Demystifying Determinism

[Marvin Edwards]

@Marvin, this is to discuss a function of math, with hypothetical but describable aspects, so as to not need to do the work of describing it.

If we wish to communicate successfully, we may need to do the work of describing it. If we have gained some proficiency in describing things, then it will require less work than it would to encode the description in uncommon language, and then require others to decode it. Ideally, we want to find the simplest, clearest, and effective way to describe things.

The agent here is not necessarily a person but exists in the system it is a part of specifically to prove out a point.

Then we're discussing an analogy. Deriving any conclusions from an analogy, that can be applied to the actual thing, will depend upon the accuracy of the analog.

Here we assume that the system forks itself along each "possible" future, and for the sake of brevity of calculation, prevent recursive forkings.

I think what you mean is to prevent repetitive forks. We want to avoid going down the same road twice. In computer programming, the only example of recursion I can recall is traversing a series of files starting at a given root file folder (which can be C:\ if we want to get to them all). The logic would be to open the file and traverse the contents of that file, which can include other file folders. When we get to the first sub-folder the routine calls itself to handle that sub-folder. When a routine calls itself, it is recursive. Each call saves its current state on the stack before entering the routine again, so when the sub-call is finished, it returns to the prior state of the calling routine which simply picks up where it left off with the next item in its folder's content. Every folder and file is traversed just once, and all with the same small routine. And the logic works on any hierarchical file system.

So assuming I am personally the agent with future sight in some LIFE simulator, I would say "I am hungry and shall die unless I 'eat food' in twenty frames, and I must decide in 10 frames which 'food' I will attempt to access, as all access attempts take 10 frames."

Then the system goes into a resolution state wherein at T+10, all values of 'the food' are substituted into "decision at T+10", the system produces the results of all variances through T+20, and then one of these with the best statistics is selected at T+10.

Cool. I can understand that as an analog to a computer program, where T+10 can be instruction 10 or a call to a complex set of instructions at location 10, and T+20 can be another routine in the program.

This represents perfect forward knowledge on a finite range.

Okay, so now I'm visualizing T+10 as performing a subroutine of instructions from T+11 through T+20, with a return at the end of T+20 to where we left off in the T+10 routine.

In T+11 through T+20 we have a finite set of options, and we calculate the value of the estimated benefits of choosing each option, so that when we return to the T+10 routine the next instruction loops through these scores and returns the option with the highest score (the best outcome).

It says "perfect finite forward knowledge" is a thing that determinism does not rule out, nor decision upon such perfect knowledge.

Well, in the computer program, the forward knowledge will be "perfectly" calculated, but could still be entirely false due to bad logic (coding error) or incomplete or missing information (garbage in, garbage out).

Whether the program is full of bugs and the information is garbage, or not, will be causally necessary from any prior point in time. However, the fact that it is causally necessary from any prior point in time will not help us to find the bugs or correct the information!

Universal causal necessity/inevitability is a logical fact, but neither a meaningful nor a relevant fact. It is pretty useless. The intelligent mind simply acknowledges it, and then forgets all about it.

It's no less a choice.

Correct. Except in the computer analogy we find no interest in the outcome. Computers don't care what we program them to do. Only we care about that. We may imagine that the program cares about it's choices, but only the end-user and the programmer care about what the computer chooses to do.

So if we can recognize that perfect finite forward knowledge is not forbidden of "determinism", we can recognize that limited finite forward knowledge is also sensible as a concept and not the nonsense some claim it is, it just means that it's imperfect, and that our wills remain "provisional" even after they are selected.

Well, yeah. Forward knowledge (or perhaps it is better to avoid "knowledge" and use the term "speculation", "estimate", "prediction", etc.) will always be finite, and sometimes it will be perfect but most of the time it will be imperfect.

And it sounds correct to say that even after we have made the choice, things are still provisional or "iffy", until we carry out that choice and see what actually happens and compare that to what we thought would happen.

The only thing that "future sight" changes is that the values produced cannot be wrong about the freeness of the will.

But "freeness of the will" is still not clarified unless we state what it is that the will is supposed to be "free of". If there is no meaningful or relevant constraint, then freedom is the assumed state of things. Coercion is a meaningful and relevant constraint upon our freedom to choose for ourselves what we will do. So, in the absence of coercion (and other forms of undue influence), we are free to choose for ourselves what we will do.

In the computer analogy, we have no coercion. The program will do whatever we tell it to do, without experiencing any fear that someone will shoot it if it makes the wrong choice.

 

[Kylie]

I used my subjective feelings to make a choice.

Right. Feelings are always involved in choosing. David Eagleman in his PBS series, "The Brain", showed the case of one woman whose ability to shop for groceries was impaired by the inability to feel certainty about her choice. She could compare the ingredients on two cans intellectually but never felt the sensation that one choice was the right choice.

So, it's not just about reasoning, but also about our feelings.

Now, want to tell me how subjective feelings can be set in stone?

Well, the feelings, just like the thoughts, will be reliably caused. Thoughts will often come with feelings attached. Sometimes feelings arise from causes we cannot identify. But, it is still reasonable to presume that every thought and every feeling will be caused by something (most often by prior thoughts and feelings, but it could also be by some association with a past experience).

Nothing, except sculpture and architecture is ever set in stone.

Determinism is not about anything being decided or planned in advance. One event simply causes another event and so on until it gets to us choosing what we will have for dinner.

So you are telling me that you can, in theory, look at two pictures and decide which one I'd prefer to have hanging on my wall? Taking into account the subjective emotions I'd be feeling on the day?

You'll understand if I find that hard to believe.

In any case, it seems that your argument here is, "You choice is caused by your choice."

Not quite. Our choices are caused by our choosing. Choosing inputs two or more options, applies some criteria of comparative evaluation, and, based on that evaluation, outputs a single choice. The choice is usually in the form of an "I will X", where X is the thing we have decided we will do. This deliberate intention then motivates and directs our subsequent actions as we go about doing X.

So choices aren't a result of our choices, they are a result of us choosing.

Yeah, that's just silly wordgames.

How can it be that I am making the choice when the outcome of the situation could have been predicted by anyone with sufficiently detailed knowledge?

Well, who made the choice? Was it the guy predicting what would be chosen, or, was it the guy who actually did the choosing?

Well, the guy who did the "choosing" was locked into one thing, so he didn't actually "choose" anything, did he?

After all, if that's true, then nothing I can do myself is unique, and so how can it be MY choice?

If the choice is caused by us, by our own thoughts and feelings, our own beliefs and values, our own genetic dispositions and prior life experiences, and/or any of the other things that make us uniquely us, then it clearly is a choice that can be attributed to us.

[/QUOTE]
But it's not, since it was set in stone long before we were born.

If free will is deciding without coercion or other forms of undue influence , how do we define "undue"? After all, if my "choice" is the result of everything that has come before, then it seems to me that "everything that has come before" is certainly influencing me when I make my "choice". So why is that not "undue"?

The normal influences that we are all exposed to in the due course of our lives do not usually force us to act against our will or prevent us from deciding for ourselves what we will do. For example, we're all exposed to commercial advertisements designed to influence us to buy some product. But these ads do not prevent us from deciding for ourselves whether to buy it or not. On the other hand, if we were under hypnosis, we would be controlled by the hypnotist, and if he told us to buy the product we would surely go out and buy it.

Courts of law have established precedents over the years as to what types of influences would remove our normal control.

If we can decide for ourselves - FOR OURSELVES - then there can be no force outside ourselves forcing us to do something. Therefore, no determinism.

 

[Kylie]

If you need to study it or help in studying it, I'm absolutely available to answer questions.

Maybe you can find a polite way to, "Maybe you need to read it more slowly" while you're at it instead of treating me like a child simply because I'm not familiar with this kind of language.

You claimed you didn't understand it, and I don't want to be ambiguous about wanting to actually discuss it and clarify the parts that are dense.

Many parts of it are very dense. Ten years ago or less, it would take me several runs through that post to fully assemble and critique it, and help is always nice in things like that.

But the fact is, you declared it technobabble and that is frankly insulting. I took the most charitable interpretation I could find at the moment and applied that instead of to say it was not something you could understand, in that case.

So if you have some part that in particular you find yourself stuck on, let me know.

As to how things of material have minds, why something you consider to make "subjective" decisions is doing so in an objectively describable way, that you need a number of college courses on. @Swammerdami would be better at describing the intro for you, but I give no guarantees they will.

Albert Einstein most famously said “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

 

[Kylie]

Seems to be pretty much the same thing to me. Both seem to be saying that free will and a deterministic universe are mutually incompatible.

The crucial difference is that libertarians go further and say that we do have free will and that the universe is indeterministic.

That would be pretty close to my position.

In any case, you have failed to actually answer my question and show that such a position is rare among atheists.

libertarian free will predominantly (but not exclusively) originates from religious ideas. Just Google "libertarian free will" and see the number of religious/apologetics sites defending it.

I just did.

The first page of results has:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - not a religious site.
Wikipedia - not a religious site.
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews - not a religious site as far as I could tell
PhilPapers - not a religious site.
Oxford University Press Blog - not a religious site.
Scirp.org - not a religious site
Oxford University Press again.
Theopedia - a religious site, but reading their article suggests to me that they find such a view incompatible with a belief in God. So they are NOT defending it, as you suggest.
Got Questions - a religious site, but the expressly state that libertarian free will is incompatible with the sovereignty of God.
Monergism - a religious site, but they argue AGAINST libertarian free will.
Introduction to Philosophy Online Textbook - this site had no religious affiliation I could find, but the site looks like it was created by a 12 year old in 1998 who just discovered MySpace.
Frontiersin.org - not a religious site.

I would go on, but honestly, checking each site is taking more time than I'd care to spend. Given that the only religiously affiliated sites I've found have been arguing AGAINST libertarian free will, I can't accept your claim that it stems predominantly from religious ideas. Would you care to provide some sources which support your viewpoint?

Most of the atheists I encounter when discussing free will online are either compatibilists or hard determinists such as DBT (Hard determinism - a view on free will which holds that determinism is true, that it is incompatible with free will, and therefore that free will does not exist.).

Would you care to support this claim, that most atheists are compatibilists or hard determinists? Or is this just anecdotal evidence?

False dichotomy. Why are "things are set in stone from the beginning of the universe" and "Things just happen from sheer random chance" the only two options? If I am faced with ordering steak, pork, or chicken for dinner, I will carefully consider all the options before making a choice. Your false dichotomy would seem to claim that such consideration has no effect on the outcome at all.

No. Not no effect. Just unreliable effect.

For your considerations to reliably affect your actions you require a reliable deterministic connection. This is not possible in an indeterministic universe.

Why is it all-or-nothing?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

If we can decide for ourselves - FOR OURSELVES - then there can be no force outside ourselves forcing us to do something. Therefore, no determinism.

Determinism is not a force. Determinism is a comment about how things happen. Determinism asserts that every event is reliably caused by prior events, such that everything that happens must necessarily happen just as it does. This includes both the events that happen inside us as well as the events happening outside us.

Free will is an event in which a person decides for themselves what they will do, will free of coercion and undue influences. Choosing is the logical operation by which we select a single option from a list of multiple things that we can choose.

Because this choosing is reliably caused by our own thoughts and feelings, it is deterministic.
Because this choosing is reliably caused by our own thoughts and feelings, it is free will.

 

[Jarhyn]

If we wish to communicate successfully, we may need to do the work of describing it. If we have gained some proficiency in describing things, then it will require less work than it would to encode the description in uncommon language, and then require others to decode it. Ideally, we want to find the simplest, clearest, and effective way to describe things.

Part of the problem here then is the fact that I'm not sure it can be.

I'm trying to present a situation, a "Deterministic System" whereby whatever mechanism exactly ONE entity has a coherent version of "libertarian free will", of the many worlds variety, and that this is still reliant on a deterministic choice function.

It is not unlike my situation wherein I say "in the world where the door is locked vs..."

The point is that deterministic choice free will is not an illusion, it's not a lie, and it's not fake. What it is is an incomplete shadow of what would be libertarian free will. People want libertarian free will but the best they have is "mortal free will" and this is part of the existential conflict that they and others use to convince each other to throw away the thing they do have.

If you would want to understand on a nerdy level how it would work, I can go into that too? But really it might help more to look at a single concept of it:

Person walks into bar. Uses future sight. The universe saves state, like saving a game, when "you" designate five different batches of neurons to experience five different things based on five different ideas of which your brain has invented "can" upon and then the brain in this hypothetical system then loads the original state at which the operation was begun, with all the neurons in the designated areas state-copied from the parallels, so that the results may be compared in parallel, an evaluation is done. But the evaluation still has to happen in a mind, with a deterministic choice made on which of those outcomes it selects.

So even if we can invent a system which represents libertarian free will, it's still down to a Deterministic mind to make a weighted Deterministic choice.

Even if you were choosing from literal, actual executions of a perfect universal revelation of what would actually happen, the process that isolates which you do still must fundamentally be a process, and that process will produce a Deterministic result, and that process producing a Deterministic result is going to be "you choosing for yourself what you will do" in the compatibilist sense.

But the point is just to show that if we play with this superpower, we can see that deterministic systems don't even rule out perfect forward knowledge and even that does not deprive anyone of free will in general, though it does allow one person to very unfairly deprive many wills of freedom should they so choose.

Even if we were to fracture the whole system every time this happens not actually ending their execution at the terminus of the decision, ending in a full multi-world libertarian indeterminism, we still have one reality that is special because it is the one that contains "what happened", and so there is still a singular truth even amid this multi-world madness.

All the other realities are still "virtual" in a sense, even if they are part of how the reality functions.

So even the libertarian seeking such indeterminism must play ball with the compatibilist if they wish to discuss choice and wills and freeness.

 

[Kylie]

If we can decide for ourselves - FOR OURSELVES - then there can be no force outside ourselves forcing us to do something. Therefore, no determinism.

Determinism is not a force. Determinism is a comment about how things happen. Determinism asserts that every event is reliably caused by prior events, such that everything that happens must necessarily happen just as it does. This includes both the events that happen inside us as well as the events happening outside us.

I never said determinism was a force that made us "choose" certain things, did I? (The word CHOOSE was in quotes because if there is only one possible outcome, it's not a choice.)

Determinism requires that true randomness is impossible.

Free will is an event in which a person decides for themselves what they will do, will free of coercion and undue influences. Choosing is the logical operation by which we select a single option from a list of multiple things that we can choose.

And that can not happen if the outcome has already been determined.

Because this choosing is reliably caused by our own thoughts and feelings, it is deterministic.
Because this choosing is reliably caused by our own thoughts and feelings, it is free will.

Funny, I thought the whole "deterministic" thing was that the outcome could, in theory, be predicted long before it happens.

I have never said that the outcome is not caused by our own thoughts and feelings. My position is that the outcome can never be predicted in advance with 100% certainty.

Why there are people who think that accepting there are some things which can be precisely predicted means EVERYTHING must be similarly predictable is beyond me.

There are forces of randomness in the universe and these mean that as we predict further and further into the future, our predictions become less and less accurate. If we try to predict beyond a certain point in the future relative to our present, then such predictions are going to be no better than picking at random.

 

[DBT]

If determinism, then our thoughts and feelings are themselves outcomes from prior states of the system, and are precisely what they must be, inputs, thoughts, feelings, actions, as the system evolves without deviation..

 

[fromderinside]

If determinism, then our thoughts and feelings are themselves outcomes from prior states of the system, and are precisely what they must be, inputs, thoughts, feelings, actions, as the system evolves without deviation..

True. But most here, reflected for the moment by Kylie, reinterpret what's happening in relation to where their perceptions have just wandered into. No idea of what actual causes and effects are. Just judgements based on self identified material. Result are mostly blather about choice, decision, will, and other self perceived conditionals mainly guided by gut, squirt, and twitch.

 

[The AntiChris]

I can't accept your claim that it stems predominantly from religious ideas. Would you care to provide some sources which support your viewpoint?

From  Libertarianism (metaphysics):

One of the first clear formulations of libertarianism is found in John Duns Scotus. In theological context, metaphysical libertarianism was notably defended by Jesuit authors like Luis de Molina and Francisco Suárez against rather compatibilist Thomist Bañecianism. Other important metaphysical libertarians in the early modern period were René Descartes, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Reid.

I don't think you'll find many atheists in that group.

Most of the atheists I encounter when discussing free will online are either compatibilists or hard determinists such as DBT (Hard determinism - a view on free will which holds that determinism is true, that it is incompatible with free will, and therefore that free will does not exist.).

Would you care to support this claim, that most atheists are compatibilists or hard determinists? Or is this just anecdotal evidence?

It's quite clearly anecdotal.

For your considerations to reliably affect your actions you require a reliable deterministic connection. This is not possible in an indeterministic universe.

Why is it all-or-nothing?

Either an event is the result of a deterministic cause or it isn't. Are you suggesting there's something in between?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I'm trying to present a situation, a "Deterministic System" whereby whatever mechanism exactly ONE entity has a coherent version of "libertarian free will", of the many worlds variety, and that this is still reliant on a deterministic choice function.

I generally avoid discussing "libertarian free will" because I don't understand it. Ironically, there are some who insist that I'm describing it even though I am simply putting determinism in its proper place: as a non-threatening fact of life that can be safely ignored.

The point is that deterministic choice free will is not an illusion, it's not a lie, and it's not fake. What it is is an incomplete shadow of what would be libertarian free will. People want libertarian free will but the best they have is "mortal free will" and this is part of the existential conflict that they and others use to convince each other to throw away the thing they do have.

The existential conflict they experience is the loss of control when someone tells them that their choice was not up to them, but instead decided by someone or something else, as if the choice were being forced upon them against their will.

The hard determinist goes out of his way to convince them of exactly that. He describes life as a situation in which they make no choices for themselves, as if they were passive passengers on a bus that someone else was driving, or just another domino falling, or a cue ball bouncing, and other images to reinforce the notion that nothing is within their control.

I simply point out that none of those claims are empirically accurate descriptions of what is actually happening in the real world. Even in a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect, fully deterministic, where every event is causally necessary from any prior point in eternity, it remains the case that they will be making the choices. It is not just the choice that is inevitable, but also the fact of the choosing, and also the fact that it is they, themselves, that will be doing the choosing.

If the choice is inevitable, then the choosing is inevitable. If the choosing is inevitable, then it is also inevitable that we will be doing it. Once control is restored to its proper location, the existential crisis is resolved.

Person walks into bar. Uses future sight.

I understand walking into a bar, but "uses future sight" suggests something out of "Dune", where Paul Atreides, after drinking the potion, can see the future so well that, when he eventually loses his normal vision, he simply uses his ability to see the immediate future in his head to replace it. And later, when you use the term "superpower", it just reinforces this sci-fi image in my head.

The universe saves state, like saving a game,

Speaking of the universe as an active player in the real world, would seem to reinforce the existential crisis of us having no control.

when "you" designate five different batches of neurons to experience five different things based on five different ideas of which your brain has invented "can" upon and then the brain in this hypothetical system then loads the original state at which the operation was begun, with all the neurons in the designated areas state-copied from the parallels, so that the results may be compared in parallel, an evaluation is done. But the evaluation still has to happen in a mind, with a deterministic choice made on which of those outcomes it selects.

That was a spooky ride on a roller coaster where we get to choose the neurons that hold our ideas, where the brain invents "can" upon them, then "loads" the original state, results being compared in parallel (rather than the simpler serially).

But, thankfully, we do end up eventually with our mind evaluating our options and making a choice, something we are all familiar with.

So even if we can invent a system which represents libertarian free will, it's still down to a Deterministic mind to make a weighted Deterministic choice.

Basically correct. But we need not invent a system if we are looking at the actual system.

Even if you were choosing from literal, actual executions of a perfect universal revelation of what would actually happen, the process that isolates which you do still must fundamentally be a process, and that process will produce a Deterministic result, and that process producing a Deterministic result is going to be "you choosing for yourself what you will do" in the compatibilist sense.

I think you're making the point that our estimates of the outcomes of an option is not a perfect revelation, but our best guess at the time, and it is a good point.

But the point is just to show that if we play with this superpower, we can see that deterministic systems don't even rule out perfect forward knowledge and even that does not deprive anyone of free will in general,

Well, if we actually had the superpower of future sight, as Paul Atreides did, it would raise the question: What happens if we see our choice in advance? Would we still go through the process of choosing? And I guess that is not really a problem, because we would also see our future selves going through the choosing to get to the choice. So, it still holds that we are actually (and inevitably) doing the choosing ourselves, according to our own goals and reasons.

though it does allow one person to very unfairly deprive many wills of freedom should they so choose.

Hey! That's a sudden shift into politics. Good thing I was wearing a seat belt.

Even if we were to fracture the whole system every time this happens not actually ending their execution at the terminus of the decision, ending in a full multi-world libertarian indeterminism, we still have one reality that is special because it is the one that contains "what happened", and so there is still a singular truth even amid this multi-world madness.

I try to keep my madness to a minimum by avoiding the philosophical notion of inventing entire worlds to accommodate a simple "could have done" alternative. Do we want the Fosters or the house beer? We imagine what it would be like in this world if we have the Fosters. Then we imagine what it would be like in this world, if we have the house beer.

All the other realities are still "virtual" in a sense, even if they are part of how the reality functions.

Well that analogy works for me. Our imagination uses the brain's model of reality to play out a virtual version of the events, before choosing that option and seeing what actually happens.

So even the libertarian seeking such indeterminism must play ball with the compatibilist if they wish to discuss choice and wills and freeness.

Or, the libertarian can simply take their ball and go home. But, due to the hard determinist's portrayal of determinism as a monster that robs us of all freedom and control, the libertarian is certainly on solid ground to reject that notion. On the other hand, if we strip determinism of all those false implications that the hard determinist is trying to sell us, we end up with simple cause and effect, something that every freedom that we have requires.

 

[Jarhyn]

I understand walking into a bar, but "uses future sight" suggests something out of "Dune", where Paul Atreides, after drinking the potion, can see the future so well that, when he eventually loses his normal vision, he simply uses his ability to see the immediate future in his head to replace it. And later, when you use the term "superpower", it just reinforces this sci-fi image in my head.

This is an abstraction of something that can only exist, as far as this universe is concerned, as an implemented dererministic system within a computer.

Future sight is in this a consideration of a fundamental particle that is only a part of the one agent, whose manipulation literally "forks" the universe.

As such, understanding it is going to be a bit hard if you've never used fork() and join() as concepts.

Maybe try reading some discussions on fork() and join()?

The idea is that the whole process at that moment, the entire system is cloned, with the fork call returning some number letting the fork know it forked off, and then the parent may call join() which halts until the forked process ends.

In the fork, the decision is assumed as having happened some way.

One of these forks have an identical state to the original process following the forking and fork process setup.

One fork is thus "the real fork", it's just unclear which until AFTER all the future sight forks are resolved to the target frame.

This is a Deterministic system that DOES allow "alternate actions".

So deterministic systems don't even disallow alternative actions OR options.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The word CHOOSE was in quotes because if there is only one possible outcome, it's not a choice.

Actually, when choosing there will always be multiple "possible" outcomes, but only one "actual" outcome. The fact that there will be only one actual outcome does not imply that there is only one possible outcome.

An actual outcome actually happens. A possible outcome may happen, but it also may never happen. That's the difference between an actuality and a possibility. If a possibility never happens, it does not mean that it was "impossible", but simply that it did not happen.

This difference between "actual" and "possible" extends into the notions of "can" and "will". If we say that something "will" happen, then we mean that it certainly will actually happen. But if we say that something "can" happen, then it may never actually happen. The fact that it "does not" happen does not imply that it "could not have" happened. Instead, it is referred to as something that "could have happened" that simply "did not" happen.

If we mistakenly conflate what is "actual" with what is "possible", and what "will" happen with what "can" happen, we can end up with nonsense.

Consider this example:
Waiter (a hard determinist): "What will you have for dinner tonight, sir?"
Customer (hungry): "I don't know. What are my possibilities?"
Waiter: "Because we live in a deterministic world, there is only one thing that you can order."
Customer: "Oh! ... Well ... okay. What is the one thing that I can order?"
Waiter: "I cannot say what you can order until I know what you will order!"

When we conflate "can" with "will" we end up with an unsolvable paradox. So, we need to stop doing that.

How did we end up conflating "can" with "will"? By figurative thinking. We say to ourselves something like this: "If my choice was causally necessary from any prior point in time: then it is AS IF I had no choice, and it is AS IF choosing never happened, and it is AS IF the choice was made before I was even born." Figurative statements are often used in human communication. But figurative statements have a problem: Every figurative statement is literally false.

So, how do we check for figurative rather than literal statements? By simply comparing it to what is objectively observed in empirical reality. We can walk into any restaurant and observe customers walk in, browse the menu, and place their order. The menu is full of things that the customer can order, so, they actually do have choices. Each customer tells the waiter what they will have to eat. So, they actually have chosen from that menu of multiple possibilities the single dinner that they actually will order. Was the choice already made before they were born? Well, gee, if it was then the waiter could have it waiting for them on the table when they walked in! But, no, that is not the case. The choice was actually decided right then and there in the restaurant.

So, each customer actually had a choice, choosing actually happened, and the decision was actually made right there in the restaurant by the customers themselves.

Determinism requires that true randomness is impossible.

And why would the absence of "true randomness" be a problem?

My position is that the outcome can never be predicted in advance with 100% certainty.

For all practical purposes that is certainly true.

Why there are people who think that accepting there are some things which can be precisely predicted means EVERYTHING must be similarly predictable is beyond me.

It is a logical deduction from the presumption of a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect. If every event is reliably caused, then, given knowledge of the current state of things and current events, we could theoretically predict the future state of things and its events.

There are forces of randomness in the universe and these mean that as we predict further and further into the future, our predictions become less and less accurate. If we try to predict beyond a certain point in the future relative to our present, then such predictions are going to be no better than picking at random.

That makes sense to me. An example of a "force of randomness" would be someone shuffling a new card deck, making the previously known order of the new deck into a random collection of cards in no predictable order.

However, if we examined the process of shuffling we would see that each card arrives at its new location through a deterministic process.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

As such, understanding it is going to be a bit hard if you've never used fork() and join() as concepts.
Maybe try reading some discussions on fork() and join()?

Being a computer programmer myself, fork() and join() will mean exactly what I tell them to mean (which will be defined between { and } ).

 

[Jarhyn]

As such, understanding it is going to be a bit hard if you've never used fork() and join() as concepts.
Maybe try reading some discussions on fork() and join()?

Being a computer programmer myself, fork() and join() will mean exactly what I tell them to mean (which will be defined between { and } ).

In the operational sense, fork and join have special meanings in the definition of a system. You as a programmer do not directly get to decide what they mean, because they exist as the only way to fulfill a functional contract as regards completion and initiation of threading operations, and parallel child processes in deterministic ways.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

As such, understanding it is going to be a bit hard if you've never used fork() and join() as concepts.
Maybe try reading some discussions on fork() and join()?

Being a computer programmer myself, fork() and join() will mean exactly what I tell them to mean (which will be defined between { and } ).

In the operational sense, fork and join have special meanings in the definition of a system. You as a programmer do not directly get to decide what they mean, because they exist as the only way to fulfill a functional contract as regards completion and initiation of threading operations, and parallel child processes in deterministic ways.

So, according to Wikipedia, join() and fork() are Unix kernel functions. I've never programmed on a Unix machine. The only "join" I've used is the SQL command that combines two data sets on a common key.

My goal, in describing free will and determinism, is to avoid technical jargon that makes things more difficult to understand. You'll find me avoiding terms like "metaphysical" like the plague.

Heck, it's hard enough to get people to understand simple words like "can" and "will".

 

[Jarhyn]

As such, understanding it is going to be a bit hard if you've never used fork() and join() as concepts.
Maybe try reading some discussions on fork() and join()?

Being a computer programmer myself, fork() and join() will mean exactly what I tell them to mean (which will be defined between { and } ).

In the operational sense, fork and join have special meanings in the definition of a system. You as a programmer do not directly get to decide what they mean, because they exist as the only way to fulfill a functional contract as regards completion and initiation of threading operations, and parallel child processes in deterministic ways.

So, according to Wikipedia, join() and fork() are Unix kernel functions. I've never programmed on a Unix machine. The only "join" I've used is the SQL command that combines two data sets on a common key.

My goal, in describing free will and determinism, is to avoid technical jargon that makes things more difficult to understand. You'll find me avoiding terms like "metaphysical" like the plague.

Heck, it's hard enough to get people to understand simple words like "can" and "will".

Well, if we want to discuss libertarian free will and really dissect it, it's going to take some rather interesting propositions and complications in the system, so as to make it allow for actual alternatives to be realized and realizable.

It in fact assumes the existence of a kernel, a parent process.

But stepping away from that, Join and Fork are well defined mathematical operations on the memory space of a process: copy the memory space, copy the context, copy everything about everything that is happening in the isolated subsystem, and execute that exactly as the system must with different stuff.

It's no less deterministic, as long as one assumes all of the process allocation happens in discrete chunks with defined priority levels that cannot intersect, and it satisfies what Libertarians want from free will, even in a Deterministic system, and even they don't get what they want (the ability to choose) without deterministic choice functions on the result regardless.

Even Libertarians, if they wish to provide a rigorous examination of the function of freedom from causal necessity on singular timeline execution, must accept compatibilist deterministic choice.

Then, compatibilist deterministic choice is just "from image menu, select image, place image in image processor, image processor processes the object qualities of the image, objectified image then drives behavior not as image but as instructive objects"

The selection process itself objectifies the images as instructive objects too...

Instructive objects...

I'm going to have to chew on this concept more...

 

[Kylie]

I can't accept your claim that it stems predominantly from religious ideas. Would you care to provide some sources which support your viewpoint?

From  Libertarianism (metaphysics):

One of the first clear formulations of libertarianism is found in John Duns Scotus. In theological context, metaphysical libertarianism was notably defended by Jesuit authors like Luis de Molina and Francisco Suárez against rather compatibilist Thomist Bañecianism. Other important metaphysical libertarians in the early modern period were René Descartes, George Berkeley, Immanuel Kant and Thomas Reid.

I don't think you'll find many atheists in that group.

So what? The fact that the idea was come up with by Jesuits doesn't mean that it has a religious basis.

Gregor Mendel was an Augustinian friar when he did his work on genetic inheritance (even if he didn't know about genes at the time). Does that mean that inheritance is based on religious ideas?

Most of the atheists I encounter when discussing free will online are either compatibilists or hard determinists such as DBT (Hard determinism - a view on free will which holds that determinism is true, that it is incompatible with free will, and therefore that free will does not exist.).

Would you care to support this claim, that most atheists are compatibilists or hard determinists? Or is this just anecdotal evidence?

It's quite clearly anecdotal.

Then you'll understand if I ignore it.

For your considerations to reliably affect your actions you require a reliable deterministic connection. This is not possible in an indeterministic universe.

Why is it all-or-nothing?

Either an event is the result of a deterministic cause or it isn't. Are you suggesting there's something in between?

You incorrectly assume that any particular event has a single cause. There could be many things which lead to an event. If any one of those things is random, then we can't say the cause of the event is purely deterministic, can we?

 

[Kylie]

The word CHOOSE was in quotes because if there is only one possible outcome, it's not a choice.

Actually, when choosing there will always be multiple "possible" outcomes, but only one "actual" outcome. The fact that there will be only one actual outcome does not imply that there is only one possible outcome.

But it is wrong to say that there is only one ACTUAL outcome before that outcome has been reached. Until the outcome is reached, there are still several possible outcomes, each having a non-zero probability.

An actual outcome actually happens. A possible outcome may happen, but it also may never happen. That's the difference between an actuality and a possibility. If a possibility never happens, it does not mean that it was "impossible", but simply that it did not happen.

This difference between "actual" and "possible" extends into the notions of "can" and "will". If we say that something "will" happen, then we mean that it certainly will actually happen. But if we say that something "can" happen, then it may never actually happen. The fact that it "does not" happen does not imply that it "could not have" happened. Instead, it is referred to as something that "could have happened" that simply "did not" happen.

If we mistakenly conflate what is "actual" with what is "possible", and what "will" happen with what "can" happen, we can end up with nonsense.

Consider this example:
Waiter (a hard determinist): "What will you have for dinner tonight, sir?"
Customer (hungry): "I don't know. What are my possibilities?"
Waiter: "Because we live in a deterministic world, there is only one thing that you can order."
Customer: "Oh! ... Well ... okay. What is the one thing that I can order?"
Waiter: "I cannot say what you can order until I know what you will order!"

When we conflate "can" with "will" we end up with an unsolvable paradox. So, we need to stop doing that.

How did we end up conflating "can" with "will"? By figurative thinking. We say to ourselves something like this: "If my choice was causally necessary from any prior point in time: then it is AS IF I had no choice, and it is AS IF choosing never happened, and it is AS IF the choice was made before I was even born." Figurative statements are often used in human communication. But figurative statements have a problem: Every figurative statement is literally false.

So, how do we check for figurative rather than literal statements? By simply comparing it to what is objectively observed in empirical reality. We can walk into any restaurant and observe customers walk in, browse the menu, and place their order. The menu is full of things that the customer can order, so, they actually do have choices. Each customer tells the waiter what they will have to eat. So, they actually have chosen from that menu of multiple possibilities the single dinner that they actually will order. Was the choice already made before they were born? Well, gee, if it was then the waiter could have it waiting for them on the table when they walked in! But, no, that is not the case. The choice was actually decided right then and there in the restaurant.

So, each customer actually had a choice, choosing actually happened, and the decision was actually made right there in the restaurant by the customers themselves.

Again, the ACTUAL OUTCOME can not be known until it has been reached.

Determinism requires that true randomness is impossible.

And why would the absence of "true randomness" be a problem?

It would render Brownian motion impossible.

Since we live in a universe where Brownian motion has been observed, any universe that requires the absence of true randomness can not possibly be the universe in which we find ourselves.

My position is that the outcome can never be predicted in advance with 100% certainty.

For all practical purposes that is certainly true.

Why there are people who think that accepting there are some things which can be precisely predicted means EVERYTHING must be similarly predictable is beyond me.

It is a logical deduction from the presumption of a world of perfectly reliable cause and effect. If every event is reliably caused, then, given knowledge of the current state of things and current events, we could theoretically predict the future state of things and its events.

Then it seems that determinism is built on the assumption that every event is reliably caused.

There are forces of randomness in the universe and these mean that as we predict further and further into the future, our predictions become less and less accurate. If we try to predict beyond a certain point in the future relative to our present, then such predictions are going to be no better than picking at random.

That makes sense to me. An example of a "force of randomness" would be someone shuffling a new card deck, making the previously known order of the new deck into a random collection of cards in no predictable order.

However, if we examined the process of shuffling we would see that each card arrives at its new location through a deterministic process.

There are certain subatomic events which, I believe, have no discernable cause, and which are quite random.

 

[The AntiChris]

There could be many things which lead to an event. If any one of those things is random, then we can't say the cause of the event is purely deterministic, can we?

Sure, but what you need to do is explain how the introduction of random influences results in free will whereas purely deterministic influences do not.

In other words how do we act intentionally based on reasons (free will) if our actions are even partially driven by random events. This would seem to run entirely counter to what most people would understand by 'exercising one's will'.

On determinism in general, it's quite possible to accept that our universe is indeterministic at a very fundamental level (I'm agnostic but sceptical) but also accept that such indeterminacy is for the most part negligible in the macroscopic world and insignificant in the macromolecular structures of cell biology.