Free Will vs Determinism

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Belinda
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Belinda »

davidm wrote: Sun Nov 26, 2017 6:58 pm Time, Change and Freedom

A free online book that I discovered yesterday and then read all the way through. It touches on virtually everything that has been discussed in this thread, in some detail. It agrees with me. :) Logical determinism, theological determinism and causal determinism pose no threat to free will. Distinctions made between libertarian and compatibilist free will. Note especially Dialogue 2, which concerns the possibility of an actually infinite past. Not only does it agree with me that such a past is possible, but it explains in some detail why this is so (similar to my explanations but much more fleshed out). To reiterate, ICan’s argument that there must be a first cause, because there cannot be an infinite past, has utterly collapsed.

Bear in mind, to say that there is an infinite past, is not to say that there is an infinitely past event. It is to say, rather, that there are an infinite number of finitely past events.
Did you or anyone view Stephen Hawking on television last night(Sunday)? This was a programme for non-physicists. Hawking summed up (much of his argument involved black holes and anti-matter)by saying that the universe's beginning was not in time but that the beginning of the universe was the beginning of time. So, according to Hawking,the universe is cause of itself, and is not infinite but began.
The programme contained an illustration of anti-matter as follows: a man with a spade went to flat ground to dig a hill. As the hill grew so grew the empty hole from which earth has been extracted. This illustration reminded me of Yin and Yang which are the two pillars of existence itself.
davidm
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by davidm »

Belinda wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2017 11:25 am
Did you or anyone view Stephen Hawking on television last night(Sunday)? This was a programme for non-physicists. Hawking summed up (much of his argument involved black holes and anti-matter)by saying that the universe's beginning was not in time but that the beginning of the universe was the beginning of time. So, according to Hawking,the universe is cause of itself, and is not infinite but began.
Right, I made this point earlier. If time began with the universe, then the universe did not begin in time.

However, we don't know what happened at the singularity because the laws of physics break down there. It is perfectly possible that the singularity represented a transition state between the current universe and a prior state of it. Inflationary cosmology suggests new universes are bubbling up eternally.

Whatever may empirically be the case, the math and logic of the infinite regress example establishes that, whether true or not, it is possible to have an infinite number of finitely distant past events; since this is possible, the first cause argument simply evaporates.
Belinda
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Belinda »

davidm wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2017 4:55 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Nov 27, 2017 11:25 am
Did you or anyone view Stephen Hawking on television last night(Sunday)? This was a programme for non-physicists. Hawking summed up (much of his argument involved black holes and anti-matter)by saying that the universe's beginning was not in time but that the beginning of the universe was the beginning of time. So, according to Hawking,the universe is cause of itself, and is not infinite but began.
Right, I made this point earlier. If time began with the universe, then the universe did not begin in time.

However, we don't know what happened at the singularity because the laws of physics break down there. It is perfectly possible that the singularity represented a transition state between the current universe and a prior state of it. Inflationary cosmology suggests new universes are bubbling up eternally.

Whatever may empirically be the case, the math and logic of the infinite regress example establishes that, whether true or not, it is possible to have an infinite number of finitely distant past events; since this is possible, the first cause argument simply evaporates.
If an infinite number of universes "bubble up" then, since each universe has specific time pertaining to it, how is one universe differentiated from another universe? That's to say how can this be, given that there is no observer 'who' transcends time?

Whatever. As you say the first cause argument vanishes.
Celebritydiscodave2
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

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Determinism is the instrument of beings, or else they could not be, whilst free will the instrument of entities. I believe no logic to exist beyond this simple sentiment.
Belinda
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Belinda »

Celebritydiscodave2 wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2017 8:20 pm Determinism is the instrument of beings, or else they could not be, whilst free will the instrument of entities. I believe no logic to exist beyond this simple sentiment.
I agree with my interpretation of the above, but I cannot know if my interpretation is the idea you mean to convey.

BTW I think that the word you should use in the context is 'reason' not 'logic'. Also what you expressed is not a sentiment but an idea , or opinion.

You are laudably brief as usual. In this case you need to explain a bit more.
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Celebritydiscodave2 »

Brief is where it`s at in my view for the alternative is to be lost in the detail. It very significantly helps accommodate for the fact that as genuine individuals, those of us which are, we can never think entirely as one.
Are not all sentiments born in opinion/point of view.
Belinda
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Belinda »

Celebritydiscodave2 wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:01 am Brief is where it`s at in my view for the alternative is to be lost in the detail. It very significantly helps accommodate for the fact that as genuine individuals, those of us which are, we can never think entirely as one.
Are not all sentiments born in opinion/point of view.

Yes, but some language is a lot more explicit .
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Wyman wrote: Fri Nov 24, 2017 9:34 pm
Belinda wrote: Wed Nov 22, 2017 11:21 am
Wyman wrote: Tue Nov 21, 2017 8:56 pm

"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.
If we are governed by physical laws (the laws of physics) then free will is impossible.
I say this is a falsehood, that your conclusion does not necessarily follow. Explain how you believe it's so, if you care to.

Laws are discovered and understood by reason.
The laws of physics or the laws or mankind? Physics certainly, mankind not necessarily! And so there is the rub, the proof that free will exists.

The impossibility of free will leads to nihilism,
So you are mixing the laws of mankind and the universe, so that is where you seem to have made your mistake!

which destroys the possibility of life.
No, nihilism is the result of those, so called laws of man, that serve the few at the cost of the many, or we'd all be equal, have the same, and nihilism would be a thing of the past. The facts: we exist, we fear death, life wants to survive, rules have to be established for that to be the case for all life. Management; spheres that actually balance. So the meaning of life, while not apparent from the universal perspective, as we still don't know the universe complete, might be seen as non existent, but in fact complete knowledge of the universe might prove otherwise.

It's so easy with plethora unknowns to believe somethings unknowable, or to jump to conclusions. But then mankind has always believed he knows, even though time and time again he's proven to himself that in fact he once didn't. It's a yet incomplete journey, that shall take, quite possibly eons. So I laugh to myself, when people make definitive statements as you have done.


Happy Holidays my friend.

And if you don't celebrate any of the up coming holidays, celebrate life. That thing that each of us seem to never deny, as we currently supply our own version of it's meaning, of course there are alternatives one can seek if one sees it differently...

...nah, that's never usually a viable choice for those that would argue such complexities.
;-)
Belinda
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Belinda »

Spheres of Balance, I cannot make out who said what, in your post.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Belinda wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:16 pm Spheres of Balance, I cannot make out who said what, in your post.
The outer box is Wyman. I wrote only in that box. I color code for that very reason, sweetie! ;-) I'm all the red, he's all the black. You and he are in previous boxes.

Happy Holidays!!! :-* ;-)
Celebritydiscodave2
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Celebritydiscodave2 »

Belinda wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:50 pm
Celebritydiscodave2 wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:01 am Brief is where it`s at in my view for the alternative is to be lost in the detail. It very significantly helps accommodate for the fact that as genuine individuals, those of us which are, we can never think entirely as one.
Are not all sentiments born in opinion/point of view.

Yes, but some language is a lot more explicit .

Precisely my point, and hence the creation of total philosophical sentiment and affirmation, single liners, or two, which perfectly fashion suggestion, minus arbortery detail.
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SpheresOfBalance
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by SpheresOfBalance »

Celebritydiscodave2 wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 4:43 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:50 pm
Celebritydiscodave2 wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 11:01 am Brief is where it`s at in my view for the alternative is to be lost in the detail. It very significantly helps accommodate for the fact that as genuine individuals, those of us which are, we can never think entirely as one.
Are not all sentiments born in opinion/point of view.

Yes, but some language is a lot more explicit .

Precisely my point, and hence the creation of total philosophical sentiment and affirmation, single liners, or two, which perfectly fashion suggestion, minus arbortery detail.
Well let's face it, we can't always have it our way. And in truth, many prefer to compartmentalize mankind's knowledge, when in fact it's actually all one thing. ;-)

Happy Holidays, if you consider them!
Belinda
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Belinda »

SpheresOfBalance wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:35 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:16 pm Spheres of Balance, I cannot make out who said what, in your post.
The outer box is Wyman. I wrote only in that box. I color code for that very reason, sweetie! ;-) I'm all the red, he's all the black. You and he are in previous boxes.

Happy Holidays!!! :-* ;-)
Thank you.
Celebritydiscodave2
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Celebritydiscodave2 »

SpheresOfBalance wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 5:20 pm
Celebritydiscodave2 wrote: Tue Dec 05, 2017 4:43 pm
Belinda wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:50 pm


Yes, but some language is a lot more explicit .

Precisely my point, and hence the creation of total philosophical sentiment and affirmation, single liners, or two, which perfectly fashion suggestion, minus arbortery detail.

Well let's face it, we can't always have it our way. And in truth, many prefer to compartmentalize mankind's knowledge, when in fact it's actually all one thing. ;-)

Happy Holidays, if you consider them!
Philosophical sentiments/concentrated prospective have already long been with us, not my way, not anybodies way, it is simply a communicational format, no less than straight prose, or verse. To club all information together would amount to no more than an endless rambling stream, and solve absolutely nothing.
Belinda
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Re: Free Will vs Determinism

Post by Belinda »

Celebrity discodave wrote:
Philosophical sentiments/concentrated prospective have already long been with us, not my way, not anybodies way, it is simply a communicational format, no less than straight prose, or verse. To club all information together would amount to no more than an endless rambling stream, and solve absolutely nothing.
Your first sentence seems to endorse postmodernism . But your second sentence seems to claim that some information is better than other information.

Me, I choose that some information is better than other information, and I can tell you the criteria by which I can choose.

Spheres of balance wrote:
many prefer to compartmentalize mankind's knowledge, when in fact it's actually all one thing.
That's pretentiousness. You like everybody else must pick and choose among beliefs (i.e. compartmentalise("compartmentalize") if only because of common sense.
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