Demystifying Determinism

[fromderinside]

If it WILL be one way, it is incorrect to say that it CAN be different.

The problem is that, lacking omniscience, we often DO NOT KNOW what will happen. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen to prepare for what does happen.

Not relevant. Maybe if you started a "What if" thread'

 

[Marvin Edwards]

If it WILL be one way, it is incorrect to say that it CAN be different.

The problem is that, lacking omniscience, we often DO NOT KNOW what will happen. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen to prepare for what does happen.

Not relevant. Maybe if you started a "What if" thread'

Aren't we already in one?

 

[bilby]

If it WILL be one way, it is incorrect to say that it CAN be different.

The problem is that, lacking omniscience, we often DO NOT KNOW what will happen. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen to prepare for what does happen.

Not relevant. Maybe if you started a "What if" thread'

Aren't we already in one?

What if we are?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

The problem is that, lacking omniscience, we often DO NOT KNOW what will happen. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen to prepare for what does happen.

Irrelevant. Our not knowing does not change the fact that we do not have a choice and MUST do what is the only option for us.

And how can we do what we MUST do when we don't know yet what that is?! You seem to be overlooking this problem.

In the restaurant, for example, how to we determine what item on the menu is the inevitable one? I mean, I'd be happy to comply with inevitability if you could tell me what it is. But you can't. Because you DO NOT KNOW what I will choose any more than I do.

So, I'm still faced with the problem of NOT KNOWING what I will inevitably order for dinner. And you're no help, because you won't tell me what it is. And you refuse to let me choose for myself by claiming that I have no choice!

Ironically, determinism does not refuse to let me CHOOSE for myself. In fact, determinism asserts that I will INEVITABLY be "THAT WHICH CHOOSES" what I will have for dinner. Determinism is rather insistent upon that. It only allows this event to play out one way, the way where I must choose for myself what I will order.

Again, if there is only one possible outcome, it's not a choice.

But you're wrong about that. First, there are many POSSIBLE outcomes. It is possible that I will choose the Steak dinner. It is possible that I will choose the Chef Salad. In fact, it is possible to order every single item on the menu. All of these are possible outcomes. And it is set in stone that each of these possibilities would be here for me to choose from.

Determinism places no limits upon possibilities. It only cares about actualities. What you should have said is that "there is only one ACTUAL outcome", and that single outcome will be DETERMINED by me making a choice.

Everything about that choice will be causally necessary from any prior point in eternity. Every thought and feeling that I experience as I consider each possibility will be causally necessary. This choosing event, being performed by my own brain, is causally necessary and inevitably will happen, JUST EXACTLY AS IT DOES HAPPEN.

Determinism doesn't actually change the way that anything actually happens. And that's why no one brings it up. While it is a logical fact, it is neither a meaningful nor a relevant fact. It doesn't change anything.

Determinism makes itself irrelevant by its own ubiquity.

Despite this, the hard determinist will try to find some meaningful and relevant implication of determinism. And they end up with a lot of false and confusing implications that simply do not work in the real world.

This example demonstrates that determinism cannot logically assert that there is only one possibility, because it breaks the logic that allows us to deal with our UNCERTAINTY about what WILL actually happen and what we WILL actually choose:

Waiter (a hard determinist): "What will you have for dinner, sir?"
Customer (hungry): "I don't know. What are my possibilities?"
Waiter: "Because the universe is deterministic, there is only one thing that you can order."
Customer: "Oh. Well. Okay then, what is the single thing that I can order?"
Waiter: "How should I know? You haven't told me yet!"

You attempted to solve this real problem in the real world by making the Waiter omniscient.

But we humans have already solved this real world problem by evolving the notion of possibilities: multiple things that CAN happen and COULD HAVE happened, and multiple options that we CAN choose and COULD HAVE chosen.

And, given determinism, we may assume that it was causally necessary and inevitable from any prior point in eternity that we would do exactly that.

Because the outcome is inevitable. It can only happen ONE WAY. You said it yourself.

Nope. Because the outcome is inevitable, it WILL happen only ONE WAY, even though it CAN happen MANY DIFFERENT WAYS.

And in the restaurant, I CAN order any item on the menu of REAL POSSIBILITIES, even though I WILL only order a SINGLE dinner. All of the items that I did not order will become dinners that I COULD HAVE ordered, but didn't. And the single dinner that I ACTUALLY order will become the only thing that I WOULD HAVE ordered under those circumstances.

I can not choose to make it different. If it is inevitable that I will order the chicken I can not CHOOSE to order the steak instead. Any appearance that I can is an illusion, because the probability of me actually choosing the steak is 0%!

You're right that you WILL NOT change anything. There WILL be choosing and you WILL be doing it. And no one will be forcing you to do it. You will be doing it by your own choice to have dinner at the restaurant. So, these choices will INEVITABLY be of your own FREE WILL.

How can we be making the decisions ourselves when the outcome was set in stone ages ago?

How can we NOT be making the decisions ourselves when it was set in stone ages ago that we WOULD?

Actual possibility means that the outcome has a non-zero probability.

Before you decide what you will have for dinner, all of your options have a non-zero probability.

Now, if it is INEVITABLE that Horse A wins the race, please show me how Horse B's chances are ever non-zero.

Sure. See the people placing their bets on the Horse B? They only do so because it has a non-zero probability of winning. They do not know for certain which horse will ACTULLY win. They only know that Horse B certainly CAN win. It is a REAL POSSIBILITY.

Just like that possible bridge. A possible bridge is a bridge that we are ABLE to actualize IF WE CHOOSE TO DO SO. The fact that we do not choose a specific option does not mean it was ever "impossible" to actualize. It only means that we did not choose to actualize it. It is something that we COULD HAVE DONE, but simply did not do.

Our ability to make that possibility really happen is what makes the mere thought of a possibility an "actual" or "real" or "true" possibility.

But we don't have that ability to make that possibility real if it is INEVITABLE that something else would happen.

The ABILITY does not change. Even after we built a different kind of bridge, we still had the ability to build any other design that we had the skills and resources to build. The fact that we did not choose any of the other designs does not change the fact that we have the ability to build them.

Different circumstances are always possible. They are just never actualized.

No, they are never possible.

Yes, they are. It was always possible that Horse B could win the race, even though it would never actually happen. Because we DID NOT KNOW what WOULD happen until after the race, there was the real possibility that Horse B COULD win.

If One set of circumstances is INEVITABLY going to happen (that means a probability of 100%), then all different circumstances are inevitably NOT going to happen (they have a probability of 0%).

Our only interest in probabilities (or possibilities) is because WE DO NOT KNOW what will INEVITABLY happen. Under those circumstances we cannot say that the probability of any outcome is 0% or 100%.

 

[pood]

Kylie, I don’t think you ever responded to my post 227.

Let’s start with this “set in stone” business. Most of us would agree that the past is set in stone. We can’t alter it, we can’t change it.

So what? Does that mean we lack free will? To say that yesterday, because I ordered chicken for dinner, I had to do so, is a non sequitur.

Similarly, if the present and future are as set in stone as the past, this fact does not vitiate free will. To suppose that we have to be able to change or alter the past, present or future in order to have free will, is a mistake. In fact, we never even alter or change the present. To do so would violate the Law of Non-Contradiction — it would mean that I have the power to both order, and not order, chicken at the same time.

Free will is not about changing the past, present or future. It is about helping to make the past be what it was, the present be what it is, and the future be, what it will be. We very easily do this every waking hour of our lives.

Your probability calculations are mistaken. Your are confusing posterior probability with prior probability. The probability of my ordering chicken, if I order chicken, is 100 percent after the fact, not before.

You repeatedly commit the modal fallacy when you argue that because I WILL do x, it follows I MUST do x. Again, I discussed this in some detail in post 227.

As a matter of logic, your are incorrect when you claim that because I WILL do x, it follows that I CANNOT do y. To say that I “will” do x, presupposes that I “can” do it. The converse, however, is not true: to say that I WILL do x, never implies that I CANNOT do y.

It is within my power to do either x or y, as entering a restaurant and watching people choose what to have for dinner clearly demonstrates. For the compatibilist, “could have done otherwise” simply means “would have done otherwise, if …” If what?

If antecedent circumstances had been different.

Again, see post 227

 

[Jarhyn]

If it WILL be one way, it is incorrect to say that it CAN be different.

The problem is that, lacking omniscience, we often DO NOT KNOW what will happen. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen to prepare for what does happen.

Even with omniscience, it still takes determination by course. Something has to actually crunch the numbers to calculate a state in a systemically isolated way.

Whether it's the individual or the system makes no nevermind.

Kylie, I don’t think you ever responded to my post 227.

Let’s start with this “set in stone” business. Most of us would agree that the past is set in stone. We can’t alter it, we can’t change it.

So what? Does that mean we lack free will? To say that yesterday, because I ordered chicken for dinner, I had to do so, is a non sequitur.

Similarly, if the present and future are as set in stone as the past, this fact does not vitiate free will. To suppose that we have to be able to change or alter the past, present or future in order to have free will, is a mistake. In fact, we never even alter or change the present. To do so would violate the Law of Non-Contradiction — it would mean that I have the power to both order, and not order, chicken at the same time.

Free will is not about changing the past, present or future. It is about helping to make the past be what it was, the present be what it is, and the future be, what it will be. We very easily do this every waking hour of our lives.

Your probability calculations are mistaken. Your are confusing posterior probability with prior probability. The probability of my ordering chicken, if I order chicken, is 100 percent after the fact, not before.

You repeatedly commit the modal fallacy when you argue that because I WILL do x, it follows I MUST do x. Again, I discussed this in some detail in post 227.

As a matter of logic, your are incorrect when you claim that because I WILL do x, it follows that I CANNOT do y. To say that I “will” do x, presupposes that I “can” do it. The converse, however, is not true: to say that I WILL do x, never implies that I CANNOT do y.

It is within my power to do either x or y, as entering a restaurant and watching people choose what to have for dinner clearly demonstrates. For the compatibilist, “could have done otherwise” simply means “would have done otherwise, if …” If what?

If antecedent circumstances had been different.

Again, see post 227

I would argue that you should probably start distinguishing or considering the difference between prior probability and predictive probability. Prior and posterior probabilities are 0 or 1. It is predictive probability, probabilities when not only do you not know but you cannot know before being forced to make a selection anyway, that is the domain of such partial probabilities.

It is in fact a product of our need and the particular mechanical vehicle of implementation for our predictive abilities that such are born.

If I restart a simulation, the prior probabilities are no different just because I know the answers. It is a singular future just as it is a singular past, probabilities all 0 and 1 because only one thing will end up having happened.

Our uncertainty over what that one thing that will have happened may be does not impose uncertainty that only exactly one thing will have happened.

It must still come about as a product of process, yes. It is impossible to fully know what that step is of an entire system, within the system, yes. This forces people to gamble, and to be unable to know what will happen, and to plan for things that can happen of the inflections of reality they either do not know how to read, or which they may not read in that moment. This is where probability is born: as an incomplete calculation on an incomplete image of reality.

This does not say that many things will happen or that the system can split merely that we must place bets we may lose, and that we have the power to stack our decks and count the cards, because bet as we may, it's a deterministic machine that runs the house.

Edit: Free Will and Choice are not illusions. "Chance" is the illusion. Provisional Probabilities are the illusion.

But free will and choice never depended on chance. Such a concept of dependency is itself an illusion,

 

[pood]

I believe I posted this link before, in the other thread, but I commend it to Kylie’s attention.

 

[DBT]

We do precisely what we must do because the past went precisely as it did, what we do now, we must do, which in turn makes the future exactly what it must become. Nothing deviates. That's determinism, to pretend any different, that, gosh, maybe this, maybe that, oh, this or that could have happened is a truckload of Horse Shit.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Free will means that each option has the possibility of being chosen. If the outcome is determined, then I do not have the freedom of making the choice myself.
If I will not choose anything else, how can you say I can?

Surely we can distinguish between “will” and “can”?

I “will” do x, presupposes as a matter of logic that I can do x. The converse, however, is not true. Doing x, does not presuppose that I cannot do y instead.

Here is a different example: suppose God exists, and is omniscient. He infallibly knows all facts about the past, present and future. From this it follows that God knows every choice I will make in my life, even before I was born.

Confronted with this idea, it is easy to suppose that no one has free will, that everyone MUST do, just as they do, because if they did something else, God would be wrong and God cannot be wrong.

The conclusion that we lack free will in the face of God’s omniscience is an example of the modal fallacy. Generally there are two kinds of fallacies, informal and formal. Formal fallacies are fallacies of logic, and cannot be hand-waved away. The modal fallacy is of this type, a logical fallacy.

Modal logic deals with modes of being, with necessity, contingency, possibility, actuality, etc. Under this heuristic, necessary truths are truths of logic — it is a necessary truth that triangles have three sides, for example.

When we look at the God example, we sense, correctly, that something about this setup is logically necessary. The modal fallacy occurs when we misapply necessity.

We could say: If God knows everything I will do in advance, then I necessarily do those things, because God cannot be wrong. If I necessarily do what I do, then I have no free will, any more than a triangle can have four sides.

So now we have: If God knows in advance that I will do x, then I MUST (of logical necessity) do x. No free will.

Now it is certainly true that if God knows in advance I will do x, then I will do x. God can’t be wrong.

The real question is, MUST I do x?

Let’s break the above proposition down into its component parts, its antecedent and its consequent:

ANTECEDENT:

If God knows in advance that I will do x …

CONSEQUENT:

… then I MUST (of logical necessity) do x.

But something is clearly amiss here. For me to do x is a contingent truth — which means it could have been otherwise. It’s not at all like the logical truth that all triangles must have three sides. Therefore I CAN do y instead of x!

The problem with the above formulation of antecedent followed by consequent is that we have placed the formal necessity modal operator (a box symbol in formal modal logic) in the wrong place. The fact that I do x is, was, and always will be, a contingently true proposition, and never a necessarily true proposition (the principle of the fixity of modal status, per Prof. Norman Swartz).

But surely, as noted earlier, something in the formulation under discussion must be logically necessary. And it is, once we place the modal necessity operator in its proper place. Here is is:

Necessarily (if God knows in advance that I will do x, then I will [but not MUST!] do x)

In other words, the necessity operator must be applied CONJOINTLY to both the antecedent and the consequent, and not JUST to the consequent.

Once this is noticed, it becomes obvious that I have free will, and can freely choose either x or y. Suppose I choose y? Then we get:

Necessarily (if God knows in advance that I will do y, then I will [but not MUST!] do y)

I can do either x or y. What I cannot do is escape God’s prior detection of my free choice.

I now invite you to apply this train of modal logic to the causal determinism/free will debate, and see what you get. Hint: whenever DBT informs Marvin that if Marvin orders salad instead of steak Marvin MUST order salad, he commits the modal fallacy (a fallacy of logic, recall). His misapplies the necessity box operator to the consequent of the antecedent rather than conjointly to the antecedent and consequent together. When this mistake is corrected, it becomes clear as a matter of logic that Marvin is free to order steak or salad and the whole argument to hard determinism simply evaporates. We then become eliminativist and note that hard determinism simply collapses into soft determinism (i.e., compatibilist free will).

I may be wrong about this, but I think I may be demonstrating the practical consequences that explain why the modal rules exist. The Waiter and the Customer example demonstrates how we end up with untenable situations when we confuse "can" with "will" or assert that there is only "one possibility" and find we cannot logically choose between a single possibility.

On the other hand, I'm not knowledgeable enough to already know anything about the "rules" of modal logic. So, I cannot come at this deontologically, but only through pragmatic consequences.

On the third hand, my lack of knowledge makes this comment probably a b.s. fantasy.

Oh well...

 

[Marvin Edwards]

We do precisely what we must do because the past went precisely as it did, what we do now, we must do, which in turn makes the future exactly what it must become. Nothing deviates. That's determinism, to pretend any different, that, gosh, maybe this, maybe that, oh, this or that could have happened is a truckload of Horse Shit.

The problem is that, horse shit or not, we cannot get along without "maybe this" and "maybe that" and things that "could have happened differently". These concepts are necessary to our dealing effectively with matters of uncertainty, they show up, when logically required, in our fully deterministic causal chains. And, while your "purist instincts" may want to remove them to make everything nice and tidy, they cannot be removed. In fact, they are integral parts of the causal mechanism that makes determinism work.

We cannot remove them without breaking determinism. So, if we wish to rescue determinism, then all of the maybe's and could have's must remain, precisely where they are. If we want to tidy things up, the first thing that needs to be done is to clean up the confusion between "can" and "will". It is a simple change to outlaw "would have done otherwise" and allow "could have done otherwise".

Like you said, "We do precisely what we must do because the past went precisely as it did, what we do now, we must do, which in turn makes the future exactly what it must become. Nothing deviates." So, why do you keep trying to deviate from this?

 

[Kylie]

Irrelevant. Our not knowing does not change the fact that we do not have a choice and MUST do what is the only option for us.

And how can we do what we MUST do when we don't know yet what that is?! You seem to be overlooking this problem.

In the restaurant, for example, how to we determine what item on the menu is the inevitable one? I mean, I'd be happy to comply with inevitability if you could tell me what it is. But you can't. Because you DO NOT KNOW what I will choose any more than I do.

So, I'm still faced with the problem of NOT KNOWING what I will inevitably order for dinner. And you're no help, because you won't tell me what it is. And you refuse to let me choose for myself by claiming that I have no choice!

Ironically, determinism does not refuse to let me CHOOSE for myself. In fact, determinism asserts that I will INEVITABLY be "THAT WHICH CHOOSES" what I will have for dinner. Determinism is rather insistent upon that. It only allows this event to play out one way, the way where I must choose for myself what I will order.

It's irrelevant. You are the one claiming that there is some mechanism in place to accomplish this, not me.

Again, if there is only one possible outcome, it's not a choice.

But you're wrong about that. First, there are many POSSIBLE outcomes. It is possible that I will choose the Steak dinner. It is possible that I will choose the Chef Salad. In fact, it is possible to order every single item on the menu. All of these are possible outcomes. And it is set in stone that each of these possibilities would be here for me to choose from.

Determinism places no limits upon possibilities. It only cares about actualities. What you should have said is that "there is only one ACTUAL outcome", and that single outcome will be DETERMINED by me making a choice.

Everything about that choice will be causally necessary from any prior point in eternity. Every thought and feeling that I experience as I consider each possibility will be causally necessary. This choosing event, being performed by my own brain, is causally necessary and inevitably will happen, JUST EXACTLY AS IT DOES HAPPEN.

Determinism doesn't actually change the way that anything actually happens. And that's why no one brings it up. While it is a logical fact, it is neither a meaningful nor a relevant fact. It doesn't change anything.

Determinism makes itself irrelevant by its own ubiquity.

Despite this, the hard determinist will try to find some meaningful and relevant implication of determinism. And they end up with a lot of false and confusing implications that simply do not work in the real world.

This example demonstrates that determinism cannot logically assert that there is only one possibility, because it breaks the logic that allows us to deal with our UNCERTAINTY about what WILL actually happen and what we WILL actually choose:

Waiter (a hard determinist): "What will you have for dinner, sir?"
Customer (hungry): "I don't know. What are my possibilities?"
Waiter: "Because the universe is deterministic, there is only one thing that you can order."
Customer: "Oh. Well. Okay then, what is the single thing that I can order?"
Waiter: "How should I know? You haven't told me yet!"

You attempted to solve this real problem in the real world by making the Waiter omniscient.

But we humans have already solved this real world problem by evolving the notion of possibilities: multiple things that CAN happen and COULD HAVE happened, and multiple options that we CAN choose and COULD HAVE chosen.

And, given determinism, we may assume that it was causally necessary and inevitable from any prior point in eternity that we would do exactly that.

Absolute rubbish.

If the outcome is inevitable, then that one outcome has a probability of 100%. That means that ALL OTHER OUTCOMES HAVE A PROBABILITY OF 0%.

Now, would you like to tell me how an outcome WITH A POSSIBILITY OF 0% can still be possible?

Because the outcome is inevitable. It can only happen ONE WAY. You said it yourself.

Nope. Because the outcome is inevitable, it WILL happen only ONE WAY, even though it CAN happen MANY DIFFERENT WAYS.

No, it can't happen many different ways, because one outcome is inevitable.

You are contradicting yourself.

You are saying, "Well, there's nothing to say that Option B or Option C couldn't happen instead of Option A," and then you turn right around and say, "The inevitability of Option A means Option B and Option C can not happen."

And in the restaurant, I CAN order any item on the menu of REAL POSSIBILITIES, even though I WILL only order a SINGLE dinner. All of the items that I did not order will become dinners that I COULD HAVE ordered, but didn't. And the single dinner that I ACTUALLY order will become the only thing that I WOULD HAVE ordered under those circumstances.

See my above statement.

I can not choose to make it different. If it is inevitable that I will order the chicken I can not CHOOSE to order the steak instead. Any appearance that I can is an illusion, because the probability of me actually choosing the steak is 0%!

You're right that you WILL NOT change anything. There WILL be choosing and you WILL be doing it. And no one will be forcing you to do it. You will be doing it by your own choice to have dinner at the restaurant. So, these choices will INEVITABLY be of your own FREE WILL.

No, I am not choosing, because a truly free choice requires a number of options greater than 1 that have a non-zero probability.

If one outcome is inevitable, then these conditions are not met.

I may THINK it's a choice, but it is not.

How can we be making the decisions ourselves when the outcome was set in stone ages ago?

How can we NOT be making the decisions ourselves when it was set in stone ages ago that we WOULD?

Because how can we freely choose if the outcome is already set in stone?

Actual possibility means that the outcome has a non-zero probability.

Before you decide what you will have for dinner, all of your options have a non-zero probability.

No they don't. Before I've "decided" (in quote marks because if there is only one option it's not really a choice), the outcome is already determined.

Now, if it is INEVITABLE that Horse A wins the race, please show me how Horse B's chances are ever non-zero.

Sure. See the people placing their bets on the Horse B? They only do so because it has a non-zero probability of winning. They do not know for certain which horse will ACTULLY win. They only know that Horse B certainly CAN win. It is a REAL POSSIBILITY.

How can it have a non-zero probability of winning when there is a 100% chance that Horse A is going to win?

And the rest of your post is more of that same mistake, over and over again. SO I'll just repeat my earlier question, and if you respond to just one thing from this post, respond to this:

If the outcome is inevitable, then that one outcome has a probability of 100%. That means that ALL OTHER OUTCOMES HAVE A PROBABILITY OF 0%. Now, would you like to tell me how an outcome WITH A POSSIBILITY OF 0% can still be possible?

 

[Kylie]

Kylie, I don’t think you ever responded to my post 227.

Let’s start with this “set in stone” business. Most of us would agree that the past is set in stone. We can’t alter it, we can’t change it.

So what? Does that mean we lack free will? To say that yesterday, because I ordered chicken for dinner, I had to do so, is a non sequitur.

Similarly, if the present and future are as set in stone as the past, this fact does not vitiate free will. To suppose that we have to be able to change or alter the past, present or future in order to have free will, is a mistake. In fact, we never even alter or change the present. To do so would violate the Law of Non-Contradiction — it would mean that I have the power to both order, and not order, chicken at the same time.

Free will is not about changing the past, present or future. It is about helping to make the past be what it was, the present be what it is, and the future be, what it will be. We very easily do this every waking hour of our lives.

Your probability calculations are mistaken. Your are confusing posterior probability with prior probability. The probability of my ordering chicken, if I order chicken, is 100 percent after the fact, not before.

You repeatedly commit the modal fallacy when you argue that because I WILL do x, it follows I MUST do x. Again, I discussed this in some detail in post 227.

As a matter of logic, your are incorrect when you claim that because I WILL do x, it follows that I CANNOT do y. To say that I “will” do x, presupposes that I “can” do it. The converse, however, is not true: to say that I WILL do x, never implies that I CANNOT do y.

It is within my power to do either x or y, as entering a restaurant and watching people choose what to have for dinner clearly demonstrates. For the compatibilist, “could have done otherwise” simply means “would have done otherwise, if …” If what?

If antecedent circumstances had been different.

Again, see post 227

What does the past have to do with it?

Tonight I will choose what to have for dinner. At this moment, there is no way to predict that in advance. Once I make the decision and prepare that food and eat it, it becomes set in stone. That does not change the fact that I made the choice freely. There were many options, and each of which had a non-zero probability until I decided on one particular option. That decision changed the probability of that option to 100% and all the others to 0%. I had free will to choose BEFORE I made the decision. The fact that I can't change my mind AFTER the fact is irrelevant.

Yet for some reason you seem to think that since I can't change my mind AFTER the fact, I shouldn't be able to change it BEFORE the fact either.

 

[Kylie]

If it WILL be one way, it is incorrect to say that it CAN be different.

The problem is that, lacking omniscience, we often DO NOT KNOW what will happen. When we do not know what will happen, we imagine what can happen to prepare for what does happen.

Even with omniscience, it still takes determination by course. Something has to actually crunch the numbers to calculate a state in a systemically isolated way.

Whether it's the individual or the system makes no nevermind.

And this is totally irrelevant, since you are the one proposing that there is this "something," not me.

 

[bilby]

Probabilities are statements about the uncertainty of the future state of reality. They are specific to individual perspectives; If you tossed a coin yesterday, you might say the probability of heads is 100%, but if you show me a recording of it and ask me to guess how it will end, I still would be right to assign 50:50 odds, on my first viewing of that recording.

Regardless of how accurately the past state of reality might predict the future state of reality, it remains true that past states of individual humans cannot predict the future states of those humans with any particular accuracy; We humans therefore are justified in describing our futures in probabilistic terms, and in characterising the act of moving in from uncertainty to certainty as "choosing".

This remains true regardless of how much, or how little, influence we have on the future state of reality as a whole, or even on the future state of ourselves.

If the choice I make is constrained by reality to a single possibility, that's irrelevant until that single possibility is a past event, because I am unable to remember the future, and so am only able to guess which of several apparent possibilities will turn out to be the one that is real.

The action of learning what the future holds is called 'choosing', when the influences on that future are mostly or entirely contained in our own minds. If they are contained in the minds of others, we call the action 'coercion'; And if they are mindless influences, we call it 'inevitable'.

Once I chose to jump of the cliff, it was inevitable that I would fall. You coerced me into jumping by pointing a gun at my head and telling me to jump. But I could have chosen to let you shoot me, which would inevitably have caused me even more severe injuries.

I didn't make that choice, and now that it's in the past, I cannot change it. When it was in the future, I couldn't change it either, but as neither you nor I could possibly have known the future, we need a way to talk about that future that distinguishes between causes in my mind, causes in your mind, and mindless causes in the wider environment.

So we talk of choice, coercion, and inevitability.

You can ignore the existence of minds, and declare everything inevitable, and you wouldn't be factually wrong to do so. But it would be deeply unhelpful to limit our thinking to just that trivial fact, so why would we constrain ourselves in that way? What do we gain by it? Such oversimplification just leads us to a valueless truth about reality, while ignoring valuable truths such as whether or not a given action was my responsibility.

 

[DBT]

We do precisely what we must do because the past went precisely as it did, what we do now, we must do, which in turn makes the future exactly what it must become. Nothing deviates. That's determinism, to pretend any different, that, gosh, maybe this, maybe that, oh, this or that could have happened is a truckload of Horse Shit.

The problem is that, horse shit or not, we cannot get along without "maybe this" and "maybe that" and things that "could have happened differently". These concepts are necessary to our dealing effectively with matters of uncertainty, they show up, when logically required, in our fully deterministic causal chains. And, while your "purist instincts" may want to remove them to make everything nice and tidy, they cannot be removed. In fact, they are integral parts of the causal mechanism that makes determinism work.

We cannot remove them without breaking determinism. So, if we wish to rescue determinism, then all of the maybe's and could have's must remain, precisely where they are. If we want to tidy things up, the first thing that needs to be done is to clean up the confusion between "can" and "will". It is a simple change to outlaw "would have done otherwise" and allow "could have done otherwise".

Like you said, "We do precisely what we must do because the past went precisely as it did, what we do now, we must do, which in turn makes the future exactly what it must become. Nothing deviates." So, why do you keep trying to deviate from this?

I'm not the one trying to deviate from the given terms of determinism. That's what compatibilists do. Just look at some of the things being said, which prompted my remark.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

If the outcome is inevitable, then that one outcome has a probability of 100%.

If we KNOW the inevitable outcome, then there is NO discussion of probabilities. The notion of a probability of 100% is nonsensical.

That means that ALL OTHER OUTCOMES HAVE A PROBABILITY OF 0%.

In the same fashion, the notion of a probability of 0% is nonsensical.

Now, would you like to tell me how an outcome WITH A POSSIBILITY OF 0% can still be possible?

ALL discussions of possibility or probability are limited to matters where the INEVITABLE OUTCOME is or was UNKNOWN. To bring up possibilities and probabilities after the outcome is known, logically implies that we are referring to a point in time when the inevitable outcome was NOT KNOWN.

For example, after Horse A has won the race, any discussion of the odds that Horse B would win refer to a time prior to Horse A winning.

Any questions?

 

[pood]

Kylie, I don’t think you ever responded to my post 227.

Let’s start with this “set in stone” business. Most of us would agree that the past is set in stone. We can’t alter it, we can’t change it.

So what? Does that mean we lack free will? To say that yesterday, because I ordered chicken for dinner, I had to do so, is a non sequitur.

Similarly, if the present and future are as set in stone as the past, this fact does not vitiate free will. To suppose that we have to be able to change or alter the past, present or future in order to have free will, is a mistake. In fact, we never even alter or change the present. To do so would violate the Law of Non-Contradiction — it would mean that I have the power to both order, and not order, chicken at the same time.

Free will is not about changing the past, present or future. It is about helping to make the past be what it was, the present be what it is, and the future be, what it will be. We very easily do this every waking hour of our lives.

Your probability calculations are mistaken. Your are confusing posterior probability with prior probability. The probability of my ordering chicken, if I order chicken, is 100 percent after the fact, not before.

You repeatedly commit the modal fallacy when you argue that because I WILL do x, it follows I MUST do x. Again, I discussed this in some detail in post 227.

As a matter of logic, your are incorrect when you claim that because I WILL do x, it follows that I CANNOT do y. To say that I “will” do x, presupposes that I “can” do it. The converse, however, is not true: to say that I WILL do x, never implies that I CANNOT do y.

It is within my power to do either x or y, as entering a restaurant and watching people choose what to have for dinner clearly demonstrates. For the compatibilist, “could have done otherwise” simply means “would have done otherwise, if …” If what?

If antecedent circumstances had been different.

Again, see post 227

What does the past have to do with it?

Tonight I will choose what to have for dinner. At this moment, there is no way to predict that in advance. Once I make the decision and prepare that food and eat it, it becomes set in stone. That does not change the fact that I made the choice freely. There were many options, and each of which had a non-zero probability until I decided on one particular option. That decision changed the probability of that option to 100% and all the others to 0%. I had free will to choose BEFORE I made the decision. The fact that I can't change my mind AFTER the fact is irrelevant.

Yet for some reason you seem to think that since I can't change my mind AFTER the fact, I shouldn't be able to change it BEFORE the fact either.

I am mystified by your reply. You seem to be AGREEING with me, while ostensibly REBUTTING me. You also, in this response to me, seem to contradict everything you have argued up until now. I am genuinely puzzled. You write: “That does not change the fact that I made the choice freely.” YES! I AGREE! So … I don’t get it. Are you arguing for free will, or against it?

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I'm not the one trying to deviate from the given terms of determinism.

Determinism makes choosing inevitable. You claim that determinism makes choosing impossible.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

I am mystified by your reply. You seem to be AGREEING with me, while ostensibly REBUTTING me. You also, in this response to me, seem to contradict everything you have argued up until now. I am genuinely puzzled. You write: “That does not change the fact that I made the choice freely.” YES! I AGREE! So … I don’t get it. Are you arguing for free will, or against it?

If I'm not mistaken, both Kylie and DBT are arguing for incompatibility, rather than directly for free will.

 

[Kylie]

If the outcome is inevitable, then that one outcome has a probability of 100%.

If we KNOW the inevitable outcome, then there is NO discussion of probabilities. The notion of a probability of 100% is nonsensical.

That is a nonsensical claim.

Something that is inevitable BY DEFINITION has a probability of 100%.

Why should there be no discussion about probabilities? Why do you think you are justified in just ignoring this?

That means that ALL OTHER OUTCOMES HAVE A PROBABILITY OF 0%.

In the same fashion, the notion of a probability of 0% is nonsensical.

No it's not.

Claiming it is does not make it so.

Now, would you like to tell me how an outcome WITH A POSSIBILITY OF 0% can still be possible?

ALL discussions of possibility or probability are limited to matters where the INEVITABLE OUTCOME is or was UNKNOWN. To bring up possibilities and probabilities after the outcome is known, logically implies that we are referring to a point in time when the inevitable outcome was NOT KNOWN.

For example, after Horse A has won the race, any discussion of the odds that Horse B would win refer to a time prior to Horse A winning.

Any questions?

It doesn't matter if we knew it. The point is that you were saying the outcome was set in stone. Our understanding or knowledge is not required.