Is free will possible in a deterministic universe?

[Sarkus]

Moderator note:

The first 91 posts of this thread were split from a separate thread, which can be found here:

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/co-determinism-and-the-reality-of-free-will.161757

The discussion in the current thread started in a different thread, which can be found here:

http://www.sciforums.com/threads/does-physics-disprove-the-existence-of-free-will.161342/
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Of course, determining the relevant sense of the word "free" is part of the point of contention that I have with Sarkus's and Baldeee's position. For them, "free" is only possible through supernatural means, or maybe through some hypothetical, unidentified process they say neither of them can identify.

It's more that I find only a trivial sense of "freedom" within a deterministic system. I don't think anything is possible through supernatural means... the supernatural does not exist, thus nothing is possible through it. If there is a non-trivial sense of "freedom" to be found, then I have yet to come across it. As for what I mean by trivial, it is the same notion of freedom to be found in a thermostat, or other such examples that have been given, then I would deem it trivial.

 

[Sarkus]

By now, at least two of us have tried several times to walk you through the relevant differences between a thermostat and a human being.

And failed to offer anything substantive in the nature of the freedoms involved.

If you haven't worked it out by now, I don't think you're going to get it.

I have worked it out, thanks: the freedoms involved are the same, and they are trivial. If you haven't worked that out by now then I don't think you're going to get it.

In any case, I think I'll stick to discussing QQ's idea in this thread. The other one is better for discussion your outstanding problems, if they need further discussion.

There are no outstanding problems, thanks. But you raised the issue in this thread, I merely corrected your view of the position you think I hold. I'm happy to discuss (and I use the term loosely here given the lack of anything coherent to discuss) QQ's idea, but I'm still waiting for the meaningful substance to be put forth that is in any way different to what has already been discussed elsewhere.

 

[iceaura]

It's more that I find only a trivial sense of "freedom" within a deterministic system.

Noone has disputed that if you use a trivial notion of freedom, as found for example within a thermostat (i.e. degrees of freedom), that freewill can be considered non-illusory. A thermostat has that freedom. Our will has that notion of freedom. But it is a trivial notion. And it doesn't show how our will is any more free than a thermostat in being able to do other than it must.

That is the central problem, I think. The naive materialist is simply not paying attention.
All the rest of the goofy - the equivalence of thermostats and human decision processes, the backwards causality whereby future events affect present circumstances, the dismissal of observation as "appearance", all of it, rides on a central refusal to acknowledge the complexity of what "material" can do.

 

[Sarkus]

That is the central problem, I think. The naive materialist is simply not paying attention.

I find the central problem being your reliance on, despite an inability to explain it, let alone support it, complexity to take you from lack of non-trivial freedom to the presence of it. It has become your "God of the gaps" as far as this debate goes.

All the rest of the goofy - the equivalence of thermostats and human decision processes, the backwards causality whereby future events affect present circumstances, the dismissal of observation as "appearance", all of it, rides on a central refusal to acknowledge the complexity of what "material" can do.

"Backwards causality"? Can you elaborate?
And it's not so much a "refusal to acknowledge the complexity..." but rather just not question begging the existence of a non-trivial freedom and covering up gaps in explanation through "complexity did it!" So show how complexity introduces a non-trivial freedom, support the claim. So far you have offered nothing but work in a lab that clearly does not support it (once you remove the question-begging).

But this thread is to discuss QQ's enlightening notion of "co-determinism". If you want to revisit the discussion on freewill itself, there are/were other threads.

 

[James R]

And failed to offer anything substantive in the nature of the freedoms involved.

If that's what you took away from extensive and careful explanations by iceaura and myself, there's no helping you.

I have worked it out, thanks: the freedoms involved are the same, and they are trivial. If you haven't worked that out by now then I don't think you're going to get it.

Your repetitive and insistent use of the word "trivial" really gives the game away. Human decision-making is very far from "trivial". Your attempts to equate it to the switching of a thermostat have looked like a stretch from the first time you raised that idea. By now, you're so entrenched in your position that you're reduced to just trotting out the line. At the point where you stop thinking about the points being put to you, further discussion becomes a waste of time. As far as I can tell, you passed that point a while ago.

Give it a rest. Maybe in six months time, or a year, it'll hit you. Or maybe not.

There are no outstanding problems, thanks.

Then you're all done. No point flogging a dead horse. Right?

 

[Sarkus]

If that's what you took away from extensive and careful explanations by iceaura and myself, there's no helping you.

If you think you have offered such then there is no helping you, JamesR. Seriously, there's little point in simply saying "well, if you don't understand you never will" or "if you don't then there's no helping you" because the same trite and vacuous claim can be stated of both sides by the other. It doesn't help matters.
So grow up.

Your repetitive and insistent use of the word "trivial" really gives the game away. Human decision-making is very far from "trivial". Your attempts to equate it to the switching of a thermostat have looked like a stretch from the first time you raised that idea.

If that's what you think then there really is no helping you.
See what I did there? See how vacuous such a response is, irrespective of who says it?

By way of a meaningful response: I have explained the use of the term... basically if it is the same nature of freedom found in a thermostat then I am calling it trivial. If you have issue with only having a freedom of will that I am considering trivial (in this regard) then that is your issue, not mine.
How are the natures of freedom different between that found in your free will and that found in a thermostat. Yes, you can appeal to complexity if you want, but that isn't an answer. So, what is the difference?

By now, you're so entrenched in your position that you're reduced to just trotting out the line.

If all you can come back with is examples and arguments that reflect that same nature of freedom, then why should I respond with anything different? If you can provide an actual argument that in any way offers something different, though...?

[At the point where you stop thinking about the points being put to you, further discussion becomes a waste of time. As far as I can tell, you passed that point a while ago.

Oh, for Pete's sake, JamesR, get over yourself.
To trot out your line: if that's what you took away from extensive and careful explanations from myself, Baldeee, Capracus, then there's no helping you.
As far as I can tell, you passed your own version of that line from the outset.

See yet how vacuous such a line of "discussion" really is that you've decided to start trotting out?

Give it a rest. Maybe in six months time, or a year, it'll hit you. Or maybe not.

Ditto, JamesR. Ditto. Any chance you're going to stop such worthless comments? The fact that you consider your position just as correct as you think I hold mine is to effectively dismiss everything any incompatibilist philosopher has issued on the matter, all incompatibilist arguments, and your entire line seems to be little more than "it's obvious we're right! You're just entrenched in a wrong position! Blah blah blah!"

Then you're all done. No point flogging a dead horse. Right?

I am done. I have been done on the matter almost since it began, but certainly since noone has offered anything new on the matter. All I'm doing is answering your criticisms.

But, as even you have said, this thread is to discuss QQ's "co-determinism". Perhaps set an example and take further discussion of the (in)compatibilist disagreement to one of the other threads where it has been thrashed out ad nauseam.

 

[Sarkus]

You are the one who has ended up posting that the degrees of freedom in a thermostat circuit have the same "nature" as those in a human decision,...

You find that crippling? Maybe that speaks more about you than the actual arguments or positions at play. I certainly don't find it crippling. Why do you?

that capabilities which are not going to be used at a given moment in the future do not now and never "actually" existed, and so forth.

To be clear, only one capability to do something exists at any given moment. It's like my bank balance can only be one thing at any given time. Sure, it can range from negative lots to positive lots over the course of my life, but at any given time only one bank balance exists. How, or why, is that crippling for you? At any given time there is no freedom. Only when you look at the range of what it is over a period of time can one observe a "freedom" to be more than one thing. But at a given time? Nope, just one thing. No freedom to be anything else.
You see that as "freedom", the ability over time to be different things. I don't. Yet somehow you see that as crippling. Maybe it cripples you, but you are not everyone.

 

[iceaura]

You find that crippling?

Evidence of you having been crippled by the assumption that only the supernatural has freedom. You are posting strange nonsense like that, you seem unable to correct yourself, and you keep referring back to the logic based on that assumption - so one reasonably ascribes the crippling to the assumption so tightly correlated.

To be clear, only one capability to do something exists at any given moment

The driver approaching the light has two, at all moments prior to ascertaining the color of the light. This is a matter of observation (and identification of "driver", and definition of "capability", and so forth). You can adjust your theory accordingly, or continue to post patently false claims about a physical reality anyone can see for themselves.

It's like my bank balance can only be one thing at any given time.

Observation will verify your single bank balance, just as it verifies the existence of two capabilities in the driver approaching the light.
Note that future events predetermined to change your bank balance in the future do not affect its status now. It is not an illusion now because it is predetermined to be different in the future.

Only when you look at the range of what it is over a period of time can one observe a "freedom" to be more than one thing.

The two capabilities of stopping and going, possessed by the one driver approaching the one light, are observed more or less simultaneously. The driver has no "freedom" to be more than one driver, or a different driver, or anything else supernatural, of course - what are you talking about?

You see that as "freedom", the ability over time to be different things.

At no time, in no earlier post, have I said anything about anything "being different things".
No doubt you have some reason for wandering off on this tangent, and will enlighten us.

 

[Sarkus]

Evidence of you having been crippled by the assumption that only the supernatural has freedom.

I don't make that assumption, nor ever have. You seem to be the one crippled, by the notion that I have made such an assumption, since you trot it out when you have nothing else to offer. It remains as false a claim by you now as it was when first you offered it up.

You are posting strange nonsense like that, you seem unable to correct yourself, and you keep referring back to the logic based on that assumption - so one reasonably ascribes the crippling to the assumption so tightly correlated.

I am not posting nonsense, strange or otherwise. I have no need to correct myself, and there is no crippling on my part. You, on the other hand, seem crippled by the notion that I have made such an assumption.

The driver approaching the light has two, at all moments prior to ascertaining the color of the light.

No, he doesn't. All the way up to the lights he has no ability to do anything other than what he does each moment. He might think he has, but he doesn't. You might think he does, but he doesn't. At any given point there is but one thing that can be done, and that is what is done.

This is a matter of observation (and identification of "driver", and definition of "capability", and so forth). You can adjust your theory accordingly, or continue to post patently false claims about a physical reality anyone can see for themselves.

It is not a matter of observation. Observation is not looking at each moment but at what options were counterfactually available. Until you can stop crippling your view by misunderstanding what the observations are about, and stop question-begging yourself into such a misunderstanding, you will get nowhere.

Observation will verify your single bank balance, just as it verifies the existence of two capabilities in the driver approaching the light.

The driver can only do one thing at any given time, just as my bank balance can only be one thing at any given time. It has no capability to be anything else at that time, just as the driver can not do anything else at that time. Only if you examine counterfactually notions can you assert there to be options, or choice, or freedom.

Note that future events predetermined to change your bank balance in the future do not affect its status now. It is not an illusion now because it is predetermined to be different in the future.

I am still waiting for you to post where you have picked up this line regarding future events, because it seems clear you misunderstood what was said.

The two capabilities of stopping and going, possessed by the one driver approaching the one light, are observed more or less simultaneously.

More or less doesn't cut it. Moments change from, quite literally, one moment to the next. At any given moment the driver has but one course of action ahead of him. One. No choice. No freedom to do anything else.

The driver has no "freedom" to be more than one driver, or a different driver, or anything else supernatural, of course - what are you talking about?

I'm highlighting the lack of any non-trivial freedom. If you look at what a thermostat can do over time it can be on or off. So until you can show how the nature of this freedom that you consider the will to have is anything other than this trivial kind observable in a thermostat, you're not even on the same page. I await your inevitable appeal to complexity that lacks any actual substance.

At no time, in no earlier post, have I said anything about anything "being different things".
No doubt you have some reason for wandering off on this tangent, and will enlighten us.

You say it every time you reject the freedom you consider freewill to have being of the same nature found in a thermostat. Now, if you wish to clarify your position by saying that the only freedom you consider there to be in our free will is of the same nature as found in a thermostat, and thus go back on all your complaints about the analogy, I'm happy to listen.

 

[iceaura]

I don't make that assumption, nor ever have.

Twilight Zone.
You do, continually and repeatedly. Your entire argument is based on that assumption, and I have quoted you making it many, many times - pointed directly to the specific words, phrases, and steps in your reasoning where that assumption is employed. I even quoted an explicit use of it, by Bowser as a premise, in an argument that you endorsed. I would bet money you will do it again, within the next three posts.
That you can't see it just emphasizes my point: it's a crippling assumption.

More or less doesn't cut it.

Ok: simultaneously. As correlates of each other. In practice that's a pain in the technical ass, and most wouldn't bother (since the capabilities involved do not actually change moment to moment, as all observers can see), but it's definitely possible.

Moments change from, quite literally, one moment to the next. At any given moment the driver has but one course of action ahead of him

But at the moment of observation they have two capabilities - stop, and go. Their future choosing will determine the one course of action that history will record. Of course that eventual choosing is predetermined by the larger universe, via the color of the light (we ignore QED for the moment) - so is the existence of the capabilities being observed. They were predetermined to exist, as part of the predetermination of the future event of stopping or going. Now they are being observed, these capabilities. Both of them.

I am still waiting for you to post where you have picked up this line regarding future events,

Post where I "picked up" my posting?
I started pointing that out - that in the example the color of the traffic light did not exist yet, and so was not affecting any part of the observed physical situation - when I ran into the startling fact that people here were claiming future events affected present physical reality - the very same people who were positing a deterministic universe governed by natural law, cause and effect, and so forth, where each person could only do what they "must" do moment by moment.

They were serious. Not joking, not sending up naive materialism by taking it to self-parodying absurdity, but posting that as their sincere reasoning. In struggling with the confusion they were even changing the example situation, pushing it ahead in time so as to include the color of the light, apparently without noticing they had done so - referring to the new setup as if it were the one posted by me.

So I responded - in bewilderment, admittedly, because the necessity of responding to such assertions is kind of weird. Twilight zone stuff.

No, he doesn't. All the way up to the lights he has no ability to do anything other than what he does each moment. He might think he has, but he doesn't.

He has the capability of stopping, and the capability of going, according the future color of the light, at each moment. This is an observation of physical reality - capabilities are things that exist (at the appropriate logical level) in the real world, the physical world, the observable universe. Machines have them. Machines can record their possession by other machines.
Your obsession with what he - or anybody - "thinks" is strange. It is completely irrelevant.
What he or anyone"thinks" has nothing to do with anything in this discussion - this is an observation of physical reality.

I'm highlighting the lack of any non-trivial freedom.

And sliding in that give-away word "trivial".
How about we pick a day for each: one Tuesdays and Thursdays we discuss existence, on Mondays and Wednesdays we discuss the significance of what we have agreed exists.

You say it every time you reject the freedom you consider freewill to have being of the same nature found in a thermostat.

That does enlighten. I had no idea you were launching a discussion of the "being" of freedom - I thought you were talking about the beings you were talking about.
Ok: 1) "freedom you consider freewill" is (as is every other post of yours telling me what I am thinking in your vocabulary instead of posting in mine) gibberish - there is no such hopeless confusion in my posts.
Freedom is something a will has or doesn't have to some as yet undiscussed degree or extent. We haven't got there yet, and my posts don't deal with it beyond suggesting an approach and describing the context.

Now, if you wish to clarify your position by saying that the only freedom you consider there to be in our free will is of the same nature as found in a thermostat

That position was already clarified as a characteristic mistake of the naive materialist - someone who isn't paying attention to physical reality, dismisses observation as "appearance" and"illusion", and throws the term "nature" around carelessly. One might as well describe a map as having the same nature as a territory, or a substrate as having the same nature as a pattern - hard to tell what that means. You will recall such terms as "logical level" and "complexity" and "handled by current mathematics" and so forth,

which the careless and cornered dismiss as "handwaving", while the AI folks battle the reality of it and often lose - the driver approaching a light being among the simplest of examples in their struggle.
Turns out that the degrees of freedom involved in deciding to stop or go (both capabilities existed, of course, in every car) at a traffic light were not as trivial as the naive materialists had assumed, after all - the approach that had handled the household thermostats of Western civilization broke down completely, and they had to rethink their approach from the ground up.

 

[Sarkus]

You do, continually and repeatedly.

And you still can't differentiate between assumption and conclusion in this regard. Hey ho, nothing new, it seems.

Ok: simultaneously. As correlates of each other. In practice that's a pain in the technical ass, and most wouldn't bother (since the capabilities involved do not actually change moment to moment, as all observers can see), but it's definitely possible.

If you are referring to capabilities as being the various states that can be taken over time, sure, you're right, but that isn't simultaneous. It's not because it's a "pain in the technical ass" but because it is not possible in a deterministic universe, as concluded from (not assumed in) the original logical argument that Baldeee presented. But that will be lost on you, as it has been seemingly since the start. All you are doing, and all you have ever done, is example the nature of freedom found in a thermostat. No one has disputed the existence of that. It is just trivial.
But I admire your confidence that is is definitely possible. Unfortunately, much like your appeal to complexity, you need to have more than just appeals.

But at the moment of observation they have two capabilities - stop, and go.

No, they have one. The other is a counterfactual projection of what is considered possible due to the lack of information by the observer.
If the observer knew the state at the time of observation of all the relevant factors in the system, and knew the rules of the system, and could do the calculations quickly enough, they would know at the time of observation that there was no capability to do anything other than that one thing. Your observed "capabilities" are nothing but possibilities based on incomplete data. Complete the data and you remove any possibility except one. That is the nature of determinism.
And is it any wonder that I keep having to refer to things as "apparent" or "perceived" because that is all you are talking about. And you are blinkered, if not blind, to anything else.

Their future choosing will determine the one course of action that history will record. Of course that eventual choosing is predetermined by the larger universe, via the color of the light (we ignore QED for the moment) - so is the existence of the capabilities being observed. They were predetermined to exist, as part of the predetermination of the future event of stopping or going. Now they are being observed, these capabilities. Both of them.

If by "capability" you mean an assessment of possible outcomes based on your incomplete information, then sure. But when you have complete information those possibilities resolve into one, no matter how far in the future that event is. One possibility. No capability for anything else. No freedom. Hence "freedom" is simply the perceived or apparent ability to be one or other thing, when in reality there is no such ability.

Post where I "picked up" my posting?

Please reference the post which you have interpreted in the manner you have, so I can read what was written to lead you to your interpretation.
If it was something I posted then you have misunderstood what was written, and given that misunderstanding I feel I should correct you.
If it was something someone else said then, seriously, stop poisoning the well. If you are discussing with me then deal with what I say, not with what someone else might have said. Deal with them on what they say. Or should I raise issue with you everything QQ has to say?

He has the capability of stopping, and the capability of going, according the future color of the light, at each moment.

You see it as a capability due to lack of complete information of the system. Reality does not have that lack. We humans do, so we perceive things as having capability to do different things at a given time. Hence you are still just talking about how things appear, not to reality.

This is an observation of physical reality - capabilities are things that exist (at the appropriate logical level) in the real world, the physical world, the observable universe. Machines have them. Machines can record their possession by other machines.

No, it's an interpretation of physical reality. Capabilities are things we perceive to exist because we lack the complete information. Reality doesn't lack that information. Machines, such as thermostats, have such capabilities because we lack the information of the input. Thus we deem it to have the capability of being on or off depending on the input. If we have complete information (e.g. The temperature) then we know the output, no capability to do anything else.

Your obsession with what he - or anybody - "thinks" is strange. It is completely irrelevant.

It's not strange at all. It highlights how you are limiting yourself simply to perception, appearance, etc, to cases where we lack the information to rcognise the reality.

What he or anyone"thinks" has nothing to do with anything in this discussion - this is an observation of physical reality.

Indeed. But what we understand or know of what we observe is only part of physical reality. When I see an object I don't see their atoms, molecules, internal workings etc. I simply see the outward appearance. Gaps in knowledge, gaps that cause us to say that things have capabilities to do one or other thing at a given time. Fill in those gaps and those "capabilities" to do anything other than one specific thing disappear.

And sliding in that give-away word "trivial".

It's a give-away that what you are discussing I consider as being trivial, in that it is the same nature of freedom that a thermostat has. Appealing to complexity won't change that.

That does enlighten. I had no idea you were launching a discussion of the "being" of freedom - I thought you were talking about the beings you were talking about.

Eh? You mean other than every other post I make stating that the issue is the nature of freedom that hat can be said to exist? Are you really struggling that much to keep up?

Ok: 1) "freedom you consider freewill" is (as is every other post of yours telling me what I am thinking in your vocabulary instead of posting in mine) gibberish - there is no such hopeless confusion in my posts.

The quote is "the freedom you consider freewill to have"... and it's not gibberish - it speaks to the nature of what is being referred to as "freedom", which can either be the ability to other than one does (or words to that affect) or the perceived ability to do such due to lack of complete information etc. And undoubtedly others.

Freedom is something a will has or doesn't have to some as yet undiscussed degree or extent.

And it can have one type of freedom without having the other. As stated from almost the outset: different notions of freedom lead to different conclusions. If you think there is but one notion then you are hamstrung. I at least recognise there being two notions - one of which I label trivial, being that notion found in a thermostat.

We haven't got there yet, and my posts don't deal with it beyond suggesting an approach and describing the context.

Your approach cuts off entirely anything other than the compatibilist notion. It is an approach thus rejected by anyone wishing to discuss other notions. As I have also stated previously, if all you want to do is discuss the compatibilist notions then feel free, stop responding to my posts, and go have fun with the other compatibilists.

To be continued....

 

[Sarkus]

That position was already clarified as a characteristic mistake of the naive materialist - someone who isn't paying attention to physical reality, dismisses observation as "appearance" and"illusion", and throws the term "nature" around carelessly.

You "clarifying" it as a mistake really holds very little water. It's certainly a mistake for you in that it is not the compatibilist notion of freedom, but on the contrary, it is the incompatibilist who is paying attention to physical reality, who recognises what we observe as only being an interpretation of reality based on incomplete data, and recognises that reality itself has no such incompleteness. Is it any wonder that words such as "appearance" are used when that is the limit of your inquiry.

You will recall such terms as "logical level" and "complexity" and "handled by current mathematics" and so forth, which the careless and cornered dismiss as "handwaving",

Such words are indeed hand waving, and the God of your gaps in this regard. If you actually put some substance behind those words as to why they should be taken as anything other than an appeal, why they actually support your position and go against the other, then they won't be regarded as handwaving. But until then...

while the AI folks battle the reality of it and often lose - the driver approaching a light being among the simplest of examples in their struggle.

They don't battle with it at all. They know exactly how transistors work, circuits work, neural nets etc. They know what their programming does. It all has the same nature of freedom found in a thermostat. Trivial. Vastly more complex, yes, but that doesn't alter the nature of the freedom involved. The only time we think it is anything more is when we don't consider the complete knowledge. With a thermostat it is easy to get that knowledge. With AI getting towards impossible (or at least impractical). But it doesn't change the nature of the freedom involved. With complete knowledge there is zero ability to do anything other than what was predetermined from the outset. And that is no freedom.

Turns out that the degrees of freedom involved in deciding to stop or go (both capabilities existed, of course, in every car) at a traffic light were not as trivial as the naive materialists had assumed, after all - the approach that had handled the household thermostats of Western civilization broke down completely, and they had to rethink their approach from the ground up.

No one has suggested otherwise. But the nature of the freedom has not changed between the AI and the thermostat. I get that this highlights differences in degrees of freedom, but you're still just talking of the compatibilist notion, a notion based on incomplete knowledge. When you consider actual reality, not just the appearance of it, but the actual reality that has no gaps in knowledge, your notion of freedom simply evaporates. Reality has no freedom. And those who operate on a lack of complete knowledge thus can only have the appearance of such freedom.

This is my last post on the matter here. This thread was supposed to be for QQ to wow us with his co-determination theory. I will thus confine myself to that.
Apologies to QQ for being part of any perceived derailing up to this point.

 

[iceaura]

You "clarifying" it as a mistake really holds very little water.

Not with you, of course. You recognize no freedom except the supernatural - so once that's out of the picture, you're done.

Well, degrees of freedom is a matter of quantity,

Partly. There are logical levels and other complexities involved - differences in kind, quality, etc. - in comparing human decisionmaking with bricks and thermostats and whatever else you decided to talk about instead of the examples you were facing.

And you still can't differentiate between assumption and conclusion in this regard

You will never be other than foolish, in repeating that so thoroughly debunked claim.

The premises are assumed, in logical argument. You assumed them, in your argument. You reasoned from them. I quoted you assuming that one, in the course of that "argument" you made, in the middle of that argument (not at the end), and in multiple posts thereafter. I quoted you endorsing Bowser's explicit inclusion of it as a premise. And my prediction is that you are not done repeating it - that you will repeat the conclusion of that argument, what followed from that assumption, indefinitely.
{Like this:

By changing what we mean by "freedom" to be something else, something that has an appearance of freedom while still being deterministic.

If it's deterministic, see, it can only appear to - to what, exactly? You answered that question, if you recall: to not act as it naturally must. To defy determination by the natural universe. To be supernatural. And because it can only appear to be supernatural, it can only appear to be free. }

btw, Since you seem to have forgotten: The conclusion you actually came to was the nonexistence of freedom in a deterministic universe - that conclusion depended on the assumed premises of your argument, in particular the one I did not grant. When I argued against that conclusion - which I did not mistake for an assumption - I did so by pointing to the likely falsehood of that premise, which I correctly identified as a necessary one.

Notice that this conclusion - the one you actually came to, the nonexistence of freedom in a deterministic universe - is not what you are claiming I mistook for a premise.

No, they have one. The other is a counterfactual projection of what is considered possible due to the lack of information by the observer.

Capabilities are physical things. They exist in physical reality at a given moment, or they don't. Their present existence is not affected by future events, possible or impossible. They exist today if the world will blow up tomorrow, same as the rocks or ants or neuron firing potentials that will be blown up with them.

You are trying to deny the existence of the observed physical features of observed physical entities because they will not be employed at some event in the future. It's as if you were trying to claim some chair didn't exist because the universe had predetermined that no one was going to sit in it at five o'clock next Thursday. It's as if you were claiming that someone who was going to buy velcro fastened shoes on their lunch break was incapable of tying the laces of the shoes they were wearing, laces tied, that morning. It's a mind-boggling absurdity, this claim of yours.

Unused capabilities are the majority of those observed to exist in the real world. The majority of the capabilities of almost anyone - any entity as complex as a human - will not be used in the future at all, let alone at some specified time and place. That does not cause them to vanish from the past or present.

An observation of a capability, like an observation of an acorn, is not a "projection" of any kind, and takes no account of future events. The capability is right there, being observed without the slightest regard for whether it will be employed - ever.

Furthermore, and even more basic: in our deterministic universe, one without supernatural properties or entities, future events do not reach back in time and affect current physical reality. They would have to violate physical law, to do that.

This is all pretty elementary stuff. But stuck is stuck.

 

[iceaura]

And special attention to the obliviousness of the naive materialist:

It all has the same nature of freedom found in a thermostat. Trivial. Vastly more complex, yes, but that doesn't alter the nature of the freedom involved.

It involves jumping several logical levels of processing and response - about as profound a difference in "nature" as one can get, and still belong to the same universe. Consider the jump from carbon chemistry to the evolutionary development of social insects - then add a level or two.

The software and the hardware, both, had to be redesigned from the ground up. New math had to be invented - then new fields of math. And they still haven't got it - this "trivial" stuff has baffled the best and the brightest for a generation now. They finally managed to get a powerful computer to play Go at a high level - Go is a complete knowledge 2 player board game with maybe a half dozen basic rules, about as simple an arena of human decision making as one can find - and now they don't know what the computer is doing. They don't even have the luxury they have with human players, of asking it to explain itself - that trivial aspect of human decision making is well beyond their coding abilities.

 

[Sarkus]

Not with you, of course. You recognize no freedom except the supernatural - so once that's out of the picture, you're done.

Take it to another thread, iceaura. But since all you can do is repeat your demonstrably fallacious claims that confuse assumption and conclusion, and since you've offered nothing new, and are even introducing other people's claims and comments as if I need to answer them, I can as easily ignore you here as anywhere else on this matter.

It is not I that is stuck here, as I said from the outset that I have no interest in discussing what I consider the trivial notion of freedom that can be found within a thermostat. You seem to have no desire to talk about anything else, yet here you constantly are responding to me. Show that you are not stuck... move away from me.

 

[Sarkus]

And special attention to the obliviousness of the naive materialist:
It involves jumping several logical levels of processing and response - about as profound a difference in "nature" as one can get, and still belong to the same universe.

Technical complexity does not change the nature of the freedom involved. Inputs in... predetermined output out. More complex than a thermostat, yes, of course, but the nature remains the same. I look forward to ignoring your subsequent appeals to complexity, to fallacious claims of assumptions, etc.

 

[iceaura]

That's using the compatibilist notion of freedom, yes. But it doesn't alter reality, which is predetermined, fixed, unchangeable from the course it is on. No freedom to do anything about it

It's not using my suggestion of where to start analyzing freedom of will - you described that as "compatibilist" also, so you have a category with more than one member. A needless complication, in my opinion - the label does not seem to be helping you catch up with this stuff.

Meanwhile, you are talking about the freedom of the universe again - an irrelevant topic: I don't think anyone else is concerned about whether the universe has any freedom of action.

 

[Sarkus]

It's not using my suggestion of where to start analyzing freedom of will - you described that as "compatibilist" also, so you have a category with more than one member. A needless complication, in my opinion - the label does not seem to be helping you catch up with this stuff.

No, it's not using your suggestion. Start a thread for the compatibilist notion with the starting point being the notion of freedom that you want to discuss, if that is what you want to discuss. And as for needless complication, there are as many compatibilist philosophies as there probably are eminent philosophers. Needless? No more so than "philosophy" itself having more than one category.

Meanwhile, you are talking about the freedom of the universe again - an irrelevant topic: I don't think anyone else is concerned about whether the universe has any freedom of action.

Given that we are part and parcel of that universe, I'd actually suggest it's a damn fine place to start.

 

[iceaura]

It is not I that is stuck here, as I said from the outset that I have no interest in discussing what I consider the trivial notion of freedom that can be found within a thermostat.

You declare the nonsupernatural to be "trivial", and all the same in "nature", and equivalent in "nature" to a thermostat - and so you aren't going to discuss it. Not the "nature", not the "trivial", none of it.

That is on top of having declared that capabilities don't actually exist in people unless they are going to be used at whatever future event has come up as an example. Those capabilities you think you are seeing? Only one of them is real at a time. The others are mere appearances at the moment - they don't actually exist, and all that neuron firing potential, pattern formation, reaction potential, muscle development and organization, synapse regulation, electrochemical flow, etc, is not a capability this time. Come back in week, if you want to see one of them become a capability. But don't miss the window - it won't be a capability for long. The event happens, and the whole shebang is back to being an illusion - until the next future event.

Which was predetermined as well, of course, along with all the others, from the beginning, so why would they blink off between gigs - - - - - best not to obsess over the details, especially if none of them are going to be discussed anyway because they are trivial.

They don't exist, and that's all there is to it.

But they do exist if they are going to be used at some specified time in the future.

Giving us the image of the driver approaching a series of traffic lights, their capabilities of stopping and going appearing and disappearing and alternating inside them like Christmas tree bulbs. If there were some way of keying them to eye color, or maybe the color of the driver's ears - - - -

If this wasn't as tediously familiar as it is, it would be kind of entertaining.

Technical complexity does not change the nature of the freedom involved.

Too bad you don't have a table to bang your fist on, when you say that. It wouldn't make the logical levels disappear, or solve the so far unmentioned problem of describing the degrees of freedom attendant upon the actions of patterns of patterns of neuron firings over time and space within a matrix of brain regions, but it would be more satisfying than some little clicking noise.

Inputs in... predetermined output out. More complex than a thermostat, yes, of course, but the nature remains the same.

Except the "inputs" are not in, remember? We've been over this already - that stuff about "time", what has and has not happened, what the word "future" means, that weird habit you guys have of changing the example to fit what you want to say about it, messing up the chains of cause and effect, and so forth.

Meanwhile, the predetermined output is predetermined by the decision you claim doesn't happen because the output is predetermined - - - - quite the muddle you are setting up. You sure you want to?

 

[iceaura]

Start a thread for the compatibilist notion with the starting point being the notion of freedom that you want to discuss, if that is what you want to discuss.

Now we are supposed to accept - as a frame for the entire thread - your not even acknowledged assumption that only the supernatural can be free, because that's the only one you want to discuss? Blow that for a soldier - dumb enough you think you can issue declarations of "triviality" as if you had any idea what you were talking about.

You don't want to discuss the reality of freedom of will, go take a nap.