Free will and determinism

[Fervent]

I might point out that 'We don't know that there's never been an effect without a cause' is in the same ball park.

Oh? Doesn't seem so to me, since one involves simply choosing not to impose an assumption onto the things we have observed until we have justified that assumption through a means other than making an appeal to the body of observatons for which we want to make the assumption and the other involves arbitrarily questioning the validity of our direct experience.

I've bent over backwards to change the premise to 'On the assumption that all effects have a cause...' I don't want to add '...and that we weren't all created a few minutes ago, and we're not brains in vats and not players in some spotty teenage aliens computer game...'

Considering my question was meant to be illustrative, rather than argumentative, there's no need to worry about that.

 

[Bradskii]

Perhaps we have different definitions of "succeeds." Because such an argument seems it would only be persuasive to those already convinced of its truth.

I'm honestly surprised that you haven't come across statements such as: 'OK, for the sake of the argument...' The premise is accepted and then the argument stands or falls on everything from that point onwards. You don't need to be convinced it's true. It's a bone of contention, so you grant acceptance of it as being true for the sake of the argument.

 

[Bradskii]

I'm starting to think...

This is becoming too repetitive by far. Either please bring something new to the table (decisions made for no reasons perhaps) or we're done.

 

[Fervent]

I'm honestly surprised that you haven't come across statements such as: 'OK, for the sake of the argument...' The premise is accepted and then the argument stands or falls on everything from that point onwards. You don't need to be convinced it's true. It's a bone of contention, so you grant acceptance of it as being true for the sake of the argument.

That sounds rather pointless to present an argument purely for argument's sake. If an argument is only persuasive to those who happen to agree with it already, it's a rather useless argument.

This is becoming too repetitive by far. Either please bring something new to the table (decisions made for no reasons perhaps) or we're done.

It's you who must bring something new to the table, since what I've said has undermined your justification for the premise whether you want to admit it or not. Which I think should be clear since you moved the goal posts for falsification from an effect without a cause to an effect that can't possibly have a cause. Those aren't the same thing.

Our observations of an effect without a cause would be an event which we can't identify a cause, and we have observed events which we can't identify a cause. So our observations are consistent with events without causes and do not definitively demonstrate that the premise is supportable. So we cannot move from our observations to the truth of the premise, even if such a move wasn't problematic due to never being able to have a sufficient enough number of observations to justify the universal.

 

[Fervent]

I've bent over backwards to change the premise to 'On the assumption that all effects have a cause...' I don't want to add '...and that we weren't all created a few minutes ago, and we're not brains in vats and not players in some spotty teenage aliens computer game...'

Since you've indulged my contentions about your attempt at justifying your belief, perhaps I should give you an opportunity to attack the logic in my justification. And this is as good a place as any to start, since it highlights at least part of the logical process I've gone through. Your argument isn't a simple premise-conclusion argument, but an aggregate of premises and conclusions and evidence. And as we aggregate these things, we've got to justify each and every step and introduce possible errors. The more aggregations that take place the greater the chance that an error has been introduced at some point rendering the resulting conclusion erroneous. Maybe we made a mistaken attribution, maybe we believed someone we shouldn't have, maybe we took an erroneous piece of data as significant. So these types of aggregated arguments, while important to our general body of knowledge, have a lesser priority to those things that are closest to our everyday experiences. Which means those things that we believe to be true based on what we have directly experienced are more likely to be true than those things that are the result of a process of aggregation. So while your argument that if determinism is true, we have no free will is formally valid it is totally unpersuasive to me because my belief that I have free will is basic and requires fewer assumptive moves. I don't have to rely on what I hear from other people, or what "higher" reasoning tells me, or some other place where an error may have been introduced. My knowledge of free will comes from direct experience, and is one of the highest priority beliefs that I have. Does it mean I can't be convinced otherwise? I'm not sure. Maybe. But since it has such a high priority, it means that I can abductively eliminate any premise that leads me to think otherwise unless I have reason to believe that premise has a higher priority than my belief drawn from experience alone.

 

[Bradskii]

It's you who must bring something new to the table...

I did. I asled you if you'd ever made a decisionfor no reason.

 

[Fervent]

I did. I asled you if you'd ever made a decisionfor no reason.

Sure, but that was sophistry because it conflates final causes with efficient causes.

 

[Bradskii]

Sure, but that was sophistry because it conflates final causes with efficient causes.

C'mon, it's a simple question. Has there ever been a time when you made a non random decision free from any prior reasons?

 

[Fervent]

C'mon, it's a simple question. Has there ever been a time when you made a non random decision free from any prior reasons?

As soon as you answer my question about what different observations we would make for an effect without cause and an effect without identifiable cause I might entertain this line of questioning, but until then I'm not going to.

 

[Bradskii]

As soon as you answer my question about what different observations we would make for an effect without cause and an effect without identifiable cause I might entertain this line of questioning, but until then I'm not going to.

I thought you wanted me to bring something new to the table. Hang on, I'll check.

Yes, you did. A few posts back. I guess you changed your mind. That's a shame.

 

[Fervent]

I thought you wanted me to bring something new to the table. Hang on, I'll check.

Answering my question would be bringing something new to the table.

Yes, you did. A few posts back. I guess you changed your mind. That's a shame.

Nope, because an answer to my question would consist of you bringing something new. Or you could come up with some other challenge to it, besides just resorting to the very assumption you're seeking to justify.

 

[Bradskii]

Or you could come up with some other challenge to it, besides just resorting to the very assumption you're seeking to justify.

Are you saying that you want me to ask you something about free will that's not connected with free will? It sounds like you are. Maybe I could reword it:

Do you always have reasons for the decisions you make?

 

[Fervent]

Are you saying that you want me to ask you something about free will that's not connected with free will? It sounds like you are. Maybe I could reword it:

I'm asking you to defend your argument, rather than sending us off into the woods by arguing over the difference between efficient and final causes.

Do you always have reasons for the decisions you make?

What different observations would we have?

 

[Bradskii]

I'm asking you to defend your argument, rather than sending us off into the woods by arguing over the difference between efficient and final causes.

What different observations would we have?

You've beaten that dead horse so much it's not recognisable as a horse any more. It's just a bloody smear on the sidewalk.

You haven't actually brought anything to the conversation but I should at least thank you for your input. It's only polite. And in the best tradition of equity and fairness, it seems that it's been determined that I allow you to have the last word as well.

 

[Fervent]

You've beaten that dead horse so much it's not recognisable as a horse any more. It's just a bloody smear on the sidewalk.

Perhaps if you would simply provide an answer, we would be able to move on. Or you could give us some other way to exclude events without identifiable causes as falsifiers in our data set.

You haven't actually brought anything to the conversation but I should at least thank you for your input. It's only polite. And in the best tradition of equity and fairness, it seems that it's been determined that I allow you to have the last word as well.

If you say so, and it's unsurprising that you do since the circularity of your argument is so deeply entrenched in your worldview that you can't even seem to fathom alternative possibilities or understand why such an assumption needs to be justified rather than assumed.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Are you saying that you want me to ask you something about free will that's not connected with free will? It sounds like you are. Maybe I could reword it:

Do you always have reasons for the decisions you make?

Yes, I do have reasons for drawing upon something like Kant's Analytic/Synthetic distinction, as well as bringing in more contemporary concerns involving Lexical Semantics, particularly if imprecise terms like "free will" and "determinism" are being studied for their ranges of possible meaning.

 

[Bradskii]

...particularly if imprecise terms like "free will" and "determinism" are being studied for their ranges of possible meaning.

They were both defined right at the start. You can offer different definitions if you like. 'Free will' seems to have a few variations.

 

[Fervent]

C'mon, it's a simple question. Has there ever been a time when you made a non random decision free from any prior reasons?

Decided I'd give this a reply after all. Your question isn't representative of my experience of free will in operation, but just one small part of it. My will isn't just active in decision making but through the whole process. My will orders and arranges my thoughts, weighs the various options available, makes the decision. So while my non-random decisions may always flow from prior reasons, my experience of exercising free will is not only active when a decision is made. Is that satisfactory?

 

[2PhiloVoid]

They were both defined right at the start. You can offer different definitions if you like. 'Free will' seems to have a few variations.

Simply positing and defining a word doesn't explain a/the phenomenon that the word is being used to refer to and signify.

Take the word "theism" as a parallel example to that of "determinism." We can then analytically compare the semantic layout and use of the term, without getting deep into semantic theory, and see that determinism begins to run into similar counter roadblocks that theism does.

".... but, a god did it," they say.​

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I can reply, "But how and where exactly? Please explain!"​

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They further elaborate, "... we know and justify saying this based on basic deduction, knowing that all things must have a cause. So, we feel confident there must be a god who pushed the first lever."​

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"Maybe," I say. "But which god, then, and how does that god exist"?​

​

See where I would go with this? As with 'theism,' so with 'determinism.' Not identically where the actual semantics are to be then analyzed out, but similarly. (And then I'd go on to casually point you to two of my recent threads dealing with the Limits of Deduction and the Problem of the Criterion).

​

In this case, I wouldn't merely be offering a "different" definition. Instead, I would be offering an entirely different praxis by which to assert the justification for my alternative conception and denotation. However, in analytic and skeptical style, I'd have to say that offering an alternative definition to yours is a moot point until all of the underlying operative semantics, not to mention the operative methods that should go into the proposed definition for the term "determinism," have been essentially identified and themselves, explained .....

... and like Pascal, I would hide behind what it is that I think makes the terms "theism" or "determinism" respectively viable. (Yes, as silly as it may be, I'm making a pun here, and I know I have to specifically say I'm referring to a pun or else no one will even begin to, or have a reason to, understand my little, itsy-bitsy semantic joke.)

 

[Bradskii]

So while my non-random decisions may always flow from prior reasons...

So the reasons are what caused you to make the decision. Something of an obvious statement, but I just want to clarify that.