Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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Terrapin Station
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

Post by Terrapin Station »

henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:54 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 2:39 pm
henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 2:28 pm *That's just fancy talk for cause and effect.
It's more specific than just cause and effect talk.

If either B or C can occur after A, where B has a 10% chance of occurring and C has a 90% chance of occurring, but they ONLY occur after A, then we could say that A caused the effect B or C--because B or C wouldn't have occurred without A obtaining, but that's a different idea than determinism. So it's important to understand the difference.
**I agree. What I don't agree with is your assertion science folks deny cause and effect,
Understanding the above difference, that's not what I'm saying. But it's a standard view in the sciences that some phenomena are probabilistic, and not just because of epistemic limitations. The view is that they're inherently (or ontologically in philosophy-talk) probabilistic. For example, this is an upshot of Bell's Theorem, which is considered proved. (Which is not to say that I agree with that, but it's the standard view.)
Are we ever gonna get to your notion of free will? While I appreciate all the schoolin' (I understand you're just bein' thorough), it's not necessary.
Yes, it is necessary. There's groundwork that needs to be done, which is obvious in that I have to keep repeating the same stuff over and over. If we don't understand the prerequisites, we can't understand the material built upon them. So first we have to understand what determinism even is, and then we have to sort out whether the sciences currently forward a deterministic view or not.
okay...

A deterministic model does not include elements of randomness. ... A probabilistic model includes elements of randomness. Every time you run the model, you are likely to get different results, even with the same initial conditions. (swiped from some site)

...I concede the point

Free will?
Again, the idea isn't that we're talking about equiprobable randomness. "Every time you run the model, you are likely to get different results"--no, that's not at all necessarily the case. If either B or C can follow A, but there's a 99.9% chance of C occurring rather than B, then if you run an experiment thousands of times, you might wind up with B a handful of times instead of C.

Just in case you're not familiar with this, but you don't want to ask, equiprobable randomness is this:

If there are two possibilities, then there's a 50% chance of one occurring and a 50% chance of the other.
If there are three possibilities, then there's a 33.3...% chance of each occurring.
If there are four possibilities, then there's a 25% chance of each occurring.
And so on.

In situations where randomness is NOT equiprobable, then if there are two possibilities, there might be a 99.9% chance of one option occurring and only a 0.01% chance of the other. Or it may be 90%/10%, or whatever--anything other than 50-50.

And so on.

So, the next step is that if we're talking about occurrences that are not determined in the sense of there being only one possible outcome (but we're also not talking about equiprobable occurences either), then something--whether a brute fact or something else, is biasing one possibility over the other.

The third step is that it could be the case that those non-equiprobable percentages can change.

Are you following that so far? (We're still just doing preliminary conceptual work. None of this is specifically about free will yet.)
Last edited by Terrapin Station on Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:11 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:01 pm So you don't claim your view is "science"? And you don't think that the Materialist-Physicalist and quantum views make Determinism impossible?
Gah! No. Where did I write anything at all like that?
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:02 pm
henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:54 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 2:39 pm
It's more specific than just cause and effect talk.

If either B or C can occur after A, where B has a 10% chance of occurring and C has a 90% chance of occurring, but they ONLY occur after A, then we could say that A caused the effect B or C--because B or C wouldn't have occurred without A obtaining, but that's a different idea than determinism. So it's important to understand the difference.



Understanding the above difference, that's not what I'm saying. But it's a standard view in the sciences that some phenomena are probabilistic, and not just because of epistemic limitations. The view is that they're inherently (or ontologically in philosophy-talk) probabilistic. For example, this is an upshot of Bell's Theorem, which is considered proved. (Which is not to say that I agree with that, but it's the standard view.)


Yes, it is necessary. There's groundwork that needs to be done, which is obvious in that I have to keep repeating the same stuff over and over. If we don't understand the prerequisites, we can't understand the material built upon them. So first we have to understand what determinism even is, and then we have to sort out whether the sciences currently forward a deterministic view or not.
okay...

A deterministic model does not include elements of randomness. ... A probabilistic model includes elements of randomness. Every time you run the model, you are likely to get different results, even with the same initial conditions. (swiped from some site)

...I concede the point

Free will?
Again, the idea isn't that we're talking about equiprobable randomness. "Every time you run the model, you are likely to get different results"--no, that's not at all necessarily the case. If either B or C can follow A, but there's a 99.9% chance of C occurring rather than B, then if you run an experiment thousands of times, you might wind up with B a handful of times instead of C.

Just in case you're not familiar with this, but you don't want to ask, equiprobable randomness is this:

If there are two possibilities, then there's a 50% chance of one occurring and a 50% chance of the other.
If there are three possibilities, then there's a 33.3...% chance of each occurring.
If there are four possibilities, then there's a 25% chance of each occurring.
And so on.

In situations where randomness is NOT equiprobable, then if there are two possibilities, there might be a 99.9% chance of one option occurring and only a 0.01% chance of the other. Or it may be 90%/10%, or whatever--anything other than 50-50.

And so on.

So, the next step is that if we're talking about occurrences that are not determined in the sense of there being only one possible outcome (but we're also not talking about equiprobable occurences either), then something--whether a brute fact or something else, is biasing one possibility over the other.

The third step is that it could be the case that those non-equiprobable percentages can change.

Are you following that so far? (*We're still just doing preliminary conceptual work. **None of this is specifically about free will yet.)
*No, you are. Me, I'm just doodlin' in my notebook while teacher drones on.

**Yeah, when we get to it, let me know.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:23 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:02 pm
henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 4:54 pm

okay...

A deterministic model does not include elements of randomness. ... A probabilistic model includes elements of randomness. Every time you run the model, you are likely to get different results, even with the same initial conditions. (swiped from some site)

...I concede the point

Free will?
Again, the idea isn't that we're talking about equiprobable randomness. "Every time you run the model, you are likely to get different results"--no, that's not at all necessarily the case. If either B or C can follow A, but there's a 99.9% chance of C occurring rather than B, then if you run an experiment thousands of times, you might wind up with B a handful of times instead of C.

Just in case you're not familiar with this, but you don't want to ask, equiprobable randomness is this:

If there are two possibilities, then there's a 50% chance of one occurring and a 50% chance of the other.
If there are three possibilities, then there's a 33.3...% chance of each occurring.
If there are four possibilities, then there's a 25% chance of each occurring.
And so on.

In situations where randomness is NOT equiprobable, then if there are two possibilities, there might be a 99.9% chance of one option occurring and only a 0.01% chance of the other. Or it may be 90%/10%, or whatever--anything other than 50-50.

And so on.

So, the next step is that if we're talking about occurrences that are not determined in the sense of there being only one possible outcome (but we're also not talking about equiprobable occurences either), then something--whether a brute fact or something else, is biasing one possibility over the other.

The third step is that it could be the case that those non-equiprobable percentages can change.

Are you following that so far? (*We're still just doing preliminary conceptual work. **None of this is specifically about free will yet.)
*No, you are. Me, I'm just doodlin' in my notebook while teacher drones on.

**Yeah, when we get to it, let me know.
Alright, I'll go on, but if any objection hinges on not understanding or agreeing with this preliminary stuff, I'm going to give you a swirly.

So, the idea is simply that will/volition can dynamically bias possibilities so that we start out with whatever (usually) non-equiprobable initial percentages, and via contemplation or whim or whatever, we (usually gradually) eventually bias one option until it winds up at "1" (or 100%).
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Immanuel Can
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:03 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:01 pm So you don't claim your view is "science"? And you don't think that the Materialist-Physicalist and quantum views make Determinism impossible?
Gah! No. Where did I write anything at all like that?
It's a simple deduction.

You say you don't believe in Determinism, correct?

But you also say (back on page 7, if I recall) that you think that one of Materialism or Physicalism is unquestionably true, correct?

And you just wrote:
Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:03 pmHere's the explanation again: materialism/physicalism merely requires that one endorses the view that the world is comprised solely of material/physical things and perhaps phenomena that supervene on material/physical things, such as relations of material/physical things. That's it.
Since Materialism/Physicalism obviously entail Causal Determinism, -- indeed both are no more than statements of Causal Determinism -- I want to see how you manage that. If "material things and relations of material things" is the comprehensive explanation for how things are caused in the universe, you've got ironclad Determinism there.

Meanwhile, your proposed definition of Determinism isn't accurate. It speaks only of one outcome, which is not essential to Determinism. And it doesn't address cause, but cause is essential to Determinism.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:41 pm Since Materialism/Physicalism obviously entail Causal Determinism,
Mother f-er.

I just explained for the second time why this isn't the case. As I said, if you disagree with that explanation, present specific objections to it.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

Post by Immanuel Can »

henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:23 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:28 pm ...will/volition can dynamically bias possibilities...
If so, TS, you're no longer a Materialist or Physicalist.

You've now introduced "volition" as a causal factor.

Determinism cannot have that, it's true; but neither can Materialism or Physicalism.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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So, the idea is simply that will/volition can dynamically bias possibilities so that we start out with whatever (usually) non-equiprobable initial percentages, and via contemplation or whim or whatever, we (usually gradually) eventually bias one option until it winds up at "1" (or 100%).

So you say free will is simply skewin' outcomes, yeah? (said well out of reach cuz -- no -- there'll be no swirlies today)
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:43 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:41 pm Since Materialism/Physicalism obviously entail Causal Determinism,
I just explained for the second time why this isn't the case.
No, you did not explain any "why." You just asserted that it was so.

That's not the same thing. But you can tell me why now.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 1:02 pm
Janoah wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:23 am
henry quirk wrote: Wed Jun 16, 2021 11:17 pm

Not free from but free to.
'*Free will is the capacity for agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.'
"unimpeded"


**Outpouring of will, thinking, is expressed in physical, chemical processes in neurons, and occurs according to the laws of nature. Natural laws "impede" free will.
*That's one way to look at it.

Another...

Agent causation: a being who is not an event but who is an agent can cause events, in particular, his own actions. Agent causation contrasts with event causation, which occurs when an event causes another event. (swiped from the ubiquitous wikipedia)


**That's one way to look at it.

Another...

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pion ... the-brain/ (a link I've posted many times, in multiple threads, cuz it's so damn useful)
The actions of the "agent", and everything that happens in it, including thinking, processes in neurons, everything obeys the laws of nature, and is "limited" by them. Is there a scientific opinion that something does not obey the laws of nature? After all, no.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

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Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:44 pm
henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:23 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:28 pm ...will/volition can dynamically bias possibilities...
If so, TS, you're no longer a Materialist or Physicalist.

You've now introduced "volition" as a causal factor.

Determinism cannot have that, it's true; but neither can Materialism or Physicalism.
Under materialism/physicalism on your view, volition can not be a causal factor because?
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

Post by Terrapin Station »

henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:54 pm So, the idea is simply that will/volition can dynamically bias possibilities so that we start out with whatever (usually) non-equiprobable initial percentages, and via contemplation or whim or whatever, we (usually gradually) eventually bias one option until it winds up at "1" (or 100%).

So you say free will is simply skewin' outcomes, yeah? (said well out of reach cuz -- no -- there'll be no swirlies today)
From whatever they are to start to eventually a 100% bias, yes.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

Post by Terrapin Station »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 6:05 pm
Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:43 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 5:41 pm Since Materialism/Physicalism obviously entail Causal Determinism,
I just explained for the second time why this isn't the case.
No, you did not explain any "why." You just asserted that it was so.

That's not the same thing. But you can tell me why now.
I did explain why. For the third time now, let's just start with the first part:

"Materialism/physicalism merely requires that one endorses the view that the world is comprised solely of material/physical things and perhaps phenomena that supervene on material/physical things, such as relations of material/physical things. That's it."

Either you agree with that part of you do not. If you do not, explain why.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

Post by Terrapin Station »

Janoah wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 6:33 pm
henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 1:02 pm
Janoah wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:23 am

'*Free will is the capacity for agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.'
"unimpeded"


**Outpouring of will, thinking, is expressed in physical, chemical processes in neurons, and occurs according to the laws of nature. Natural laws "impede" free will.
*That's one way to look at it.

Another...

Agent causation: a being who is not an event but who is an agent can cause events, in particular, his own actions. Agent causation contrasts with event causation, which occurs when an event causes another event. (swiped from the ubiquitous wikipedia)


**That's one way to look at it.

Another...

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pion ... the-brain/ (a link I've posted many times, in multiple threads, cuz it's so damn useful)
The actions of the "agent", and everything that happens in it, including thinking, processes in neurons, everything obeys the laws of nature, and is "limited" by them. Is there a scientific opinion that something does not obey the laws of nature? After all, no.
For one, not everyone is a realist on "laws of nature."

If laws of nature obtain somehow, just what are they? What sort(s) of existent(s)? Where are they located? How do they instantiate in particulars? Etc.

The notion of a "law of nature" is very platonic, which doesn't actually gel well with the normal ontology of physics. And if we instead try to parse them as nominalistic tropes, say, then it would be difficult to account for their supposed uniformity across many particulars.
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Re: Free Will and Determinism Necessitate Eachother

Post by henry quirk »

Janoah wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 6:33 pm
henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 1:02 pm
Janoah wrote: Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:23 am

'*Free will is the capacity for agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.'
"unimpeded"


**Outpouring of will, thinking, is expressed in physical, chemical processes in neurons, and occurs according to the laws of nature. Natural laws "impede" free will.
*That's one way to look at it.

Another...

Agent causation: a being who is not an event but who is an agent can cause events, in particular, his own actions. Agent causation contrasts with event causation, which occurs when an event causes another event. (swiped from the ubiquitous wikipedia)


**That's one way to look at it.

Another...

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pion ... the-brain/ (a link I've posted many times, in multiple threads, cuz it's so damn useful)
The actions of the "agent", and everything that happens in it, including thinking, processes in neurons, everything obeys the laws of nature, and is "limited" by them. Is there a scientific opinion that something does not obey the laws of nature? After all, no.
Has it been established that mind, will, intent, purpose, personality, identity, etc. are processes in neurons? If so, then I'd like to see the map of it all along with the relevant explanations of how the brain generates mind, will, intent, purpose, personality, identity, etc.
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