henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jul 01, 2021 2:39 pm
Correct me (in plain English, please) if I'm wrong....
Materialism sez all things, events, processes, etc. are matter (material) or extend out of matter in some fashion.
Physicalism sez all things, events, processes, etc. are physical includin'
fields and
forces. It is subtly distinct from materialism.
So, no, that's not really correct. Materialism and physicalism are the same thing (though there are a variety of views possible under materialism/physicalism). "Materialism," as a term, fell out of favor for two primary reasons: (1) Marxism. Marxism is very popular in academia (although maybe not as much so now as it was in the mid 20th century). There's a lot of talk in Marxism about historical materialism and dialectical materialism. Because of this, there was a tendency to interpret materialism talk as alluding to Marxism. (2) There was a colloquial tendency to read "materialism" as a claim that everything was material in an "object" sense, which is not anyone's view, really (people posit relations and so on). So "materialism" fell out of favor as a term, where it was replaced with "physicalism."
In both materialism and physicalism everything is measurable.
No. That's not at all a necessary view for materialism/physicalism. Maybe there are some materialists or physicalists who do have that view, although offhand I'm not aware of any. The mere fact that something is comprised of matter (and relations of matter, etc.) doesn't imply that the phenomenon in question is going to be measurable.
Neither sez anything directly about free will.
Right--as well as determinism, by the way. Particular stances on free will vs determinism are in no way an upshot of being a materialist/physicalist.
Determinism sez an event now always has its roots in yesterday, and this same event, in some fashion, will be the root of an event tomorrow. Further, determinism sez A leads to B leads to C predictably in any causal chain. Determinism posits Reality is an agglutinate of unbroken causal chains.
That's right, basically (minus a necessity of prediction), but there's a stronger requirement for something to be (ontologically) deterministic: namely, that from any previous state, only ONE consequent state is possible via that causal chain. If the world turns out to be so that more than one subsequent state is possible from an identical previous state, then the world isn't ontologically deterministic.
Determinism, therefore, sez free will in its true sense is impossible.
Right. And this is the case independently of anything about materialism/physicalism.
Man is physical, mired in, and part of, causal chains.
This is a non-sequitur jump. Physicalism doesn't entail any particular view about causality, determinism, etc. This is just like atheism not entailing any particular view about evolution. Atheism simply isn't about evolution. It's about whether there's a god, and that's it. Well, physicalism isn't about causality or determinism or anything like that. It's about what sort of stuff comprises the world, and that's it. It says nothing about how that stuff works. That requires additional stances that don't themselves amount to physicalism or materialism (although of course, if one is a physicalist, then one thinks that however stuff works, it's all physical).
Stochasticism sez randomness or inequality of probability is inherent in Reality. Unlike determinism, which sez the same intial conditions will lead to the same results predictably, stochasticism sez the same initial conditions can lead to different results.
Right, although that view isn't without controversy. But it's a common enough view about stochastic phenomena.
Stochasticism offers the possibility for a kind of free will by way of randomness or inequality of probability in the workings of the brain (a loopback or self-referencing process in the brain allows for skewing of already skewed or unequal potential outcomes).
Sure. That's one possibility for how free will could obtain.
