Free Will vs Determinism

[Dave Mangnall]

Now with a coin toss, the outcome is just as determined in your free will model as it is in my determinism model. As you know full well, chance has nothing to do with it. It’s entirely to do with how the coin is tossed. So are you saying that it makes sense for you, who believe in free will, to say the chance of heads is one in two? And are you saying that, in the identical situation, it makes no sense for me to say the exact same thing, just because I believe in determinism?

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!

[thedoc]

Now with a coin toss, the outcome is just as determined in your free will model as it is in my determinism model. As you know full well, chance has nothing to do with it. It’s entirely to do with how the coin is tossed. So are you saying that it makes sense for you, who believe in free will, to say the chance of heads is one in two? And are you saying that, in the identical situation, it makes no sense for me to say the exact same thing, just because I believe in determinism?

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.

[Dave Mangnall]

... 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.

[Dave Mangnall]

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. 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. 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.

[Dave Mangnall]

And I would note the general tendency among Determinists to lapse into acting as if free will is true, for the simple reason that the consequences of Determinism, if lived out rationally, would be so overwhelming as to stultify every attempt of a Determinist to describe what he's really doing, and would paralyze him if he tried to live as his Determinism would teach him to.

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.

Let’s play a game of “What if I’m wrong?” As it’s my suggestion, I’ll go first. If I’m wrong, then there is an addition to my previous perception of the world of an immaterial self that has the power of autonomous agency, together with the existence of alternative possibilities. There are immaterial forces that can act independently of, and possibly counter to, physical causes. This is all very mysterious to me, but there is much in life that is mysterious, and if I were to be persuaded that I was wrong then I could live with these consequences very easily. Free will holds no terror for me.

Could you be so sanguine about the prospect of being wrong? It has always seemed to me that your attacks have been motivated by a terror of determinism, rather than by any logic which stands up to even a moment’s scrutiny. Time after time after time you’ve told me that if I believe in determinism I must believe in X, where believing in X would be irrational. What a terrible mental burden it would be for you to have to take on board so much irrationality!

Of course, much as you fear it, it wouldn’t really be so bad. The world is as it is, and would continue to be so. The only true difference would be the realisation that your thoughts and actions are all caused, that everything that happens happens as it has to happen, and that there is no immaterial inner “self” directing operations. You’d still be here, unharmed. Subjectivity and consciousness wouldn’t really disappear in a puff of logic.

[Dave Mangnall]

Determinism means the universe is nuthin' but an elaborate domino show with countless lil black rectangles topplin' into other lil black rectangles. Under this scheme, you and me and him and her, we're all just dominos too, gettin' toppled.

No matter how you dress it up, soften it, cast it, frame it: in a determined reality, we're all just 'events'.

Henry, I thought you’d lost patience with all this nonsense! Mind you, even though you’re back, you still sound pretty impatient.

Yes, we’re all just events. The domino analogy seems a bit excessively reductionist, though. Think of a movie. The scenes portray a realistic world, or at least they do in a realistic movie. But all the speech and actions conform to a pre-determined script. The deterministic world's like that, with the difference that, unlike the actors, we don’t realise we’re following a script. Well, I do, but most people don’t!

[Immanuel Can]

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.

This is exactly right. And I can see it, but for some reason, Dave's not.

I've been trying to indicate this distinction. He's talking about what a predetermined person can know, and I'm talking about what can actually be the case.

[Immanuel Can]

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.

[Arising_uk]

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.

There's no point in 'it' giving 'its' 'guidance' other than that 'it' already 'knows' the result so 'its' 'guidance' is already part of the result which was pre-determined in the first place. So all just a bloated ego-exercise as eitther the future is open or its not and if this 'God' is omniscient about the future then its not and if it is then this 'God' is not omniscient.

[henry quirk]

Dave,

I got next to no patience at all any more...my last nerve done been stomped on repeatedly...it's nuthin' but mush.


“Free Will and Other Illusions”

I'll write one...call it, 'Free Will: You Are One (so get over it and move on...)'.

Bet mine is published before yours.

[thedoc]

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.

There's no point in 'it' giving 'its' 'guidance' other than that 'it' already 'knows' the result so 'its' 'guidance' is already part of the result which was pre-determined in the first place. So all just a bloated ego-exercise as eitther the future is open or its not and if this 'God' is omniscient about the future then its not and if it is then this 'God' is not omniscient.

Perhaps the "guidance" is part of the equation that leads the individual in the direction that they need to go, either following the guidance or rejecting it and going another way. Knowing the outcome is not the same as dictating it or forcing it. You prove your belief in free will every time you try to convince someone that their will is not free.

[Dave Mangnall]

You prove your belief in free will every time you try to convince someone that their will is not free.

Not so, Doc. I write as it is determined that I write. It is determined that I enjoy debate. Either my arguments convince my interlocutor or they do not. One of the two is true, and whichever is true is determined to be true, but I do not know which. (Despite Immanuel’s denial of the reality of probability theory, I know where the probability lies!) For most people, this ignorance provides the basis for the free will illusion. But the subjective uncertainty does not imply genuine alternatives in the world.

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.

[Dave Mangnall]

Dave,

I got next to no patience at all any more...my last nerve done been stomped on repeatedly...it's nuthin' but mush.


“Free Will and Other Illusions”

I'll write one...call it, 'Free Will: You Are One (so get over it and move on...)'.

Bet mine is published before yours.

Let me know when yours is published. I shall read it with interest!

[Dave Mangnall]

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.

There's no point in 'it' giving 'its' 'guidance' other than that 'it' already 'knows' the result so 'its' 'guidance' is already part of the result which was pre-determined in the first place. So all just a bloated ego-exercise as eitther the future is open or its not and if this 'God' is omniscient about the future then its not and if it is then this 'God' is not omniscient.

As I say, I don’t believe in any God, and I certainly believe that the future is not open. But it’s logically possible for an omniscient God to see the future unfolding, where that future includes His own useful giving of guidance.

What I don’t think is logically possible is for a creator, were there to be such a being, to have given us free will. We would behave as He had programmed us to behave, and the responsibility for our actions would stick to His fingers.

So I guess the “guidance” model does fall down, after all, because causation rules!

[thedoc]

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.