The Philosophy Discussion Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 4:58 am

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 4:24 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 4:22 am
You will.

What if that's not true?

You'll find out.

Promise?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2026 6:24 pm

Your "automatic default" move is the most entertaining non-argument in this exchange. "It's the only way people actually live" isn't philosophy — it's an appeal to habit in a lab coat. People once lived automatically and universally as if the sun orbited the earth. Didn't make geocentrism the best explanation.
Then there's the slight-of-hand where pointing at the other team's fumble becomes your entire positive case. Even if determinism were completely self-refuting, that wouldn't conjure free will into existence as the winner. "There are only two arguments, so if one fails..." is exactly the kind of false dilemma that gets undergraduates marked down.
Your most revealing slip is around reasons and causes. You want reasons to genuinely influence belief — enough to call determinism irrational for ignoring them — but not so much that they cause belief, because that would look uncomfortably deterministic. You're trying to have reasons matter enormously while somehow not quite counting as causes. That's not a distinction, that's a wobble. And it's doing a lot of invisible heavy lifting in your position.

But the main problem is we don't have any idea what you mean by free will. Reasons get weighed by a mind. OK, so they are affecting the mind, and experiences affect that mind. And then that mind: is it tabula rasa? I would doubt you think it is. It has goals, criteria, interpretations of words, past experiences, etc. Where is the free will in this combination of external and internal causes?

Who is the decider? Someone without goals, ways of processing information, beliefs, intuition all affecting how he or she interacts with issues, questions, language, experiences and so on?

I actually believe my other posts stand. Not as complete positions but as pointing out the problems with the free will position. I do heartily see problems with the determinism position for determinists. I just don't see any good explanation how we get from State A to State B without causes. And also, what a terrifying idea that your personality, intelligence, analysis, moral goodness, goals, do not affect your actions. Because then it would just be State A leading inevitably to State B. So, free will would mean you decide things not based on goals, character, personality - it's got nothing to do with you.

But you've had a number of chances to explain this free will you believe in. And it doesn't arrive. Your focus is on determinism as if someone's inability to argue for it means it is wrong.

So, I'm leaving my contributions to the topic here.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:29 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2026 6:24 pm

Your "automatic default" move is the most entertaining non-argument in this exchange. "It's the only way people actually live" isn't philosophy — it's an appeal to habit in a lab coat.

No, that's merely a secondary point -- true, but not decisive. The main point is that arguing for Determinism at all is self-defeating, being a denial of Determinism -- and a disproof of it, if it's ever successful.

So the failure of the OP is guaranteed, either way.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:44 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:29 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2026 6:24 pm

Your "automatic default" move is the most entertaining non-argument in this exchange. "It's the only way people actually live" isn't philosophy — it's an appeal to habit in a lab coat.

No, that's merely a secondary point -- true, but not decisive. The main point is that arguing for Determinism at all is self-defeating, being a denial of Determinism -- and a disproof of it, if it's ever successful.

So the failure of the OP is guaranteed, either way.

The OP doesn't depend on the infinite field of causes to support its premise; it simply states there is no such thing as human action, there is only human reaction. The challenge was to give me one example of a human action that I cannot show to be a reaction. Without one example, free will is dead in the water. Show me, perhaps, an example of an organism that is not a reactive creature in the here and now.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 1:32 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:44 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:29 pm Your "automatic default" move is the most entertaining non-argument in this exchange. "It's the only way people actually live" isn't philosophy — it's an appeal to habit in a lab coat.

No, that's merely a secondary point -- true, but not decisive. The main point is that arguing for Determinism at all is self-defeating, being a denial of Determinism -- and a disproof of it, if it's ever successful.

So the failure of the OP is guaranteed, either way.

The OP doesn't depend on the infinite field of causes to support its premise;

Nobody said it did. I said it depends on its ability to be rendered rationally coherent...which it lacks.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 3:37 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 1:32 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:44 pm
No, that's merely a secondary point -- true, but not decisive. The main point is that arguing for Determinism at all is self-defeating, being a denial of Determinism -- and a disproof of it, if it's ever successful.

So the failure of the OP is guaranteed, either way.

The OP doesn't depend on the infinite field of causes to support its premise;

Nobody said it did. I said it depends on its ability to be rendered rationally coherent...which it lacks.

What is not rationally coherent about proving that all organisms are either free agents in the world or all organisms are reactive creatures? If all organisms are reactive, there is no reason to believe that humanity has free will as a free agent to behave as if it were not governed by the greater field of creation, the earth, and the cosmos. I have previously stated that if this were not so, evolutionary adaptation would be quite impossible, and we know it is possible. Presence in the world itself is a cause to all other presences or beings in a cycle of reciprocal causation. Again, I ask those who wish to challenge this to supply an example of human action I cannot prove to be a human reaction. Any human behavior is motivated, and motivation spells reaction, NOT action. Just one example that all it takes.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 6:47 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 3:37 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 1:32 am The OP doesn't depend on the infinite field of causes to support its premise;

Nobody said it did. I said it depends on its ability to be rendered rationally coherent...which it lacks.

What is not rationally coherent about proving that all organisms are either free agents in the world or all organisms are reactive creatures?

You haven't proved a thing, actually. You gratuitously affirmed it, instead, as if being LOUD AND BOLD was the same as being right. (It's not, by the way.)

But arguing for Determinism is self-contradictory. Not me-contradictory; self-contradictory. If it succeeds, then it proves its own failure. If it does not succeed, it does not succeed. Either way, it never succeeds...because it argues that it can never succeed.

Get it yet?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:44 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:29 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 18, 2026 6:24 pm

Your "automatic default" move is the most entertaining non-argument in this exchange. "It's the only way people actually live" isn't philosophy — it's an appeal to habit in a lab coat.

No, that's merely a secondary point -- true, but not decisive. The main point is that arguing for Determinism at all is self-defeating, being a denial of Determinism -- and a disproof of it, if it's ever successful.

So the failure of the OP is guaranteed, either way.

Maybe he's determined to argue that we're all determined. Poor guy.

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 11:31 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:44 pm

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Apr 22, 2026 6:29 pm Your "automatic default" move is the most entertaining non-argument in this exchange. "It's the only way people actually live" isn't philosophy — it's an appeal to habit in a lab coat.

No, that's merely a secondary point -- true, but not decisive. The main point is that arguing for Determinism at all is self-defeating, being a denial of Determinism -- and a disproof of it, if it's ever successful.

So the failure of the OP is guaranteed, either way.

Maybe he's determined to argue that we're all determined. Poor guy.

Yes, you've got it. Well said.

That's the problem: if he's "determined," then by definition, his argument is not a product of reason. It's a product of whatever he ate for breakfast, or Hannibal's crossing of the Alps, or a butterfly that beat its wings in a primordial swamp...some prior event that had no rational relationship to the rationality or truth.

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 6:47 am Again, I ask those who wish to challenge this to supply an example of human action I cannot prove to be a human reaction. Any human behavior is motivated, and motivation spells reaction, NOT action. Just one example that all it takes.

I can’t think of one. Maybe one doesn’t exist.

Any human motion is motivated by need. Same goes for the inorganic motion in the ocean, or electrons jumping to new valence shells, or black holes gobbling up the neighborhood, and everything in between. The reactionary motions are the result of needing to move.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 12:21 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 6:47 am Again, I ask those who wish to challenge this to supply an example of human action I cannot prove to be a human reaction. Any human behavior is motivated, and motivation spells reaction, NOT action. Just one example that all it takes.

I can’t think of one. Maybe one doesn’t exist.

Any human motion is motivated by need. Same goes for the inorganic motion in the ocean, or electrons jumping to new valence shells, or black holes gobbling up the neighborhood, and everything in between. The reactionary motions are the result of needing to move.

I fully agree.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 12:21 am

popeye1945 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 23, 2026 6:47 am Again, I ask those who wish to challenge this to supply an example of human action I cannot prove to be a human reaction. Any human behavior is motivated, and motivation spells reaction, NOT action. Just one example that all it takes.

Any human motion is motivated by need.

That can't be right.

What "need" does a person have for art, or for feelings of swell-being, or for love, or for joining political parties, or for intellectual stimulation? These are all consciousness-premised "needs," -- all of which Determinism has to insist cannot be real. They cannot motivate action.

Remember that Determinism requires us to suppose that the mind is ever an initiator of any action, and that choice is impossible. The real explanation for anything that happens is supposed to lie in pre-existing, material causal chains. So how can a purely immaterial, existential "need" be real? And how can "need" (which is a feeling) be included in any description of how an action came about?

Rather, the truth is that many human actions are motivated by wants, many of which relate to non-material things and values. Determinism cannot accept that, but it's true, and obviously so. You know it in yourself.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 1:29 pm

Hi IC. Always a pleasure.

Based on what you say, I don't appear to be a Determinist then, because the mind is part of everything that anyone can know or ever know, and thinking is part of mind activity.

That’s why I say that choice can only be defined and objectively determined by action, because every apprehension that leads up to action is natural biological mind functioning whether it be nature or nurture, and to circle on back home, the mind is part of everything.

Folks have all kinds of needs and their correlation to an activity may seem mysterious, which is likely why aberrant psychology is fascinating, e.g., Anthony Perkins’ most famous role in cinema. Needs and their causes can be somewhat illogical to say the least, and aberration says it the most.

Good thing self-labels ain’t my thing ... but of course that too is a thing, but only if by affectation.

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 2:55 pm
Good thing self-labels ain’t my thing ...

I always liked Mr. Yuk

-Imp

Walker wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 2:55 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Apr 24, 2026 1:29 pm

Hi IC. Always a pleasure.

Based on what you say, I don't appear to be a Determinist then...

Probably not. Nobody really is.

There are people like popeye, who try to talk as if they are; but even they don't try to live as if Determinism were true. If they did, they'd be dead in a day or so. Anybody who simply says, "Well, it's all preset by prior causes anyway, so I don't have to do a darn thing" isn't going to have the brains to feed himself or stay out of traffic.

We all live as if free will is true: because we cannot do otherwise. That should tell us something.