Free will and morality

[Immanuel Can]

But you and I both reject the "randomness" thing, so it's not important either way.

It shouldn't be important, but as long as you put determinism at odds with free will, you make it important.

Determinism is the opposite of free will. But randomness is really irrelevant. It doesn't change the situation, either way.

A deterministic world is a complete lack of randomness.

No, both a Materialist and a "random" world would have the same effect on free will...that both would reduce it to a nothing, as the video says. You only get your choice between being "a cog in a machine" and a victim of "some random swerving in a vacuum," as he put it.

The one thing that doesn't work in either is free will. So Compatibilism is out.

[Flannel Jesus]

But the question is, "Can an ultimate or initial cause of an action be the human will?"

That question becomes rather empty when you look at it in detail. Your will exists in the context of who you are, what you've experienced. It exists in the way that it is because it was caused to. Being the "initial cause" gives you one of two possibilities - infinite regress of the will, OR back again to randomness. If it causes something without itself being caused, that's what I call random.

And infinite regress of the will is naturally an untenable position. When I make a choice, did I choose to want to make that choice? And did I choose to want to choose that choice? And did I choose to choose to choose to want to choose that choice? To be the "ultimate cause" in that sense requires an infinite chain of choice - that's just not a meaningful proposition.

[Flannel Jesus]

But you and I both reject the "randomness" thing, so it's not important either way.

It shouldn't be important, but as long as you put determinism at odds with free will, you make it important.

Determinism is the opposite of free will. But randomness is really irrelevant. It doesn't change the situation, either way.

That's begging the question

A deterministic world is a complete lack of randomness.

No, both a Materialist and a "random" world would have the same effect on free will...that both would reduce it to a nothing, as the video says. You only get your choice between being "a cog in a machine" and a victim of "some random swerving in a vacuum," as he put it.

The one thing that doesn't work in either is free will. So Compatibilism is out.

The video does not say that. The video implores us to find freedom WITHIN the constraints of physics. The video is a compatibilists wet dream

[Immanuel Can]

But the question is, "Can an ultimate or initial cause of an action be the human will?"

Your will exists in the context of who you are, what you've experienced. It exists in the way that it is because it was caused to.

I think that's too simple a way to suppose things.

Who you are is, in large part, a product not only of circumstances, but of your choices and reactions to them. That's why one person can grow up in the ghetto and turn into a thug...but not everbody does. Some choose otherwise. And I think to say, "Well, they must have had different experiences" isn't enough. Some rich kids, who unquestionably had it much better than ghetto kids, go savagely bad. And again, people wring their hands and say, "How could it happen?"

It happens because people have free will. They are not mere products of material forces or experiences forced on them. They make choices.

Being the "initial cause" gives you one of two possibilities - infinite regress of the will,

Not at all. If human will actually inititates actions, then there's no regress.

Your supposition that there has to be a regress is a mistake born of assuming your conclusion instead of demonstrating it. We don't need to believe there's a prior "experiential" cause for what a person decides. We can simply say, "Their environment and experiences gave them circumstances amid which they could choose (like the ghetto), and they chose (either to become a thug or a Rhodes scholar).

When I make a choice, did I choose to want to make that choice?

The circumstances set up the various alternatives, perhaps. But they don't dictate my choice.

I can't change it if I was born in a ghetto. But being born in a ghetto doesn't make me have to decide to become a thug. I could be a productive member of society, instead. Or president of the US. That's on me.

[Immanuel Can]

It shouldn't be important, but as long as you put determinism at odds with free will, you make it important.

Determinism is the opposite of free will. But randomness is really irrelevant. It doesn't change the situation, either way.

That's begging the question

It's not. It's defining the term...negatively albeit, but saying what "Determinism" is not, rather than what it is. But it's legit.

The one thing that doesn't work in either is free will. So Compatibilism is out.

The video does not say that.

It does, by implication. It points out that both Materialist Determinism and (if we can coin the term) Randomness Determinism leave no place for things like personhood, choices and free will. So Compatibilism is out. It won't work.

[Flannel Jesus]

Much like me, the speaker in that video doesn't see anything other than pure determinism or determinism with some randomness being possible. Every system, whether it be our physical one or some alternative mind realm, exists on that spectrum. Events are caused, or they are random.

If you don't believe free will is possible within that spectrum, many people would agree with you, and those people would all reject free will wholesale.

But I haven't been offered a coherent alternative to that spectrum, and I personally don't need one.

[Immanuel Can]

Much like me, the speaker in that video doesn't see anything other than pure determinism or determinism with some randomness being possible.

He doesn't say it's impossible. Rather, he points out that both alternatives leave us with a big problem -- no place for things like identity, consciousness, choice, freedom, will and so on.

Events are caused, or they are random.

That begs the question. And it's perilously close to being a false dichotomy. But maybe it's not, because you didn't answer the important question.

"Caused by what?" is the important one. If the answer is, "Nothing but physics and chemistry," then you get Determinism. If it's "Some by physics and chemistry, but some also by human volition," then it's a free will position.

But Compatibilism still isn't an alternative.

[Flannel Jesus]

"Caused by what?" is the important one. If the answer is, "Nothing but physics and chemistry," then you get Determinism. If it's "Some by physics and chemistry, but some also by human volition," then it's a free will position.

"human volition" isn't an answer though. What causes human volition? To take a trite example, if I choose vanilla over chocolate most days, but some days I choose chocolate over vanilla, what caused my "human volition" to make those choices? Those choices don't exist in a vacuum -- and if they do, that's randomness! But if they exist in a causal framework - if there are causal forces changing my volition as I experience the world and grow up - then that's deterministic. And it could be a mix, but a mix of determinism and randomness is still on the spectrum.

Human volition isn't outside the spectrum of randomness-to-determinism. That's not an alternative to the spectrum, that's just another thing inside the spectrum. That's true even with some sort of dualism.

[Immanuel Can]

"Caused by what?" is the important one. If the answer is, "Nothing but physics and chemistry," then you get Determinism. If it's "Some by physics and chemistry, but some also by human volition," then it's a free will position.

"human volition" isn't an answer though. What causes human volition?

Human volition is an original cause. That's the point. Nothing "causes" it. It "causes" other things to happen.

Those choices don't exist in a vacuum

No, they occur among a set of circumstances and options. But the one who chooses what happens in response to those circumstances and options is...[drumroll, please ]... me.

[Flannel Jesus]

Yes, "me", a being whos entire existence was caused without your choice. The state of your will was given to you at birth, so the first choice you made, the very first choice you ever made, was made by the state of your will that you didn't choose. So you made the choice to do whatever it is that you did, but you didn't choose the will that made that choice -- that was given to you.

You can't be your own original cause, because you can trace every choice you've made to either (a) that will that was given to you, that you had no choice in, or (b) randomness.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes, "me", a being whos entire existence was caused without your choice.

Only my origin. Once I was born, I started to have voliton. The minute I was out of the womb, I started making choices...to clench my own hands and yawn, at first, and then a succession of more and more complicated choices.

So what?

You can't be your own original cause,

I never said I "caused myself." I said I am the origin point of choices. I am the origin of causal chains of events.

And you think I am too, and that you are, as well. Because you're "choosing" to share your views with me, and hope to persuade me to "choose" to believe what you believe, right?

So you also believe in autonomy and choice. So you're not a Determinist.

And have I needed to refer to "randomness"? Not a bit.

Consider this, if you would. If you were right, then all sets of prior conditions would, at least in principle, issue in the same kind of person. But that's not how it is. In fact, that's why sociologists are so interested in twins, as test subjects. They have identical parents, identical home lives, identical cultural backgrounds, identical geography, similar nutrition, similar opportunities...even the same genetics. They are as close as we can get to the perfect experiment to show what happens when two individuals have the same everything.

And what happens? They turn out to be individuals, make their own decisions -- often very different ones -- and have their own lives. That shouldn't happen, if what you say was the case, and we were all simply predetermined by our genetics, experiences and so on.

But we're not. That much is clear.

[Flannel Jesus]

A. I said i believe in randomness, so your twin example isn't really relevant to me. I just don't believe in randomness as a source of freedom.

B. Twins do not have a perfectly identical existence, so they're not a great counter to determinism anyway.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything, I'm just taking ideas. I didn't start this conversation with you in hopes to change your mind, I'm pretty sure you started talking to me - I don't assume you're trying to change my mind, I don't think you need to assume the same. People can talk ideas while knowing the other person is unlikely to change.

Your definition of Determinism is largely a straw man. Some determinists believe some of that stuff, I suppose, but not all. You keep saying all sorts of stuff is true "by definition" about determinism, but that's simple not the case.

[Immanuel Can]

A. I said i believe in randomness, so your twin example isn't really relevant to me.

Oh, if you understand science, it certainly is relevant.

It's as close as anybody can get to a perfect experiment to prove that environmental determinism isn't true.

[Flannel Jesus]

I don't know who you're arguing against with that one.

[Immanuel Can]

I don't know who you're arguing against with that one.

I'm not arguing against a person. Here, I only debate ideas, not people.

I'm arguing that both Determinism and Compatibilism are false, and I'm pointing out that the best scientific studies we have suggest quite strongly that they are.