Does determinism really negate free will?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

How would you identify randomness and demonstrate that the event has no deterministic cause behind it?

Ultimately, it's always going to be a question of whether our most fundamental theory can, in principle, provide a causal explanation or not. There can be no certainty, because our knowledge of the world is uncertain and our theories are provisional. Quantum uncertainty is a case in point; we have deterministic interpretations and random interpretations and we don't as yet have falsifying tests for them - although if wavefunction collapse can be demonstrated, it would put deterministic interpretations in a difficult position.

Well if your own position suffers from the exact same problems that you are leveling at other positions, then your arguments prove too much and you haven't provided any reason to prefer your own position.

If it does suffer the exact same problems, I agree. But it's not clear to me that it does.

The quote you responded to already answers your response, "The relevant question is whether it is possible to avoid, and this question underwrites the false equivalence of these sorts of analogies that you propose. . ."

Responding to the claim that deterministic self-contradiction is impossible to avoid with analogies of self-contradictions that are possible to avoid is just more of the false equivalence I already pointed out.

Not really - I think that deterministic contradictions are possible to avoid to a limited degree.

But then it's not a mistake at all. You're just playing word games. To make a mistake is to do something that you should not have done. There are no mistakes on determinism, for there is nothing we do that we could have not-done.

I think we differ on the meaning of mistake. I mean an incorrect or unfortunate action; i.e. a disadvantageous or potentially disadvantageous action. If someone makes a mistake, they may learn from the outcome (or someone may tell them) not to do it again or to do it differently.

Ah, but these are more word games, for you are redefining truth as the accomplishment of some stipulated goal.

Ah, but the fact is that there are a variety of conceptions of truth; the most common/popular is correspondence truth, i.e. a statement is true if it corresponds to some state of affairs in the world. Religious truths are generally coherence truths, i.e. a proposition is true if it coheres with a set of beliefs, a worldview, dogma, etc. These are not word games that I've invented, they're philosophical concepts of the meaning of 'truth'. They may be unfamiliar to you, and/or you may not agree with them - I can't help that - but I can recommend a readable overview of the topic.

At bottom here is the fact that you don't actually believe in truth, and have substituted for it a theory of mere prediction or desire-satisfaction. You think we are little more than Skinner's rats, utilizing trial-and-error to elicit some desired effect. When you use words like 'mistake', 'truth', 'correct', etc., you are really importing concepts from a different worldview, one which you don't seem to realize that you have abandoned. Anthropomorphisms aside, rats don't engage in such things.

Clearly, as an atheist and someone who thinks the world may be deterministic, I have a different worldview, and the concepts behind the words I use may reflect that. But the rest is incorrect.

If we are not able to contemplate whether something is true or false without our conclusion being fully determined by pre-existing causes, then we are not rational and we do not reason at all. In that case all our "reasoning" is deception (although deception itself also presupposes truth and freedom).

I don't agree that any of the forms of reason are incompatible with determinism. With the possible exception of intuitive reasoning, they all rely on applying logic to knowledge & information.

The idea that we can have a truth-indeterminate abstract representation/proposition that is then assessed for truth is not possible on determinism. Such a notion presupposes that we be able to step outside of the causal world, pose a question, survey the causal world which we are at that moment standing over, and then draw a conclusion based on our assessment. The very ability to conceive of determinism implies an ability to stand over and transcend the causal order. Rats can't do any of this, but they still manage to fulfill some of their desires. ...So either we can truly conceive of determinism, in which case it is false (for it did not determine our conception of determinism) or else we are rats and the conception we have of "determinism" isn't determinism at all.

I'm not sure I follow what you're getting at, but we do model the causal world and ourselves as actors in it, so we can examine our causal world model, pose questions, and draw conclusions based on our assessment of it. I don't know what rats have to do with it.

There is an insightful quote by George MacDonald which Petros includes in his signature:

"The difference between a man and a beast is that the man knows he's a man and the beast does not know it's a beast. And so the more a man becomes a beast, the less he knows it."​

If he's referring to self-awareness or knowing one's own species from others, then he's mistaken. But it's true that humans have a highly developed sense and understanding of the differences between humans and other species.

If you think I've missed his point, please explain.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Not necessarily. I could accept or not accept under the exact same circumstances. "Circumstances" do not make decisions. Minds do.

Minds are what brains do. It's a mistake to reify a set of processes.

If you mean determinism applies fully, then if that statement is true, then that statement is meaningless and therefore untrue. You're offering a paradox which cannot be.

Please explain your reasoning.

 

[Chesterton]

Minds are what brains do. It's a mistake to reify a set of processes.

That's just a bald statement of a belief.

Please explain your reasoning.

This thought of yours that you don't have free will - if the thought is only a product of physical processes and could not have been otherwise, how can it have any more meaning than a tree or a comet or a sneeze, which are also products of physics?

 

[durangodawood]

That's just a bald statement of a belief....

Would like to see the evidence that minds are something other than what brains do.

 

[Chesterton]

Would like to see the evidence that minds are something other than what brains do.

Seek and ye shall find. Here's some for a start:

 

[zippy2006]

Responding to the claim that deterministic self-contradiction is impossible to avoid with analogies of self-contradictions that are possible to avoid is just more of the false equivalence I already pointed out.

Not really - I think that deterministic contradictions are possible to avoid to a limited degree.

Either they are or they aren't. "...to a limited degree" indicates that you think they are not possible to avoid. I am sorry to say that I see a lot of "word games" being played, and this may be one of the basic reasons why theories of determinism survive.

I think we differ on the meaning of mistake. I mean an incorrect or unfortunate action; i.e. a disadvantageous or potentially disadvantageous action. If someone makes a mistake, they may learn from the outcome (or someone may tell them) not to do it again or to do it differently.

The first thing to note is that a mistake is not an unfortunate action (or an action with an unfortunate outcome). That's another word game. "Disadvantageous action" is similar. You are playing fast and loose with language, and your theory itself seems to be entirely dependent on these logical equivocations.

Let's just note that determinism cannot account for counterfactual possibility, and the common notion of a mistake presupposes counterfactual possibility; therefore determinism cannot account for the common notion of a mistake.

Now you can go on attempting to refine the common notion of a mistake, but you need to be explicit about how you are able to retain the true meaning of a mistake while excluding counterfactual possibility.

Ah, but the fact is that there are a variety of conceptions of truth; the most common/popular is correspondence truth, i.e. a statement is true if it corresponds to some state of affairs in the world. Religious truths are generally coherence truths, i.e. a proposition is true if it coheres with a set of beliefs, a worldview, dogma, etc. These are not word games that I've invented, they're philosophical concepts of the meaning of 'truth'. They may be unfamiliar to you, and/or you may not agree with them - I can't help that - but I can recommend a readable overview of the topic.

I'd call it legerdemain. My epistemology books are dusty, but what theory of truth are you proposing? Pragmatism got sloppy after Peirce fell out of favor, and my assumption is that you are falling in with those sloppy epistemologies. The ability to satisfy desires is certainly not truth.

(It seems to me that you are essentially a computer scientist who hasn't studied much philosophy, and who unreflectively applies computational paradigms to anthropological questions. This is incredibly common in our day.)

The idea that we can have a truth-indeterminate abstract representation/proposition that is then assessed for truth is not possible on determinism. Such a notion presupposes that we be able to step outside of the causal world, pose a question, survey the causal world which we are at that moment standing over, and then draw a conclusion based on our assessment. The very ability to conceive of determinism implies an ability to stand over and transcend the causal order. Rats can't do any of this, but they still manage to fulfill some of their desires. ...So either we can truly conceive of determinism, in which case it is false (for it did not determine our conception of determinism) or else we are rats and the conception we have of "determinism" isn't determinism at all.

I'm not sure I follow what you're getting at, but we do model the causal world and ourselves as actors in it, so we can examine our causal world model, pose questions, and draw conclusions based on our assessment of it.

There are a few ideas, but I will focus on the easiest. We have an abstract conception of the causal world. If that abstract conception is to be complete, then can it be deterministically caused itself? That is, can the complete, abstract conception include within it the deterministic causes which directly bring it into being?

(Note that determinism is an abstract conception of the causal world which purports to be complete)

There is an insightful quote by George MacDonald which Petros includes in his signature:

"The difference between a man and a beast is that the man knows he's a man and the beast does not know it's a beast. And so the more a man becomes a beast, the less he knows it."​

If you think I've missed his point, please explain.

The point is that it can't be explained to some.

 

[durangodawood]

Seek and ye shall find. Here's some for a start:

Oh brother. A guy whos avowed purpose is to reinforce his pre-chosen conclusion. Halfway through and nothing yet.

The other problem is: I'd have to check all his sources to confirm that he isnt doing misrepresenting research as people in his position typically do. Why not just present me with a proper source rather than a pre-motivated YouTube?

What I was hoping for is some positive evidence for this mind apart from the brain. Lets see this thing!

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That's just a bald statement of a belief.

It's what empirical evidence (neuroscience) indicates.

This thought of yours that you don't have free will - if the thought is only a product of physical processes and could not have been otherwise, how can it have any more meaning than a tree or a comet or a sneeze, which are also products of physics?

Meaning is a subjective experience, produced by the associations, feelings, and/or emotions invoked by information. For me, trees, comets, and sneezes have meaning, as does the thought that I don't have free will. The associations, feelings, and/or emotions each can invoke are dynamic and depend on many factors. I don't think it's particularly useful to try to rank their meanings.

 

[Larniavc]

No, I’m not sure I do. To subvert means something like “to try to destroy or damage something,” but that’s not what Gods done in the Exodus story. Even the definition that says subvert means to undermine isn’t really there, instead God wanted to “make known His power,” or to prompt an encounter that will end in the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ.

He’s no more subverted Pharaohs libertarian freewill than a child asking “why?” constantly has subverted his parents when they get irritated or decide to discipline him. That was the parents freewill choice too, despite the childs influence.

Christ would goad and challenge the Pharisees, undermining their authority, as God would undermine Pharaohs authority as the king of Egypt.

As @enoob57 might know, having followed provisionism, “the sting operation” analogy doesn’t subvert or undo freewill in some kind of deterministic heart hardening fashion.

Wives who are lured into hiring undercover policemen to murder their husbands aren’t bereft of their freedom, rather they have exercised it to the fullest. Likewise Pharaoh used their own libertarian freewill attempting to do evil, evil God by His own will turns around for good.

Then we agree to differ. The Bible seems pretty clear on it.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Either they are or they aren't. "...to a limited degree" indicates that you think they are not possible to avoid. I am sorry to say that I see a lot of "word games" being played, and this may be one of the basic reasons why theories of determinism survive.

It's not an absolute can or can't. In my experience, it is sometimes possible.

The first thing to note is that a mistake is not an unfortunate action (or an action with an unfortunate outcome). That's another word game. "Disadvantageous action" is similar. You are playing fast and loose with language, and your theory itself seems to be entirely dependent on these logical equivocations.

OK, our definitons of 'mistake' seem to be different; my definition is similar to the Oxford English Dictionary definition: An action, decision, or judgment that produces an unwanted or unintentional result", and the Free Dictionary says: "A mistake is something incorrect or unfortunate that someone does", but there are also different ones...

I'm trying to respond to your points, not play 'word games', but I'm not in control of your interpretation. It's not usually a problem, but if you're unable or unwilling to follow my argument, there's little point in continuing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[durangodawood]

Does determinism really negate free will?

The answer is: yes, it does.

Free will is the idea that a some aspect of a decision originates entirely in the will of the person.

Determinism allows no latitude for a part of a decision to originate at all, except for at the beginning of time itself - with the exception of randomness, which evades the will.

 

[SelfSim]

When you use words like 'mistake', 'truth', 'correct', etc., you are really importing concepts from a different worldview, one which you don't seem to realize that you have abandoned.

Clearly, as an atheist and someone who thinks the world may be deterministic, I have a different worldview, and the concepts behind the words I use may reflect that.

Good, honest and respectful conversation there^ folks .. much appreciated!

Not wanting to take sides here, and no offense intended, but I have reached similar conclusions as those expressed by @zippy2006 above, when discussing the role philosophical Realism commonly seems to play in most folks' view of scientific thinking, (with @FrumiousBandersnatch presenting .. and many thanks to him for persisting with me on those conversations, too).

To me, whether one holds philosophical positions or not, isn't all that important, but distinguishing when they are influencing perceptions, when discussing objective science, is. This applies to many scientific thinkers beyond just these forum discussions too, of course.

 

[partinobodycular]

The answer is: yes, it does.

Free will is the idea that a some aspect of a decision originates entirely in the will of the person.

Determinism allows no latitude for a part of a decision to originate at all, except for at the beginning of time itself - with the exception of randomness, which evades the will.

Yes, but...

Your answer implies that if determinism wasn't true then perhaps you would've chosen something else. But is that in fact the case? Or would you have made the exact same choice regardless?

There's a very slight semantic difference between saying that you couldn't have made a different choice, and saying that you wouldn't have made a different choice. The latter implies that indeed you could've made a different choice, you had free will, you just wouldn't have made a different choice.

To suggest otherwise is to imply that the will acts randomly and unpredictably, but if it doesn't then who's to say that it wouldn't have made the exact same choice.

Thus the system could be deterministic, wherein every effect is preceded by a cause, yet there's still free will because the will doesn't act randomly.

At least that's the argument that I'm going with in this thread.

 

[partinobodycular]

Good, honest and respectful conversation there^ folks .. much appreciated!

I agree 100%, we're getting some good conversations lately.

 

[SelfSim]

... but if it doesn't then who's to say that it wouldn't have made the exact same choice.

Thus the system ...

It might help to disclose the hidden influence the mind conceiving of, and influencing, your hypothetical there.
'The system' there, doesn't just conceive itself into existence .. and yet it directly 'influences' ..

(I say its your hypothesising mind controlling the discussion there).

 

[durangodawood]

....To suggest otherwise is to imply that the will acts randomly and unpredictably, but if it doesn't then who's to say that it wouldn't have made the exact same choice.....

Not sure I follow. So let me focus on just that part.

The way I imagine free will working is that the mind has the power to be the origin of uncaused objects of imagination, which can then factor into decision making. An example might be: picturing evenings after schoolwork is done at College X, which then get entered into your decision matrix, so to speak, for what college to attend. The potential scope of these imaginative objects may be far beyond what any deterministic process could result in.

Sounds quasi magical, sure. But thats how how any unexplainable process would sound.... until its explained. We're just not there yet.

I think your objection is that either these imaginative objects have previous reasons for which they emerged OR they were random. And neither is a model for free will.

I propose instead that the human imagination can be an originating creative agent. I admit your objection is pretty strong. It relies on some pretty deep intuitions about time and causality. But intuitions can be highly conditioned and even wrong sometimes.

 

[Chesterton]

Oh brother. A guy whos avowed purpose is to reinforce his pre-chosen conclusion. Halfway through and nothing yet.

The other problem is: I'd have to check all his sources to confirm that he isnt doing misrepresenting research as people in his position typically do. Why not just present me with a proper source rather than a pre-motivated YouTube?

What I was hoping for is some positive evidence for this mind apart from the brain. Lets see this thing!

So a man who argues for a position he believes in is to be discounted because he believes in it? Therefore logically the only reliable man would be the one who argues for a position he doesn't believe in. That's pretty weird, except according to the ethics of Clown World I guess.

Secondly, you complain that there's nothing there, then also complain that there're too many sources. You said you'd like some evidence. I gave you some. You claim to be a "seeker", but I guess you aren't a very enthusiastic seeker, or else that means that what you're seeking is to avoid ideas outside of your ideological comfort zone.

 

[partinobodycular]

The way I imagine free will working is that the mind has the power to be the origin of uncaused objects of imagination, which can then factor into decision making. An example might be: picturing evenings after schoolwork is done at College X, which then get entered into your decision matrix, so to speak, for what college to attend. The potential scope of these imaginative objects may be far beyond what any deterministic process could result in.

Thanks, because I had never actually considered that idea, it's quite interesting. It's gonna take me a while to wrap my head around it. I can see how it could be argued that it's not deterministic, and yet not completely random either. But I'm still trying figure out how this whole process would work such that the conscious mind ends up being the final arbiter in the process. If you have any further thoughts on it feel free to share them, otherwise I'm gonna sleep on it, it's fascinating.

 

[Chesterton]

It's what empirical evidence (neuroscience) indicates.

No, there is no empirical evidence, only philosophical arguments.

Meaning is a subjective experience, produced by the associations, feelings, and/or emotions invoked by information. For me, trees, comets, and sneezes have meaning, as does the thought that I don't have free will. The associations, feelings, and/or emotions each can invoke are dynamic and depend on many factors. I don't think it's particularly useful to try to rank their meanings.

That's lovely. If you could have made the words rhyme it would make a nice Hallmark greeting card for a teenage girl upon graduation from school or something, but I was half-hoping for a serious response from a highly intelligent man of science such as yourself.

 

[zippy2006]

It's not an absolute can or can't.

It is. That's how logic works. Either it is in principle possible for the determinist to avoid all self-contradictions, or else it isn't. The disjunction represents a contradictory pair, and is therefore exhaustive. There are no other options.

OK, our definitons of 'mistake' seem to be different; my definition is similar to the Oxford English Dictionary definition: An action, decision, or judgment that produces an unwanted or unintentional result", and the Free Dictionary says: "A mistake is something incorrect or unfortunate that someone does", but there are also different ones...

Like I said, you are welcome to try to remove counterfactual possibility from the concept of a mistake. I think you're chasing your tail, and that once the equivocations are cleared up determinism will fall apart.

Suppose you try to run with the Oxford definition to philosophically defend determinism. The first problem is that consequential thinking is counterfactual. Unintentional results are something like, <(P->Q); P; ∴ R>. Q was expected, but R was actualized. The first problem you run into is that the consequence premise involves counterfactual possibility (P->Q). The implicit claim is, "If I bring about P, then Q will occur; if I do not bring about P, then Q will not necessarily occur." Such consequential thinking makes no sense without the underlying premise that you are free to either bring about P or not bring about P, and that premise is excluded by determinism.

For the second problem, suppose an entity commits act A and an undesirable effect follows. You would presumably say that the next time the entity faces a similar decision they will decide whether, in light of the prior undesirable effect, they should commit act A or not commit act A. But to decide whether to do A or ~A also presupposes a counterfactual freedom that determinism excludes.

So again, the alternatives you present here do not avoid the problem I already pointed out. I think rats avoid the problem, but I don't think rats can actually be said to make mistakes.

I'm trying to respond to your points, not play 'word games', but I'm not in control of your interpretation. It's not usually a problem, but if you're unable or unwilling to follow my argument, there's little point in continuing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Well, I have been brusque. Thing is, we've been through this before and I don't foresee a different outcome. ..And when you assert that, say, a mistake is a disadvantageous action, I'm just going to call you out right away before this thing balloons to an unwieldy size. If a mistake were a disadvantageous action then rats, amoebae, and grass would make mistakes, but that's absurd. You are continually making claims that are prima facie absurd, and it seems to me that some form of radical redefinition of words is at play.

If you don't want to continue, I'm totally fine with that. Time is short at the moment.