Free Will vs Determinism

[davidm]

No, I'm asking you that if the OA told me what you were going to do how would it be possible for you to do it differently?

This makes no sense. Why would it matter if the OA told me what someone else was going to do?

You have a much more powerful case if you asked as I indicated: Suppose an OA told me what he infallibly predicted that I was going to do, and then I decided to do differently. But it's impossible that I should do differently, given that the OA is infallible. Therefore (it seems to follow) I must do what the OA predicts, even if I try to do otherwise. That would destroy my whole argument. Wouldn't you care to follow this much more promising line of attack instead?

[Arising_uk]

This makes no sense. Why would it matter if the OA told me what someone else was going to do?

That's because it's got bugger all to do with you other than if the OA tells me what you are going to do do you think you can do otherwise? As if you can then this OA is not infallible and hence not an OA in the first place.

You have a much more powerful case if you asked as I indicated: Suppose an OA told me what he infallibly predicted that I was going to do, and then I decided to do differently. But it's impossible that I should do differently, given that the OA is infallible. Therefore (it seems to follow) I must do what the OA predicts, even if I try to do otherwise. That would destroy my whole argument. Wouldn't you care to follow this much more promising line of attack instead?

Given you put it I presume you have an answer so cut to the chase please.

[davidm]

That's because it's got bugger all to do with you other than if the OA tells me what you are going to do do you think you can do otherwise?

I don’t think you actually understand this discussion at all. I have never claimed that someone can do other than what an OA foreknows. This is impossible. An OA is infallible.

What I’m trying to show you is that, although it’s true that I can’t do other than what an OA foreknows, this fact is irrelevant to the question of my free will. My free will does not consist in fooling an OA, which is impossible. It consists in the freedom to do x or y, full stop.

But if I do x, OA will foreknow that I will do x; if I do y, OA will foreknow that I will do y. But I am free to choose: to do x or y.

Honestly, why is this so hard for you to understand? It’s elementary modal logic.

[Belinda]

DavidM wrote:

---- although it’s true that I can’t do other than what an OA foreknows, this fact is irrelevant to the question of my free will. My free will does not consist in fooling an OA, which is impossible. It consists in the freedom to do x or y, full stop.

But if I do x, OA will foreknow that I will do x; if I do y, OA will foreknow that I will do y. But I am free to choose: to do x or y.

But if the omniscient almighty is indeed all-powerful it can intervene to stop you or go you. So although you choose your choices are caused by the omniscient almighty.

If the omniscient almighty did give you a tiny wee slice of Free Will then the omniscient almighty has intervened to change what it at time A knew, and has made time B (when your wee devil of a Free Will has necessarily changed the Omniscient Almighty's mind for it) unknown and unknowable to its past knowledge at time A.

Therefore if Free Will exists either the interventionist almighty is not omniscient, or the omniscient is not mighty to intervene. The latter is the deists' position.

[Londoner]

Does the OA 'foreknow'? Or does it 'intervene'? The two are contradictory.

If it 'foreknows', then it would not need to intervene since as far as the OA is concerned there would be no time, no cause and effect. (Not that the notion of 'knowing' would make any sense to the OA, since nothing could be not-known.)

But if it 'intervenes' then it cannot 'foreknow', since if the OA had not intervened then something different would have happened. If the OA needs to intervene then the OA is just another agency in the world, no different to anything else (except in its power).

[Arising_uk]

I don’t think you actually understand this discussion at all. I have never claimed that someone can do other than what an OA foreknows. This is impossible. An OA is infallible.

What I’m trying to show you is that, although it’s true that I can’t do other than what an OA foreknows, this fact is irrelevant to the question of my free will. My free will does not consist in fooling an OA, which is impossible. It consists in the freedom to do x or y, full stop. ...

And I'm trying to address the problem of this 'foreknowledge' and how you think your choice is free - in that you can choose otherwise than what has been foretold, if it is already infallibly known what you will choose beforehand?

So what does this 'foreknowledge' entail and more importantly when?

But if I do x, OA will foreknow that I will do x; if I do y, OA will foreknow that I will do y. But I am free to choose: to do x or y.

Okay but when? As after the foreknowledge has been stated you will be unable to change your mind surely? If that is the prediction was infallible.

Honestly, why is this so hard for you to understand? It’s elementary modal logic.

I think it's probably to do with inclusive and exclusive disjunctions and I think this OA is dealing with an exclusive disjunction otherwise it's 'foreknowledge' is just that you will do x or y with either or both being true but the OA's strong claim is that you will do x or you will do y but not both and it knows which beforehand.

To me all the modal logic proves is that it is not necessary that the OA is also the determiner but I think it does not disprove that if there is an OA then there has to be a determiner. Personally I think that if there is to be free-will or free-choice then the future cannot be fixed which is what you appear to be suggesting? Or if it is fixed in the many-worlds model then it's all determined and the idea of choice or free-will is also moot.

[davidm]

DavidM wrote:

---- although it’s true that I can’t do other than what an OA foreknows, this fact is irrelevant to the question of my free will. My free will does not consist in fooling an OA, which is impossible. It consists in the freedom to do x or y, full stop.

But if I do x, OA will foreknow that I will do x; if I do y, OA will foreknow that I will do y. But I am free to choose: to do x or y.

But if the omniscient almighty is indeed all-powerful it can intervene to stop you or go you. So although you choose your choices are caused by the omniscient almighty.

If the omniscient almighty did give you a tiny wee slice of Free Will then the omniscient almighty has intervened to change what it at time A knew, and has made time B (when your wee devil of a Free Will has necessarily changed the Omniscient Almighty's mind for it) unknown and unknowable to its past knowledge at time A.

Therefore if Free Will exists either the interventionist almighty is not omniscient, or the omniscient is not mighty to intervene. The latter is the deists' position.

This is completely irrelevant. I am not talking about an omnipotent agent, merely an omniscient one.

[davidm]

Does the OA 'foreknow'? Or does it 'intervene'? The two are contradictory.

If it 'foreknows', then it would not need to intervene since as far as the OA is concerned there would be no time, no cause and effect. (Not that the notion of 'knowing' would make any sense to the OA, since nothing could be not-known.)

But if it 'intervenes' then it cannot 'foreknow', since if the OA had not intervened then something different would have happened. If the OA needs to intervene then the OA is just another agency in the world, no different to anything else (except in its power).

That's correct, I'm not talking about intervention, But as it happens, if the foreknower did also intervene, there would be no contradiction.

As I mentioned earlier, this alleged problem of epistemic determinism is just special subset of the broader "problem" of future contingents -- so-called logical determinism. It's a curious way of asking something much more basic: if it's true today that tomorrow it will rain, does that mean it has to rain tomorrow? And of course the answer is no.

[davidm]

Personally I think that if there is to be free-will or free-choice then the future cannot be fixed which is what you appear to be suggesting?

Of course the future can be fixed and free will maintained. The key is to understand that fixity is not necessity.

The past is fixed. Yet the past is not necessary. It could have been otherwise. But it had to be some particular way. It’s true one can’t change the past, but it doesn’t follow from this that Lee Harvey Oswald had to kill JFK. He just did so of his own free will. Had he chosen to do otherwise, we would recall a different past, obviously. So it is with the future.

No one can change anything, not even the present. Go ahead and try to change the present, and tell me what happens.

Free will does not require that one change the past, present or future; it merely requires that we have the ability to make the past, present and future be what it was, what it is, and what it will be.

[Arising_uk]

Of course the future can be fixed and free will maintained. The key is to understand that fixity is not necessity.

If it's not necessary then it's not fixed?

The past is fixed. Yet the past is not necessary. It could have been otherwise. But it had to be some particular way. It’s true one can’t change the past, but it doesn’t follow from this that Lee Harvey Oswald had to kill JFK. He just did so of his own free will. Had he chosen to do otherwise, we would recall a different past, obviously. So it is with the future.

So if your OA told you beforehand that LHO would kill JFK are you saying it could then have been otherwise? If not I'm at a loss as to how you think any freewill is involved as for the former to be the case something must be determining everything to make it so. It appears to be a chimera of freewill.

No one can change anything, not even the present. Go ahead and try to change the present, and tell me what happens.

If I choose the ham sandwich over the bagel the present has changed to one with the ham sandwich in the past, if I choose the bagel it has the bagel in the past and the future is as open as ever except that the possibility of that ham sandwich or bagel existing has been removed.

Free will does not require that one change the past, present or future; it merely requires that we have the ability to make the past, present and future be what it was, what it is, and what it will be.

Sure but you have an OA in the mix and if you have then your choices or freewill are non-existent buy any fair reading of the terms as for any prediction of an OA to be infallibly true something must be determining the outcome to exclude even accidental events.

[davidm]

So if your OA told you beforehand that LHO would kill JFK are you saying it could then have been otherwise?

Of course. But if it were to go differently, then the OA would tell you differently.

If I choose the ham sandwich over the bagel the present has changed to one with the ham sandwich in the past ...

No, you haven’t changed anything by picking the ham sandwich. You made the present be “ham sandwich.” You changed precisely nothing.

Sure but you have an OA in the mix and if you have then your choices or freewill are non-existent buy any fair reading of the terms as for any prediction of an OA to be infallibly true something must be determining the outcome to exclude even accidental events.

As I have indicated, what “determines” the outcome is what I freely do. Nothing else. The OA knows in advance what I will do, not because his knowledge, or some external factor, determines what I will do; it is because what I do is determined by me.

I supply the truth grounds for what the OA foreknows; his foreknowledge is entirely dependent on what I choose to do and not the other way around: his foreknowledge does not make me do, what I do.

[Arising_uk]

So if your OA told you beforehand that LHO would kill JFK are you saying it could then have been otherwise?

Of course. But if it were to go differently, then the OA would tell you differently.

If I choose the ham sandwich over the bagel the present has changed to one with the ham sandwich in the past ...

No, you haven’t changed anything by picking the ham sandwich. You made the present be “ham sandwich.” You changed precisely nothing.

Sure but you have an OA in the mix and if you have then your choices or freewill are non-existent buy any fair reading of the terms as for any prediction of an OA to be infallibly true something must be determining the outcome to exclude even accidental events.

As I have indicated, what “determines” the outcome is what I freely do. Nothing else. The OA knows in advance what I will do, not because his knowledge, or some external factor, determines what I will do; it is because what I do is determined by me.

I supply the truth grounds for what the OA foreknows; his foreknowledge is entirely dependent on what I choose to do and not the other way around: his foreknowledge does not make me do, what I do.

You keep saying this but you never quite get around to saying when the OA is saying these things nor do you say what this 'foreknowledge' actually involves? For me it is prediction and this is my point I think as when it makes its foreknowledge known and it is infallible then things cannot change or if they do(as you say they can) then all that is happening is it keeps changing right up to the choice and then just says 'I knew you'd do that' which is hardly foreknowledge in any sense. I am not saying its foreknowledge is the determiner just that if it is foreknowledge then there must be some determiner somewhere which makes sure things don't change otherwise its foreknowledge would not be infallible which is what you wish to claim.

[Londoner]

That's correct, I'm not talking about intervention, But as it happens, if the foreknower did also intervene, there would be no contradiction.

I find it hard to make sense of this because if we imagine something as being is a position of 'foreknowing', then it seems to drain the idea of 'knowing' (and being a 'something') of any meaning.

Suppose the universe is entirely deterministic and I know everything about that universe. In that case, I know it holistically. Whereas those with only a partial knowledge would see particular events, particular cause-and-effects, such thinking would make no sense to me because I see the totality. Events imply change; something was once like this - now it is like that. But for me, there was never any separate 'something'. Nor was there ever change; I only see the totality of things and change within that totality does not affect that totality.

As an analogy, if I understand 'oak tree' then I understand that the loss and regrowth of leaves are all part of my understanding 'oak tree'. That is what oak trees do; the term 'oak tree' includes 'loses and regrows leaves', an oak tree with, or without, leaves remains that oak tree....If I understood the whole universe in that way, the same would apply. The universe would always just be the universe.

I can only reintroduce the idea of 'knowing' if I introduce some factor I don't know. For example, the understanding of 'oak tree' does not embrace an understanding of time, so I can say that my knowledge of oak trees enables me to 'know' what will happen to their leaves seen in another context; time. Whereas if my knowledge embraces everything, there will be no context. So, if the 'foreknower' is to know, then there must be things they don't know! It could be something like 'time'; we could declare that time is independent of the 'foreknower'. Or it could be that we say the 'foreknower' themselves is independent; that they know the universe relative to themselves, themselves not being part of that universe.

So it seems to me that claims about determinism and the 'foreknower' and so on are incomplete. We need to ask; 'what do you mean 'determined'?', and 'what do you mean 'known'?'

As I mentioned earlier, this alleged problem of epistemic determinism is just special subset of the broader "problem" of future contingents -- so-called logical determinism. It's a curious way of asking something much more basic: if it's true today that tomorrow it will rain, does that mean it has to rain tomorrow? And of course the answer is no.

I do not think that 'tomorrow it will rain' is either true or false. If we argue what would make it true or false is how it relates to facts, then there exists no fact that relates to it.

When tomorrow comes and it rains, then we might think that the person who said 'tomorrow it will rain' was correct, but that would be a fact about the person ('they were right'), not the rain. (We might also say 'tomorrow it will rain' can be given a truth value in logic, which would contrast with 'Not: tomorrow it will rain', but again this is treating the sentence itself as the object, its truth would not depend on it raining.)

The only other way it might be thought true is if 'tomorrow it will rain' was understood as shorthand for something like 'I have seen the weather forecast and it predicts rain' (i.e. it is really making a claim about something which is an existing fact, not a future fact). Or it is a claim about the state of mind of the speaker: It is true that I think 'tomorrow it will rain'.

In all these cases, when saying 'tomorrow it will rain', the future-rain does not determine its truth or falsity.

[Noax]

Sorry to dredge new life into this tired thread, but I only recently realized that it had become interesting after 800 posts of the usual trolling. There are lots of sidetracks, but this one is on subject. I didn't think the core of this post was addressed.
This was taken from post 906:

A "Materialist," by definition, is someone who believes that a comprehensive explanation for phenomena that happen in the real world is as follows: they are the result of material causes -- matter, energy, scientific laws. Is that not a fair definition?

But if that's a fair definition, then where does volition or will fit in? Is it a "material" too? If I want to stay a Materialist, I have to say it is. And if so, then the phenomenon I perceive as my own volition or will is really nothing other than an interaction of matter, energy and scientific laws. Even my feeling or impression that volition is my own is merely a phenomenon caused by an interaction of matter, energy and scientific laws.

Moreover, all that has ever happened in the universe, since the first event (whatever we say it was) is matter, energy and scientific laws. In principle, then unbeknownst to me, every twitch of every molecule in that universe was Determined by that first event -- nothing could happen outside of matter, energy and scientific laws. Determinism is absolute.

In fact, had we a big enough computer, and could we program into it all the variables in the universe, we could predict absolutely every event that would ever happen, for all time. Now, we don't have that computer, of course: but in principle, that's how things should work.

So Determinism follows inevitably from Materialism. I see no way to escape it. It is, as Max Weber has called it, "the iron cage."

davidm pretty much countered this assertion. Determinism does not follow from materialism and if it was, the universe is still not computable even in principle.

But I think the distinction is off-point. There is empirical randomness, but information is not leveraged from that randomness. It could be, but no biological quantum amplifier is known to exist, meaning that evolution did not find it to contain useful data. You seem to agree with the unimportance of the distinction in post 919:

That you "chose" is either a product itself of material preconditions, or it's not. But if it's not a product of material preconditions, then Materialism itself isn't the view you're positing, because Materialism holds that there are no non-Material (matter-energy-laws, etc.) type explanations for anything.

What we're talking about here is physical monism. It is the view that it is a closed system, determined or not. Choice is a function of physical process. I think that is what you say there.

If you don't agree and your argument rests on hard determinism, then I suppose your argument has no merit since there is no evidence for that. I am proceeding as if no such dependency exists, but only on it being a closed system.


Now for free will: It seems difficult to define a non-begging definition of the concept. The ability to do otherwise is a matter of assertion. I can say that choice existed but I freely chose A and not B. This is true, monist or not. If no choice existed, then I would not require the mechanism for making a good choice since it would happen anyway.

To find common ground, I looked to the conclusion always drawn by a one's favorite begging free-will definition. It always seems to come to morals. If you don't have free will, you cannot be held morally responsible for your actions. Thus, if I should be held morally responsible, I must have free will.

So in what way is a physical being not responsible for his actions? The fact that the choice is made due to physical process or prior physical causes in inherent in a closed system. That is the very mechanism via which the choice is made. It would not be better to make a choice not based on the prior events. For instance, while driving, a pedestrian is crossing up ahead. I can react to this physical event, or dissociate myself from that state of affairs and continue on my way not letting the detection of the pedestrian influence my decision. It seems to me that this is how the typical argument is presented. I cannot have free will if I let the presence of the physical pedestrian influence my choice to evade.

This is of course absurd, but then I'm not sure what is claimed by the argument that decisions based on prior events cannot have moral implications. On what should the decisions be based if not the inputs relevant to the choice? Why is it not choice if the system is closed?

[Belinda]

Noax wrote:

Moreover, all that has ever happened in the universe, since the first event (whatever we say it was) is matter, energy and scientific laws. In principle, then unbeknownst to me, every twitch of every molecule in that universe was Determined by that first event -- nothing could happen outside of matter, energy and scientific laws. Determinism is absolute.

In fact, had we a big enough computer, and could we program into it all the variables in the universe, we could predict absolutely every event that would ever happen, for all time. Now, we don't have that computer, of course: but in principle, that's how things should work.

Even if we had that big computer we could not accurately predict; circumstances combine until the end of time and it's the combinations of circumstances that are new. As long as there is time there is new creation .Without change there could be no existence.

Sentient beings go into their futures without any guarantees that predictions are 100% reliable, and reason is the best road for humans. By reason I refer to probabilities not deductions. Reason shows that there is no such substance as Free Will. However in the absence of Free Will we all must choose. This is a Good Thing, as the inevitably acausal operations of Free Will would be dangerously random.