett

November 15, 2006, 07:19 PM

fast
I am not a fatalist.
<Stomps on Big meany Icon>
I didn't mean to imply "fast is a fatalist", I meant that determinism doesn't really mean "things will happen the way they will happen". You seem jumpy. :)

I insist that there is a connection between cause and effect.
Why not? And in determinism, everything happens as part of a causal chain.

But reality is not PRE-determined. Given a causal chain, it's not true that the future links will unfold in one and only one way.

For example, pretend a die roll is random. The event of rolling the die will produce one of six possible outcomes. That is six potential chains from that one link, only one of which will be realized.

The future is fuzzy.

Concerning human behavior, one of the factors which determine which potential behavior will be realized is the experience of using conscious volition.

For example, in order to study and learn calculus, the student must pay attention. Stop looking out the window!

Hoodoo Ulove

November 15, 2006, 07:22 PM

So no Ken, you are definitely wrong about me being in the grip of a theory. But, I guess it would seem like that to someone who isn’t paying attention.Speedy, you can skip all the bravado. We understand that you accept determinism (except when you say you don't, but we'll disregard that). The grip of a theory thing is about how you say it'd be a happier world if determinism didn't hold, or free will as you conceive it existed. You've yet to paint us a picture of such a brave and beautiful world.

fast

November 15, 2006, 08:30 PM

I didn't mean to imply "fast is a fatalist", I meant that determinism doesn't really mean "things will happen the way they will happen". The Big meany thingy wasn't for you.

You seem jumpy. :) Nay, me okay. I’ll tone it down a notch though.

Why not? And in determinism, everything happens as part of a causal chain. Exactly, and like a chain, there are links both before and after the present chain we’re looking at. When we look at the present state of the balls on the table, (5 seconds into the break) and if privy to how they got to where they are, (and all other relevant data) then we can know the past; likewise, we can look at the present state of the balls on the table (5 seconds into the break) and if privy to how they got to where they are, (and all other relevant data), then we can know the future.

All relevant data may include Jenny’s contemplation of throwing a beer can at the table and hitting the seven ball.

But reality is not PRE-determined. I need to be careful when responding to this. On the one hand, I certainly don't want to personify nature and make it sound like the future has been consciously considered, but there will be certain consequences that will happen as a result of our actions.

Exactly what will happen is independent of our ability to understand the impending effect of what will happen.

Given a causal chain, it's not true that the future links will unfold in one and only one way. This is a premise that needs to be substantiated.

For example, pretend a die roll is random. And it will be nothing less than play pretend.

The event of rolling the die will produce one of six possible outcomes. That is six potential chains from that one link, only one of which will be realized.No, the result will always be the same. When you throw the die, it will always land on three. If you don't think so, then try it. Roll the dice; you will notice that it will land on three. I promise.

Oh, if it so happens that it doesn't land on a three, then you didn't throw it like you threw it when it lands on three. In fact, there are many ways you could throw it where it would land on a three, but although that's important, I'm only interested in the one way you first did it.

Hence, if you throw it at the same angle, from the same height, same reflection in wrist, same gravitational pull of the Earth, etc, etc, ad nauseum.

The future is fuzzy. Meaning what exactly? It's difficult to know that the girl is going to sneaze out 3,814 micro-droplets of water? Well, that's because we didn't know, but like I said, our knowledge is independent of what will happen. If we knew the biological happenings preceding the event, then it would be predictable.

Concerning human behavior, one of the factors which determine which potential behavior will be realized is the experience of using conscious volition.Determinism isn't limited. It affects the micro world of thought as well.

fast

November 15, 2006, 08:43 PM

Speedy, you can skip all the bravado. Okie dokie.

We understand that you accept determinism Good

(except when you say you don't, but we'll disregard that).
See, you guys can be nice when you want to. Thank you.

The grip of a theory thing is about how you say it'd be a happier world if determinism didn't hold, or free will as you conceive it existed. Oh.

You've yet to paint us a picture of such a brave and beautiful world.I can't believe you just said that. If the killer is going to make the deterministic decision, then how can you expect that he would have chosen otherwise given the specific array of considerations? If Ken's decision to not walk the mile tomorrow morning is influenced by his considerations, then how can you expect that he would have chosen otherwise? Heck, how could he have chosen otherwise given the deterministic restrictions?

Hoodoo Ulove

November 15, 2006, 10:05 PM

If the killer is going to make the deterministic decision, then how can you expect that he would have chosen otherwise given the specific array of considerations?I don't.See, when I make a choice, I want it to be true that I could have in fact chosen differently under the same circumstances, but it's really starting to come in for me now that that's just impossible.Say it is possible, say it's happening. Describe how the world looks and feels different.

fast

November 15, 2006, 11:02 PM

I don't.And despite that, Ken gets to choose between walking and not walking the mile—just like the killer gets to contemplate his decisions in our deterministic world.

Say it is possible, say it's happening. Describe how the world looks and feels different.I don't see the relevance, so I don't see any need why I ought not simply concede that it looks and feels the same—physically anyways. That’s why I came up with the God’s eye view to show that a God would notice the difference. Just because we don’t notice the difference, that doesn’t mean there’s not a difference.

A blue chip and a red chip are of a different color, and though one is not noticeably different to a blind person, the fact is, it's different.

Third Example: There was a Star Trek episode where a character in the holodeck tricked the Enterprise crew into relinquishing command over to him. The character wanted to live in the real world but couldn’t crossover the threshold from the holodeck to the real world. Finally, the character was tricked into thinking he lives in the real world—even though he was in a computer simulated program. He can’t tell the difference, so he’s thinking that he’s getting to explore the galaxy when in fact, he’s only living a lie. If we were to give him the knowledge that he was in the box, then though life will continue on as it has, the truth will be emotionally unappealing.

Likewise, to realize we live in a deterministic world isn’t going to have an impact on my daily life anymore than the character in the box, but it does bring one to realize that our choices that we think we have supreme control over isn’t as appealing. My discussion on prediction helps demonstrate why it’s not all that nice—at least as not as nice as it was before realizing the implications of the deterministic world.

Garrett

November 16, 2006, 12:30 AM

fast
When we look at the present state of the balls on the table,
I understand the concept. Classical physics, the clockwork universe. Works well enough for simple systems, like billiards.

But even with that simple billiard ball example, after only a few bounces and collisions, the tiny uncertainties add up, and the classical calculations break down. Probability comes into play.

I know your answer is that with better knowledge of all variables, perfect prediction would be possible. More on that below.

Garrett The future is fuzzy.
fast If we knew the biological happenings preceding the event, then it would be predictable.
Okay, there's the issue. We agree that reality is deterministic - the question is whether events have one and only one possible outcome.

This is a premise that needs to be substantiated.
Quantum Mechanics. At a fundamental level, reality is probabilistic.

Exactly what will happen is independent of our ability to understand the impending effect of what will happen.
...our knowledge is independent of what will happen.
Yes. However, the implication (that if only we had enough knowledge of the details and enough computing power then we could exactly predict all events) is false.

The Uncertainty Principle of quantum mechanics tells us that such complete knowledge is impossible.

More relevantly, according to the Copenhagen interpretation, "the probabilistic nature of quantum mechanics predictions cannot be explained in terms of some other deterministic theory, and does not simply reflect our limited knowledge."

I'm just a layman, but my understanding is that there are no "hidden variables" which explain quantum "randomness" - the probabilistic nature of quantum events is a fundamental property of reality.

Btw, whether or not there are such "hidden variables", quantum events can exhibit "nonlocality" aka Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". That doesn't contradict determinism, but it does mean we have to expand our understanding of "causal chains". I mention that because of the parallel - the idea that the future is fuzzy also doesn't contradict determinism, and likewise forces us to expand our understanding of "causal chains".
_____

And it will be nothing less than play pretend.
My argument doesn't require that die rolls are random - that was just an example used for simplicity. Quantum events are probablisitic, and that's all I need. But you poked at my assumption, and I want to defend!

In fact, the outcome of a properly thrown die obeys the laws of probablity and statistics. That places the burden on your claim, I believe.

A couple of places where classical physics fail is in the elasticity of material and the currents in the air - both of which affect a properly rolled die.

I predict that even the best robot die-throwing machine, using the most stringent protocol, in the most controlled environment, must submit!

No, the result will always be the same.
The result will always be the same - the die roll will always result in an outcome from a range of possibilities according to the laws of probability!
_____

Do you suppose that, a moment or two after the big bang, your response to this post could have been accurately predicted given complete knowledge of the state of reality at that time?
_____

Determinism isn't limited. It affects the micro world of thought as well.
I am unable to accept any uncaused events. I reject that reality. So we're on the same page there. Determinism or bust.

I reserve the right to muck around with the meaning of "causal chain" until it agrees with (my understanding of) reality, however. :)

Kingreaper

November 16, 2006, 12:44 AM

But, don't tell any of the smart one's of your decision to walk that mile. No, keep that under the hush hush. You don't want to insult their intelligence as if they didn't already know. I mean, come on Ken, (and get with it) we live in a deterministic world, and that being the case, then the potential exists to fully predict all future events--if you're smart enough--and privy to and capable of understanding all the ascertainable and relevant data.No it doesn't, as anyone with a basic understanding of chaos theory would understand. If you are an integral part of the reality in which your predictions occur they cannot be perfectly accurate except accidentally (which is essentially infinitely improbable) because for them to be so you would have to fully predict your prediction as part of your prediction (an obviously unsolvable recursive loop)

And no, I don't find the idea that my actions would possibly be predicted all that worrying, you wanna know why? Because humans spend their whole lives trying to predict and effect the actions of other humans. It's what we evolved to do. Were predicting the actions of other humans, to any extent, truly impossible then the entire of civilisation would be pointless.

Let's say I offer my friend Andy, who hates chocolate, the chance to pick which of us gets the chocolate covered raisins and which of us gets the ice-cream; can I predict his choice? Of course. Does that mean he doesn't have Free Will? Of course. But at least his will is his, rather than being a "free" will which belongs to no-one and controls everyone.

Kingreaper

November 16, 2006, 12:54 AM

And despite that, Ken gets to choose between walking and not walking the mile—just like the killer gets to contemplate his decisions in our deterministic world.

I don't see the relevance, so I don't see any need why I ought not simply concede that it looks and feels the same—physically anyways. That’s why I came up with the God’s eye view to show that a God would notice the difference. Just because we don’t notice the difference, that doesn’t mean there’s not a difference.

A blue chip and a red chip are of a different color, and though one is not noticeably different to a blind person, the fact is, it's different. You have described the deterministic world. You have failed to describe the "Free" world. Would you care to describe a "Free" world in which people meaningfully have more control over their actions? Because every attempt to describe it seems to boil down to:

In one world you cause your actions, in the other world you don't. And guess which one of those sounds more like control to me?

Third Example: There was a Star Trek episode where a character in the holodeck tricked the Enterprise crew into relinquishing command over to him. The character wanted to live in the real world but couldn’t crossover the threshold from the holodeck to the real world. Finally, the character was tricked into thinking he lives in the real world—even though he was in a computer simulated program. He can’t tell the difference, so he’s thinking that he’s getting to explore the galaxy when in fact, he’s only living a lie. If we were to give him the knowledge that he was in the box, then though life will continue on as it has, the truth will be emotionally unappealing.Actually he could tell the difference. Holodeck characters are generally non-sentient. Their behaviours are stereotyped. If he ever tries to stay on one world for too long, or with one person, he'll notice. But they're probably running his program too slow for that to happen for millenia.

Likewise, to realize we live in a deterministic world isn’t going to have an impact on my daily life anymore than the character in the box, but it does bring one to realize that our choices that we think we have supreme control over isn’t as appealing. Living in a non-deterministic world would give us more control? How?

In a non-deterministic world we aren't the cause of our own actions. In a deterministic world we are. The latter is real freedom, but the former is Free Will.

My discussion on prediction helps demonstrate why it’s not all that nice—at least as not as nice as it was before realizing the implications of the deterministic world.Your discussion of predictions is incorrect, an obvious example of someone who believes in the "self-healing timeline" model (a variably fatalistic model of the timeline) applying it to something where the timeline is being predicted through merely temporal methods rather than metatemporal ones.

The AntiChris

November 16, 2006, 03:25 AM

IMy argument doesn't require that die rolls are random - that was just an example used for simplicity. Quantum events are probablisitic, and that's all I need. But you poked at my assumption, and I want to defend!

In fact, the outcome of a properly thrown die obeys the laws of probablity and statistics. That places the burden on your claim, I believe.

A couple of places where classical physics fail is in the elasticity of material and the currents in the air - both of which affect a properly rolled die.

I predict that even the best robot die-throwing machine, using the most stringent protocol, in the most controlled environment, must submit!

No, the result will always be the same.
The result will always be the same - the die roll will always result in an outcome from a range of possibilities according to the laws of probability!It's not clear from this this whether or not you're disagreeing with fast.

Are you saying that, given precisely the same set of initial variables, the results obtained (the number thrown) from the perfect "robot die-throwing machine" would not always be the same?

I ask because this doesn't tally with my experience of the world. :huh:

Chris

Oldal.

November 16, 2006, 04:58 AM

fast,

The problems thrown up in this debate are partly caused by the way think. As Ken has pointed out, every effect is caused, because that is how the English Language at least, uses those two words. So when we see an 'effect' we start to seek a 'cause'.
Now, I do not want my actions to be 'un-caused' leaving me like a puppet having no control over what I do, and so I declare I have a 'will' which is the way I make decisions.
That way, whatever it is, is 'caused' by me. I can choose to stop this in the middle of a wo

A_M

November 16, 2006, 05:04 AM

No, fast is using the terms in a necessarily strict manner; that's the only way he can get his concern across: what if you feel a loss if your choices are determined, even if they're determined by the person that you are?
I agree that if (big if) there is a loss in not having choice as defined by fast, then he is using the terms in a "necessarily strict manner". If there is no loss (which is what I'm arguing) then defining the terms in that manner is useless. Agreed?

So, what exactly do we loose in a deterministic world? As far as I can see there are two potential candidates: The first comes from the belief that in a deterministic world there can be no moral responsibility. Which is quite simply not true. The second comes from the fear that if all our actions are the results of deterministic physical processes there is no need for our souls. In which case I say "tough luck".

So which is it fast? What consequences do living in a deterministic world have that you don't like? Or to put it like this; How would you live your live differently if you were to come consider determinism an unavoidable fact? Is it safe to say that if there are no de facto consequences, your fears are irrational?

Welcome to IIDB. :wave:
Why thank you very much. :)

Oldal.

November 16, 2006, 05:08 AM

rd if I so desire. I caused that bit of nonsense. A determinist will want to say 'Yes, but it was determined that you would so act by a prior chain of events reaching back to the Big Bang !'

In the game of snooker, there is an event known as 'a kick'. The finest snooker player in the world, on top of his form, strikes the cue ball with as much precision as he always does. The cue ball travels to the object ball he intended and, lo and behold, the object ball, instead of behaving as anticipated, jumps up off the table and goes in an unexpected direction, endeing in the 'wrong' place. The event was clearly caused. No one currently knows why the 'kick' occurs though many theories have been advanced. The determinist will want to say 'Yes it was bound to happen like that because the 'Law of the Kick' was operating. It was determined!'

To be caused is not the same as to be determined, though I was determined to type this this a.m.;)

Oldal.

Garrett

November 16, 2006, 06:53 AM

The AntiChris
Are you saying that, given precisely the same set of initial variables, the results obtained (the number thrown) from the perfect "robot die-throwing machine" would not always be the same?
Yes. My layman thinking is that due to the physics of elasticity, the behavior of a properly thrown die affects the molecular structure and atomic bonds of the die, which are influenced by quantum events. I think a properly thrown die produces a random outcome.

Btw, what is a "perfect" robot die-throwing machine? One that produces outcomes according to probability theory! Just kidding - I think "perfect" here means that
1) the machine throws the die "properly", ie similar to the way die are thrown in casinos (just a benchmark, but a good one - they take probability seriously), and
2) the machine is capable of making each throw in a precisely controlled manner.

I ask because this doesn't tally with my experience of the world.
I admit that die rolls are often assumed to be predictable in principle, if only we had sufficient information. I question that assumption.

And as it happens, in practice, die rolls obey the laws of probability. I think that puts the burden on the implied claim that "given the same set of initial variables the results will always be the same".
_____

We can make very precise machines, and a suitable robot die-thrower should not be a problem. We can build very controlled environments. So where is the evidence that a "properly and precisely" thrown die does not produce outcomes according to probability theory? Where is the evidence that the same set of initial variables would produce the same outcome?

I ask, not just because I think the burden is yours, but because I spent some googling time and didn't find anything relevant.

Garrett

November 16, 2006, 07:06 AM

Oldal.
Now, I do not want my actions to be 'un-caused' leaving me like a puppet having no control over what I do, and so I declare I have a 'will' which is the way I make decisions.
I agree: for free will to exist, some form of determinism is required.

TNorthover

November 16, 2006, 07:33 AM

TomJrzk

November 16, 2006, 07:53 AM

Of course, since this is quantum mechanics there's always the chance that the die turns into a squirrel mid-flight.
Yes, while this is true, this does nothing to affect fast's problem. Unless he has control over QM, he's in the same predicament. Regardless of the effectiveness of his analogy or time machine, it was just an analogy and the bottom line is "everything the same at that exact moment"; the exact moment and everything could include the final effects of QM.

Let's please drop this, or make another thread out of it. Please? Again, unless he has control over QM, he's in the same predicament.

kennethamy

November 16, 2006, 07:54 AM

Speedy, you can skip all the bravado. We understand that you accept determinism (except when you say you don't, but we'll disregard that). The grip of a theory thing is about how you say it'd be a happier world if determinism didn't hold, or free will as you conceive it existed. You've yet to paint us a picture of such a brave and beautiful world.

I don't think that is quite right about what being in the grip of a theory is. And I think it is worth exploring that idea in this context. To be in the grip of a theory is to be able to understand a particular issue (in this case freedom vs. determinism) in only a particular way, so that everything is understood in terms of that theory, even objections to that theory. So that, to give an historical example, it is sometimes said that David Hume denied there was such a thing as causation, when, in fact, Hume denied that a particular theory of causation was correct: namely the theory that the causal connection is a necessary relation between two kinds of events (which was the Rationalist theory). So many of those who subscribed to the Rationalist theory of causation, simply could not imagine any competing theory of causation, and so interpreted Hume as rejecting not causation as a necessary connection, but causation altogether.

I think that many (although not all) Hard determinists, or even incompatibilists which also includes "libertarians" simply see no alternative to either determinism or freedom of will, and hold that it must be the one or the other. They understand that issue through a particular prism. (It is interesting that as so often in philosophy, those who take the opposite sides of the issue are making the very same mistake, namely that determinism and free will are incompatible. (It is peculiar that no one has argued for libertarianism on this thread, by the way, except perhaps Garrett has indirectly).

It is incompatibilism of the Hard Determinist kind, that makes Fast declare that a caused choice is not a choice. In a way, if you think about it, that rather implies a contradiction. It says that even if we can do as we please, if we cannot please as we please, we cannot do as we please. What that really comes to is that, although we can (often) do as we please, we should not be under the illusion that gives us free will (although that is how people talk) because what we please is caused, and so, is "out of our control".

It is possible, by the way (And Hume actually argued this) that the Hard Determinist's view stems from the Rationalist view of causation as necessary connection. And many of the things that Fast says gives that impression. As when he suggests that we cannot choose between walking and not walking (when we manifestly do so) because that choice would be determined. It is the notion of causation as a necessary connection that leads some to think of causation as a kind of compulsion, and the causes of an event making (i.e. forcing) that event to occur (whether or not it wants to). It is as if the laws of gravity were forcing the planets to move in elliptical orbits, or were forcing the apple to fall rather than rise (as it might want to do?). This picture of causation as necessary connection between the event and the cause (of course, there is a necessary connection between cause and effect in virtue of the meanings of the terms "cause" and "effect") contributes to this picture of causes as compulsions. As Wittgenstein also remarks, "a picture holds us captive".

fast

November 16, 2006, 08:21 AM

[...]to understand a particular issue (in this case freedom vs. determinism)[...]
When I jump from rock to rock in a mountain stream, I sometimes find that the big rock to which I aspire to reach cannot be gotten to from the little rock upon which I stand. So, if I've gone the wrong way, then I need to backtrack a little and find another route.

One of primary reasons for creating this thread was to get my feet wet, and I believe I've done that, but I'm still unclear on a lot of issues, and one of the things that leaves me confused is the relationship between buzz words.

When you say, "freedom vs. determinism," it leaves me wondering if free will then is subordinate to freedom. You mention libertarianism out of the blue, and though I'm sure it's another piece of the puzzle, it lingers like it doesn't belong.

I need a bird's eye view that captures the major ideas, and I need a comprehensive view that sorts the smaller ideas into the correct slots. With that, I could from afar clearly see the relationship between ideas. For example, early on, you mentioned fatalism. Is it just another idea thrown into the mix with no place to call home, or is there an outline of some sort to which it rightly belongs.

I guess in a way, I'm looking for a foundation upon which to build. We all scurry along on our own little paths yet are not so often reminded to stop and take a step back. To not change one’s view is commensurate with being stuck in a rut, and that’s one place, I shall not stay.

So, I need to see the puzzle picture, and from that, I can grow. As I backtrack from the big rock to which I am headed, it may be that I simply need to start over. Talking me out of holding close a picture ain't necessarily gonna be that hard.

Sorry folks, I just can’t keep defending the position, but who knows, maybe the journey has got us thinkin’ a little.

The AntiChris

November 16, 2006, 08:37 AM

Yes. My layman thinking is that due to the physics of elasticity, the behavior of a properly thrown die affects the molecular structure and atomic bonds of the die, which are influenced by quantum events. I think a properly thrown die produces a random outcome.
And presumably, this randomness extends to all other physical events? But doesn't all of our experience show that physical events are not random?
Btw, what is a "perfect" robot die-throwing machine? One that produces outcomes according to probability theory! Just kidding - I think "perfect" here means that
1) the machine throws the die "properly", ie similar to the way die are thrown in casinos (just a benchmark, but a good one - they take probability seriously), and
2) the machine is capable of making each throw in a precisely controlled manner.
By "perfect", I simply meant one that operates in the standard thought-experiment kinda way that throws a die with exactly the same initial force/trajectory every time.
I admit that die rolls are often assumed to be predictable in principle, if only we had sufficient information. I question that assumption.
Well, it's not just die-rolls, and it's not just an assumption. Just about everything we observe in nature appears to behave consistently. It's how we're able to do science - our very survival is crucially dependent on the results of the biological processes which comprise our physical bodies being non-random.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. When you say that that the results of 'perfectly' (in the thought-experiment kinda way) repeated die rolls would be "random", are you really saying that because of the "Uncertainty Principle", the results cannot be predicted with absolute certainty (i.e. a random unexpected result is, in theory, statistically possible). If this is what you're saying, then the result of the die roll isn't, as I understand it, truly random. In any event I'm pretty sure this level of unpredictability would be of no solace to fast.

We can make very precise machines, and a suitable robot die-thrower should not be a problem. We can build very controlled environments. So where is the evidence that a "properly and precisely" thrown die does not produce outcomes according to probability theory? Where is the evidence that the same set of initial variables would produce the same outcome?

I ask, not just because I think the burden is yours, but because I spent some googling time and didn't find anything relevant.It just seems kinda self-evident to me. The mere fact that all the physical processes which you set in motion once you had decided to write this post did actually result in a post appearing on IIDB, suggests that stuff happens in a consistent and predictable manner and not randomly.

Chris

kennethamy

November 16, 2006, 09:36 AM

When I jump from rock to rock in a mountain stream, I sometimes find that the big rock to which I aspire to reach cannot be gotten to from the little rock upon which I stand. So, if I've gone the wrong way, then I need to backtrack a little and find another route.

One of primary reasons for creating this thread was to get my feet wet, and I believe I've done that, but I'm still unclear on a lot of issues, and one of the things that leaves me confused is the relationship between buzz words.

When you say, "freedom vs. determinism," it leaves me wondering if free will then is subordinate to freedom. You mention libertarianism out of the blue, and though I'm sure it's another piece of the puzzle, it lingers like it doesn't belong.

I need a bird's eye view that captures the major ideas, and I need a comprehensive view that sorts the smaller ideas into the correct slots. With that, I could from afar clearly see the relationship between ideas. For example, early on, you mentioned fatalism. Is it just another idea thrown into the mix with no place to call home, or is there an outline of some sort to which it rightly belongs.

I guess in a way, I'm looking for a foundation upon which to build. We all scurry along on our own little paths yet are not so often reminded to stop and take a step back. To not change one’s view is commensurate with being stuck in a rut, and that’s one place, I shall not stay.

So, I need to see the puzzle picture, and from that, I can grow. As I backtrack from the big rock to which I am headed, it may be that I simply need to start over. Talking me out of holding close a picture ain't necessarily gonna be that hard.

Sorry folks, I just can’t keep defending the position, but who knows, maybe the journey has got us thinkin’ a little.

Just as hard determinists argue :

1. Determinism is true.
2. If Determinism is true then free will (freedom is false)

Therefore, 3. Free will is false

So, Libertarians say :

1. Determinism is false.
2. If Determinism is true, then freewill (freedom) is false.

And conclude that since there is not other reason to think we don't have free will than that Determinism is true, we have free will.

So Hard Determinists and Libertarians both hold that determinism is incompatible with free will, only HDs hold that Determinism is true, and Libertarians, that Determinism is false. So HDs and Libertarians are both incompatibilists. Libertarians are indeterminists.

Soft Determinists are, of course, the compatibilists, since they hold that Determinism and Freewill are compatible. So they hold that both kinds of incompatibilists are wrong.

Fatalism is the view that no matter what people do, what will happen will happen. So they hold that human actions are inefficacious. So they hold that human actions do not effect any outcomes. So, Fatalism is incompatible with Determinism, since Determinism implies that human actions are causes like any other events. Fatalism is (I think) demonstrably false. E.g. It is obviously false that whether or not I hand in a required term paper will affect my grade. Statistics can prove that a soldier who takes precautions has a better chance of surviving than one who does not; of a person who takes precautions while crossing the street has a better chance of survival than a person who wears a blindfold while crossing the street.

fast

November 16, 2006, 10:31 AM

Just as hard determinists argue :

1. Determinism is true.
2. If Determinism is true then free will (freedom is false)

Therefore, 3. Free will is false

So, Libertarians say :

1. Determinism is false.
2. If Determinism is true, then freewill (freedom) is false.

And conclude that since there is not other reason to think we don't have free will than that Determinism is true, we have free will.

So Hard Determinists and Libertarians both hold that determinism is incompatible with free will, only HDs hold that Determinism is true, and Libertarians, that Determinism is false. So HDs and Libertarians are both incompatibilists. Libertarians are indeterminists.

Soft Determinists are, of course, the compatibilists, since they hold that Determinism and Freewill are compatible. So they hold that both kinds of incompatibilists are wrong.

Fatalism is the view that no matter what people do, what will happen will happen. So they hold that human actions are inefficacious. So they hold that human actions do not effect any outcomes. So, Fatalism is incompatible with Determinism, since Determinism implies that human actions are causes like any other events. Fatalism is (I think) demonstrably false. E.g. It is obviously false that whether or not I hand in a required term paper will affect my grade. Statistics can prove that a soldier who takes precautions has a better chance of surviving than one who does not; of a person who takes precautions while crossing the street has a better chance of survival than a person who wears a blindfold while crossing the street.

I can work with this, thanks. I just need some time with it.

I went through and noticed nine different buzz words in this order:

1) hard determinists
2) Determinism
3) free will (freedom)
4) Libertarians
5) incompatibilists.
6) indeterminists.
7) Soft Determinists
8) compatibilists,
9) Fatalism

One of things that jumped out at me is the "ists" and the "isms". I would assume that for every ism, there is a comparable ist, and since I think it's better to talk of the isms, then I'll separate the isms from the ists and create the terms to which doesn't appear.

Thus, we have (in the same order introduced by you):

1) hard determinism / hard determinists
2) Determinism / determinist
3) free will (freedom) / ???
4) Libertarianism / Libertarians
5) Incompatibilism / incompatibilists.
6) Indeterminism / indeterminists.
7) Soft determinism / Soft Determinists
8) Compatibilism / compatibilists,
9) Fatalism / fatalists

Now, I'll organize by groups. In order to do that, I need to know the subsets and supersets. Your post helps out with that a lot.

So, it seems (and I could be wrong), but it seems that there are three distinct major groups:

1) Compatibilism
2) Incompatibilism
3) Fatalism - a small group but distinct from the others.

All other remaining buzz words filter down as subsets to 1 and 2.

I'll work on the rest of the tree and the branches they take later, but you gave all the information that is needed to finish it, I believe.

Garrett

November 17, 2006, 05:13 AM

The AntiChris
And presumably, this randomness extends to all other physical events?
Random events occur routinely in real life. Science routinely makes predictions based on probability distributions. Quantum physics shows that the probabilistic behavior of events is a fundamental principle.

But doesn't all of our experience show that physical events are not random?
No.

By "perfect", I simply meant one that operates in the standard thought-experiment kinda way that throws a die with exactly the same initial force/trajectory every time.
As I said:

2) the machine is capable of making each throw in a precisely controlled manner.

But I also said:
1) the machine throws the die "properly", ie similar to the way die are thrown in casinos (just a benchmark, but a good one - they take probability seriously).

I can make the die rolls always produce the same outcome, merely by making tiny little controlled throws.

Well, it's not just die-rolls, and it's not just an assumption. Just about everything we observe in nature appears to behave consistently. It's how we're able to do science - our very survival is crucially dependent on the results of the biological processes which comprise our physical bodies being non-random.
Die-rolls behave consistently! They consistently follow probability distributions. Science uses probability distributions routinely.

Your implication that if randomness occurs then we couldn't do science and we all would die is a non sequitor. You must be making some unusual hidden assumptions.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. When you say that that the results of 'perfectly' (in the thought-experiment kinda way) repeated die rolls would be "random", are you really saying that...
Here's what I really said: My layman thinking is that due to the physics of elasticity, the behavior of a properly thrown die affects the molecular structure and atomic bonds of the die, which are influenced by quantum events. I think a properly thrown die produces a random outcome.

are you really saying that because of the "Uncertainty Principle", the results cannot be predicted with absolute certainty (i.e. a random unexpected result is, in theory, statistically possible).
I don't understand your parenthetical. Are you trying to describe the uncertainty principle? Particle decay can't be predicted execpt by the calculation of probabilities of outcomes of concrete experiments.

That is not because we are unable to gather all of the relevant information. Afaik, there are no "hidden variables" which would explain the exact quantum outcome without invoking probability.

The probabilistic nature of reality is a "brute fact".

If this is what you're saying, then the result of the die roll isn't, as I understand it, truly random. In any event I'm pretty sure this level of unpredictability would be of no solace to fast.
I suspect your hidden assumption involves the idea of "truly random". I wonder how you would describe a hypothetical "truly random" event - what properties and behaviors would characterize such an event (as opposed to "psuedo-random" events which merely appear random because we lack essential information about the event)?
_____

The position that reality behaves like clockwork is PREdeterminism. Clearly, in such a reality our ability to choose is an illusion - we no more choose our decisions than a clock chooses to strike the hour.

I'm not claiming that since reality is probabilistic, therefore we have free will. I'm claiming that it is an error to assume that determinism means that a given event must produce one and only one particular outcome.

Once that error is repaired, the issue of determinism and free will can be reexamined with new insight.
_____

It just seems kinda self-evident to me. The mere fact that all the physical processes which you set in motion once you had decided to write this post did actually result in a post appearing on IIDB, suggests that stuff happens in a consistent and predictable manner and not randomly.
I suspect that TNorthover's comment might describe your understanding of "random": since this is quantum mechanics there's always the chance that the die turns into a squirrel mid-flight.

That "stuff happens in a consistent and predictable manner" is not in contradiction with randomness. Random behavior is consistently described and predicted by probability.

There is no chance of a die turning into a squirrel mid-flight due to the quantum behavior of the die. And posting on a forum is not proof that probabilistic events do not occur.
_____

Btw, you didn't meet your burden - you didn't even try. You say it is obvious to you that there are no random events - not as an assumption - but because nature, and science, our very survival, and also the ability to post in forums - all require that events are not random.

So it should be easy to find evidence confirming that the specific outcome of a properly and precisely thrown die can be exactly predicted.

Here's what I think: there is no such evidence.

The AntiChris

November 17, 2006, 06:18 AM

Random events occur routinely in real life. Science routinely makes predictions based on probability distributions.Yes, I know. I'm not disputing this.

I think we may be talking at cross-purposes.
But I also said:
1) the machine throws the die "properly", ie similar to the way die are thrown in casinos (just a benchmark, but a good one - they take probability seriously).
And I said:
By "perfect", I simply meant one that operates in the standard thought-experiment kinda way that throws a die with exactly the same initial force/trajectory every time.
It's trivially true that dice thrown "properly" (as they are in casinos) will produce random results. We're in agreement, but this randomness is not a result of quantum perturbations - it's down to the fact that (outside of thought experiments) no two die rolls are ever the same.

However, what I want to know is if you believe a die repeatedly thrown by the "perfect" thrower in precisely the same initial environmental circumstances (a thrower and conditions that exist only in the idealised world of thought-experiments) would produce random results?

But doesn't all of our experience show that physical events are not random?
No.
So that we're not talking past each other, can you explain what you mean here. It seems to me that my continued survival depends completely on my ability accurately to predict results of physical events, none of which appear to be random (in the sense that the results of a "proper" die roll are random).
Btw, you didn't meet your burden - you didn't even try. You say it is obvious to you that there are no random events - not as an assumption - but because nature, and science, our very survival, and also the ability to post in forums - all require that events are not random.

So it should be easy to find evidence confirming that the specific outcome of a properly and precisely thrown die can be exactly predicted.

Here's what I think: there is no such evidence.
Well, your original question asked "Where is the evidence that the same set of initial variables would produce the same outcome?".

My answer is that the evidence lies in the fact that everything we do is entirely dependent on predictable outcomes from similar physical events and I have no reason to believe die rolls are an exception to this rule.

I can only think you're using words such as "predictable" and "random" in a way I'm not familiar with.

Chris

fast

November 17, 2006, 05:52 PM

To no one in particular,

The opposite of determinism is indeterminism, and that's one issue. Hence, the idea that all events have antecedent causes (as determinism) is in direct opposition of the idea that not all events have antecedent causes (indeterminism).

But, like I said, that's one issue (or to be metaphorical, it's a quarter with two sides). There's also another issue, a smaller or less significant issue, but nevertheless an important issue (and to maintain my metaphor, a dime that also has two sides.)

This second issue is the distinction between the ideas where our actions are free of coercion-- to decide as we please (free will), and that is in opposition to the idea that we are being forced somehow to do as we would not otherwise do.

So, to recap, on the one hand, we have a quarter with two different sides, and in the other hand, we have a dime with two different sides. We have determinism versus indeterminism, and we have free will versus lack of free will.

I point all of this out in the way I do to pile drive home the point that when we talk of the issue of "determinism versus free will" we are talking not about two sides of an issue, but rather, it's single sides of two different issues.

The hard determinist says that determinism is true and therefore freewill is false. That's akin to saying I'm hungry; therefore, I'm tired. We cannot infer lack of free will from determinism being true. The hard determinist's mistake is in thinking that the opposite of determinism is lack of free will. We can't infer about one coin from the presence of another.

The Libertarian says that determinism is false, and regardless of whether the libertarian confuses the two coins (the issues) is moot, since determinism (as opposed to indeterminism) is clearly true--demonsratably true--as demonsratably true as it is to say of a fatalist that his perspective is incorrect.

So the Hard determinist and libertarians believe that determinism and free will are incompatible, and the reason they think that is because of the confusion as to what's the opposite of what. Since incompatibilists mix up the relationships between the sides of the two coins, the incompatibilists holds views that don't coincide with reality.

The Compatibilists don't make this mistake. They see determinism as being a completely different issue than that of free will. But, not all compatibilists are necessarily correct. For example, one could believe in free will and not believe in determinism; hence, be a believer in free will and be an indeterminist. So, such is a case where a compatibilst could agree that they are two different issues and still not hold a view commensurate with reality.

Nevertheless, the typical Compatibilist will see determinism & and it's counterpart view (indeterminism) as a separate issue than that of free will and it's cousin (the view we lack free will).

kennethamy

November 17, 2006, 10:20 PM

Garrett

November 18, 2006, 05:54 AM

The AntiChris
It's trivially true that dice thrown "properly" (as they are in casinos) will produce random results. We're in agreement, but this randomness is not a result of quantum perturbations - it's down to the fact that (outside of thought experiments) no two die rolls are ever the same.
I understand that the fact that probability distributions (or "randomness") exist does not automatically implicate that those distributions are the result of quantum perturbations.

However, that doesn't preclude the possibility that the randomness in some macro events is the result of quantum perturbations. There are many known macro events which can't be adequately described using classical physics. Brownian motion, thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, and material elasticity, to name a few examples.

The investigation of such phenomena is an important part of the trail which led to the invention of quantum theory! So it seems reasonable to suppose that the random behavior of such phenomena does implicate quantum theory.

However, what I want to know is if you believe a die repeatedly thrown by the "perfect" thrower in precisely the same initial environmental circumstances (a thrower and conditions that exist only in the idealised world of thought-experiments) would produce random results?
From my post 679:

I predict that even the best robot die-throwing machine, using the most stringent protocol, in the most controlled environment, must submit!

The result will always be the same - the die roll will always result in an outcome from a range of possibilities according to the laws of probability!

In the "idealised world of thought-experiments", my answer stays the same. I believe reality is fundamentally probabilistic; I think that elastic materials exhibit statistically random behavior because they are influenced by quantum events in the material; and I believe a properly thrown die (controlled and repeated under precisely equivalent conditions) would produce stastically random behavior.
_____

The AntiChris But doesn't all of our experience show that physical events are not random?
Garrett No.
The AntiChris So that we're not talking past each other, can you explain what you mean here. It seems to me that my continued survival depends completely on my ability accurately to predict results of physical events, none of which appear to be random (in the sense that the results of a "proper" die roll are random).
I think that common experience shows that physical events exhibit statistically random behavior, and that science confirms that as a fact.

I answered again, this time without using the ambiguous word. I still don't know what you mean by "truly random", so I don't know what you mean to imply in the parenthetical. It must be something unusual.

dictionary.com
randomness (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/randomness):
2. Statistics. of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.

Randomness: A random process is a repeating process whose outcomes follow no describable deterministic pattern, but follow a probability distribution.

Many scientific fields are concerned with randomness:

* Algorithmic probability
* Chaos theory
* Cryptography
* Game theory
* Information theory
* Pattern recognition
* Probability theory
* Quantum mechanics
* Statistics
* Statistical mechanics

So to me, your implication that "all of our experience show that physical events are not random" flies completely in the face of the facts. This is why I think you are making some unusual assumptions concerning the word "random".

And that is why I asked for clarification. You didn't respond. From my last post:

I wonder how you would describe a hypothetical "truly random" event - what properties and behaviors would characterize such an event (as opposed to "psuedo-random" events which merely appear random because we lack essential information about the event)?

If you can't describe a hypothetical "truly random" event, then I'm not sure what distinction you intended to make. On the one hand, any behavior which follows a probability distribution is random - it is true that such behavior is random - it is "truly random" behavior.

On the other hand, there are different reasons which might explain why a given behavior follows a probability distribution. The reason which you endorse is that the behavior might be stictly classical but we lack information about the precise initial conditions, so can't predict the outcome except by using probability. In this case, the outcome would be presumed to be the only possible outcome - no other outcome was possible. So it would seem to be a case where the outcome was "truly not random", even though the behavior presumably follows a probability distribution.

Apparently you think that reason is sufficient for all cases - ie there are no "truly random" events in reality. Maybe you're right, using your understanding of "truly random".

But in fact quantum events are probabilistic. From wiki:

According to some standard interpretations of quantum mechanics, microscopic phenomena are objectively random. That is, in an experiment where all causally relevant parameters are controlled, there will still be some aspects of the outcome which vary randomly. An example of such an experiment is placing a single unstable atom in a controlled environment; it cannot be predicted how long it will take for the atom to decay; only the probability of decay within a given time can be calculated. Thus quantum mechanics does not specify the outcome of individual experiments but only the probabilities.

Is that because we lack information? Would the particle decay follow classical physics if only we knew enough information about all relevant parameters?

Hidden variable theories attempt to escape the view that nature contains irreducible randomness: such theories posit that in the processes that appear random, unobservable (hidden) properties with a certain statistical distribution are somehow at work behind the scenes, determining the outcome in each case.

So, your position, which contradicts the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, carries the burden of producing a successful "hidden variable" theory.
_____

Garrett So it should be easy to find evidence confirming that the specific outcome of a properly and precisely thrown die can be exactly predicted.
Chris Well, your original question asked "Where is the evidence that the same set of initial variables would produce the same outcome?".
Classic example of taking statements out of context. The correct context is found in the quote you just responded to! And significantly it is found in the original quote, from my post 686:

We can make very precise machines, and a suitable robot die-thrower should not be a problem. We can build very controlled environments. So where is the evidence that a "properly and precisely" thrown die does not produce outcomes according to probability theory? Where is the evidence that the same set of initial variables would produce the same outcome?

Why not suppose that the bolded question captures the intended context? As opposed to making the absurd implication that I'm unaware that physical events are predictable. Good grief.

My answer is that the evidence lies in the fact that everything we do is entirely dependent on predictable outcomes from similar physical events and I have no reason to believe die rolls are an exception to this rule.
Of course everything we do is entirely dependent on predictable outcomes from similar physical events. Again: die rolls produce predictable outcomes. So your answer does not meet your burden.

You claimed a precisely controlled die throw has only one possible outcome. The fact that "physical events produce predictable outcomes" does not entail your claim. It is possible that a precisely controlled die throw produces one of six possible outcomes, as predicted by probability theory.

So you have two burdens: evidence that a precisely controlled and repeated die throw would produce only one outcome; and evidence that there must be "hidden variables" which would contradict standard quantum indeterminacy.

I can only think you're using words such as "predictable" and "random" in a way I'm not familiar with.
I think you're probably right. I use the standard and technical definitions.

I challenge you to provide an sample description of a hypothetical "truly random" event. That might help.

The AntiChris

November 18, 2006, 06:45 AM

Why not suppose that the bolded question captures the intended context? As opposed to making the absurd implication that I'm unaware that physical events are predictable. Good grief.I can assure you I had no intention of deliberately misrepresenting you - I was genuinely trying to understand what you were saying.

In any event I can see where this headed so I think it's probably best to leave it there.

Chris

TomJrzk

November 18, 2006, 10:55 AM

So the Hard determinist and libertarians believe that determinism and free will are incompatible, and the reason they think that is because of the confusion as to what's the opposite of what. Since incompatibilists mix up the relationships between the sides of the two coins, the incompatibilists holds views that don't coincide with reality.

I was hoping that you were going to get to the branches of the outline tree you were working on before making these statements.

The statements are right, but only given Free Will as defined by the Compatibilists. I was hoping that your Compatibilist branch would say something like "Believes Determinism and Free Will are compatible given this definition of Free Will:
According to Hume, free will should not be understood as an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires.
That Hume had to say this in the first place (like, what's with so many people here saying that it's such an obvious definition -- why should he have bothered? And why should he first posit exactly my definition of Free Will before he redefines it???) illustrates why I think Compatibilists are kicking the can down the road. I think at least some Hard Determinists (and I am one of them) ARE Hard Determinists because they do not carry this definition. How many of them don't think they can mull over the pros and cons and make a decision? Compatibilists have defined Hard Determinists into a ridiculously small box. Does no one else see this? Should I go at once to the hospital and have my aneurysm duct-taped???

So, I would have asked for a separate branch from or off Compatibilism that says Determinism and Will are compatible but Will is not free since it is entirely dependent on the neurology of the brain. In effect, a Compatibilist that rejects the confusing definition of a Free Will that is not ultimately free.

That would have cleared up a large part of this thread which bothered to discuss coercion and walks; which were not a part of the question you were asking "does the movie play out in exactly the same way each time?"

Philosophers : oil; engineers : water.

kennethamy

November 18, 2006, 11:24 AM

So, I would have asked for a separate branch from or off Compatibilism that says Determinism and Will are compatible but Will is not free since it is entirely dependent on the neurology of the brain. In effect, a Compatibilist that rejects the confusing definition of a Free Will that is not ultimately free.

Philosophers : oil; engineers : water.

The trouble here is that I don't really understand this notion of a will being free or not free, partly because by notion of what a "will" is (aside from the legal sense) is so hazy. You seem to think that there is some kind of entity called "the will" and the issue is whether it is free (uncaused) or unfree (caused). Most people who talk about a person doing something of "his own free will" have no conception that they are talking about some object or other called "the will". They are saying that the person in question is not under compulsion of some kind. It is philosophers (and apparently engineers) who have hypostatized (made into a separate entity) something called "THE WILL" and speculated on its freedom, or its lack thereof. John Locke spotted this slippage when he wrote that it is the person who is free or not free, not the will. If there is such an entity ("if"!) as the will, it can be studied by neurologists (without doubt) and I am sure they will suppose that like any other mental entity is is determined. So, I agree with you about that. Only, as I have indicated, the question whether there is free will or not, has nothing to do with this peculiar entity "the will" whatever it might be. It has to do with whether persons are free. And if that is the question, as I think it is, then the answer, as Hume pointed out, is, obviously, yes.

That the obvious is not recognized is largely due to the obfuscation which you seem to buy into, of tranforming the question into a question about "the will".

fast

November 18, 2006, 02:28 PM

I (sort of agree) with most of this, although I think it could have been put more clearly, and succinctly. But I have no idea what you mean by the following:

"The Compatibilists don't make this mistake. They see determinism as being a completely different issue than that of free will. But, not all compatibilists are necessarily correct. For example, one could believe in free will and not believe in determinism; hence, be a believer in free will and be an indeterminist. So, such is a case where a compatibilst could agree that they are two different issues and still not hold a view commensurate with reality."
We cannot infer that one is a determinist because one is a compatibilist.

fast

November 18, 2006, 02:30 PM

I was hoping that you were going to get to the branches of the outline tree you were working on before making these statements.There were some mutual exclusitivity problems with my outline.

TomJrzk

November 18, 2006, 04:25 PM

We cannot infer that one is a determinist because one is a compatibilist.
Yes, you can infer exactly that; a Compatibilist is a Determinist that believes in Free Will.

fast

November 18, 2006, 05:57 PM

Yes, you can infer exactly that; a Compatibilist is a Determinist that believes in Free Will.To say of two different issues that one is compatible with the other is not to say we believe in or endorse either--at least not in this context.

To talk of compatibility is to talk of the relationship between one thing and another thing. In this case, it's determinism and free will. I would think that it's possible to talk of the issues as being compatible with one another without committing to either.

Let's say that I don't believe in determinism. That doesn't make me an indeterminist unless I believe determinism is false. I could remain undecided yet still feel that either way, it would be compatible with free will (as you say compatibilists define it).

Unless I’m wrong…which is entirely possible.

TomJrzk

November 18, 2006, 08:15 PM

To say of two different issues that one is compatible with the other is not to say we believe in or endorse either
Purely logically, that's true. But I've never heard one argue that free will is compatible with determinism but not believe in both; the reason I've heard it argued is so they can have both.

But, if you want to stand on that technicality, I must allow you to. It's obvious that's what you meant when you wrote it, I just thought you got your terms mixed up.

kennethamy

November 18, 2006, 10:03 PM

We cannot infer that one is a determinist because one is a compatibilist.

That's wrong. All compatibilists think that determinism is true. That is why they are called, "compatibilists".

fast

November 18, 2006, 10:07 PM

That Hume had to say this in the first place (like, what's with so many people here saying that it's such an obvious definition -- why should he have bothered? And why should he first posit exactly my definition of Free Will before he redefines it???) illustrates why I think Compatibilists are kicking the can down the road. I think at least some Hard Determinists (and I am one of them) ARE Hard Determinists because they do not carry this definition. How many of them don't think they can mull over the pros and cons and make a decision? Compatibilists have defined Hard Determinists into a ridiculously small box. Does no one else see this? Should I go at once to the hospital and have my aneurysm duct-taped???

When it's said that God is all-knowing, questions arise. Specifically, questions come to us when it's said that God is all-knowing about the future. In particular, when it's said that God knows whether we will be bad or good in the future, it brings to mind some very serious questions.

One of those questions directly bears down on these issues of determinism and free will. For example, if he knows what I will do, can it be that I can make a decision differently than he already knows I will? The answer is no. That suggests that I do not have free will, but we're reassured that we do.

In that context, it's either true that the free will Ken brings up is topic related, or of course, it's not true. He doesn't understand what you could mean by free will, and he does understand what he means, and they are obviously not the same.

So, two things. I think that maybe we ought to concede on the free will point. In other words, concede to his usage. The second thing is that we ought not even distinguish between two different free wills. Whatever idea it is that we think we have, then perhaps we ought to come up with a way to express it without the use of the term.

I think that the idea we are trying to express by how we've been using free will is already captured by the term indeterminism, and I think we would all agree (yeah right--parish the thought) that indeterminism is false.

*******

Also, recall that I said that the determinism and indeterminism was one issue—a big issue, characterized by the quarter. Additionally, I said that free will and lack of free will was a second issue—a smaller issue, characterized by the dime.

I’m really not sure how to express what I want to say here, but somehow, I think people are looking at free will as if it were a closed type system that isn’t being penetrated by determinism. I know that didn’t make much sense, but I just can’t explain the failure of others to acknowledge what it means to mull over a decision in a deterministic world and what that implies about the possible outcomes.

Last but not least, Garrett in post 679 asked, “Do you suppose that, a moment or two after the big bang, your response to this post could have been accurately predicted given complete knowledge of the state of reality at that time?

What say you?

fast

November 18, 2006, 10:15 PM

That's wrong. All compatibilists think that determinism is true. That is why they are called, "compatibilists".

I don't see it, but ok.

TheMathGuy

November 18, 2006, 10:16 PM

This discussion brings to mind the words from a popular song written back in the 80's by a band called "Rush":

You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that's clear
I will choose free will.

Herein I think lies the biggest problem. If there's one thing that I absolutely believe is determined and we cannot change, it's that we have to make choices whether we want to or not. We have no choice but to make choices! :D Which is what this song is trying to get at.

We can speculate about Laplacian demons all we want, but if we tried to actually build one I suspect we would run into a problem, because the Laplacian demon would be a part of this universe and therefore it would have to be able to predict itself. Now suppose I asked the Laplacian demon "Will you ever contradict yourself?" Now there's a theorem from computer science that says this problem is undecidable--meaning it's not possible for the Laplacian demon to acertain whether it itself is indeed a true Laplacian demon or not. Therefore an actual, physical Laplacian demon existing in our universe is a logical impossibility.

So what then is left for us to do? Abandoning the hope that we will ever be able to have an absolutely perfect model that will predict the universe without fail we have no choice but to choose. I expect there will always be situations where the future will be uncertain to us and we will therefore have to decide which of the futures that appear possible we want to happen. Even if it is only an illusion and only one future is truly possible, we are still forced to make the choice because we can't know that.

Of course, I'm all for acquiring as much knowledge as we can because the more knowledgeable we are, the better we will be able to know what's actually possible and how to acheive it rather than wasting our time and effort trying to do the impossible. When it comes to other people I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt and not harm them beyond what is necessary to protect society, and also make some attempt at rehabilitating criminals based on solid research. People can be changed; we know that from psychology. This whole notion of "deserve" is rather silly if you ask me. Why do we want to see people who hurt us be hurt? I think the sooner we can figure out how to either supress this desire or re-channel it into something positive the better off we will all be.

In all honesty, I have no idea whether my will is truly "free" or not, and so I go on making choices as indeed I must. On this subject I would consider myself an "I don't know"-ist! :p

wiploc

November 18, 2006, 10:42 PM

That is why they are called, "compatibilists".

I'd have thought they were called compatibilists because they thought free will is compatible with determinism.

That's wrong. All compatibilists think that determinism is true.

So what are you going to call the people who don't think determinism is true, but who do think free will is compatible with determinism?

crc

fast

November 18, 2006, 11:22 PM

I'd have thought they were called compatibilists because they thought free will is compatible with determinism. Thank you. I kinda had the same feeling.

So what are you going to call the people who don't think determinism is true, but who do think free will is compatible with determinism?

I am like so there with you on this, and the only reason I'm hesitant is because of those protruding thoughts that if I hold a belief that determinism is false, then what exactly am I saying is compatible with free will? Something that I believe that isn't even so?

Anyways, that's why I took the approach I did with Tom--the approach that took a lack of belief perspective. I know it's kinda sneaky, and it reminds me of IIDB's adopted definition of atheism, but oh well.

TomJrzk

November 19, 2006, 11:30 AM

Last but not least, Garrett in post 679 asked, “Do you suppose that, a moment or two after the big bang, your response to this post could have been accurately predicted given complete knowledge of the state of reality at that time?

What say you?
I, of course, say "yes", it is what it is and could be nothing else.

The Big Bang happened, which may have been an accident, I don't know.

The matter/energy involved might have been completely uniform, in which case every particle would have flown directly away from every other particle forever. No Free Will (still using my strict definition) here.

It was not uniform, which may have been an accident, I don't know. The background radiation shows this variation. That's what set this path on its path. No Free Will here.

Gravity caused this variation to accrete matter into stars. These stars pressed matter into different elements. Nova created still more elements and scattered them throughout the universe, and the Pachinko machine was set in motion. No Free Will here.

The elements created Earth. Somehow (and this is the only step I don't even have an unfirm handle on) elements arranged themselves in a manner that made them self-replicating. Evolution was born (at least here on Earth). Self-replication may have been an accident, I don't know; but there were probably so many countless experiments with these chemicals going on just here on Earth for so long that it was inevitable. No Free Will here, either.

Selection pressures resulted in a human brain able to understand will and mull over whether it is free. And, still, will is not free.

Yes, the fact that I'm typing this right now is only one of so many countless realities that COULD have been the path, IF so many speeding molecules of elements did not hit every other molecule just so. This path hit the ultimate lottery, but the numbers came up as the numbers were to come up.

I think some people who think this so implausible are missing the effects of feedback. Humans are only one level of feedback in that we can see light and move matter into a form that would not happen by accident. It's the feedback (of which evolution is a huge contributor) that creates the implausible beauty.

Having said all that, I'm perfectly willing to recant if the Freewillion is ever discovered.

TomJrzk

November 19, 2006, 02:36 PM

Also, recall that I said that the determinism and indeterminism was one issue—a big issue, characterized by the quarter. Additionally, I said that free will and lack of free will was a second issue—a smaller issue, characterized by the dime.

But it was you who made the 35 cents. You wanted to reconcile the simplicity of Determinism with the need to control your choices somehow. That 'control', in the face of determinism, is Free Will, and my definition of Free Will at that. Hume's definition intentionally excludes "an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances", so accepting the Compatibilist's definition forces you to come up with another term in order to discuss your movie analogy, since your movie assumes "exactly the same inner and outer circumstances". Do you not see that? What would you call the force behind you choosing grape soda instead of the orange soda you chose in Fast Part I? Or have you resolved yourself against being able to make a different choice?

Garrett

November 19, 2006, 10:45 PM

TomJrzk
the Pachinko machine was set in motion

The idea that reality is a clockwork machine has been disproven by quantum physics. Your belief carries no more weight than the belief that the earth is flat.

I'm perfectly willing to recant if the Freewillion is ever discovered.
Requiring that free will can exist only if there is Freewillion is as ridiculus as requiring that evolution can exist only if there is Evolutionium.

TomJrzk

November 20, 2006, 07:18 AM

The idea that reality is a clockwork machine has been disproven by quantum physics. Your belief carries no more weight than the belief that the earth is flat.
My view includes QM, which I believe is deterministic and we'll see that if we ever truly understand it. My best guess, and it is a guess, is that we see a slice of matter that's not available to our limited dimensions; there's more out there than we 4-D flatlanders can experience directly. QM is just a hint.

Regardless, while QM would affect the Pachinko machine, the probabilities took the values that they took; their effects are now known and could have been no other. Plus, once we're here, I don't see them having much effect on the macro level to the point where they would affect free will. And, even if they did, we can't control them so that just means our will is that much less free.
Requiring that free will can exist only if there is Freewillion is as ridiculous as requiring that evolution can exist only if there is Evolutionium.
Yes, given your definition of Free Will, that is probably true. My definition, though, requires being able to make a different choice given the exact same inner and outer circumstances. That would require some reality beyond what I accept as physics; a Freewillion or Spiriton.

kennethamy

November 20, 2006, 08:08 AM

I am like so there with you on this, and the only reason I'm hesitant is because of those protruding thoughts that if I hold a belief that determinism is false, then what exactly am I saying is compatible with free will? Something that I believe that isn't even so?

How about, "Even if determinism were true, it would not be incompatible with free will"?

fast

November 20, 2006, 08:30 AM

How about, "Even if determinism were true, it would not be incompatible with free will"?Are you asking me to evaluate the question? If so, my answer is no. Determinism is compatible with free will, meaning, while it is true that the world we live is deterministic, it is also true that we have free will. In others words, it can simultaneously be true that I have free will in a deterministic world.

But then again, (and under my breath) I'm willing to kick the can.

Did I answer your question? Or, was your question something else? The "how about" part threw me a little.

fast

November 20, 2006, 08:46 AM

But it was you who made the 35 cents. You wanted to reconcile the simplicity of Determinism with the need to control your choices somehow. That 'control', in the face of determinism, is Free Will, and my definition of Free Will at that. Hume's definition intentionally excludes "an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances", so accepting the Compatibilist's definition forces you to come up with another term in order to discuss your movie analogy, since your movie assumes "exactly the same inner and outer circumstances". Do you not see that? What would you call the force behind you choosing grape soda instead of the orange soda you chose in Fast Part I? Or have you resolved yourself against being able to make a different choice?We do not have what the hard determinist is calling free will, yet we do have free will. What the hard determinist is calling free will is commensurate with that of "indeterminism."

fast

November 20, 2006, 08:56 AM

I, of course, say "yes", it is what it is and could be nothing else.The compatibilists agree.

What is it to say of someone that they made a choice by contemporary speakers of the language? What does it MEAN to say of someone that they made a choice?

For your eyes only, we do not have the free will of the variety I had previously been speaking of. I was correct along, and it's a sad world indeed.

And as others listen in, I now quickly agree (and not to make fuss of the sad state of affairs), that we do indeed have free will; not only that, it's most assuredly compatible with our relentless deterministic world. Woe is me—the movie will play.

TomJrzk

November 20, 2006, 09:27 AM

Woe is me—the movie will play.
I'm glad you finally got your question answered. The confusion of the definition of free will certainly stretched it out a bit. It would've been quicker had the Compatibilists come out immediately with their definition so we could get to the heart of the issue without taking such long walks. But, I see that they do have political considerations to deal with so I'll resign myself to standing here in the road getting buried in kicked cans.
What is it to say of someone that they made a choice by contemporary speakers of the language? What does it MEAN to say of someone that they made a choice?
I think the definition of free will was originally built off the idea that people are totally, completely, 100% free; that was before we even knew what a neuron was. I think the Determinists found the constraints and needed to tell those, like you, who were suddenly filled with woe that nothing about every day behavior has changed; we still make choices, even though those choices are not ultimately free. I see nothing to be sad about and I hope you come to this place, too.

kennethamy

November 20, 2006, 09:41 AM

I'm glad you finally got your question answered. The confusion of the definition of free will certainly stretched it out a bit. It would've been quicker had the Compatibilists come out immediately with their definition so we could get to the heart of the issue without taking such long walks.

No confusion on the part of the Compatibilists, anyway. "Freedom of the will" means being able to do as you choose (or not having to do as you do not choose) the choice itself being caused by "non-constraining causes" such as post-hypnotic suggestion, or having a gun pointed at your head.

Not a can in sight. And so far as I can tell, neurons don't matter. Nothing is ultimately anything, whatever "ultimately" means.

TomJrzk

November 20, 2006, 10:43 AM

Not a can in sight. And so far as I can tell, neurons don't matter.
You could have more concisely written, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain".

Intelligent people, like Fast, are going to ask how determinism affects their choices. As a Determinist you're going to say, "Your choices are already made; by the person that you already are and the experiences you already lived through". As a Compatibilist you're going to say, "forget the neurons, they follow determinism but they don't matter", in a very long-winded and confusing way.

kennethamy

November 20, 2006, 11:22 AM

You could have more concisely written, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain".

Intelligent people, like Fast, are going to ask how determinism affects their choices. As a Determinist you're going to say, "Your choices are already made; by the person that you already are and the experiences you already lived through". As a Compatibilist you're going to say, "forget the neurons, they follow determinism but they don't matter", in a very long-winded and confusing way.
You think "not a can in sight" is long-winded. You have very high standards of brevity.
Doesn't seem long-winded to me. That's nearly how I'd say it. But I am sure you would want me to explain why neural-determinism doesn't matter. Given the causes of my action, I could have done no other. But if the cause of my action was a choice, and that choice was not imposed on me, then what does it matter. What I don't get is that whatever choice I made, you would say that choice was caused, and I could have done no other. And that is true. Only you have to explain to me how that is relevant to whether I did as I chose, and that choice was not compelled.

Causation need not be compulsion. Not even if you insist that it is, and stamp your feet while insisting.

TomJrzk

November 20, 2006, 11:40 AM

You think "not a can in sight" is long-winded. You have very high standards of brevity.
Doesn't seem long-winded to me. That's nearly how I'd say it. ...Not even if you insist that it is, and stamp your feet while insisting.
No foot stomping here. The long-winded referred to the explanations of how you took a walk this morning and ate oat meal, when that was not the question Fast was asking. He was obviously referring to the caveat that Hume said was not free will, and you could have said that in 5-10 words and not 50-100 posts.

If you're going to take my definition of free will from me, the least you could do is give me a term in its stead. You don't seem to like the word 'ultimate' but that's all I'm left with. I understand that I make day to day choices but 'ultimately' those choices are made by the neurons you want to ignore. How would you propose that I address that issue without using the term 'free will' anymore? Do you want me to ignore the question altogether?

kennethamy

November 20, 2006, 08:41 PM

No foot stomping here. The long-winded referred to the explanations of how you took a walk this morning and ate oat meal, when that was not the question Fast was asking. He was obviously referring to the caveat that Hume said was not free will, and you could have said that in 5-10 words and not 50-100 posts.

If you're going to take my definition of free will from me, the least you could do is give me a term in its stead. You don't seem to like the word 'ultimate' but that's all I'm left with. I understand that I make day to day choices but 'ultimately' those choices are made by the neurons you want to ignore. How would you propose that I address that issue without using the term 'free will' anymore? Do you want me to ignore the question altogether?

I have no idea what you mean by Hume's "caveat", or indeed, what all of that was about.

But neurons make no choices since they are non-intelligent things. People make choices. Neither do I remember any definition of "free will" you gave. So I really don't know what I have taken from you. As I have pointed out, just as neurons make no choices, so wills (whatever those may be) are not free. It is people who are (or are not) free, and talking about people having free will is just philospeak for talking about people being free. Your choices are not (as I pointed out made by neurons) but are partly caused by neural ocurrences (or so I am told). What issue is it that you want to address? How, given those neural occurrences (supposing they are the only cause) we could have made different choices? The answer is that we could not have (supposing the truth of determinism). The next question is, what that fact (if it is one) is supposed to imply. You can certainly address that issue, if that is the one you want to address. But I have been arguing that it does not follow from that fact (supposing it is one) that people are not free.

TomJrzk

November 21, 2006, 07:52 AM

I have no idea what you mean by Hume's "caveat", or indeed, what all of that was about.

I'm sorry, I often eliminate repeating myself to the point of being too cryptic. I've italicised the 'caveat':
According to Hume, free will should not be understood as an absolute ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances. Rather, it is a hypothetical ability to have chosen differently if one had been differently psychologically disposed by some different beliefs or desires.
When I rejected this redefinition of free will, I did so because the caveat is my understanding of what I and some other people understand free will to mean, and the loss that Fast is lamenting. So, you and I both reject "the ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances"?

The term I'd like as a replacement for my definition of free will should mean "the ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances"; the meaning that Hume defined out of existence. Can you offer one?

kennethamy

November 21, 2006, 08:06 AM

I'm sorry, I often eliminate repeating myself to the point of being too cryptic. I've italicised the 'caveat':

When I rejected this redefinition of free will, I did so because the caveat is my understanding of what I and some other people understand free will to mean, and the loss that Fast is lamenting. So, you and I both reject "the ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances"?

The term I'd like as a replacement for my definition of free will should mean "the ability to have chosen differently under exactly the same inner and outer circumstances"; the meaning that Hume defined out of existence. Can you offer one?

The standard term in philosophical literature is "Libertarianism". The Libertarian holds that I could have chosen differently, under the very same circumstances. The Libertarian is, then, an indeterminist.

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:djO2iXCSm-AJ:members.aol.com/plw

fast

November 21, 2006, 08:08 AM

What issue is it that you want to address? How, given those neural occurrences (supposing they are the only cause) we could have made different choices? The answer is that we could not have (supposing the truth of determinism). The next question is, what that fact (if it is one) is supposed to imply. You can certainly address that issue, if that is the one you want to address. But I have been arguing that it does not follow from that fact (supposing it is one) that people are not free.

How would I go about asking if it's possible that our choices (and therefore our actions) are destined without implying fatalism? And, what’s the answer?

For example, when the bagboy asks, "paper or plastic," and though it would take some serious philosophical mangling to conclude that my reply isn't of my own choosing, (so, I agree that I have made a choice when I say, "plastic"), I'd like to know how I would go about asking if it's possible that my choice (spawned by the neural occurrences--or so we're told) could have led to a different choice and thus a different action, at that particular time?

I do not want to deny a causal link; hence, I want to shy away from fatalism; however, at the same time, I don't want to say that I could have said paper given the choice spawned by neural occurrences beyond my control.

kennethamy

November 21, 2006, 08:19 AM

How would I go about asking if it's possible that our choices (and therefore our actions) are destined without implying fatalism? And, what’s the answer?

For example, when the bagboy asks, "paper or plastic," and though it would take some serious philosophical mangling to conclude that my reply isn't of my own choosing, (so, I agree that I have made a choice when I say, "plastic"), I'd like to know how I would go about asking if it's possible that my choice (spawned by the neural occurrences--or so we're told) could have led to a different choice and thus a different action, at that particular time?

I do not want to deny a causal link; hence, I want to shy away from fatalism; however, at the same time, I don't want to say that I could have said paper given the choice spawned by neural occurrences beyond my control.

"Destined" usually is very much the same as "fated". Why not simply use the term, "determined"? If determinism is true (and I don't think that "determinism" is the name of anything clear) if every thing was exactly as it was, then my choice could not have led to different effects. (I don't get this emphasis in neurons, though. Surely there are other factors involved than my neurons. I have no idea whether my thoughts, my beliefs, and choices, are "reducible" to a bunch of neural firings, and, I bet that no one else has either. Sounds like the latest fad to me.)

fast

November 21, 2006, 08:31 AM

I don't get this emphasis in neurons, though [...]Sounds like the latest fad to me.)I think that it's just an attempt to reduce every action to a physical cause. So, even the contemplation of a decision could not have occurred if not for an underlying physical cause. I once said, "matter in motion" to capture this point.

kennethamy

November 21, 2006, 08:52 AM

I think that it's just an attempt to reduce every action to a physical cause. So, even the contemplation of a decision could not have occurred if not for an underlying physical cause. I once said, "matter in motion" to capture this point.

Makes it sound more learned and scientific. I see.

fast

November 21, 2006, 09:23 AM

If determinism is true (and I don't think that "determinism" is the name of anything clear) if every thing was exactly as it was, then my choice could not have led to different effects. How many different ways is it at the moment I make the decision to say plastic? Could I have said paper when asked at that moment?

fast

November 21, 2006, 09:25 AM

Makes it sound more learned and scientific. I see.I was trying to be accurate.

kennethamy

November 21, 2006, 09:42 AM

I was trying to be accurate.

It isn't more accurate if there are factors other than neural firings that determine your choices.

kennethamy

November 21, 2006, 09:44 AM

How many different ways is it at the moment I make the decision to say plastic? Could I have said paper when asked at that moment?

You could had you chosen to do so (unless you are not telling me the entire story). If you mean, could you have, whether or not you chose to, I really don't know. I suppose that if determinism is true, supposing we have some grasp on what determinism is, then no, you couldn't have. But what that has to do with whether you were acting freely, is still another issue.

fast

November 21, 2006, 09:52 AM

It isn't more accurate if there are factors other than neural firings that determine your choices.

I was referring to "matter in motion" as being an accurate description of our state of affairs.

fast

November 21, 2006, 10:03 AM

[...] If you mean, could you have, whether or not you chose to, I really don't know. I suppose that if determinism is true, supposing we have some grasp on what determinism is, then no, you couldn't have. But what that has to do with whether you were acting freely, is still another issue.

By what I have come to realize free will to be, I understand why you would say that free will is of another issue. In those regards, and with that caveat, I agree.

If the antecedent causes of my decision to choose plastic is present (hence, if we're assuming a deterministic world (with all matter where it is to boot), then it's neither true that I would have or could have chosen paper. Disagree? Why? I did not say that we don't have free will. Of course we do.

fast

November 21, 2006, 10:12 AM

I see nothing to be sad about and I hope you come to this place, too.I responded to this a dozen times, (save for pressing the reply button), and the words just don't come out right. So, suffice it to say that I don't like the idea that it is impossible that I could have chosen paper—not to say paper is that big of an issue of course.

kennethamy

November 21, 2006, 11:13 AM

If the antecedent causes of my decision to choose plastic is present (hence, if we're assuming a deterministic world (with all matter where it is to boot), then it's neither true that I would have or could have chosen paper.

If determinism is all it is cracked up to be, then I suppose that is right. But, as I have indicated, my grasp of determinism (and, I think that of others, when they don't wave their hands about) is pretty slim.

TomJrzk

November 21, 2006, 12:40 PM

I responded to this a dozen times, (save for pressing the reply button), and the words just don't come out right. So, suffice it to say that I don't like the idea that it is impossible that I could have chosen paper—not to say paper is that big of an issue of course.
You were free (per Compatibilism's definition of free) to choose what you preferred. What I'm saying is that it was impossible that you would have preferred paper at that instant; you had no Libertarian free will.

fast

November 21, 2006, 01:20 PM

Just as hard determinists argue :

1. Determinism is true.
2. If Determinism is true then free will (freedom is false)

Therefore, 3. Free will is false

So, Libertarians say :

1. Determinism is false.
2. If Determinism is true, then freewill (freedom) is false.

And conclude that since there is not other reason to think we don't have free will than that Determinism is true, we have free will.

So Hard Determinists and Libertarians both hold that determinism is incompatible with free will, only HDs hold that Determinism is true, and Libertarians, that Determinism is false. So HDs and Libertarians are both incompatibilists. Libertarians are indeterminists.

Soft Determinists are, of course, the compatibilists, since they hold that Determinism and Freewill are compatible. So they hold that both kinds of incompatibilists are wrong.

Fatalism is the view that no matter what people do, what will happen will happen. So they hold that human actions are inefficacious. So they hold that human actions do not effect any outcomes. So, Fatalism is incompatible with Determinism, since Determinism implies that human actions are causes like any other events. Fatalism is (I think) demonstrably false. E.g. It is obviously false that whether or not I hand in a required term paper will affect my grade. Statistics can prove that a soldier who takes precautions has a better chance of surviving than one who does not; of a person who takes precautions while crossing the street has a better chance of survival than a person who wears a blindfold while crossing the street.

Garrett, Tom, Hoo Doo, and Oldal, [anyone!]

If we were to create a punnett square that expressed this information, what would go where?

For example, imagine a 3x3 grid (like a tic-tac-toe board). The top rows would be labeled 1, 2, and 3; the next row would be 4, 5, and 6. Finally, the last row would be 7, 8, and 9.

Illustration:

123
456
789

Labels:

1--blank (or label).
2--top heading
3--top heading

4--left heading
7--left heading

5,6,8,9 the information (the buzz words' relationships)

I don't think I can get all the information in there, so I'd like to start with the core, inner information (the basics)--and I'm not even rightly sure what that is--because there's just so much information. That's what I keep racking my head over anyway.

For example, one possible matrix might include four buzz words such as determinism, indeterminism, libertarian, and free will, (examples only) but I'll be darned if I can figure out the headings to make it (or any other combination of four) work out.

For example,

2: I believe that determinism is
3: ???

4: true
5: false

So, if you write out a tic toe board and put in the numbers and headings, you will see that 2 and 4 intersect at five; meaning, if one believes that determinism is true, then one is at the very least a determinist, so I would label 5: determinist.

[2,4] = determinist (since one who believes that determinism is true is a determinist)
[2,7] = indeterminist (since one who believe that determinism is false is an indeterminist)

[3,4] = ???
[3,7] = ???

Anyways, this can get complicated, and it's something I've been mulling over, so if you happen to know the answers, and can figure out the root of the structure, I could build from there.