Demystifying Determinism

[bilby]

in a deterministic universe, free will and free choice can not exist

Not so.

FOR a deterministic universe, free will and free choice cannot exist. But IN a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge can still exhibit free will and make free choices. Indeed, they couldn't possibly not do so.

The parts do not have the same constraints as the whole; The universe can be completely static in four dimensions, but people living in it can nevertheless not remember the future.

No, in a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge INCORRECTLY ASSUME they exhibit free will and make free choices. But they do not.

The illusion of free will is not the same thing as actual free will.

Sure it is. It's not really an illusion though. Just a perspective from which the future cannot be seen.

Which is the perspective we all have. I assume.

The fact that a god's eye view sees things differently is only relevant to these of us who are gods, ie nobody.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens.

The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past.

I presume that's true of others too. But you are right that I don't have a lot of evidence for that.

Other than the surprisingly small number of lottery winners each week.

 

[The AntiChris]

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.

Not quite.

Both are incompatibilists.

DBT says that free will does not exist (he's a hard determinist).

Kylie says we do have free will therefore determinism is false. She's an advocate of libertarian free will (I established this over a week ago - see post #245).

 

[Kylie]

in a deterministic universe, free will and free choice can not exist

Not so.

FOR a deterministic universe, free will and free choice cannot exist. But IN a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge can still exhibit free will and make free choices. Indeed, they couldn't possibly not do so.

The parts do not have the same constraints as the whole; The universe can be completely static in four dimensions, but people living in it can nevertheless not remember the future.

No, in a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge INCORRECTLY ASSUME they exhibit free will and make free choices. But they do not.

The illusion of free will is not the same thing as actual free will.

Sure it is. It's not really an illusion though. Just a perspective from which the future cannot be seen.

Which is the perspective we all have. I assume.

The fact that a god's eye view sees things differently is only relevant to these of us who are gods, ie nobody.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens.

The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past.

I presume that's true of others too. But you are right that I don't have a lot of evidence for that.

Other than the surprisingly small number of lottery winners each week.

And, pray tell, how does your inability to remember the future mean it is set in stone?

 

[bilby]

in a deterministic universe, free will and free choice can not exist

Not so.

FOR a deterministic universe, free will and free choice cannot exist. But IN a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge can still exhibit free will and make free choices. Indeed, they couldn't possibly not do so.

The parts do not have the same constraints as the whole; The universe can be completely static in four dimensions, but people living in it can nevertheless not remember the future.

No, in a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge INCORRECTLY ASSUME they exhibit free will and make free choices. But they do not.

The illusion of free will is not the same thing as actual free will.

Sure it is. It's not really an illusion though. Just a perspective from which the future cannot be seen.

Which is the perspective we all have. I assume.

The fact that a god's eye view sees things differently is only relevant to these of us who are gods, ie nobody.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens.

The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past.

I presume that's true of others too. But you are right that I don't have a lot of evidence for that.

Other than the surprisingly small number of lottery winners each week.

And, pray tell, how does your inability to remember the future mean it is set in stone?

Where on Earth did I suggest that it did?

It's evidence that we have the ability to make choices, even IF the future is "set in stone".

As I have said a few times now, I don't believe that we live in a deterministic universe, AND I don't think that whether we do or not is in any way relevant to whether or not we make choices.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

My understanding is that determinism can be metaphorically described as "all events are set in stone". Therefore, choosing is set in stone, just like every other event. We cannot say that "choosing does not happen due to being set in stone". Quite the opposite. Choosing MUST happen if it is set in stone. We confirm this fact by noting people making choices, such as in the restaurant.

It is set in stone that we will enter the restaurant, sit at a table, read the menu, consider our tastes and dietary goals, and decide what we will order. One brick after the next. One stepping stone and then another.

Our walking, our sitting, our reading, our considering, and our choosing, were all equally "set in stone". And they all actually happened in physical reality.

So, the claim that an inevitable choice is not a choice simply does not hold up.

We are discussing it because you are insisting that it's correct and then saying that our ignorance that most of the options are not choosable somehow renders them choosable, we just won't choose them.

When we open the menu there will be multiple items that have a non-zero probability of being chosen. It will be set in stone from any prior point in time that this will be the case at the point of opening the menu. (Just like it was set in stone that at the beginning of the horse race, every horse had a non-zero probability of winning).

There is no item on the menu that is EVER "not choosable" at any point in time: past, present, or future. It was choosable yesterday. It is choosable now. And it will still be choosable tomorrow. It will only cease to be choosable when they take it off the menu.

We can prove that by simply ordering everything on the menu, assuming we can afford it all. And, it may take the restaurant time to prepare everything, but they will do so, and we will have our proof that every item can be chosen with 100% probability.

If our choice is set in stone and it only had one possible outcome, then there was never a choice to begin with.

"Set in stone" is a metaphor for deterministic causation. It is a "figure of speech", which, of course, cannot be taken literally. Like any other figurative statement, it is literally false. No one has laid down the future in actual concrete.

The claim that "there was never a choice to begin with" is similar. Because new events will always be reliably caused by prior events, every event will be causally necessary from any prior point in time. This means that our choices, like all events, will also be causally necessary.

We may say to ourselves, "It is AS IF there was no choice at all", or "It is AS IF only one item on the menu was choosable", or "It is AS IF the choice was made for me before I was born". Those are all figurative statements, and, like every other figurative statement, they are each literally false. We literally made a choice from a literal menu of literally choosable options. And our choice was literally made right then and there, and not one minute prior to that.

So, "there was never a choice to begin with" is literally false, in the same way that "set in stone" is literally false.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

My position is that "free" can NEVER logically mean "freedom from causal necessity", because every freedom we have, to do anything at all, REQUIRES reliable causation. Thus it creates a paradox, because we cannot be free of that which freedom itself requires.

That eliminates freedom then.

It only eliminates a single freedom, "freedom from ordinary cause and effect". Without reliable cause and effect we can never reliably cause any effect, and would have no freedom to do anything at all. Reliable causation ENABLES every freedom we have. So, "freedom from cause and effect" is not a freedom that anyone actually wants or needs.

With reliable cause and effect we get all our other freedoms. Freedom to brush our teeth, freedom to walk to the kitchen, freedom to choose for ourselves what we will have for breakfast, freedom to turn left or right at the intersection, the whole kit and caboodle.

My position is that "free" is only meaningful when it references some meaningful and relevant constraint. For example, a guy with a gun forces us to do what he chooses instead of what we choose. Thus, the "free" in "free will" refers to freedom from those types of realistic constraints upon our ability to choose for ourselves what we will do. It NEVER means "freedom from causal necessity".

Other realistic constraints would include any significant mental illness that (a) distorts reality by hallucination and delusions, (b) impairs our ability to reason, or (c) subjects us to an "irresistible impulse". Another constraint would be manipulation by hypnosis or deception. Another constraint would be authoritative command in an unequal power relationship, like parent/child, commander/soldier, doctor/patient, etc. Basically, any condition, that effectively removes our ability to choose for ourselves what we will do, prevents us from exercising our free will. And those are the things that "free will" actually implies that we are free of.

These realistic constraints define the free will that is used when assessing a person's moral or legal responsibility for their actions. In a courtroom, they are matters of precedents, objective evidence, and expert testimony.

So, this realistic notion of free will, as freedom from coercion and other forms of undue influence, is the only definition that we need.

It is not necessary for free will to be free from deterministic causal necessity. As I've been pointing out, deterministic causal necessity is not a meaningful or relevant constraint. It is exactly identical to us just being us, and doing what we choose to do. It is what we would have done anyway. And that is not a meaningful constraint. It is not something that we can, or need to be, free of.

This requires that every single event in the universe, no matter how small, must be completely deterministic in nature. My understanding is that certain subatomic level events are not deterministic. Another example of something which can not be determined is the Computer Halting Problem. If we use the halting problem and tie some event into whether the program has halted after some arbitrary period, then the outcome of this literally can not be predicted in advance. Thus it can not be set in stone, and is by definition not deterministic.

I believe it is reasonable to assume that all events, at all levels, are reliably caused, in some fashion, by some thing(s).

 

[pood]

Sorry for that big repetitive quote mess. I was having internet connection problems and things got all fugged up.

No worries, happens to us all.

Ok, I say if the past, present and future are set in stone that is totally irrelevant to free will, since our free acts are among the factors that are setting past, present and future in stone. So please tell me, according to you, what WOULD give us free will? Are you a libertarian about free will?

But the present and future being set in stone IS relevant to our free will, since if the outcome is set in stone, we can not CHOOSE to do anything differently. Thus we do not have a choice.

And to answer your question, what would give us true free will (and not the illusion of it that has been argued for with that whole, "We were destined to choose" nonsense) is a future that is fluid, not set in stone.

I would say that I do hold a libertarian position with regards to free will, in that I don't see how it can be compatible in a deterministic universe, and that I believe that we have free will. This opinion is based on my belief that we do have free will, since what I see in the real world (people making choices) is what we would expect to see in a universe where we have free will.

Now, to be fair, what I see is also compatible in a world that is purely deterministic, where everything we choose is set in stone and we have no free will. In such a universe, we would merely have the illusion of free will, not actual free will. I can think of no way by which we could tell the difference.

However, in such a universe, we would have people being held accountable for things that they have no control over. The thief is sentenced to prison for stealing, but his theft was set in stone. He couldn't avoid stealing. Even if he believes that he made the choice to steal, he did not, since in a deterministic universe he has no free will, just the illusion of it. So if he could not do anything but, we can not hold him responsible, for he did not CHOOSE to steal, even if he believes he did. And I can't accept that it is ever morally acceptable to hold people responsible for actions they had no control over.

So, there are three options:

1. A purely deterministic universe.
2. A compatibilist universe.
3. A non-deterministic universe.

I reject the second because I can not see how free will and determinism do not fundamentally contradict each other. I reject the first because my entire experience (as well as that of everyone else that I know of) indicates that we must act according to our free will (which contradicts 1). Thus, the third is the only option left.

Thanks for clarifying. Now I understand your position perfectly. If it were established earlier in this thread that you are a libertarian, I missed it, because I haven’t been following this thread as closely as the other. I look forward to you arguing with DBT over the truth or falsity of determinism.

 

[pood]

Nice to see a libertarian join the discussion, incidentally.

 

[The AntiChris]

I look forward to you arguing with DBT over the truth or falsity of determinism.

More interesting (for me) would be the discussion they might have about free will in an indeterministic universe.

 

[Jarhyn]

I look forward to you arguing with DBT over the truth or falsity of determinism.

More interesting (for me) would be the discussion they might have about free will in an indeterministic universe.

LOL. Yeah, thing is, at some point, whatever it is must be determined into a singular past. A decision, a choice has to be made which turns the many into the one.

 

[bilby]

Let me ask Kylie a different question. If the future is set in stone, as it is in the completely static 4D model of Minkowski, why does that preclude us from having free will?

I'm not familiar with the "static 4D model of Minkowski".

But yes, I believe that if the future is set in stone, it does prevent us from having free will. As I have explained countless times now, true free will means that when we make a choice, we have several different options, each of which has a non-zero probability. Like such:

Option A: 12%
Option B 48%
Option C: 60%

If the future is set in stone, then one outcome is inevitable. This requires that it have a probability of 100%. So we'd see something more like this:

Option A: 0%
Option B: 100%
Option C: 0%

And, let me take the opportunity to say that the compatibilist model would result in this:

Option A: 12%
Option B 100%
Option C: 60%

Since a probability of more than 100% is nonsensical, this can't be true. For this reason, I reject the compatibilist idea.

Probability is just a way to handle limited knowledge of the future.

Imagine that some time in the near future, Elon Musk throws a big party to watch the Melbourne Cup at his new base on Mars.

Due to the distance from Earth, and the speed of light, his guests can place bets on the outcome after the actual race is over. That the result has already become known to people in Melbourne isn't important; It doesn't change the odds Elon's bookie offers, because as far as the people on Mars are concerned, the result is still a matter of probabilities.

The people on Mars can even decide that they're bored of horse racing, and can instead use their TV to watch someone at the racecourse bar choosing what to drink. They can watch him choose between beer and champagne, and not one of them can guess which he was going to choose - even though by the time they see him choosing, he has already finished his drink and gone home. The fact that the choice was made in the past matters not one iota; They nevertheless cannot assign 100% odds to one drink or another. Choosing still happens, even in the past, which we all (I assume) agree is completely unalterable. Odds and probabilities still make sense, and nothing can be shown to be inevitable, even though it's an event that has already taken place, and therefore cannot be changed in any way.

 

[Jarhyn]

A

Let me ask Kylie a different question. If the future is set in stone, as it is in the completely static 4D model of Minkowski, why does that preclude us from having free will?

I'm not familiar with the "static 4D model of Minkowski".

But yes, I believe that if the future is set in stone, it does prevent us from having free will. As I have explained countless times now, true free will means that when we make a choice, we have several different options, each of which has a non-zero probability. Like such:

Option A: 12%
Option B 48%
Option C: 60%

If the future is set in stone, then one outcome is inevitable. This requires that it have a probability of 100%. So we'd see something more like this:

Option A: 0%
Option B: 100%
Option C: 0%

And, let me take the opportunity to say that the compatibilist model would result in this:

Option A: 12%
Option B 100%
Option C: 60%

Since a probability of more than 100% is nonsensical, this can't be true. For this reason, I reject the compatibilist idea.

Probability is just a way to handle limited knowledge of the future.

Imagine that some time in the near future, Elon Musk throws a big party to watch the Melbourne Cup at his new base on Mars.

Due to the distance from Earth, and the speed of light, his guests can place bets on the outcome after the actual race is over. That the result has already become known to people in Melbourne isn't important; It doesn't change the odds Elon's bookie offers, because as far as the people on Mars are concerned, the result is still a matter of probabilities.

The people on Mars can even decide that they're bored of horse racing, and can instead use their TV to watch someone at the racecourse bar choosing what to drink. They can watch him choose between beer and champagne, and not one of them can guess which he was going to choose - even though by the time they see him choosing, he has already finished his drink and gone home. The fact that the choice was made in the past matters not one iota; They nevertheless cannot assign 100% odds to one drink or another. Choosing still happens, even in the past, which we all (I assume) agree is completely unalterable. Odds and probabilities still make sense, and nothing can be shown to be inevitable, even though it's an event that has already taken place, and therefore cannot be changed in any way.

And so I see nonbinary probabilities as illusory, created by ignorance of the truth of which there is a binary reality of.

Probabilities are games played in the imagination with images. They are not real, and this recognition forms the jaws of the trap FDI (and Kylie) steps in, an intuitive but wrong interpretation that confuses the lack of partial real probabilities with a purely imagined lack of choice.

 Eventually, the potentials get reified. How they reify, from 0 <= p <= 1 as R(p) => 0 | 1, describes "freedom"

 

[Kylie]

in a deterministic universe, free will and free choice can not exist

Not so.

FOR a deterministic universe, free will and free choice cannot exist. But IN a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge can still exhibit free will and make free choices. Indeed, they couldn't possibly not do so.

The parts do not have the same constraints as the whole; The universe can be completely static in four dimensions, but people living in it can nevertheless not remember the future.

No, in a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge INCORRECTLY ASSUME they exhibit free will and make free choices. But they do not.

The illusion of free will is not the same thing as actual free will.

Sure it is. It's not really an illusion though. Just a perspective from which the future cannot be seen.

Which is the perspective we all have. I assume.

The fact that a god's eye view sees things differently is only relevant to these of us who are gods, ie nobody.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens.

The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past.

I presume that's true of others too. But you are right that I don't have a lot of evidence for that.

Other than the surprisingly small number of lottery winners each week.

And, pray tell, how does your inability to remember the future mean it is set in stone?

Where on Earth did I suggest that it did?

It's evidence that we have the ability to make choices, even IF the future is "set in stone".

As I have said a few times now, I don't believe that we live in a deterministic universe, AND I don't think that whether we do or not is in any way relevant to whether or not we make choices.

Where did you suggest that? When you said, "The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past."

It doesn't count as evidence for a particular hypothesis if it is consistent with a different hypothesis as well.

And, once again, if the future is set in stone, we can have no free choice.

 

[Jarhyn]

in a deterministic universe, free will and free choice can not exist

Not so.

FOR a deterministic universe, free will and free choice cannot exist. But IN a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge can still exhibit free will and make free choices. Indeed, they couldn't possibly not do so.

The parts do not have the same constraints as the whole; The universe can be completely static in four dimensions, but people living in it can nevertheless not remember the future.

No, in a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge INCORRECTLY ASSUME they exhibit free will and make free choices. But they do not.

The illusion of free will is not the same thing as actual free will.

Sure it is. It's not really an illusion though. Just a perspective from which the future cannot be seen.

Which is the perspective we all have. I assume.

The fact that a god's eye view sees things differently is only relevant to these of us who are gods, ie nobody.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens.

The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past.

I presume that's true of others too. But you are right that I don't have a lot of evidence for that.

Other than the surprisingly small number of lottery winners each week.

And, pray tell, how does your inability to remember the future mean it is set in stone?

Where on Earth did I suggest that it did?

It's evidence that we have the ability to make choices, even IF the future is "set in stone".

As I have said a few times now, I don't believe that we live in a deterministic universe, AND I don't think that whether we do or not is in any way relevant to whether or not we make choices.

Where did you suggest that? When you said, "The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past."

It doesn't count as evidence for a particular hypothesis if it is consistent with a different hypothesis as well.

And, once again, if the future is set in stone, we can have no free choice.

The future is set in the present, in meat and circuits and many other things which change and through their mechanisms cause decision of options to a reification of the future through the present.

This goes one way, is figuratively inflexible, but it is only this way figuratively, in that the system while "inflexible to becoming something different than it will" is not so "inflexible against the concept of an uncertainty over the future and ability to squish around some meat in a way that projects various ideas of what the future could be".

Its inflexibility, it's stoneyness, is figurative. And as @Marvin Edwards points out, all figurative language is literally false.

 

[Kylie]

My understanding is that determinism can be metaphorically described as "all events are set in stone". Therefore, choosing is set in stone, just like every other event. We cannot say that "choosing does not happen due to being set in stone". Quite the opposite. Choosing MUST happen if it is set in stone. We confirm this fact by noting people making choices, such as in the restaurant.

No. It's the ILLUSION of choice. The outcome was fixed long before the person was born.

It is set in stone that we will enter the restaurant, sit at a table, read the menu, consider our tastes and dietary goals, and decide what we will order. One brick after the next. One stepping stone and then another.

Our walking, our sitting, our reading, our considering, and our choosing, were all equally "set in stone". And they all actually happened in physical reality.

So, the claim that an inevitable choice is not a choice simply does not hold up.

Again, you are simply asserting that it is possible. Assertions, even when endlessly repeated, do not make facts. You are asserting that two contradictory statements agree with each other. I have explained many times how they do not. All you have is trying to show that we have the ILLUSION of choice, and then trying to trick us into thinking that this illusion is real.

We are discussing it because you are insisting that it's correct and then saying that our ignorance that most of the options are not choosable somehow renders them choosable, we just won't choose them.

When we open the menu there will be multiple items that have a non-zero probability of being chosen.

If it is set in stone that the chicken will be ordered, then how on earth does the steak have a non-zero probability?

The chicken, after all, has a 100% chance of being the outcome. Are you suggesting that you live in a universe where probabilities can total to more than 100%?

It will be set in stone from any prior point in time that this will be the case at the point of opening the menu. (Just like it was set in stone that at the beginning of the horse race, every horse had a non-zero probability of winning).

There is no item on the menu that is EVER "not choosable" at any point in time: past, present, or future. It was choosable yesterday. It is choosable now. And it will still be choosable tomorrow. It will only cease to be choosable when they take it off the menu.

We can prove that by simply ordering everything on the menu, assuming we can afford it all. And, it may take the restaurant time to prepare everything, but they will do so, and we will have our proof that every item can be chosen with 100% probability.

This is just nonsense.

You can choose anything, but you won't. You will only choose one thing, and nothing else, but all of the other things could still be chosen, even though it's impossible for you to do anything other than what is set in stone. You are locked into that one single course of action, but you can still do anything you want. But you won't.

That's you're argument. And it's absolute nonsense.

If our choice is set in stone and it only had one possible outcome, then there was never a choice to begin with.

"Set in stone" is a metaphor for deterministic causation. It is a "figure of speech", which, of course, cannot be taken literally. Like any other figurative statement, it is literally false. No one has laid down the future in actual concrete.

Yet you are saying that the outcome is inevitable.

The claim that "there was never a choice to begin with" is similar. Because new events will always be reliably caused by prior events, every event will be causally necessary from any prior point in time. This means that our choices, like all events, will also be causally necessary.

Which eliminates any aspect of "choice" in them.

We may say to ourselves, "It is AS IF there was no choice at all", or "It is AS IF only one item on the menu was choosable", or "It is AS IF the choice was made for me before I was born". Those are all figurative statements, and, like every other figurative statement, they are each literally false. We literally made a choice from a literal menu of literally choosable options. And our choice was literally made right then and there, and not one minute prior to that.

So, "there was never a choice to begin with" is literally false, in the same way that "set in stone" is literally false.

Garbage. If there is only one outcome possible, then nothing except that can be "chosen." It's the illusion of choice, to an actual choice.

It's like a person going skydiving. They jump out of the plane and experience a few moments of free fall. And then they say, "Oh, but I only went downwards because I CHOSE to go downwards." We all know that's a steaming pile - they didn't choose to go downwards because if it was a real choice, they could have gone in some other direction. They went downwards precisely because they had no choice. When they stepped out of the plane, it was set in stone - inevitable - that they would go down. Not because of any choice they made.

 

[Kylie]

My position is that "free" can NEVER logically mean "freedom from causal necessity", because every freedom we have, to do anything at all, REQUIRES reliable causation. Thus it creates a paradox, because we cannot be free of that which freedom itself requires.

Do you think I'm arguing against causation entirely? I'm not. I'm arguing against the idea that the universe is completely deterministic.

That eliminates freedom then.

It only eliminates a single freedom, "freedom from ordinary cause and effect". Without reliable cause and effect we can never reliably cause any effect, and would have no freedom to do anything at all. Reliable causation ENABLES every freedom we have. So, "freedom from cause and effect" is not a freedom that anyone actually wants or needs.

Again, absolute garbage. You just tried to convince me that EVERYTHING requires reliable causation.

So you are actually saying here that the only freedom eliminated is the one that underlies EVERYTHING.

With reliable cause and effect we get all our other freedoms. Freedom to brush our teeth, freedom to walk to the kitchen, freedom to choose for ourselves what we will have for breakfast, freedom to turn left or right at the intersection, the whole kit and caboodle.

Assertion, nothing more. Please tell me WHY brushing my teeth can only happen in a completely deterministic universe.

This requires that every single event in the universe, no matter how small, must be completely deterministic in nature. My understanding is that certain subatomic level events are not deterministic. Another example of something which can not be determined is the Computer Halting Problem. If we use the halting problem and tie some event into whether the program has halted after some arbitrary period, then the outcome of this literally can not be predicted in advance. Thus it can not be set in stone, and is by definition not deterministic.

I believe it is reasonable to assume that all events, at all levels, are reliably caused, in some fashion, by some thing(s).

So here you are once again saying that everything is causal in nature, despite saying earlier that the freedom from cause and effect is the only freedom that determinism eliminates. So again you are stating that a completely deterministic universe robs us of a freedom that is the basis for EVERYTHING.

Nice own goal you scored there.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

But yes, I believe that if the future is set in stone, it does prevent us from having free will. As I have explained countless times now, true free will means that when we make a choice, we have several different options, each of which has a non-zero probability. Like such:

Option A: 12%
Option B 48%
Option C: 60%

If the future is set in stone, then one outcome is inevitable. This requires that it have a probability of 100%. So we'd see something more like this:

Option A: 0%
Option B: 100%
Option C: 0%

And, let me take the opportunity to say that the compatibilist model would result in this:

Option A: 12%
Option B 100%
Option C: 60%

Since a probability of more than 100% is nonsensical, this can't be true. For this reason, I reject the compatibilist idea.

I don't know if you noticed it, but the first case totals 120%. Let's try it this way:

Option A: 12%
Option B 48%
Option C: 40%

These probabilities, which are always computed while the outcome is still unknown, would be identical in all three models.

After the outcome is known to be Option B, all three of the probabilities would be identical to

Option A: 0%
Option B: 100%
Option C: 0%

The only difference between the first set and the second set is certain knowledge of the outcome.

 

[Kylie]

Let me ask Kylie a different question. If the future is set in stone, as it is in the completely static 4D model of Minkowski, why does that preclude us from having free will?

I'm not familiar with the "static 4D model of Minkowski".

But yes, I believe that if the future is set in stone, it does prevent us from having free will. As I have explained countless times now, true free will means that when we make a choice, we have several different options, each of which has a non-zero probability. Like such:

Option A: 12%
Option B 48%
Option C: 60%

If the future is set in stone, then one outcome is inevitable. This requires that it have a probability of 100%. So we'd see something more like this:

Option A: 0%
Option B: 100%
Option C: 0%

And, let me take the opportunity to say that the compatibilist model would result in this:

Option A: 12%
Option B 100%
Option C: 60%

Since a probability of more than 100% is nonsensical, this can't be true. For this reason, I reject the compatibilist idea.

Probability is just a way to handle limited knowledge of the future.

However, in a completely deterministic universe, it is theoretically possible to have ALL knowledge of the future. So let's not just look at this from a limited Human's point of view, because that isn't an accurate view of the reality you are proposing. Let's look at it from some omniscient being's point of view.

Imagine that some time in the near future, Elon Musk throws a big party to watch the Melbourne Cup at his new base on Mars.

Due to the distance from Earth, and the speed of light, his guests can place bets on the outcome after the actual race is over. That the result has already become known to people in Melbourne isn't important; It doesn't change the odds Elon's bookie offers, because as far as the people on Mars are concerned, the result is still a matter of probabilities.

The people on Mars can even decide that they're bored of horse racing, and can instead use their TV to watch someone at the racecourse bar choosing what to drink. They can watch him choose between beer and champagne, and not one of them can guess which he was going to choose - even though by the time they see him choosing, he has already finished his drink and gone home. The fact that the choice was made in the past matters not one iota; They nevertheless cannot assign 100% odds to one drink or another. Choosing still happens, even in the past, which we all (I assume) agree is completely unalterable. Odds and probabilities still make sense, and nothing can be shown to be inevitable, even though it's an event that has already taken place, and therefore cannot be changed in any way.

Interesting analogy, but it is still limited to a Human point of view, the limitations of which can be eliminated, as I've shown. That omniscient being, being fully aware of some past state of the universe in exact detail can calculate the state of the universe at any point in the future. After all, you claim it's a purely deterministic universe, so it's simply a matter of running the needed calculations and figuring out the answer. So he could be at Musk's party on Mars and know the answer. He would even know the answer before he left for mars. He'd know the result of the race even before the Earth was formed! So your analogy doesn't exactly work.

 

[Kylie]

in a deterministic universe, free will and free choice can not exist

Not so.

FOR a deterministic universe, free will and free choice cannot exist. But IN a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge can still exhibit free will and make free choices. Indeed, they couldn't possibly not do so.

The parts do not have the same constraints as the whole; The universe can be completely static in four dimensions, but people living in it can nevertheless not remember the future.

No, in a deterministic universe, entities with incomplete knowledge INCORRECTLY ASSUME they exhibit free will and make free choices. But they do not.

The illusion of free will is not the same thing as actual free will.

Sure it is. It's not really an illusion though. Just a perspective from which the future cannot be seen.

Which is the perspective we all have. I assume.

The fact that a god's eye view sees things differently is only relevant to these of us who are gods, ie nobody.

"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." Christopher Hitchens.

The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past.

I presume that's true of others too. But you are right that I don't have a lot of evidence for that.

Other than the surprisingly small number of lottery winners each week.

And, pray tell, how does your inability to remember the future mean it is set in stone?

Where on Earth did I suggest that it did?

It's evidence that we have the ability to make choices, even IF the future is "set in stone".

As I have said a few times now, I don't believe that we live in a deterministic universe, AND I don't think that whether we do or not is in any way relevant to whether or not we make choices.

Where did you suggest that? When you said, "The evidence I have is that I cannot remember the future, only the past."

It doesn't count as evidence for a particular hypothesis if it is consistent with a different hypothesis as well.

And, once again, if the future is set in stone, we can have no free choice.

The future is set in the present, in meat and circuits and many other things which change and through their mechanisms cause decision of options to a reification of the future through the present.

WTF?

This goes one way, is figuratively inflexible, but it is only this way figuratively, in that the system while "inflexible to becoming something different than it will" is not so "inflexible against the concept of an uncertainty over the future and ability to squish around some meat in a way that projects various ideas of what the future could be".

Its inflexibility, it's stoneyness, is figurative. And as @Marvin Edwards points out, all figurative language is literally false.

Yeah, I can't make any sense out of this. It's technobabble.

 

[Kylie]

But yes, I believe that if the future is set in stone, it does prevent us from having free will. As I have explained countless times now, true free will means that when we make a choice, we have several different options, each of which has a non-zero probability. Like such:

Option A: 12%
Option B 48%
Option C: 60%

If the future is set in stone, then one outcome is inevitable. This requires that it have a probability of 100%. So we'd see something more like this:

Option A: 0%
Option B: 100%
Option C: 0%

And, let me take the opportunity to say that the compatibilist model would result in this:

Option A: 12%
Option B 100%
Option C: 60%

Since a probability of more than 100% is nonsensical, this can't be true. For this reason, I reject the compatibilist idea.

I don't know if you noticed it, but the first case totals 120%.

Oops, my bad.

Let's try it this way:

Option A: 12%
Option B 48%
Option C: 40%

These probabilities, which are always computed while the outcome is still unknown, would be identical in all three models.

After the outcome is known to be Option B, all three of the probabilities would be identical to

Option A: 0%
Option B: 100%
Option C: 0%

The only difference between the first set and the second set is certain knowledge of the outcome.

No.

If the universe is completely deterministic, then the outcomes were Option A: 0% Option B: 100% Option C: 0% at the moment of the Big Bang.