Demystifying Determinism

[pood]

So the outcome can only be "set in stone" AFTER it has happened?

If you like the "set in stone" metaphor, then, yes, the outcome will be "set in stone" from any prior point in eternity. So what? How does that change anything?

We still don't know WHAT is "set in stone" to happen. And when we don't know the single thing that WILL happen, we consider the MULTIPLE things that CAN happen, compute the probability for each if you like, and place our bets.

That's how possibilities and probabilities work.

You fail to grasp the point that if it is "set in stone," then there's nothing we can do to change it, and thus we do not have free will.

You really don‘t pay attention to what I or others write, do you?

I’ve already gone over this several times. Free will does not entail changing the past, present, or future, but simply to help make it be what it was, is and will be. You‘ve made no effort to rebut my argument. You simply ignore it.

Your explanation of free will is lousy.

"Free will is simply helping the future be what it's meant to be." Please, you sound like some hippy who talks to flowers.

Why is it lousy? You have no idea. You still didn’t read the supplementary, in-depth material I linked you, did you? Have you read the Foreknowledge and Free Will paper? No, right? You have no interest in educating yourself. Why are you here?

”Free will is simply helping the future be what it’s meant to be” is NOT what I said. WHY did you put quote marks around it, while mangling what I DID say? “Meant to be” is has NOTHING to do with my position. I also believe that misquoting others to change the meaning of what they say is a rule violation here.

 

[Kylie]

So if the future is by definition unknowable

It's not, though. It's unknowable by circumstance relative to our systemic perception.

It's not by definition unknowable on account of the fact that if you wait just a moment, it'll be the past, and quite knowable indeed.

Ah, but then it won't be the future anymore, will it. It will be knowable, but it will have ceased to be the future.

No, it won't. The moment that is ten seconds away from when I post, will always be, will always have been that moment, regardless of where the present is.

It will never cease to be that moment.

The way to imperfectly predict the future is generally going to be through macrophysics. The way to perfectly get the future described to you is to determine it, one second per second.

You seem to have missed the fact that at some point it will no longer be in the future. Once that point is no longer in the future, we can see what happened and we can't change what happened.

my arguments were all based on that "theoretical" ability to predict the future

Based on nonsense in other words. The only way to actually "predict" the future of a system, is to actually access that point in that system.

As such, there is no such thing as a perfect prediction of the future: there is only perfect replay.

And how do we know if we are in a replay or not? What differences will there be? I can't think of any, can you?

So, when I watch Jurassic Park, the lawyer CAN choose to stay in the car?

Yes. By re-writing the script, hiring some actors, shooting some scenes, and splicing them into the footage.

Because when we are talking about CAN, we get to define the state we are asking CAN of. We don't get to define the rules of physics, but we do, for the sake of CAN, decide what those rules are going to be operating on.

Only SHALL is constrained by an immediate state

Ah yes. Spielberg can remake the movie, make it different and that will somehow change the information that is encoded on the bluray disk sitting on my shelf.

 

[Kylie]

Everything is deterministic?

Yes. Absolutely everything.

So if you were to hypothetically "rewind" the universe back to the way it was a year ago and then let it run forward again, we'd end up in exactly the same place that we are now?

That is correct. We would once more find ourselves in the restaurant, facing a menu of alternate possibilities, and having to choose for ourselves what we would order for dinner. We would have the same options, and the same goals and reasons determining our choice, such that we would still choose the Chef Salad, even though we could have chosen the Steak.

The "could have" is just as inevitable as the "would have". And we get them both every time we replay the tape.

So how do we have free choice if the end result MUST be exactly the same as the first time?

Actually, I am a pianist.

Cool! I only had a few lessons as a kid. When I was a teenager I figured out how to play from the guitar chords to accompany my voice to play Beatles songs. I was raised in the Salvation Army and played a baritone horn at church and at camp but I've lost my lip due to lack of practice.

Did you ever see the movie, "The Hudsucker Proxy"? It was a comedy, but it had a beautiful love theme that I later learned was taken from Khachaturian's Adagio from Spartacus. That's a link to one of the YouTube performances.

Can't say I've seen that movie, but that's lovely music.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

So how do we have free choice if the end result MUST be exactly the same as the first time?

If we made the choice for ourselves, while free of coercion and undue influence, then it is free will. And, no matter how many times we replay the tape, it will be free will every time.

"Freedom from causal necessity" is a bit of silly nonsense. What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing to do what we do. It's basically "what we would have done anyway". And that is not a meaningful constraint. So, it is not something that we need to be free of.

Freedom from cause and effect is a paradoxical notion, because every freedom we have, to do anything at all, requires us to reliably cause some effect. Walking, talking, chewing gum, and thinking are all made possible by reliable causal mechanisms. So, how can we be free of that which freedom itself requires? Thus, the paradox.

But a guy holding a gun to our head and telling us what to do is a meaningful constraint upon our ability to decide for ourselves what we will do. By the threat of death, he subjugates our will to his, and ours is no longer free. So, that is something we would want to be free of when making our choices.

 

[Kylie]

So how do we have free choice if the end result MUST be exactly the same as the first time?

If we made the choice for ourselves, while free of coercion and undue influence, then it is free will. And, no matter how many times we replay the tape, it will be free will every time.

"Freedom from causal necessity" is a bit of silly nonsense. What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing to do what we do. It's basically "what we would have done anyway". And that is not a meaningful constraint. So, it is not something that we need to be free of.

Freedom from cause and effect is a paradoxical notion, because every freedom we have, to do anything at all, requires us to reliably cause some effect. Walking, talking, chewing gum, and thinking are all made possible by reliable causal mechanisms. So, how can we be free of that which freedom itself requires? Thus, the paradox.

But a guy holding a gun to our head and telling us what to do is a meaningful constraint upon our ability to decide for ourselves what we will do. By the threat of death, he subjugates our will to his, and ours is no longer free. So, that is something we would want to be free of when making our choices.

But it is not free from influence. It's influenced by the fact that it MUST be the same outcome every single time.

And once again you are repeating the PRATT that I'm saying free will completely throws cause-and-effect out the window. How about you stop resorting to strawman arguments?

 

[pood]

But it is not free from influence. It's influenced by the fact that it MUST be the same outcome every single time.

Another one who doesn’t know the difference between WILL and MUST, though it has been explained a bazillion times. Try a dictionary?

 

[Kylie]

But it is not free from influence. It's influenced by the fact that it MUST be the same outcome every single time.

Another one who doesn’t know the difference between WILL and MUST, though it has been explained a bazillion times. Try a dictionary?

Now, you will no doubt tell me that an event that will necessarily happen is not inevitable, and an event that is inevitable doesn't mean it's necessarily going to happen, because all you have is quibbling over wordplay.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

But it is not free from influence.

Most influences do not compromise our ability to choose for ourselves what we will do. So, most influences have no impact upon our free will. Only certain influences, like a guy with a gun, or a significant mental illness, or the command of someone with authority over us, and other such undue influences can effectively remove our free will.

It's influenced by the fact that it MUST be the same outcome every single time.

So, are you complaining that you MUST decide for yourself what you will do? What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing to do what we do. It is "what we would have done anyway".

Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

... I'm saying free will completely throws cause-and-effect out the window.

I'm saying that free will does not throw cause-and-effect out the window. Free will is impossible without reliable cause and effect. Free will requires the ability to cause a choice to be made. And that's what we do. Decision making is a primary function of our brains, and the function requires reliable cause and effect.

So, free will cannot throw cause-and-effect out the window without throwing itself out as well.

 

[Kylie]

But it is not free from influence.

Most influences do not compromise our ability to choose for ourselves what we will do. So, most influences have no impact upon our free will. Only certain influences, like a guy with a gun, or a significant mental illness, or the command of someone with authority over us, and other such undue influences can effectively remove our free will.

You have that entirely back to front.

A person who hold a gun to my head and tells me to give him my money is not controlling my free will. I can still choose to not cooperate. All he is doing is providing a motivational effect. He is not FORCING the outcome.

However, in the scenario where the universe is rewound and the outcome must turn out the same, that is indeed robbing us of our free will, because we are not able to do anything differently, or think anything differently.

It's influenced by the fact that it MUST be the same outcome every single time.

So, are you complaining that you MUST decide for yourself what you will do? What we will inevitably do is exactly identical to us just being us, choosing to do what we do. It is "what we would have done anyway".

Determinism doesn't actually change anything.

Are you deliberately being obtuse?

How am I freely deciding what to do if it MUST be a particular outcome? At best, I only THINK I am deciding for myself.

... I'm saying free will completely throws cause-and-effect out the window.

I'm saying that free will does not throw cause-and-effect out the window. Free will is impossible without reliable cause and effect. Free will requires the ability to cause a choice to be made. And that's what we do. Decision making is a primary function of our brains, and the function requires reliable cause and effect.

So, free will cannot throw cause-and-effect out the window without throwing itself out as well.

You seem incapable of understanding my position, even though I have explained it in simple terms several times.

I am NOT saying cause-and-effect doesn't happen.

I am NOT saying that free will renders cause-and-effect invalid in any way.

What I am saying is that there are some things in the universe which are inherently unpredictable, and they render the future unpredictable. And even if we were to rewind the universe to some earlier point in time and let it play out again, the end result could be different.

It is this unpredictability that gives us free will, because that unpredictability means that things are not set in stone until they actually happen. The outcome is not fixed.

I have no doubt that you will ignore this as you have the last several times I tried to lay out my position, and you will just continue arguing with me.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

Just to be clear. The "will" in free will is our specific "intention" for the future, whether immediate ("I will have the Chef Salad, please") or distant ("last will and testament").

When we choose what we will do, we set our intention upon doing something specific. The intent then motivates and directs our subsequent thoughts and actions until it is complete, or the process is interrupted.

For example, we decide that we will have dinner at the restaurant. That freely chosen intent then causes us to get in the car, drive to the restaurant, walk in, sit at a table, browse the menu, and place our order. The waiter brings us our dinner and the bill. The bill is the restaurant holding us responsible for our deliberate act (ordering that dinner).

That is what free will and responsibility are about.

 

[bilby]

It is this unpredictability that gives us free will, because that unpredictability means that things are not set in stone until they actually happen. The outcome is not fixed.

That's not free will though. It's just unpredictability. No will is involved, by definition - will is an example of cause and effect.

If asked why you chose A rather than B, you either have reasons (causes that resulted in the effect); Or you don't - and we don't call doing things for no reason whatsoever 'will', we call it 'madness'.

Madness, madness, they call it madness
Well if this is madness
Then I know I'm filled with gladness
It's gonna be rougher
It's gonna be tougher
But I won't be the one who's gonna suffer

- Madness, Madness, 1979

 

[Marvin Edwards]

A person who hold a gun to my head and tells me to give him my money is not controlling my free will. I can still choose to not cooperate. All he is doing is providing a motivational effect. He is not FORCING the outcome.

The guy with the gun is forcing you to make a moral choice: "Is it better to die than to hand him my money?" Most people would give him their money because that is a better moral outcome than someone dying.

However, in the scenario where the universe is rewound and the outcome must turn out the same, that is indeed robbing us of our free will, because we are not able to do anything differently, or think anything differently.

And why would you want to do anything differently than what you yourself deliberately chose to do?

Determinism is you deciding for yourself what you will do. Determinism is also the guy with the gun forcing you to do what you don't want. Either way, the sequence of events will be deterministic, one thing causing the next, ad infinitum.

I can see why the guy with the gun would bother you. But determinism is not a guy with a gun. Most of the time, determinism is just you deciding for yourself what you will do.

How am I freely deciding what to do if it MUST be a particular outcome? At best, I only THINK I am deciding for myself.

The hard determinist has it backwards. The true illusion is the belief that reliable cause and effect is some king of boogeyman that robs us of our control and our freedom. Actually, that's more like a "delusion".

And it is a pretty perverse view of causation. Every freedom we have, to do anything at all, is enabled by reliable cause and effect. Reliable cause and effect is essentially the source of all our freedoms. It gives us the freedom to reliably cause the effects we want, like cooking breakfast.

But here is the rub: On the one hand, we are the prior causes of all of our deliberate acts. On the other hand, we ourselves are the reliable result of prior causes.

But being the result of prior causes does not mean that those causes can bypass us or cause us to do things without our knowledge and consent.

The only way that our prior causes can control our decisions is by first becoming an integral part of who and what we are right now. And, once they are us, then it remains the case that we are the true causes of our deliberate actions.

So, the notion that determinism changes anything is a delusion. And it is a delusion that is promoted and propagandized by the hard determinists.

You seem incapable of understanding my position, even though I have explained it in simple terms several times.

I understand your position. I simply disagree with it. And I'm explaining specifically how that position is incorrect.

What I am saying is that there are some things in the universe which are inherently unpredictable, and they render the future unpredictable. And even if we were to rewind the universe to some earlier point in time and let it play out again, the end result could be different.

As you may guess, my position is that the end result could be different, but that it would not be different.

It is this unpredictability that gives us free will, because that unpredictability means that things are not set in stone until they actually happen. The outcome is not fixed.

Free will only comes up when we are unable to predict in advance what we will choose to do. We don't know yet what we will order for dinner. We cannot predict the end result of our own choosing until we have finished choosing. That's the first time we will know for certain what we will order for dinner.

Determinism does not give anyone prescience. The "theoretical predictability" it assumes is not any kind of "practical predictability". So, for all practical purposes, determinism is pretty much useless.

Outcomes are not "fixed in advance". And they are certainly not "set in stone". I will entertain those metaphors with DBT because he seems to embrace them. But apparently you do not.

Causal necessity is simply the natural order of events, where prior events bring about current events, and current events bring about future events. We are events. A human life is a large event, made up of tons of small events. Events within our own minds can cause events in the reality outside our minds.

So, causal necessity is not an external force acting upon us. It is just as much us as it is anything else.

I have no doubt that you will ignore this as you have the last several times I tried to lay out my position, and you will just continue arguing with me.

That criticism is totally unfair. I have responded respectfully to the ideas you have presented. When I believe your position is in error, I go to great lengths to explain why I think they are incorrect. And I try to take into account that you are not responsible for your errors, because they are errors that have been simply handed down to you through the history of philosophy, particularly surrounding the issues of determinism and free will. My position of these issues is not what you're used to. I disagree with many of the traditional definitions of determinism and most of the implications that others have falsely attached to it. But, that's my problem, not yours.

Feel free to ignore my insights if you cannot digest them. But I will continue to offer them because I believe they are important to our understanding of these issues.

 

[Kylie]

Just to be clear. The "will" in free will is our specific "intention" for the future, whether immediate ("I will have the Chef Salad, please") or distant ("last will and testament").

When we choose what we will do, we set our intention upon doing something specific. The intent then motivates and directs our subsequent thoughts and actions until it is complete, or the process is interrupted.

For example, we decide that we will have dinner at the restaurant. That freely chosen intent then causes us to get in the car, drive to the restaurant, walk in, sit at a table, browse the menu, and place our order. The waiter brings us our dinner and the bill. The bill is the restaurant holding us responsible for our deliberate act (ordering that dinner).

That is what free will and responsibility are about.

Sorry, do you think that writing something in italics means it's true?

If the universe, when rewound, will end up the same, then we will end up with the same intentions. There is no avoiding having the same intentions. The intentions will be the same out of necessity.

Free will can not exist when the end result is what it is due to necessity.

 

[Kylie]

It is this unpredictability that gives us free will, because that unpredictability means that things are not set in stone until they actually happen. The outcome is not fixed.

That's not free will though. It's just unpredictability. No will is involved, by definition - will is an example of cause and effect.

If asked why you chose A rather than B, you either have reasons (causes that resulted in the effect); Or you don't - and we don't call doing things for no reason whatsoever 'will', we call it 'madness'.

Madness, madness, they call it madness
Well if this is madness
Then I know I'm filled with gladness
It's gonna be rougher
It's gonna be tougher
But I won't be the one who's gonna suffer

- Madness, Madness, 1979

But that unpredictability is what makes the outcome impossible to predict. It means that the outcome is NOT set in stone, it is NOT inevitable, and that whatever happens is NOT the one sequence of events that must necessarily happen. And since the outcome is not set in stone, it is flexible, and that is what is required for true free will.

 

[Kylie]

A person who hold a gun to my head and tells me to give him my money is not controlling my free will. I can still choose to not cooperate. All he is doing is providing a motivational effect. He is not FORCING the outcome.

The guy with the gun is forcing you to make a moral choice: "Is it better to die than to hand him my money?" Most people would give him their money because that is a better moral outcome than someone dying.

Irrelevant.

If there is a necessary outcome, then it will happen no matter what. It can't be changed, and thus I have no choice in the matter.

At best, I only THINK I have free choice. I have pointed this out many times now.

However, in the scenario where the universe is rewound and the outcome must turn out the same, that is indeed robbing us of our free will, because we are not able to do anything differently, or think anything differently.

And why would you want to do anything differently than what you yourself deliberately chose to do?

Determinism is you deciding for yourself what you will do. Determinism is also the guy with the gun forcing you to do what you don't want. Either way, the sequence of events will be deterministic, one thing causing the next, ad infinitum.

I can see why the guy with the gun would bother you. But determinism is not a guy with a gun. Most of the time, determinism is just you deciding for yourself what you will do.

You miss the point.

Doing anything differently is IMPOSSIBLE.

And that means no FREE choice.

And once again, I am not saying that free choice means that determinism is out the window. How many times do I have to say that before you finally realise that I'm saying it? Maybe my next post should just be me writing that over and over again in big multi-coloured letters.

How am I freely deciding what to do if it MUST be a particular outcome? At best, I only THINK I am deciding for myself.

The hard determinist has it backwards. The true illusion is the belief that reliable cause and effect is some king of boogeyman that robs us of our control and our freedom. Actually, that's more like a "delusion".

And it is a pretty perverse view of causation. Every freedom we have, to do anything at all, is enabled by reliable cause and effect. Reliable cause and effect is essentially the source of all our freedoms. It gives us the freedom to reliably cause the effects we want, like cooking breakfast.

But here is the rub: On the one hand, we are the prior causes of all of our deliberate acts. On the other hand, we ourselves are the reliable result of prior causes.

But being the result of prior causes does not mean that those causes can bypass us or cause us to do things without our knowledge and consent.

The only way that our prior causes can control our decisions is by first becoming an integral part of who and what we are right now. And, once they are us, then it remains the case that we are the true causes of our deliberate actions.

So, the notion that determinism changes anything is a delusion. And it is a delusion that is promoted and propagandized by the hard determinists.

Look, here we go again, running around in circles...

You seem incapable of understanding my position, even though I have explained it in simple terms several times.

I understand your position. I simply disagree with it. And I'm explaining specifically how that position is incorrect.

You are explaining nothing.

What you are doing is like saying, "It's a circle, but it's got four straight sides, and they all meet at right angles. I'm clearly explaining how a circle can be a square, why don't you get it? It's a circle with four straight sides of equal length! It's not that hard to understand!"

What I am saying is that there are some things in the universe which are inherently unpredictable, and they render the future unpredictable. And even if we were to rewind the universe to some earlier point in time and let it play out again, the end result could be different.

As you may guess, my position is that the end result could be different, but that it would not be different.

So if there's a 100% chance that it won't be different, on what basis do you say that it CAN be different?

It is this unpredictability that gives us free will, because that unpredictability means that things are not set in stone until they actually happen. The outcome is not fixed.

Free will only comes up when we are unable to predict in advance what we will choose to do. We don't know yet what we will order for dinner. We cannot predict the end result of our own choosing until we have finished choosing. That's the first time we will know for certain what we will order for dinner.

Determinism does not give anyone prescience. The "theoretical predictability" it assumes is not any kind of "practical predictability". So, for all practical purposes, determinism is pretty much useless.

Outcomes are not "fixed in advance". And they are certainly not "set in stone". I will entertain those metaphors with DBT because he seems to embrace them. But apparently you do not.

Causal necessity is simply the natural order of events, where prior events bring about current events, and current events bring about future events. We are events. A human life is a large event, made up of tons of small events. Events within our own minds can cause events in the reality outside our minds.

So, causal necessity is not an external force acting upon us. It is just as much us as it is anything else.

Don't tell me that the outcomes are not set in stone when you literally just said, "my position is that the end result could be different, but that it would not be different."

I have no doubt that you will ignore this as you have the last several times I tried to lay out my position, and you will just continue arguing with me.

That criticism is totally unfair. I have responded respectfully to the ideas you have presented. When I believe your position is in error, I go to great lengths to explain why I think they are incorrect. And I try to take into account that you are not responsible for your errors, because they are errors that have been simply handed down to you through the history of philosophy, particularly surrounding the issues of determinism and free will. My position of these issues is not what you're used to. I disagree with many of the traditional definitions of determinism and most of the implications that others have falsely attached to it. But, that's my problem, not yours.

Feel free to ignore my insights if you cannot digest them. But I will continue to offer them because I believe they are important to our understanding of these issues.

As I've said, you have explained nothing. You simply reassert your position.

Asserting your position is not explaining your position.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

If the universe, when rewound, will end up the same, then we will end up with the same intentions. There is no avoiding having the same intentions. The intentions will be the same out of necessity.

But the intentions, on every iteration, will still be those you chose for yourself, while free of coercion and undue influence.

You will, of course, have a history of prior causes that result in who and what you are at the time of you make your choice. Among these prior causes of you, will be your own prior choices throughout your life. But it is you, and not the prior causes of you, that will be held responsible for what you choose to do today.

Free will can not exist when the end result is what it is due to necessity.

Again, if it was necessary that you would choose for yourself what you would do, then how is that any different than what you are doing and experiencing already?

Necessity is just as much you as it is anything else. Try to stop seeing necessity as some kind of external force making you do things that you would rather not do. That is not how universal causal necessity/inevitability actually works.

Oh, by the way, we are embodiments of the laws of nature. Everything we do is already consistent with those laws, including all of our choices. And when we act, we are forces of nature.

 

[Marvin Edwards]

A person who hold a gun to my head and tells me to give him my money is not controlling my free will. I can still choose to not cooperate. All he is doing is providing a motivational effect. He is not FORCING the outcome.

The guy with the gun is forcing you to make a moral choice: "Is it better to die than to hand him my money?" Most people would give him their money because that is a better moral outcome than someone dying.

Irrelevant.

If there is a necessary outcome, then it will happen no matter what. It can't be changed, and thus I have no choice in the matter.

At best, I only THINK I have free choice. I have pointed this out many times now.

However, in the scenario where the universe is rewound and the outcome must turn out the same, that is indeed robbing us of our free will, because we are not able to do anything differently, or think anything differently.

And why would you want to do anything differently than what you yourself deliberately chose to do?

Determinism is you deciding for yourself what you will do. Determinism is also the guy with the gun forcing you to do what you don't want. Either way, the sequence of events will be deterministic, one thing causing the next, ad infinitum.

I can see why the guy with the gun would bother you. But determinism is not a guy with a gun. Most of the time, determinism is just you deciding for yourself what you will do.

You miss the point.

Doing anything differently is IMPOSSIBLE.

And that means no FREE choice.

And once again, I am not saying that free choice means that determinism is out the window. How many times do I have to say that before you finally realise that I'm saying it? Maybe my next post should just be me writing that over and over again in big multi-coloured letters.

How am I freely deciding what to do if it MUST be a particular outcome? At best, I only THINK I am deciding for myself.

The hard determinist has it backwards. The true illusion is the belief that reliable cause and effect is some king of boogeyman that robs us of our control and our freedom. Actually, that's more like a "delusion".

And it is a pretty perverse view of causation. Every freedom we have, to do anything at all, is enabled by reliable cause and effect. Reliable cause and effect is essentially the source of all our freedoms. It gives us the freedom to reliably cause the effects we want, like cooking breakfast.

But here is the rub: On the one hand, we are the prior causes of all of our deliberate acts. On the other hand, we ourselves are the reliable result of prior causes.

But being the result of prior causes does not mean that those causes can bypass us or cause us to do things without our knowledge and consent.

The only way that our prior causes can control our decisions is by first becoming an integral part of who and what we are right now. And, once they are us, then it remains the case that we are the true causes of our deliberate actions.

So, the notion that determinism changes anything is a delusion. And it is a delusion that is promoted and propagandized by the hard determinists.

Look, here we go again, running around in circles...

You seem incapable of understanding my position, even though I have explained it in simple terms several times.

I understand your position. I simply disagree with it. And I'm explaining specifically how that position is incorrect.

You are explaining nothing.

What you are doing is like saying, "It's a circle, but it's got four straight sides, and they all meet at right angles. I'm clearly explaining how a circle can be a square, why don't you get it? It's a circle with four straight sides of equal length! It's not that hard to understand!"

What I am saying is that there are some things in the universe which are inherently unpredictable, and they render the future unpredictable. And even if we were to rewind the universe to some earlier point in time and let it play out again, the end result could be different.

As you may guess, my position is that the end result could be different, but that it would not be different.

So if there's a 100% chance that it won't be different, on what basis do you say that it CAN be different?

It is this unpredictability that gives us free will, because that unpredictability means that things are not set in stone until they actually happen. The outcome is not fixed.

Free will only comes up when we are unable to predict in advance what we will choose to do. We don't know yet what we will order for dinner. We cannot predict the end result of our own choosing until we have finished choosing. That's the first time we will know for certain what we will order for dinner.

Determinism does not give anyone prescience. The "theoretical predictability" it assumes is not any kind of "practical predictability". So, for all practical purposes, determinism is pretty much useless.

Outcomes are not "fixed in advance". And they are certainly not "set in stone". I will entertain those metaphors with DBT because he seems to embrace them. But apparently you do not.

Causal necessity is simply the natural order of events, where prior events bring about current events, and current events bring about future events. We are events. A human life is a large event, made up of tons of small events. Events within our own minds can cause events in the reality outside our minds.

So, causal necessity is not an external force acting upon us. It is just as much us as it is anything else.

Don't tell me that the outcomes are not set in stone when you literally just said, "my position is that the end result could be different, but that it would not be different."

I have no doubt that you will ignore this as you have the last several times I tried to lay out my position, and you will just continue arguing with me.

That criticism is totally unfair. I have responded respectfully to the ideas you have presented. When I believe your position is in error, I go to great lengths to explain why I think they are incorrect. And I try to take into account that you are not responsible for your errors, because they are errors that have been simply handed down to you through the history of philosophy, particularly surrounding the issues of determinism and free will. My position of these issues is not what you're used to. I disagree with many of the traditional definitions of determinism and most of the implications that others have falsely attached to it. But, that's my problem, not yours.

Feel free to ignore my insights if you cannot digest them. But I will continue to offer them because I believe they are important to our understanding of these issues.

As I've said, you have explained nothing. You simply reassert your position.

Asserting your position is not explaining your position.

Okay. I would say we're done here.

 

[bilby]

It is this unpredictability that gives us free will, because that unpredictability means that things are not set in stone until they actually happen. The outcome is not fixed.

That's not free will though. It's just unpredictability. No will is involved, by definition - will is an example of cause and effect.

If asked why you chose A rather than B, you either have reasons (causes that resulted in the effect); Or you don't - and we don't call doing things for no reason whatsoever 'will', we call it 'madness'.

Madness, madness, they call it madness
Well if this is madness
Then I know I'm filled with gladness
It's gonna be rougher
It's gonna be tougher
But I won't be the one who's gonna suffer

- Madness, Madness, 1979

But that unpredictability is what makes the outcome impossible to predict.

Unpredictability, yes.

It means that the outcome is NOT set in stone, it is NOT inevitable, and that whatever happens is NOT the one sequence of events that must necessarily happen.

No, it just means it cannot be predicted. That's ALL unpredictability means. It doesn't entail any of this other stuff.

And since the outcome is not set in stone, it is flexible, and that is what is required for true free will.

No, what's required for free will is that the reasons that inevitably lead to your decisions are your own, and not someone else's.

The absence of reasons would simply be madness.

It's completely irrelevant whether the reasons are inescapable and fixed, or whether they are probabilistic; As you only get one go at each decision, these are indistinguishable scenarios.

But there are always reasons. So the existence of free will to apply those reasons when making choices is assuredly not due to the absence of reasons, or the absence of causality.

 

[Kylie]

If the universe, when rewound, will end up the same, then we will end up with the same intentions. There is no avoiding having the same intentions. The intentions will be the same out of necessity.

But the intentions, on every iteration, will still be those you chose for yourself, while free of coercion and undue influence.

You will, of course, have a history of prior causes that result in who and what you are at the time of you make your choice. Among these prior causes of you, will be your own prior choices throughout your life. But it is you, and not the prior causes of you, that will be held responsible for what you choose to do today.

How can you say they are free of influence when they are by necessity going to be the same each time?

Free will can not exist when the end result is what it is due to necessity.

Again, if it was necessary that you would choose for yourself what you would do, then how is that any different than what you are doing and experiencing already?

You seem to be determined to miss my point.

If what happens is happening by necessity, then we do not have free will, since we can not choose to do anything different.

And don't even think about quibbling over CAN vs WILL, you know exactly what I mean.

Necessity is just as much you as it is anything else. Try to stop seeing necessity as some kind of external force making you do things that you would rather not do. That is not how universal causal necessity/inevitability actually works.

Necessity prevents anything different from happening. If it is impossible for anything different to happen, then we do not have free will.

 

[Kylie]

It means that the outcome is NOT set in stone, it is NOT inevitable, and that whatever happens is NOT the one sequence of events that must necessarily happen.

No, it just means it cannot be predicted. That's ALL unpredictability means. It doesn't entail any of this other stuff.

Yes it does.

If unpredictability still allows for the universe to be rewound and then played again, then an outside observer could remember the outcome and then introduce that knowledge.

For example...

The outside observer ("OO" for short) watches the week play out from Monday to Friday. OO sees that on Friday I will wear my black pants to work, and that while I am at work, the pants split, causing me embarrassment. OO rewinds the universe to Monday, and provides me with information that says, "Kylie, don't wear the black pants to work on Friday because they will split. You should wear the beige pants instead."

Now, if you are correct, then somehow, it is necessary that I wear the black pants to work on Friday. I can not choose to wear the beige pants instead, despite the warning I have received. After all, the split pants outcome is set in stone, it's the inevitable outcome, it's the event that must necessarily happen. It can't be changed. No matter what, I'll be wearing the black pants and they will split and I'll be embarrassed. So I do not have free choice. It's like listening to a recording of some music. It will always be exactly the same. The flautist will always be a little sharp on the high F.

What other solutions could there be? Let's say I decide to wear the beige pants. I have free choice, but now the outcome is different. No problem here. OO could still have seen the black pants split on the first run through, but if the outcome is not set in stone, then I'm free to change it the second time around. This is like listening to a live performance. Even if it's the same players, they can still do it differently each time they play it.