Free Will vs Determinism

[OuterLimits]

Raising presumptuousness to a fine (and finally exhausting) art form:

But even supposing some did, that would only really indicate a failure on their part even to entertain the possibility of non-physical entities existing...but would do nothing to suggest whether or not such do, in fact, exist. The existence of free agents is not dependent of physical scientists' willingness to believe in them, nor are physical scientists the most qualified people to speak of anything metaphysical.

Dualist agents - which exhibit the power of mind over matter, have limited motivations and limited understandings. Where do these come from? Do these not in fact limit the "free" part of their agency? If nobody stops me from doing whatever I want, there is still the question of why would I want it? Why do I think the world is the way it is, and why do I think certain things are good ideas and bad ideas.

Ironically, all of these putative scientists -- just like everybody else -- would be bound to get up in the morning and routinely ACT as if free will were a fact. They don't say, "Well, if my teeth are destined to be brushed, they'll brush themselves." They don't say, "I don't love my wife, I adrenaline and testosterone her." They don't believe that if they fail to save for their kids' college then Determinism will do it for them, and so on. They act like the rest of us: they believe they have selves, they believe in the morality of choices, they see themselves as causal agents who must make decisions, and who will produce different outcomes if they make different decisions, and so on.

Yes and I act like apples are red regardless of whether I have an appreciation of wavelengths of light and how evolution might select for certain creatures seeing red.

You mean, if strict Materialism is true. Yes, that would then follow. Good thing strict Materialism is not true.

By making assertion after assertion, you are making it clear that you are a badass who will require any comers to do a lot of heavy lifting in order to oppose you. Perhaps you could start with the strict materialism part - what experiments can be performed to support the "not true" assertion (I mean if you go in for that sort of thing.)

Didja ever notice that the people with the strongest ideas about God like to throw their weight around, expressing their opinions as if decrees in stone from the almighty? Well, anyhow, enjoy that.

[Immanuel Can]

Dualist agents - which exhibit the power of mind over matter, have limited motivations and limited understandings.

That's merely ad hominem.

Where do these come from? Do these not in fact limit the "free" part of their agency?

No. For no free will advocate has a problem with the idea that some decisions are influenced by the past. For example, nobody gets to "choose" where they are born or when, what colour their eyes will be, how many family members they will have, and so on. The question is not whether some decisions are preset for us, or even if some inclinations are given us in advance -- it's whether ALL of them are.

To that, the answer looks like "no." For example, some people choose to defy the culture or ideology into which they have been raised. Given that that is a strong part of their environment, their ability to leave it -- and the decision of others not to -- stands in need of some explanation. And the best explanation is that some people choose to do that, and others don't.

That is, in fact, how everyone naturally talks about that phenomenon. Nobody says, "Well, your child has left your ideological camp; I guess you can't blame her, because she was fated to do so." Rather, they say, "She's made a choice, and you should honour it," or "She has made a choice, and it's a bad one." But they don't just assume Determinism.

In point of fact, nobody does. Not even you do. For if you did, you would not be arguing with us here. You'd know we were just "predestined" to believe in Determinism or not, and leave it at that.

So I think you've abandoned your own creed there.

You mean, if strict Materialism is true. Yes, that would then follow. Good thing strict Materialism is not true.

By making assertion after assertion, you are making it clear that you are a badass who will require any comers to do a lot of heavy lifting in order to oppose you.

You don't need to get all hostile. I wasn't saying that. I was simply pointing out that you were begging the question. You were expecting your interlocutors to accept your presumption of Determinism, for you were arguing as if it had already been granted as fact. However, there's no reason for us to grant such a supposition, and you would owe proof before you earned that. There are alternate views, which seem to express more naturally the situation most people experience. You would need to show that Materialism is the only possible truth.

Perhaps you could start with the strict materialism part - what experiments can be performed to support the "not true" assertion (I mean if you go in for that sort of thing.)

Of course.

Here's one. Try it, and see what you think.

First, look at the diagram below.

The try to see only one of the possible images, and that only.

Then see the other one.

Now, I did not tell you which to see first. I also did not tell you which to see next, did I?

So who chose? It wasn't me. You had two options...who did the choosing of what order they were seen in?

That's just one simple experiment. But in point of fact, there are many, many others. For as I say, even the most dedicated Determinist gets up in the morning and brushes his own teeth, combs his own hair, knows that he will not be nourished if he does not eat his breakfast, and goes to work with the conviction that his activities will matter.

So the common-sense position is to believe in the power of will, and the burden is on the Determinist to prove all that is mere delusion, without jumping wildly to the supposition that Materialism is true, but proving it instead.

Good luck.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

So the common-sense position is to believe in the power of will, and the burden is on the Determinist to prove all that is mere delusion, without jumping wildly to the supposition that Materialism is true, but proving it instead.

Good luck.

" the common-sense position is to believe in the power of will, " is indeed common sense. However we know that the status of will is itself what we are discussing, not as people guided by common sense but as philosophers, or at least as scientists.

Regarding the famous line drawing of young girl/old woman it's worth remarking that the first time one encounters it there is no willpower involved in which version one perceives. Thereafter one can choose to see whichever version because one has located certain visual clues, and the perceptions alternate either very fast or according to choice whichever one desires.

Similarly with the existence theory of one's choice. I like to let my mind wander unfocused among theories of existence however what I most like is for reason to guide me to which is the most probably true of all those theories. Reason cannot function freely when one is unwilling ever to conceive of other than one's chosen, or indoctrinated, theory of existence; which describes Immanuel Can.

[OuterLimits]

Immanuel Can wrote:

So the common-sense position is to believe in the power of will, and the burden is on the Determinist to prove all that is mere delusion, without jumping wildly to the supposition that Materialism is true, but proving it instead.

Good luck.

" the common-sense position is to believe in the power of will, " is indeed common sense. However we know that the status of will is itself what we are discussing, not as people guided by common sense but as philosophers, or at least as scientists.

Regarding the famous line drawing of young girl/old woman it's worth remarking that the first time one encounters it there is no willpower involved in which version one perceives. Thereafter one can choose to see whichever version because one has located certain visual clues, and the perceptions alternate either very fast or according to choice whichever one desires.

Similarly with the existence theory of one's choice. I like to let my mind wander unfocused among theories of existence however what I most like is for reason to guide me to which is the most probably true of all those theories. Reason cannot function freely when one is unwilling ever to conceive of other than one's chosen, or indoctrinated, theory of existence; which describes Immanuel Can.

Once upon a time it was common sense for sky gods to hurl lightning down upon a flat earth, while exorcisms were performed on the mentally ill.

EC's style of so happily always putting rhetorical burdens on the other guy is just obnoxious and ridiculous.

[Walker]

Once upon a time it was common sense for sky gods to hurl lightning down upon a flat earth, while exorcisms were performed on the mentally ill.

EC's style of so happily always putting rhetorical burdens on the other guy is just obnoxious and ridiculous.

Once upon a time?

Exorcisms On the Rise
https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/cu ... -rise.html

I always see the pretty woman first but must look deeper to see the hag.

[Eodnhoj7]

1) If one argues against free will, then they have to admit the concept and arguments about free will come from a strictly deterministic universe. This universe has no necessary need of deception considering deception exists if and only if there is a choice.

2) If one argues for free will, then they have to admit the concept and arguments about strict determinism were created and determinism is a reality through the will. This free will must be able to create a deterministic reality otherwise the will is limited.

3) The next problem occurs as free will and determinism appear to contradict in a similar manner of an unstoppable force versus and immovable object. This contradiction rectifies itself under moderation where free will and determinism exists through the formation of habit.

4) A habit can be observed as free will repeating itself unto a deterministic process where the will exists fundamentally as a structure.

5) This habit as a deterministic structure in itself manifests a degree of cause and effect where the structure itself causes further structure as an extension of itself.

6) Determinismism can thereforefore be viewed as a structural extension from a causal act, in this case free will, and exists fundamentally through a mediation of acts.

7) This mediation of acts in turn is founded in free will and in these respects Free will and Determinism are structurally inseperable when viewed as approximates of eachother.


******The question of "Free will vs. Determinism?" is inherently structured to receive no answer as the concept of "vs." implies a continual separation of both function and form.

This act of seperation through the application of "Vs." implies the thread cannot be answer but rather that free will and determinism can only be defined by the nature of their relations to each other as separate logistic particulate.

This is one of the reasons why the thread keeps going...it is equivalent to a "perpetual definition generator" founded within the void of "vs.".

To argue that one is greater than the other is strictly to define an argument where one is the foundation stone and the other is a capstone, when in reality the foundation stone exists as a foundation only if their is a capstone and the capstone cannot exist without a foundation stone.

What unifies both "foundation stone" and "cap stone" is precisely "stone" alone. To extend this argument further what paradoxically "unites" free will and determinism, in the course of this argument, is a perpetual act of division. The question is contradictory in this respect, as no definition can be achieve of the one, without the definition of the other, and in these respects they are already bound through relation.

The question has been formed as an extension of "relativistic logic" where definition is promoted through continually fracturing degrees of "definition".

[Immanuel Can]

Reason cannot function freely when one is unwilling ever to conceive of other than one's chosen, or indoctrinated, theory of existence...

Which describes Determinism perfectly. One is not merely "unwilling to conceive" of ideas, but is also completely incapable of "conceiving" of any idea but that which was pre-determined by material forces to enter one's cranial nook. And I don't mean by that to insult Determinists...I just mean that that is the inescapable implication of what they, themselves, profess to believe.

Ironically, people still argue for Determinism. That indicates that they simply don't believe their own view; for whatever they say about the universe being preset since its inception, they act like it's not true. They act as though you CAN and SHOULD change your mind and start to believe in Determinism. And some of them even rail at you if you don't, as if to say, "How can you be so foolish and blind as not to change your mind and agree with us about your inability to change your mind?"

But in a pre-determined universe, to "change one's mind" is simply impossible. According to Determinists' own creed, in arguing for it they are doing something as daft as trying to drill a hole in water. You can't make a pre-determined entity "change." It is what it was predetermined to be, and can only ever be that.

They have no reason to believe in reason, judgment, choice or the changing of minds. And they have no consistency whenever they forget that -- which seems to be all the time. But who can blame them? After all, actually to LIVE as a Determinist would be impossible.

[Belinda]

Reason cannot function freely when one is unwilling ever to conceive of other than one's chosen, or indoctrinated, theory of existence...

Which describes Determinism perfectly. One is not merely "unwilling to conceive" of ideas, but is also completely incapable of "conceiving" of any idea but that which was pre-determined by material forces to enter one's cranial nook. And I don't mean by that to insult Determinists...I just mean that that is the inescapable implication of what they, themselves, profess to believe.

Determinism is not fatalism. Determinism includes freedom to choose if and only if you use reason. Indoctrinated believers have not chosen freely by their own reasoning and judgement but have been got at.

Ironically, people still argue for Determinism. That indicates that they simply don't believe their own view; for whatever they say about the universe being preset since its inception, they act like it's not true. They act as though you CAN and SHOULD change your mind and start to believe in Determinism. And some of them even rail at you if you don't, as if to say, "How can you be so foolish and blind as not to change your mind and agree with us about your inability to change your mind?"

I suppose that there are some determinists who are so certain that they are right that the will not or cannot consider any other stance. The universe may have been "preset since its inception" but with the use of reason and accumulated knowledge of facts a man can be as free as possible within the preset conditions. Some men are more free than other men.

But in a pre-determined universe, to "change one's mind" is simply impossible. According to Determinists' own creed, in arguing for it they are doing something as daft as trying to drill a hole in water. You can't make a pre-determined entity "change." It is what it was predetermined to be, and can only ever be that.

No. In a "preset universe" not only are events chaotic but reasoning men can make sense of chaotic events so as to exercise some control.

They have no reason to believe in reason, judgment, choice or the changing of minds. And they have no consistency whenever they forget that -- which seems to be all the time. But who can blame them? After all, actually to LIVE as a Determinist would be impossible.

Trust in reason is justified by the fruits of reason. The benefit of uncertainty is so well documented that it's best just to refer you to the advent of scepticism in philosophy, and to the wickedness of those men who are bloody certain.

[OuterLimits]

Does one subscribe to a form of determinism which is reductionist? Then the appearing "actions" of appearing "agents" are reducible to the bumping around of particles which are much less likely to encourage the observer to think of agency and action so much as ongoing reactions.

Either way, in determinism, all of your "choices" are caused by events previously, and so on. So the very idea of agency and choice vanishes to the remote (infinite?) past.

[Immanuel Can]

Determinism includes freedom to choose if and only if you use reason.

This is incorrect, and maybe explains why you would support Determinism as an available option. You might think that it and free will can, on some terms, coexist. But understood definitionally, Determinism excludes free will, even if free will does not exclude some elements as predetermined.

Here's how the IEP, the peer-reviewed dictionary of philosophical terms puts it:

"Causal determinism (hereafter, simply "determinism") is the thesis that the course of the future is entirely determined by the conjunction of the past and the laws of nature."

And as OL puts it above, "Either way, in determinism, all of your "choices" are caused by events previously, and so on. So the very idea of agency and choice vanishes to the remote (infinite?) past." So there you have the evidence that CD is the form of Determinism for which he's pitching.

There are other forms of Determinism, such as "Theological Determinism," in which the predeterminer is said not to be "the conjunction of the past and the laws of nature," but rather the preordination of the Supreme Being. But Causal Determinism is the thing we have in view here, and is logically speaking really the only available hypothesis for someone who believes that the domain of "the real" is exhausted by materials and the laws governing material interactions.

Ironically, people still argue for Determinism. That indicates that they simply don't believe their own view; for whatever they say about the universe being preset since its inception, they act like it's not true. They act as though you CAN and SHOULD change your mind and start to believe in Determinism. And some of them even rail at you if you don't, as if to say, "How can you be so foolish and blind as not to change your mind and agree with us about your inability to change your mind?"

I suppose that there are some determinists who are so certain that they are right that the will not or cannot consider any other stance.

That's not a worry. Rather, the problem is that Determinism makes it impossible to consider any other stance, if one remains true to Determinism -- but as I said, I've never found any of them that could be consistent with their beliefs.

The universe may have been "preset since its inception" but with the use of reason and accumulated knowledge of facts a man can be as free as possible within the preset conditions. Some men are more free than other men.

Not according to Causal Determinism. That feeling of freedom is just an illusion that some men have more than others...but for neither of them is it real. The deep truth, according to CD, is that their choices are all actually preset.

Ironically, this means that the "men" who imagine themselves to be most free are the most deluded, according to CD. At least the prole who stumbles along seeing himself only as the product of previous forces is correct in his self-awareness; but the one who supposes he has ANY freedom at all is not only still a slave to prior material forces, but too deluded even to realize he is. That's how CD reads the situation.

No. In a "preset universe" not only are events chaotic but reasoning men can make sense of chaotic events so as to exercise some control.

Incorrect, I'm afraid. If CD is true, then "making sense" is another delusion, and no events have ever been truly "chaotic." Rather, as the definition holds, they are nothing but the products of the past and the laws of nature; and those who think that by "making sense" of them that they can change anything have just failed to realize that they are preset anyway.

The benefit of uncertainty is so well documented that it's best just to refer you to the advent of scepticism in philosophy, and to the wickedness of those men who are bloody certain.

The benefit of uncertainty? And it's "documented," you say? Oh really...

Well, I suppose being permanently uncertain is thought to keep people from fighting about anything...but I think that's a vain hope. It won't stop them fighting, as our present global situation makes very clear; but it will make them fight only for stupid reasons that they themselves no longer even understand or can properly articulate. They'll fight, but they'll no longer know really what they're fighting about. This is maybe a good description of much of our postmodern political debate...

What does one say about uncertainty's detriments? What do we say about the situation when people SHOULD know something, COULD be certain, and have every REASON to know something, but absolutely refuse to do so, because of some ideological belief about the value of uncertainty into which they have been indoctrinated? Maybe they're the most deluded of all, I would say. For they are willfully deluded, not merely deluded by some accident.

Not to cast any personal aspersions here, but there was a day, not long ago, when certainty was associated with truth, and obstinate uncertainty with stupidity. I suspect that it takes an unscrupulous philosopher to raise what was once obdurate stupidity to the level of an intellectual virtue. But some of the postmodern ones have certainly done just that.

However, you and I needn't believe them.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

"Causal determinism (hereafter, simply "determinism") is the thesis that the course of the future is entirely determined by the conjunction of the past and the laws of nature."

Free Will is all-or-nothing .

Freedom within determinism is continuous between no freedom of choice and some freedom of choice.
Causal determinism is not predictable clockwork but is chaotic. Unpredictable except when reason and knowledge intervene to allow the wiser men to predict the effects of causes.

Your error, IC, is to presume that causal determinism implies predictable clockwork. Predictions increase in accuracy roughly in proportion as reasoning judgements and knowledge increase.

[davidm]

This being a message board and all, with a thread this long, all previous iterations of this topic have likely been forgotten by current posters.

ICan’s schtick is transparent: In a brutal, soulless, materialist (that dread word!) Godless cosmos, free will is impossible — we are all robots executing prior causally determined imperatives … yada, yada.

Even if this were true (it’s not), then if that’s how it is, that’s how it is. Argument to negative consequences (I don’t like this, therefore it’s false) is a logical fallacy,

The schtick here is to suppose that Jesus gives us free will!

Later I’ll reiterate some points I made months ago, and then expand upon them. One logical consequence of the existence of ICan’s God is the absence of human free will — though NOT because God knows ahead of time what we will do. For now here are four known iterations of determinist arguments that supposedly negate free will:

Logical determinism — the idea that because propositions about the future are truth-valued even before the events they describe occur, we have no free will. This is incorrect.

Epistemic or theological determinism — the idea that because some omniscient agent, like God, knows for sure what we will do before we do it , we have no free will. This is incorrect.

Causal determinism — the idea that because the unalterable past, in conjunction with the laws of nature, determine everything that happens, we have no free will. This is incorrect.

Relativistic determinism — a relatively (heh!) recent arrival on the scene. It is that, under general relativity, the future is fixed and unalterable, and thus this negates free will. It doesn’t.

As I’ll try to show, free will can ONLY exist in a materialist realm.

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can wrote:

"Causal determinism (hereafter, simply "determinism") is the thesis that the course of the future is entirely determined by the conjunction of the past and the laws of nature."

Free Will is all-or-nothing .

Incorrect, I'm afraid.

There may be some things that are not free willed, such as the day of your birth, your gender, your height, your location of raising, and so on. You have no will to control these. But other things, like where you go to university, whom and if you marry, how many children you will have, and so on, these things are (arguably) under your personal control...if free will is a reality.

But who could argue that everything is free-willed? You are not your own maker, are you? And the day of your death, have you been consulted about that? If offered the choice, who would free-will-choose paralysis or blindness or cancer? There is much that is beyond the ability of the chooser to choose...but perhaps not everything.

Causal determinism is not predictable clockwork but is chaotic.

Not according to CD itself. Again, look carefully at the definition given by IEP in my last message, and you'll see. (That's a peer-reviewed source, by the way.)

I think you maybe have in mind some sort of non-Deterministic view...I can't see what it is, but it's certainly not CD. But as you saw, CD is what OL had in mind.

[OuterLimits]

Causal determinism — the idea that because the unalterable past, in conjunction with the laws of nature, determine everything that happens, we have no free will. This is incorrect.

I think the most Hard Scientific Minds believe in causal determinism. I certainly see nothing wrong with it, from a scientific or a mystical perspective.

Perhaps you might comment on the idea of reductionism, and whether causes and effects working at the level of cells, molecules, and atoms makes the case for causal determinism more convincing.

[Belinda]

Emmanuel, when I said that Free Will is all-or-nothing I mean that where Free Will is attributed i.e. to people, it is all-or-nothing. The relative freedom to predict and of relatively increased choices which comes with causal determinism plus reason is relative, not absolute or "all-or-nothing" freedom.

I don't think you are being awkward, I think you genuinely don't understand.

Emmanuel Can wrote:

But who could argue that everything is free-willed? You are not your own maker, are you? And the day of your death, have you been consulted about that? If offered the choice, who would free-will-choose paralysis or blindness or cancer? There is much that is beyond the ability of the chooser to choose...but perhaps not everything.

I agree. Within causal determinism you are more likely to have choices about what you make of your life or death, because you will have learned to form adequate reasoned judgements. Within a reality where there is Free Will you don't choose freely because Free Will is uncaused and is therefore random not reasoned choice.