Free will and determinism

[durangodawood]

We've been through this routine before. Your effort to semantically shoehorn in the passive voice again misses the point. Who determines one's beliefs, values and goals?

Im just trying to not break the principle of cause-effect.

In this view, efforts to improve ones self have causes that precede them. These causes are generally suffering and dissatisfaction. You notice that base appetites only provide a very fleeting sense of pleasure. You notice that you hunger for meaning. Etc. And so you seek solutions, often looking toward whatever wisdom tradition is at hand in your culture.

The impulse to self improve does not just come from no-cause, from nothing. It has causes that precede it in time, just like anything else.

 

[o_mlly]

And so you seek solutions, often looking toward whatever wisdom tradition is at hand in your culture.

How did those "wisdom traditions" come to be "at hand"? Who creatively (originally) proposed that piece of wisdom tradition now offered to you? How did they come by it?

And after reflection (using one's own reason), one freely chooses to integrate or reject the proposed wisdom.

I reject the wisdom of atheism and embrace the wisdom of Judeo-Christianity.

And, exactly who gave you your goals? No matter how hard you try, you cannot take yourself out as the active cause of your present beliefs, values and goals.

 

[durangodawood]

How did those "wisdom traditions" come to be "at hand"? Who creatively (originally) proposed that piece of wisdom tradition now offered to you? How did they come by it?

And after reflection (using one's own reason), one freely chooses to integrate or reject the proposed wisdom.

I reject the wisdom of atheism and embrace the wisdom of Judeo-Christianity.

And, exactly who gave you your goals? No matter how hard you try, you cannot take yourself out as the active cause of your present beliefs, values and goals.

The presence, or lack, of access to wisdom traditions in my life also has prior causes. Its doesnt just happen to be the case for no reason.

More to the point: every step in our acts of reflection, acts of engaging reason is, strictly speaking, an event. Events occur for reasons, conditions, that precede them. The alternative is: this mental event happens for no-reason, which is randomness or arbitrariness.

The string of these deliberative mental events is what we call "making a decision". But there's no point in this string when it "could have gone the other way" because the preceding conditions in every instance were a certain way and not any other. And if theres only one possible outcome, we need to ask ourselves: does that comport with what we think of as a "free will" decision?

(I should note, I'm not interested in "winning" this discussion or anything like that. I'm genuinely curious about precisely where the error in this view, if there is one, might be.)

 

[Bradskii]

You are not following my argument. I'll lay it out step by step again for you. My position is not compatibilist, or non-compatibilist, or libertarian despite your repeated attempts to label those as the only possible choices.

There's a lot of literature out there. From the last two thousand years plus. Have a dig around and see if there's a position on free will that doesn't match those three positions.

The choices are pretty obvious. Regarding free will, your first decision is to decide if the universe is determinate or not. If it's not then you are a libertarian. There's no choice about that. You are libertarian by definition. You make decisions that are not determined by anything. If there was any cause then you wouldn't be a libertarian. Your only other choice, as you are convinced there is free will, is compatibilism. That is, the free will you think you have is compatible with a determinate universe.

• The rational being (me) has the ability through reason to accept or deny the impulses of my bodily appetites. My passions do not control my choices. I do.
• Of course, that does not mean that the passion is eliminated (I'm still hungry, even though I've decided to fast as I think that that is good),
• The passion is unwilled. The moral man moves the passion or feeling to his intellect for confirmation that the desire delivers a real good.

They are all first order wants. You want an ice cream. You want to go to the pub. You don't want to go to work. Those aren't rational choices. They are simply preferences. We're interested in them only as a prompt for making those rational choices.

• One might say in the moments the passion is felt and before the intellect decides, that an under-determined choice goes to the intellect for approval or rejection.
• If approved by the intellect, the passion is perfected, and I determine to choose to act on the impulse.
• If rejected by the intellect, the passion is dismissed, and I determine to choose not to act on the impulse.

I'll note that you have your intellect and some 'I' as separate entities. As two separate parts of the process. Your intellect approves something and then 'you' determine to choose to act on that. And if the intellect rejects it then 'you' determine not to act. I'll skip the obvious point that you are your intellect and there's not some part of the brain which is 'you' idly twiddling his thumbs waiting for the intellect to make up its mind.

I'll also note that we are discussing free will. Not free acts. It's the decision to act that we're interested in. The will to act. Whether you made it freely or whether is was determined.

That said, it's indisputable that whatever decision your intellect made, you are saying that it was the cause of you determining the choice.

Now this intellect is yours. Nobody else's. It's the one that you have now. But it's not the one you had a few years ago. Not the one you had when you were a child. It's developed. It has matured. It wasn't fixed. The decisions you made when you were six weren't the same ones you made when you were sixteen. Which were different to the ones you made when you were 36. And at each stage they'd be different to the guy who steals your wallet.

You wouldn't steal a wallet, but he would. That's a significant difference. Your intellect rejects the act. And his intellect approves it. His intellect is the cause of him deciding to steal it. Yours is the cause of you not doing so.

So let's look at the reasons why. Why his intellect is different. Which isn't going to take us long. It's because, and excuse me from being so obvious, he's a different person. His genetic make up is different, his mother was an alcoholic when she was pregnant, his father sexually assaulted him. He had hardly any education. He was brought up in a refugee camp. His diet was dismal. His life has been extremely violent. He has a low IQ. His ACE scores are off the chart. Nothing went right for him. He drew the shortest of short straws.

You didn't. And that's why his intellect, the cause of him approving the act of stealing your wallet, is different. Because of conditions over which neither of you had control. Causes beyond your control.

Should the guy who stole your wallet not have done so? Why or why not?
You catch the guy who took your wallet red-handed. Do you demand he give it back? Why or why not?
You demand and he refuses to give your wallet back to you? What do you do?
Should the police prosecute the thief? Why or why not?

He shouldn't have stolen my wallet because it was mine. If everyone simply takes what they want, society collapses. So it's a good idea not to do that.

If I catch him, then yeah, I'd like it back. Because it's mine, not his. If he doesn't, then if I haven't already then I call the police. If he does then I might not.

If I have called them then they'll charge him. It acts as a deterrence for other like minded people. His sentence will depend on whether we think the threat of jail perhaps will change his mind about theft. If not then we need to be protected from him. Just make sure he knows that if he keeps on stealing and we keep on catching him then we'll keep on locking him up until he stops.

 

[Bradskii]

We've been through this routine before. Your effort to semantically shoehorn in the passive voice again misses the point. Who determines one's beliefs, values and goals?

That would be 'what' not 'who'. I listed a few 'whats' above.

Did the fact that you grew up in a Christian society in the 20th century have anything to do with your beliefs? Didn't your parents have something to do with instilling values? Aren't your education and your physical abilities part of what determines your goals?

If you grew up in China in the 1st century, would you have the same beliefs as you do now? If your mother died in childbirth and your father ran a crime syndicate, would your values be the same? If your IQ was in the 70s and you were short sighted and 5 foot tall, would your goals in life be different to a guy with genius level IQ and physically perfect?

Obviously not.

 

[Bradskii]

I reject the wisdom of atheism and embrace the wisdom of Judeo-Christianity.

There's an obvious question. What was the cause of you embracing Christianity?

 

[Hans Blaster]

I reject the wisdom of atheism and embrace the wisdom of Judeo-Christianity.

"Atheism" isn't a philosophical or dogmatic system. It doesn't have any body of "wisdom" associated.

Judaism and Christianity are two things that are not the same and do not mash together.

 

[Bradskii]

"Atheism" isn't a philosophical or dogmatic system. It doesn't have any body of "wisdom" associated.

Judaism and Christianity are two things that are not the same and do not mash together.

It must have been 'reject the wisdom of atheists...'

 

[stevil]

But if free will is defined as the ability to make decisions that are not determined by prior events and we could rerun the last hour exactly as it happened and make a different decision, then something actually needs to be different. But rerunning it exactly as it happened means that nothing is different.

The universe at the macro level is consistently accurate and predictable. If you know the forces and chemistry in play then you can calculate what will happen next.
Living things and especially things that can make choices and can move, these give the illusion of free will.
But the conscious mind does not exist abstract from the physical brain.
The mind is simply the consequence of physical changes in a physical brain. If we knew all the physical forces and the chemistry going on we could accuratly predict what will happen next.

but the spanner in the works is that at the micro level, the quantum level, our universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic. There is a probability that an atom will radioactivity decay, there is a probability of where the electron will be next, we cannot calculate with certainty these things even with full knowledge of the current state. It comes down to random chance. Not something we can control. If there is a god it spends every nano second rolling dice.

So if we were to rewind time and press play again it may play differently to the first run. Not because we are free to make different choices but because "god's" dice rolls may be different this time.

So free will cannot be compatible with determinism. And if existence is deterministic then free will is an illusion.

If existence Is deterministic and/or probabilistic then free will is an illusion

 

[Bradskii]

The universe at the macro level is consistently accurate and predictable. If you know the forces and chemistry in play then you can calculate what will happen next.

but the spanner in the works is that at the micro level, the quantum level, our universe is probabilistic rather than deterministic. There is a probability that an atom will radioactivity decay, there is a probability of where the electron will be next, we cannot calculate with certainty these things even with full knowledge of the current state.

I think it generally accepted that at a very deep level (it may the lowest level of all) the universe experiences quantum indeterminism. But at the macro level (and I mean at least from atoms and upwards) it's Newtonian. And that the indeterminacy doesn't filter up to affect the macro world. It smears out to give a consistency. There is a pen on the table in front of me and it will remain a pen for the foreseeable future. Its constituent chemicals, molecules and atoms all obey natural laws. Schrodinger's cat might be both dead and alive until you actually open the box, but my pen isn't in a box and it's not going to change into a pencil.

So the processes whereby the brain operates all operate according to natural laws. Chemical, physical and electrical. Dig really deep and you might find some fuzziness - just like the edge of a razor looks like a mountain ridge under an electron microscope. But we still describe that razor as sharp and it will still slice through your flesh. The billiard ball might look like a crater covered moonscape under the same microscope, but it still obeys Newtonian physics.

But what if that indeterminacy actually did, somehow, bubble up? What does a neuronal process then come down to, if not natural laws?

It comes down to random chance.

Exactly. And free will doesn't live there.

Not something we can control. If there is a god it spends every nano second rolling dice.

And as Albert said - He doesn't play dice...

If existence Is deterministic and/or probabilistic then free will is an illusion

I keep asking for an event that had no cause (skipping quantum effects for the reasons given). None has been presented. And this is not the case of 'there's a black swan, all swans must be black'. There has never been a white swan seen. I'd even accept an imaginary one. That is, someone could make up a scenario when an event happened without a cause. Otherwise...

 

[stevil]

I think it generally accepted that at a very deep level (it may the lowest level of all) the universe experiences quantum indeterminism.

Well, we can't take everything for granted. Many people don't know much about science. Some people even think the quantum "indeterminism" might give room for a consciousness to be controlling things by will power, but they don't necessarily realise it is purely random and accurately measured by well known probabilities.

But at the macro level (and I mean at least from atoms and upwards) it's Newtonian.

No. The quantum affects the macro. They aren't two totally separate things. They are two views of the same thing.
We can know that a 1 kg bar of Uranium 238 after 4.5 billion years will only be 0.5 kg of Uranium + Thorium-234 + Protactinium-234 + other stuff, until eventually Lead.

But we can't know when each specific atom will decay. It's random. But now 4.5 billion years later, in the Macro world we see only half as much Uranium.

And that the indeterminacy doesn't filter up to affect the macro world.

I don't know how delicate the workings of the brain are. We know that a star wouldn't shine without quantum tunnelling. The star depends on quantum effects to be a star. Within the brain, no doubt many quantum level things are happening e.g. where each electron is at a particular point in time. The elections are negatively charged and exert an electromagnetic force. Surely these impact the goings on in the brain and impact choices the mind thinks it has made.
IDK, but as a guess I would think that if you rewound time and hit play again, things just might play out differently. If the brain is delicate and sensitive to quantum goings on. It certainly wouldn't surprise me if things played out differently. (The butterfly effect and all)

It smears out to give a consistency.

Yes, like on the scope of a Star, we can know how quickly atoms will merge and the rate the star will use up fuel.
But a brain is far more sophisticated and delicate, a very slight and subtle change might mean that the person says 4 rather than 3 when asked to pick a random number between 1 and 10. IDK (I'm just making this stuff up, but I am open to the possibility)

There is a pen on the table in front of me and it will remain a pen for the foreseeable future. Its constituent chemicals, molecules and atoms all obey natural laws.

Yes, everything obeys the fundamental laws and forces. There are only 4 forces, Gravity, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear. There are no other forces. Everything in the macro world obeys these forces. There is no mind force to consider in any equation that works out what will happen next. We won't say that this electron will move to this neuron because this mind wills it to. We will simply calculate all the forces and perhaps include the quantum probabilities and that will give you your answer.

So the processes whereby the brain operates all operate according to natural laws. Chemical, physical and electrical.

At the macro level.
But also things going on at the quantum probabalistic level. e.g. the exact position an electron will be as it "orbits" an atom.

Dig really deep and you might find some fuzziness

Yes, and from this fuzzines we might get different choices made by the "mind" if we are able to rewind time and press play again.
Who knows?

Exactly. And free will doesn't live there.

Yes, no room for free will

And as Albert said - He doesn't play dice...

Einstein really did struggle to accept quantum mechanics. I don't blame him.
In my opinion (I'm not saying I know better than Einstein) I see that "god" only rolls dice, everything else is determinstic from that. But the quantum doesn't happen in a thought out or designed way, it faithfully follows the probabilities, any thumb on the scale would throw out science.

I keep asking for an event that had no cause (skipping quantum effects for the reasons given). None has been presented. And this is not the case of 'there's a black swan, all swans must be black'. There has never been a white swan seen. I'd even accept an imaginary one. That is, someone could make up a scenario when an event happened without a cause. Otherwise...

Yeah, well, the believers are still going to believe their is a supernatural soul pulling on the levers to control the body.
Problem gets worse then when you consider then, is a soul good or bad, and who is it that decided whether a person would get a good soul or a bad soul?

 

[Bradskii]

Yeah, well, the believers are still going to believe their is a supernatural soul pulling on the levers to control the body.
Problem gets worse then when you consider then, is a soul good or bad, and who is it that decided whether a person would get a good soul or a bad soul?

Nobody has mentioned it so far. So I have no idea what anyone who believes that they have one thinks about its relationship with a free will. How I'd address it I'm not sure. It might be difficult talking to someone about something I don't think they have affecting something I don't think exists...

 

[o_mlly]

Regarding free will, your first decision is to decide if the universe is determinate or not.

Sounds like a good example of free will in practice. And, as this is the first decision, then I am in charge of the entire process.

I'll note that you have your intellect and some 'I' as separate entities.

The artificial separation was only to enable the detailed step by step explanation of the free will process. I and my intellect are one.

That said, it's indisputable that whatever decision your intellect made, you are saying that it was the cause of you determining the choice.

As I am my intellect, by substitution we have, "I am the cause of me determining my choice." Awkward, but you get the point.

But it's not the one you had a few years ago.

We've been over this before. (See above for what "it" is.) One's character as evidenced by their beliefs, values and goals are remote to the proximate act. They can and do change but not likely in the moment.

His genetic make up is different, his mother was an alcoholic ...

We've been over this before as well. Remember, he had acne as well. Externalities affect our dispositions but they do not determine our choices.

He shouldn't have stolen my wallet because it was mine.

"Should not"? That would be a moral imperative. But in your mindset, there is no morality.

If everyone simply takes what they want, society collapses. ....

I call the police. ... they'll charge him. It acts as a deterrence for other like minded people.

So, the police need to deter thievery to save society from collapse. So the cops know that this guy did not steal your wallet but he found it on the street. But they must deter other like minded people so they frame him and put him in prison. Presto -- like minded people are deterred. Anything wrong with that?

If you grew up in China in the 1st century, would you have the same beliefs as you do now? If your mother died in childbirth and your father ran a crime syndicate, would your values be the same? If your IQ was in the 70s and you were short sighted and 5 foot tall, would your goals in life be different to a guy with genius level IQ and physically perfect?

What about his acne? Asked and answered quite a few times now.

 

[Bradskii]

The artificial separation was only to enable the detailed step by step explanation of the free will process. I and my intellect are one. As I am my intellect, by substitution we have, "I am the cause of me determining my choice." Awkward, but you get the point.

So there is just the one 'you'. Consisting of your character, your beliefs, your intellect, your goals, your values, your temperament, your intelligence etc etc. Everything that goes to make 'you' who you are. No problem there.

We've been over this before. (See above for what "it" is.) One's character as evidenced by their beliefs, values and goals are remote to the proximate act. They can and do change but not likely in the moment.

We've been over this before as well. Remember, he had acne as well. Externalities affect our dispositions but they do not determine our choices.

You are saying that your beliefs, values and goals have nothing to do with the choices that you make? But note this point by Durangodawood...

'That process (of making a decision) simply follows from a desire "higher" than passions or appetites that you bring to the table...'

...suggesting that the process is determined by second order (or 'higher') facilities, as opposed to a more instinctive passion or appetite. So you value your health more than you want a cigarette. You value a friendship more that you desire to say something hurtful. Your long term goal of losing weight supersedes your short term goal of buying another ice cream. And you responded:

'Who determines one's beliefs, values and goals?'

You thought it was yourself that determined each of those. But you are very clearly saying that those second order facilities (self formed in your opinion) are instrumental to you making decisions. There is quite clearly a contradiction there. Yet again. I've already questioned the matter of where your beliefs, values and goals could have arisen. And you haven't directly addressed it (apart from wondering about the impact of skin conditions). Why not do so now to save me asking again.

"Should not"? That would be a moral imperative. But in your mindset, there is no morality.

I've already explained that free will has nothing to do with understanding if something is considered wrong. You can know that something is wrong, yet still do it. You can't seem to get your head around that. Morals (a standard of accepted good or bad behaviour) and moral responsibility (blame and praise for acts that are either good or bad) aren't the same thing.

You seem to be pushing a barrow holding an argument that says that a realisation that free will doesn't exist comes with a concomitant belief that right and wrong are equally non existent. Nobody has ever suggested that or will suggest that. You can stop pushing it now.

 

[o_mlly]

You are saying that your beliefs, values and goals have nothing to do with the choices that you make?

No. ? Just posted the opposite. To avoid the strawman argument, read what I posted and then use the forum's quote facility to cite me.

Since your strawman premise contradicts me, I dismiss the rest of your argument. (We've also been here before. How many times have you resorted to a strawman argument to push your agenda?)

I've already questioned the matter of where your beliefs, values and goals could have arisen.

The same way those who have the normal faculty of reason operate. Exposure, or creative thinking, followed by reflection and then freely deciding to accept or reject those ideas. If, and only if, accepted, that which was external is now internalized.

Morals (a standard of accepted good or bad behaviour) and moral responsibility (blame and praise for acts that are either good or bad) aren't the same thing.

Nope. If behavior is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy then that behavior cannot be deemed good nor bad nor right nor wrong. The inevitable act has no moral meaning.

In your scheme, the only measure of the act is its usefulness to sustain society. Sounds like strict utilitarianism. You did not explain why the act of imprisoning an innocent man which certainly does deter the "like-minded thieves" is wrong. The consequence has the desired utility. Or do you to be consistent, think it is a good act?

We've been here before as well. Since this is now merely you repeating your arguments, I think I'll summarize for you.

You want to believe in fatalism. Why? Doing so relieves you of the moral responsibility for your acts, claiming, "I just could not have done otherwise!"

Through atheism, you attempt to escape the authority of the Transcendent. Through fatalism you attempt to escape from human freedom. Do your arguments even convince yourself? Apparently not, you still feel that you have free will. If you were convinced, your mind and your feeling would be in harmony. Read some more books.

What a dreary life determinists must live. Rather than live, they think they are lived. No drama in that. The unexamined life is just not worth living.

 

[o_mlly]

"Atheism" ... doesn't have any body of "wisdom" associated.

Ending on a happy note, we agree.

(I dismiss the second sentence of your post as uninformed nonsense.)

 

[Bradskii]

No. ? Just posted the opposite. To avoid the strawman argument, read what I posted and then use the forum's quote facility to cite me.

'One's character as evidenced by their beliefs, values and goals are remote to the proximate act.'

I already quoted you saying that. You are dismissing beliefs, values and goals as not relevant to the decision making process. How else is one to read that statement? They are 'remote to the proximate act'. And when I ask how those facilities could have arisen, you go on to say:

The same way those who have the normal faculty of reason operate. Exposure, or creative thinking, followed by reflection and then freely deciding to accept or reject those ideas.

So you are telling me where you think those facilities - beliefs, values and goals actually come from that determine your choices. And exposure is the relevant term. You have, by virtue of being exposed to certain events, to certain conditions, reached your decisions. They are the reasons for your decisions. As you say, you reflect on them, and choose. And whatever your decision is, it is caused by one of those antecedent conditions. You can't reflect on anything in a vacuum. You can't decide anything in a vacuum.

And if those conditions were different then your choices would be different. If you had an IQ of 70 then you'd make different decisions. If you were born in ancient China then you'd make different decisions. If you grew up in a refugee camp you'd make different decisions.

Just consider your position at the moment. Whatever job you do, you decided to pursue that career. Your religion was chosen by you. Where you live was chosen by you. Whatever car you drive was chosen by you. All for good reasons. Which you could no doubt relate. You could step us through the process whereby you made those decisions. Now consider what would have needed to change for you to make a different decision on any of those matters. Mentally consider a situation, an event, a condition, at any time that would result in a different outcome. Got that in your head? You should have - it's ridiculously easy. Good.

Now tell me why you'd make a different decision if nothing changed.

Nope. If behavior is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy then that behavior cannot be deemed good nor bad nor right nor wrong. The inevitable act has no moral meaning.

If someone helps an old lady who has fallen over then is that a good thing? It obviously is. But hey, it was me. And I don't think free will exists. And I remind myself of that fact (it's hard to live without the sense that we have it) and so I recognise that I shouldn't receive praise. Is the act now not a good thing?

 

[durangodawood]

....You could step us through the process whereby you made those decisions. Now consider what would have needed to change for you to make a different decision on any of those matters. Mentally consider a situation, an event, a condition, at any time that would result in a different outcome. Got that in your head? You should have - it's ridiculously easy. Good.

Now tell me why you'd make a different decision if nothing changed......

Yeah, where's the latitude for you to embark on a different course of action when your character, your capabilities, your history, and external conditions are what they are at the decisions making time?
'
If you cannot do differently, thats such a constrained notion of will that you could hardly call it "free".

 

[Hans Blaster]

Ending on a happy note, we agree.

Only, it would seem, because you still think "atheism" is a sort of philosophy and I have just admitted it is one without wisdom. It is not philosophy.

(I dismiss the second sentence of your post as uninformed nonsense.)

There is not such religion as Judeo-Christianity. Your original claim was nonsense.

 

[o_mlly]

Beware: Dog(s) with a bone.

Anyone who gets angry at his car for not starting needs serious help. And we hope they get it.

Here's a tip. Add Erich Fromm's "Escape From Freedom" to your reading list. Some say a closet atheist, Fromm was a noted psychoanalyst and social philosopher. His thoughts can help you out with your problem.

From the book:

“Escape from Freedom attempts to show, modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton.”​