Demystifying Determinism

[Jarhyn]

@Jarhyn, @pood, and @Marvin Edwards, how about you all get your stories straight before you start telling me that I'm wrong, okay? Don't expect me to take any of you seriously when you are all telling me that each of you has the correct argument but those arguments aren't even good enough to convince each other.

Lockstep agreement is for the religious and the foolish.

None of us actually disagree on any of the truly core concepts, and even when we (from your interpretation) do something you consider disagreement, we reconcile, because when you have a flexible worldview open to and capable of processing new knowledge, that's what happens.

Of course when a religion springs up such as hard determinism, you're going to find a pretty strict orthodoxy all lockstepping and never speaking ill of fellow Republicans Christians incompatibilists.

Us compatibilists can bear the thought, even so, that we can be a little bit wrong from time to time, and in identifying this, seek a more correct position. Most of us accomplished this already at least once when we stepped off of incompatibilism.

 

[Kylie]

Let me sum up my position, since you all seem to be under the wrong idea of what I'm saying.

Take the universe at point in time T0. Then take the universe at a later point in time, T1. If the state of the universe at point T1 was determined solely by the state of the universe at point T0, then free will can not exist. In other words, if you can take the state of the universe at T0 and extrapolate it forwards and figure out what T1 (or T2, or T48267768590) will be, then free will can not exist. And the reason for that is that if you were to rewind the universe back to T0 and let it proceed again, the same outcome must necessarily happen.

An analogy: If we take the formula (X*3)+2=Y and then use Y as our new value for X, then the outcome will always be the same. If we start with 1, then the values for X will be 1, 5, 17, and so on. At any point you can rewind the sequence to the beginning and start again, but the sequence will come out exactly the same.

My position is that there are events that have no predictable outcome. Many events in QM are like this. There's also the computer halting problem I mentioned a while back. Thus, any events which do not result from some previous state of the universe mean that if we were to run the universe again, the outcome is probably going to be different.

 

[Kylie]

If we assume their existence, a paradox ensues - but so what? Gods are known to be paradoxical.

I believe I have shown, or have tried to show, that there is no paradox generated by an all-knowing God knowing what you will do, before you do it. You still have compatibilist free will.

Your choice for breakfast is eggs or pancakes. God knows in advance you will choose eggs, and sure enough, you choose eggs, because God can’t be wrong. But so what? You still could have chosen pancakes. But had you chosen pancakes, God would have foreknown THAT fact instead. There’s no paradox here. In these circumstances, you are free to do as you wish, you are just not free to escape God’s prior detection of your choice.

I have very clearly described the paradox.

If God knows in advance that you will do A, then you will do A.

If you have free will, you are free to do Not-A.

To claim that you can do both A and Not-A is contradictory.

Tell ya what, here's another yes/no question.

God comes to me today and says, "Kylie, you're going to have eggs for breakfast tomorrow. This is absolutely guaranteed to happen because I am God, I am all-knowing, and I can't possibly be wrong." I decide to smash all my eggs and the following morning I sit down to a nice stack of pancakes.

Is there anything that will stop me from doing that?

Yes or no.

Good Gob, do you even read what I write??? I have answered your entire post to me above repeatedly. Why in the world should I answer this yet again? Is it that you skip posts, or skim them over, or don’t understand them, or what?

Maybe if you'd actually answer my question as I stated it rather than spout nonsense like, "If you choose to do X, God would see you do X, but if you used your free will and did Y, he'd see you did Y," and instead put cause BEFORE effect rather than effect before cause, I wouldn't have to keep asking.

 

[Kylie]

No, I would not say that.

If you had bothered to try to understand my position, you'd know that I've been saying it didn't HAVE to be anything. The only reason it's pancakes is because I freely chose to have pancakes. My choice of pancakes isn't determined by the previous state of the universe. There's no way to have predicted ahead of time that I would choose to have pancakes.

Let’s delve into this a bit more closely.

You are a libertarian. You claim compatibilism cannot be a sufficient account of free will because it is deterministic. So if I order eggs for breakfast, you will say (under the compatibilist metaphysics) “That was inevitable! You had no choice but to order eggs!” But of course you’d say the same thing if I ordered pancakes. According to you, I think, an inevitable future precludes free will.

What does “inevitable” mean? It means an outcome that cannot be avoided — one that cannot be changed.

And yet, as I have pointed out (I do hope you read all of my posts), free will has nothing to do with changing the past, present, or future. So inevitability is a red herring.

Free will means I have the ability, in some small way, to make the past be what it was, the present be what it is, and future be what it will be. None of this involves changing or avoiding anything.

I happen to think that the Minkowski block spacetime is probably correct, and that the future exists along with the past and present. If this is so, then verily, the future is inevitable. But because changing or avoiding the future is not a precondition for compatibilist free will, there is no problem here for the compatibilist. To change the past, present or future would be to both do, and not do, something at the same time, which is a violation of the law of noncontradiction.

So how do you think you can freely choose something that can't possibly be any different?

Because your free choice made it be the thing that can’t possibly be any different? Ever think of that?

I have been told many times throughout this thread that other outcomes WERE possible. Now you say they were never possible.

And you wonder why I don't agree with you.

 

[Kylie]

As a matter of fact, the universe is NOT completely deterministic, because of quantum indeterminacy...

THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING!

 

[Kylie]

Moreover, as Bibly notes, QM is irrelevant to the free will debate, because introducing randomness into a system does not introduce free will. If you chose stuff randomly, you would be insane, not free.

Show me where I made that argument.

I have been arguing that events can happen in a way free of determinism, that the future is not locked in stone. I have NEVER claimed that our decisions were completely random.

 

[fromderinside]

the logic model. Since it is not referenced as part of the Scientific method

You used the logical model to get to determinism in the first place. You used it to speak determinism. You used it to describe determinism. You used it to understand determinism.

here is where you get everything wrong. I don't use t the modal logical model to get to processes. I independently measure material processes. I remove mind from experiment. From the results of these 'experiments' I come to tentative conclusions which I test over and over measuring material processes. This is the Scientific model. Logical statements based on experimental results are made providing a convenience for repeating execution of experimental processes and measuring material.

You put the cart before the horse. It is the experimental result that frames the logic.

 

[DBT]

Modal logic depends on the validity of the logic model. Since it is not referenced as part of the Scientific method does not meet requirements for being materially inclusive. It is no different than ad hoc.

So, the “scientific method” doesn’t follow the rules of elementary logic? That’s interesting.

By the way, what, exactly is “the scientific method”? Is it a detailed forumula for doing all science everywhere that was inscribed in stone by the Science God and brought down from the mountain by Moses?

If the premises are flawed, the conclusions, however logical, are false. Intellectuals reasoned that the Earth was motionless at the center of the Universe, that heavier objects fell faster to the earth than lighter ones, that a person's consciousnesses was located in the heart and not the brain, etc, etc.....philosophy without science and evidence is nothing more than rhetoric.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

@Jarhyn, @pood, and @Marvin Edwards, how about you all get your stories straight before you start telling me that I'm wrong, okay? Don't expect me to take any of you seriously when you are all telling me that each of you has the correct argument but those arguments aren't even good enough to convince each other.

Hmm. "Compatibilists of the World Unite!". No, I don't think so. Back when I first encountered the problem and solved it to my own satisfaction, I don't think "Compatibilism" was actually a thing. When I first ran into the word I resented it. It just added another level of complexity to a very simple problem that had a simple solution:

After my father died, I spent time in the public library, browsing the philosophy section. I think I was reading something by Baruch Spinoza that introduced the issue of determinism as a threat to free will. I found this troublesome until I had this thought experiment (whether I read it in one of the books or just came up with it myself, I can’t recall).

The idea that my choices were inevitable bothered me, so I considered how I might escape what seemed like an external control. It struck me that all I needed to do was to wait till I had a decision to make, between A and B, and if I felt myself leaning heavily toward A, I would simply choose B instead. So easy! But then it occurred to me that my desire to thwart inevitability had caused B to become the inevitable choice, so I would have to switch back to A again, but then … it was an infinite loop!

No matter which I chose, inevitability would continue to switch to match my choice! Hmm. So, who was controlling the choice, me or inevitability?

Well, the concern that was driving my thought process was my own. Inevitability was not some entity driving this process for its own reasons. And I imagined that if inevitability were such an entity, it would be sitting there in the library laughing at me, because it made me go through these gyrations without doing anything at all, except for me thinking about it.

My choice may be a deterministic event, but it was an event where I was actually the one doing the choosing. And that is what free will is really about: is it me or is someone or something else making the decision. It was always really me.

And since the solution was so simple, I no longer gave it any thought. Then much later, just a few years ago, I ran into some on-line discussions about it, and I wondered why it was still a problem for everyone else, since I had seen through the paradox more than fifty years ago.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Moreover, as Bibly notes, QM is irrelevant to the free will debate, because introducing randomness into a system does not introduce free will. If you chose stuff randomly, you would be insane, not free.

Show me where I made that argument.

I have been arguing that events can happen in a way free of determinism, that the future is not locked in stone. I have NEVER claimed that our decisions were completely random.

Determinism is not a meaningful constraint upon our freedom. It is not something that we need to be free of in order to be free to choose for ourselves what we will do. The notion that "the future is locked in stone" and that "our choices have already been made for us" is a delusion created by metaphorical thinking.

Causal determinism may truthfully assert that all events are reliably caused by prior events. But the most meaningful and relevant prior cause of a deliberate act is the act of deliberation that precedes it. And that is us, and nothing and no one else.

We are the causal agents that get to choose what we will cause to happen. Inanimate objects like the Sun cause many effects, but do not get to choose what they will cause. With living organisms we get purposeful behavior, biological drives to survive, thrive, and reproduce. But it is only when we get to intelligent species, with a brain equipped to imagine, evaluate, and choose, that deliberate agency appears in the universe. And it appears locally within each brain.

Deliberate agency is a rational causal mechanism. It chooses what it will do by its thoughts and feelings. We may assume that rational thought is "deterministic", in that the choice is reliably caused by the specific thoughts and feelings that occur during choosing. To say that it is reliably caused does not mean the choice is reliably good, but only that good logic will reliably produce one result and that bad logic will reliably produce a different result. The only common point is that the choice is reliably caused.

Now, we may reasonably speculate, from the assumption that each event is reliably caused by prior events, that there is a reliable sequence of events from any point in the past to any point in the future. This appears to be a logical fact. But it is not a significantly meaningful or relevant fact. It cannot help us make any decisions, because all it can tell us is that "whatever we decide will be reliably caused".

So, the rational mind simply acknowledges and then ignores the fact of causal necessity. There is nothing we can do with it, and nothing we can do about it. It is like a background constant that appears on both sides of every equation, and can be subtracted from both sides without affecting the result.

But the hard determinist insists upon bringing it up, even though it is never appropriate to do so. And the hard determinist keeps trying to make it meaningful and relevant, when it never is. It's really annoying.

 

[Kylie]

@Jarhyn, @pood, and @Marvin Edwards, how about you all get your stories straight before you start telling me that I'm wrong, okay? Don't expect me to take any of you seriously when you are all telling me that each of you has the correct argument but those arguments aren't even good enough to convince each other.

Hmm. "Compatibilists of the World Unite!". No, I don't think so. Back when I first encountered the problem and solved it to my own satisfaction, I don't think "Compatibilism" was actually a thing. When I first ran into the word I resented it. It just added another level of complexity to a very simple problem that had a simple solution:

After my father died, I spent time in the public library, browsing the philosophy section. I think I was reading something by Baruch Spinoza that introduced the issue of determinism as a threat to free will. I found this troublesome until I had this thought experiment (whether I read it in one of the books or just came up with it myself, I can’t recall).

The idea that my choices were inevitable bothered me, so I considered how I might escape what seemed like an external control. It struck me that all I needed to do was to wait till I had a decision to make, between A and B, and if I felt myself leaning heavily toward A, I would simply choose B instead. So easy! But then it occurred to me that my desire to thwart inevitability had caused B to become the inevitable choice, so I would have to switch back to A again, but then … it was an infinite loop!

No matter which I chose, inevitability would continue to switch to match my choice! Hmm. So, who was controlling the choice, me or inevitability?

Well, the concern that was driving my thought process was my own. Inevitability was not some entity driving this process for its own reasons. And I imagined that if inevitability were such an entity, it would be sitting there in the library laughing at me, because it made me go through these gyrations without doing anything at all, except for me thinking about it.

My choice may be a deterministic event, but it was an event where I was actually the one doing the choosing. And that is what free will is really about: is it me or is someone or something else making the decision. It was always really me.

And since the solution was so simple, I no longer gave it any thought. Then much later, just a few years ago, I ran into some on-line discussions about it, and I wondered why it was still a problem for everyone else, since I had seen through the paradox more than fifty years ago.

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is INEVITABLE, it cannot be avoided. If it is inevitable before you make the choice, it is not really a choice since by definition that outcome was going to happen and no other outcome was going to happen.

If any other outcome could have happened, then there was no inevitable outcome.



In any case, don't expect me to be convinced by any of your arguments if you can't even convince other compatibilists of them.

 

[Jarhyn]

T1 was determined solely by the state of the universe at point T0

So, your first problem is looking at it from the perspective of one object only interacting with itself.

Instead, it is better to view it as two objects interacting with each other.

One of the objects is best seen as a "process definition", like the operational configuration of the CPU, or it's "truth table".

The second of the objects is best seen like a memory array.

The "truth" of the system (it's physics) is then entirely independent of the contents of the system (it's momentary state description).

As such, the state of the universe at T1 is not determined solely then by the state of the universe at T0. It is determined by BOTH the state at T0 AND the truth of the system.

This is a very important thing to understand because considering "could" is doing a thought experiment.

The goal of the thought experiment is to get as close to the following actual experiment as possible:

1. The dwarf is there, and I am going to make them do something, thus I stop my sub-universe and save it's state.

2. I copy the state.

3. I blindly write, to each of the copies, a will into the dwarf's head.

4. I run the system forward to see what is going to happen in each.

5. I find out all the things that the dwarf can "possibly" do, as an extension of the original state. this takes a great deal of time. This actually maps out a function U(x), where x is what is known in math as a "free variable". The free variable here is "the contents of the dwarf's head."

6. Armed with this U(x) function definition on the contents of the dwarf's head, I then set U(x) equal to the desired contents and then solve for x. This tells me what momentary x leads to the desired outcome.

7. I then put x in the dwarf's head, leaving behind the original universe entirely, and continuing with this one in which I mind controlled the dwarf.

Then the next part is that you need to realize there needs be no god or actual mind control going on here because the "dwarf" in our reality has the power to approximate U well enough, in macrophysical scale, to run this process themselves without having to stop time to run the solution.

The end result ends up being something like:


1. I am going to make ME do something, thus I stop my activity and think quickly, before I must make a decision.

2. I imagine a universe as macrophysics describes it, several times. (I make a copy).

3. I blindly write, to each of the copies, a series of stated actions. (I write a will into my own hypothetical head).

4. I run the system forward to see what is going to happen in each.

5. I find out all the things that the I can "possibly" do, in this hypothetical future moment, as an extension of the original state. this takes a little time, but not enough to actually bring me to the real future moment in which a decision must be made. This actually maps out a function U(x), where x is what is known in math as a "free variable". The free variable here is "the contents of my decision".

6. Armed with this approximal U(x) function definition on the contents of the my own head head, I then set U(x) equal to the desired contents and then solve for x. This tells me what momentary x leads to the desired outcome.

7. I then put x in the part of my own head that represents the region of free variance, thus making the decision leaving behind the past entirely, and continuing with this future in which I effectively mind controlled myself.

The fact that it was ME putting that variable there into MY OWN head is, exactly, the proof of free will.

That we can only ever approximate perfection here does not invalidate it, it just means sometimes we're going to be wrong.

When we are wrong, we don't say "we lacked free will", as we still decided for ourselves (that will was free!), But rather "our will to do X was not free".

Note, this does not in any point discuss randomness.

 

[pood]

If we assume their existence, a paradox ensues - but so what? Gods are known to be paradoxical.

I believe I have shown, or have tried to show, that there is no paradox generated by an all-knowing God knowing what you will do, before you do it. You still have compatibilist free will.

Your choice for breakfast is eggs or pancakes. God knows in advance you will choose eggs, and sure enough, you choose eggs, because God can’t be wrong. But so what? You still could have chosen pancakes. But had you chosen pancakes, God would have foreknown THAT fact instead. There’s no paradox here. In these circumstances, you are free to do as you wish, you are just not free to escape God’s prior detection of your choice.

I have very clearly described the paradox.

If God knows in advance that you will do A, then you will do A.

If you have free will, you are free to do Not-A.

To claim that you can do both A and Not-A is contradictory.

Tell ya what, here's another yes/no question.

God comes to me today and says, "Kylie, you're going to have eggs for breakfast tomorrow. This is absolutely guaranteed to happen because I am God, I am all-knowing, and I can't possibly be wrong." I decide to smash all my eggs and the following morning I sit down to a nice stack of pancakes.

Is there anything that will stop me from doing that?

Yes or no.

Good Gob, do you even read what I write??? I have answered your entire post to me above repeatedly. Why in the world should I answer this yet again? Is it that you skip posts, or skim them over, or don’t understand them, or what?

Maybe if you'd actually answer my question as I stated it rather than spout nonsense like, "If you choose to do X, God would see you do X, but if you used your free will and did Y, he'd see you did Y," and instead put cause BEFORE effect rather than effect before cause, I wouldn't have to keep asking.

Unsurprisingly, you don’t understand. We are not speaking here of a CAUSAL relastion between what God foreknows, and what you do. The relation is SEMANTIC, not causal. What I do does not retroactively cause God to know what I do. Rather, what I do supplies the TRUTH GROUNDS of that knowledge.

Have you read ANY of the supplementary links I have provided, which flesh this out in much greater detail? Yes? No?

Also, my 1,000th post here.

 

[pood]

No, I would not say that.

If you had bothered to try to understand my position, you'd know that I've been saying it didn't HAVE to be anything. The only reason it's pancakes is because I freely chose to have pancakes. My choice of pancakes isn't determined by the previous state of the universe. There's no way to have predicted ahead of time that I would choose to have pancakes.

Let’s delve into this a bit more closely.

You are a libertarian. You claim compatibilism cannot be a sufficient account of free will because it is deterministic. So if I order eggs for breakfast, you will say (under the compatibilist metaphysics) “That was inevitable! You had no choice but to order eggs!” But of course you’d say the same thing if I ordered pancakes. According to you, I think, an inevitable future precludes free will.

What does “inevitable” mean? It means an outcome that cannot be avoided — one that cannot be changed.

And yet, as I have pointed out (I do hope you read all of my posts), free will has nothing to do with changing the past, present, or future. So inevitability is a red herring.

Free will means I have the ability, in some small way, to make the past be what it was, the present be what it is, and future be what it will be. None of this involves changing or avoiding anything.

I happen to think that the Minkowski block spacetime is probably correct, and that the future exists along with the past and present. If this is so, then verily, the future is inevitable. But because changing or avoiding the future is not a precondition for compatibilist free will, there is no problem here for the compatibilist. To change the past, present or future would be to both do, and not do, something at the same time, which is a violation of the law of noncontradiction.

So how do you think you can freely choose something that can't possibly be any different?

Because your free choice made it be the thing that can’t possibly be any different? Ever think of that?

I have been told many times throughout this thread that other outcomes WERE possible. Now you say they were never possible.

And you wonder why I don't agree with you.

Yes, other outcomes are possible, until the outcome happens. Then it is fixed.

 

[pood]

Moreover, as Bibly notes, QM is irrelevant to the free will debate, because introducing randomness into a system does not introduce free will. If you chose stuff randomly, you would be insane, not free.

Show me where I made that argument.

I have been arguing that events can happen in a way free of determinism, that the future is not locked in stone. I have NEVER claimed that our decisions were completely random.

How do events happen free of determinism, unless they happen via indeterminism? Is there a third option?

 

[Jarhyn]

We are not speaking here of a CAUSAL relastion between what God foreknows, and what you do. The relation is SEMANTIC, not causal. What I do does not retroactively cause God to know what I do. Rather, what I do supplies the TRUTH GROUNDS of that knowledge.

Have you read ANY of the supplementary links I have provided, which flesh this out in much greater detail? Yes? No?

Also, my 1,000th post here.

IOW god here has no power except the power to observe, calculate, and generate sound waves. They have no authority to change or decide anything. The question is whether they can, without a contradiction existing, simultaneously hold this power and also answer certain questions honestly.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is INEVITABLE, it cannot be avoided.

It actually can be avoided, but it won't be.

If it is inevitable before you make the choice, it is not really a choice since by definition that outcome was going to happen and no other outcome was going to happen.

But it was inevitable that I would be that which would be making the choice. That was the inevitable reality. The notion that "it is not really a choice" has no basis in fact, neither in definition nor in physical reality.

If any other outcome could have happened, then there was no inevitable outcome.

What could have happened was just as inevitable as what did happen. It was inevitable that there would be two things that I could choose, A and B. It was inevitable that I would, for my own reasons, choose A, even though it was also inevitable that I could have chosen B.

In any case, don't expect me to be convinced by any of your arguments if you can't even convince other compatibilists of them.

Well, you are free to disengage for any reason that suits you, as are they. It is not necessary that we all agree on everything. If we did, then what would we talk about?

 

[pood]

I don’t see any substantive disagreements. As noted, I have a quibble with Marvin‘s “causal necessity,” but he has adequately explained it. He also seems to think that quantum indeterminism is at bottom determinstic, and this actually is the case under two different interpretations of the theory, but the standard interpretation (Copenhagen) is that QM cannot be deterministic. Neither of these two minor disagreements affect our substantive agreement on compatibilism.

 

[fromderinside]

Modal logic depends on the validity of the logic model. Since it is not referenced as part of the Scientific method does not meet requirements for being materially inclusive. It is no different than ad hoc.

So, the “scientific method” doesn’t follow the rules of elementary logic? That’s interesting.

By the way, what, exactly is “the scientific method”? Is it a detailed forumula for doing all science everywhere that was inscribed in stone by the Science God and brought down from the mountain by Moses?

 Scientific method

The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries). It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based statistical testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises.[1][2][3]

Works for me. As you see from above deduction doesn't cover it.

 

[pood]

Modal logic depends on the validity of the logic model. Since it is not referenced as part of the Scientific method does not meet requirements for being materially inclusive. It is no different than ad hoc.

So, the “scientific method” doesn’t follow the rules of elementary logic? That’s interesting.

By the way, what, exactly is “the scientific method”? Is it a detailed forumula for doing all science everywhere that was inscribed in stone by the Science God and brought down from the mountain by Moses?

 Scientific method

The scientific method is an empirical method of acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries). It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; experimental and measurement-based statistical testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings. These are principles of the scientific method, as distinguished from a definitive series of steps applicable to all scientific enterprises.[1][2][3]

Works for me. As you see from above deduction doesn't cover it.

Please take a another look at the last line of the description you quoted. Also, I see “deductions” right there in the text.