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Discussion and Debate
Discussion and Debate
Physical & Life Sciences
Freewill?
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<blockquote data-quote="FrumiousBandersnatch" data-source="post: 69098077" data-attributes="member: 241055"><p>As I see it, an influence is a partial determinant. The sum of all influences determines the outcome. If I have a particular preference, I want that to be a factor in determining my choice.</p><p></p><p>The influences are often complex - I may be aware that I have a bias that I wish to overcome, so I will try to compensate for that bias in my decision. I may be able to do that if I'm feeling mentally strong enough - or I may not. For example, whether I decide to eat that last doughnut will be determined by a complex interplay of conflicting influences that will vary even while I'm pondering the decision.</p><p></p><p>OK, there are some fine semantic distinctions here, e.g. between determinism (everything that happens is part of a causal sequence), and <em>pre-determinism</em> (the idea that all events are determined in advance) - that way lies the potential for fatalism. But we could be arguing definitions forever, so, for the sake of avoiding all that, I'll concede that my actions (in fact <em>all</em> events) would, in principle, be determined by how the universe started out.</p><p></p><p>However, this doesn't make my choices predictable (<a href="http://complexes.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/determinism-predictability.html" target="_blank">even in principle</a>), and - because they're the choices <em>I</em> make, they're still <em>my</em> choices, regardless of the history underlying them. Under this regime, I'm a complex and unpredictable but deterministic agent (as is everyone else).</p><p></p><p>The key point here is that <em>it really makes no difference</em>; I still make decisions and choices based on the influences of my preferences and experiences, I still feel like I'm acting with free will - because I'm not aware of all the complex determinants of my actions, and I can't enumerate all the influences in my current mental and physical state, let alone their convoluted histories. To do that I would have to know every detail of every experience I'd ever had, and every thought I'd had about it, conscious and subconscious, and how they all came to set my mind and body in its current state, and <em>having that knowledge would itself radically change my decisions</em>; but that's impossible - all I'm consciously aware of is a rough summary of the options subconscious processing has made available, and whatever conscious deliberations I can keep track of - a trivial subset of all the actual influences.</p><p></p><p>The real world, being built on stochastic quantum mechanics, isn't really classically deterministic at heart - although at macro (e.g. human) scales it's a very close approximation. If it wasn't, biological organisms couldn't function, nor could our technology.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FrumiousBandersnatch, post: 69098077, member: 241055"] As I see it, an influence is a partial determinant. The sum of all influences determines the outcome. If I have a particular preference, I want that to be a factor in determining my choice. The influences are often complex - I may be aware that I have a bias that I wish to overcome, so I will try to compensate for that bias in my decision. I may be able to do that if I'm feeling mentally strong enough - or I may not. For example, whether I decide to eat that last doughnut will be determined by a complex interplay of conflicting influences that will vary even while I'm pondering the decision. OK, there are some fine semantic distinctions here, e.g. between determinism (everything that happens is part of a causal sequence), and [I]pre-determinism[/I] (the idea that all events are determined in advance) - that way lies the potential for fatalism. But we could be arguing definitions forever, so, for the sake of avoiding all that, I'll concede that my actions (in fact [I]all[/I] events) would, in principle, be determined by how the universe started out. However, this doesn't make my choices predictable ([URL='http://complexes.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/determinism-predictability.html']even in principle[/URL]), and - because they're the choices [I]I[/I] make, they're still [I]my[/I] choices, regardless of the history underlying them. Under this regime, I'm a complex and unpredictable but deterministic agent (as is everyone else). The key point here is that [I]it really makes no difference[/I]; I still make decisions and choices based on the influences of my preferences and experiences, I still feel like I'm acting with free will - because I'm not aware of all the complex determinants of my actions, and I can't enumerate all the influences in my current mental and physical state, let alone their convoluted histories. To do that I would have to know every detail of every experience I'd ever had, and every thought I'd had about it, conscious and subconscious, and how they all came to set my mind and body in its current state, and [I]having that knowledge would itself radically change my decisions[/I]; but that's impossible - all I'm consciously aware of is a rough summary of the options subconscious processing has made available, and whatever conscious deliberations I can keep track of - a trivial subset of all the actual influences. The real world, being built on stochastic quantum mechanics, isn't really classically deterministic at heart - although at macro (e.g. human) scales it's a very close approximation. If it wasn't, biological organisms couldn't function, nor could our technology. [/QUOTE]
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