Philosophy Now Forum

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:25 pm

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.

We're talkin' about the decision-makin' process...that happens in the brain...where all the non-equiprobability lives, right?

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:24 pm Under materialism/physicalism on your view, volition can not be a causal factor because?

"Volition" is not a material thing.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:27 pm "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.

You dodged my question. I just have to point that out. You're not answering it.

But I'll do better. I'll actually answer your question.

I agree that that (the above) is a definition of Materialism. I still say that Materialism is bunk. Materialism has to describe immaterial entities in terms of physical ones. That's not merely reductional, but often incredibly silly.

For example, it's like saying that the content of this message is "pixels." True enough, I suppose, in a Materialist sense; but it's a totally inadequate characterization of the phenomena of two people debating an idea.

So that's what I think, and that is why.

Now, explain why, in your view, Materialism does not entail Causal Determinism.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:37 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:25 pm

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.

We're talkin' about the decision-makin' process...that happens in the brain...where all the non-equiprobability lives, right?

The idea isn't that just brain phenomena are probabilistic and not deterministic.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:55 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:24 pm Under materialism/physicalism on your view, volition can not be a causal factor because?

"Volition" is not a material thing.

It certainly is under a materialist or physicalist view. Shouldn't that be obvious?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:02 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:27 pm "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.

You dodged my question. I just have to point that out. You're not answering it.

But I'll do better. I'll actually answer your question.

I agree that that (the above) is a definition of Materialism. I still say that Materialism is bunk. Materialism has to describe immaterial entities in terms of physical ones. That's not merely reductional, but often incredibly silly.

For example, it's like saying that the content of this message is "pixels." True enough, I suppose, in a Materialist sense; but it's a totally inadequate characterization of the phenomena of two people debating an idea.

So that's what I think, and that is why.

Now, explain why, in your view, Materialism does not entail Causal Determinism.

As I explained above, this view:

(D) "For all phenomena, it's the case that from any antecedent state, one and only one consequent state is possible"

is different than this view:

(P) "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."

Thus one can believe (P) without believing (D).

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:28 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:55 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:24 pm Under materialism/physicalism on your view, volition can not be a causal factor because?

"Volition" is not a material thing.

It certainly is under a materialist or physicalist view. Shouldn't that be obvious?

Well, it seems quite obvious to me that Materialism and Physicalism are merely reductional, and that their attempts to characterize things like "volition" and "cognition" as "materials" are inadequate. As I say, they would have to insist that the conversation you and I are having is nothing more than "pixels" or alternately "ink on paper." Likewise, they have to insist that "mind" is only "brain," and "reasoning" is only a collocation of previous dispositions of atoms, or plausibly, the lingering residue of a bad lunch.

Materialist, all that may be; but it's obviously a trivialization, not an adequate characterization.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:42 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:02 pm Now, explain why, in your view, Materialism does not entail Causal Determinism.

As I explained above, this view:

(D) "For all phenomena, it's the case that from any antecedent state, one and only one consequent state is possible"

This is not an adequate definition of Determinism.

Again, you''ve ignored the first issue addressed by Determinism: causality. If "materials" are the ultimate explanation of all causes, there is no such thing as "volition," or "choice."

And that's Determinism.

is different than this view:

(P) "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."

Thus one can believe (P) without believing (D).

But D is not Determinism, particularly Causal Determinism. At most, it's one version of one aspect of a very limited perspective on Determinism....and hardly enough even for that, since Determinism does not actually require that there's only one outcome: one can have Probabilistic Determinism as well.

In any case, believing (P) is not possible without Causal Determinism. And Causal Determinism entails no free will.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:04 pm This is not an adequate definition of Determinism.

So why do I have to repeat the same thing so many times before you present an objection to it?

Again, you''ve ignored the first issue addressed by Determinism: causality. If "materials" are the ultimate explanation of all causes,

Aside from your objection to my characterization of determinism for a moment, you just agreed that (P) was sufficient for materialism/physicalism. (P) makes no claim whatsoever about causality.

Determinism applies to physical actions in the universe. It does not apply to mental thoughts.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:11 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:04 pm This is not an adequate definition of Determinism.

So why do I have to repeat the same thing so many times before you present an objection to it?

I've been presenting that objection since the start.

Again, you''ve ignored the first issue addressed by Determinism: causality. If "materials" are the ultimate explanation of all causes,

Aside from your objection to my characterization of determinism for a moment, you just agreed that (P) was sufficient for materialism/physicalism. (P) makes no claim whatsoever about causality.

(P) is fine, for Materialism. Materialism is not fine.

But Materialism has inevitable implications for causality, so let's get to those.

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:51 pm Determinism applies to physical actions in the universe. It does not apply to mental thoughts.

But Determinists think...and have to insist...that it does. Because if "mental thoughts" are a part of the universe, then Materialism insists they must be strictly material, nothing else; and thus they also must be bound by Determinism.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 8:26 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:37 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 7:25 pm
From whatever they are to start to eventually a 100% bias, yes.

We're talkin' about the decision-makin' process...that happens in the brain...where all the non-equiprobability lives, right?

The idea isn't that just brain phenomena are probabilistic and not deterministic.

Look, my truckin' turtle teacher, let's lay all the cards on the table. No more dribbles and drabs. Just lay it on me, daddy-o. From start to finish, tell me what exactly it is I do when, for example, I choose to keep comin' back to this increasingly exasperatin' conversation instead of...

(A)...eatin' shot from the business end of my 12 gauge.

(B)...mercilessly huntin' you down to deliver the coup de grace.

(C)...grumblin' to hell with it and then plunkin' down on the couch with a beer to enjoy Alice in Wonderland, starrin' Kristine DeBell.

My choice is an exercise of free will, yeah?

Descrbe, as simply and fully as you can, what's goin' on from start to finish, with me, in the world, as I decision-make (sans my actual reasonings, of course).

Let me show you what I mean...


As I say up-thread: cause and effect seems to be in place, everywhere, all the time.

I personally see no real distinction between C & E and casual determinism as one naturally extends from the other (everywhere, all the time C&E can lead to nuthin' but causal determinism).

And: it seems to me C & E also applies to the stochastic or non-equiprobable as well and to all those supposedly spooky quantum whatsis (your non-equiprobability is, I think, the result of innumerable causal chains coincidin', twistin' together and culminating in the unexpected or unpredictable outcome, and all the quantum stuff is mysterious becuz of scale...we simply can't measure it and we refuse to be parsimonious about it, positing strings and dark materials and many-worlds and collapsin' wave functions and on and on).

Paraphrasing Mannie from up-thread, if I could know all the factors, know all the casual chains involved, from the quantum level clear on up I could predict every hurricane's formation with perfect accuracy, predict perfectly the emergence and cycle of any nasty virii accidentally slippin' out of Wuhan and so on. I could be a real life Hari Seldon.

Reality really does seem to be a clockwork mechanism. From the shimmy of quarks to the croaks of the Cormorant, from blind hungry amoeba to blind hungry collapsers, Reality seems to be nuthin' but events causin' events causin' events causin' events causin'...

Dominoes all the way down and all the way up...includin' that most marvelous cogitating instrument, the human brain.

As Janoah, sez, the brain is a law-abidin' event. And a metaphysically finite one.

The brain, of course, does its share of the work, attending to -- autonomic-like -- all the various processes that physically comprise a person, regulating thru feedback all the bio-machinery from the sub-cellular on up to organs and how all the organs seamlessly work together as a whole unit. From the top of my bald head to the tips of my neanderthal toes, my brain is a fantastic manager.

But it's not me, not all on its lonesome.

As I roundaboutly ask Janoah: where does mind, will, intent, purpose, personality, identity, etc. live in the brain? Show me the map where my ambitions originate. Lay out the pathways of neurons that explain my obsessions. Do what *Wilder Penfield could not, after hundreds of attempts: initiate a seizure of reason or a abstract concept seizure or an arithmetic seizure or subvert my sense of agency and have me move an arm while I wrongly believe I move it of my own accord.

Do what he could not: stimulate, redirect, or simply place the origin of my will (me).

See, if the brain alone is the seat of me, then stimulating abstract thinkin' and redirecting will ought be no more difficult than gettin' me to twitch a toe or recall a rose's smell. Just locate the appropriate brain bits and apply a current to 'em.

He couldn't do it...insofar as I know, no one has.

No, there's sumthin' more to me, sumthin' sittin' on top of the machinery of me. Call it information if you like (me, I prefer spirit or soul), information is dimensionless, not directly measurable, is abstract but causally efficacious when coupled appropriately with matter, is within the world without bein' bound by it.

Man is the intersection of information and matter (spirit and flesh). He is a composite of two radically different substances, neither complete without the other.

He is an agent in a Reality of events. He begins, bends, and ends causal chains for reasons of his own, reasons he can suss out in the moment, reasons that may not have diddly to do with what came before.


...see what I did?

Do that (but do it better cuz I kinda just vomited up on the screen without any real plan...you be that thorough, exactin' academic-type you seem to be).





*https://mindmatters.ai/2020/02/why-pion ... the-brain/

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 12:50 am

jayjacobus wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:51 pm Determinism applies to physical actions in the universe. It does not apply to mental thoughts.

But Determinists think...and have to insist...that it does. Because if "mental thoughts" are a part of the universe, then Materialism insists they must be strictly material, nothing else; and thus they also must be bound by Determinism.

You don't know that. They are in the mind. Where the mind is, is unknown.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Fri Jun 18, 2021 12:48 am

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:11 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jun 17, 2021 9:04 pm This is not an adequate definition of Determinism.

So why do I have to repeat the same thing so many times before you present an objection to it?

I've been presenting that objection since the start.

Quote an earlier instance of it, or any earlier instance of a specific objection against my characterization of determinism.

Aside from your objection to my characterization of determinism for a moment, you just agreed that (P) was sufficient for materialism/physicalism. (P) makes no claim whatsoever about causality.

(P) is fine, for Materialism. Materialism is not fine.

Your view whether materialism is acceptable has nothing at all to do with it being possible (and it should have nothing to do with understanding that it's possible) to be a materialist/physicalist while not being a determinist.

Imagine that someone presented a view that "Automobiles are completely made of toast." We'd think that their view is ridiculous, but that should have no bearing on being able to understand that "Automobiles are completely made of toast" doesn't imply that the person believes that toast is made, in the first place, by humans putting bread into toasters. They could think that toast is made via magical incantations said by leprechauns, or they could think that toast grows on trees, or they could think that it's ejected from the Jovian atmosphere and then lands on the Earth or whatever. Likewise, your assessment of materialism/physicalism shouldn't have a bearing on whether you can understand that one can be a materialist/physicalist and not a determinist (and not a realist on physical laws).

But Materialism has inevitable implications for causality, so let's get to those.

Can you present an argument for that?