Free will is wholly deterministic

[Skepdick]

"BASED ON" is the operative phrase, since all we can do when we make a choice is base that on an equation of reason upon antecedent conditions.
But I realise I am going way over year head now, so I'll leave it there.

Yes, this is all confusing to me.... Maybe I am too dumb. Who knows?

I know
yep- you got it.
Stop right there.

OK. Then I am too dumb.

But did you know you are even dumber?

Because if you never use anything other than antecedent conditions to inform your choice; how are you using the future counter-factual consequences of your choice to inform your choice?

[Sculptor]

Yes, this is all confusing to me.... Maybe I am too dumb. Who knows?

I know
yep- you got it.
Stop right there.

OK. Then I am too dumb.

Okay. DOn't beat yourself up about it.
Just find another Forum that requires less mental input.

[Skepdick]

I know
yep- you got it.
Stop right there.

OK. Then I am too dumb.

Okay. DOn't beat yourself up about it.
Just find another Forum that requires less mental input.

Even less than what you are putting in?

That's going to be impossible, but it's probably going to be even harder to explain why to somebody as dumb as you.

[phyllo]

So, to the "Hard Determinists", there is no possible proof nor evidence for Free-Will, because there exists no action, short of God's Divine Intervention...bringing the dead back to life, creating Something from Nothing, turning mountains upside-down, having dinner with Santa, the Easter bunny, fairies and Leprechauns...that gives 'evidence' to Free-Will.

Proof??

You guys can't even describe how you overcome "antecedent conditions" and make a free-will decision.

[Iwannaplato]

Nope, because I prefer to keep my privacy.

What? I'm asking about people in philosophy forums who have argued that miracles are necessary if one wants to demonstrate free will. How can that be private? You generalized about determinists. We have lots of determinists here. But now it's private.

Because what one person considers free, another does not.

They manage to not be free because of what people consider?

Birds can flap their wings and fly, are they freer than humans?

Again, I am asking how one's behavior can be as-if one is free. This implies strongly that it can be as-if one is not. I pointed out animals have behavior. They do things. Now you say they have less free will.

How does their behavior seem as-if it has less free will? How does our behavior seem like we have more?

[Wizard22]

Proof??

You guys can't even describe how you overcome "antecedent conditions" and make a free-will decision.

We don't need to when how animals and people act, is evidence of their Free-Will...

Speaking for myself, I use examples of unrepeatable actions as better or the best evidence for Free-Will.

Some humans are exceptionally gifted, and can achieve what no other person, or animal, can do. How is that not Free-Will???

[Wizard22]

Nope, because I prefer to keep my privacy.

What? I'm asking about people in philosophy forums who have argued that miracles are necessary if one wants to demonstrate free will. How can that be private? You generalized about determinists. We have lots of determinists here. But now it's private.

Because what one person considers free, another does not.

They manage to not be free because of what people consider?

Birds can flap their wings and fly, are they freer than humans?

Again, I am asking how one's behavior can be as-if one is free. This implies strongly that it can be as-if one is not. I pointed out animals have behavior. They do things. Now you say they have less free will.

How does their behavior seem as-if it has less free will? How does our behavior seem like we have more?

Consider my answer to phyllo, as an answer to you too.

[phyllo]

Yes; you would have to say, "Not utterly impossible, but so highly implausible as to be absurd."

Just so.

What are you saying?

That the Big Bang intentionally created the text of Hamlet? You think that's what determinism is claiming?

"Intentionally?" No. The BB never "intended" anything. But Determinism has to suppose that Hamlet is nothing more than a product of time and chance. We just got lucky, I guess.

The story it tells goes like this: "In the beginning was the singularity. (Presumably whatever caused the Big Bang). Then there was a Big Bang. After that, the only things that existed in the universe were physical objects being acted upon by physical forces. Eventually, the fortuitous collision of these physical forces produced human beings, William Shakespeare, and Hamlet."

Some sequence of events took place since the Big Bang. Hamlet is part of that sequence.

That's maybe a shorter summary, but it's exactly what I was saying.

Doesn't it strike you as...if not utterly silly (which it should), at least as hopelessly reductional? To say that Hamlet is nothing more than the collision of fortuitous atoms seems not nearly to say enough, does it not?

Here you seem to be talking about evolution without a god rather than determinism.

[Iwannaplato]

Nope, because I prefer to keep my privacy.

What? I'm asking about people in philosophy forums who have argued that miracles are necessary if one wants to demonstrate free will. How can that be private? You generalized about determinists. We have lots of determinists here. But now it's private.

Because what one person considers free, another does not.

They manage to not be free because of what people consider?

Birds can flap their wings and fly, are they freer than humans?

Again, I am asking how one's behavior can be as-if one is free. This implies strongly that it can be as-if one is not. I pointed out animals have behavior. They do things. Now you say they have less free will.

How does their behavior seem as-if it has less free will? How does our behavior seem like we have more?

Consider my answer to phyllo, as an answer to you too.

That answer has no explanation for why it is a private matter how determinists have communicated with you in public online forums. Who are these determinists who think only miracles prove free will?

Some humans are exceptionally gifted, and can achieve what no other person, or animal, can do. How is that not Free-Will???

It certainly demonstrates they are unique but is has nothing to do with showing that an ontology with free will is correct?
Every single virus could do things that humans can't do, unless they create a virus, which they could only do recently? Were humans in the late 20th century exhibiting free will?

[Wizard22]

I've been on philosophy forums, won't say which ones and when, under now banned usernames. That is why I can't bring up the past, along with the lack of will to go skimming through the countless thousands of threads I've debated over the last 20 years.

And to your second line of question, I pose to all Determinists, what could possibly be an "act of free-will" to convince you??? It's that simple. If Determinists cannot present any action that can possibly be 'free', then they're dogmatists. Their arguments are premised in faith or religious conviction, not science and philosophy.

You have to be able to disprove yourself, in science and philosophy, Empiricism.



So the onus and burden of proof is on Determinists, not Free-Will-ists.

To "us", every action is evidence (to some degree).

[phyllo]

Speaking for myself, I use examples of unrepeatable actions as better or the best evidence for Free-Will.

That's not evidence of free-will. Every action is one-off... every action happens under a unique set of conditions. So "unrepeatable actions" would happen in determinism.

Some humans are exceptionally gifted, and can achieve what no other person, or animal, can do. How is that not Free-Will???

Determinism doesn't exclude gifted people. It's not like determinism says that all people are identical.

[Wizard22]

No...the predicate of Determinism is that everything, even God reaching His Hand down from Heaven, creating Matter from Nothing, is also "Determined".

Determinism does not allow itself to be disproved. Why do you think that is, phyllo? Iwanna???

[phyllo]

And to your second line of question, I pose to all Determinists, what could possibly be an "act of free-will" to convince you??? It's that simple. If Determinists cannot present any action that can possibly be 'free', then they're dogmatists. Their arguments are premised in faith or religious conviction, not science and philosophy.

That line of reasoning doesn't make sense.

It's like asking atheists to show you a god and if they can't then they are dogmatists.

And it only applies to hard determinists because compatibilists will show you lots of free actions ... for example, actions which are not the result of coercion.

[phyllo]

No...the predicate of Determinism is that everything, even God reaching His Hand down from Heaven, creating Matter from Nothing, is also "Determined".

Determinism does not allow itself to be disproved. Why do you think that is, phyllo? Iwanna???

Everything in determinism is determined? Whatever 'determined' means.

You need to define determinism better. By using more words and clearer meaning.

[phyllo]

It's that their Determinism logically entails that their movements are not their own, their acts are not their own, and their decisions are an illusory seeming, not a real decision at all.

Who is moving, acting or deciding if not the person?

You're placing it somewhere outside of the person. So where is it?