davidm wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2017 4:54 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2017 4:30 pm
And from inside the cosmos itself, as a creature of it, I don't know of any indisputable way to show exactly which way "the same way" actually means.
Which I took to mean that you don't have any way of knowing whether the universe is the same way -- either free will or no free will -- whether God exists or not. This implies at least that you must be agnostic on the question of free will in a materialist universe, even if you believe it doesn't exist.
Oh, I see...that's what you were thinking. Maybe I should have been clearer. I'll explain.
There is a difference between saying, "I don't know how to prove X
conclusively," and saying, "
I have no reason to think X is true."
Let X be the free will hypothesis, then.
So to say "I don't know any indisputable way to disprove not-X" does not mean that not-X is even very plausible, and certainly not to say that it's more more probable than X. It's only to say that not-X is (
in extremis) not falsifiable in the way it's being framed. It is not to say that not-X is as good, or a better hypothesis than X is. It may, in fact, not even come close.
All empirical knowledge is
probabilistic. However, I regard the probability of free will as
considerably and impressively higher than that of Determinism.
All that being said, Determinism is the kind of theory which can always be retooled by its proponents to cover every objection you can raise. If you say, "Well, I
feel like I have free will," then they can always say, "Your feeling is deceptive, and is a product of prior forces." If you say, "People
live and act like free will exists," they can always come back with, "That's only because people were Predetermined by material forces not to be aware of the material forces that Predetermine them," and so on. The game can go in infinitely.
I think the problem, though, is really in the Determinist hypothesis itself. It's the kind of hypothesis that is such a chameleon that it's actually not falsifiable in any absolute way. And being neither verifiable nor falsifiable, it's not a very good hypothesis, from a scientific perspective.
However, there's a great deal to suggest that free will MAY be genuine, and I would set the probabilities of it very high...especially if one already grants a credible Theism.
I would like to know how "the right kind" of God gives us free will, in a universe where you think determinism reins, and which determinism you think rules out free will.
Two questions, then.
In short, a personal, relational and moral God would be necessary if free will is to be posited. (There are probably other characteristics, but these three seem obvious to me immediately.)
Secondly, Determinism rules out free will. SM Determinism does, QM Determinism does, Compatibilistic Determinism does too -- as you've already pointed out. Ultracalvinist Determinism certainly does, and so does Calvinism
pur laine. And in the non-sectarian category, Fatalism rules out free will too.
Basically, there are only two options: either free will exists, or it does not (Aristotle's Laws of Excluded Middle and Non-Contradiction).
After that question is settled, it's possible to talk about "kinds" of Determinism or free will. But belief in free will does not logically entail that ALL decisions must be made on a free will basis, nor that prior circumstances can have NO impact on choices. All it entails is that SOME component of SOME decisions can be said genuinely to be made by human will.
In that regard, the two positions are different: Determinism in all its forms rules out ALL free will, and has to; the free will position does not have to deny the existence of SOME predetermined elements in some human decision-making, but only has to insist that some contribution comes from human volition.
Did I cover everything you cared about there?