It's quite often the case that we are unaware of what has determined out actions. In fact, we cannot know them. Do you know the almost infinite number of things that happened just over the last year that determined that you are sitting there reading this? Of course not. And that line of cause and effect branches out to a million different threads each of which branches again going back as far as you'd like to consider.
No free will doesn't mean you stop thinking about what you do. But thinking about it doesn't show that it exists either. You are still making the decisions.
Well, there's a line of cause and effect going back as far as you'd like to go. At what point you want to stop is up to you. Wherever that point is does not negate the fact that the line exists.
This is the interesting bit:
Why (and how) can you exclude yourself from the choices you make? If you are the type of person who is interested in music then you might choose to learn to play an instrument. Your interest determined that choice. And you can't will yourself to be a different person. You yourself are one of the antecedent conditions which determine your choices.
No, you assume and presume the “interest determined the choice,” and in doing so, your beg the question and the argument is circular. Interests aren’t inherently deterministic but can influence our actions, while us humans are known to not act upon our interests or do something other than our interests.
And your own phrasing is contradictory.
There logically cannot be a “
might choose to learn to play an instrument” and “your interest
determined that choice.” Determinism excludes a “might choose.”
This isn't a metaphysical question.
To the contrary, it is, unless you have evidence showing Determinism exists.
Determinism is how the universe operates on the macro scale (say the atomic level and upwards). Simple cause and effect.
Cause and effect is not, as you must assume, necessarily Determinism. Free will has cause and effect. John’s free will action to eat pizza was the cause for the effect of less pizza.
So, you’ll need more than rudimentary cause and effect to show determinism exists and operates.
We only have the two option: Our decisions are determined (in fact - everything, at all times, everywhere is determined). Or they are not. I can't prove that everything is because we'd need to investigate...everything. It's like saying that all swans are white. We'd need to check every single swan to prove me right. But a single black swan would prove me wrong.
First, your false dilemma just isn’t very compelling. There’s a third option you ignore that is widely known as Compatabilism/Compatabilist.
I’m intimately familiar with Popper Falsification, which is what you’ve knowingly or accidentally invoked with the swan example. However, for reasons below, the “only have two option” in relation to Popper Falsification is also a false dilemma.
Popper Falsification rests upon the premise that for any hypothesis, theory, especially scientific theory/scientific hypothesis, to have merit, veracity, must be amenable to being proven false, amenable to being disproven.
However, a black swan is to refer to a physical, tangible, object, a swan, which isn’t parallel to the metaphysical subject matter of Determinism or Free Will. The subject matter of free will, determinism, compatabilism, isn’t amenable to being proven false, disproven, because it’s a metaphysical subject that doesn’t lend or yield itself to physical, tangible evidence that we can discover, examine, see, etcetera, to deny a determining cause, free will agency, or a mixture of both as compatible. Which is precisely a salient point I made in my post.
So, by your own statement, you cannot “check every single swan” but instead you show a “single black swan” that of some act or refraining from acting is a result of Determinsim, thereby refuting
all actions/inaction is a result of free will. Yet, demanding Popper Falsification of you to disprove free will is irrational because the metaphysical nature of the subject matter isn’t amenable to disproving, falsifying.
Yet, by your own logic, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, if you demand falsification of the other, then falsification can be demanded of you, to show a single instance of determinism thereby negating the other’s POV of free will.
I'd suggest that you are saying that it's impossible to prove that something - anything, wasn't determined simply because there are no examples. This isn't the equivalent of proving a negative. I'm the one making the negative claim - that something doesn't exist. One example that will show that it does will prove me wrong. And you have the whole universe for all of time so find one.
First, you are not merely making a “negative claim,” as you claim Determinism and this is an affirmative claim.
Next, you are and did demand someone prove a negative. “By giving a
single example of a decision that was
not determined by anything at all.” To prove a “not” is substantively different from establishing an affirmative such as X is a cause. What evidence will show a decision was “
NOT determined” and by “
anything at all”? That’s an irrational burden of proving a negative, to prove another cause (other than the free will agency of the subject) for the decision doesn’t exist anywhere at all is your demand.
Furthermore, your statement of “One example that will show that it does will prove me wrong. And you have the whole universe for all of time so find one” presumes what I’ve challenged, that there’s evidence we can discover, examine, see, etcetera, for free will and/or something else. I’ve stated unequivocally, the metaphysical subject matter defies proving by evidence free will, determinism, compatabilism.
Which is another way of saying, you ask what you already implicitly know by your own statement, there isn’t evidence discover to prove determinism, free will, or something else. As you so astutely stated, “But bear this in mind. I can't prove I'm right.” Correct! You aren’t going to find evidence that proves Determinism.
I wouldn't reply in anything like that manner. There are no decisions that exclude determinism. Feel free to give an example if you like.
This assumes free will doesn’t exist and doesn’t apply. However, the very concept and definition of free will I have given is mutually exclusive to the definition of determinism. If free will exists, and it applies to some act, then logically determinism is excluded.
To be sure, I did not invoke an “example” and it isn’t necessary I do so, because the exclusiveness of free will is the substance of its meaning and the meaning of free will is mutually exclusive to determinism such that if free will does exist, and where it applies, then determinism is excluded. Again, I repeat, I’m not claiming either one exists.
I'll bet that Alvin didn't give you an example...
He’s provided many but I’ll let you enjoy the book to discover them. The point isn’t examples, the point is there’s as much evidence for Determinism as there is for free will, which is none to de minimis. Am I wrong?
Maybe but perhaps you can do what no one else has, provide evidence that doesn’t beg the question, that doesn’t result in a tautology, for determinism.
It's quite often the case that we are unaware of what has determined out actions. In fact, we cannot know them.
The converse is viable, “It's quite often the case that we are unaware of” free will, and “s. In fact, we cannot know them.” I couldn’t concur more, there isn’t evidence to prove or show either.
Well, there's a line of cause and effect going back as far as you'd like to go. At what point you want to stop is up to you. Wherever that point is does not negate the fact that the line exists.
So what? I’m familiar with a form of this logic but where I have encountered such logic, the advocate has additional premises and logic to account for cause and effect within free will so as to exclude free will causation. Your statements above do not do so.
Causation isn’t inherently deterministic or contradictory to free will. Free will does after all invoke causation as well. Any free will advocate, free will naturalist, free will theist, will tell you that whatever created this universe and its beings created a universe where the beings have free will. I can presume the Big Bang and all intermittent steps to John’s choice to eat pizza and that John’s choice to eat pizza was free, it was within his ability to perform the act to eat pizza or not eat pizza and consistent with the Big Bang and preceding causes and effects.