A challenge to show me wrong

[Willamena]

If the pieces aren't fitting together, that it may be them that's the problem, but I would suggest it's this other piece that's the bigger problem:

There are only two ways actions take place; completely randomly, or caused.

That's the piece that is trying to squeeze the other pieces together.

 

[doppelganger]

I think that's the best position.

Now will you have the chicken or the meatloaf for dinner?

Both. Are they not compatible?

 

[idav]

I have no choice but to conclude free will is a useful illusion.

Nice paradox. Your caused to believe free will is an illusion but use the illusion to seemingly cause things yourself. I doubt someone who believed in hard determinism would just live life by letting the chips fall wherever without attempting an active decisions. Why make a decision if I'm not the cause of the decision?

 

[Skwim]

If the pieces aren't fitting together, that it may be them that's the problem, but I would suggest it's this other piece that's the bigger problem:

That's the piece that is trying to squeeze the other pieces together.

The reason I didn't phrase this as an "either/or" statement; 'There are only two ways actions can possibly take place; either entirely randomly, or entirely caused," is because at the subatomic level it appears that true, uncaused randomness does occur.

 

[PolyHedral]

Nice paradox. Your caused to believe free will is an illusion but use the illusion to seemingly cause things yourself. I doubt someone who believed in hard determinism would just live life by letting the chips fall wherever without attempting an active decisions. Why make a decision if I'm not the cause of the decision?

Determinism includes active decisions. Lots of people seem to be either forgetting or ignoring this. The tenet of determinism is that these decisions are still in the chain of causality, not that they're not "yours" in all useful ways.

 

[idav]

The reason I didn't phrase this as an "either/or" statement; 'There are only two ways actions can possibly take place; either entirely randomly, or entirely caused," is because at the subatomic level it appears that true, uncaused randomness does occur.

So you mean caused or uncaused?

 

[Skwim]

So you mean caused or uncaused?

Caused. If an action lacks cause then the only way I see it happening is by utter randomness: it could just as well not occur as occur.

 

[Willamena]

Determinism includes active decisions. Lots of people seem to be either forgetting or ignoring this. The tenet of determinism is that these decisions are still in the chain of causality, not that they're not "yours" in all useful ways.

Right; determinism (at least the popular version) takes "you" out of the picture.

 

[Willamena]

Caused. If an action lacks cause then the only way I see it happening is by utter randomness: it could just as well not occur as occur.

Both "randomness" and "cause" are observational phenomenon.

 

[doppelganger]

Nice paradox. Your caused to believe free will is an illusion but use the illusion to seemingly cause things yourself. I doubt someone who believed in hard determinism would just live life by letting the chips fall wherever without attempting an active decisions. Why make a decision if I'm not the cause of the decision?

Well, let's be clear. A strict determinist doesn't exist, because strict determinism necessarily denies the existential predicate of language => to say "free will" is an illusion is to say "I am" is an illusion.

The paradox is rather simply resolved by eliminating the habit in thought of equating "random" with "uncaused." My behavior in a given situation is the product of an infinitely or likely almost infinitely complex web of causal predicates, the most immediate of which are the activities of my neurology occurring completely outside the perception of conscious thought - the subconscious. This makes them unpredictable and uncertain before they have occurred. That does not make my behavior uncaused. In a given "choice" the entirety of the causal universe of which I am a part was such that the behaviors I manifest were always going to be what they were determined to be - and how I would view and determine them would, in turn, be a product of an infinite web of causes.

As an information system trying to make predictions from incomplete information, thought cannot account for enough of that web of causes to eliminate this appearance of "randomness." Once the mistake is made of severing "randomness" from uncertainty and projecting randomness as an attribute of reality rather than an attribute of information about reality, it necessarily follows that uncaused phantoms arise - i.e. the will, intelligent design, an implicate order to the Universe.

An information system that has a place in reality for free will as a thing in itself is fundamentally theistic.

 

[blackout]

*Raises up I'Mage'inary Sword!*

*Wills to Become in her Own I'm'age!*

*WerShapes the I'doll of her name's sake*

*Embraces her Luster*

*Defines her Purpose*




*Casts her Fate to the Wind....*

 

[idav]

Caused. If an action lacks cause then the only way I see it happening is by utter randomness: it could just as well not occur as occur.

I was thinking along the lines of a random occurrence being initiated just as those tests are initiated at the subatomic level showing randomness or unpredictability. So to say a random event has a cause for occurring though the result was an unknown.

 

[blackout]

[youtube]ADPgTmca6Zs[/youtube]
YouTube - ‪"Cast Your Fate to the Wind" Vince Guaraldi Trio‬‏

 

[doppelganger]

I was thinking along the lines of a random occurrence being initiated just as those tests are initiated at the subatomic level showing randomness or unpredictability. So to say a random event has a cause for occurring though the result was an unknown.

Be careful with the conclusion that motion on the Planck scale is uncaused. Such experiments may simply be showing us that our basic models for the substance of the Universe - i.e. matter/energy/space requires adjustment for predicting and explaining such movements.

 

[Skwim]

Both "randomness" and "cause" are observational phenomenon.

Observational in what sense? That there needs to be an observer in order for them to take place, or that all random and caused events are capable of being observed, or . . . ?

 

[Willamena]

Observational in what sense? That there needs to be an observer in order for them to take place, or that all random and caused events are capable of being observed, or . . . ?

That there needs to be some intelligence putting the pieces together in order for them to "be."


Actually, "observational phenomenon" is a tautology --phenomenon is observational.

 

[gnomon]

Both. Are they not compatible?

You might have some problems sleeping.

 

[doppelganger]

You might have some problems sleeping.

That's why I take the thorazine.

 

[gnomon]

That's why I take the thorazine.

Well that's a bit heavy.

But on one of your earlier points on randomness and uncaused I'm a bit confused. I'll blame the half bottle of single barrel I'm into at the moment.

Are you stating that while a seemingly apparent random choice may appear uncaused it is actually due to a series of causations? While a sentiment I would agree with in that what may appear as a random action is due to a predisposed personality on a series of causes, or rather observances, I'm not fully understanding your statement that an IS system is essentially theistic.

Or maybe it's the whiskey.

 

[Copernicus]

But on one of your earlier points on randomness and uncaused I'm a bit confused. I'll blame the half bottle of single barrel I'm into at the moment.

Are you stating that while a seemingly apparent random choice may appear uncaused it is actually due to a series of causations? While a sentiment I would agree with in that what may appear as a random action is due to a predisposed personality on a series of causes, or rather observances, I'm not fully understanding your statement that an IS system is essentially theistic.

Or maybe it's the whiskey.

I had the same question, but I wasn't drinking. I see no connection between an autonomous decision-maker in a chaotic deterministic system and theism.