To me self determination IS freedom.
Ask any one in the UN and they would fully agree..
Ask any one in the UN and they would fully agree..
Co-Determinism and the Reality of Free Will
- Thread starter Quantum Quack
- Start date
As said, this is thread is to discuss QQ's argument. If you wish to continue our disagreement then feel free to take it to one of the other threads. Needless to say, nothing you have said is any different to what you have already said, and still fails to provide the argument you think it does. But hey ho.
There are no such absurdities, just different notions of freedom within the two camps. Get past that and the issue falls away. But I've been saying that from the outset. But you're right in that he's screwing around with determinism, or at least trying to argue for humans being outside the rest of the workings of the universe.
Sarkus , if someone proved to you that your position, belief etc was false and invalid would you change you belief accordingly?
For the last time (hopefully, although I doubt it): it is the nature of that freedom that is in question. Got that?
The UN is not a forum for philosophical discussion of (in)compatibilist positions.
Of course.
Well try this:
Self determination IS the nature of freedom.
Or another,
Self determinism in a deterministic universe is the nature of freedom in a deterministic universe.
Self determinism in a deterministic universe is the nature of freedom in a deterministic universe.
Meaningless nonsense, to be honest. Yes, self determination requires freedom, but both the incompatibilists and the compatibilists would agree with that, and as such in no way gets to the issue of what the nature of that freedom is. So to say what you're saying in no way actually addresses the issue, nor does it help resolve the issue. You're actually just creating a circular notion, defining something in terms of something that requires what is being defined.
Same response to this as above.
So you are saying that freedom is not actually the issue and that you agree that freedom is real and not illusionary.
You are just wanting to talk about the nature of a freedom you agree exists. Ok......
But before you go on and on about it,
can a thermostat self determine like humans can?
One can't say that it is real or illusionary without establishing the nature of the freedom one is talking about. So no, I don't necessarily agree that "freedom" is real and not illusionary, as it depends what nature you deem the "freedom" to have.
Let me lay it out: if you think the nature of the freedom is the same as can be found in a thermostat, or calculator, etc, then yes, this type of freedom exists and is not illusory. If you think the nature of the freedom is qualitatively more than that, however, then no, I think that freedom does not exist and is illusory. And if one wishes, say, to argue that complexity adds a qualitative difference then they have to do more than simply appeal to complexity, though, as if appealing to it is sufficient.
Does that clear things up for you?
No. I am wanting, in this thread at least, to discuss your "co-determinism" and how you think it resolves the issue between the incompatabilist and compatibilist position. It seems to do no such thing.
In the other threads it was very much the nature of the freedom that is key, not the process that is said to have that freedom. The process exists. Noone has ever disputed it.
Define "self determine" in this context, please? It is certainly the internal workings of the thermostat that turn the radiator on or off, according to the inputs to its system. But if this is not what you mean, please define the phrase as you understand it.
I thought you were going to resort to an extreme distortion of the usual and generic definition and use of the terms "self determination".
You have proved my prediction correct!
There are many definitions stated on the web all very similar and not one will describe self determination in a thermostat ... Google "Self determination" and do some research.
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If you ask Alexsei the AI or any of the other AI's "What is self determination?" I wonder what they would say.....
yep, it tells me your problem is impossible to resolve using logic or reasoning.
You are stuck in a compulsive rut that has no way out because the term freedom is an intangible and can not be adequately defined except by action relative to reaction which only reinforces the notion of non-freedom. A state of constant hope and self defeat, endlessly looping and going no where...
Surprisingly common among people with significant intelligence. Sir Isaac Newton for example spent most of his later years obsessing over the "Whore of Babylon" end time predictions. (book of Revelations). Tesla with his energy transfer obsession, and so on...
It is an intellectual trap that has to be avoided at all cost if one wishes to stay sane.
It reminds me of the comments made by R.M. Pursig in the book "Zen and the Art Of Motor Cycle Maintenance." ( 1974) where he refers to his debilitating obsession with the word "Quality", in his equally obsessed quest/pursuit to define "Value".
"...as he looks at his son through the door's window of a lock down psych ward." or something to that effect...
Relative Freedom is an intrinsic out come/aspect of self determination. The reason I am emphasizing "self determination" instead of "freedom" is because self determination is evidential, materially observed where as freedom is not.
Because a thermostat is NOT self determining, it has no freedom, relative or other wise, trivial or quala.
Self determination is not a given, it must be worked for, fought for, lived for and maintained. It defies oppression as a continuum of constant behavior.
A thermostat can not fight for it's freedom it can only do what it is directed to do and any "freedom" as you call it it is really just chaos or disorder personified.
The word freedom is as illusionary as the words quality and value...
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James R will recall no doubt the numbers of members obsessed with proving Einsteins SRT incorrect or flawed in logic. For about 6 years sci forums seemed to be inundated with radical thinkers trying to do the impossible. I was just as guilty as any one else, until I finally worked it out and once I did I didn't feel inclined to inform others why SRT was flawed because there was no point in doing so. I wouldn't wish that sort of insane journey of intellectual discovery on any one...
This issue of freewill has been haunting intelligent minds for over 3000 years, diving some insane and most to the brink of insanity in the process so if you are feeling a tad insecure you are in great company...
This issue of freewill has been haunting intelligent minds for over 3000 years, diving some insane and most to the brink of insanity in the process so if you are feeling a tad insecure you are in great company...
I think that the two philosophies can feasibly coexist: a cause and effect type of universe, and we also have free will. It could be that free will is nothing but an illusion, but we don't live life actually believing that. There's another option, to believe in a cause and effect type of universe, but also that free will is not an illusion, but very much a reality. Reaping what one sows is part of that cause and effect reality; sowing stems from our free will, in my opinion.
In philosophy there are a number of layers like that of an onion some times called categories.
The categories you refer to are only two of the many. They can not co-exist in paradoxical fashion. Either freedom is real or it is an illusion.
Yet in a higher category the notion of "real" is at stake, where by non-dualists will argue that everything is merely a memory , temporal figment and thus everything is an illusion. Yet this in itself creates the dilemma of "what is real?"
So, if I make use of certain perspectives ( categories ) I can fully agree with you until one realizes that one claim is of a different category to the other and can not be argued with any real coherency.
Either there is freedom or there is not. ( in a metaphysical sense) or there is both in a practical sense. The later surrendering to an agnostic position.
A system of categories is a complete list of highest kinds or genera. Traditionally, following Aristotle, these have been thought of as highest genera of entities (in the widest sense of the term), so that a system of categories undertaken in this realist spirit would ideally provide an inventory of everything there is, thus answering the most basic of metaphysical questions: “What is there?” Skepticism about our ability to discern a unique system of basic categories of ‘reality itself’ has led others to approach category systems not with the aim of cataloging the highest kinds in the world itself, but rather with the aim of elucidating the categories of our conceptual system or language.
c/o Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
c/o Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
It is heavy going but worth the read if interested enough.
Co-determination is about finding a successful middle ground that allows both the compatibilist and the fatalist to resolve their impasse.
It does so by emphasizing that freedom is an outcome or attribute of self determination which has to be learned.
That self (co)determination ( aka self freedom) is "really" possible, but only with co-determination included in any discussion of mechanics or method.
Switching categories midstream in a discussion makes it impossible to resolve anything. ( like playing with context)
Same reason it's going on here: insufficient attention to and knowledge of the workings of the human mind - the physically existent, locatable and measurable and observable, decisionmaking human mind.
btw: Notice how - as so often happens in these and similar discussions - the language breaks down. That quote is garble if read carefully.
So?
You appear to think that is some kind of argument against my post, that my claim of freedom of the will requires "freedom from universal causation".
That is the supernatural assumption - you making it, right there.
No "freedom from universal causation" - supernatural capability - is needed for human decisionmaking and willful action to have the necessary degrees of freedom we know (and observe) as "free will".
So there for it should be easy for you to address the critical question i raised in post #182
Sure.
The fact that I've answered it twenty or thirty times over the past few months, from four or five different posters here, makes it especially easy.
(I don't know what you mean by "compatibilist", so I'm just answering for my own posts): the necessary causations don't need to be avoided, and are not avoided. They are stipulated, in fact. A deterministic universe operating by cause and effect has been stipulated as the frame of this discussion from the first pages of the first thread.
ok... how does it follow that ANY degree of freedom from that determinism is possible in the system you are referring to given that:
every decision, every dream, every thought, every choice is predetermined by that deterministic causation?