Demystifying Determinism

[pood]

Against Method

 

[fromderinside]

Item 1:
What is the use of induction if one can't then extract deductions from them.


Item 2:
Funny. He is rejected by the community which he tries to denigrate primarily because he rejects evolution of process. That would be as Trump puts it "Bing, bong, Bing, bing."

"Oh see the banners waving" Isolated events of course.

 

[bilby]

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is INEVITABLE, it cannot be avoided.

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is unknown, it doesn't matter at all how INEVITABLE it might be.

 

[pood]

@Jarhyn, @pood, and @Marvin Edwards, how about you all get your stories straight before you start telling me that I'm wrong, okay? Don't expect me to take any of you seriously when you are all telling me that each of you has the correct argument but those arguments aren't even good enough to convince each other.

Hmm. "Compatibilists of the World Unite!". No, I don't think so. Back when I first encountered the problem and solved it to my own satisfaction, I don't think "Compatibilism" was actually a thing. When I first ran into the word I resented it. It just added another level of complexity to a very simple problem that had a simple solution:

After my father died, I spent time in the public library, browsing the philosophy section. I think I was reading something by Baruch Spinoza that introduced the issue of determinism as a threat to free will. I found this troublesome until I had this thought experiment (whether I read it in one of the books or just came up with it myself, I can’t recall).

The idea that my choices were inevitable bothered me, so I considered how I might escape what seemed like an external control. It struck me that all I needed to do was to wait till I had a decision to make, between A and B, and if I felt myself leaning heavily toward A, I would simply choose B instead. So easy! But then it occurred to me that my desire to thwart inevitability had caused B to become the inevitable choice, so I would have to switch back to A again, but then … it was an infinite loop!

No matter which I chose, inevitability would continue to switch to match my choice! Hmm. So, who was controlling the choice, me or inevitability?

Well, the concern that was driving my thought process was my own. Inevitability was not some entity driving this process for its own reasons. And I imagined that if inevitability were such an entity, it would be sitting there in the library laughing at me, because it made me go through these gyrations without doing anything at all, except for me thinking about it.

My choice may be a deterministic event, but it was an event where I was actually the one doing the choosing. And that is what free will is really about: is it me or is someone or something else making the decision. It was always really me.

And since the solution was so simple, I no longer gave it any thought. Then much later, just a few years ago, I ran into some on-line discussions about it, and I wondered why it was still a problem for everyone else, since I had seen through the paradox more than fifty years ago.

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is INEVITABLE, it cannot be avoided. If it is inevitable before you make the choice, it is not really a choice since by definition that outcome was going to happen and no other outcome was going to happen.

If any other outcome could have happened, then there was no inevitable outcome.

View attachment 39926

In any case, don't expect me to be convinced by any of your arguments if you can't even convince other compatibilists of them.

Let me try to show you again why this analysis is mistaken.

We can abstract away any talk of God or causal determinism and just analyze the situation in terms of propositional logic.

In antiquity, Aristotle and the ancient Greeks were worried about logical determinism destroying free will. They wondered: can propositions be true today, about future events?

Suppose it’s true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle. The argument proceeds:

1. Today it’s true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle.
2. But if today it’s true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, the sea battle is inevitable. No one can choose not to have a sea battle.
3. If the sea battle is inevitable, we have no free will.
4. The sea battle is inevitable.
5. We have no free will.

To preserve free will, the Greeks concluded that there can be no true propositions today about future events. Propositions only become true at the time the event they describe takes place.

I can only point out that yet again, the modal fallacy has crept in — though modal logic was unknown to antiquity.

The Greeks feared that if it is true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then tomorrow there must be a sea battle.

The modal fallacy lies squarely in the use of the word “must.”

All that “must” be true is this:

It must be true that (if today it is true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then tomorrow there will be a sea battle).

But there does not HAVE TO be a sea battle. If there is not, we get:

It must be true that (if today it is true that tomorrow there will be no sea battle, then tomorrow there will be no sea battle).

There can be, or not be, a sea battle. If there is, then the sea battle supplies the truth grounds for the prior proposition, “there will be a sea battle.” If there is not, then the lack of a sea battle supplies the truth grounds for the proposition, “there will be no sea battle.”

Whether there is a sea battle or not is entirely up to the antagonists.

Now, if today it really is true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then there will be a sea battle; only, there does not HAVE TO BE a sea battle. Still, in a sense one is entitled to say that if it really is true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then the sea battle is inevitable.

But by the same token, one can say that if today it is true that tomorrow there will be no sea battle, then “no sea battle” is inevitable.

But inevitability, per se, isn’t germane to free will. To see why, one has to locate the locus or source of the inevitability.

Suppose I am watching the sun rise in the east and I report to a friend, “the sun is rising in the east.” If the sun is rising, this is a true statement.

Now surely no one (I don’t think!) would argue that my statement, “the sun is rising in the east,” makes the sun rise in the east. Rather, the fact that the sun is rising in the east, makes my statement true.

In the same vein, an actual sea battle makes the prior statement, “there will be a sea battle” true; and no sea battle makes the prior statement, “there will be no sea battle” true. The statement, “there will be a sea battle” does not make the sea battle happen; and the statement “there will be no sea battle” does not make the sea battle fail to happen. True propositions about past, present or future events are always descriptive and never prescriptive.

The worry that I lack free will because future events are inevitable betrays a logical confusion. The source, or locus, of inevitability is not the proposition describing what will happen, but rather my free choice to make something happen, or not. To suggest that free will requires I be able to change the inevitable future is exactly the same thing as saying that on the day in question, I ought to be able to have, and not have, a sea battle at the same time — a violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction. No account of free will requires the ability to instantiate as logical contradiction.

As I noted before, free will does not require that I be able to change the past, present or future. It only requires that I play some role in making the past, present and future be what they were, are, and will be.

 

[pood]

I’ve no idea why the above turned all bold a third of the way through, and I can’t seem to fix it on edit.

 

[bilby]

I’ve no idea why the above turned all bold a third of the way through, and I can’t seem to fix it on edit.

It was inevitable

The board has an annoying feature whereby it resolves an orphan start tag by adding the missing terminator at the end of the post.

The only way to clean up seems to be to use the [] button to show the tags, so you can edit them manually.

 

[Jarhyn]

I’ve no idea why the above turned all bold a third of the way through, and I can’t seem to fix it on edit.

It's caused by a double bolding tag embedded at the head of the permabold part. Go into [ ] mode and look where the bold block starts for a bold that is opened twice somewhere.

 

[Kylie]

T1 was determined solely by the state of the universe at point T0

So, your first problem is looking at it from the perspective of one object only interacting with itself.

Are you seriously suggesting I am claiming the universe is one object?

Instead, it is better to view it as two objects interacting with each other.

Only two? According to determinism, wouldn't it be ALL objects in the universe?

One of the objects is best seen as a "process definition", like the operational configuration of the CPU, or it's "truth table".

The second of the objects is best seen like a memory array.

Ah, I see where you are going now. It might have been a good idea to start with your particular idea of viewing the universe as both a state and a truth system right from the beginning, because I thought you were going somewhere completely different. Clear communication is vital, y'know, so please do your best to be clear right from the start, okay?

The "truth" of the system (it's physics) is then entirely independent of the contents of the system (it's momentary state description).

As such, the state of the universe at T1 is not determined solely then by the state of the universe at T0. It is determined by BOTH the state at T0 AND the truth of the system.

It is determined by the state of the system at T0 AND the truth of the system at T0.

Since the state AND the system both make up the universe, then it's still accurate to say that the way the universe is at T0 (which includes both its state AND the truth of its systems) is what leads to the way the universe is at T1.

The problem is that you assumed that when I said "the state of the universe" I meant simply the arrangements of objects within it. I did not. I meant EVERYTHING about the universe, which includes its physical arrangement AS WELL AS the operating principles which govern it.

So you've just agreed with me.

This is a very important thing to understand because considering "could" is doing a thought experiment.

The goal of the thought experiment is to get as close to the following actual experiment as possible:

1. The dwarf is there, and I am going to make them do something, thus I stop my sub-universe and save it's state.

2. I copy the state.

3. I blindly write, to each of the copies, a will into the dwarf's head.

4. I run the system forward to see what is going to happen in each.

5. I find out all the things that the dwarf can "possibly" do, as an extension of the original state. this takes a great deal of time. This actually maps out a function U(x), where x is what is known in math as a "free variable". The free variable here is "the contents of the dwarf's head."

6. Armed with this U(x) function definition on the contents of the dwarf's head, I then set U(x) equal to the desired contents and then solve for x. This tells me what momentary x leads to the desired outcome.

7. I then put x in the dwarf's head, leaving behind the original universe entirely, and continuing with this one in which I mind controlled the dwarf.

Then the next part is that you need to realize there needs be no god or actual mind control going on here because the "dwarf" in our reality has the power to approximate U well enough, in macrophysical scale, to run this process themselves without having to stop time to run the solution.

The end result ends up being something like:


1. I am going to make ME do something, thus I stop my activity and think quickly, before I must make a decision.

2. I imagine a universe as macrophysics describes it, several times. (I make a copy).

3. I blindly write, to each of the copies, a series of stated actions. (I write a will into my own hypothetical head).

4. I run the system forward to see what is going to happen in each.

5. I find out all the things that the I can "possibly" do, in this hypothetical future moment, as an extension of the original state. this takes a little time, but not enough to actually bring me to the real future moment in which a decision must be made. This actually maps out a function U(x), where x is what is known in math as a "free variable". The free variable here is "the contents of my decision".

6. Armed with this approximal U(x) function definition on the contents of the my own head head, I then set U(x) equal to the desired contents and then solve for x. This tells me what momentary x leads to the desired outcome.

7. I then put x in the part of my own head that represents the region of free variance, thus making the decision leaving behind the past entirely, and continuing with this future in which I effectively mind controlled myself.

The fact that it was ME putting that variable there into MY OWN head is, exactly, the proof of free will.

That we can only ever approximate perfection here does not invalidate it, it just means sometimes we're going to be wrong.

When we are wrong, we don't say "we lacked free will", as we still decided for ourselves (that will was free!), But rather "our will to do X was not free".

Note, this does not in any point discuss randomness.

Yah huh, and please tell me, at what point did I say that the randomness must be directly a part of your decision making process?

Coz I never said that.

But it is possible that some random event long in the past led to the state of the universe as it is now (and I am using the phrase "state of the universe" as I originally meant it, not the version that you are using). So I have to make my decision based on that state.

If, long ago, that random event had happened differently, I could today be faced with an entirely different decision.

So, the point one second prior to the random event becomes T0 and today when I have to make the decision is T1. Since T1 is NOT determined solely by the state of the universe at T0 (remember, we had a random event at T0+1 second), the determinism doesn't apply., And there's still no random process involved in me making a decision.

 

[Kylie]

If we assume their existence, a paradox ensues - but so what? Gods are known to be paradoxical.

I believe I have shown, or have tried to show, that there is no paradox generated by an all-knowing God knowing what you will do, before you do it. You still have compatibilist free will.

Your choice for breakfast is eggs or pancakes. God knows in advance you will choose eggs, and sure enough, you choose eggs, because God can’t be wrong. But so what? You still could have chosen pancakes. But had you chosen pancakes, God would have foreknown THAT fact instead. There’s no paradox here. In these circumstances, you are free to do as you wish, you are just not free to escape God’s prior detection of your choice.

I have very clearly described the paradox.

If God knows in advance that you will do A, then you will do A.

If you have free will, you are free to do Not-A.

To claim that you can do both A and Not-A is contradictory.

Tell ya what, here's another yes/no question.

God comes to me today and says, "Kylie, you're going to have eggs for breakfast tomorrow. This is absolutely guaranteed to happen because I am God, I am all-knowing, and I can't possibly be wrong." I decide to smash all my eggs and the following morning I sit down to a nice stack of pancakes.

Is there anything that will stop me from doing that?

Yes or no.

Good Gob, do you even read what I write??? I have answered your entire post to me above repeatedly. Why in the world should I answer this yet again? Is it that you skip posts, or skim them over, or don’t understand them, or what?

Maybe if you'd actually answer my question as I stated it rather than spout nonsense like, "If you choose to do X, God would see you do X, but if you used your free will and did Y, he'd see you did Y," and instead put cause BEFORE effect rather than effect before cause, I wouldn't have to keep asking.

Unsurprisingly, you don’t understand. We are not speaking here of a CAUSAL relastion between what God foreknows, and what you do. The relation is SEMANTIC, not causal. What I do does not retroactively cause God to know what I do. Rather, what I do supplies the TRUTH GROUNDS of that knowledge.

Have you read ANY of the supplementary links I have provided, which flesh this out in much greater detail? Yes? No?

Also, my 1,000th post here.

So you are saying that effect precedes cause.

What I do in the future causes God to know what I will do BEFORE I do it.

Quite apart from the fact that you've given no reason at all to assume that effect can ever precede cause, your claim would actually lock the future in, since if there is an effect, then there MUST be something that causes it.

To claim that there can be an effect before the cause of that effect, and seeing the effect can make it possible to change the effect means that we can have an effect with no cause whatsoever.

Because your position is that God can see what I'm going to have for dinner tonight, he tells me in the morning, and either I have something different (in which case the CAUSE of him knowing what I will have no longer exists, or I am bound to have what he knows I will have (in which case the cause remains, but I do not have the free will to alter it). Now, the second option is entirely consistent with determinism, but it requires us to abandon any concept of free will.

 

[Kylie]

No, I would not say that.

If you had bothered to try to understand my position, you'd know that I've been saying it didn't HAVE to be anything. The only reason it's pancakes is because I freely chose to have pancakes. My choice of pancakes isn't determined by the previous state of the universe. There's no way to have predicted ahead of time that I would choose to have pancakes.

Let’s delve into this a bit more closely.

You are a libertarian. You claim compatibilism cannot be a sufficient account of free will because it is deterministic. So if I order eggs for breakfast, you will say (under the compatibilist metaphysics) “That was inevitable! You had no choice but to order eggs!” But of course you’d say the same thing if I ordered pancakes. According to you, I think, an inevitable future precludes free will.

What does “inevitable” mean? It means an outcome that cannot be avoided — one that cannot be changed.

And yet, as I have pointed out (I do hope you read all of my posts), free will has nothing to do with changing the past, present, or future. So inevitability is a red herring.

Free will means I have the ability, in some small way, to make the past be what it was, the present be what it is, and future be what it will be. None of this involves changing or avoiding anything.

I happen to think that the Minkowski block spacetime is probably correct, and that the future exists along with the past and present. If this is so, then verily, the future is inevitable. But because changing or avoiding the future is not a precondition for compatibilist free will, there is no problem here for the compatibilist. To change the past, present or future would be to both do, and not do, something at the same time, which is a violation of the law of noncontradiction.

So how do you think you can freely choose something that can't possibly be any different?

Because your free choice made it be the thing that can’t possibly be any different? Ever think of that?

I have been told many times throughout this thread that other outcomes WERE possible. Now you say they were never possible.

And you wonder why I don't agree with you.

Yes, other outcomes are possible, until the outcome happens. Then it is fixed.

That can only happen if the outcome that actually happened was not an outcome that was going to happen inevitably. There is no way to KNOW (as in, with 100% certainty) that that particular outcome would happen ahead of time.

If I am to choose between A, B, and C, and I decide to choose B, then there is nothing in the universe that could KNOW that I was going to choose B until I actually made the choice.

 

[Kylie]

Moreover, as Bibly notes, QM is irrelevant to the free will debate, because introducing randomness into a system does not introduce free will. If you chose stuff randomly, you would be insane, not free.

Show me where I made that argument.

I have been arguing that events can happen in a way free of determinism, that the future is not locked in stone. I have NEVER claimed that our decisions were completely random.

How do events happen free of determinism, unless they happen via indeterminism? Is there a third option?

False dilemma. It's not an all-or-nothing situation.

I have stated many times now that I'm NOT arguing that our choices are just random chance.

I have also stated many times that my position is that there are random events in the universe that can not be predicted, so the future state of the universe can not be DETERMINED from some previous state of the universe. That is why I disagree with DETERMINISM. I have NEVER claimed that NOTHING is deterministic. I have claimed that NOTY EVERYTHING is deterministic.

 

[Kylie]

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is INEVITABLE, it cannot be avoided.

It actually can be avoided, but it won't be.

If it won't be, if it NEVER gets avoided, how could you possibly know it CAN be avoided?

If it is inevitable before you make the choice, it is not really a choice since by definition that outcome was going to happen and no other outcome was going to happen.

But it was inevitable that I would be that which would be making the choice. That was the inevitable reality. The notion that "it is not really a choice" has no basis in fact, neither in definition nor in physical reality.

Nope. If things had been different, it might have been someone else who ended up in the choice-making position.

If any other outcome could have happened, then there was no inevitable outcome.

What could have happened was just as inevitable as what did happen. It was inevitable that there would be two things that I could choose, A and B. It was inevitable that I would, for my own reasons, choose A, even though it was also inevitable that I could have chosen B.

So you are suggesting that there are two things that are equally inevitable? And now you are trying to equate CAN with WILL, despite the fact that someone (I can't remember if it was you or someone else) tried to convince me that they were two different things.

Ya huh.

Is it any wonder I don't take your position seriously?

 

[Kylie]

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is INEVITABLE, it cannot be avoided.

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is unknown, it doesn't matter at all how INEVITABLE it might be.

And you miss the point that if the outcome is UNKNOWABLE, there's absolutely no way to justify the claim that it is inevitable.

 

[Kylie]

@Jarhyn, @pood, and @Marvin Edwards, how about you all get your stories straight before you start telling me that I'm wrong, okay? Don't expect me to take any of you seriously when you are all telling me that each of you has the correct argument but those arguments aren't even good enough to convince each other.

Hmm. "Compatibilists of the World Unite!". No, I don't think so. Back when I first encountered the problem and solved it to my own satisfaction, I don't think "Compatibilism" was actually a thing. When I first ran into the word I resented it. It just added another level of complexity to a very simple problem that had a simple solution:

After my father died, I spent time in the public library, browsing the philosophy section. I think I was reading something by Baruch Spinoza that introduced the issue of determinism as a threat to free will. I found this troublesome until I had this thought experiment (whether I read it in one of the books or just came up with it myself, I can’t recall).

The idea that my choices were inevitable bothered me, so I considered how I might escape what seemed like an external control. It struck me that all I needed to do was to wait till I had a decision to make, between A and B, and if I felt myself leaning heavily toward A, I would simply choose B instead. So easy! But then it occurred to me that my desire to thwart inevitability had caused B to become the inevitable choice, so I would have to switch back to A again, but then … it was an infinite loop!

No matter which I chose, inevitability would continue to switch to match my choice! Hmm. So, who was controlling the choice, me or inevitability?

Well, the concern that was driving my thought process was my own. Inevitability was not some entity driving this process for its own reasons. And I imagined that if inevitability were such an entity, it would be sitting there in the library laughing at me, because it made me go through these gyrations without doing anything at all, except for me thinking about it.

My choice may be a deterministic event, but it was an event where I was actually the one doing the choosing. And that is what free will is really about: is it me or is someone or something else making the decision. It was always really me.

And since the solution was so simple, I no longer gave it any thought. Then much later, just a few years ago, I ran into some on-line discussions about it, and I wondered why it was still a problem for everyone else, since I had seen through the paradox more than fifty years ago.

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is INEVITABLE, it cannot be avoided. If it is inevitable before you make the choice, it is not really a choice since by definition that outcome was going to happen and no other outcome was going to happen.

If any other outcome could have happened, then there was no inevitable outcome.

View attachment 39926

In any case, don't expect me to be convinced by any of your arguments if you can't even convince other compatibilists of them.

Let me try to show you again why this analysis is mistaken.

We can abstract away any talk of God or causal determinism and just analyze the situation in terms of propositional logic.

In antiquity, Aristotle and the ancient Greeks were worried about logical determinism destroying free will. They wondered: can propositions be true today, about future events?

Suppose it’s true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle. The argument proceeds:

1. Today it’s true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle.
2. But if today it’s true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, the sea battle is inevitable. No one can choose not to have a sea battle.
3. If the sea battle is inevitable, we have no free will.
4. The sea battle is inevitable.
5. We have no free will.

To preserve free will, the Greeks concluded that there can be no true propositions today about future events. Propositions only become true at the time the event they describe takes place.

I can only point out that yet again, the modal fallacy has crept in — though modal logic was unknown to antiquity.

The Greeks feared that if it is true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then tomorrow there must be a sea battle.

The modal fallacy lies squarely in the use of the word “must.”

All that “must” be true is this:

It must be true that (if today it is true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then tomorrow there will be a sea battle).

But there does not HAVE TO be a sea battle. If there is not, we get:

It must be true that (if today it is true that tomorrow there will be no sea battle, then tomorrow there will be no sea battle).

There can be, or not be, a sea battle. If there is, then the sea battle supplies the truth grounds for the prior proposition, “there will be a sea battle.” If there is not, then the lack of a sea battle supplies the truth grounds for the proposition, “there will be no sea battle.”

Whether there is a sea battle or not is entirely up to the antagonists.

Now, if today it really is true that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then there will be a sea battle; only, there does not HAVE TO BE a sea battle. Still, in a sense one is entitled to say that if it really is true today that tomorrow there will be a sea battle, then the sea battle is inevitable.

But by the same token, one can say that if today it is true that tomorrow there will be no sea battle, then “no sea battle” is inevitable.

But inevitability, per se, isn’t germane to free will. To see why, one has to locate the locus or source of the inevitability.

Suppose I am watching the sun rise in the east and I report to a friend, “the sun is rising in the east.” If the sun is rising, this is a true statement.

Now surely no one (I don’t think!) would argue that my statement, “the sun is rising in the east,” makes the sun rise in the east. Rather, the fact that the sun is rising in the east, makes my statement true.

In the same vein, an actual sea battle makes the prior statement, “there will be a sea battle” true; and no sea battle makes the prior statement, “there will be no sea battle” true. The statement, “there will be a sea battle” does not make the sea battle happen; and the statement “there will be no sea battle” does not make the sea battle fail to happen. True propositions about past, present or future events are always descriptive and never prescriptive.

The worry that I lack free will because future events are inevitable betrays a logical confusion. The source, or locus, of inevitability is not the proposition describing what will happen, but rather my free choice to make something happen, or not. To suggest that free will requires I be able to change the inevitable future is exactly the same thing as saying that on the day in question, I ought to be able to have, and not have, a sea battle at the same time — a violation of the Law of Non-Contradiction. No account of free will requires the ability to instantiate as logical contradiction.

As I noted before, free will does not require that I be able to change the past, present or future. It only requires that I play some role in making the past, present and future be what they were, are, and will be.

You'll forgive me, I'm not familiar with this kind of argument, and I find it hard to understand it.

But it seems to me that if we say:

1. The sea battle that will happen tomorrow is inevitable
2. We choose not to have the sea battle.

Then it was just plain wrong to claim that the sea battle was inevitable. What you're doing seems to me to be nothing more than quibbling over different meanings of a word, and as such, moving the goalposts.

 

[bilby]

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is INEVITABLE, it cannot be avoided.

As usual, you miss the point that if a particular outcome is unknown, it doesn't matter at all how INEVITABLE it might be.

And you miss the point that if the outcome is UNKNOWABLE, there's absolutely no way to justify the claim that it is inevitable.

That's true, but it's not me missing any point, it IS my point. It's completely irrelevant whether or not it is inevitable; Inevitability makes no difference whatsoever.

I do not now, nor have I ever, claimed that the universe is deterministic. But IF it were, then all the rest of my arguments here would be completely unaffected by that; So I am happy to accept it for now to avoid a derail.

 

[Jarhyn]

The problem is that you assumed that when I said "the state of the universe" I meant simply the arrangements of objects within it. I did not.

And hence your problem, and hence my point: this is an inaccurate way of viewing the universe.

The whole thing cleaves cleanly between "systemic rules" and "current state". That interface is exactly what you are ignoring in the discussion: you can not view these sensibly as the same thing.

I meant exactly what you described as being flat-out wrong.

The discussion of free will happens specifically because you can mathematically separate a function and variables.

Trying to pretend the logic of the universe is so "fused" to the state is where you will start to confuse "can't" and "won't".

 

[Kylie]

The problem is that you assumed that when I said "the state of the universe" I meant simply the arrangements of objects within it. I did not.

And hence your problem, and hence my point: this is an inaccurate way of viewing the universe.

The whole thing cleaves cleanly between "systemic rules" and "current state". That interface is exactly what you are ignoring in the discussion: you can not view these sensibly as the same thing.

I meant exactly what you described as being flat-out wrong.

The discussion of free will happens specifically because you can mathematically separate a function and variables.

Trying to pretend the logic of the universe is so "fused" to the state is where you will start to confuse "can't" and "won't".

You say that I need to look at the state of the universe (how things are arranged within it) and the systemic rules (the laws of nature).

When I spoke of the "state of the universe" I was referring to both of these things together.

Don't tell me that my way of looking at things is inaccurate when it's the same way that you are using. The only difference is how we are phrasing it.

Would you prefer that I phrase it another way? Fine.

When I refer to the "condition" of the universe, then I am referring to both the "systemic rules" and "current state."

Now, let me restate my argument from post 602:

Take the condition of the universe at point in time T0. Then take the condition of the universe at a later point in time, T1. If the condition of the universe at point T1 was determined solely by the condition of the universe at point T0, then free will can not exist. In other words, if you can take the condition of the universe at T0 and extrapolate it forwards and figure out what T1 (or T2, or T48267768590) will be, then free will can not exist. And the reason for that is that if you were to rewind the universe back to T0 and let it proceed again, the same outcome must necessarily happen.

 

[Jarhyn]

When I spoke of the "state of the universe" I was referring to both of these things together

And I keep repeatedly pointing out that this is why you are equivocating "can" and "must": because "must" deals with both, and CAN only deals with the systemic laws, while varying on state in systemic ways. Can is always in relation to some systemic variance.

 

[bilby]

The problem is that you assumed that when I said "the state of the universe" I meant simply the arrangements of objects within it. I did not.

And hence your problem, and hence my point: this is an inaccurate way of viewing the universe.

The whole thing cleaves cleanly between "systemic rules" and "current state". That interface is exactly what you are ignoring in the discussion: you can not view these sensibly as the same thing.

I meant exactly what you described as being flat-out wrong.

The discussion of free will happens specifically because you can mathematically separate a function and variables.

Trying to pretend the logic of the universe is so "fused" to the state is where you will start to confuse "can't" and "won't".

You say that I need to look at the state of the universe (how things are arranged within it) and the systemic rules (the laws of nature).

When I spoke of the "state of the universe" I was referring to both of these things together.

Don't tell me that my way of looking at things is inaccurate when it's the same way that you are using. The only difference is how we are phrasing it.

Would you prefer that I phrase it another way? Fine.

When I refer to the "condition" of the universe, then I am referring to both the "systemic rules" and "current state."

Now, let me restate my argument from post 602:

Take the condition of the universe at point in time T0. Then take the condition of the universe at a later point in time, T1. If the condition of the universe at point T1 was determined solely by the condition of the universe at point T0, then free will can not exist. In other words, if you can take the condition of the universe at T0 and extrapolate it forwards and figure out what T1 (or T2, or T48267768590) will be, then free will can not exist.

Sure it can, if one of the conditions at T_n is the exercising of free will, so as to create the conditions at T_n+1.

And the reason for that is that if you were to rewind the universe back to T0 and let it proceed again, the same outcome must necessarily happen.

Well, obviously. Because that exercise of free will was both inevitable and necessary for the future state of the universe to be what it was inevitably going to be.

It's free will if it's a decision made within an individual's brain, without external coercion or force. That it will have an inevitable outcome is irrelevant, as long as the individual making the decision doesn't yet know what decision they will make.

 

[Kylie]

When I spoke of the "state of the universe" I was referring to both of these things together

And I keep repeatedly pointing out that this is why you are equivocating "can" and "must": because "must" deals with both, and CAN only deals with the systemic laws, while varying on state in systemic ways. Can is always in relation to some systemic variance.

*sigh*

You just repeatedly ignore the fact if one particular outcome is inevitable, if it is going to be A no matter what, then there is no "it CAN be B or C."