According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[pood]

. The debate itself only started with people debating over whether God was justified in sending people to hell for doing things he knew they would do before he ever actually created them.

Right, so then God should not have created them. It does not follow that just because God knew in advance what they were going to do, they had to do it. Had they done something different, God would have known that thing instead.

 

[Jarhyn]

Hey Bruce. I would roundly disagree.

If I were to describe this in a way that should be recognizable in terms of "Newtonian sufficient determinism", "an object in motion freely continues to some location unless acted upon by outside forces."

Free will pertains to the discussion of objects which have some capability to turn some form of potential energy into motion by acting on the outside, and bringing these actions into the scope of "free continuation".

It does not in any way depend on not having an earlier cause, so much as the momentary change and what brings it about.

Now, this is completely independent of whether it is acted upon by such a force.

If you would like, I can break this down in the way that I feel it must be, but it will be very obtuse because I do not use language as most feel I ought.

 

[bilby]

As I see it, an agent can be said to have free will if it's actions are determined only by internal processes within the agent, whose outcome is unknowable to the agent until those processes are completed.

This can, of course, be argued to be not "true" free will, on the grounds that a hypothetical 'godlike' external agent could have simply skipped to the answer, and correctly predicted the action that would inevitably be taken; However, as no such entities exist, I see no particular reason to care what they would be able to predict if they did.

As observers embedded in a Minkowski block spacetime, we exist in a present epoch that has a chaotic, and consequently unpredictable despite being entirely unchangeable, future. Our only access to that future is to move as we must through time (and space); But as agents, we make a clear distinction between internal influences that lead to our future "I decided to take a walk", and external influences "but couldn't because the door was locked".

The I, that decided to take a walk, is the sum of all the billions of physical interactions that make up "me". That these interactions are deterministic, tells me nothing useful - the outcome may be fixed, but it is not known, so it is not unfree, and the decision is no less a part of "me" than are my hands or feet, liver or spleen.

If you cannot forecast what will happen, then what actually happens is freely chosen from all of the things that possibly could have been forecast to happen, even if only one of those things was "predetermined" to happen by physical laws acting in such complex and chaotic ways as to be inscrutable.

The past, like the future, is fixed; But that doesn't make counterfactual "alternate histories" impossible, or even useless, to speculate over. Indeed, such speculations might feed back into future decisions - so being a necessary and unavoidable part of reality at the present epoch.

To the extent that we perceive freedom, it is compatible with determinism.

To the extent that freedom is incompatible with determinism, determinism is useless - a brute fact that helps us with nothing at all, as it is imperceptible to us.

 

[Jarhyn]

'godlike' external agent could have simply skipped to the answer, and correctly predicted the action that would inevitably be taken

For the sake of argument I will wager this is not actually true.

If the 'godlike' external entity cannot project what would happen other than engaging a recalculation of the whole universe from the beginning and playing it forward to the present, they do not actually *predict* the action at all, but are merely describing it as they watch it happen for the first time.

It could very well be that the only way to know what happens, even for a god, is merely to watch what happens as it happens, and as such be incapable of making "predictions" at all, limited only to "dicton" without the "pre-".

At some point though, I will be forced to discuss Spectre tiles and aperiodic systems and the qualities we have observed that math allows within infinite aperiodic systems in general (and our universe seems to be an aperiodic system, or at least has many qualities of one).

 

[bilby]

'godlike' external agent could have simply skipped to the answer, and correctly predicted the action that would inevitably be taken

For the sake of argument I will wager this is not actually true.

If the 'godlike' external entity cannot project what would happen other than engaging a recalculation of the whole universe from the beginning and playing it forward to the present, they do not actually *predict* the action at all, but are merely describing it as they watch it happen for the first time.

It could very well be that the only way to know what happens, even for a god, is merely to watch what happens as it happens, and as such be incapable of making "predictions" at all, limited only to "dicton" without the "pre-".

In my mind, the godlike entity sits outside the block, and can simply decide to look at any part of that block. As the block itself is all of spacetime, no calculations are required; "God" just looks elsewhere, which in this case happens to be at what we think of as the future.

 

[Jarhyn]

'godlike' external agent could have simply skipped to the answer, and correctly predicted the action that would inevitably be taken

For the sake of argument I will wager this is not actually true.

If the 'godlike' external entity cannot project what would happen other than engaging a recalculation of the whole universe from the beginning and playing it forward to the present, they do not actually *predict* the action at all, but are merely describing it as they watch it happen for the first time.

It could very well be that the only way to know what happens, even for a god, is merely to watch what happens as it happens, and as such be incapable of making "predictions" at all, limited only to "dicton" without the "pre-".

In my mind, the godlike entity sits outside the block, and can simply decide to look at any part of that block. As the block itself is all of spacetime, no calculations are required; "God" just looks elsewhere, which in this case happens to be at what we think of as the future.

But the problem here is that that still isn't "predicting" it's "describing what is in front of you", and not only that, if the block is a *block*, that makes the Spectre problem even more apparent.

This is because, and I hate to point this out, we have proven that there are, under math, aperiodic systems that are *infinite* and of which there are an infinite number of sets of this that do not align with one another (and I will quote an email I got from one of the people who published a study on it):

There are uncountably many distinct tilings by hats ("distinct" in the sense that there's no single translation or rotation of the plane that will bring the two tilings into perfect coincidence everywhere -- some hats will always be a bit different).

* But hat tilings are "repetitive" -- any finite patch of tiles found in any hat tilings will appear infinitely often in all of them. So although there are lots of hat tilings that are *globally* different, *locally* they're indistinguishable from each other.

This is in regard to hats but Spectre has the same qualities.

Now, the point here is that, if the universe follows the rules for a multidimensional aperiodic tiling, it CAN very well have these features *and still be deterministic*.

Instead of seeing a finite patch of "tilings" as "just representing tiles" one must "think hard" and scale up the "finite" patch by quite a ridiculous amount and think of these smaller patches it contains as *particles* composed of some unitary *mono-particle* that forms this periodic set, a periodic table, defining the limited ways those come together and the relative frequency of their appearance in the tiling.

This lends sense to the idea of *parallel universes*, but not only of parallel universes but asking about the properties of those finite patches when they are seen, *and the adjoining rules of what may be seen around them*.

In fact, I would suggest thinking about such a variant or addition to Spectre that causes ALL the tiles to rotate in some way and then come back together into a different field in a deterministic and advancing way similar to the function of time.

If I were to name one of these finite patches "Bob" I could very sensibly say "what are the properties of "bob"?" Completely independently of the infinite numbers of "bob" I could find amid the tiling. Possibility about "bob" as a question then has nothing to do with any one place or time or even any single tiling you might find Bob in, though you are guaranteed to find Bob in all of them, and in infinite supply.

Those Bobs might be a very far distance apart, but you can even calculate the relative average frequency of Bob to some extent.

The second thing that may be said is that without an impossible way to reference where you are in such a field (which is impossible because the coordinate is infinite and cannot contain such precision on itself because of Godel incompleteness and the lack of zero property), and because there are infinite variations all containing all possible finite patches somewhere in them, once you have completely identified the shape of the finite patch that is "the whole universe up to now", you still don't know which infinite field or region you are in. It's an undecidable problem.

From here a deterministically built universe from an aperiodic tiling CAN have the feature where experience within it features that which IS truly random from the perspective of its denizens.

What it also unfortunately shows is that if you reach out and change tilings in this "block version" of a "much higher-dimensional aperiodic field", all you've done is look at a different field, and if there are different fields, you have ALREADY conceded that there is alternality, not merely to the left and right, but of the whole field.

The burden to prove alternality cannot exist is to prove that the universe does not have such features and this cannot be proven from within it, so we cannot prove alternality does not exist.

At best we can prove that these alternalities do not happen "in the same place and time", and that this itself is not a sensible request or concept as we have already shown that the math of aperiodic systems DOES allow the observation of *identical* patches not to "the inside" and "outside, as if one arranged the whole tilings in some way and searched among them for the result, but that you can search for these identical results to the left and right.

We know this is the case for such simple and small "patches" of "tilings" as are observed in our fundamental particles and periodic table of the elements, indicating frequencies and rarity of various "patches" among our framework.

Determinism does not prevent randomness because "*locally* they're indistinguishable from each other", and so one patch somewhere will experience in the next moment discovering their location is embedded in larger patch A and another will discover they are embedded in larger patch B, and so you can say "when patch P experiences A vs B, what is the difference in outcome in resulting patch P2A and P2B? How does P transform after interacting with context A vs context B?

And now you are considering possbilities despite the whole action of all such fields as "deterministic".

 

[Jarhyn]

@BSilvEsq I have now at long length discussed what mode of consideration is made when invoking "possibility" into a sentence with can, with respect to some particle "bob", both in the linguistic and physical sense.

Whenever a compatibilist utters the word "can" or "could" or any such invocation of possibility occurs, it is linguistically invoking the sense of "Bob, as a particle, insofar as what occurs with a Bob as a transformation 'over time', given different wider contexts."

Regardless of whether you wish to try to constrain that (arbitrarily, I might add) to some bob-in-finite-light-cone-path sense of Bob, a whole universe around the Bob, or whether you wish to invoke "Bob, independent of the light cone patch". Both allow valid consideration in terms of "possibility" and notably this exposes a mathematical error in the very statement "he couldn't because he didn't".

Namely this would indicate "the qualities of the particle 'bob' are such that Bob never transforms over X or fewer steps to Bobby, because Bob-in-context-at-coordinate did not".

This violates the basic rules of implications, because one member of a set cannot alone be used to ascertain the properties of the set; you need to have some truth held over all members of the set to do so.

This is the basic issue when one says "I couldn't because I didn't", insofar as they are simply saying nonsense; bobparticle type) is not limited by Bobat coordinate in an infinite field with an arbitrary zero property)

 

[Jarhyn]

Now that I have laid down what I personally mean when I say "can", and what I assert anyone expressing "ability" is ultimately trying to express whether they understand it so well or not, I will go further into the foundation of what I as a compatibilist see these terms as being capable of expressing with regards to the idea of "free will".

First, this allows me to express my freedoms, namely the set of way I will transform given various different contexts over time, as a particle type.

In fact, it also allows me to calculate, as a part and member of this field, a projection of another field that is simplified, and a particle that somehow has "similar properties" as the bigger one, but which may be handled even within a much smaller "patch".

In fact, one could understand then that the "bob-ness" of a particle may not even comport to the specific configuration of its "tiles" but some property shared about some non-contiguous patch, or even the presence of some larger trend within a group.

I could say, things at both of these scales similarly share bob-property.

Now Bob might be able to produce a smaller Bob inside itself, simpler but sharing some vital property that defined the Bob meta-particle.

It can present that other Bob instance inside itself with a context so as to test what "bob" could do, If Bob didn't know what Bob wanted to do".

As long as the model is correct, Bigger Bob already knows what Bob could do, because he had and measured a Bob actually in that state. And then Bigger Bob is of the sort that they know they could, but perhaps thinks now about whether they should... And whether Bob defines "a thing that thinks it should" is major business in the discussion of responsibility.

 

[BSilvEsq]

@BSilvEsq I have now at long length discussed what mode of consideration is made when invoking "possibility" into a sentence with can, with respect to some particle "bob", both in the linguistic and physical sense.

Whenever a compatibilist utters the word "can" or "could" or any such invocation of possibility occurs, it is linguistically invoking the sense of "Bob, as a particle, insofar as what occurs with a Bob as a transformation 'over time', given different wider contexts."

Regardless of whether you wish to try to constrain that (arbitrarily, I might add) to some bob-in-finite-light-cone-path sense of Bob, a whole universe around the Bob, or whether you wish to invoke "Bob, independent of the light cone patch". Both allow valid consideration in terms of "possibility" and notably this exposes a mathematical error in the very statement "he couldn't because he didn't".

Namely this would indicate "the qualities of the particle 'bob' are such that Bob never transforms over X or fewer steps to Bobby, because Bob-in-context-at-coordinate did not".

This violates the basic rules of implications, because one member of a set cannot alone be used to ascertain the properties of the set; you need to have some truth held over all members of the set to do so.

This is the basic issue when one says "I couldn't because I didn't", insofar as they are simply saying nonsense; bobparticle type) is not limited by Bobat coordinate in an infinite field with an arbitrary zero property)

It is apparent that you have given much thought to this subject, and you obviously are very knowledgeable and intelligent. For those reasons, I appreciate your posts.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, everything you write presumes the Determinism (or Causal Determinism) permits variability of future activity beyond the activity that is fixed (albeit in advance) by antecedent activity.

Let me be very clear, I am not advocating that the universe is, in fact, truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic. I am simply addressing the implications of a universe that operated in that fashion. All that I am saying is that there can be no Free Will in a universe that is, in fact, truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic, and I do not understand the resistance to that statement by Compatibilists.

In a truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic universe, it is correct to say "I couldn't because I didn't" -- at least when looking backward with hindsight. In a truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic universe, the statement "I couldn't because I didn't" is not an explanation of the causal activity that produced the result. Rather, it is an acknowledgment that the fact that I didn't evidences the fact that I couldn't before my failure to do so occurred. In other words, I couldn't well before I didn't, and the fact that I didn't is the post-hoc evidence that I couldn't, and not an explanation of why it is that I couldn't. In a sense, this is a metaphysical extension of Soren Kierkegaard's observation that "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

As I understand the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism (or Causal Determinism), it posits that all activity in the universe (including human thought) is both (i) the effect of [all] antecedent activity, and (ii) the only activity that can occur given the antecedent activity. That is what is meant by saying that everything is “determined” — it is the inexorable consequence of activity that preceded it. [Note: this is not necessarily the same as Newtonian Determinism, which may or may not be as strict as the metaphysical paradigm.]

In a truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic universe, everything that has ever occurred, is occurring, and will occur since the universe came into existence (however that might have occurred) can only occur exactly as it has occurred, is occurring, or will occur, and cannot possibly occur in any different manner. This mandated activity necessarily includes all human action, including all human cognition.

The metaphysical paradigm of Determinism does not address the manner by which activity first began. Nor does the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism address whether activity is intelligently and intentionally designed, or simply occurs based on a random beginning.

The metaphysical paradigm of Determinism posits a general process by which all activity occurs without getting into the details of what specifically causes any particular activity. Determinism posits that everything has a cause and cannot occur in any manner other than how it does occur — without regard to the ability to predict or replicate that activity. The metaphysical paradigm of Determinism does not posit that the factors that have caused, are causing, or will cause any particular activity can be known or understood, or that any specific future activity can be predicted with any degree of certainty, probability, or even possibility. Indeed, if the tenets of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism are taken to their logical conclusion, the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism, itself, makes it impossible to know how the totality of all prior activity will interact to cause the next occurrence of activity, because the totality of all prior activity has never before coalesced.
As I understand the notion of Free Will, it posits that a human being, when presented with more than one course of action, has the freedom or agency to choose between or among the alternatives, and that the state of affairs that exists in the universe immediately prior to the putative exercise of that freedom of choice does not eliminate all but one option and compel the selection of only one of the available options. Stated somewhat differently, the existence of Free Will depends upon the possibility that a person can select more than one option to pursue (even if there may be extrinsic forces that prevent that selection from coming to fruition -- such as a locked door to the room that is selected, buit which was not known to be locked when the selection occurred).

Based on the foregoing:

1. If the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism were true (i.e., the universe is truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic), then humans would lack Free Will because the truth of Determinism would mean that humans lack the ability to think (including the act of making choices) in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside of their control, as human cognition is simply a form of activity that would be governed by the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism, and cannot think in any way other than the way they are "determined" to think by forces outside of their illusory internal control. The truth of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism also would mean that there would be no such thing as true “options” or “alternatives” because there would be one, and only one, activity that can ever occur at any given instant -- and, hence, when looking backward it would be true to say that "I couldn't because I didn't."
   
   
2. If Free-Will exists in its pure form (and not simply in the sense that people do not know what they will do beforehand and feel as though they make choices), then the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism would not be true because the existence of Free Will in its pure form depends upon humans being capable of thinking in a manner that is not 100% caused by prior activity that is outside their control.

As I understand Determinism and Free Will, they are irreconcilably incompatible unless (i) the metaphysical paradigm if Determinism is defined to exclude human cognition from the inexorable path of causation forged through the universe long before human beings came into existence, and/or (ii) Free Will is defined to be include the illusion of human cognition that is a part of the path of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism. In my view, either such definition would be a watered down version of the concept being defined.

As William James aptly observed:

“The issue . . . is a perfectly sharp one, which no eulogistic terminology can smear over or wipe out. The truth must lie with one side or the other, and its lying with one side makes the other false.”

Notwithstanding the foregoing, if people do, in fact, lack Free Will, then the true and only reason that anyone would believe in Compatibilism would be because that is what such people are compelled to believe by forces outside of their non-existent control. By the same token, if Free Will does exist, there is no need for Compatibilism. Of course, even if the universe is not truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic, it still may be the case that humans lack Free Will, as there could be natural forces in play that do not control absolutely every activity of the universe, but do control human cognition. But, that is an issue that arises within the philosophy if Free Will separate and apart from the philosophy of Determinism, and it also is an issue that might be capable of being overcome if the inverse is not truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic.

In short, if the universe were truly, entirely and perfectly deterministic, then Bob would be Bob because Bob could not be otherwise. Bob would be Bob because of all that preceded Bob being Bob, and Bob being Bob would then become a cause of future activity, which may or may not include Bob becoming Bobby. And, if Bob does not become Bobby, it would thereafter be true to say that "Bob couldn't because he didn't."

I am sure that you and others will continue to try to poke holes in this analysis, and I am confident that all such efforts will, in some way depend upon some form of rejection of the definitions of Determinism and Free Will used in the analysis. I also will be the first to admit it if someone posts an analysis that causes me to change my mind.

And, before someone says otherwise, my final point (and every use of the word "I" or "my" or "belief" or any other word that is inconsistent with the truth of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism) does not establish anything about my views. The most significant difficulty about discussing the nature of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is that there is no language that can be used to discuss the paradigm that is fully internally consistent with the paradigm itself, because the truth or validity of the paradigm denies the truth or validity of truth and validity, notions of belief or fact, and the individuality, if not the existence, of the author and the reader, among other things. In a sense, we are prisoners of our language and logic, with no way to communicate or evaluate anything (including the validity or even utility of language and logic) without using them to perform or communicate the evaluation. As Swami Vivekananda astutely wrote: “Every attempt to solve the laws of causation, time, and space would be futile, because the very attempt would have to be made by taking for granted the existence of these three.” Plainly, logic cannot pull itself up or tie itself down by its own bootstraps. So, too, is the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism limited to being a robust and internally consistent paradigm lacking any falsification or validation -- either of which would be self-contradictory to the paradigm, itself.

 

[Jarhyn]

Determinism (or Causal Determinism) permits variability of future activity beyond the activity that is fixed (albeit in advance) by antecedent activity.

No, I have merely not assumed that it must prevent it. As I have pointed out, I have studied determinism as a wider subject as in "this operating system executes and boots "deterministically".

As I have stated with respect to particles in aperiodic sets, the burden exists on you to prove that the universe itself cannot and does not have any quality which aligns to this particle-type view, and I have piles of evidence that it may.

I have said in mathematical terms what "possibility" is, why it is, why it is useful, and why we must employ it.

Let me be very clear, I am not advocating that the universe is, in fact, truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic

It is starting to seem to me like you have a more narrow idea about determinism than determinism has about itself, as it were?

All of those different "Spectre" fields that are uncountably infinite in number and do not perfectly line up with each other would form the basis for its own separate deterministic set of transformations.

This is still deterministic.

Furthermore, as I have indicated, the language of possibility specifically exists to access that idea, the idea of particle-type rather than particle.

Personally, I subscribe to the idea that human activity is "sufficiently deterministic" and that quantum reality is "probably deterministic and locally undecidable (that there are "absolutely unpredictable" results, when one only has access to a local frame).

I have, inadvertantly, suggested a means and mechanism by which a deterministic action on a field is first established on a fixed field (the "placement regime" of tiles, for instance), but as you note, determinism is independent of the starting conditions; all that determinism deals with is that the current frame plus the unifying rule will always be enough to determine a "next moment" (and perhaps some new information coming in at the front of your light cone, but that information was always "there" even if previously "unaccessed").

Determinism does not, however, entail that something can only ever occur as it did in some specific place. Determinism instead says "whenever something happens in a place, it can only ever have one result".

It does not go the other way, so your analysis falls apart from there: many different sorts of events can "produce a photon", when considering the macro-scale.

 

[Jarhyn]

The fact is, throw your tantrums that humans have free will and that it's hard all you want.

In fact, one of the reasons I expect this IS what people have and are talking about when they say they have free will in a metaphysical sense is because it would indicate a difficult struggle to maintain your freedoms; that it is not something you have absolutely or lack absolutely, but which takes work and discipline and occasionally even misery.

One side says we don't, one side says we do, and the majority of academic philosophers say "it's complicated and hard", and "complicated and hard" describes almost any subject, as it usually actually is.

That is NOT what libertarians OR hard determinists want. It seems "watered down" but that's what you have and if you don't accept the actual freedoms that you particle-type have, you will act without due consideration or thought to the outcome of your actions, and this injures more than just your own desire to accomplish your goals but mine as well.

Edit: in fact, if that is a fundamental property of you-particle-type, it's a good argument to not allow your particle type to EVER exist without immediate local response, to treat you as fundamentally guilty of being the thing that causes that outcome, regardless of what smashed together to create a particle of that type.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Jarhyn said:

It is starting to seem to me like you have a more narrow idea about determinism than determinism has about itself, as it were?

I disagree. As I stated previously, I am not talking about scientific or mathematical determinism identified by Isaac Newton and advocated by Albert Einstein -- which is a scientific theory about the actual nature of the universe. I am talking about the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism (also known as Causal Determinism), which I am not claiming to capture the manner in which universe actually operates, but am exploring as a thought experiment. Newtonian Determinism is not necessarily as robust as the metaphysical paradigm, and it seems to me that your comments are based on Newtonian Determinism and also upon the way you believe the universe actually behaves, and not based on the thought experiment you are criticizing.

As Karl Popper wrote:

“The metaphysical doctrine of determinism simply asserts that all events in this world are fixed, or unalterable, or predetermined. It does not assert that they are known to anybody, or predictable by scientific means. But it asserts that the future is as little changeable as is the past. Everybody knows what we mean when we say that the past cannot be changed. It is in precisely the same sense that the future cannot be changed, according to metaphysical determinism.”

Notably, Popper did not accept the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism as being true, but did have the intellectual honesty to address the paradigm as it exists, and not in a manner that rejects its foundational premise. Popper agrees that Free Will cannot exist in a universe that is truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic, but he also rejects that notion that the universe operate that way as a matter of fact. The same is true of William James. These great thinkers do not reject the foundational premises of the paradigms they explore in order to justify desired conclusions. That is an intellectually honesty way to address the subject that I admire greatly.

 

[pood]

Jarhyn said:

It is starting to seem to me like you have a more narrow idea about determinism than determinism has about itself, as it were?

I disagree. As I stated previously, I am not talking about scientific or mathematical determinism identified by Isaac Newton and advocated by Albert Einstein -- which is a scientific theory about the actual nature of the universe. I am talking about the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism (also known as Causal Determinism), which I am not claiming to capture the manner in which universe actually operates, but am exploring as a thought experiment. Newtonian Determinism is not necessarily as robust as the metaphysical paradigm, and it seems to me that your comments are based on Newtonian Determinism and also upon the way you believe the universe actually behaves, and not based on the thought experiment you are criticizing.

As Karl Popper wrote:

“The metaphysical doctrine of determinism simply asserts that all events in this world are fixed, or unalterable, or predetermined. It does not assert that they are known to anybody, or predictable by scientific means. But it asserts that the future is as little changeable as is the past. Everybody knows what we mean when we say that the past cannot be changed. It is in precisely the same sense that the future cannot be changed, according to metaphysical determinism.”

Notably, Popper did not accept the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism as being true, but did have the intellectual honesty to address the paradigm as it exists, and not in a manner that rejects its foundational premise. Popper agrees that Free Will cannot exist in a universe that is truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic, but he also rejects that notion that the universe operate that way as a matter of fact. The same is true of William James. These great thinkers do not reject the foundational premises of the paradigms they explore in order to justify desired conclusions. That is an intellectually honesty way to address the subject that I admire greatly.

Great. The fact that the future cannot be changed does not rule out free will, because free will does not require changing anything.

 

[steve_bank]

I read some of Popper.

Causal Determinism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Causal determinism is, roughly speaking, the idea that every event is necessitated by antecedent events and conditions together with the laws of nature. The idea is ancient, but first became subject to clarification and mathematical analysis in the eighteenth century. Determinism is deeply connected with our understanding of the physical sciences and their explanatory ambitions, on the one hand, and with our views about human free action on the other. In both of these general areas there is no agreement over whether determinism is true (or even whether it can be known true or false), and what the import for human agency would be in either case.

It is difficult to discuss causality without referring to physical reality and observation.

Causality is inherent in science. Defined as conservation of mass end energy in Laws Of Thermodynamics.


If I see something move and I do not know the cause I do not think it moved itself, there has to be a causal event even if I ca not deduce it.

Abandon causality and you can have something from nothing.

Without causality then you have to explain how something can move without a cause. One can crete elaborate metaphysics's to explain it. I think Newton used to god of the gaps.


Given causality that leads to cosmology and the question of determinism. Are all events fixed, can a human change the course of his life or is it predetermined.

Th debate ensues.

Tu us humans the future s probabilistic. Even if determinism is true, local weather recasting in Seattle is good to about a week. Even if the temperature two weeks from now is predetermined to be exactly 50 degrees we have no way to predict that number. If it is predetermined to rain 300 days fro now we can not predict it.

Weather is entirely causal and entirely deterministic, yet it is not precdictable.

There can br moral issues attachd to philopshcal determinia depnding on the definition.

Are we resposible for our actions?

 

[BSilvEsq]

Great. The fact that the future cannot be changed does not rule out free will, because free will does not require changing anything.

Your focus is temporally misplaced.

I will accept that the existence of Free Will does not require changing anything -- certainly nothing in the past.

What Free Will does require is the ability make a free choice -- even if the selected alternative may be foreclosed by extrinsic forces unknown to the chooser (as in choosing to enter one of two rooms, but the door to the chosen room is locked).

The point of Popper's explanation, and the point of the metaphysical paradigm if Determinism, is that no human being is capable of making a true choice in a truly, entirely, and perfectly deterministic universe, because the brain function required to make a choice is pre-determined by antecedent activity outside the control of the person who putatively is making a choice, and the so-called choice has been made for the person who is said to have made a choice before the choice has even been presented to the person to make.

If you are content to define Free Will as the illusion of choice resulting from the fact that the putative chooser does not know the outcome until after the fact, then Free Will would be compatible with Determinism. But, that is not what I understand an intellectually honest version of Compatibilism to accept. If I am wrong, and that is all there is to Compatibilism, then my reaction is a huge yawn.

 

[Jarhyn]

it seems to me that your comments are based on Newtonian Determinism and also upon the way you believe the universe actually behaves,

It comes down to Newtonian determinism, created by metaphysical determinism.

Mathematical determinism IS metaphysical determinism, because metaphysics IS math. They're the same thing.

So if you wish to argue that the universe works in some way as a "deterministic system", that is determinism. Full stop, that is metaphysically, mathematically, determinism.

I am not arguing that this is the way the universe works, but in the language of math, and this metaphysics in my estimation, that you have assigned qualities of determinism which you cannot justify nor support in an attempt to look away from the fact that you don't seem to understand that pre-determinism is not determinism, it is fatalism, and a most absolute sort of it.

It wagers that there is a story, that the story could start with the writing of the end of it (to be PRE-determined), and that there be only one way to write a story to that end, and that that story is (or even could possibly be) the universe we live and breathe and exist in.

That is NOT a thing anyone should call determinism. That is Fatalism. Add some adverb to it as well, perhaps like "maximal fatalism" or "radical fatalism" but do not call it determinism because to do is misleading and thus inappropriate.

 

[Jarhyn]

I've presented an actual mathematical model for conceptualizing particles and periodic change and possibility.

I think it's kind of silly we are being asked to just take someone's word on it that Radical Fatalism is a sensible concept.

I think it's important to note that when I have some causal chain, such that John makes James who kills Sally, that James killed Sally. That's not something John did, it's something James did. John "made a James", and the "James" killed the Sally.

If we can ascertain that Jameses kill Sallys, then we can likewise be cross at John for making the James, as it were, in my silly example. But nothing you do to the John will cancel the fact that James will just keep killing Sallys until he is stopped; he is responsible, as he is now, as James, for killing Sally.

I think it is, in fact, the hard determinists who have their temporal frames of reference confused.

 

[BSilvEsq]

it seems to me that your comments are based on Newtonian Determinism and also upon the way you believe the universe actually behaves,

It comes down to Newtonian determinism, created by metaphysical determinism.

Mathematical determinism IS metaphysical determinism, because metaphysics IS math. They're the same thing.

So if you wish to argue that the universe works in some way as a "deterministic system", that is determinism. Full stop, that is metaphysically, mathematically, determinism.

I am not arguing that this is the way the universe works, but in the language of math, and this metaphysics in my estimation, that you have assigned qualities of determinism which you cannot justify nor support in an attempt to look away from the fact that you don't seem to understand that pre-determinism is not determinism, it is fatalism, and a most absolute sort of it.

It wagers that there is a story, that the story could start with the writing of the end of it (to be PRE-determined), and that there be only one way to write a story to that end, and that that story is (or even could possibly be) the universe we live and breathe and exist in.

That is NOT a thing anyone should call determinism. That is Fatalism. Add some adverb to it as well, perhaps like "maximal fatalism" or "radical fatalism" but do not call it determinism because to do is misleading and thus inappropriate.

Again, you are mistaken. Mathematics and Metaphysics are not one in the same, and your assertion that they are the same does not make them so. Nor are Science or Physics the same at Metaphysic. As such, the premise of your latest argument is fundamentally flawed.

As to the difference between "determined" and "predetermined" within the metaphysical paradigm if Determinism, there is no difference. As explained by Karl Popper, who knows far more about this subject than you do:

"The metaphysical doctrine of determinism simply asserts that all events in this world are fixed, or unalterable, or predetermined."

I have no doubt you are an intelligent and well educated person, but that does not give you license to make this stuff up as you please. We are dealing with a metaphysical concept that has a long history of discussion by many minds that are greater than yours and mine combined.

If you want to reject the philosophical literature and simply make things up to fit the conclusion you wish to assert (which is a form of deterministic argumentation), I suppose that is your prerogative, but it is little more than verbal masturbation and does not advance the discussion one iota.

 

[Jarhyn]

Mathematics and Metaphysics are not one in the same, and your assertion that they are the same does not make them so

Mathematics is the mechanics about physics.

Determinism is a concept under mathematics.

You have attempted to define determinism as what is really radical fatalism and personally, I won't really abide it.

Determined IS metaphysically distinct from pre-determined in exactly the way I described, and pre-determiniation is radical fatalism.

It is no different from the ridiculous and religious belief that a god could decide for you who and what you will be and a reality that will make you like that.

But moreover, it is the ridiculous notion that this would matter in the least in determining your fitness for whatever from the perspective of what you are now.

Fixed where, for that matter? Because right now I can point to the left and right of me, above and below, before and after, and see that things are otherwise than as they are here.

We are dealing with a mathematical concept.

I have discussed a concept within math.

I have discussed reality in terms of "finite patches of particles amid a growing interaction on an infinite field", because this describes our universe, for the most part, as seen in physics; and because it grants an actual, mathematically deterministic system which could, conceivably, generate a finite block universe through a timeframe.

Even if you could present some "computer*" with some equation or configuration of particles, and a zero, and a coordinate offset from that zero, and hit a button and instantly flash that block into existence in a way you could view any arbitrary point in it, it wouldn't change the nature of you as a machine and how the system around you interacts because part of it is still a function of the thing you happen to be within it and the behavior of anything with a decision making structure identical to your brain.

If you want to reject the philosophical literature

My expectation is that whenever there is such a snag in some piece of literature as large as the conflict between what people think free will requires and the nature of our universe, which is actually quite deterministic in its function in any regard, the issue is often with the literature itself and some massive sophistry that has arisen within it.

To wit, I present the difference between radical fatalism and actual determinism.

I am not "simply making things up". I have in this thread done quite a bit of demonstrating exactly what I mean when I say the words I speak, and you have done very little.

All you have done yourself here is assert that you have the right of it without even demonstrating a single example of what you could possibly mean. I have given some very sound suggestions as to what might be meant, in the discussion of radical fatalism, but that still doesn't change the fact that things aligned to have tendency towards behaviour hold those tendencies as we will.

That's not an assertion; or rather it is, but I gladly invite you to challenge any of these assertions that I make. You will have a rather difficult time, other than silly games over what people really mean when they say "determinism". All you need is counter-examples.

If you wish to spread this claim about radical fatalism, and that the universe is radically fatalistic, be my guest, but please quit lying and pretending this has anything to do with any concept "determinism" that can be expressed in some rigorous way.

If you cannot express your "metaphysics" as math, it has no value for me or anyone else, it's just so much PFFFT.

The presentation of determinism I make says that if you wish to be different than you are you must do hard work. That work, the nature of how to do it and the foundational knowledge of why it works, is not always apparent on how to perform it and education can help. That is not so much mental masturbation; it's telling people to do the things that actually bring them the outcomes they claim to want.

The problem, I expect, is that as I keep pointing out doing that takes a lot of careful work.

 

[bilby]

The fact that the future cannot be changed does not rule out free will, because free will does not require changing anything.

Exactly.

And almost nobody actually believes that it does. Though it is popular for some philosophers to claim it, they don't behave as though they believe it at all.

In the debate between determinists and compatibilists it is often repeated that the side arguing that free will and determinism are compatible are just playing word games, and changing the definition of "free will". However, it's probably the other way around. When the debate is first framed in philosophy 101 classes it causes people enter into a sort of confusion about what they had previously believed. It's hard to get at what people's pre-theoretical notions of freedom are, but we can certainly observe that no audience has ever gasped in shock like Marty does in this comic upon "learning" that people behave deterministically, and only by altering their environment would you alter their decisions. In fact, this is the basic premise of all time travel movies, and people find it so obvious that it never has to be explained.

https://existentialcomics.com/comic/278