Free will and determinism

[Ana the Ist]

It's not just a bland statement. It's a conclusion. Based on the fact that the universe is deterministic.

"The universe is deterministic" isn't a fact.

It's barely a description.

Compatibilism or show that in some way the universe is not deterministic. There are quite a lot of posts in this thread and no-one has yet attempted to do either.

I pointed out your logic doesn't hold up because it's based upon assumptions you have no evidence for.

Determined as in causally inevitable. C'mon, you know that's the way we're using the word.

You are jumping around a lot. Are we talking about a situation where people are making choices (and could choose other than however they do) or not?

A free agent is simply someone who has the ability to make a choice.

Right...an essential part of morality.

Free will is not a cause. That's nonsensical. It's simply the ability to make a decision that has not been determined by anything.

That's a poor definition of free will....why would free will have to be the result of something that has no preceding cause?

 

[Ana the Ist]

Considering you have to resort to selective quotation, I think it's pretty clear you don't actually have a response. You haven't explained anything, though you've asserted much and created meaningless distinctions while not answering a direct question. At this point, I am seriously questioning your intellectual honesty, especially given your habit of cropping what you are responding to. Instead of answering a direct question, you try to obfuscate by conflating influences with causes and diving into murky waters of unobservable priors.

I gave the determinists here a simple left/right dichotomous choice with no discerning differences nor any third option apart from stalling an inevitable left/right choice....

And I was told that magical unknown causes would inevitably lead to the exact same outcome every time.

They aren't diving into the murky waters of unobservable priors....this is full blown magical thinking.

 

[Ana the Ist]

Take the statement "the universe is deterministic".

No it's not. Not according to science. There is no infinite regression of causes....there's quite literally a point where there's no cause and effect.

There....does that disprove determinism?

 

[o_mlly]

.... whether we accept it or not ... .

There you go.

Our actions are not instinctively determined or completely conditioned by the impact of external circumstances on our development, as is the case in the behavior of other animals. With this innate power of free choice, each human being is able to change his own character creatively by deciding for himself (accept or reject) what he shall do or shall become. We are free to make ourselves whatever we choose to be.

Another kind of acquired freedom unique to human beings is moral freedom. Human bondage, according to Spinoza, is our enslavement by our lower nature -- appetites or passions. "Moral freedom," consists in our having a will that is habitually disposed by virtue to will as it ought. Virtue is the habitual disposition to desire aright, which means acquiring the discipline choose rationally rather than emotionally.

Those who have not yet acquired at least some virtues may be more disposed to think, "I could not have done otherwise" or like Flip Wilson's character Geraldine, "The devil made me do it!"

 

[Bradskii]

There you go.

Our actions are not instinctively determined or completely conditioned by the impact of external circumstances on our development, as is the case in the behavior of other animals. With this innate power of free choice, each human being is able to change his own character creatively by deciding for himself (accept or reject) what he shall do or shall become. We are free to make ourselves whatever we choose to be.

Then you can choose something which you do not prefer. Something that has not been determined.

Being free to choose as you wish literally means being free of all prior conditions that don't determine your choice. An example would be beneficial. Any example I give of a decision will be one that was determined by antecedent conditions. I cannot think of one that wasn't. So maybe you can give me one that wasn't determined and we can discuss it.

If you want to show that free will exists then you're going to need to do that.

 

[o_mlly]

Then you can choose something which you do not prefer.

No, I always choose what I prefer.

Something that has not been determined.

The thing I choose will always be the one I determined to be good.

Being free to choose as you wish literally means being free of all prior conditions that don't determine your choice.

? A bit muddled. Can you rephrase?

Any example I give of a decision will be one that was determined by antecedent conditions.

And you, as the one who chooses, is the primary "antecedent condition"?

 

[Fervent]

I gave the determinists here a simple left/right dichotomous choice with no discerning differences nor any third option apart from stalling an inevitable left/right choice....

And I was told that magical unknown causes would inevitably lead to the exact same outcome every time.

They aren't diving into the murky waters of unobservable priors....this is full blown magical thinking.

I was being charitable, because I didn't want to distract from the main point I was making. It's quite clear that the rigid insistence on determinism is not because it actually holds water, but because of unwavering support of prior metaphysical commitments. Scientific atheism demands some flavor of physicalism, and physicalism demands that free will not exist since it cannot be explained mechanically. So despite the prima facie case for free will the scientific atheist must hold to the denial at all costs, lest they have to question their whole worldview. Which is why I pointed to the dishonest tactics that @Bradskii is employing by selectively quoting and cropping out important details of what he is responding to. So while you're right I did understate the issue, that post had its desired effect.

 

[Bradskii]

No, I always choose what I prefer.

Exactly. It makes no sense to suggest otherwise. You can't prefer to go skiing if you hate the snow. You can't prefer to listen to Dolly Parsons if you don't like country and western. You can't prefer to eat a steak if you don't like eating meat. And you have no control over what you prefer. You can't simply decide to like snow. You don't wake up one morning and think that you will enjoy listening to Jolene all day.

The thing I choose will always be the one I determined to be good.

Then you have no choice. It's what you prefer. It makes no sense at all to say that you have the free will to decide to choose the bad as your preference.

? A bit muddled. Can you rephrase?

It's the very definition of free will. From Britannica (my emphasis):

'Free will, in humans, the power to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe.'

And you, as the one who chooses, is the primary "antecedent condition"?

No. The choosing, the decision, is the result of the antecedent conditions. It's the event that has been caused. Otherwise it would be like saying that turning up late for a meeting was an antecedent condition. No, it was the result of...bad traffic, sleeping in late, car breaking down etc. Your character however makes up a lot of those conditions. Plus your mood. Your emotions. None of which are under your control.

 

[Neogaia777]

I gave the determinists here a simple left/right dichotomous choice with no discerning differences nor any third option apart from stalling an inevitable left/right choice....

And I was told that magical unknown causes would inevitably lead to the exact same outcome every time.

They aren't diving into the murky waters of unobservable priors....this is full blown magical thinking.

No one is proposing anything "magical" here, and I don't know where you are getting that from? But you're calling them that though, probably just only shows that you have some prior antecedent conditions/causes that exist within yourself that are causing you to determine or say that about it though.

But and/or anyway, there's nothing magical about saying/thinking that prior causes/antecedent conditions affect the percentages/probabilities of what we'll say or do, or what we will choose, or what will happen next though.

Are you saying that prior causes/antecedent condtions never ever affect, or ever have any kind of influence on, the different possibilities or probabilities of what we will ever do/choose/say/think/act/do next?

Because I'm just going to tell you right now that you're just flat out wrong if you're ever going to say or think that, because it's never true, etc. All prior "stuff" does most definitely play a part in affecting those possibilities/percentages always, etc. And it's very, very foolish to say that it just flat-out doesn't, or never does ever, etc. Like I told you before, they are never 50/50, etc.

Take Care.

 

[Neogaia777]

Take the statement "the universe is deterministic".

No it's not. Not according to science. There is no infinite regression of causes....there's quite literally a point where there's no cause and effect.

There....does that disprove determinism?

At the macro level, science actually says, and can prove to some degree, that everything is entirely deterministic on all of those levels always (everything from the atom up, etc) so I don't know where you are getting your science from?

And also so far also, absolutely nothing has been able to be discovered on any level yet that can ever alter or change the way that everything from the level of the atom up always acts or behaves deterministically always yet.

No new discovery in any kind.of science/physics has been able to discover or say that yet, and I don't think they ever will, etc. What we observe from the level of the atom up, is that it always behaves/acts always 100% deterministically always (and 100% of the time always) and not one single thing has ever been able to change that yet ever, or ever change what we observe about anything from everything from the level of the atom and up yet, etc, and that's that it's always 100% deterministic 100% of the time always, etc.

Take Care.

 

[o_mlly]

And you have no control over what you prefer.

No. We have the potential (free will) to discipline our lower appetites and to prefer other what those misguided passions would otherwise direct us to do.

You can't prefer to go skiing if you hate the snow. You can't prefer to listen to Dolly Parsons if you don't like country and western. You can't prefer to eat a steak if you don't like eating meat. ... You can't simply decide to like snow. You don't wake up one morning and think that you will enjoy listening to Jolene all day.

Your examples are all matters of taste. We're in the Ethics and Morality forum; not the Hobbies, Interests & Entertainment forum.

Then you have no choice. It's what you prefer. It makes no sense at all to say that you have the free will to decide to choose the bad as your preference.

Non-sequitur. You and I always prefer that which we have come to believe to be good. That good may only be apparent or it may be real. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that we freely choose it.

'Free will, in humans, the power to make decisions or perform actions independently of any prior event or state of the universe.'

Yes. Free will is power to decide independently. You would deny human autonomy-- freedom from external control or influence. I affirm it.

The choosing, the decision, is the result of the antecedent conditions. It's the event that has been caused.

? Again, your insistence on the use of the passive voice and a kind of fallacy that is cousin to affirming the consequent does not help your argument.

Otherwise it would be like saying that turning up late for a meeting was an antecedent condition. No, it was the result of...bad traffic, sleeping in late, car breaking down etc. Your character however makes up a lot of those conditions.

? How does one's character "make" traffic bad? The same with "sleeping in" or the "car breaking down" due to unforeseeable physical problems, eg., alarm clock failure or car mechanical failures. These are conditions beyond a free will debate. Again, respecting the forum we are, in, kindly stick with moral decisions for your examples.

Plus your mood. Your emotions. None of which are under your control.

No. Those who are ruled by their moods or emotions are irrational. Virtue, an acquired habit through discipline, allows reason to control the lower appetites.

Are zoos moral? If not then why not? If so then why so?

 

[Neogaia777]

For the record I don't at all like how they like to say in philosophy that you always do what you prefer, etc. It's a bad language/word choice, etc. Prefer is connected to desire, and we do not always do what we desire/prefer, etc.

But my point is that even when we do what we don't desire/prefer, it is all still always still caused/determined/decided/chosen already always by prior (antecedent) conditions and "factors" that were already decided/present before them always already, etc, and are all always still done/chosen according to the laws and rules of determinism already always regardless, etc.

And as far as ethics or morality is concerned, determinism is like a rule or law of a force of nature maybe, or is maybe like a force like gravity maybe, etc, and is pretty much unconcerned/indifferent to moral and ethical rules or laws that humans make for themselves, or that are made/decided by humans occasionally, etc.

Like gravity, determinism just is, etc.

But determinism did already determine a long, long time ago what our changing rules and laws about ethics and morality would/will always/already still be for any given time or culture or people group already though, and already always knows what they will be in the future already, etc.

Take Care/God Bless.

 

[Bradskii]

No. We have the potential (free will) to discipline our lower appetites and to prefer other what those misguided passions would otherwise direct us to do. Your examples are all matters of taste. We're in the Ethics and Morality forum; not the Hobbies, Interests & Entertainment forum.

Then give me a specific example of a moral decision that you've made and we can discuss it in some detail.

Non-sequitur. You and I always prefer that which we have come to believe to be good. That good may only be apparent or it may be real. Doesn't matter. What does matter is that we freely choose it.

You keep confusing the terms. Freely choosing and having free will are not the same thing. Freely choosing means that you have not been coerced into making a decision. Free will means making that decision when it hasn't been determined by prior conditions. I think you're about to give me an example?

Yes. Free will is power to decide independently. You would deny human autonomy-- freedom from external control or influence. I affirm it.

We can examine your example when you give it to see if there was any control or influence.

Again, respecting the forum we are, in, kindly stick with moral decisions for your examples.

We'll have one shortly to discuss.

No. Those who are ruled by their moods or emotions are irrational. Virtue, an acquired habit through discipline, allows reason to control the lower appetites.

Are you saying that you act exactly the same when you are angry or happy, depressed, in love, frustrated? Are you saying that those moods have no influence on you at all? And bear in mind that I am not saying that if you are angry for example then you will always react angrily to any situation. Your emotions are one of the antecedent conditions that determine your actions. Just like your genetic make-up doesn't mean that you will do this or will do that. It just increases the likelihood.

Any time you're ready with that moral example...

 

[Fervent]

At the macro level, science actually says, and can prove to some degree, that everything is entirely deterministic on all of those levels always (everything from the atom up, etc) so I don't know where you are getting your science from?

Science doesn't "prove" that everything is entirely deterministic, it approximates the universe as deterministic by way of methodology.

Determinism, as a concept, is incoherent because to hold it must hold invariably down to the minutest detail. If there is any freedom within the system, then we can know that determinism is false. The issue here is those denying "free will" are making unnatural distinctions and playing a shell game that makes it unclear what it is they are actually denying since they seem to admit that we have both freedom and intention. So the entire "argument" is muddled, because we have determinism being asserted without support for that assertion and then a consequence of determinism being affirmed. If the determinists would clarify what the missing element for free will is that they deny, perhaps we could have productive discussion since we could see if it truly is necessary or if there is cause to deny it.

 

[Bradskii]

For the record I don't at all like how they like to say in philosophy that you always do what you prefer, etc. It's a bad language/word choice, etc. Prefer is connected to desire, and we do not always do what we desire/prefer, etc.

It can be tricky because people use want, desire and prefer interchangeably. It might be worthwhile defining these in the context of the discussion.

Want and desire are very similar. I'd just differentiate them by degree and also by the fact that want tends to imply something immediate. Whereas desire is more long term. So if someone asks you what you want to do you might respond 'I want to go to the beach'. As in right now, as opposed to doing something else. Whereas you might say 'I have this desire to visit Thailand' which is long term and less definite.

And they are different from prefer. I'm always using prefer as opposed to want in that your preference is the ultimate aim whereas the want is the proximate aim. So I might want to go to the pub but...my preference is to continue my health regime and go to the gym. To a more extreme example - I want to survive the ship sinking, but I prefer to give my place in the lifeboat to a woman. Hey, look...a moral example. Let's have a look at it.

Emotions like shame and pride come into this. I'd feel shame if I were to brush the woman and child aside and grab the seat myself. And an internal sense of pride if I give them my seat. Where do these emotions come from? Well, maybe God wrote them on my heart or they are a product of the evolutionary process. Either way, wherever they come from, they help to determine my decision. Then there's cowardice or heroism. Some people are born tending towards one or the other. We've all seen examples of someone backing down or standing up to a threat. That characteristic will be another fact that will determine my decision.

Fitness and age? I might be in the prime of my life and an excellent swimmer. The woman has a broken leg. She will die if she doesn't get into the lifeboat and I might well survive. Or I know that she's an excellent swimmer and I'm in my nineties and can't swim a stroke. Those facts will go to determine my decision.

And ultimately, I might just be the kind of guy who only thinks of himself. Will I change at that moment? Well, something needs to happen or that seat is mine. Shame or pride? Maybe memories of all the examples of self sacrifice your heard about now ring true? Maybe at last they will determine my actions. Maybe the stories I have heard and people who have taught me and brought me up and the type of person that I am - none of which I could control, will be the reason why she gets the seat.

 

[o_mlly]

Then give me a specific example of a moral decision that you've made and we can discuss it in some detail.

No need for me to get personal, it's your thread.

But if you have some questionable moral decision that you think you could not have done otherwise then feel free to post it.

Freely choosing means that you have not been coerced into making a decision.

Or seduced. However, persuaded to do one thing rather than another ensures my autonomy as a freely willing person.

Free will means making that decision when it hasn't been determined by prior conditions.

You're just repeating your same argument w/o improvement.

Although now antiquated, in atheistic Freudian terminology, it appears you deny the Super Ego which we Christians call simply virtue. Virtue, an acquired disposition, is always a prior condition that affects our free will choice. Vice works in the other way.

Your emotions are one of the antecedent conditions that determine your actions. Just like your genetic make-up doesn't mean that you will do this or will do that. It just increases the likelihood.

Emotions may be positive or negative. Those which move us to do good are good. The others ... well, you can figure that out, I'm sure.

In the course of a lifetime, virtue allows us to at first perhaps with some reflection, later out of habit w/o much thought at all to freely choose the real goods of life.

Do your tails-of-youth still chase you? If so then give us that example we expect from the OP.

 

[Bradskii]

No need for me to get personal, it's your thread.

I must have asked this question maybe 30 times in this thread. In the nearly 2,500 posts, nobody has offered one single example. Why do you think that is? Why won't you do it? You could completely destroy my argument with that one example.

You're just repeating your same argument w/o improvement.

It wasn't an argument. I was defining free will. I keep giving examples of decisions that are determined. If you give me an example of a decision that wasn't covered by that definition then we could discuss it.

 

[Neogaia777]

It can be tricky because people use want, desire and prefer interchangeably. It might be worthwhile defining these in the context of the discussion.

Want and desire are very similar. I'd just differentiate them by degree and also by the fact that want tends to imply something immediate. Whereas desire is more long term. So if someone asks you what you want to do you might respond 'I want to go to the beach'. As in right now, as opposed to doing something else. Whereas you might say 'I have this desire to visit Thailand' which is long term and less definite.

And they are different from prefer. I'm always using prefer as opposed to want in that your preference is the ultimate aim whereas the want is the proximate aim. So I might want to go to the pub but...my preference is to continue my health regime and go to the gym. To a more extreme example - I want to survive the ship sinking, but I prefer to give my place in the lifeboat to a woman. Hey, look...a moral example. Let's have a look at it.

Emotions like shame and pride come into this. I'd feel shame if I were to brush the woman and child aside and grab the seat myself. And an internal sense of pride if I give them my seat. Where do these emotions come from? Well, maybe God wrote them on my heart or they are a product of the evolutionary process. Either way, wherever they come from, they help to determine my decision. Then there's cowardice or heroism. Some people are born tending towards one or the other. We've all seen examples of someone backing down or standing up to a threat. That characteristic will be another fact that will determine my decision.

Fitness and age? I might be in the prime of my life and an excellent swimmer. The woman has a broken leg. She will die if she doesn't get into the lifeboat and I might well survive. Or I know that she's an excellent swimmer and I'm in my nineties and can't swim a stroke. Those facts will go to determine my decision.

And ultimately, I might just be the kind of guy who only thinks of himself. Will I change at that moment? Well, something needs to happen or that seat is mine. Shame or pride? Maybe memories of all the examples of self sacrifice your heard about now ring true? Maybe at last they will determine my actions. Maybe the stories I have heard and people who have taught me and brought me up and the type of person that I am - none of which I could control, will be the reason why she gets the seat.

I don't think it has to be pride that allows you to sacrifice yourself for another or several others in those very moments, but that it can also be a sudden overwhelming sense of empathy or compassion that you maybe have a sudden revelation of in those very moments, causing you to give up or lay down your own life for another, etc.

But, yes, either way with whatever happens, it was already meant to happen that way and was already determined/predetermined or caused by whatever was already with you or was a part of you prior up to that point, etc, which was all already decided/determined/predetermined by forces beyond your understanding and/or knowing up to any point, etc.

But my other point was that it may or may not have been what you exactly "preferred" maybe? Like I said, it's a poor choice of words in my opinion, and can confuse others sometimes in my opinion, etc.

Take Care/God Bless.

 

[o_mlly]

I must have asked this question maybe 30 times in this thread. In the nearly 2,500 posts, nobody has offered one single example.

Well, I for one and I suspect others as well, are waiting for you to explain why you freely chose this forum to start this thread. Do you have a moral example to offer to which your opinion on free will could be applied?

You could completely destroy my argument with that one example.

I think we already have rationally done so.

Why won't you do it?

As to the non-obvious claim that God's exists, the atheist often retorts that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. That's fair. But it also works in the converse. Those who make extraordinary claims opposed to what is obvious require extraordinary evidence. A moral example from you could possibly help you out. I offered an example but you passed on exploring the moral implications:

Are zoos moral? If not then why not? If so then why so?

 

[Neogaia777]

Science doesn't "prove" that everything is entirely deterministic, it approximates the universe as deterministic by way of methodology.

Determinism, as a concept, is incoherent because to hold it must hold invariably down to the minutest detail. If there is any freedom within the system, then we can know that determinism is false. The issue here is those denying "free will" are making unnatural distinctions and playing a shell game that makes it unclear what it is they are actually denying since they seem to admit that we have both freedom and intention. So the entire "argument" is muddled, because we have determinism being asserted without support for that assertion and then a consequence of determinism being affirmed. If the determinists would clarify what the missing element for free will is that they deny, perhaps we could have productive discussion since we could see if it truly is necessary or if there is cause to deny it.

Science can clearly show and prove, beyond any sense of reasonable or rational doubt or denial, that these atoms or molecules, or mass of stuff, is moving along at this or that trajectory (and velocity/speed/temperature/environment) and then runs into or interacts with this or that mass of stuff, and then produces this or that effect after interacting with this or that mass of stuff, which then goes on it's way to then interact with more stuff, etc, etc, etc, and such and such, and so on and so forth, etc. Anyway, all of that can be shown way, way beyond any kind of rational or reasonable doubt to always be deterministic always, etc, and it never does anything different, or ever acts/reacts/behaves in any other kind of other way ever, and I mean like "ever", etc, and there is no denying that ever, because it is 100% solid and unchangeable "fact", etc. And since both we, and everything else, is all made up of all of that stuff, then there is no way that our actions/choices/decisions/thoughts/interactions cannot be anything other than deterministic always also, since we are all, all of us (and everything else) is all just made up of, and is all just extensions of all of that stuff, etc. It's really quite simple really, etc. So simple in fact, that I just 100% absolutely cannot believe that you guys cannot see it, or won't admit to it, etc.

And also, theologically speaking, it is also the one and only way any being can be fully omniscient always also, etc. And I also cannot believe you guys cannot see or admit to that also, etc. Even although that is not my primary reason for thinking determinism is 100% truth, etc, but is more due to other reasons that I have just now mentioned or stated earlier, etc.

God Bless.