Free will and determinism

[Bradskii]

I totally agree. I'm the product of antecedent events. I've never said that I'm not. I'm an apathetic, socially dysfunctional, ignorant white male. None of which were of my own choosing. Likewise everything that I like or dislike, love or hate, believe or disbelieve, can be traced back to those antecedent events. But all that's saying is that this is how I came to be me, gee... what a surprise.

All is good so far.

However, as previously stated, even if I laid out every one of those antecedent events for you, you still wouldn't be able to predict what number I'm thinking of. Nor would you be able to predict what my next sentence is going to be...

Yet again...predictability has nothing to do with free will. Just because no-one can predict what you will do does not make it indeterminate and it does not confirm that free will exists.

Are you going to make me repeat myself again?

 

[christian-surfer]

Nobody is arguing that you can't make choices. But every choice that you make will depend on antecedent conditions. Which will include internal states, such tiredness, anger, love, hunger etc. Maybe you had a bad day at the office. Maybe you got a raise. Maybe you haven't eaten all day. Maybe you grew up in a tough neighbourhood. Maybe your family was well off or maybe your mother was a single parent. Maybe you've had a couple of drinks. Maybe your testosterone levels are

And you have no control over them. You can't choose to desire something. You either want it or you don't. You can't choose to be in a good mood. You either are or you're not, depending on the circumstances, which are not under your control. You can't choose to not fear something. You can choose to overcome a fear but not to be fearless. You can't will yourself to not desire something.

If you are in a bad mood or you are angry or desiring something, you may have doubts about those mental states. If you feel that there are negative aspects of various states of mind then you can pray about those, you can practice various meditation methods, listen to certain self help books that are relavent, various sections of scripture, discuss problems with others, etc. sometimes if you help others then you are not focused on your problems. You may realize that other people have similar or worse problems. The effect of such practices may seem weak day to day, but by doing them constantly it can cause significant changes. Many people experience the same negative suffering but not everyone reacts to it the same, not everyone responds to it in the same way.

There are meditations for instance to help overcome anger. If I feel irritated then I may listen to an audio of the biblical psalms or a particular Buddhist scripture. Doing so often decreases the feeling of irritation. The result of doing such things on a regular basis has larger effects in the long term. There are numerous approaches to similar stress factors. You may not overcome suffering strictly speaking but it gives you a healthier attitude about it. As the Dalai Lama said: mental suffering is worse than physical suffering. If we have the right attitude or have a cause then physical suffering is easier to deal with.

Some desires we may also associate with unhealthy outcomes. If I realize that at my age too much sugar is harmful, then by focusing on negative health outcomes from sugar, the desire for sweet foods may decrease. I can also do things to discipline myself. Suppose I embark on a canoe journey down a wild river in the wilderness for a few days. Maybe I have some desire for ice cream on the river but there is no ice cream, gradually the desire fades. Perhaps I allow myself a small amount of ice cream say once a month but I have determined that much more than that is not healthy.

 

[partinobodycular]

Are you going to make me repeat myself again?

So you're saying that I have a choice?

Yet again...predictability has nothing to do with free will. Just because no-one can predict what you will do does not make it indeterminate and it does not confirm that free will exists.

And I'll repeat my self... I never said that anything was indeterminate. I clearly stated that it's my position that determinism and free will are completely compatible. So your repeated references to determinism are irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.

The problem with the mind isn't that it's an indeterminate system, but rather that it's a complex system in which the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Wherein the output can't be determined via the input even though it'll follow from the input. Hence the only way to know what the mind is going to do, is simply to wait and see what the mind is going to do.

Complex system

In such a complex system the initial conditions don't determine the outcome, the system does, even though the system is itself a product of those initial conditions.

 

[Bradskii]

So you're saying that I have a choice?

Always.

And I'll repeat my self... I never said that anything was indeterminate.

Yet in the very next sentence you say:

Wherein the output can't be determined via the input even though it'll follow from the input.

The output is always determined (unless it's random). And be careful that you are not confusing the term 'determined' with 'predicted'.

In such a complex system the initial conditions don't determine the outcome, the system does, even though the system is itself a product of those initial conditions.

That's incorrect. The initial conditions, if repeated exactly, will always result in the same outcome. Although they can't be predicted, they are determined.

 

[partinobodycular]

That's incorrect. The initial conditions, if repeated exactly, will always result in the same outcome. Although they can't be predicted, they are determined.

This is the glaring flaw in your argument. If the initial conditions are repeated exactly then the outcome will ALWAYS be predictable, UNLESS the initial conditions are such that determinism in the manner that you're describing it, is impossible. As I see it this can only happen for one of two reasons, either the initial conditions of the system simply don't exist to the degree of accuracy that your level of determinism requires, (hence they can't be repeated because we don't know them) or the laws governing the evolution of the system aren't accurate enough to produce that level of determinism. (Yes, I'm aware that the laws are descriptive not prescriptive, but hopefully you get what I'm saying.)

But in either case, the instant that a system becomes unpredictable your level of determinism becomes impossible. The system is still technically deterministic, it's just that the number of ways that the system can evolve becomes greater than one. In which case we have to look for something other than the initial conditions to explain the evolution of the system. The seemingly obvious explanation is... it's random. But in the case of a conscious being neither determinism nor randomness accounts for the role that that conscious being plays in the system's evolution.

Hence we end up with a situation in which you can't possibly tell what number I'm thinking of, and yet I can assure you that the number wasn't chosen at random. If those two things are both true then the system is neither explicitly deterministic nor random... and a reasonable explanation is that conscious agents have free will. They're actions are simply too complex to be determined by the initial conditions alone. Therefore there must be an emergent property that we refer to as free will. I.E. a causal agent that isn't directly dependent for there actions upon antecedent events.

 

[Bradskii]

This is the glaring flaw in your argument. If the initial conditions are repeated exactly then the outcome will ALWAYS be predictable...

Why do so many people have problems with hypotheticals..?

UNLESS the initial conditions are such that determinism in the manner that you're describing it, is impossible. As I see it this can only happen for one of two reasons, either the initial conditions of the system simply don't exist to the degree of accuracy that your level of determinism requires...

We're not repeating them. It's a hypothetical!

But in either case, the instant that a system becomes unpredictable your level of determinism becomes impossible.

No! Non predictability doesn't equate with indeterminism! A system doesn't have to be unpredictable to be deterministic. Predictability is completely and totally irrelevant.

The system is still technically deterministic, it's just that the number of ways that the system can evolve becomes greater than one.

That's simply nonsense. You are saying that a deterministic system is...indeterminate. If a system is not random then it's deterministic. If it's deterministic then there is only one outcome. Can it be predicted? No. But again, That's utterly irrelevant.

Hence we end up with a situation in which you can't possibly tell what number I'm thinking of, and yet I can assure you that the number wasn't chosen at random.

Of course I can't tell you. So what? But if it wasn't chosen at random then there was a reason for you choosing it. An antecedent condition was the reason. It determined your choice. Hey, here's an idea. Think of a number. Tell me:

a: If it was randomly chosen - in which case there was no free will involved.
b: The reason why you chose it. Tall me the antecedent condition(s) which determined your choice.

I'll wait here while you think about it.

 

[partinobodycular]

Why do so many people have problems with hypotheticals..?

I don't have a problem with it. It's a great hypothetical. Let's go with it.

If the conditions are in fact repeatable... even hypothetically, then the outcome HAS TO BE predictable. Why? Because to be repeatable the conditions have to be knowable, and if they're knowable then the outcome WILL BE predictable. The only time that the outcome isn't predictable is when the conditions can't be determined to a sufficiently high degree to make prediction possible.

But in your hypothetical the conditions are exactly the same, not just close or unknown.

No! Non predictability doesn't equate with indeterminism!

Right, and I keep agreeing with you. But what unpredictability does tell you is that in a given system you have insufficient information, either because of a lack of information concerning the initial conditions, or because one or more of the variables will produce a 'random' outcome.

It's only when neither of those two conditions exist that a system becomes predictable. Your problem is that you're acting as if those two things never occur and determinism will proceed unerringly from the beginning of the universe until the end. That's a heck of a naive leap of faith, and completely overlooks the fact that some things are indeed unpredictable. That very fact tells you that your omniscient version of determinism is wrong, the past doesn't determine the future, in the case of conscious agents it simply influences it.

Determinism tells you how a system will evolve SO LONG AS the initial conditions exist to a sufficient degree of certainty, and no 'random' events will occur. But lacking those two things, the system is going to behave probabilistically, which is determinism with a caveat... you don't know what's going to happen... until it happens.

Which means that you can't possibly know from the antecedent events whether I'm going to choose 1234 as the number that I'm thinking of, or 4321. And because of that, the future isn't written in stone (or antecedent events), and neither is what I'm going to do in any given circumstance.

You are saying that a deterministic system is...indeterminate.

Nope. I'm saying that it's probabilistic... they're not mutually exclusive. It's just that in one the number of possible outcomes is greater than one, and so we're left with the question of 'Why this one, and not that one'. Now when it comes to conscious choices we could simply chalk this lack of clarity up to its being random, or we can take these conscious choices for what they seem to be... the product of my free will.

But if it wasn't chosen at random then there was a reason for you choosing it.

Correct, but being probabilistic means that the reason for choosing it wasn't determined by the antecedent events, it was simply influenced by them. Now you can call it a random choice if you want to, or you can call it a free will choice... the problem is, there's no way to tell the difference. Except of of course, in the mind of the person who made the choice... did it feel random, or did it feel like you were the one choosing?

a: If it was randomly chosen - in which case there was no free will involved.
b: The reason why you chose it. Tall me the antecedent condition(s) which determined your choice.

I'll wait here while you think about it.

You forgot c: it was determined by my free will.

 

[Bradskii]

You forgot c: it was determined by my free will.

Then tell me the reason why you chose it.

 

[partinobodycular]

Then tell me the reason why you chose it.

Honestly, because this is a debate forum, and your position seemed a bit presumptuous to me, so I thought that I'd take the opposite one. I could just as easily have argued the anti-free will position if the roles were reversed. Remember, I'm a solipsist, I'm agnostic on pretty much everything, so don't be surprised if I take the exact opposite position at some point in the future. It's just the way I am.

Now you're going to assert that this tendency is due to antecedent conditions/events, and indeed to a large part it is. Heck, I'll even grant you that pretty much everything about me is at least an indirect result of antecedent conditions. But what I won't grant you is that there's a direct correlation between input and output. In other words, I'm more than the sum of those antecedent parts. This is true for me as a whole, and this is true for the choices that I make. Antecedent events influence who I am and what I do, but they don't dictate who I am and what I do. That privilege falls under the authority of an intellectually independent agent that I refer to as 'me'. As evidence for that I'm going to assert that there's no way to know what I'm going to do until I actually do it, because antecedent events be damned, I'll do what I darn well please.

Now this attitude may well have been influenced by antecedent events, but I claim it as unequivocally mine and mine alone.

 

[Occams Barber]

I'm more than the sum of those antecedent parts.

Your car is also more than the sum of its parts, but I doubt that even you would attribute it with free will. The only way you can assert free will for you, or the universe, is to argue for a non-material force, something super-natural - with the ability to manipulate the rules of physics. To do something other than what is determined by physical laws requires a power which can transcend physical laws. If this is what you believe you are actually a deist of sorts.

That privilege falls under the authority of an intellectually independent agent that I refer to as 'me'. As evidence for that I'm going to assert that there's no way to know what I'm going to do until I actually do it,

Determinism and predictability are two different things. If all humans disappeared from the universe the universe would cease to be predictable since there is no-one to predict. It would still however be deterministic.

Throughout this thread your inability to differentiate between determinism and predictability has become a major stumbling block to understanding the impossibility of free will.

OB

 

[Bradskii]

Antecedent events influence who I am and what I do, but they don't dictate who I am and what I do.

Yes, they do. From your culture to your parents, your dna, your foetal development, your experiences as a child, your mother's diet when you were in the womb, the neighbourhood in which you grew up, your education, the age in which you grew up, the country where you lived...literally everything about you - and none of the previous conditions were under your control, formed who you are. The person who is reading this.

When you make a decision, the antecedent conditions from a second or two before, to minutes before, to hours and days before, to years and generations and millennia before, determine your choices. If they were my conditions and mine were yours then you'd make the choices I would and I'd make yours. There's no 'you' separate from all this, somehow on the outside looking in and making decisions. That's dualism, plain and simple.

Notwithstanding that it only kicks the can down the Free Will Highway. This 'you' in the Cartesian theatre still makes decisions for reasons. Which are those antecedent conditions.

And you forgot to tell me why you chose a particular number.

 

[partinobodycular]

Yes, they do. From your culture to your parents, your dna, your foetal development, your experiences as a child, your mother's diet when you were in the womb, the neighbourhood in which you grew up, your education, the age in which you grew up, the country where you lived...literally everything about you - and none of the previous conditions were under your control, formed who you are. The person who is reading this.

But you've pushed this argument at least one step too far. Those things do indeed influence who I am, but I believe that you're mistaken if you think that they dictate exactly who I am. As I said, I'm more than the sum of my antecedent parts, and it's the things that can't be accounted for that are the source of my free will, and the idiosyncrasies of who I am.

I recently watched a video concerning the dangers of AI in which a pioneer of AI expressed his concerns for why we'll never be able to control AI's. He stated that you can train two AI models using the same app, the same data, and the same hardware, and you'll get two different results. Thus it was his contention that no matter how hard we try, we simply won't be able to predict what any particular AI will decide to do.

It's my contention that you're making a similar mistake, by assuming that the input dictates the output. I also contend that this is true both in the larger overview, concerning what constitutes me as a person, and in the short term concerning the choices that I make. You're making an assumption that simply isn't true... that even in complex systems the input will dictate the output. When in fact, in sufficiently complex systems the input will only give you the probability of any particular output.

And you forgot to tell me why you chose a particular number.

Well in my original post wherein I claimed that it's impossible to know what number I was thinking of... I never actually thought of a number.

 

[partinobodycular]

Your car is also more than the sum of its parts, but I doubt that even you would attribute it with free will.

My car, if I had one, wouldn't be conscious, try to keep your analogies reasonable.

The only way you can assert free will for you, or the universe, is to argue for a non-material force, something super-natural - with the ability to manipulate the rules of physics. To do something other than what is determined by physical laws requires a power which can transcend physical laws.

Question: Is it my thoughts, desires, biases, and emotions that are determining the things that I choose?

If the answer to that question is yes, then there are things in this universe that occur for no other reason than because I choose for them to.

Determinism and predictability are two different things...

Throughout this thread your inability to differentiate between determinism and predictability has become a major stumbling block to understanding the impossibility of free will.

Either that, or you're simply asserting that reality is deterministic and can therefore dismiss unpredictability as irrelevant. That's quite convenient for you, but is it true?

 

[Bradskii]

But you've pushed this argument at least one step too far. Those things do indeed influence who I am, but I believe that you're mistaken if you think that they dictate exactly who I am.

They do indeed. If not, what does?

As I said, I'm more than the sum of my antecedent parts, and it's the things that can't be accounted for that are the source of my free will, and the idiosyncrasies of who I am.

So what things are unaccounted for? You'll have to explain what they are. And please don't tell me that we don't know...

I recently watched a video concerning the dangers of AI in which a pioneer of AI expressed his concerns for why we'll never be able to control AI's. He stated that you can train two AI models using the same app, the same data, and the same hardware, and you'll get two different results. Thus it was his contention that no matter how hard we try, we simply won't be able to predict what any particular AI will decide to do.

Good grief, you really must stop using prediction in your posts. It is COMPLETELY irrelevant.

It's my contention that you're making a similar mistake, by assuming that the input dictates the output.

Yes. Input always determines output - unless there are random elements.

I also contend that this is true both in the larger overview, concerning what constitutes me as a person, and in the short term concerning the choices that I make.

Just give me a choice that you've made recently and we'll see what determined it.

 

[partinobodycular]

They do indeed. If not, what does?

So what things are unaccounted for? You'll have to explain what they are. And please don't tell me that we don't know...

There are no unaccounted for things, only an attribute that emerges from a specific collection of things. Keeping your lifestyle in mind, beer is more than just a bucket of barley, water, hops, and yeast. It is, through a proper combination of the aforementioned ingredients, something that some people seem to enjoy drinking.

In the case of antecedent events they only turn into a choice when filtered through the mind of a conscious agent. For example, burning bushes, and stone tablets only turn into a belief in an omniscient God in the minds of some suitably inclined humans. Absent a susceptible mind all you've got is an unconvincing scam.

The operative ingredient here is the mind. So on second thought, there is an unaccounted for thing... the conscious mind.

Good grief, you really must stop using prediction in your posts. It is COMPLETELY irrelevant.

The thing is, unpredictability only becomes irrelevant if one is wedded to the idea of hard determinism. However, if you're a solipsist like me, then determinism may simply be a byproduct of something else, and unpredictability a perfectly logical result of that 'something else'. And before you ask what that something else is, I'd nominate the quantum nature of reality, with the inherent uncertainty that it seems to entail, with that uncertainty manifesting itself as unpredictability. In other words, there may be things for which the problem isn't simply that we don't know, rather the problem is that it's actually unknowable.

Yes. Input always determines output - unless there are random elements.

I got it. That's the gist of your argument. And the gist of mine is... nope. And once again, before you ask, if input always determines output, then use determinism to explain the existence of the conscious mind.

Just give me a choice that you've made recently and we'll see what determined it.

This sentence.

 

[Bradskii]

In the case of antecedent events they only turn into a choice when filtered through the mind of a conscious agent.

What a trite thing to say. We're talking about us - you know...Homo Sapiens. Conscious agents. So we agree that antecedent events determine choices when those choices are made by you or me. Conscious agents. As opposed to some slime mould or a banana.

However, if you're a solipsist like me, then determinism may simply be a byproduct of something else, and unpredictability a perfectly logical result of that 'something else'.

That literally makes no sense.

And before you ask what that something else is, I'd nominate the quantum nature of reality, with the inherent uncertainty that it seems to entail, with that uncertainty manifesting itself as unpredictability. In other words, there may be things for which the problem isn't simply that we don't know, rather the problem is that it's actually unknowable.

Completely irrelevant. How many fishes are there in the Pacific right now? I've no idea. It's 'unknowable'. If I ask you to make a choice on something unknowable, how does that relate to free will in any way, shape or form? It doesn't. Not in the slightest.

I got it. That's the gist of your argument. And the gist of mine is... nope. And once again, before you ask, if input always determines output, then use determinism to explain the existence of the conscious mind.

It's part of the process of evolution. This follows from that which followed from the other...all the way back. It's about as deterministic as anything you could possibly imagine.

This sentence.

So why did you write it? What prompted you to type those words? What determined your decision to do so?

 

[partinobodycular]

So why did you write it? What prompted you to type those words? What determined your decision to do so?

Angie Dickinson

 

[Bradskii]

Angie Dickinson

I think that you need to be a little less obscure.

 

[partinobodycular]

I think that you need to be a little less obscure.

Ya think? The first one seems random, even to me, but technically it wasn't random. In the context of the question you asked, it makes perfect sense. But it's just something that popped into my head. Exactly why... I have no idea.

The second one is a reference so obscure that nobody would understand what it's referring to except me. But again, it just popped into my head, but in the context of the question it makes perfect sense... at least to me.

Technically they're not random, but they're not consciously generated either. They were consciously selected however, meaning that I could've rejected them... I just chose not to.

So, pray tell, why did I choose those two responses?

 

[Bradskii]

So, pray tell, why did I choose those two responses?

Why on earth do you you think I'd know? The question being asked is directed to you because you are the only person who does know. So please explain the reasons that determined your choice.

This is blazingly simple. If it wasn't random then tell us why you chose it.