Free will is wholly deterministic

[phyllo]

Volition. All people who believe in will believe that human beings can commence causal moments of their own. Determinists, on the other hand, have to regard the human contribution as a kind of "dumb terminal," meaning a node that actually merely reacts to the previous inputs, and thus adds nothing to the causal chain, merely passing along the consequences of the "antecedent" causes.

So "volition" is independent of "antecedent conditions"?

Oh, that's fairly easy.

The person who believes in will accepts that antecedent conditions set up a range of possible choices for the volitional person; but the volitional person still has choice within the range offered by the various "antecedent conditions."

And that's, in fact, exactly how we all act as if it is. We say, "I found myself in circumstance A, and I decided to B." Or "I needed to go to university, so I chose Harvard...or Yale...or Patterson Technical College." Or "I could have loved Mary or Celine or Maya, but chose Priyanka instead."

The "need" to go to university seems to be the result of "antecedent condition".
And the selection of where you decide to go is based on what you have been told or what you read about those places. Which are also "antecedent conditions".

And there is some sort of ranking of preferences in your mind ... academic excellence, political orientation, party or social scene, stress levels. Those are "antecedent conditions" ... dispositions which you have learned over the course of your life.

The same goes for your loves.

I don't see how your choice is not entirely based on those "conditions".

Evidence is equivocal. It can be interpreted as one thing, or as another. It takes a volitional agent to assess which explanation of the evidence is the most plausible, and to choose to select it over the other possible explanations for the evidence that can possibly exist.

The interpretation is based on the current state of the agent. If you have been 'indoctrinated' in some way then your interpretation will be based on that 'indoctrination'. Similarly with specific knowledge or lack of knowledge.

That can be seen in the phrase "If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail."

And it applies equally to your detective story.

[Walker]

Oppenheimer is not compelled to blow up the bomb. He could have chosen not to: that's the point of the drama. But he did, because he calculated that the most probable effect he would get would not include that ultimate disaster.

That is another point made in the movie. He was compelled. He felt he had no choice and his rationale was that if the Nazi's developed the bomb first, there would be hell to pay.

But that's not compulsion. He had options. He just made a probability calculation...which could have been quite wrong, actually. As it turned out, we didn't need the bomb to beat the Nazis. All we had to do is sabotage their heavy-water experiments in Norway and elsewhere until normal armies could win...which is exactly what we did, and exactly what happened. When we entered Berlin and when Hitler killed himself, it was not because of the bomb at all; it was because of the ground advance and the collapse of German defenses beneath them.

Why else risk the world unless there was no choice?

There was a choice. The bomb only came into play against Japan, and was never used against the Nazis at all. So if Oppenheimer had not created the bomb, we would still have beaten the Nazis.

Also, the proof that he had no choice was that he did it.

That's how the Determinists have to argue, of course..."It happened, so that proved it had to happen." But no, we don't know what could have happened if things we had chosen had been different...justs as Oppenheimer did not know what the Nazis would do, or that the bomb would not, after all, be necessary for them.

Folks can think about anything, including speculating about what might have been, but folks only do what they must do no matter how simple the action, although the reasons for doing can be complex and irrational, which is not to say that all actions are complex and irrational, or even a compulsion. Compulsion can have various causes, including morality.

At the time he did whatever he did, which includes what he was most notable for doing, Oppenheimer had to do what he did, and he was also compelled to not do what he did not do.

I think the stumbling point for those whose curiosity as to “why,” ends with the word choice, is the assumption that doing what one must do absolves the doer of responsibility. Doing what one must do does not absolve responsibility, not even if the doer is of unsound mind.

More possibilities exist on the chessboard than one can imagine, however playing chess rather than speculating about chess is defined by movement, and each movement represents the confluence of all relevant elements of a situation at a particular moment in time, and those relevant elements include the chess-ability of the players. All things considered, the piece that is moved is the one that had to be moved.

[henry quirk]

If necessitarianism were true; what other choice do we have but to live exactly the way we live?

None.

As I say: if necessitarianism is true, and some of us are compelled to believe we're free wills and are compelled to live as though we were free wills, then some of us would be compelled not only to believe in necessitarianism but would also be compelled to live as necessitarians. None do.

...and...

Each and every necessitarian, no matter where, no matter when, lives his life as a libertarian free will. Not a one naturally, or intentionally, lives as though he were not a libertarian free will.

[phyllo]

Necessitarianism is a metaphysical principle that denies all mere possibility; there is exactly one way for the world to be.

It is the strongest member of a family of principles, including hard determinism, each of which deny libertarian free will, reasoning that human actions are predetermined by external or internal antecedents. Necessitarianism is stronger than hard determinism, because even the hard determinist would grant that the causal chain constituting the world might have been different as a whole, even though each member of that series could not have been different, given its antecedent causes.[citation needed]

The most famous defender of necessitarianism in the history of philosophy is Spinoza.

Anthony Collins was also known for his defense of necessitarianism. His brief Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (1715) was a key statement of the necessitarianist standpoint.

The Century Dictionary defined it in 1889–91 as belief that the will is not free, but instead subject to external antecedent causes or natural laws of cause and effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necessitarianism

For those who find that hard determinism isn't enough. Turn it up to 11.

[Immanuel Can]

"put up or shut up"
You've never head the phrase?

Sure. But it's nonsensical here, because it has no evident application to anything previously said. It's out-of-context.

Put you have not put up.

"Put"? Now you're really making no sense at all.

[LuckyR]

My point is that Determinism not only doesn't require true thinking at all, it actually eliminates it as a possibility.

Of course it requires thinking. How would a determinist move/act/decide otherwise?

Well, Determinism requires going through the "thinking" process (which is actually the brain crunching the numbers of a problem where the conclusion is already determinable), but there is none of what the common usage of the word "thinking" entails.

[Immanuel Can]

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

There are two forms of Determinism: one secular, one religious. I reject both.

The secular form requires the belief that all that operates in the universe are physical materials and physical laws. What follows, then, is that since the Big Bang sets off the chain of events that literally produce everything (begging the question of what set off the Big Bang, or what existed to explode, or how it appeared), it follows that all was fated from that initial moment. Everything fell into place...like pool balls on a table, but immensely more intricate because involving not a dozen balls, perhaps, but rather billions and billions of "billiard balls." Still, like a pool table, there was only the laws of motion plus materials that could act only in response to "the Big Poke."

So why is Phyllo writing? Because of the Big Bang. Why will IC reply? Because of the Big Bang...

The religious form is exemplified by various fatalistic religions.

[Immanuel Can]

My point is that Determinism not only doesn't require true thinking at all, it actually eliminates it as a possibility.

Of course it requires thinking. How would a determinist move/act/decide otherwise?

Well, Determinism requires going through the "thinking" process (which is actually the brain crunching the numbers of a problem where the conclusion is already determinable), but there is none of what the common usage of the word "thinking" entails.

Indeed so. And the "thinking" is not a word that describes any actual link in the causal chain, according to Determinism. Brain chemistry does all of that, because chemistry is physical (and thus presumably subject to all the physical laws) and "mind" is not. So one does not "think" and "make up one's mind"; rather, "thinking" is a word we use to describe a particular sequence of causes and effects in brain chemistry...no more.

[henry quirk]

For those who find that hard determinism isn't enough. Turn it up to 11.

Never half-ass it: commit!

[Immanuel Can]

... folks only do what they must do...

That's an assumption, not a truth. In practice, we all act as if it isn't true, and nobody lives as a Determinist. So the burden's on the Determinist to show why we're all crazy, and that Determinism, not our decisions, make everything happen. However, if he succeeds, he fails: for he would then have made us "change our minds," which we cannot do, if we are Determined.

So again, the whole idea of that falls apart right away.

Compulsion can have various causes, including morality.

Not if the mind is not real. And Determinism has to say it's not real: what's real is only brain chemistry. So morality doesn't "compel" anything, especially in Determinist thought.

I think the stumbling point for those whose curiosity as to “why,” ends with the word choice, is the assumption that doing what one must do absolves the doer of responsibility.

I do know people for whom, I think, that is the chief attraction of Determinism. For example, I know one wife, now married to a dear friend, whose misspent youth has been reshaped by her into a story of "I couldn't help it, because Determinism." But I think such rationalizations are pretty evidently not rational. They're emotional.

Doing what one must do does not absolve responsibility, not even if the doer is of unsound mind.

Actually, it does.

Would you execute the insane? Would you punish children the way you punish an adult for the same fault? Would you indict somebody who didn't know a thing the same as somebody who did?

Clearly not: those would be injustices. In court, a person must be capable of what they call "a guilty mind." If they are not, then they may be the physical cause of an indictable offense; but they are not morally responsible for it.

All things considered, the piece that is moved is the one that had to be moved.

Well, life is not chess. And if chess were like that, then nobody would ever play chess at all, anyway. One situation, and only one move? It would make for a very dull game, to be sure.

[phyllo]

So why is Phyllo writing? Because of the Big Bang. Why will IC reply? Because of the Big Bang...

Nobody says that except in dumb forums.

[Immanuel Can]

Volition. All people who believe in will believe that human beings can commence causal moments of their own. Determinists, on the other hand, have to regard the human contribution as a kind of "dumb terminal," meaning a node that actually merely reacts to the previous inputs, and thus adds nothing to the causal chain, merely passing along the consequences of the "antecedent" causes.

So "volition" is independent of "antecedent conditions"?

No. It involves "antecedent conditions," but is not in thrall entirely to them. "Antecedent circumstances" may dictate to you that you have only met Mary, Celine, Maya and Priyanka, but not Phyllis, Angelica, Amina and Chen. So "antecedent circumstances" make it impossible for you to choose Amina...but it does not constrain you from choosing Priyanka or Maya or Celine or Mary.

The "need" to go to university seems to be the result of "antecedent condition".

Not at all. "Needs" are often no more than things we feel, and feelings we can easily resist, too. You'll realize that if you think of the phrase, "I really need a smoke." In truth, nobody "needs" a smoke: but lots of people want one. And we can forgo smoking, to our betterment, for any length of time.

And the selection of where you decide to go is based on what you have been told or what you read about those places. Which are also "antecedent conditions".

Like you only ever got the chance to meet Mary, Celine and Priyanka...yes. But so what? You chose Priyanka, but could have chosen Mary or Celine. It was your choice.

Evidence is equivocal. It can be interpreted as one thing, or as another. It takes a volitional agent to assess which explanation of the evidence is the most plausible, and to choose to select it over the other possible explanations for the evidence that can possibly exist.

The interpretation is based on the current state of the agent. [/quote] No, that's merely assumptive, not demonstrated. And it's really quite incoherent, actually.

If you have been 'indoctrinated' in some way then your interpretation will be based on that 'indoctrination'.

I've just been reading Lifton's famous study on Chinese indoctrination, actually. And it turns out that indoctrination is actually very hard to do, and does not last. Even the very cruel and forceful Chinese kind, practiced over years, failed to reliably change those on whom it was practiced. It has to be regarded as an indoctrinatory failure, really. Its successes proved very limited and equivocal.

That can be seen in the phrase "If all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail."

I believe that was Neil Postman who said that, and it was "To a boy with a hammer, everything looks like a nail." He was making a very different point of course; he was just pointing out that our tools tend to orient our thinking for a certain period of time. But he said nothing about what tool we choose to pick up in the first place, or how our decisions to use different tools change our way of relating to our world...all good subjects, but nothing to do with Determinism.

[Immanuel Can]

So why is Phyllo writing? Because of the Big Bang. Why will IC reply? Because of the Big Bang...

Nobody says that except in dumb forums.

Yes, it's a dumb thing to say. But it's what Determinism requires us to think. So Determinism, ultimately, is just that dumb.

Good insight.

[phyllo]

Yes, it's a dumb thing to say. But it's what Determinism requires us to think. So Determinism, ultimately, is just that dumb.

Good insight.

It doesn't "require" us to think that at all.

One can theoretically trace the current state back to the BB. Noted. But who cares.

There is nothing useful in it.

[Immanuel Can]

Yes, it's a dumb thing to say. But it's what Determinism requires us to think. So Determinism, ultimately, is just that dumb.

Good insight.

It doesn't "require" us to think that at all.

One can theoretically trace the current state back to the BB. Noted. But who cares.

There is nothing useful in it.

There's nothing "useful" in Determinism at all, except for the "use" people make of it in eradicating their consciences.