Does determinism really negate free will?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

.. and how did you acquire the knowledge that what you're seeing is 'a dog'? Or do you just believe what you're seeing is 'a dog'?

The knowledge is acquired from numerous experiences of creatures that people call dogs. Over time one learns the common features that distinguish dogs, in their various forms, from other creatures. It's basically just pattern matching. Whether it's a matter of belief depends on what you mean by that - if I'm totally convinced that a creature is a dog, then I presumably believe that it's a dog. If I just think it looks like a dog, I may not necessarily believe that it's a dog (except in the colloquial sense).

 

[SelfSim]

The knowledge is acquired from numerous experiences of creatures that people call dogs. Over time one learns the common features that distinguish dogs, in their various forms, from other creatures. It's basically just pattern matching. Whether it's a matter of belief depends on what you mean by that - if I'm totally convinced that a creature is a dog, then I presumably believe that it's a dog. If I just think it looks like a dog, I may not necessarily believe that it's a dog (except in the colloquial sense).

So how are you going to go about ascertaining whether it is a dog or whether its not a dog?

 

[Chesterton]

Judging from his response, it seems he also saw the flaw in it, as we both came to the same conclusion ... even though you still aren't prepared to see that we have the benefit of an abundance of evidence to support the notion that human minds are the source of the meanings of 'benefits' and 'detriments' and that meanings aren't just 'things' floating around in space or something .. waiting for us to discover.

I'm fully prepared to see this abundance of evidence.

I have to seriously ask the question: Do you accept the explanation that you were taught the meanings of common words by other humans, as you aged? (Ie: you weren't born with some innate language knowledge, when it comes to word meanings?)
Do you acknowledge that its this same process, repeated over and over again, that also results in dictionary definitions and also; that dictionaries also always contain multiple meanings for a given word, and they always disclose those multiple meanings as being dependent on the context of that word's usage?

I accept most of that, except that words always disclose multiple meanings. I should say I eventually accepted that, because early on I would disregard the teachings and assign my own meanings to words. I could could give you countless examples where hilarity ensued from this, and by "hilarity" I mean time spent in juvenile detention centers.

If so, (I hope you do), then why would do you exclude 'benefit' and 'deteriment' from that same process?

I didn't.

And yet, you seem oblivious to what we can all see .. ie: that its you who is (attempting) to give it that meaning .. even though in your previous post, you denied that you do that .. yet you state above that you do (see my underline).

I'd like to know how you access 'transcendent reality' when you presumably have the same five senses we all have, which are a fundamental part of how we go about giving 'reality' its meaning, too? Oh .. on second thoughts .. don't bother. I can already demonstrate that 'transcendent reality' is just something you believe in .. ie: its just another belief.

I don't know how you concluded that I'm oblivious to something I myself posted about myself.

 

[Chesterton]

That's basically what I said, the macro-scale world is emergent - so it's quite reasonable to say the idea of free will is emergent (if not particularly helpful). It might be more interesting to question whether it's an innate feeling or is emergent at a social or cultural level, but, meh.

You didn't answer my question.

What happens is that things change according to relationships described by physical laws - e.g. Newton's law of gravity describes how the force between masses depends on, and changes with, their mass and separation, his laws of motion obviously describe change, and so on. So if you slipped off your roof and fell to the ground, your altitude would change, some of your gravitational potential energy would change into kinetic energy, some of that kinetic energy would change into material deformation and heat, the number of broken bones you had might change, the amount of pain you were in would change, and your level of consciousness and/or confusion might change.

Yes, all that goes without saying. What I'm saying is that if there is a chain of events wherein a cause causes an effect and that effect causes an effect, and if physical laws regulate every aspect of what's happening, nothing can ever change. The future is set in stone, as is the past and present.

You asked me what would be beneficial or detrimental in a universe without life - I said they were human values, expecting that you'd see that there wouldn't be humans in a universe without life, and so those concepts wouldn't exist.

You've told me how you're programmed by mindless forces to feel about the effects of mindless forces. That also doesn't answer the question.

Why? Your perceptions are subjective and fundamental to how you experience the world; your feelings are subjective and fundamental to what things mean to you. Objectively, people may agree that the word 'dog' refers to a particular kind of mammal, but 'dog' may have very different subjective meanings for individuals, e.g. friendly, loyal, much-loved family pet, or scary, noisy, unpredictable, smelly, with a vicious bite; i.e. they feel very differently about them.

Show some dignity. You're a man of science. If I want to talk about feelings I'll talk to my girlfriend.

Incorrect. I suggest that if you want to know what I'm devoted to, you ask me.

I would like to know.

 

[Chesterton]

I was pretty sure that you were bemoaning a lack of meaning in a deterministic milieu, apart from anything Frumious was saying. Is that so?

If so, could you express what youd be missing in terms of an example?

If otoh you dont think a lack of meaning is a problem for the deterministic outlook, then sorry I keep bothering you with this.

Yes, I'm trying to point out the lack of meaning in determinism.

So, do you agree or disagree that a rock laying on the ground has no meaning? I don't mean meaning to a human, I mean a meaning in and of itself.

 

[SelfSim]

So, do you agree or disagree that a rock laying on the ground has no meaning? I don't mean meaning to a human, I mean a meaning in and of itself.

So you're not a human .. looking at what you mean by 'a rock laying on the ground' then?

Seriously, I really do wonder whether people ever even read what they write(?)

 

[durangodawood]

Yes, I'm trying to point out the lack of meaning in determinism.

So, do you agree or disagree that a rock laying on the ground has no meaning? I don't mean meaning to a human, I mean a meaning in and of itself.

Minds find meaning. I don't think things have meaning in and of themselves, apart from minds.

 

[Chesterton]

Another contradiction/paradox?

I don't think things have meaning in and of themselves, apart from minds.

Minds find meaning.

You can't find something that doesn't exist. Maybe you meant to say minds invent meaning? Discoveries and inventions are two different things. And maybe you meant to say "brains" instead of "minds"? I can't conceive of a mind being an entity in a materialistic universe.

 

[durangodawood]

You can't find something that doesn't exist. Maybe you meant to say minds invent meaning? Discoveries and inventions are two different things. And maybe you meant to say "brains" instead of "minds"? I can't conceive of a mind being an entity in a materialistic universe.

I meant "find" as in I find this thing interesting. Or I found joy in that. I can see how it was not a good word choice.

Yes, the meaning is a product of the mind, imo. (And I do mean mind. I can well imagine a material universe producing a mind. Once a brain is trained to make a model of itself for the purpose of representing its position in the world both physically and socially, well then we're off to the races!)

 

[Chesterton]

I meant "find" as in I find this thing interesting. Or I found joy in that. I can see how it was not a good word choice.

Yes, the meaning is a product of the mind, imo.

But you're doing the same thing in this clarification. To find a thing indicates that the thing is external to the one doing the finding. Then you say that the mind produces it, then finds it?

(And I do mean mind. I can well imagine a material universe producing a mind. Once a brain is trained to make a model of itself for the purpose of representing its position in the world both physically and socially, well then we're off to the races!)

AFAIK, no anatomist has ever located a mind in the human body. Where did the universe put it after it produced it?

 

[durangodawood]

But you're doing the same thing in this clarification. To find a thing indicates that the thing is external to the one doing the finding. Then you say that the mind produces it, then finds it?

Forget "find" then. I could go down a rabbit hole about how I think we use the word. But theres no need. With respect to meaning, I think the mind makes it.

AFAIK, no anatomist has ever located a mind in the human body. Where did the universe put it after it produced it?

Thats like cutting up legs to find running. Mind is an operation, not a thing. Thats how it seems to me anyway.

 

[Chesterton]

Forget "find" then. I could go down a rabbit hole about how I think we use the word. But theres no need. With respect to meaning, I think the mind makes it.

And what makes the mind? The same particles and same laws that make rocks. The same mindless physical things. But you think the mind can produce meaning and rocks can't. Why?

 

[durangodawood]

And what makes the mind? The same particles and same laws that make rocks. The same mindless physical things. But you think the mind can produce meaning and rocks can't. Why?

I was responding originally to your concern about meaning. This might be a good time to describe precisely what you mean by "meaning", so we dont carry on at cross purposes. This term can be pretty vague and user dependent.

 

[The happy Objectivist]

It seems as if most people believe that if reality is deterministic then there's no such thing as free will, which seems like a fairly straight forward assumption, but is it in fact true?

Does determinism mean that under the same circumstances you couldn't have made any other choice or does it simply mean that under the same circumstances you wouldn't have made any other choice? You would still have free will, it's just that given the same circumstances you would freely make the same choice, and this would hold true in every set of circumstances. So deterministic or not, you would always make the same choice.

To argue that determinism negates free will seems to suggest that there's some neurotic form of you that's never sure what it's going to do. That's totally unpredictable. Would you rather that that's the case, that your will is totally neurotic? Or would you prefer that determinism simply means that what you choose to do, would always be what you would choose to do.

So, then the question becomes even harder, how do you tell the difference between a reality in which you're forced to always make the same choice, and one in which you would always freely make the same choice, wouldn't they look the same?

On an events based view of causality; yes. On a proper understanding of causality, i.e., the actions based view of causality, no. By events based I mean the classic billiard ball conception of causality. One event precedes and causes another event. On the actions based view of causality, a thing's nature or identity determines the type of actions it can take. On the actions based view, actions are determined, not by antecedent events but by the nature of the thing that acts. So, on this view, man's will is free because he is acting in accordance with his nature, i.e., a being with a volitional form of consciousness. His will is free because that's the type of will he has, a volitional one. Free will, on this view, is the ability of man to think or not, to recognize facts or evade, to focus his mind or volitionally defocus it to evade some fact that is not pleasant or desirable.

For instance, you may be reading this in a state of meandering attention, not really grasping what I've said or you can focus your mind fully and really read and analyze what I'm saying. You can say that you don't like what I'm saying and ignore it in the hopes that it will not be true. Or, you can analyze it, look at it from every angle, consider the entire range of available facts and come to some conclusion. That is your free will, essentially. Your conceptual faculty is the part of your consciousness that you have control over. Other parts of your consciousness are not free. Perceptions are not free, emotions are not free. They are automatic. If man did not possess a volitional form of consciousness his will would not be free. If like the other animals, he had reached only the perceptual level of consciousness his will would not be free.

 

[partinobodycular]

On an events based view of causality; yes. On a proper understanding of causality, i.e., the actions based view of causality, no. By events based I mean the classic billiard ball conception of causality. One event precedes and causes another event. On the actions based view of causality, a thing's nature or identity determines the type of actions it can take. On the actions based view, actions are determined, not by antecedent events but by the nature of the thing that acts. So, on this view, man's will is free because he is acting in accordance with his nature, i.e., a being with a volitional form of consciousness. His will is free because that's the type of will he has, a volitional one. Free will, on this view, is the ability of man to think or not, to recognize facts or evade, to focus his mind or volitionally defocus it to evade some fact that is not pleasant or desirable.

For instance, you may be reading this in a state of meandering attention, not really grasping what I've said or you can focus your mind fully and really read and analyze what I'm saying. You can say that you don't like what I'm saying and ignore it in the hopes that it will not be true. Or, you can analyze it, look at it from every angle, consider the entire range of available facts and come to some conclusion. That is your free will, essentially. Your conceptual faculty is the part of your consciousness that you have control over. Other parts of your consciousness are not free. Perceptions are not free, emotions are not free. They are automatic. If man did not possess a volitional form of consciousness his will would not be free. If like the other animals, he had reached only the perceptual level of consciousness his will would not be free.

I really, really like this answer. I can see where a strict determinist would have some problems with it, but I like it. I admit that I'm still trying to flesh it out, but it's definitely food for thought.

However...

It's this last line that I have to question.

If like the other animals, he had reached only the perceptual level of consciousness his will would not be free.

To me this seems like an assumption. How do you know that some animals can't conceptualize future outcomes and choose accordingly? I'm reminded of an example of @Bradskii's wherein his dog would join him on his run if Bradskii chose to go one way, but would go back to the porch if Bradskii chose to go another way.

How does this not demonstrate a free will choice?

How are human choices different?

 

[Chesterton]

I was responding originally to your concern about meaning. This might be a good time to describe precisely what you mean by "meaning", so we dont carry on at cross purposes. This term can be pretty vague and user dependent.

I gave a short response to you about this in post #287. My original concern was to ask Frumious how he gets meaning from mindless particles which have no meaning. Of course it's a rhetorical question, because obviously you can't. It's only a difficult question worth considering, by people who suffer from the cognitive dissonance of really wanting to think they are robots but deep down know they aren't.

 

[SelfSim]

And what makes the mind? The same particles and same laws that make rocks. The same mindless physical things. But you think the mind can produce meaning and rocks can't. Why?

Because the model we use for 'a mind', includes the attribute/function of being capable of updating its own knowledge with new meanings whenever new information becomes available to it.

The model we have for 'a rock', doesn't have such attributes/functions.

 

[Chesterton]

Because the model we use for 'a mind', includes the attribute/function of being capable of updating its own knowledge with new meanings whenever new information becomes available to it.

The model we have for 'a rock', doesn't have such attributes/functions.

Rocks can change, too.

 

[SelfSim]

I gave a short response to you about this in post #287. My original concern was to ask Frumious how he gets meaning from mindless particles which have no meaning. Of course it's a rhetorical question, because obviously you can't.

I can because I acknowledge the volumes of evidence which clearly demonstrate the role our minds play in generating meanings. IOW meaning isn't part of a rock .. its what our minds do whenever we refer to the word 'rock'.
The meaning we convey whenever we use the word rock is not a thing which exists independently from our minds. You are stuck in that paradigm.

It's only a difficult question worth considering, by people who suffer from the cognitive dissonance of really wanting to think they are robots but deep down know they aren't.

Maybe .. but that's certainly not me .. I'm human.

 

[SelfSim]

Rocks can change, too.

.. and you just used your mind to update what you mean in your new meaning of the word 'rock'.
Its plainly obvious that's what you did .. your use of meanings conveyed by language is the dead giveaway. Nothing else yet known can achieve that feat.