Free Will vs Determinism

[Belinda]

It's a sign of freedom that you have responsibilities. It's a weak and therefore unfree man who shrugs off responsibilities.

If there really was Free Will, what a responsibility that would be! The only person capable of bearing the responsibility of Free Will would be God.

[henry quirk]

I think you over-estimate Him, and under-estimate yourself.

[Celebritydiscodave2]

Beings are moulded, their so called decisions having been crafted into existence. Entities on the other hand might possess the ability to reinvent themselves around each and every decision/they might have free will.

[Wyman]

It's a sign of freedom that you have responsibilities. It's a weak and therefore unfree man who shrugs off responsibilities.

If there really was Free Will, what a responsibility that would be! The only person capable of bearing the responsibility of Free Will would be God.

"If we concede that human life can be governed by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed." - Tolstoi, War and Peace

[OuterLimits]

Beings are moulded, their so called decisions having been crafted into existence. Entities on the other hand might possess the ability to reinvent themselves around each and every decision/they might have free will.

When do they decide to do that? Why do they decide? What shapes their ideas regarding the shape of the reinvention?

[Belinda]

It's a sign of freedom that you have responsibilities. It's a weak and therefore unfree man who shrugs off responsibilities.

If there really was Free Will, what a responsibility that would be! The only person capable of bearing the responsibility of Free Will would be God.

"If we concede that human life can be governed by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed." - Tolstoi, War and Peace

But Free Will is not the same as non-rational behaviour. Free Will is neither rational or non-rational: it's random.

Why I said that God is the only person who can bear Free Will is that God is accepted as the only being who knows everything. In our human ignorance the only freedom of which we are capable is relative freedom.

[Viveka]

It's a sign of freedom that you have responsibilities. It's a weak and therefore unfree man who shrugs off responsibilities.

If there really was Free Will, what a responsibility that would be! The only person capable of bearing the responsibility of Free Will would be God.

"If we concede that human life can be governed by reason, the possibility of life is destroyed." - Tolstoi, War and Peace

But Free Will is not the same as non-rational behaviour. Free Will is neither rational or non-rational: it's random.

Why I said that God is the only person who can bear Free Will is that God is accepted as the only being who knows everything. In our human ignorance the only freedom of which we are capable is relative freedom.

Free will is not random. You do not play dice every time you choose an action out of your own free-will. In our own free-will we are the only responsible beings for our own choices.

[Belinda]

Viveka wrote:

You do not play dice every time you choose an action out of your own free-will. In our own free-will we are the only responsible beings for our own choices.

Presumably you choose to do what you want to to do, or what you feel you ought to do. When you do what you want to do you are doing it for reasons for instance, you were hungry, or cold, or fell in love and so on.

When you do what you feel you ought to do you are doing it because you have been taught Christian morality, or because you felt sympathy, or because your political party said to do it, and so on.

I mean, there are reasons that you do what you do. Even if you play dice there are reasons why you play dice. If the roulette wheel stops where it does stop, there are reasons why it stopped there only you don't know the reasons.

You are responsible for your free choices because you are an adult human in full possession of your reason.

[Immanuel Can]

Inflationary cosmology, which is well supported, argues that bubble universes are constantly forming and that this process has been going on eternally. Our (observable) universe is simply one bubble among infinitely many.

We have, by definition, I might add, no empirical evidence at all for "other" universes. For "universe" does not mean "solar system," but "all that is": uni-verse. If we had empirical evidence of new "things" then by definition, they would be part of THIS universe, not of any alternate one.

There is not evidence at all for "bubbles" of universes. The model is just speculation. But even if there were some way to show it right, it would only move the regress problem back one step, and then it would reassert itself. For some explanation would be needed for the "bubble-maker," whatever that was, and for the laws that constrain the making of "bubbles". Thus, you'd be further back in the causal chain, but not one step closer to having an explanation for its initiation point.

Here's your really deep problem: an infinite chain of causes, whether conceived of as a single universe or as a multiverse, simply never gets going. It cannot, for there is an infinite chain of prerequisites to anything that commences. And unless you want to say that something commenced without any causal prerequisite at all, you're going to get the regress problem.

You can see this with very simple "x, x-1, x-2, x-3 type mathematics. At some point, you're going to have to posit a first, uncaused, "x-," or you can't even count forward.

But then you're back to a First Cause anyway.

P.1 is demonstrably false. In QM virtual particles pop in and out of existence with no cause at all, even in principle.

This isn't true. In QM, particles seem to pop in and out of existence for no reason we currently understand. That does not mean that there are no causes for them: and if we knew that, then we would have reached a point at which science would be dead, because "I dunno: it just happens" isn't a scientific explanation at all, and allows science no place to proceed.

But let us suppose there were some ultimately randomness underlying things. That's even worse than Determinism. For it's better to be a cog in a machine one can at least observe running by some kind of principle than to be the mere plaything of a universe in which things just "happen."

In fact, if we accept the explanation "things just happen," then science itself is ultimately an illusion. We thought we were rational to look for explanations of cause and effect, for reasons why things happen, but it turns out that "things just happen" is all there is.

So ultimately, you've sold the farm, with your explanation, david. Effectively, you've stultified science itself.

According to the big bang model, time began with the universe. What this means is that under the big bang, the universe has always existed even if it had a beginning! That is because there was no time before time.

This also isn't true, depending, as you say, on what we mean by "time." You've mixed up chronological ontology with chronological epistemology. You've asserted that there was no "time" simply because we couldn't measure whatever there was in the way of chronological sequence, because it would operate by rules that precede our known universe. But the BB theory itself does not posit that the BB is the First Cause. Before the BB, there were a number of elements present, says the theory: hydrogen, helium, plasma, etc. And if so, this just moves the First Cause back to before the BB...it does not answer it.

Now remember, in modern physics, the universe has always existed

This isn't true either. "Modern physics," is a gloss: which "physics," by whom, do you wish us to take for granted without further investigation? Because there are certainly "modern physics" theories that do not agree with this at all...see Vilenkin, for example.

The universe is empirically not eternal, especially if by "universe" you mean what the BB produced, which is what you seem to mean above. We can observe that decisively through observable universal expansion and deduce it from the red shift effect, even without referring to things like entropy. So to what theory are you referring?

[Immanuel Can]

There are also causal circumstances, and (apparently) nomic causes which we commonly refer to as "laws of nature" or " laws of science".

Are you trying to say these are "non-causal" in some way? A "law of nature" is not that which implicates a causal prerequisite, you think? You suppose there is no reason for, say, entropy, or gravity, or atomic forces, or the surface tension of liquids? These are just "laws" without further explanation, you say?

Were that true, they could not be "laws of science." For science can only investigate that which can be rationally accounted-for, meaning that it has to have some causal nature. You can, for example, work with the "law of gravity" only because it has very predictable cause-effect relationships to observable phenomena. Absent such regularities, there would be no sense in which you could speak of it as a "law" at all: it would rather be some kind of one-off happening. "Laws" implies regularities, predictable, causal connections between the implied "rules" and subsequent phenomena. So by invoking them, you've explained nothing...just made the question for you much more vexed, and my job easier.

But let's suppose there were some sort of supernatural, free-floating things called "laws of nature," that apply even before the Big Bang: how do you account for the existence of "laws" in the absence of any rational origin? Why isn't the universe just a collocation of random particles? For we should surely expect no "laws" at all, especially in a random universe allegedly merely a product of chaos.

reality is one big eternal fact.

Were that so, you've killed cosmology. The only possible answer to why things are as they are becomes, "because in fact that's what they are."

Not a great explanation, that.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

(Belinda wrote)reality is one big eternal fact.
(IC)Were that so, you've killed cosmology. The only possible answer to why things are as they are becomes, "because in fact that's what they are."

Not a great explanation, that.

The usual answer is that things necessarily are as they are. It's not an explanation but a theory of existence. A theory of existence describes but cannot explain. I'd say that explaining is what scientists do, whereas metaphysicians describe.

(Belinda wrote)
There are also causal circumstances, and (apparently) nomic causes which we commonly refer to as "laws of nature" or " laws of science".
(IC)Are you trying to say these are "non-causal" in some way? A "law of nature" is not that which implicates a causal prerequisite, you think? You suppose there is no reason for, say, entropy, or gravity, or atomic forces, or the surface tension of liquids? These are just "laws" without further explanation, you say?

Each category has 'cause' or 'causal' so your objection has no substance.
Laws of nature or of science are ways we try to understand the world. No scientist would claim that any law of science or of nature was an eternal truth. We also try to understand the world by linear reasoning e.g. if I left my car keys in my pocket that's where they will be". Causal circumstances are also causal e.g." If I am wearing my coat my car keys will be quite warm however if it's really cold weather my car keys might be cold despite my body temperature, or my car keys might be stolen from my coat pocket in which case the temperature of my car keys will be that of whatever the ambient temperature has caused them to be".

[davidm]

Immanuel Can wrote:

(Belinda wrote)reality is one big eternal fact.
(IC)Were that so, you've killed cosmology. The only possible answer to why things are as they are becomes, "because in fact that's what they are."

Not a great explanation, that.

The usual answer is that things necessarily are as they are. It's not an explanation but a theory of existence. A theory of existence describes but cannot explain. I'd say that explaining is what scientists do, whereas metaphysicians describe.

(Belinda wrote)
There are also causal circumstances, and (apparently) nomic causes which we commonly refer to as "laws of nature" or " laws of science".
(IC)Are you trying to say these are "non-causal" in some way? A "law of nature" is not that which implicates a causal prerequisite, you think? You suppose there is no reason for, say, entropy, or gravity, or atomic forces, or the surface tension of liquids? These are just "laws" without further explanation, you say?

Each category has 'cause' or 'causal' so your objection has no substance.
Laws of nature or of science are ways we try to understand the world. No scientist would claim that any law of science or of nature was an eternal truth. We also try to understand the world by linear reasoning e.g. if I left my car keys in my pocket that's where they will be". Causal circumstances are also causal e.g." If I am wearing my coat my car keys will be quite warm however if it's really cold weather my car keys might be cold despite my body temperature, or my car keys might be stolen from my coat pocket in which case the temperature of my car keys will be that of whatever the ambient temperature has caused them to be".

The universe, and the way it is, is not necessary, but contingent as a matter of logic. Contingency vs. necessity can easily be tested. Try to imagine something or its properties and if you can’t envision that thing or properties without instantiating a logical contradiction, then it is necessary. No one, for instance, can imagine a four-sided triangle, so a triangle is necessarily three-sided. By contrast, I can easily imagine universes with properties much different from our own, without logical contradiction. So the universe is contingent. Moreover, our best current science posits a vast multitude of alternative universes, each with properties different from our own. See string theory, inflationary theory, quantum multiverse, etc.

[Belinda]

Davidm wrote:

The universe, and the way it is, is not necessary, but contingent as a matter of logic. Contingency vs. necessity can easily be tested. Try to imagine something or its properties and if you can’t envision that thing or properties without instantiating a logical contradiction, then it is necessary. No one, for instance, can imagine a four-sided triangle, so a triangle is necessarily three-sided. By contrast, I can easily imagine universes with properties much different from our own, without logical contradiction. So the universe is contingent. Moreover, our best current science posits a vast multitude of alternative universes, each with properties different from our own. See string theory, inflationary theory, quantum multiverse, etc.

But a four-sided triangle is impossible by definition of a triangle. That a triangle has three sides is a tautology. Tautologies create nothing new.

When I claim that things are as they are I am not claiming to have logically deduced anything.We cannot empirically test whether or not it's true that things necessarily as they are. I am claiming that things necessarily are as they are because that deterministic item of faith leads to a lot of good things such as how to forgive,and empathise, and how it's worthwhile to seek more and more empirical knowledge.

[davidm]

To return to a point I mentioned earlier, it is simply not true that there cannot be an infinite number of past events. One cannot obtain an infinite number of events by successively adding to a finite number of events; but one can do this by successively adding to an infinite number of events. Thus the universe can have an infinite number of past events.

[davidm]

Davidm wrote:

The universe, and the way it is, is not necessary, but contingent as a matter of logic. Contingency vs. necessity can easily be tested. Try to imagine something or its properties and if you can’t envision that thing or properties without instantiating a logical contradiction, then it is necessary. No one, for instance, can imagine a four-sided triangle, so a triangle is necessarily three-sided. By contrast, I can easily imagine universes with properties much different from our own, without logical contradiction. So the universe is contingent. Moreover, our best current science posits a vast multitude of alternative universes, each with properties different from our own. See string theory, inflationary theory, quantum multiverse, etc.

But a four-sided triangle is impossible by definition of a triangle. That a triangle has three sides is a tautology. Tautologies create nothing new.

When I claim that things are as they are I am not claiming to have logically deduced anything.We cannot empirically test whether or not it's true that things necessarily as they are. I am claiming that things necessarily are as they are because that deterministic item of faith leads to a lot of good things such as how to forgive,and empathise, and how it's worthwhile to seek more and more empirical knowledge.

Well, right, it's an item of faith, which I personally have no use for. There is actually a name for the kind of (non-logical) "necessity" you are talking about -- nomic necessity. A reconstruction of the claim in the possible worlds heuristic of modal logic shows no nomic modal category, hence it an be discarded. The philosopher Norman Swartz has written a lot about this.