Free Will vs Determinism

[Dave Mangnall]

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I think, I’ve never understood the terror of determinism. Why do you imagine it would be so overwhelming and stultifying? I guess I have a bit of an idea.

Terror? No, none of that. I'm "terrified" of only real things, and don't happen to regard Determinism as real.

I would say Determinism is just impossible to live...and that is stultifying, meaning that it renders stupid a lot of normal human behaviour. For example, what's the use of planning a future if the future is whatever the future is? What's the point of talking about someone "loving" you when they could not have done other than they did? How do you rationalize locking up a criminal if he literally could not help doing what he was predestined to do? And so on.

Normal human choice-making actually turns out to be sham performance. The limitedness of human perspective makes us imagine we are making choices when all we are really doing is either dancing to our DNA or helplessly playing out the hand of cards that was dealt us at the Big Bang (or actually, before).

But is this "terrifying"? Heck no. I remain unafraid of fairy curses, of unicorn impalement, of leprechaun bites, of astrological projections and of Determinism...and one might say it's for the same reason. But I'll grant you this: that Determinism has this going for it; unlike those other things, at least a plausible explanation.

However, it's still really hard to muster the means to be afraid of something one thinks simply isn't so.

So your refusal to face the reality of determinism is based on the terror that it would invoke in you if you did. As I suspected!

Your repressed terror is based on the mistaken perceptions that life would be rendered stupid, that love would be rendered worthless, that criminals would roam free and doubtless much more besides. I can see you have much to fear!

To pick up your detailed points and explain how determinism works.................

1. Your planning for the future is caused. The planning, an effect in itself, then feeds into the Causal Nexus as a cause in bringing about the planned future. The planned future is what it is, because the planning is what it is, because everything that happened before the planning is what it is. Your question has a resonance of the famously daft fatalist’s “Lazy Argument”. “What’s the point in going to the Doctor when you’re sick? You’re either going to die or you’re not.”

2. Why should love be any the less valuable to you just because people can’t help loving you? This is your old oft-repeated error coming out. You seem to believe that if something’s caused then it’s unreal. But there’s enough causation in the world, even within your free will model, for you to know that that isn’t so.

3. One purpose of incarcerating the criminal is to protect the public, and the public still needs to be protected even if the criminal’s will is not free. With some criminals, it actually is believed that they can’t help themselves, but they get locked up anyway, perhaps in secure mental institutions. It could be that it is determined that incarceration and appropriate treatment prevent subsequent re-offending. What the logic of determinism really does rule out is the rationality of wanting the criminal to suffer, because he’s so evil.

4. Your comments about normal human choice making are typical of the inconsistency brought about by your outside-looking-in thinking. Your use of words and phrases such “limitedness”, “all we are really doing” and “helplessly” only make any sense within the context of a free will that has been cruelly stolen from us. But with determinism there never was any free will, only the illusion of it. I follow my personal Script, and the Script defines who I am in the same way, I guess, that in your model your exertion of your free will defines who you are. There’s no associated sense of limitedness, or belittlement, or helplessness. Why should there be?

[Dave Mangnall]

To go back to your statement, the only implication of free will here would be that there was a genuine possibility that I might have refrained from whatever attempts I made to convince someone that their will was not free. It is precisely that possibility that I deny. I might, for all I know, desist at some point in the future. Either it is determined that I will so desist, or it is determined that I will not. I don’t know which.

And that is where we differ in opinion, so be it.

So it was determined to be, or so we chose it to be? I guess we'll differ in opinion on that as well!

[Dave Mangnall]

Knowing the outcome of a coin toss is much different than the outcome being determined. Just because that outcome is determined in advance, the person tossing or the person watching might not know the outcome, and their prediction is properly a probability.

Thanks, Doc. On this, at least, you're on my side. But try telling it to Immanuel; he's having none of it!

I think that you and IC are talking past each other, and not really taking the time to understand the others statements. You and I are saying that probability is in the realm of what an individual knows, and IC is saying that with determinism itself, there is no probability. Both are correct, but about different things.

I agree with everything you say (except that I’m trying very hard to understand Immanuel) and thank you for stepping in as mediator. What Immanuel seemed to me to be saying, and he seemed to me to be very clear about it, was that because there is no probability within determinism itself I cannot even talk about probability in the sense of what the individual knows. So I can’t talk about the probability of a tossed coin landing heads, and I can’t talk about the probability of my dying in the next twenty years. This view seems quite insane, which is why I kept giving him the opportunity to say that this wasn’t what he meant!

[Belinda]

Thedoc wrote:

I think that you and IC are talking past each other, and not really taking the time to understand the others statements. You and I are saying that probability is in the realm of what an individual knows, and IC is saying that with determinism itself, there is no probability. Both are correct, but about different things.

That is helpful.

Probability is not part of determinists' stance. The determinist says that events could not have happened otherwise than they did. The determinist does not say that the future will be like the past. The claim that the future will be like the past is fatalism, which is tangential to determinism.

Probability is a common sense estimate, or a statistician's estimate, of what the future will be like.

[henry quirk]

"Either my arguments convince my interlocutor or they do not."

How, in a determined universe, can this be?

In a determined universe: you, a bio-automaton, make noise, or squiggles on a screen, and Joe, another bio-automaton, hearing your noise or seeing your sqiggles, reacts accordingly, according to program.

In a determined universe: there is no 'convincing' as convincing (or being convinced) is sumthin' only an agent can do.

#

"So your refusal to face the reality of determinism is based on the terror that it would invoke in you if you did. As I suspected!"

How can Mannie refuse anything? As bio-robot, he can only react, not respond.

Refusal, response: these are what choosing agents do. Robots can only react according to program.

So, in this determined universe of yours, Dave, Mannie is only doin' what he must...he's got not a jot of say-so in the matter.

[Immanuel Can]

So your refusal to face the reality of determinism is based on the terror that it would invoke in you if you did. As I suspected!

Umm... I said precisely the opposite. No terror here. Honestly.

Your repressed terror...

Ah. The old Freudian psychoanalytic dodge. It goes something like, "You say you're not afraid, therefore you're repressing your fear."

Come on, Dave... One has to have fear in order to repress any. You've begged the question in the first place, then assumed the conclusion you wanted in the face of the opposite. There's no way to disabuse someone of such a strategy, of course. It would be like me saying, "The only reason you're a Determinist is you want to be a pervert and not get blamed for it," and then when you (probably rightly) protest, having me say, "Aha: you're trying to cover up your perversion."

1. Your planning for the future is caused.

Begging the question again. You jumped to your conclusion without premises.

2. Why should love be any the less valuable to you just because people can’t help loving you?

Oh, that's easy. You might equally be asking, "Why should loving a robot or automaton of some kind that you have programmed to seem to express free will and love be any different from loving a human being who has genuinely freely chosen to love you?"

Does anyone even ask such a question?

3. One purpose of incarcerating the criminal is to protect the public, and the public still needs to be protected even if the criminal’s will is not free.

But there's no justice in our doing so. For he was not in control of himself. His situation is no different from that of a sleepwalker, a person who has been drugged beyond ability to choose, a mental incompetent or someone insane. We don't incarcerate such, because they lack responsibility for what they did. So how come you're fine with locking up the criminal who, according to Determinism, has no more ability to will his actions than does the mental incompetent? For as you admit,

...with determinism there never was any free will, only the illusion of it.

So the criminal is not the actual cause of his crime. He's only an instrument of a prior determination caused by prior causation, and so on.

I follow my personal Script, and the Script defines who I am in the same way, I guess, that in your model your exertion of your free will defines who you are. There’s no associated sense of limitedness, or belittlement, or helplessness. Why should there be?

"Helpless" is a word capable of more than one meaning. In my case, I simply mean "without alternate recourse; unable to do otherwise." Likewise, "limited": it simply indicates the causal "limits" imposed by Determinism, and is not pejorative, and does not require the background of belief in free will you attribute to it. Your objection there is mistaken.

[Arising_uk]

" 'God' told me do it! "

" 'God' made me do it! "

Now given that if this 'God' is Omniscient, Omnipotent and Omnipresent I think the above must be absolutely true.

IC has a big problem arguing against determinism as "determinism" comes exactly from the problem of 'God's' will and 'freewill', i.e. if there is a 'God' who is the big 3 O's(which I think all theists want to believe is absolutely true) then 'freeewill' does not exist in any meaningful way and if it does then their 'God' does not have the 3 O's.

[Dontaskme]

We have freewill because we don't have any choice in the matter, it's totally deterministic.

[osgart]

having will doesn't make it free will. You have to learn things and care about them in your heart to have free will. conscience and morality. truths make one free otherwise your slave to your own limitations.

[Belinda]

having will doesn't make it free will. You have to learn things and care about them in your heart to have free will. conscience and morality. truths make one free otherwise your slave to your own limitations.

I'm with you Osgart!

[osgart]

thanks, I am glad you agree. It's good to hear a positive every once in awhile on this forum. usually I would get an insult and fancy language without any substance.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Hi again, Spheres.

You’re going to an awful lot of time and trouble to be rude to me. At least when I’m rude to you, I’m brief. You may not be fairly stupid (I’m keeping an open mind on that) but the way you write surely makes you seem so.

I do like the fancy colours, though.
If you are incapable of understanding why they are required in such a response as this one, then it's no wonder you believe as you do, it's that your minds eye is blind!

(And the reason I often keep it going below the end quote, should be equally understood, by anyone with half a brain that is! Make a guess, let's see how smart you are. Or not, Your "CHOICE." )


You 'believe' as you do, so you can wash your hands of your folly, without a blink! Or it certainly seems so!
You 'believe' you're uncontrollable, I 'know' you're just unreasonable! Or it certainly seems so!
You believe you've found someone's writings that give you an out, that makes you a parrot and a bad parrot at that! Weak minds often can only align themselves with so called authorities, that are largely accepted. Within that bubble of acceptance, is contained their strength of belief; their holier than thou self stroking allusion (illusion). Or it certainly seems so!
Where you're full to the brim of euphemisms, I'm not! Sure I relatively blacken your minds eye, it's to be expected! Or it certainly seems so!

To believe in determinism, as one hundred percent the reason we act, is of the mind of a terrorist! It denies all of our growth, our evolution, our science, our history. Of it is born our apathy, disregard of progressive change. It's a reason not to try. It's a losers perspective! Within such falsehood can only contain our eventual premature demise. I'm not saying that free will accounts for a lot. I mean look how long it's taken us to get this far, and we're still basically barbarians. Instead of spears and clubs, it's nukes and money, sure we're still basic animals. But it's been largely our infinitesimal free will that's allowed us to change to even this, still very much archaic, level of advancement. To believe as you do is to let go of the reigns and allow your horse to do whatever it wants to do, go ahead, let go, it's all determined anyway, right? I mean there is no way for me to prove it, right? We can't turn back time and have you hold on to them that time, to see the difference between the two versions. But if we could that would certainly shoot your determinism in the foot, because I assure you there would be differences.

The next time you're all alone, on a very curvy road, let go of the steering wheel. But before you do so, ask yourself if it's determined that you'll arrive home in one piece, if you don't let go, or you do let go. And while many many things would determine either scenario's outcome, that decision to either let go or not, though it be only one of the many plethora of things that would answer the question, can be freely chosen, that is all free will is, nothing really complicated, certainly not necessarily the end all, of all things to be considered.

There is no such thing as an accident, (euphemism), only ever carelessness, (truth)! Though it's not very popular amongst humans!

Human languages are 'full' of contradictions. Largely in denial, they'll paint any fancy picture that seems to colour them in any light accept for the actual full spectrum. It's all to suit their selfish agendas. I'm one that's had enough of the human coverup! All I give a damn about is the universal 'truth' of things, no matter where it may lead, and in truth it's not the prettiest picture. And yes, there is a method to see it in the truest of light, untainted by self serving bias!

Ah, there you are, Spheres. I was wondering what had become of you.

I’ve never encountered an evil little troll before. I’m so old, and so innocent in the ways of the internet, that I had to have my daughters tell me that this was what you were. And I know I shouldn’t feed you, but, what the heck, what harm can it do?

I can see you in my mind’s eye, hunched over your computer, eyes glowing, your little fingers banging away fit to break the keyboard, your malevolent misshapen features twisted into a permanent snarl of impotent fury as you seek for the sledgehammer insult that will finally smash through my defences and inflict some real emotional distress on me. Well good luck with that, but do keep on trying.

And we’ll keep on laughing!

Look who's trying to play the troll! I stuck to the topic, though included the painful truth of my opposition. You stuck to insults. So my persuasion must be overwhelming. Sorry but truth has that effect on those that are blind to it's medicinal value. I feel sorry for those forever lost in denial!

PEACE my friend!

You need it!

[SpheresOfBalance]

How does IC deal with his omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent 'God' and our 'freewill'?

As if we have this 'freewill' then this 'God' is missing an omni' or two so not much of a 'God' then.

The existence of God does not rely on the fact that this being caused/s everything to happen. It is easy to look at God from a purely Deterministic perspective as it is commonly believed that God created and caused everything in the universe. However, God can still be omniscient and omnipotent with the presence of free will.

One must look at God as a guiding force rather than a great decider.
Sorry but he's never spoken to me, because I'm not schizophrenic. So he's never guided me!

It is possible for God to know all, be everywhere, and have influence over things without using those abilities to determine exactly how we will all behave. Instead of deciding what we should do, perhaps God guides us in a specific direction, but in the end allows us to choose the path we will take. He may know what is going to happen, but that doesn't mean that he causes it to be so. Instead of the great instigator, he is the great overseer.

It's also possible that all your god talk is simply bullshit! Did I say possible or probable?

[SpheresOfBalance]

... However, God can still be omniscient and omnipotent with the presence of free will. One must look at God as a guiding force rather than a great decider. It is possible for God to know all, be everywhere, and have influence over things without using those abilities to determine exactly how we will all behave. Instead of deciding what we should do, perhaps God guides us in a specific direction, but in the end allows us to choose the path we will take. He may know what is going to happen, but that doesn't mean that he causes it to be so. Instead of the great instigator, he is the great overseer.

So 'it's' the foreman. Who's the boss?

If this 'God' knows what's going to happen then it's guidance is of no use.

Atheist though I be, I’m going to stand up for the idea of the omniscient God who gives guidance here. God, being omniscient, will know where His guidance will be effective and where it will be ignored, or ineffective for some other reason. He will therefore give His guidance where He knows it will be useful, and He won’t waste His time giving guidance where it will not.

So in a deterministic world where you don't believe in their god, you can speak for him as if you could possibly know him, saying as if determined, what he would or wouldn't do, and that it was determined that you would and could do so? Nothing that you just did had anything to do with your freedom, your will, to do so?

Well I'm an agnostic, "knowing" that neither a theist nor an atheist can "know" if there is or isn't a creator that is mindful in it's creation of the universe/you and I, of course to hell with mans god.

[SpheresOfBalance]

In a deterministic world, at the time you believed your wife to be faithful it would have been predetermined that you believed her to be faithful. You could not have done otherwise. Yet you would have been deceived.

Yes. But that is because you do not live in a Determined world. You can be "deceived" because there IS another state of affairs that can be said to have been possible, namely the state in which your wife did NOT cheat on you. Otherwise, whatever you believed was just....well, whatever you believed.

Deception does exist in a determined world. Deception occurs when the state of affairs as it is leads you to believe that the state of affairs is other than it is.
Which is exactly why you believe there is no free will, such that it is.

So if your wife has an affair, as she must, and if she conceals it from you, as she must, then you will be deceived, as you must.
You are as high as a kite, but at least to your demented mind, all the things that you've done and shall ever do, to hurt people, was determined so they were/will be no fault of your own. Like I said, demented mind! Since you believe such, it's obvious how the psychotic get started.

Deception in a determined world is about error and an intentionality on the part of another that is caused, not free, both of which are compatible with determinism. There is absolutely no paradox here.

As an additional note, in a Determined universe, your wife cannot be "bad" for cheating on you. Nor can she "cheat," since that would imply she made a choice. Rather, she enacted only that which the Big Bang (or whatever prior causes it had) MADE her sleep with someone else.

So if it ever happened, you'd have to wonder, why are you angry? You have no reason to be. .

I absolutely agree with what you say here. When my forthcoming book, “Free Will and Other Illusions”, is finally written, a big sales pitch for belief in determinism (besides the fact that it's true, of course) is that negative emotions such as anger will be seen to be irrational and will, over time, dissipate.
OK, please don't mind the men in the white coats, they're here to simply make you feel better!