Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Nov 26, 2024 4:03 pm
If you don't understand the relevance, I'll be happy to show it's not only relevant but conclusive.
Try to create an actual infinite regress on paper. Count backwards from 0...-1...-2...but don't write any number until the earlier number has already been written. And email me again when you finally get to write your first number.
QED.
One white swan does not demonstrate that all swans are white, especially since Zeno came up with counterexamples that dismantle your argument. Also, the issue of infinite regress was never part of my point or is anything I brought up or proposed. Hence my still calling it all irrelevant to my point.
I am not claiming infinite regress, nor am I denying that uncaused events occur.
Every choice has a "basis," but that "basis" is never the total explanation of why the decision goes the way it does.
Agree. I am not worried about why the decision goes one way or the other. But I am saying that the basis contributes to the choice made.
Staring at the $5, your wife has a choice. One thing should could "base" it on is her desire for coffee. Another is her desire for parking. Another is her desire for you to retain your $5. All of those choices are "based on" things: but which one, which "basis" will she choose to respond to? You don't know.
Fine. Agree with all that. It's what having a choice is all about. It's not what distinguishes choice from free choice, which, as I've said, depends on some definitions, and your definition (talking about initiating a new causal chain) seems to be akin to 'not a function of basis'.
If Determinism were true, there would be no such thing as any genuine choice, ever.
'Genuine choice' has not been defined. If you mean free choice, then say that. Sans definition, the statement is taken as 'choice', and there very much is choice even under determinism. Perhaps an example distinguishing genuine choice vs false choice would help clarify this term.
Maybe the difference is an anthropocentric one. Non-hispanic humans are the preferred species. If a non-Hispanic human makes a choice, it's genuine. If anything else does, it's not genuine. Please pick something other than that.
When philosophers speak of "free will," they don't mean there are no physical conditions or even reasons to choose one thing or another, just as in the case of your wife and the $5. They mean that within all the prior conditions, the choice still ultimately happens by way of human volition, not merely by cause-effect of physical prerequisites, as in Determinism.
You listed several physical conditions and/or reasons to choose one thing or another with the $3 example. Yes, even under deterministic physics (as much as in random physics), the choice happens under volition, human or otherwise. Volition under natural physics is implemented with physical processes. It might not in the physics you envision, but that doesn't stop any interpretation from being an example of volition.
You've still not defined free will, but it appears in this comment to be something like <not a function of natural physics> which is more in line with the typical definition, as opposed to 'initiate a new causal chain' which makes no sense at all, and has been the point of my comments.
What Determinists think is that you only imagine you have will, but you really don't.
Will is what you want to do. Of course you have that. It's totally evident. Even a frog has it. How it works seems to be the issue at hand. Volition is the connection between that will and the action resulting from it. That's also present in both interpretations. The difference is it being free or not, and yet again, that is dependent on definitions of that word.
What you really have is causality making anything but one choice impossible.
Even under non-deterministic physics, yes. I've never seen somebody make anything but one choice. Attempts perhaps, but in the end it's still one choice. MWI (totally deterministic BTW) let's you make more than one choice, but the definition of 'you' becomes gray in that scenario. I don't think you're an MWI fan any more than I am, but I doubt you can name an interpretation you prefer (Wigner???) since I can't think of one that supports your view.
You talk about determinists being self-deceived, but that's only if they're wrong, just like you'd be deceived if they (or even the non-deterministic naturalists) are right. Your assertions about the deception beg your view, and are thus fallacious.
if all things are predetermined
How is 'predetermined' distinct from 'determined'?
You seem to be under the impression that I support determinism, and that it is something you need to shoot down. All I am doing is pointing out an inconsistency in your description of the word 'free', be it your definition or not.
