Free Will vs Determinism

[Noax]

A monist determinist has volition and personhood, and has no need to initiate cause to have that.

I think that's true. But if he does, then he's not a Determinist. He only thinks he is, but he's inventing non-determined entities and introducing them into his chain of causality without justifying that move.

You seem to have a begging definition of personhood: one externally controlled. That seems from my view to be the one without the free will. This physical person would rather not be under control by some external entity which possesses this body. I would not consider that free.

Why do you call him a pawn then?

I don't. His Determinism if he logically follows its implications, tells him that's all he is.

Nope. The pawn (one whole team of the pieces actually) in a chess game with external control is a model of dualism. The player is free to move the pieces which otherwise have no volition of their own. The monism model is not at all like chess. You would need a model with the pieces making their own choices.

Soft determinism says there are a bunch of movies playing, none of which can be touched by the viewer, but he still can choose which one to watch, effectively initiating (only for the free-willed viewer) any effect that is uncaused, and there are plenty of them in physics, even if no biological entity seems sensitive to them.

If that's Soft Determinism, then it should probably be called "Inconsistent Determinism," for it denies Determinism, essentially.

I never said I was the sort of determinist as you define it. For instance, given the exact state of the world half a second ago, a theoretical perfect predictor could not determine the current state here and now. It might eliminate certain states as not possible, but no more.

And even supposing we could get past that, which logically, we can't, there can be no "free-willed viewer" if the "bunch of movies" so to speak "cannot be touched by the viewer." Then he's just prisoner to a bunch of forces, instead of one. He's no better off, and no different, from the Hard Determinist, except he hasn't really figured out where he is, and allegedly at least, the Hard Determinist has.

He is better off. He can't touch, yet he can control the hero so long as it is something the hero would do. He can teach the hero to respond to his will, but that sort of education takes a long time, long enough for the advantage being given by the stream of beneficial data to evolve a sensitivity to the data.

That is one model of dualism that does not defy physics. It makes predictions.
Under hard determination, there is one future of a given state, and dualism just doesn't fit in. A human is a person with his own volition, free from causes initiated by an external entity. He (the physical person) is responsible in this world for his actions the way the dualist chess-piece body is not. Sure, the dualist chess player is responsible for his chess rating after the completion of the game, but no morality applies to the chess pieces themselves.

If he "chooses" among "movies," then that is compatible with some measure of free will ("choosing") but has no explanation that fits Determinism at all.

However, ad hominem...not legit, in this case. A straightforward fallacy. My attitude, even if wholly "programmed by my biases," might still be correct. You need to show the truth or falsehood of the statement, not your like or dislike of the person who offers it.

If you meant no ad hominem, then perhaps "biases" was just a poor (or Deterministic?) choice of words. No hard feelings there anyway.

Your rational arguments against a view

Your claim that you can initiate causes stands against all physics,

That' s a non-sequitur, for two reasons.

Firstly, because there's nothing about saying that I can initiate a cause that means physics can't, or that physics might not even be a generally accurate explanation for why most things happen. Free will can accept some determined things; but the view maintains that human will can be a causal factor in its own right as well. So it's not against "all" physics, or "any" physics at all. It just does not take for granted that physics is all there is.

Sounds to me like deliberate avoidance of looking in places where bad answers are to be found, and just attributing magic to those realms. This is a valid stance, but not a good one for disproving an alternative view, which seems to be what you're claiming you're doing. If your position is so strong, make a distinguishing prediction and put it to the test.

Secondly, if physics is a causal chain, then it cannot be eternal in the past. It must have had an initiation point. Physics cannot be eternal without producing an incoherent causal regress. So the supposition that physics, in itself, can be a complete causal explanation is simply wrong.

Yes, I've watched your destruction of logic in the other thread. Off topic in this one.

So while your view might be correct, inductive reasoning puts it well down the probability scale.

Oh, I don't think so. It seems to me highly improbable, for example, that a phenomenon like "consciousness" would ever have "emerged" from pure physics; and physics itself is utterly devoid of explanation as to how such a thing could come about, so I think that's an existentially-powerful case.

Argument from incredulity is not induction.

When did I "avoid" this question? I musts have missed the point at which it was asked.

Other threads. You outright refused at the time.

However, if you're looking for me to tie "memory, will and cognition" to pure physics, my reasons for not doing so are that I don't believe that it IS pure physics: and to offer any such explanation would simply be to deny my own position, so why would you suppose I ought to?

I'm asking your position, since you've still make no statement. Where do you tie these functions? Do non-humans work the same way? If some do, what distinguishes the ones that do and don't? Saying you don't know some of these is fine, but declining any answer at all shows a lack of faith in the position.
As a monist, I have only one place to put them, and there is no distinction between having the external control or not. Consciousness is a spectrum and there is no binary having it or not. Something can be more conscious than me.

I'm not prepared to take Physicalism on faith, and it does not appear more than reductional in the case of dealing with the (epi?-)phenomena you mention.

When did I ever ask you to do that? Not expecting you to change your faith. Stating it would be nice. You seem to refuse reductional analysis, which seems to imply your position cannot stand up to it. Note I am not asking how the immaterial parts work. I'm mostly asking what you expect to take with you to the afterlife.

A combination of nothing-but-purely-physical entities in a causal chain wants things? Explain how that happens, please. The reason for my quotation marks around "wants" is that the very term really has no place in a Physicalist universe. It's a redundancy for "caused by physics," or else it's illegitimately imported to try to explain something physics actually isn't explaining.

That's like asking if a calculator really adds or it just moves electrons around. Physics might describe only the latter, but it doesn't mean that addition is not a physical process, or that close examination of the calculator might not be a good approach to figuring out how addition is done by the moving around of electrons. Perhaps we should posit math faeries that are immune from examination and thus unfalsifiable.

Physical entities can't actually want things.
...
It's the metaphors that confuse, in that case. We need to stop allowing Physicalists to speak of wants.

This is not a biased view? What possible non-begging definition of 'want' might you have that would back this assertion? It is not a metaphor. The fact that a person's wants are a function of causal physics does not invalidate the label of 'wanting' to the process.

Well, that's how Determinists have to think it is.

There it is. Waiting to be told how adherents to some opposing view must think. I think that's how it ended last time. A whole thread was opened by somebody else concerning your tendency to do this.

[Immanuel Can]

You seem to have a begging definition of personhood: one externally controlled.

No. Quite the contrary. That's no definition of personhood I've ever accepted. I have no idea how you came up with it.

But Determinists think that "control" of a certain kind is a comprehensive explanation for everything. Therefore, a "person" in their worldview, is not a cause-capable agent, but rather a dumb-terminal in a Materialist chain.

I never said I was the sort of determinist as you define it.

Oh? You're not a Determinist? Good. Nobody should be.

But these two of your statements are mutually contradictory.

Under hard determination, there is one future of a given state, and dualism just doesn't fit in.

A human is a person with his own volition, free from causes initiated by an external entity.

The second statement is not Determinism.

Sounds to me like deliberate avoidance of looking in places where bad answers are to be found, and just attributing magic to those realms.

Interesting. It sounds to me like Materialists and other Determinists are so desperate to advance their particular narrow doctrine that they mow down all sorts of obvious things everybody (including all Determinists, ironically) depend upon every day. They personhood, and assert their personal rights. They deny morality, and then claim they are also moral people. They deny will, and then they argue to change people's minds...and so on.

So while your view might be correct, inductive reasoning puts it well down the probability scale.

Oh, I don't think so. It seems to me highly improbable, for example, that a phenomenon like "consciousness" would ever have "emerged" from pure physics; and physics itself is utterly devoid of explanation as to how such a thing could come about, so I think that's an existentially-powerful case.

Argument from incredulity is not induction.

I'm not asking you to accept incredulity as evidence. But when all people, including Determinists, find themselves obliged to live as if Determinism is not true, I think we're justified in holding off unthinking belief in Determinism until we know why that happens.

However, if you're looking for me to tie "memory, will and cognition" to pure physics, my reasons for not doing so are that I don't believe that it IS pure physics: and to offer any such explanation would simply be to deny my own position, so why would you suppose I ought to?

I'm asking your position, since you've still make no statement.

Funny. I think I have. One is that Determinism isn't true.

Where do you tie these functions? Do non-humans work the same way? If some do, what distinguishes the ones that do and don't? Saying you don't know some of these is fine, but declining any answer at all shows a lack of faith in the position.

I don't decline. But its' absurd to ask, "Where are the material causes of non-material phenomena?" to someone who does not accept that "materials" is a sufficient explanation for everything, or to suppose suppose that there's virtue in dismissing such phenomena as consciousness, identity, rationality and morality by reducing them -- without reason -- to nothing more than arrangements of materials.

I'm not prepared to take Physicalism on faith, and it does not appear more than reductional in the case of dealing with the (epi?-)phenomena you mention.

When did I ever ask you to do that?
Your way of framing the question seemed to presuppose that. But if you're not a Materialist Determinist, then maybe you didn't mean that.

A combination of nothing-but-purely-physical entities in a causal chain wants things? Explain how that happens, please. The reason for my quotation marks around "wants" is that the very term really has no place in a Physicalist universe. It's a redundancy for "caused by physics," or else it's illegitimately imported to try to explain something physics actually isn't explaining.

That's like asking if a calculator really adds or it just moves electrons around. Physics might describe only the latter, but it doesn't mean that addition is not a physical process, or that close examination of the calculator might not be a good approach to figuring out how addition is done by the moving around of electrons. Perhaps we should posit math faeries that are immune from examination and thus unfalsifiable.

You're not entirely wrong here. You seem to realize that if "physics" were the right answer to the question, "What is calculation?" we'd be forgetting that Materials don't "calculate" anything. It would indeed by "just moving electrons," then, for no rational agent would be present to interpret what those electrons in their various combinations meant.

But "meaning" is not a physical property either. If it were, you'd be able to show me the "meanometer," just like you could show me a "moralsometer," or a "personhoodometer." But though meaning, morals and personhood are real things, they do not conform to Materialist testing methods, because they are not materials.

Physical entities can't actually want things.
...
It's the metaphors that confuse, in that case. We need to stop allowing Physicalists to speak of wants.

This is not a biased view?

No. It's merely telling people to say what they really mean, instead of confusing their own minds with metaphors. We're doing them a favour, actually. If they are held to literal terms, then they are far more likely to be able to detect the strengths and weaknesses of their own ideas.

What possible non-begging definition of 'want' might you have that would back this assertion? It is not a metaphor. The fact that a person's wants are a function of causal physics does not invalidate the label of 'wanting' to the process.

It means the person doesn't do the "wanting" at all. Rather, the prior cause of the desire does the causing of the (apparent) desire: the person is merely an automaton then.

Of course, I think that that is nonsense. But much of Determinism is. Its real attraction (to those looking for pat answers) is its simplicity; its fault is its oversimplification of human life and experience.

Well, that's how Determinists have to think it is.

There it is. Waiting to be told how adherents to some opposing view must think.

For a philosopher, there is nothing wrong -- and everything right -- with showing a person what the logical outcome of his/her view actually is. It's not a matter of telling them what they CAN think; rather, if one gets the logic correct, it's a matter of showing them what they actually DO think and putting it in the light of its own logic.

For example, if one wants to be a Determinist, one needs to realize that Determinism does logically entail that things like morality, personhood, consciousness, meaning, justice, reason, fairness, love, and so on, are nothing more than mirages, really. At most, these words are some sorts of labels we give to weird side-effects produced by material causality; but the real truth is that we are all just dancing like marionettes on the strings of prior causes, so these words mean nothing more than that. Then, if they're willing to pay the logical price entailed by their beliefs, they can stay Determinists if they want. So we're not telling them what to do.

However, I should point out that I've never met anyone who can actually take that bargain. Determinism is unliveable. And I would say that's as good an empirical, sociological statement and you're ever going to find.

So maybe then we can ask them, "Are you really sure you want to think that at all?" A fair question, to be sure, and can be quite freeing if they take it seriously.

[Harbal]

Determined atheism is the only true path.

[Immanuel Can]

Determined atheism is the only true path.

If it's "determined," then there IS no other path anyone can take but the one they do.

And even if they appear to "change," that's not really a change, because the (apparent) change itself was determined.

[Harbal]

If it's "determined," then there IS no other path anyone can take but the one they do.

And even if they appear to "change," that's not really a change, because the (apparent) change itself was determined.

Whatever. Your red button was showing and I couldn't help pushing it.

[uwot]

My objection to determinism has always been that theoretically it should be possible to build a computer of such staggering capacity that it could determine from your brain state exactly what you are going to do next. Not only that, it should be able to tell you, and you would be powerless to do anything else. That may be the case, but I'm reasonably confident I would retain the wherewithal to say 'Bollocks to that, I'm off down the pub.'

[Harbal]

but I'm reasonably confident I would retain the wherewithal to say 'Bollocks to that, I'm off down the pub.'

But what if the computer told you that you were going to go to the pub? Would you still do it then?

[uwot]

But what if the computer told you that you were going to go to the pub? Would you still do it then?

Yeah.

[Hobbes' Choice]

but I'm reasonably confident I would retain the wherewithal to say 'Bollocks to that, I'm off down the pub.'

But what if the computer told you that you were going to go to the pub? Would you still do it then?

I'd be determined not to.
OR determined to depending on how I felt.

[Dubious]

Determined atheism is the only true path.

If it's "determined," then there IS no other path anyone can take but the one they do.

And even if they appear to "change," that's not really a change, because the (apparent) change itself was determined.

...which implies that what was initially determined re-determines itself and so determinism as a rule prevails. There seems to be a lot of free will in determinism. Free Will vs Determinism seems to yield a perspective based on whether your looking from the inside out or the outside in.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Determined atheism is the only true path.

If it's "determined," then there IS no other path anyone can take but the one they do.

And even if they appear to "change," that's not really a change, because the (apparent) change itself was determined.

...which implies that what was initially determined re-determines itself again and so determinism prevails. There seems to be a lot of free will in determinism.

We all exercise our will, but it is questionable what value the adjective "free" has, and what role it plays.

[Dubious]

If it's "determined," then there IS no other path anyone can take but the one they do.

And even if they appear to "change," that's not really a change, because the (apparent) change itself was determined.

...which implies that what was initially determined re-determines itself again and so determinism prevails. There seems to be a lot of free will in determinism.

We all exercise our will, but it is questionable what value the adjective "free" has, and what role it plays.

The will is only free to the level it remains unconfined by the enclosures of necessity where only one outcome may be possible and only within that space are decisions made...as I see it. God and Freewill as concepts have been completely buried in bullshit philosophy. One can talk for the next 10,000 years about the same useless abstractions which have absolutely no reference to how the past determines the present or how the latter calculates the future all based on the collectivity of the individual wills in operation. Determinism vis-a-vis pre-determinism is contingent on how the will rules itself which implies a requisite level of freedom to do just that.

[Noax]

=And even if [paths] appear to "change," that's not really a change, because the (apparent) change itself was determined.

How do you define change??? Example of change (a deterministic one of sorts): Tall lit candle, and a short lit candle later on. That's change: a different in the state of a thing over time. You're denying that the candle thus changes because deterministic physics are involved? Probably not, but then I don't know how you're using the word 'change'.

[Belinda]

Dubious wrote:

The will is only free to the level it remains unconfined by the enclosures of necessity where only one outcome may be possible and only within that space are decisions made...as I see it. God and Freewill as concepts have been completely buried in bullshit philosophy. One can talk for the next 10,000 years about the same useless abstractions which have absolutely no reference to how the past determines the present or how the latter calculates the future all based on the collectivity of the individual wills in operation. Determinism vis-a-vis pre-determinism is contingent on how the will rules itself which implies a requisite level of freedom to do just that.

But "the will" is not an entity like the brain, or like some brain chemical is an entity. Talk about 'the will' is a example of how language misleads us. We can often will some event to happen and if we will it strongly enough and have the means to accomplish it then that event will probably eventualise. At no stage in the process from our willing something to happen to the event happening did some anatomical or ghostly structure called "The Will" play any part, as such an anatomical structure or such a ghost does not exist.

Or, in other words, willing is something we do. It is an activity like breathing is an activity ; and when we want to be precise like medics are precise we don't talk about breathing instead we specify exchange of gases, or how the intercostal muscles and diaphragm are functioning, or how open the airway is.

[henry quirk]

"We choose, but we do not choose how we choose. We choose, but we do not “make choices”. The choices come to us, appear before our consciousness, during the course of the unfolding of events, the rolling revelation to ourselves of our personal script."

"Similarly with "self-direction". When you think of yourself as making a decision, what you're really doing is finding out what it is that you're going to find yourself doing."

No, that's not my experience at all...choosing, directing, these are what I do, not what happen to me.


"Try a bit of introspection at the moment of choice or decision and then tell me I'm wrong!"

Self-interrogation is sumthin' I do regularly, Dave and so I know 'you're wrong!'


"And then tell me, in detail, of your experience of "choosing"."

If you deny you're own experience of choosing and self-direction, nuthin' I'm gonna post will change your mind. In effect, you deny fire burns, even as your hand cooks in the flame. What can I offer in the face of such wrong-headedness?