Most events have to have a cause.... other wise they simply do not happen....
What ball park percentage of events universally have no causation?
Is this percentage enough to claim the universe as being indeterministic?
Is free will possible in a deterministic universe?
- Thread starter Sarkus
- Start date
What ball park percentage of events universally have no causation?
Is this percentage enough to claim the universe as being indeterministic?
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
We already know that our "common sense' only applies to our everyday world. There is no reason to think that we know what makes "common sense" in the quantum world.
There is also no reason to assume that conditions that lead to the change in phase that was the Big Bang have to have a cause. Any explanation that one comes up with ultimately comes to first causes so you have to deal with that under any scenario.
Coming up with percentages so that we (you) can label the Universe "deterministic"...is just silly.
I guess the same silliness also applies to those who seek to claim indeterminism.... lets face it, the human race of which I assume you to be a member of, is just plain... silly...
Also believing anything is plain silly as well, including a big bang.... I mean to say... BIG Bang.... what kind of label is that?
I'll let you know when the Earth stops rotating so you can leave all this silliness behind...
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
Why would you assume that I'm a member of the human race?
"Believe" has two meanings. In the absence of evidence all that is left is "belief" and "I believe" you are right because all the evidence leads in that direction.
The first use of "believe" is indeed silly.
The phrase "Big Bang" wasn't the term initially picked by the originators of that theory. It was a derisive term throw out there by the major proponent of the alternative theory (State State), Fred Hoyle. That's the Fred Hoyle who was latter shown to be wrong.
Silly ideas vs silly names...it seems that you are running out of cogent comments on this subject. Am I right?
Don' you like to state the obvious by changing the words around a bit? We all know that there is both some free will and some determinism. We knew that last April and we still know it today. Didn't you take this obvious fact, add the term "Co-determinism" to make it sound like you had an original thought while restating the obvious? That's silly.
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It's the one being pushed in my face on all these threads, by the naive materialist crowd. Are we supposed to start over?
Every outcome of a human decision is specifically and fully determined by "that cause" among others.
It's a teaching metaphor or illustration, usually, sometimes adopted as a "definition". Not here. We are assuming a deterministic universe, remember?
It was prior, not subsequent. It dates to the first pages of the first threads.
Baldeee's late formulation, of an argument long in progress, was a welcome clarification.
And the assumption was never granted - not before is was "argued" (asserted again), not after it was supposedly "argued" (it wasn't - it was repeated as an assertion).
All I koow is that I stipulated to that assumption from the beginning - agreed with the posts of others, to avoid a useless argument. Take it up with him.
That's unlikely. You have never posted an accurate paraphrase, and you keep using words like "dishonest", and you can't seem to respond relevantly, so by the evidence you don't.
That isn't a new issue, btw - from the beginning I have several times noted, quoted, and commented on, the inability of the naive materialists to - my term - "register" my posts. A large share of my typing here has been devoted to simply correcting your mistakes about what I am claiming - often in posts right in front of you - and you still make them.
Example:
See? You keep repeating that. No clue.
You are. "The ability to do other than one must", And it is crippling you.
"The philosophers" - you guys - are not paying attention to their observations, is the problem.
As you are never tired of assuming and repeating, and never bothering to examine or argue.
That's where the "naive" comes from, in the "naive materialist" label.
And logical levels, and where they arise (nested feedback loops, etc), and so forth. That's what you are labeling "trivial".
Like I said, several times before: - once the supernatural assumption is embedded like that its victims cannot even register, recognize, see, nonsupernatural freedom. It is literally invisible to them - the entire concept.
Whenever it's dropped, there's a lot to talk about.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
The more I hear iceaura, JamesR, et al invoke this "supernatural" phrase, the more I think they've got it backwards. It is they who invoke supernaturalism, not us.
My argument: In a deterministic universe, there can be no such thing as free will, anything that looks like it is illusory. (There's no invocation supernaturalism there. It is tantamonut to saying the universe is fabulously naunced machine - us included.)
The counter-argument (paraphrased): In a deterministic universe, free will can - and does exist - (though I still haven't heard how that could be so, given that every atom's trajectory follows directly from every previous determined interaction - all the way up to neurons). So, the counter-argument says: somewhere in there - amongst all those atoms with their predetermined trajectories - free will just magically - supernaturally - pops up.
Calling it an "emergent property" doesn't really explain it sufficiently.
My argument: In a deterministic universe, there can be no such thing as free will, anything that looks like it is illusory. (There's no invocation supernaturalism there. It is tantamonut to saying the universe is fabulously naunced machine - us included.)
The counter-argument (paraphrased): In a deterministic universe, free will can - and does exist - (though I still haven't heard how that could be so, given that every atom's trajectory follows directly from every previous determined interaction - all the way up to neurons). So, the counter-argument says: somewhere in there - amongst all those atoms with their predetermined trajectories - free will just magically - supernaturally - pops up.
Calling it an "emergent property" doesn't really explain it sufficiently.
Seattle:
The fact is, if you can't justify that statement, then it's just an assumption you're making, on the bandwagon with those other guys.
They will say that they have justified it, but in truth they have just pushed the argument backwards one step to the point that is is clear that their core incorrect assumption is the one about what it means for a choice to be free.
Because this clouds the issue, I think that for now it would be simpler to work on the assumption that we all live in a completely Newtonian universe, and normal "classical" determinism applies. In such a universe, the same core issue arises regarding the issue of freedom. There's no need to muddy the waters with quantum mechanics. That's not the sticking point with Baldeee and Sarkus, although they regularly get distracted by it.
Again, though, I point out that this is a distraction from the main sticking point in the discussion, concerning the nature of freedom.
So, your preferences are determined by this and that. Okay. That has been accepted by iceaura and myself from the start. How do you go from there to "And therefore you haven't made a free choice"? This is the point of contention. If you're not discussing that, then you've missed the point of most of the discussion we've been having.
The bandwagon I'm referring to is the one you jumped on when you wrote "Determinism and free will don't go together", as if that's a common-sense, obvious truth.
The fact is, if you can't justify that statement, then it's just an assumption you're making, on the bandwagon with those other guys.
They will say that they have justified it, but in truth they have just pushed the argument backwards one step to the point that is is clear that their core incorrect assumption is the one about what it means for a choice to be free.
How is there not? You're making a claim, but not making any argument to support it.
There's side discussion about quantum physics that is going on, and we could quibble about that. Some might argue that quantum physics means the universe is non-deterministic; others might argue the opposite.
Because this clouds the issue, I think that for now it would be simpler to work on the assumption that we all live in a completely Newtonian universe, and normal "classical" determinism applies. In such a universe, the same core issue arises regarding the issue of freedom. There's no need to muddy the waters with quantum mechanics. That's not the sticking point with Baldeee and Sarkus, although they regularly get distracted by it.
I don't think it speaks for itself at all. Have you ever driven home and not remembered the exact sequence of the drive, like you've done it on "automatic pilot"? Does it follow that you didn't freely choose to drive home in that way? Is it necessary for you to be acutely conscious of all aspects of the choices you make in order for them to be your own, free choices?
Again, you are asserting without defending your point of view. If you think free will is meaningless without conscious decision-making, then it's up to you to make your case.
Again, though, I point out that this is a distraction from the main sticking point in the discussion, concerning the nature of freedom.
Everybody in an argument like this has an "agenda", insofar as he wants his point of view to be recognised as "correct". Beyond that, it's just a discussion. There's no threat to world peace if one or more of us is wrong about the nature of free will. Nobody will lose his cattle station over it.
Exactly. The point of contention, which we haven't managed to get past with Baldeee and Sarkus (and now, it seems, Dave as well) is that those guys all implicitly define "freedom" to mean the supernatural ability to make things do "other than they must", if effect, and they admit they are doing that even when it is demonstrated (over and over) exactly where they are making that assumption in their arguments.
Like what?
Wait a minute! Previously, you declared that free will is imcompatible with determinism. Now you seem to be saying that, even in a classical world, we have "plenty of free will". So which is it? You can't have both.
The argument isn't about that. Forget quantum physics and concentrate on the classical. Can we possibly have free will in an entirely classical, deterministic universe? iceaura and I say we can. Baldeee and Sarkus say we can't. And you?Classic physics is deterministic, quantum physics is probabilistic so make a choice.
That's all well and good, but it's not an argument against free will.
So, your preferences are determined by this and that. Okay. That has been accepted by iceaura and myself from the start. How do you go from there to "And therefore you haven't made a free choice"? This is the point of contention. If you're not discussing that, then you've missed the point of most of the discussion we've been having.
Limited, or non-existent?
Why not?
Again, you're just making the already-agreed point about what determinism means, here. You aren't making an argument against free will, yet.
DaveC:
Your pretending not to have seen any of those posts doesn't change the fact. And if you have seen all those posts and you nevertheless decide that you're going to claim the argument has been dismissed "without justification", then it is you who is not arguing in good faith.
You can think that we're wrong, but don't pretend we haven't been justifying our point of view.
Probably you made the same assumption as Sarkus and Baldeee, then.
I see no lack of good faith here. People can be wrong, yet still be arguing in good faith.
Nonsense. The supernatural assumption has been explained and justified, carefully and with explicit reference to the writings of the people in this thread who are making that assumption, over and over, primarily by iceaura and myself.
Your pretending not to have seen any of those posts doesn't change the fact. And if you have seen all those posts and you nevertheless decide that you're going to claim the argument has been dismissed "without justification", then it is you who is not arguing in good faith.
You can think that we're wrong, but don't pretend we haven't been justifying our point of view.
Neither iceaura nor myself has ever claimed that free will results from a supernatural process. In fact, we have both, explicitly and repeatedly, written that we both agree that there are no supernatural processes, at least for the sake of this argument.
That's an assertion, not an argument.
You obviously haven't been following the discussion, then.
All you're doing here is making a statement about determinism, which has never once been disputed by iceaura or myself. The stuff in this quote of yours, here, is not an argument for free will any more than the stuff you label "My argument" is an argument against it.
In fact, I think it's becoming very clear that if I ask you, or Sarkus, or Baldeee to summarise my argument for free will actually is, you'll be at a loss. You're so hemmed in by the supernatural assumption, you've lost (if you ever had it) the ability to think outside that box.
Well done. A complete, albeit clear, mischaracterisation of the argument that we have been making.
Want to try again? Maybe once you understand what our argument actually is, you'll be a little slower to dismiss it as absurd.
What more do you require?
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
So have I. Explicitly and repeatedly.
(That's how I first got into this discussion, months ago. Seven times in a row iceaura ascribed that term to me without defense - I even reported it, but was rebuffed).
So, "explicitly and repeatedly" making your stance known gets you no points. We can just keep ignoring it.
Not a discussion where I come from.
Pot. Kettle.
You not only mischaracterize my argument, you then dismiss it with a single inflammatory term.
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Seattle
Valued Senior Member
James, your point of view is that the classical world is deterministic but that we still can have free will because we can choose to go left or right anytime we want.
Any nuanced position outside of that is met by, you haven't proved your point, that's not what we agreed to, you don't understand what we talked about several months ago.
If you want to limit the conversation/topic in the way that you've described it...then there isn't anything to discuss.
Everything is predictable and yet we can choose to go left or right. Who discusses this for months on end? (I know the answer). What kind of discussion is "it does what it has to do". We know what cause and effect is.
There is very little that one can discuss if it has to be contained by one category or the other. At that point, it's all in the definitions. That is all navel gazing as far as I can tell.
Any nuanced position outside of that is met by, you haven't proved your point, that's not what we agreed to, you don't understand what we talked about several months ago.
If you want to limit the conversation/topic in the way that you've described it...then there isn't anything to discuss.
Everything is predictable and yet we can choose to go left or right. Who discusses this for months on end? (I know the answer). What kind of discussion is "it does what it has to do". We know what cause and effect is.
There is very little that one can discuss if it has to be contained by one category or the other. At that point, it's all in the definitions. That is all navel gazing as far as I can tell.
Seattle:
As for "nuanced positions" outside of this, I'm not sure what they are. There haven't been any nuanced positions put to me by Baldeee or Sarkus or Dave. From them, I've only see the blunt assertion that freedom is impossible in a deterministic universe - hardly a nuanced point. "Freedom" to them can only mean "something breaking the laws of physics", as I have previously shown at length, with reference to their posts. Not much nuance there.
If your own position is different, perhaps you need to remind me what it is.
I was kind of hoping that we might be able to get past their particular roadblock, but that's taking a lot longer than I thought it would.
Bear in mind that this argument has not been going on for mere months in the wider world, but for millennia.
Therefore, it follows that if one insists on defining freedom as "it does something other than what it has to do", then one very quickly gets stuck in a supernatural rut of one's own making. Agreed?
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* Edited to add: Actually, it occurs to me that some of the time Sarkus and the others do seem to be arguing that. Sometimes they use language that suggests we do not actually make choices at all, which is contrary to the observed facts. But they tend to slip and slide around on that point, and confuse it with the question of whether the choices we make are free.
Your characterisation of my position is not inaccurate, although it is somewhat incomplete. Yes, we can choose to go left or right any time we want. After making such a choice, we mostly find that the subsequent course of events is consistent with the choice made, as a matter of observed fact. So, people use their will to make choices and the outcomes of such choices are apparently caused by the choices that are made, as matters of observed fact. So, we have will. We then turn to the question of whether these acts of will are free or not. Is there something that constrains my choice to go left or right to such an extent that I can no longer say that it was really my choice? I can't see anything that would fit that description. Determinism, on its own, certainly won't fit the bill.
As for "nuanced positions" outside of this, I'm not sure what they are. There haven't been any nuanced positions put to me by Baldeee or Sarkus or Dave. From them, I've only see the blunt assertion that freedom is impossible in a deterministic universe - hardly a nuanced point. "Freedom" to them can only mean "something breaking the laws of physics", as I have previously shown at length, with reference to their posts. Not much nuance there.
If your own position is different, perhaps you need to remind me what it is.
As far as I can tell, it is Sarkus and the others who want to limit the discussion. It is they who refuse to countenance any notion of freedom beyond the supernatural, not me.
I was kind of hoping that we might be able to get past their particular roadblock, but that's taking a lot longer than I thought it would.
That's not what we're discussing.* We're arguing about whether we are free to go left or right.
Bear in mind that this argument has not been going on for mere months in the wider world, but for millennia.
Right!
Therefore, it follows that if one insists on defining freedom as "it does something other than what it has to do", then one very quickly gets stuck in a supernatural rut of one's own making. Agreed?
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* Edited to add: Actually, it occurs to me that some of the time Sarkus and the others do seem to be arguing that. Sometimes they use language that suggests we do not actually make choices at all, which is contrary to the observed facts. But they tend to slip and slide around on that point, and confuse it with the question of whether the choices we make are free.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
I'm not Sarkus so let's get that out of the way.
Anyone saying that there is no free will in a deterministic world is just saying that if you are set on defining "deterministic world" as one where everything is determined (fate) then of course, by definition there is no free will.
That's not the real world however. Classic physics is deterministic in a perfect world with perfect data/computing which isn't realistic either of course.
No one wants to go down that path of argument because you would be describing what every atom in every chemical reaction was doing from the beginning of time.
It's not something that any of us can really add much of substance too, so why do it?
Yes, you can choose to go left or to go right and no "one" is telling you which way to go and your life's path will not be the same as if you had taken the other path (do we really need to even specify this, the path not chosen?).
If you are born into a Christian home you have the free will to choose to be a Christian or a Muslim. The "free" part is pretty limited here however by the environment. Can you freely make choices that you don't know about?
This is a limiting factor. Your unconscious brain might tend to instigate choices that have little to do with free will. They might have more to do with your environment, DNA, whatever.
You don't seem to agree with this limitation to free will. That's your prerogative.
If we knew what every atom was doing then it's certainly possible that we would know how that interaction would play out including the chemical reactions in our brain. We would know that you were going to choose left or right.
This is an extreme argument but that is actually what you guys are arguing so in that sense, no, there is no free will. That's not how we usually use that term though so since no one can predict the interaction of every atom then we either have free will or a very close approximation of free will.
If I can predict many aspects of another's life, it's questionable as to how much free will is there. There is certainly some and there is less than one might think.
If someone is likely to grow up, go to college, get married, have kids, have a brief retirement period and then die. How much free will was involved. Does everyone "freely" chose to do the same thing in one culture and do to a different thing in another culture?
Sure, to an extent. We all want what we are "told' to want and we "freely" choose that.
Looking at it another way, it seems pretty programmed.
I don't get the need to want to argue that we either have "absolute free will" or "it's all determined with no free will allowed".
That's not a real question. You can answer it either way just depending on how you define the terms.
From the point of view of something being interesting rather than from the point of view of trying to win a philosophy debate...it's much more interesting to consider the ways in which our perceived "free will" is a bit more conditioned/limited than we may have considered don't you think?
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Seattle,
I was just trying to bring you up to speed on the main bone of contention.
I disagree. There is no "of course" about it.
This is just a description of what it means for the universe to be deterministic. We're not arguing about that.
Again, nobody - not even the supernaturalists - disagree with the notion that people make choices.
I think we can all agree that the choices that are available to us at any given moment are limited by our past history. What is at stake is whether we are free to choose from among those choices that are available to us.
Are you making a choice at all, if your will is not involved in the process? If not, then it would seem to me that the question of free will becomes irrelevant.
Okay. So how about we restrict the discussion to choices like whether or not to stop at a traffic light, for the time being? I think we can agree we're engaging in a decision making process there, can't we?
I agree that our past history affects the likelihood that we will be presented at this moment with certain choices as "live" alternatives. What I do not agree with is the idea that there are never any live alternatives.
It still seems to me that you're hung up on the notion of determinism to such an extent that you never get around to considering the question of freedom. You're not the only one having that problem in this discussion.
Here, you're either throwing away the agreed assumption of determinism, or you're equating freedom with lack of knowledge. I think what you need to do is to decide what "free" means to you, when discussing choices.That's not how we usually use that term though so since no one can predict the interaction of every atom then we either have free will or a very close approximation of free will.
Is it?
Maybe you agree with me, then.
I think that rather than looking at the "big picture" like this, you should focus on something simpler, like a single choice or decision. Whether or not to raise your arm. Whether to stop at a traffic light. Whether to turn left or turn right. If there's no freedom to be found there, then I don't think you'll find the necessary freedom anywhere else in life, either.
I don't know what "absolute free will" is. As for the "no freedom allowed" option, you're probably best taking that up with Sarkus and his peers.
For me, the real interest is in the moral realm. Can we be held accountable for our actions, if they are not "free"? Is it right to punish (or reward) people, if their actions are not "free"? Can there be any responsibility without freedom? If not, and if we are not free, as Sarkus and his peers claim, then whither morals?
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
I won't go point by point here but I'll address two issues. One up above is where you are telling me how to think or how to categorize my thinking so that it fits "your" debate.
It reminds me of the joke about martial arts where one is being trained to defend oneself against an assailant with a knife. The student is given a rubber knife and told to attack the instructor. He does so and "cuts" the instructor.
The instructor says "No, no, hold the knife like this and walk like this". If your assailant happens to attack you like that, the technique works. If not, not so much.
Your last point about punishing someone if they have no free will...is anyone in here really arguing that on a practical level we don't have that degree of free will?
You say that I'm focusing too much on the deterministic side. If I'm doing that it's because that was what was asked of me. I'm not a "determinism" guy. This isn't something that I argue in real life or that I base my life's decisions on.
It's not a question that I can answer as I've tried to explain but even if I could definitely answer it in the affirmative, I still think that everyone should morally be held accountable for their actions.
If someone kills someone while drunk, we still hold them accountable. If everyone is going though life without free will then most of them still manage to not commit crimes so that seems like enough of a reason to punish those who do.
When I argue that it appears that on an atomic level everything is predictable with enough knowledge I can't really say for sure (nor can anyone else) what that means when decisions are being made. That is a chemical reaction but we don't know how it works to the degree that you are asking.
Focus on one atom, one neuron, then two, then a million. If you know the state of all that at one point in time, with perfect knowledge will you know what happens a millisecond later? If so, it's all deterministic with enough knowledge. If not, it's not.
You are judging at the higher level interactions but as with a computer program the work is actually being done at the binary level. I just don't have the answer to that and I'm guessing you don't either.
It's just not nearly as important to me and it is to you when the question is whether to hold someone accountable for their actions.
Your point does remind me of a point Steinbeck brought up in his book about sailing in the Sea of Cortez. He talked about people who were out of work and applying to unemployment insurance and people disparaged them as being lazy and not productive.
He said if it is a given that there isn't enough work for everyone and that there will be some small portion of the population that will require assistance is it their fault? If it's a given that not everyone can get a job, why treat them negatively. Even if it turned out that those without jobs were the least qualified, the least productive and the laziest...what would you prefer?
Would you prefer that the most qualified and most efficient were among the unemployed? If it's a given that there aren't enough jobs, it seems like the best outcome is that the less efficient are the ones without the jobs.
This has no bearing on this discussion (free will) but it's connected to your thoughts about not punishing those who were destined to be the ones committing crimes. In the case of crimes, I think you have to punish them whether they "couldn't help it" or not. I don't think anyone is arguing that they have that little will.
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Seattle:
The reason for the determinism stipulation in this thread is that it should, hypothetically, focus the discussion onto what is important, namely freedom or lack thereof. The question of whether indeterminism helps with the core problem of free will is another entire discussion that could be had. My own position on that is that I don't think it saves free will from the problems that are apparent in the deterministic case, but that's a different discussion.
I'm not asking you to fit your arguments into some box I've made. I'm just trying to explain to you what all the fuss is about in this thread. You are free to engage as much or as little as you want to in that discussion, of course.I won't go point by point here but I'll address two issues. One up above is where you are telling me how to think or how to categorize my thinking so that it fits "your" debate.
Yes, they are. They are arguing that we don't really have free will at all. They say that our perception of free will is nothing but an illusion - a fantasy, in effect. Mostly, I think they agree with you that it's okay to punish people for their actions regardless of free will, but I think that's problematic. We haven't really got as far as discussing any of that, though, because they are unable to bring themselves to admit that the only kind of free will they contemplate is supernatural free will.
Nobody acts as if they don't have free will, in real life, regardless of what they tell you.
The reason for the determinism stipulation in this thread is that it should, hypothetically, focus the discussion onto what is important, namely freedom or lack thereof. The question of whether indeterminism helps with the core problem of free will is another entire discussion that could be had. My own position on that is that I don't think it saves free will from the problems that are apparent in the deterministic case, but that's a different discussion.
Well, that's interesting. Suppose we decide that nobody actually has free will. Then, in effect, we're all robots, driven by forces beyond our control to do good deeds or evil. If that's the case, then on what basis should we be held responsible for the consequences of our actions? After all, we had no real choice, according to this argument. How can you blame somebody for something they had no say in?
Yes, on the basis that they made a free choice to get drunk (not to mention the possible additional choice to kill), and are therefore responsible for what follows from that choice. But if they didn't make a free choice, how can it be their "fault" that they got drunk and killed somebody?
Is it? Why? The criminals have no free will either, in this formulation.
Whether or not something is deterministic shouldn't depend on our level of knowledge about it, should it? (Actually, that's a big can of worms I'm not sure I want to open.)
No? If you're a lawyer or a judge, then it's a practical problem that you need to grapple with all the time.
But they are arguing exactly that. These people are serious when they say that there is no free will at all.
Your position is misinformed, and inaccurate. Both Baldeee, and I, have been at pains to say that if one starts from a definition different to the one proposed you end up with different conclusions. That you can’t be bothered to recognise that fact really just shows that you have a crippling agenda here.
The term “freedom” as defined (in the fairly widely accepted circle of the in/compatibilist debating arena) as “ability to do otherwise” is not one that means in and of itself “something breaking the laws of physics” as you incorrectly assert. It is only when coupled with the deterministic universe they be linked in that way, and we tend to call that a conclusion. We conclude that this definition of freedom therefore does not exist. It’s not rocket science, but you, and most notably iceaura, hard on about it being the “supernatural assumption”. There is no supernatural. We all agreed that. But neither of you can let your fallacious claim go.
Utter codswallop. We have both simply concluded, quite simply, that freedom, as defined in the early arguments put forward, does not exist in a deterministic universe. Any other notion of freedom that may be found in a thermostat, for example, Baldeee initially claimed he found trivial, and I have tended to agree, and so we expressed no desire to discuss that. But at no point, ever, have either of us limited discussion between those who wish to discuss other notions.
So get off your blinkered high-horse, James R, and smell the roses. It is you, and especially iceaura, who has limited the discussion that you seem so desperate to seek, by continually returning the thread to attacks on the position that you don’t want to discuss.
It’s like me saying that Rugby is a game that involves an oval ball. You say that there are other games played with a round ball, to which I say they are trivial and that I have no interest in discussing them. You, and iceaura, instead of going off and discussing your round ball that you so desperately want to, keep coming back to me and trying to tell me that I’m wrong, that I’m assuming the ball to be oval.
It’s bizarre. Truly. And I And Baldeee are the perpetrators, it seems, of your inability to discuss anything else. Oh, the power we yield, which is truly ironic in a discussion of free will.
There’s no roadblock, James R. You have simply stopped your car and dragged some fallen trees into the road, and now you’re blaming Baldeee and me for your lack of progress. It’s pathetic. Rather than carry on your merry way you, and iceaura, make a point of trying to knock over a position you don’t want to discuss, and which you can only do through fallacious reasoning. None of which gets you toward where you want to get. Page after page after page, even here, the two of you are obsessed (and there’s no other word that really does it justice... maybe “addicted”) with a point of view that neither of you want to discuss.
Again with your prejudiced view of the discussion. Both of us, Baldeee and I, have again been at pains to explain and clarify, ad nauseam, that we think the process of “choice” exists. No one has disputed that. Ever.
So stop your disingenuous nonsense. You have accused us of forcing you into not discussing anything else, yet all we have done is respond to your criticisms of our position. And now you are accusing us of making claims that we simply have not made. We don’t slip and slide at all, and the very question of whether the choices we make are free is the very point you make above to Seattle, that the discussion is not whether we can choose to go left or right but whether we are free to go left or right - I.e. whether the choice is free. Your hypocrisy would be astounding, if it wasn’t so brazen and laughable.
If only those people over the millennia weren’t all simply assuming a supernatural freedom, right? And it’s taken until now, for you and iceaura, to identify the single weakness that will bring to an end the dispute.
We must be in the company of greatness! No, there’s no rut, and there’s no supernatural. There is simply a different view of things from that perspective. You don’t want to go there, that’s fine, but you have no one to blame for you not getting beyond that than yourself. You have been your own roadblock.
Not the will, not the process, but the freedom within it, taking freedom as defined as “ability to do otherwise”. You want to refer to it as the “supernatural assumption” whereas I, baldeee, capracus, daveC, are all simply happy to conclude that such freedom does not exist, and we all agree that if you take another notion of freedom then you can reach another conclusion.
Wow! For someone who seems so desperate to get on to such matters, not once, in three or more threads on this matter, have you, or iceaura, ever actually asked how those who hold to the “not able to do otherwise” notion of free will might reconcile that lack of freedom to things like moral responsibility. Not once. Instead it is you trying to force us to drop the notion of freedom that we are using and to accept yours.
Staggering that it is once again somehow our fault for your inability. You have focussed so much attention on this fallacious claim that we’re assuming a supernatural freedom that you haven’t ever been arsed to ask us about our views of how it might be reconciled with moral responsibility.
Or if you have asked then it wasn’t exactly pushed further by you, or debated, as you (and I include iceaura) simply revert back to the attack on the “supernatural assumption”. You claim you want to move the discussion onward? Yeah, good one!
Philosophically, yes. Practically speaking, no. If the freedom within the will is illusory, as we argue (freedom being the ability to do otherwise), then it is an illusion we can not escape from, and must live by. There’s no issue there. A difference between what we understand to make practical sense of something, and what we understand to make philosophical sense. To simply dismiss one because it doesn’t fit the other seems absurd. Reconciling the two is far more appropriate, to me at least.
Nobody has been "invoking supernaturalism".
The erosion of language is symptomatic.
That is not an argument, it is an assertion.
The only supposed "argument" so far presented here in support of that assertion is that in the assumed universe nothing can do other than it must, therefore (the conclusion) nothing has freedom - and that argument is based on the supernatural assumption.
It is you guys, and nobody else, making that argument from that assumption.
Again, so you can see it in front of you one more time: If nonsupernatural freedoms are included, the fact that nothing can do other than it must is completely irrelevant to their existence - the "must" would include the nonsupernatural degrees of freedom, because it includes all the natural causes and states of being and so forth. The freedoms would be determined the same way everything else is.
To get from "nothing can do other than it must" to "not free", one must somehow exclude the nonsupernatural freedoms.
That can be done by argument (in theory, anyway) or by assumption. Here it has been done by assumption, as quoted from multiple posters who agree with each other. (Note: calling things "trivial" or claiming that for some they have the same "nature" as a thermostat's is not an argument that they don't exist - rather the opposite). That is the supernatural assumption - a perfectly good name for the assumption that only the supernatural can have freedom. (Premise 1, in Baldeee's subsequent layout of the argument you and rest have endorsed many times).
Your alleged "argument" was the first in which that key assumption was identified, you mean. Please inform your teammates of that. They are calling me "dishonest" for posting as if that were the case.
Lotta loose language on that side of the discussion. As students of rhetoric learn early on, that's a symptom. A careful poster would take warning.
Seattle
Valued Senior Member
I think you've made this a little too contrived to debate in the tidy manner that you are expecting.
If what you really are interested in addressing is whether, in a world with no free will, we can justify punishing someone for something that they had no choice in, why didn't you just start the thread that way?
It appears you are trying to be a little too clever by half (as they say) by trying to lead the horse to water so that you can then bring your premise to bear.
In such a world, the answer would be, it doesn't have to be "fair". It has to be done for society. Regardless of whether it's your "fault" or not, we can't have "killers" running loose.
No one here is seriously arguing that there is that little free will. I'm guessing they are arguing, similar to my argument, that popular conceptions of "free will" aren't quite as "free" as one might think.
Again, it depends on degree and on how you define it. As a practical matter we have free will just as we interact with computers using a high level language even though ultimately everything is binary.
This thread is similar to having to decide if computers are just binary machines or if there is more nuance than that. On a practical level it certainly seems as if there is more nuance. Using a strict definition, there is no nuance, they just process 0 and 1.
Should we argue that "I don't see anyone typing 0 and 1 and yet they seem to be interacting with their computers. I don't see any 0 and 1 being output on my computer screen". What gives?