According to Robert Sapolsky, human free will does not exist

[Jarhyn]

If there are no alternate actions within a deterministic system

There clearly are things alternate to "what you are" and they are sitting with you now, sitting conveniently for observation to your left and to your right, an alternative to what is happening there where you are.

"Physical necessity compelling" IS fate. It is radical fatalism. Which is why I point out the difference between that and actual determinism

 

[steve_bank]

If you work at it you can think yourself into a bad state of mind. Why get up in the morning if it is all predetermined.

The importance of religion is that it provides hope.

If you rewind the universe to exactly where it was 200 years ago and restart would the word be exact;y the same 200 years later?

If you interpret QM as representing an underlying randomness to the universe at the particle scale then maybe not.

And that leads to the question of quantum randomness being a matter of our measurement limitations.

 

[pood]

Determinism is not the same as pre-determinism or fatalism. The latter two are really just the old Greek Idle Argument.

An architect designs a building. He must make innumerable planning decisions. Pre-determinism absurdly holds that these decisions were made … at the start of the Big Bang.

Which is ludicrous, because the Big Bang had and has no mind, no capacity to decide.

Of course the architect bases his decisions on antecedents — his experience, his training, his study of architectural forms and techniques, even his genetic predispositions and his upbringing. But the decisions remain his, and are determined by him at the time he determined him — not before.

But you will say, given a chain of falling dominoes since the start of the Big Bang, he could not have made his decisions any other way than what he did.

But of course he could have. He just WON’T, not CAN’T, make them differently based on the particular antecedents he has.

This “could not have done otherwise” bit is the modal fallacy. It confuses a contingently true proposition with a necessarily true one,

Necessarily true propositions are true at all possible worlds. There are no possible worlds at which triangles have other than three sides. There are many possible worlds at which the architect designs his building differently.

So he could have done other than what he did, and compatibilism holds.

 

[Jarhyn]

But of course he could have. He just WON’T, not CAN’T, make them differently based on the particular antecedents he has.

I..going to focus on this part because, yet again the "modally weak" among us, those who incessantly make this error because they do not really have much of a capacity to differentiate the type/instance boundary:

But of course he:type could have. He:individual just WON’T, not [he:type] CAN’T, make them differently based on the particular antecedents he:individual has [because he:individual does not 'wag the dog' of he:type].

 

[pood]

Posit that past, present and future are all fixed, as they would be if the Minkowski block world is true.

This fact, if it is a fact, still does not compromise compatibilism, because fixity is not fatalism.

A common error is to assume that in order to have free will, we must be able to change something.

The physicist Sabine Hossenfelder (now a YouTube huckster) is a rigid hard determinist who makes the argument that since you can’t change the future, you have no free will.

But she errs. It’s not necessary to change ANYTHING in order to have free will. It is only needed that it is within one’s power to make things be as they were, as they are, and as they will be. IOW, we all play our small part in FIXING the history of the universe.

If the block world is true, we have temporal parts as well as spatial parts. And my future temporal parts are making decisions to fix the future, just as my past temporal parts did.

 

[bilby]

The importance of religion is that it provides hope.

Meh. I have never had religion, nor lacked hope.

That sounds to me like yet another absurdly false claim from religion that religion is somehow special or necessary.

 

[BSilvEsq]

The idea that you could not have acted differently after the act has occurred is a modal fallacy. Which means you could have acted differently before the act occurred.

One must not conflate contingency with necessity.

The modal fallacy is in assuming that one could not have acted differently based on the fact that one did, in fact, act in a specific way.

Sorry, I misread. Deleted the earlier post.

Yes, that is the modal fallacy.

One could have acted differently, though not based on the fact that one did, in fact, act in a specific way.

The argument about the logical consequences of accepting the truth of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism does not suffer from a modal fallacy. A modal fallacy exists when one draws an invalid conclusion of necessity from a premise that involves a possibility. I am not drawing any conclusion about the lack of ability to act differently than one acts. That is, in itself, the Major Premise from which the argument about the logical fallacy of Compatibilism is drawn. The Minor Premise is that the ability to act other than one does act (or, at least, to decide to do so) must exist for the to be Free Will. The Conclusion is that the existence of Free Will is incompatible within the truth of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism.

To state it somewhat differently, the lack of ability act other than one will act (i.e., cannot act differently in advance of action taken) is a premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism, and not a conclusion. The formulation of a premise, especially a definitional premise, can never be fallacious, because the premise does not result from any application of logic and/or an attempt to apply logic. Rather, the premise is the foundational beginning of a logical argument. No premise is valid or invalid -- unless it is a premise that is drawn from another argument that is fallacious.

I fully understand and appreciate that many folks on this board reject the truth of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism. That is their prerogative if they have Free Will (and the only thing they can do if that is what they do if the paradigm is true). It is, however, fallacious to contend that the existence of Free Will is compatible with the truth of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism without changing the definitions of Determinism and Free Will, which is the point of William James observation that “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.”

 

[BSilvEsq]

DBT, the world evolves as it does, and as it will, not as it "must".

You have no justification for the "must" as we have discussed, elsewhere it is otherwise.

It is, however, the conceptual definition of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism, as articulated by Popper and others. The definition of a paradigm is not, itself, susceptible to proof, because it is not the assertion of an empirical fact. Rather, it is simply a starting point for drawing logical conclusions that flow from acceptance of the premise. As such, for the sake of testing the logic of the argument about the relationship between Determinism and Free Will, it is necessary to accept the definitional premises of the two concepts.

And I yet again reject the premises that the block divorces from the rule, which is necessary for accepting this jankedy radical fatalism concept as if it was in any way sensible; it is not, as any attempt to describe it leads you to making a modal fallacy of the form "he couldn't because he didn't" or thereabouts.

Popper and others failed to understand this, perhaps because popper and others lived years before anyone was born who might live a lifetime and career of understanding the difference between a type and a value not merely in theory but in practice.

Popper did not fail to understand what you assert. Rather, Popper agreed with you as a factual matter. Popper was, however, also willing to accept the contours of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism for the purpose of examining its logical consequences -- which invalidate the existence of Free Will. Popper also was willing to accept that the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism could be neither proved to be true nor falsified -- which was a prime reason for Popper's rejection of the paradigm, as Popper's philosophy of science rejects the truth of any paradigm that is incapable of being empirically tested and either proven true or falsified in so doing. Significantly, Popper also recognized that science, empiricism, and/or physical materialism, also are metaphysical paradigms that cannot be proved to be true or falsified, but he elected to place his faith in science, nonetheless.

F. Scott Fitzgerald aptly observed that "[t]he test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Accordingly, rather than reject out of hand the possibility of the truth of an unprovable and unfalsifiable metaphysical paradigm while accepting the equally unprovable and unfalsifiable paradigm of science (or even mathematics of logic), an open minded and intelligent person is willing to consider the consequences of the competing ideas without resorting to name calling or pejorative adjectives.

 

[BSilvEsq]

If you work at it you can think yourself into a bad state of mind. Why get up in the morning if it is all predetermined.

"If" the universe were perfectly deterministic (which can be neither proved nor falsified), nobody would be thinking themselves into anything, because the very act of thinking would be perfectly determined by antecedent activities. The same would be true of whether someone does or does not get up in the morning. In a perfectly deterministic universe, some people would be compelled to seem to believe in the truth of their lacking Free Will, some people would be compelled to seem to believe that they have Free Will, some people would be compelled to seem to believe that they have a compromised form of Free Will, some people would be compelled to not seem to believe anything about the subject, and some people would be compelled to seem to believe that this is an inane subject unworthy of discussion. Among the people who would be compelled to seem to believe that they lack Free Will, some people will be compelled to react to that belief by staying in bed and seeming to be depressed, while others will be compelled to seem to believe that their lack of Free Will is immaterial to living their lives, get out of bed, and seem to wonder at the universe.

As I previously have noted, 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.

I also find that many folks -- more often the advocates of Free Will -- waste their time focusing on the unanswerable question of whether Determinism or Free Will is true, and are incapable of acknowledging even the possibility that the universe operates differently than they believe. In essence, many folks have an unacknowledged faith that they are correct (akin to a faith in an unprovable god) that clouds their ability to consider even the ramifications of a reality in which their faith is misplaced. In that regard, Nicolas Gisin has said:

I know that I enjoy free will much more than I know anything about physics. Hence, physics will never be able to convince me that free will is an illusion. Quite the contrary, any physical hypothesis incompatible with free will is falsified by the most profound experience I have about free will.

Unlike many others, Gisin had the fortitude to acknowledge that his faith in Free Will is based on his feelings and that he would reject, out of hand, any putative falsification of the truth of his feelings.

Gisin also has written:

[F]or me, the situation is very clear : not only does free will exist, but it is a prerequisite for science, philosophy, and our very ability to think rationally in a meaningful way. Without free will, there could be no rational thought. As a consequence, it is quite simply impossible for science and philosophy to deny free will.

In other words, Gisin is further unwilling to accept the possibility that Free Will does not exist, because doing so topples the empirical paradigm of science.

Anton Zeilenger has similarly stated:

The second important property of the world that we always implicitly assume is the freedom of the individual experimentalist. This is the assumption of free will. It is a free decision what measurement one wants to perform. In the experiment on the entangled pair of photons, Alice and Bob are free to choose the position of the switch that determines which measurement is performed on their respective particles. It was a basic assumption in our discussion that that choice is not determined from the outside. This fundamental assumption is essential to doing science. If this were not true, then, I suggest, it would make no sense at all to ask nature questions in an experiment, since then nature could determine what our questions are, and that could guide our questions such that we arrive at a false picture of nature.”

As I read these quotes, they reflect that Gisin and Zeilinger (who are relatively representative of other storied physicists) both (i) accept on faith that Free Will exists based on their "feeling" of having Free Will, and (ii) are intellectually unwilling to accept the possibility that Free Will does not exist, because doing so topples their own empirical paradigm of science. Within science, itself, however, neither feelings nor fear can serve as valid basis for scientific conclusions.

Being less versed in physics, and far less erudite than Gisin and Zeilinger, I approach the issue as follows:

Science (like Determinism) is, itself, a metaphysical paradigm, which is built in the premise that there is an ultimate reality that is capable of being discerned through the empirical method. As explained at a somewhat high level in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, metaphysical propositions about ultimate reality (including propositions that there is no ultimate reality) cannot be proved or falsified by science and may well be beyond the capacity of human beings to prove or falsify. As a metaphysical paradigm about ultimate reality, Determinism can be accepted or rejected only on faith. The same is true of science and religion, which are alternative metaphysical propositions that can be tested only for validity or invalidity (as opposed to truth or falsehood) based upon internal consistency — and even that depends upon assuming that there is an ultimate reality and that the rules of logic are consistent with that reality. Yet another way to consider the issue is through the mystical eyes of Swami Vivekananda, who wrote that “[e]very 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, science cannot pull itself up by its own bootstraps. Nor can science pull out its bootstraps and trip up Determinism.

If Determinism were true (which we cannot know for many of the same reasons that Determinism cannot be falsified), any putative proof to the contrary would be nothing more (or less) than the natural consequence of prior activity that has the illusory appearance of being correct and/or reliable — such as science, itself. If Determinism were true, we could not trust our thoughts to be representative of reality, because our thoughts simply would be the necessary effects of prior activity in the universe and would be the only thoughts we could have. If Determinism were true, and our thoughts did correlate with reality, it would be purely by happenstance. If Determinism were true, our thoughts — including our belief in and reliance upon science — simply would be meaningless noise in the universe.

I believe the foregoing is consistent with the observations of Gisin and Zeilinger that rejecting the existence of Free Will fundamentally undermines science, philosophy and reasoning, itself.

In a world governed by science, we do not think of a speck of dust blowing in the wind as having any control over its actions. The dust does not decide which way it will be blown, and it does not question the wind that blows it or other things into which it comes into contact as it is blown from place-to-place. If Determinism were true, then human beings, as well as their thoughts and conventions (including science), would be no more than dust in the wind — incapable of providing proof of anything.

 

[bilby]

If Determinism were true, then human beings, as well as their thoughts and conventions (including science), would be no more than dust in the wind — incapable of providing proof of anything.

Unless, determinism were both true and compatible with basic desert.

The term "free will" is likely doing more harm than good in this debate. Nobody seems to have a mutually acceptable definition of what "free" means, nor, for that matter, "will".

Compatability of determinism and basic desert - the idea that what we do is our responsibility - stems from the fact that even in a completely deterministic environment, our actions are unforecastable, chaotic, and almost entirely consequent on internal events - that is, events taking place inside our bodies.

A system that is sufficiently complex as to be unforecastable*, and sufficiently self-contained as to be the major driver of its own behaviour, can reasonably be said to bear responsibility for the things it does - whether that system is a person, or a non-human animal, or even a powerful weather system.

It's not wrong to say "Cyclone Yasi was responsible for $3.5bn of damage". Nor, I contend, is it anthropomorphic or animist misattribution (though such misattributions are commonplace).

Certainly it is less wrong to blame TC Yasi, than it is to blame the initial starting conditions of the universe.

I don't think anyone here has a problem with accepting, ad argumentum, that the universe might be completely deterministic. The problem we have is with the conclusion that such a universe is incompatible with basic desert, and that determinism automatically eliminates responsibility. For sufficiently complex systems, there is no good reason to claim that it does - responsibility is an emergent property of systems large enough and complex enough as to be unforecastable.








* By unforecastable, I mean that the fastest possible way to calculate what output will result from given inputs is to let the system run itself in real time; That is, there is no way to compute what will happen, that doesn't take longer than just watching to see what happens.

 

[Jarhyn]

accept the contours of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism

I reject, mostly, that you call it determinism.

There is nothing about the equivocation of "pre-determined" and "determined" that is justified by tacking the word "metaphysical" to determinism.

responsibility is an emergent property of systems large enough and complex enough as to be unforecastable.

I would disagree that the unforcastability is necessarily a feature of what makes it so, so much as the relative autonomy and internality that you mention earlier.

Basic desert comes from the fact that the most causally significant elements are the people. Their relatively great causal significance IS their relatively greater "responsibility".

For me, though, it all starts at the goals of a behavior and works out from there, into a will and then it's all about defending freedoms from oncoming changes to the current moment, whatever that happens to be so that enough freedom remains to achieve that goal.

Even if you could perfectly predict whether you would reach your goal, it would be you being there being a thing that would reach it that is the reason you do.

 

[DBT]

If there are no alternate actions within a deterministic system

There clearly are things alternate to "what you are" and they are sitting with you now, sitting conveniently for observation to your left and to your right, an alternative to what is happening there where you are.

Not if you consider determinism as compatibilists define it to be.

Isn't that the point? Compatibilists argue that free will is compatible with determinism, not random events or alternate actions or other possibilities or alternate worlds.

So there is no point in invoking alternate choices or actions when that is not related to how Compatibilists define determinism, or free will.

"Physical necessity compelling" IS fate. It is radical fatalism. Which is why I point out the difference between that and actual determinism

Playing with words won't change how determinism and free will are defined, as a system where there are no loopholes, exceptions or special privileges. No matter how complex or chaotic it appears, the system evolves as determined. There is no choosing to do otherwise, not in any given moment of decision making.

You know how determinism is defined.

 

[Jarhyn]

Not if you consider determinism as compatibilists define it to be.

No, I have described now, until I'm so tired of you as a person that I judge you, what determinism is and means, and that this Radical Fatalism of yours requires no such thing.

Compatibilists argue that free will is compatible with determinism, not random events or alternate actions or other possibilities or alternate worlds

Compatibilists argue that free will is not compatible with non-deterministic reality. This says nothing about it being incompatible with there being undecidable problems that bring "randomness" into scope for us.

Only that it is incompatible with the idea that the universe itself, as it is, where you are, being not merely undecidable as to where you are but you not actually having a location at all as a particle instance, that's the sort of thing that's largely incompatible with determinism OR free will.

You have both a type AND an instance, and you have to think about both to form wills, and evaluate freedoms, and to maintain free will with respect to your goals.

Playing with words won't change how determinism and free will are defined

Says the person who keeps trying to play games about telling how other people define their words, when they do no such thing.

You have yet again tried to inject your radical fatalism boondoggle into "determinism" and yet again tried to play it off.

 

[Jarhyn]

Not if you consider determinism as compatibilists define it to be.

No, I have described now, until I'm so tired of you as a person that I judge you, what determinism is and means, and that this Radical Fatalism of yours requires no such thing.

Compatibilists argue that free will is compatible with determinism, not random events or alternate actions or other possibilities or alternate worlds

Compatibilists argue that free will is not compatible with non-deterministic reality. This says nothing about it being incompatible with there being undecidable problems that bring "randomness" into scope for us.

Only that it is incompatible with the idea that the universe itself, as it is, where you are, being not merely undecidable as to where you are but you not actually having a location at all as a particle instance, that's the sort of thing that's largely incompatible with determinism OR free will: that there's no way for the universe to decide it's next step without something wholely unexplained and unexplainable to hold its hand there, that that thing is you, and essentially that you are a god creating a new universe every time you decide anything.

THAT nonsense is incompatible with the idea that you, as a participant made by other participants, participate.

You have both a type AND an instance, and you have to think about both to form wills, and evaluate freedoms, and to maintain free will with respect to your goals.

Playing with words won't change how determinism and free will are defined

Says the person who keeps trying to play games about telling how other people define their words, when they do no such thing.

You have yet again tried to inject your radical fatalism boondoggle into "determinism" and yet again tried to play it off.

 

[Jarhyn]

I think the biggest issue is, sometimes, when people fail to have suitably rigorous concepts of all the ideas at play among deterministic systems theory.

First off, there's a difference between the sort of maybe-nonsensical "randomness" DBT is trying to discuss and the kind of concepts that math handles.

Libertarian randomness is not "randomness", but radical anti-fatalism: the idea that not only are there dice rolls, but that the very idea that these dice rolls are completed by some other unobserved but static part of the universe "coming into view" is itself not true and that this "fundamental" randomness is where free will comes from (or some permutation of it).

It's still determinism when an infinitely undecidable, infinite, and internally unpredictable region lies statically out of view, with respect to every location to be revealed as time marches on and to resolve those things which we have no idea otherwise what "decides" them "deterministically".

In fact, I would assert that there is no system in all of math, probabilistic or otherwise, that cannot be re-framed thus as a deterministic system and part of this realization is what drives beliefs about super-determinism (which has been criticized specifically on the basis of the need for informational pre-loading).

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

That's really what it comes down to: compatibilists assert that responsibility is a relative and local phenomena, in a relativistic and locally real universe.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

Neither DBT nor I are attempting to fashion a factual argument that the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is true. Indeed, I openly acknowledge that the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism cannot be proved to be true (nor falsified) -- as Popper has explained. I also openly acknowledge that the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is inconsistent with how humans feel, and would, if true, render science, math, logic, rational thinking, and possibly true existence meaningless and illusory -- as articulated by Gisin and Zeilinger, and as I also have written in a prior post (and many times before that). I also openly acknowledge that all of these consequences of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism seemingly present good reasons to reject the truth of the paradigm as false. Again, however, the question being explored is not whether the the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is true or false. Rather, the question is what are the logical consequences of the paradigm if it were true. More specifically. we are simply examining the logical implications of accepting the truth of the paradigm as it pertains to the notion of Free Will.

Significantly, it appears to me that both Gisin and Zeilinger recognize that the logical consequences of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is to deny Free Will. That is why they reject the truth if the premise -- because they purport to choose Free Will (as does Rush in its insightful song of that name, https://www.rush.com/songs/freewill/). Although I disagree with the sufficiency of the reasons given by Gisin and Zeilinger for their rejection of Determinism, I respect their intellectual honesty of stating that they reject the paradigm because of their lack of willingness to accept its consequences, and not because they are able to falsify its underlying foundation.

I fully understand your position that you have a different view of Determinism than the position of the metaphysical paradigm (as articulated by Popper and James and accepted for the sake of argument by Gisin and Zeilinger). Your position is based on your understanding of math and physics -- through which you reject the truth of what you call Radical Fatalism. In so doing, however, you are rejecting the definition of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism, substituting your own version of that paradigm, and then arguing from your own version of the paradigm that the logical implications of the robust paradigm are invalid. As such, you are doing exactly what William James described when he observed that all efforts to harmonize the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism and Free Will as a “quagmire of evasion.”

I grant you that Free Will can be harmonized with the form of determinism you insist to fit the definition of the term. While it is possible that humans lack Free Will even in a probabilistic universe, it is not necessarily the case that humans lack Free Will in such an environment, and Compatibilism is, therefore, not an irrational or illogical concept in a probabilistic universe that you term a deterministic universe. That, however, is not the philosophical inquiry in which true Compatibilists are engaged. Rather, a true Compatibilist purports to accept the contours of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism (as defined in a way that you prefer to characterize as Radical Fatalism) and Free Will (in which all decisions, choices, or other acts of human cognition are not entirely constrained by antecedent activity, such that any act of human cognition that occurs is the only act that could occur before it occurs, while it occurs, and after it occurs -- and without regard to where or when it will occur, is occurring or has occurred). The contention of Popper and James, with which I concur, is that true Compatibilism is logically flawed because true Free Will cannot exist within the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism.

So, in order to overcome your abject refusal to accept the meaning of the term Determinism within philosophy (as opposed to science), let me ask you this. Do you agree that if (i) X is a system in which all activity is inexorably determined in advance of its occurrence by all antecedent activity (what you call Radical Fatalism), and if (ii) Y is the ability of a human to act (or even think -- which is, itself, an act) in a way that is not inexorably determined in advance of its occurrence by all antecedent activity (what philosophers call Free Will), then (iii) the truth of both X and Y is logically foreclosed within the same system? If you agree with that, we are aligned, because that is all I have been saying -- something that, to me, is virtually tautological. If you disagree, I truly am interested in understanding your argument -- but only so long as you are not going to reject the definitional premises of the proposition in the course of attempting to refute the stated argument.

Again, and to be as clear as possible, the argument does not depend upon either premise being true or, in any way, representative of the universe. The premises simply describe two hypothetical rules of operation within a hypothetical system -- which I contend to necessarily be two different systems because I contend that the two rules of operation cannot logically work in tandem within the same system. Neither hypothetical rule of operation has any exceptions in this philosophical thought experiment. There are no hidden assumptions or variables.

If you believe that the two hypothetical rules of operation can logically coexist within the same system, I genuinely want to understand your argument, because it would be eye opening to me.

 

[pood]

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

You are not taking about determinism, but pre-determinism or fatalism. They are not the same thing.

 

[Jarhyn]

Neither DBT nor I are attempting to fashion a factual argument that the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is true.

I think you are incorrect here, insofar as DBT does appear to be attempting to assert that Determinism, mathematical determinism, is equivalent to this "Radical Fatalism", and that any attempt to describe determinism, as might be observed in infinite aperiodic flatland or in finite Dwarf Fortress, itself implies Radical Fatalism.

It is this dishonest presentation and jump to pre-determinism or radical fatalism that is broadly encouraged by the lack of address over the difference that we are all objecting to.

If we could get at least that far, we might recognize that there is an excluded middle in the debate.

 

[BSilvEsq]

I will continue to take umbridge at the idea that choices can be made by magical infinite universal dice rolls, however, and present that the sorts of choices determined by such fine and internally unpredictable and uncontrollable currents are those outcomes we are least responsible for except in allowing our states to be receptive to such caprecious forces as "what particle happens to be on the edge of the observed universe right now."

As I have now said multiple times, it is your prerogative to take Umbridge with the truth of the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism -- either because it is your own decision to do so if you have Free Will, because you are compelled to do so if the premise is true, or possibly for some other reason, including the possibility that you are 100% correct in doing so.

You are not taking about determinism, but pre-determinism or fatalism. They are not the same thing.

Call it what you wish. Call it Jabberwocky is you want. The name does not matter. The fact is that I am using a name and description that has been developed over many centuries by respected philosophers. If, however, you want to quibble over nomenclature, that is fine. As I stated in my last post, I will accept the renaming of the paradigm to Radical Fatalism if that is the only way to get an answer to the question that does not reject the stated premise. So, let's ditch the history of Philosophy, and take it from here -- do you agree that the law of the excluded middle precludes Compatibilism if it is defined to be the co-existence of Free Will and what you call Radical Fatalism? Once we get past that issue, we can revisit the question of what philosophers, including philosophers of science, have meant by Determinism.

 

[BSilvEsq]

Neither DBT nor I are attempting to fashion a factual argument that the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is true.

I think you are incorrect here, insofar as DBT does appear to be attempting to assert that Determinism, mathematical determinism, is equivalent to this "Radical Fatalism", and that any attempt to describe determinism, as might be observed in infinite aperiodic flatland or in finite Dwarf Fortress, itself implies Radical Fatalism.

It is this dishonest presentation and jump to pre-determinism or radical fatalism that is broadly encouraged by the lack of address over the difference that we are all objecting to.

If we could get at least that far, we might recognize that there is an excluded middle in the debate.

I do not read DBT to be advocating for the truth of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism and/or what you call Radical Fatalism. Nonetheless, I suppose it is not my burden to carry DBT's water for him. [Out of curiosity, however, I do ask that you please identify the statement(s) made by DBT that you read to be asserting that that the premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism is true, because I do not read DBT's posts to make that assertion] So, I will stick with the water I am carrying (by choice or compulsion). And, it now seems to me that we have agreement that the law of the excluded middle precludes the concurrent truth of the two premises set out near the end of my most recent post to you. Hooray! That is all I have been attempting to argue.

I also accept that we have a disagreement about how the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism actually works. You contend that it is probabilistic and leaves room for Free Will -- either from the start or, at least, as an emergent property. Like Popper and James (and, it seems to me, Gisin and Zeilinger), among others, I have a different understanding of the logical implications of the foundational premise of the metaphysical paradigm of Determinism than you have. That is fine, as I am not wading back into that water at this time. Rather, I am content to have agreement on the logical proposition upon which we appear to have agreement, and call it a day.